humble pie

  Your life is someones dream.  Thats right, the life you have now, the boring, mundane life that you struggle to keep up with is someone elses dream.  Perspective is so important and I find that I often need a refresher about the amazing life I have here on earth.  Instead of constantly giving thanks for everything, I can if I let it, grow tiresome and feel burdesome with all the demands of my blessed life.  I feel quite guilty and ashamed of my poor perspctive when it grows this way, but often it leads to repetance, humility, grace and thankfulness and a fresh perspective.

To live fully and beautifully in my current life and situations I have to know and trust that I am right where I need to be and that I am blessed to be going through and doing whatever it is I am doing at this season of my life.   It is when I feel to important, to big for the role that I am currently in that the storms of ungratefullness surface.   Humility  grows continual thanfulness and sometimes a slice of humble pie is exactly what I need.  Lord, may I grow and learn and be thankful always and when I loose perspective in this world, may I know where to find grace and grow in humility and thankfulness.

As part of my continual gratitude, I continue to count my blessings:
-amazing family to share Easter with
-beautiful mom who shines with joy and hope
-a run with my 6 year old
-watching my dad be a role model to the men in our family
-creative thoughts that keep me excited to create
-spring break with my girls
-tennis with my husband
-finding joy in the everyday
-seeing grace in shattered lives
-keeping track of blessings to remind me of the beauty of the everyday and every life

Dream

As I sit and listen to this song I wonder, when did I stop dreaming?  As a little girl I had such amazing hopes and dreams.  The smallest of details would be thought of.  I could daydream for hours about what I wanted my life to be like and look like.  Everything around me was beautiful, at least thats how I perceived it.  I kind of thought of myself like Peter Pan, and I would never grow up, always have the lovely, sweet thoughts.    But I did grow up and somewhere between some unexected deaths, some dissapointments and too much responsibility, I stopped dreaming.  I don't remember where or when it happened , but it did happen.   So as I listen, I have an ache to recapture my dreams. The things and thoughts that make me smile inside, I want to think of these things.  I want to see the beauty in things around me through the eyes of the little girl I once was, who trusted God so easily.  

We are expected to grow up, but I am not convinced that letting those beautiful dreams and desires that God created with in me I was young, are way of growing up, that is a way to loose yourself.  Thats what I feel, like I have lost myself.   I grew up like the world told me to, I don't like it, I am returning to dreaming little girl and I will teach my three little girls to hold on to the lovely thoughts, make them a secret garden in their hearts, and don't stop dreaming.

I have struggled during the last three months to find my voice on this blog.  I have so much to say and write, but creating the voice that sets the tone for the blog, well, has been a journey.  Dream, by Pricilla Ahn, inspired and sparked and has really helped me to see where this voice needs to be going. Where I want it to be going.   I would love to attend the She Speaks Conference in North Carolina.  The conference encourages and teaches woman who want to speak/teach and write to serve HIM.  A Holy Experience(http://www.aholyexperience.com/2011/03/how-christians-create-art-she-speaks-scholarship/), the original blog I started following years ago, that inspired my own daily walk, is giving away a scholorship,  If I could have encouragment and the abundant knowledge of this group of writers to guide me, I feel that I could not only find my voice, but my voice could help someone else grow deeper or even begin on their daily walk with Him.

Interruptions

I am taking a Pricilla Shirer bible study, Jonah.  Being a Beth Moore follower for many years, I saw Pricilla Shirer with Beth Moore during a Deeper Still event.  I was quite captivated by Pricilla's style and grace on stage and her ability to capture her audience with personal story.  I was able to relate to so much of what she said because we are in the same season of life, trying to raise children.

So as I began my homework for the course , the first few pages completely stopped me in my tracks.  God has a way of doing that to me.   As a writer and lover of books, the printed word has always been the way God has talked to me and gotten my full attention and he had done it again through Priscilla Shrirer's penmanship.  The words read, "Interruptions only become positive when we consider the person or the circumstance interrupting to be more significant than that which currently occupies our attention", (Jonah, pg 13). 

Interruptions.  Sometimes I feel that if I wrote a memoir of my life that would be a perfect title.  Interruptions.  I am interrupted a hundred times a day.  Interrupted by little ones who have made a mess as I try to teach my oldest daughter, interrupted by little girls when I try to read in my morning time, interrupted by the telephone when I need to finish this laundry pile, interrupted by the hours of the day ending and my to do list still not checked off.  I am continually interrupted.   Or that is what I would of allowed my self to believe until those words gave me a fresh perspective.

I would not consider any of the above interruptions if I "considered the person or the circumstance interrupting to be more significant than that which currently occupies my attention".    This is not the life and legacy I want to leave behind.  My children's littlest needs, the friend who calls mid day, God calling me to sleep and rest, the growing chores, they are not interruptions, I am just not considering them significant tasks at the moment and thinking of them as interruptions. What would happen to my day if I considered the interruptions to be opportunities to serve God?  

I am excited to continue this bible study and share a fresh perspective on interruptions.....

what makes you happy?

I sit here this afternoon feeling rather joyfull. I have just had a day with my husband and three giggly girls playing outside in this amazing weather. I have a moment to myself to take a deep breath and write and I just feel content and happy for no particular reason, I am joyful. So it made me wonder what makes me happy?
One of the things I notice is that when I am able to be myself and not care about the role I should be playing is when I am most fufilled and happy. The activities that when I am doing them make me feel more like my true self than any other time are not particulary special events or the things I thought they would be. When I am just being the me God wants me to be, I feel unstopable. When I am playing a role I feel others think I should be fufilling, I am left empty and not particularly joyful.
Being a "good girl" , a girl who pleases everyone else's expectations definitely is not a role that I should ever try to fill or even want to fill. , but it has happened over the years. So what activities are there that make me feel more like my true self? Honestly, it is taking time to experiment and allow myself to leave these roles that I have created and find where God is truly leading me. It's kind of funny, these roles have made it difficult to recognize my self, yet I created them.
These days I just want to see my own soul shining through and to know the smile on myself is there because I am truly seeking things that make me a little more like me and today I found that in just playing and laughing and relaxing with the most amazing family God could share with me! What makes you a little more like the real you?

I want to be BRAVE

I want to be brave. Brave enough to find out who exactly God wants me to be. Brave enough to sift through all the layers that this world has piled on me and find the core layer that God wants to shine. But it takes bravery to peel off those layers and find what has been whispering to me all these years.

I want to be brave enought to not care what I look like , what someone else thinks, what someone else wants me to do. I want to be brave enough to not care about the car I drive, the house I live in, the hair dresser I use. I want to be brave enough to say, "these things don't matter". I want to be brave to live the life I was meant to have, brave enough to follow my soul when it calls to me with the things it craves.

I want to be brave and show my three girls how to be humble. Humility is where I realize how lucky I am to be so blessed but question how I am able to do nothing of the two thirds of the world that has none of the luxuries I take for granted. I want to be brave enough to challenge my comfort, my friends comfort, my families comfort. I want to be brave enough to write in the pages of this blog these things that were planted in my heart.


Brave enough to follow God, no matter what. I want to be brave enough to give to anyone who needs it and not get a callused heart and decide who I believe deserves help. I want to be brave enough to not judge those around me by my own standards. I want to be brave enough to remind my church friends that Jesus came for the sick. I want to be brave enough that when my pride in my children, home, education, blog post, raise, begin to swell, that I am umong the sick that need Jesus.

I want to be brave, what do you want to be brave enough to do?

Finding joy in our problems

I want to find joy in everything, is it possible? Is it possible to take my problems and find joy in them? According to the bible I can. The bible promises problems in this life, and it was right, but the bible also promises joy in those problems too-"but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perserverance; perserverance character; and character hope"-Romans 5:3

I don't remember the last time that I thanked God for my problems and sufferings, infact I have never, at least not during the the time, maybe after when I saw beauty in the outcome, but never during. But I do know that it is during those problem times that I call out to God with more honesty and talk with Him more. It is these problems that lead me to Him, that create my relationship with Him. I wouild never ask for more problems in this life, but when they are upon me, I can find joy in the fact that they are leading me closer to God and deeper in my faith- if I allow it to.

Another reason to find joy in our problems - "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" Romans 8:18. Isn't that beautiful? The idea that as much as you hurt in your problems, is nothing compared to the joy and glory that will be seen, the idea brings joy to my soul, peace to my soul. So no matter what you find yourself going through, try to find the joy in the problems before you, He has promised you joy! Don't let your problems steal your joy, but let them create more joy in your relationship to Him.

How to create Joy

As I got my three giggly blessings ready for school this morning, I grabbed their socks from the dryer and told them to put them on and they would make them warm. After putting them on, my oldest blessing dissapointedly said, "they only stay warm for a minute and then you have to warm them up again". Isn't it funny that our joy works the same way. We might have real joy for a minute, but unless you keep warming it up, it will cool off. We need to choose joy everyday, every hour, every minute to keep our joy bubbling over into our soul, spilling over into our bodies and forcing our lips to smile!


I have personally struggled with depression and anxiety and know what it feel like to loose your joy, and on the other side of that, I know what it looks like to choose joy and keep it warm! The bible really does tell us how to do this, its not a secret saved for saints or biblical scholars, its their for all of us to read and apply anytime we choose.

1. Simply think joyful thoughts. "Whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things" -Philippians 4:8 . Every moment control what you think about and what you let yourself meditate on.
2. Believe that God is strong enough. True joy springs up from the faith we have in Him, knowing He can handle anything we have, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, wheter well fed or hungry, whether living with plenty or in want. I can do everthing through him who gives me strength" -Philippians 4: 12
3. Get some grattitude. Reshape the way you think. Find thanksgiving in everymoment. Seeing God alive in your everyday and seeking the grattitude of simple momements will create joy in your daily living. "Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstance" -1 Thessalonians 5:16
4. Journal it. Journal your your worries, your desires, your hopes, the things you are grateful for, favorite scriptures, favorite quotes, just journal it and watch how joy grows in your life as your reread the pages.

This is how I reclaimed my joy from anxiety and how I keep it warm everyday.

I crave JOY

Joy. Soul. Peace. Hope. Rest. The words jump off the pages and run to my heart creating a whirlwind of thought and excitement. I don't know what the excitement and anticipation is even for, but the words bring a renewal to body , no , a renewal to my soul that I crave. I have to return to these pages and reread them over and over because they give me a high that I have never felt before. No coffee is strong enough, no morning jog is invigorating enough, nothing has created for me the exuberance that I feel as rereading these words.

I crave joy. Simple, real joy. I don't want joy that is wordly, created by circumstance and sure to pass, but joy that bubbles up from inside my heart and spills over into my body forcing my mouth to smile. Thats the joy I crave. Each day, I go seeking these words from the worn and beautiful bible that sits beside my end table. I find them highlighted and shouting out to me, the scriptures saying something new to me, even though I have read them numerous times. How is that possible?

The bible says to delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. I have recently felt the change in my heart of not just obeying the bible but delighting myself in Him. And just as the bible promises, this shift in delighting in Him has led me to the desires of my heart.

Joy. Soul. Peace. Hope . Rest. The words jump of the pages and run to my heart creating a whilwind of thought and excitement.