Wake up my Heart!

*disclaimer - this post is about bad moods - I'm not downplaying depression or severe emotional trauma or anything like that, so please don't take my words to mean that! My, how I love Oswald Chambers! As I go through My Utmost for His Highest, he is fast becoming a man I would love to have dinner with. Which is not possible, obviously, but through this post I am going to have an imaginary conversation with the deceased! Here are some lines from his May 20th quibble: "Moods never go by praying, moods go by kicking. A mood nearly always has its seat in the physical condition, not in the moral. It is a continual effort not to listen to the moods which arise from a physical condition; never submit to them for a second. We have to take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves, and we will find that we can do what we said we could not. The curse with most of us is that we won't ." There you have it: moods don't leave us by praying, they l...

Courage. I believe my mom started using this word because Patch and Kayla from Days of Our Lives signed the word at their wedding when one was beat up / ill / something?! My mom would have to verify. Did anyone else our there grow up watching VHS recordings Mon-Fri with their parents? :) Anywho...courage got those two through some hard times. I first became sick when I was 9 and with more procedures and surgeries than I care to focus on here and before and during each, my mom would ALWAYS tell me to have courage. Now I'm in a new phase of life and that's still the word she uses. I say it. I like the idea. God seems to like this idea too! You may have noticed that I've been using Joshua 1:9 a lot of late: "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous..."  Again, I love those words, but they haven't gotten to my heart until recently. The idea of courage, however, keeps coming into my life...so I have begun to think I should pay attention! Now, enter ...

This is going to be quite different from my Mother's Day post last year, in which I thanked all my "mama's," but then again, it's a different sort of year! Because of my present circumstances, I have a whole new appreciation for motherhood. Before ever getting pregnant, there were fears of the possibility of carrying a child to term. Then my baby was HERE and I was a mom. But now, every other weekend, my baby is NOT here with me and for a couple of days, that label somehow feels removed. And that is a heart hurt. A heavy one. Last night, we were watching a Winnie the Pooh movie of all things and the whole movie was themed on this quote from Christopher Robin. He was trying to tell Pooh that they wouldn't always be together, but couldn't quite do it, so he said this: "If ever there is a tomorrow when we're not together, there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe. You are stronger than you seem. And you are smar...

God is working on me this evening...and I sense it is because someone out there needs to read this and He won't let me rest until I do!  Have you ever been mistreated? Felt unworthy? Or unloved? Or worse...unlovable? I have a feeling we could all say yes... Let's go deeper. Have you ever gotten through those situations and never gotten an apology for being made to feel that way, or for having been treated that way?  Sometimes apologies don't come.  On good days, I know that lack of apology says more about the person who did the hurting than it does of me. But. On the bad days, the lack of apology says many things from the negative voices inside my head. You are so insignificant, you aren't worthy of an apology. You deserved that treatment. Because of how little value you are, of course they treated you this way...why should they feel bad? You are worthless.  Ouch. Those thoughts can destroy you if you let them. So when they start, I turn in...

Well here's a different post for you! And a confession. I love the Old Testament. I feel like through those words I have gotten to know God very well. However, the New Testament is often harder for me to read and although I've done it several times, at the end of the day, this Jesus fellow is still someone I feel like I don't know awesomely well. And how can I get to know Him well, unless I study? I have tried bible studies and commentaries and nothing has really gotten through! I get glimpses, but it's head knowledge - not heart knowledge. But then. Those glorious, "but then's!" Priscillia Shirer introduced this idea of the 5 P's of reading Scripture...and an idea was born! Here's the idea. When you read the Bible: 1) Position yourself to hear from God (get rid of distractions / pray) 2) Pore over the passage an paraphrase the major points 3) Pull out the spiritual principles 4) Pose the question (Do I believe such and such, or Am I doing...