Wake up my Heart!

After this weekend, I have a new appreciation for the saying, "God's not finished with me yet!" I had a weird week. Got some stuff bubbling and brewing and I was getting ready to fast in prayer about all that bubbling and brewing. Me. Fast. For years my digestive system was my excuse, but last week I had two different devotions talk about it and I took the hint. I was all set and I had some specific questions ready to go for the Lord. I had them "prepared" if you will. And then. There's always an "and then" :). I went to church yesterday morning and as the good Lord spoke to me about some things I realized the reason I wasn't getting any answers about my "stuff" was because I was asking the WRONG questions.  All week I was prepared to pray during this fast to answer a lot of things that started with, "How can I?" And then yesterday was reminded it should be, "God, will YOU?" I need to get myself out of the e...

This year, I'm taking on a fun journey through the New Testament and ONLY reading the words in Red. For those who may be unfamiliar, some versions of the bible have the words Jesus said, in red. I have one such bible and, as I think I'll be trying to grow closer to Jesus until the day I die, this seemed a good first step to that closeness. I'm in Matthew, chapter 4, where Jesus is being tempted by the devil. What has stood out to me for a WEEK now, because I keep playing the words over in my head, is not the temptation, but Jesus' final response to Satan. Jesus, at his weakest, goes through this crazy interaction with the devil. And Jesus uses the Words his Father gave him, as his weapon. Which is a pretty impressive weapon :). But after these 3 scenarios, Jesus is DONE and he says: "Away from me Satan!" And the devil goes away.  That's what I can't get out of my head. The devil goes away. Jesus doesn't tell him to "shoo" immediately....

First post of the year...and in what is becoming typical, it's not about what I had intended! A year and a half ago, I got a book called "Uninvited: Living loved when you feel less than, left out, and lonely - by Lysa TerKeurst. What a lot of "l's" :) Like most non fiction books, I started it, and stopped because who am I kidding - if I read, I want to escape my life and not have to be forced to think about it more. But tonight, I pulled it out, perused the table of contents and picked out a chapter called: When Our Normal Gets Snatched. The first topic was rejection and something I needed to read. I'm guessing some of you out there need to see it too! "It's like taking a photograph containing all the people we love and suddenly some of those people purposely cut themselves out of the picture. And the gaping hole left behind is in some ways worse than death. If their absence was caused by death, you would grieve their loss. But when their absence i...