Lets Give Them Something to Talk About

Have you ever suffered from regression?   Regression…   a relapse to a less perfect state.   You could be exactly where you want to be.   On top of the world, doing something awesomely and then something happens.   You go on vacation, or get sick, and you stop exercising that skill you have just mastered. That skill then becomes smaller and smaller.   Think about it.   If we don’t practice what we learned in school, it leaves us.   Even if we were so good at that skill, the skills can really leave us without practice.   My 2-year-old daughter was given a break with potty training this past week and has really regressed.   I didn’t do my physical therapy exercises and my strength has weakened.   I haven’t done my devotions in a long time, and it is easier to just say, I am going to skip this morning than hold myself accountable.   Even when the skill that we have learned and mastered really benefits us, we feel better because of that skill, we take a break and loose the momentum.   We

“Mom…   Mom….   Mom… Mommy…   Mommy,..   Mom…”   I hear this coming from the room of my three-year-old daughter.   It is bed time and her father and I have just gotten into bed.   A pause comes and I think for just a second that possibly, the silence will last.   It is shattered by. “MOMMMMM,”   Shriek, “MOM, can you hear me?” Frustrated, I get out of bed and go to her room to see what is the problem.   She wants her closet door shut.   Really?   Your closet door?   You couldn’t get out of bed and go the whole 10 feet to your closet and shut the door and climb back into bed?   I close the door.   Getting back into bed, I reach over and turn off my small night lamp on my bedside table.   It is dark.   I lean over to give my husband a kiss and as I roll back over to sleep on my side, my daughter is there- right in my face.   “Mommy, I am scared.”   Now my three-year-old has inherited the gift of manipulation.   “Honey, there is nothing scary, go back to your room.” “But I am scared.”

“ ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.   Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’ “ Luke 10: 41-42 For a moment lets pause.   Lets pause and put our names in where Martha’s name is.   Jesus had come to the home of Mary and Martha and instead of enjoying the event, Martha ran around trying to make sure everything was perfect.   Are you like that?   Do you have an event take place, and then don’t even get to enjoy it?   I am exactly like that.   I was an event planner for a not-for-profit and at any event that we did, I would run around and around and around trying to ensure that everything was just so and that everyone was enjoying themselves and the program was going off without a hitch.   I loved it.   It was invigorating to me.   I think because I am a control freak and it made things easier if I just controlled everything.   I even did this with my little sister’s wedding re

Our lives are like diapers.   Yep people, I went there.   For the past 3.5 years, I have been changing diapers.   As it is drawing to the end of my diapering days, I am noticing that I am more and more grateful that it is ending.   Lets think about it and break it down:   We sin (pee and poop) in our lives.   If it isn’t taken care of, we start to sink.   Soon, no one wants to be around us.   Finally, (when we are old enough to, but still too young to potty train) we ask to be changed.   We seek out someone that will clean our dirty butts off and make us smell fresh again.   Inevitably we pee or poop (talking about sin here people, so STOP laughing), again and again, that diaper can be taken off by our parents and thrown into the diaper pail also.   If the diaper gets too full, it bursts (not a pretty sight!).   Alright – a pretty easy example to grasp the concept of right? Well lets dig a little deeper.   Usually, we don’t allow our friends or just a stranger to change our diaper.  

I decided to do the whole “open your bible and see what verse pops out to you” today.   This it the first verse I saw and it was awesome!   God is so good! Proverbs 29:25 “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.” I can’t tell you the number of times I haven’t said something to someone because I worried about what they would think of me.   I haven’t gone up to someone, obviously hurting, because I didn’t want them to reject me.   I haven’t shared the gospel even though the opportunity presented itself.   I have hoarded a project to myself because I wanted it done just so.   The other night when I was giving my talk to the MOPS group, I was able to share the gospel with them.   It was fantastic for me.   I don’t know if any of them accepted Christ, but it felt so right sharing the gospel.   Jesus calls us to make believers of all nations, He doesn’t say, only if you feel like it.   It is so easy to be scared of what the next person will thin

I am sitting here, in pain.   This has been a pretty normal occurrence for the past month and a half.   I was having significant pain in my lower back and finally went to the doctor for it.   I was diagnosed with scoliosis and have been attending Physical Therapy, which has and has not worked for me.   But I sit here because I have an overwhelming sense of gratefulness today.   A lot of my friends have been doing this once a day thing on facebook where they state what they are grateful for every day of November.   I don’t think that 30 would be enough days for me to go on and on… I have been doing a lot of research on human trafficking and recalling a lot about my mission trips in the past and the conditions in which these individuals lived.   I can’t tell you how grateful I am to be sitting here in a heated home with the T.V. on, my 2 kids who are both dressed in warm clothes and fed whatever they want for breakfast sitting in the other room.   My kids haven’t been taken, if they are

Today is Veteran’s Day; a day that we remember and honor those that have fought for our freedom.   Just remember, not everywhere could I post this and not be persecuted, not everywhere could I write this in freedom without threat of prison.   I encourage you today to look at your freedom in a new light.   Look at it not only as a freedom of speech, a freedom of the pursuit of happiness, but look at it as a freedom in to love God.   If you have never heard the wonderful message of Jesus and would like to ask any questions about what I have written, or would like for me to come and lecture at a group or organization, or want more information on how you can help an organization in Central Asia, please don’t hesitate to contact me.   I had the distinct honor of talking with a group of teenaged moms yesterday.   I didn’t talk with them about how to turn their lives around, I didn’t talk to them about how terrible it was that they were pregnant at such a young age.   I was asked to talk wit

Today I decided I would do the whole, open my Bible and see what it opened up to.   I prayed, Lord, guide me to the verse that you want me to focus on today.   I would dwell and pray on that and make that my heart’s devotion for today.   Well, the verse I happened to open to and see firs was Proverbs 21:9, “Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.”    REALLY?   I mean come on, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I have been a good wife, and mother.   But this is the verse that I find that I should dwell on?   Grumble…   So I dug deeper.   I really wanted to know what God meant by sending me to this verse.   Maybe it wasn’t the conventional reason.   Maybe it was for a reason that was known only to Him. So after thinking for a while, I prayed, Lord, I just don’t get it, what is it that you want me to get from this verse?   And then it came to me.   In the Bible, it is strongly implied that the church is to be the Bride of Christ.  

I don’t let my house get too overly messy usually.   I used to do this, but it has really gone down since I married someone that likes cleanliness and order.   Recently, with my back acting up, I have let my house get a little messier than usual.   The dishes may stay in the sink for the whole day, the counter may not be clear.   The biggest mistake that I have made were the bananas on the top of my refrigerator.   These bananas were overly ripe and started the rotting process.   Well, during this process, fruit flies have taken over my kitchen.   I am pretty sure they originally came in when I purchased apples from the orchard and peeled and canned them.   The orchard had a lot of fruit flies and the apples that I did not can, I believe brought them in originally.   They then grew in the bananas that were rotting on the top of my fridge that I had forgotten about.   Now, I have set fruit fly traps everywhere and am catching them left and right.   It seems that it doesn’t matter how ma

Recently, I got myself in a situation where I was put in the middle of some serious drama.   This drama festered and the people involved in it started making everything such a big deal.   It was disheartening and I really found myself being drawn away from God.   I love the people that I was hanging out with, but I didn’t feel that I needed to be involved in that drama.   I really felt that I needed to take a step back and get out of it.   So, after much prayer, and consideration, I made the decision that had been coming for a year.   I left that group of friends and removed myself from that situation.   Yesterday, I was reading the story from the Bible where the disciples went fishing and a storm came up.   Jesus walked on the water to their boat.   (Matthew 14: 23-34) Jesus was off praying and the disciples were out on the boat and the wind and the waves were “buffeting” the boat.   Buffeting is defined as: pounded or hit repeatedly by storm or by adversaries.   So the disciples wer

My 3-year-old got into trouble last night while getting ready for bed.   We had read our Bible story and were saying our usual prayer.   “God bless our family, God bless our friends too, thank you for loving me and I love you.”   Usually we break it up into four little sections and I let my 3-year-old say every other line.   So, last night, after I had said “God bless our family,” she said “God flijula…”   I said, “No, it doesn’t work that way, when we are praying, we have to show God respect.   We can love God and have fun with God, but when we are praying, we don’t want to joke around like that.”   So I started again, “God bless our family,” She responded with “flimjenica.”   I got up out of the bed and told her that I wasn’t going to finish the bedtime routine if she didn’t respect God.   It wasn’t nice when we are taking time to talk to God to be rude like that.   I gave her one more chance.   I told her this was our time that we get to say thank you to God and pray for our fri