I just can't go another step

“Mommy I can't make it I need your help..” the sweet words of my four year old called to me from somewhere in the house...so I started out to find him...and there he was laying down halfway up the stairs. When I asked him how I could help...he just told me he really wanted to play with his Lego Batman, but Batman was upstairs...and he was too tired to go all the way up. He just couldn't go another step. He woke up with a cold or something, and he's been hanging out in his jammies all day. So of course, I ran up to his room found the Lego Batman and took it to him. As I looked down the stairs at him, I thought....how much his actions parallel our lives.

We often begin something with great passion. Full force...we dive into something, perhaps even hearing the warnings of others, but thinking... “It'll be different for me..I won't grow weary...I'll finish the race..” Often pride sneaks in, even when our initial intentions are pure.

As I handed sweet Eli the Batman, he asked if I would pray for him...and so I stopped and held him and prayed for him. This sweet object lesson comes on a tough day for my family. Today, my precious Father in Law is in the hospital having his second open heart surgery in under 6 months. My husband is there in the waiting room....and I can not be. I am caring for our sweet boys. It pains my heart not to be able to physically be with my husband as he waits through something of this magnitude. My husband is my gift from God. I love him and appreciate him even more as the years pass.

But what I can do is pray. Just like Eli getting halfway up the stairs and needing help because his strength gave out....every moment my emotions try to get the best of me in this situation...I need only to stand still and let the Lord fight for me (Ex. 14:14). I need only to lay my husband, my father in law, and my mother in law....at the Lord's feet.

So many times...we grow weary. Sometimes the fight has countless battles. Sometimes we will not see earthly victory in the battles....but we know Who wins the war. So we rest in that.

Instead of starting strong and getting halfway through and realizing our need, we ought first to lay down our strengths before the Lord, and ask Him to take them, and our weaknesses and use them both for His glory. We just might see a powerful work of God in our lives...if we were to slow down and pray...fervently asking God to direct each step...to guide....to bless.

I believe that the Lord allowed my sweet Eli to stop there and pause so I could grasp the depths of His love for us...for my husband as he sits in the waiting room..waiting and praying.....for me...as I navigate through homeschooling three sweet and strong willed boys....for my son...as he without strength runs to his mommy...because he trusts me to protect him...just as we...trust God to protect us.

Can you just picture the Lord waiting...reaching forth His mighty hand to guide you? Can you just imagine the love of the Father as He carries us each and every day just because of Who He is!?!

Remember when it seems impossible to go even one more step...it is The Lord who carries each step...and His power is without end and His strength without limit.

I think sometimes I get a bit squeamish and feel I'm being worked over....at least I think I felt that in my twenties...and now...I just feel that the Lord has allowed me to embrace His work in my life and what it is...a tremendous blessing, that no matter what is going on, I am eternally grateful to know that God is God, He is working and He will NOT leave me alone. "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." Phil. 1:6

I do believe that to some extent it's so easy for us to filter things through our own perspectives, how do situations affect me...what did I do wrong...how can I change this...and the list goes on. What is wrong with all those statements....where is God? Maybe I should try asking, how can I use this situation to honor the Lord, what is the Lord trying to change in my heart that will make me to be more like Christ, and therefore honor Him more in my daily living.

I'm recovering from surgery, my kids just got sick, my spouse is in the midst of studying for a crazy test that is very challenging, and yet...rather than get downtrodden and cry (yes I did this a bit this morning)...I just need to keep running to Jesus. I think I had a boowho party for about an hour this morning and just really kept praying that the Lord would give me the strength to deal with all the madness around me...including learning to lean on others for help. This is HUGE! This cuts to the heart of who I am, a prideful mother of three who wants to do it all herself. Merely asking for help is a monumental deal for me, I hate to bother other people, I don't want to impose. I like to "disappear" into the backdrop of life a lot...or so I thought...but what the Lord is revealing to me, that He already knew, and knew I needed to lay this down...is that somewhere deep down I really do like attention, not tons of it but enough that it isn't honoring to the Lord...and I allow my feelings to get hurt too much by people, which gently exposed to me that I am lacking so much in my trust of the Lord. God is good, He ALONE is faithful and His provisions are timely, perfect and meet exactly our needs! I have found myself not trusting God to work in other people to provide the help I need, or really, think I need because I have failed to lay my day down before the Lord and just simply trust that He alone knows my needs and will meet them as needed.

Seriously, ladies...I'm a mess. Our Savior is amazing. His word is perfect and His provisions are abundant. I am amazed at His relentless pursuit of my heart. He goes after it, even when I want to stuff things down and hold onto them because I just don't think I can handle the refining. Truth is, I can't handle any of it without Christ. I can't handle God's grace, I can't handle His provision, I can't handle His refining, because all of it is too much and without a doubt Perfect! It is Christ alone in me that even enables me to "handle" what the Lord gives. My heart is so full of a God who cares so immensely and so perfectly that I can not even wrap my mind around it. I'm thankful I don't have to, but rather just need to rest in the grace and peace of God that is ours in the "fullest measure" 1 Peter 1:2

In the smallest little things, God speaks to our hearts and says, "My love for you is Christ, perfect, atoning and forgiving"

Oh, that we wouls rest in the love and grace of the Almighty!! What a unified body we would be!!

Listening for the lovingkindness of the Lord

This morning, as I was reading through the Psalms the Lord grabbed a hold of my heart once again with His timely word. This morning it was almost unlikely..at least to me. A few days ago I celebrated my 31st birthday, so I have now been a believer in Christ for almost half my life. I was saved "later" at sixteen, and every day I am increasingly thankful...I think the more I get to know the Lord the more I realize the depth of what Calvary really meant. I see the depths of my depravity in new ways. The Lord reveals my sinful nature in even more areas than I thought could ever exist and therefor I am continually drawn to the foot of the cross. I feel like I've been out of the blogging world for quite sometime now, I actually think it's been about a month..which is fine. I've been dealing with some spiritual issues....and God in His grace has been teaching me through His word! I LOVE that about our Lord His kindness is something I don't think I will fully understand. So...this morning, the Lord spoke to me through this:

"Let me hear Thy lovingkindess in the morning; for I trust in Thee; teach me the way in which I should walk, for to Three I lift up my soul." Psalm 143:8 NAS (emphasis mine)

God's word is so timely, lately I've been dragging myself out of bed, not because of physical exhaustion but because of mental exhaustion. The Lord in His magnificent kindness has taught me a lesson in waiting. Because I did not wait on the Lord in something, I've been reaping the consequences of exhaustion. I think I've been burning the candle at both ends. By God's grace, I have been in my usual pattern of waking up early in the morning before the boys do so I could spend time in the Word. Although it has seemed over the past few weeks not as fresh, and as though I'm not learning much, it's as if I'm reading it but not digesting it (I am the Bread of Life, God says). So I am spiritually starving in the midst of being in God's word. How on earth is that possible you might think? Well to be honest, it's my own sinfulness, the business I have allowed into my life and the inability to focus my mind myself. See I can do NOTHING of myself and must depend completely on Christ to give me the focus and tenacity to seek Him...what I do know is that as I've repented before the Lord for not waiting on Him, and been on my face before Him, begging for a steadfast spirit and an insatiable hunger for His word, and asking Him to please "Teach me great and unsearchable things I do not know" (Jer. 33:3) God renewed in my heart today an amazing understanding that resting in Him, preparing my mind,body and spirit before Him is imperative to being a teachable Christ follower. God has called me to three seriously significant roles in my life where failure is not an option....and by saying that I mean, I must by the Grace of God, seek Him to live in and through me by His Holy Spirit so that He lives to His glory and fulfills His calling in my life. First calling, follower of Christ, Second calling, wife, third calling mother. These three callings must be preeminent in my life and everything else I do above those three things must hinge on my dying to myself and submitting myself to Christ's position as Savior and LORD in my life.

I was reading Matthew Henry's commentary on this verse and I absolutely love his sentiments:

"He (the Psalmist) cannot but think that God has a kindness for him, that he has some kind things to say to him, some good words and comfortable words; but the present hurry of his affairs, and tumult of his spirits, drowned those pleasing whispers; and therefore he begs, "Lord, do not only speak kindly to me, but cause me to hear it, to hear joy and gladness,’’ Ps. 51:8. God speaks to us by his word and by his providence, and in both we should desire and endeavor to hear his lovingkindness (Ps. 107:43)"

This is exactly it! For me, at this point anyway, especially it was the "hurry of my affairs". See I was bleary eyed waking, reading through the Psalms and Proverbs, enjoying it of course because it is impossible not to delight in the Word, but at the same time I was tired...not fully focused and not growing as I should. I was merely reading not studying, praying but not earnestly. Seeking God but not asking Him to give me the grace to hunger for Him the way I was created to. The Lord has been good to me. He has shown me that where I failed to wait on Him, I over-committed myself, and therefore in almost an instant...lost so much over the course of three weeks, the most important thing I lost was not hearing the lovingkindness of the Lord in the morning. God has given me a habit of being in His word first thing. I do not feel as though my day has started unless I've feasted on His word. I know I can not parent, I can not love my spouse and I can not be the friend that the Lord calls me to be if I am not daily in His word, and for me first thing daily. I have always been a study-er (yes that may be a made up word!) and lately I have been failing to dig deeper into His word.

Sisters, it's not enough to have a reading plan and just read His word. We must apply it, me must fervently pray and ask God Himself to daily renew us and live within us for His greater glory. I think about David after his repentance of his sin with Bathsheba where he cries out to God, "renew within me a steadfast spirit" We must ask the Lord DAILY to give us a steadfast, or in the Hebrew..immovable, spirit. We must not be shaken, we must wait upon the Lord. We must rely on Him to clear out hearts and minds because only the Lord has the power to do that, we can not offer sacrifices nor can offer good deeds. Sisters, feast on the beautiful word of the Lord, "All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him." Is. 53:6 We are those sheep even though we are saved....our hearts are prone to wonder....sisters...we must continually...all the day...seek after the Lord. We must hear the Lovingkindness of the Lord, and put that before us....we must as Matthew Henry says, "both desire and endeavor to hear His word." I love his choice of words, desire and endeavor! What an adventure...seeking the Lord of all Creation...seeking the Savior of the World...THE Lamb of God!!

It is an adventure, and if we are to hear the Lord's lovingkindness, we must LISTEN. How will we listen if we allow the "hurry of our affairs and the tumult of our spirits" to drown out the whispers of our heavenly Father who longs for us to draw near to Him and to seek His heart! We must lay ourselves daily before the Lord and ask Him to use our lives to His glory, and we must of course WAIT!

Ladies, thank you for your prayers for my family and I and know I am continuing in prayer for you as well!!!

where is my heart?

I think right now I could honestly say my heart is somewhere between my knees and my toes. I just heard a Christian say "My religion has nothing to do with my behavior" Really? I mean ..... Really?



I think of Pharaoh and how he was a dork, not letting the Israelites go...was he a dork on his own? No...scripture says, God hardened his heart. Now, we are all sinners...born sinners...needing a savior.... the atoning work of a sinless perfect man, that of Jesus Christ. And while we will all be like Paul "Doing what we do not want to do and not doing what we know we ought to do"(romans 7:14-20) while we are here on earth simply because we are confined by the sinfulness of our own flesh...we are called to "Be holy even as I am holy." Am I going to mess up and say things I shouldn't....absolutely..I'm not there yet, and none of us ever will be until we are home with Him in heaven....but does my "religion" affect my behavior...absolutely without a doubt. Should we "continue in sin so that grace may increase..may it never be!" (Romans 6:1-2) I mean I don't run around my little world acting selfish and crass when I don't get my way. When I think things aren't fair...rather than grumbling and complaining I take the opportunity to self-evaluate.



There is a song out, by Brandon Heath, "give me your eyes" I'm crying out for God to give me His eyes, and His heart...I want to love this woman who so flippantly proclaimed that her Jesus has nothing to do with her behavior. I want to pray for her to sincerely get it that her heart would be so consumed with the Father's love for her, that she would be captivated by His word, and LED by His Spirit. See....oh the beauty of scripture...that God SAVES us...and upon salvation then indwells us. It's HIS Holy Spirit within me that is good. I've always said there is NOTHING good within me except that which is of Him. It's by His grace that I love Him. It's by His grace I hear this woman and my heart sinks to the floor, and I just want to cry. Let's stand up, stand together and call upon Jesus to make His word a reality in the Christian church. I'm to the point where I don't even want to use the "term" Christian, yet...what a privilege that is, in His word, it says "It was there the disciples were first called Christians" This identity is something that my Savior died for. This name I claim isn't flippant...it isn't to be tossed around and claimed when convenient...it is a Name that Saves...CHANGES, TRANSFORMS....this is the Name that called me out of the depths of the grave, reached down to where I was....and rescued my soul. He is that to us all, He saves us to sanctify us, not to just give us an "in" I love Jesus.