I will rejoice and be glad in it!!  For quite some time now I have been praying and asking God to search my heart, to show me the things about myself that are most important in this time, right now.  He has ever so lovingly shown me that my husband, my children, and my home are my ministry field.  This is the area in which I need to focus my energy on right now.  I read Sherri Burgess’ blog this morning and was so blessed by her word on unconditional love.  Today I will work diligently as unto the Lord to prepare for greater works in the future.

More to come…

I know it has been some time since I’ve blogged here.  I’ve been writing on actual paper instead!  This is something that God has been urging me to do for years!!  Well, let me tell you…if you’ve been feeling that little urging inside of you to do anything, please DO IT!  It pays off!  Trust me on this one!  God is so faithful to complete works within us, and we do not even realize He is doing it.  I’m just awestruck by His complete gentleness and patience.  As I learned from Pastor Phil of Voice of Victory yesterday (via live feed), “patience is waiting patiently with a good attitude.  Now that is very different from just waiting patiently.  Anyone can wait patiently if they try hard enough, but having a good attitude about it is quite different, for me anyway.

…more soon!

Copied from my very dear friend, Heather…

About 10 of us had gathered that day. Of course, no one wanted to be bothered with us, some of the people that walked by looked at us with turned up noses, you could tell they wished we would just go somewhere else. See, we had leprosy. In fact, we’d been ordered to shout, “unclean, unclean” when anyone ‘clean’ got too near to us. But this day would be different.

I saw a man walking through the crowd. He looked as if He was walking straight towards us. My buddy on my right was shouting, ‘unclean’ as loud as he could but this man seemed to not hear. I thought to myself, could this be Jesus? Could this be the man I’d heard tales about? Some folks said He was the Son of God, yet others said He was a freak. I didn’t know which to be true but I did know one thing…I knew He could heal. I wanted to be healed so badly that I screamed out, “Please Lord, have mercy on us!”

What happened next was nothing short of extraordinary. Jesus told us to go to the priests – to show ourselves to them. I was stunned. I couldn’t imagine that we would finally be healed! We all followed our new friend to the temple and all of a sudden, I felt a rush through my body, a tingle unlike anything I’d ever felt. I felt my skin dry up and knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I’d been healed! Jesus really was a healer!

My loud friend from before turned on a dime and took off. I shouted, “Where are you going?” He told me, “I’m going to thank Jesus!”. Hmm, I thought. I really should go thank Jesus too. But, in the back of my mind, I thought, ‘what if this healing wasn’t permanent?’ ‘What if this leprosy comes back?’ I thought I should really wait to thank Him because if it comes back then I would have thanked Him for nothing. It seemed my other friends were feeling and thinking the same things because none of us went to thank the man who healed us except our loud friend.

I was anxious to go see my family. I was anxious to see if I could get my old job back. I was anxious to begin a new life so I went on. But, I do regret not offering my thanks to the man who healed me. I never told Him just how much I appreciated Him walking towards me that wonderful day. For taking on chance on me and my friends. I never told Him how He changed my life.

That’s gratitude for ya.

Romans 12:2,
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then, you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.

The Message Version:

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

The Lord has brought to my undivided attention the many different ways that I “conform to the pattern of this world.”  What an eye opener!  You see, this verse has been very dear to me for quite some time now.  I knew that I was to fix my eyes on Jesus and try to live a Godly life, but what I didn’t realize has amazed me!  RELIGION (mostly man made) is a pattern of this world!  We go to church on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights, no longer on Sunday nights because most churches have decided that this is “family time.”  What’s that all about??  I’m with my family on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday!!!  Why can’t I reserve Sunday night to worship my Creator?  In fact, if you want my opinion… and of course you do!   We should want to spend every single minute of every single day worshiping God.  Of course, we absolutely can do that without going to the church building, but there is just something to be said for gathering together and asking the Lord to come be right there in our midst together, in unity.

I used to be so excited that it was a “church day.”  Then, everything became just a habit – a pattern.  Let me mention also that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the church I currently attend.  It has everything in the world to do with my spiritual being.  You know – the one that is currently in need of being “transformed by the renewing of my mind?!?”

There have been so many times in my life when Holy Spirit has put desires or urgings within me that I didn’t follow through with because it may be something different than everyone else is doing.  Let’s look at “worship” time at church as an example.  We go to church at 10:30.  We open in prayer.  Our “worship team” sings NO MORE than 4 songs.  We take up offering.  Our pastor gives a sermon followed by an alter call.  Then, we absolutely must be finished by noon.  People begin looking at their watches around 11:40…so, it must be time to begin “wrapping it up!”  Now…if that is not a “pattern of this world” I don’t know what is!  What if God wants us to spend the entire day on our faces in His Holy Sanctuary?  What then?  Well, we’ve just missed a blessing that we have never seen because it’s lunch time!

Now, back to “worship” time at church.  This is typically known as the time when the “praise team” sings their 3-4 songs at the beginning of the service.  During this 20 minutes, we are to worship our Lord and Savior (the God who breathed life into us) enough to last us the entire week?!?  I don’t know about you, but it takes me a good 3-4 songs just to get rid of the “junk” in my life, my mind, and my heart to come to a place of true worship that is good enough for my God!  Then what?  It’s time to sit down and be quiet.  Time to push those urgings deep down inside of you, the ones that make me want to run around the sanctuary like a little kid and shout praises to EL SHADDAI (God Almighty)!  Of course, if you’re like me…even if I were given the opportunity to do that in “church” I wouldn’t.  Why??  Because people would probably look at me strange and talk about me later.  UGH!!  Why can’t I be one of those people who doesn’t care?  I can do it at home!  I can do it if I’m in a room full of people that are doing the same thing.

So, back to the original purpose for my post.  I want to be TRANSFORMED by the RENEWING of my mind.  Every moment of every day I want to allow (yes, I said ALLOW!) Holy Spirit to consume me with His desires.  Now, let’s read Romans 12:2 again from The Message and begin to use it as a prayer in our own lives:

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

LORD, help me to fix my attention completely on You so that I am not well adjusted to my culture.  I want to be like you.  Make me thirsty for you, LORD so that I may readily recognize what You want from me and that I QUICKLY respond to it without procrastination.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen

Ahhh… this is the life.  Sitting around in your pajamas, sipping on a cup of coffee, doing school work with your children, and playing Super Mario Wii!  Well, that’s all I did yesterday!

I had made a decision, with the Lord’s help, that it was time to get rid of all the “junk” in my life with this new year…you know, out with the old and in with the new?!?  So, yesterday was to be the day!  I would arise early, spend some awesome quality time with the Lord, then I would get myself up and get busy!  I had a plan.  It was a good plan too!  Until… it happened.  I woke up!

Sometime around 3pm yesterday, I looked at the clock and thought, “Where did the time go?”  I did not clean out or organize one single thing!  Procrastination got the best of me.  Then I read my best friend’s blog… she’s doing a series on “10 Commandments of Change” and of course, you guessed it!  The 3rd commandment was “Procrastination!”  Ugh!!

Well, what to do?  The thing is that as long as I can remember, one of my favorite verses in the Bible is “Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.”   Psalm 37:4 A long time ago, the Lord told me that He will not only give me my heart’s desires, but that He will also put desires in my heart!  “He will give me the desires of my heart!”  When I became a Christian, He began a good work in me that He continues today.  He actually creates new desires within me that work together according to His purpose for my life.  So, my desire to “de-clutter” my life (inside and out) is a desire that He placed within me.  So… I repent.  I ask my Jesus to forgive me for my disobedience and I try again today.  I’ll let you know how it goes…

Happy COLD January morning!  It is 19° this morning and “feels like” 6°… now that’s a little too cold for us Alabama girls!!  I’m ready to get back to some summertime weather

I wanted to share a little bit this morning with you about something that was very intriguing to me yesterday.  I read 2 Cor. 2:14-15:

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.

When I read this, my spirit leaped within me to hear that God, Himself, captures our scent.  It reminded me of how a dog can smell a person’s garment, which is unique to each person on this earth, and can locate them by only that scent.  When we commit our lives to serving the Lord, He gives us a spiritual “scent” that is known by other humans as the “knowledge of God.”  How amazing is that?  “We are to God the aroma of Christ!!” …and everyone else knows it.

We assume that other Christians can tell if we are truly walking with Christ or not because we know that this discernment is a gift that God gives to us when we become saved, but do we realize that unbelievers also have this discernment due to the God given scent that we carry around with us everywhere we go?  If that’s not enough to make me aware of my “rightness” with God every moment of every day, then I don’t know what is!  It’s so important that we, as Christians, keep our hearts in the right place so that we don’t do anything that would cause others to think we are not Christians or that we are hypocrites, that they can obviously tell by just our sweet aroma!

I’m still praying and studying this one…you’ll probably hear more later.

Yesterday was my birthday.  Years ago I told myself “you’re only as old as you feel.”  Of course, back then I felt great!  Now I feel as though I am 90 years old.  What’s up with that?!?  It’s cold outside and all of my bones are aching.  I find it difficult at times to even stand up without moaning and groaning.

So… I’ve decided that now is the time to finally start exercising!  Big mistake!  That just makes me feel even worse!!  lol  But, I will keep trying and “they” say eventually I will feel good, even better than I do now at the ripe old age of 41!

I’ll let ya know how it goes…