I choose to play the game.

Tomorrow, I will choose to pray for my country and our leaders.

I have and I am sure I will continue to see so many things on face book and other social media that quite frankly disturb me,
Before you go and assume that I am talking about a signing of a law, or the fact that "Oh, she's a Christian, she must hate Obama.." lets just get real here for a minute.
The thing that I find most disturbing is the fact that so many that I love dearly carry so much hatred. Posts about how our country is going down the drain and that the cause of it is our President litter my news feed.
Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't agree with most of the decisions that have been made lately, including the most recent signing by the Supreme Court, and that's all good and dandy because...Hey, we live in a free country were it is my right to disagree with it.
But the posts of hatred have to stop if we as Christians are ever going to get anywhere. I mean my word, Jesus Himself walked with sinners and ate with tax collectors. If we are showing hatred we are gaining nothing. If we are speaking the truth in love we just might gain a few more. If we are posting our condemnation on the world on social media more than we are praying about it something is seriously backwards.
Don't be a bench warmer, sitting on the sidelines yelling that "they" are doing it wrong, stand up and play the game, in love showing them the way to play.

The pests aren't welcome here...

I love spring. The sounds of birds waking me up each morning, the sunshine and the warmth it brings with it, the flowers..though not so much the pollen they bring.... and then there are the bugs. 

I'm sure that it is somewhat of a compliment, right? The sticky sweetness of just perfect coffee left over from breakfast...just too good to pass up! But it's when I found that a few or maybe more than a few ants had decided to take a dip in my coconut oil that I could take no more...coconut oil is where I draw the line! 
I had heard that ants really dislike the smell of cloves and cinnamon..which is perfect because I spray those scents everywhere! ...no such luck. I think it might have even made it worse. And then on a hunch I decided to try peppermint. I put a few drops on a square of tissue and put it on the window sill....and in front of my eyes I could see the ants making a run for the crack in the sill that they had been coming in through. Within 5 minutes every single ant had left the premises. 

So there you go folks, the excitement of my morning has ended...all with a few drops of peppermint oil...and hey, my house smells lovely as well!

What if we as the Church just changed?

What if we stopped trying to do everything the way it has always been? 

What if we stopped being so caught up in what we selfishly think is the only way to do things and knelt down on our knees and asked the only One who's opinion really matters?
If we actually got down on our faces and didn't stop pleading for answers until we really got them? 
Communed with God. 
Asked him for HIS vision.
After all, the Creator of the universe surely has a say in how we go about His business.

What if we just quit the fuss, and the bickering, and the gossip, and the backbiting... and just focused on what we were put on this planet to do and started winning people over for the Lord?

What if we stopped being so focused on events, and started focusing on relationships? Stopped worrying about numbers of decisions and started discipling  people who have already made those decisions so that they might "..go into all the nations..."


If we stopped worrying about the color of the carpet and the fact that we don't like the brand of tissues that we are supplied with... and chose JOY. 

If we just welcomed people in with open arms and no questions. Showing them Christ in the best way we can, through our love and through the fact that we are different in such a wonderful way.

If all of these things happened, we still wouldn't have a perfect Church. Not everyone who visits would stay. Everyone still wouldn't be best friends. 

But it would be a whole lot closer to a church that I would be comfortable in if Jesus walked through the front doors.

Why Mom's should stop having New Year's resolutions.

With the start of 2015 I can't help but notice the amount of women on social media that post about their resolutions for this new year. The majority of these women post about "getting fit" but let's just be honest here....getting fit and getting skinny mean the same thing in this situation, it's just a way to say it and feel better about saying it. But we all know what is actually happening here. Measuring waists, hips, and thighs. Buying ridiculous amounts of low calorie foods, protein drinks, and supplements.
All without putting thought into how this effects the younger girls of this generation.

A young girl sees her Mom measuring her waist, and thinking that this must be a normal thing for women to do, asks to be measured as well. This self-conscious  Mama decides it is indeed time for a change in diet and exercise.

And now this thought is planted in this young girl's head.

A few years pass by and this is once again a scenario. Only this time this young girl is very fast turning into a young woman. Perhaps in junior high. And this time it means a little bit more to this young woman because besides boys...weight is one of the most talked about subjects with her friends, and maybe life would be better if she was skinnier or maybe those talked about boys would like her more, or perhaps her Mom would be oh so proud of her if she lost this extra weight in her mid section!
It all begins very innocently.
Watching calories, not eating sweets, a healthy amount of exercise.

It quickly turns into an obsession.
Finding the perfect time of day to weigh on the scale, the time when you have the least amount of anything in your body just so it shows you the number you are hoping for.
Quickly learning that those numbers go down a lot faster if you just don't eat much. Or at all, really.

Ladies where are you teaching the young women in your lives to find their self worth?
In a number on a scale, or in the only One that can truly give us self worth?

When He reminds us of the wonderful things

There are times I just need to be reminded of the good. Of the joyful. Of the wonderful.
I get so brought down by circumstances, or lets be honest... even the gloomy weather.

And I ask Him to remind me of the lovely things in life.

As I cry out that I am "done". With this day. With this week. With this crazy wonderful life that doesn't seem so crazy wonderful at the moment.... He is so quick to remind me of the blessings in this life. So many people that love me. So many beautiful sunsets. So many lives touched, and still to be touched.

And I will continue to be beautifully overwhelmed with everything the Lord has so graciously put me in charge of, of everything He has and will still put on my heart. I will continue to cry out. 

And he will continue to remind me....

I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open...

A song is on repeat in my home right now...

A song that talks about not holding on to anything, about my life being in the hands of the One who made me, about climbing life's mountains with open hands.

I so struggle with wanting to start my life's calling as soon as possible.

This has always been an issue for me, even as a girl. We're going somewhere? I want to go now. We're having cookies? I want to eat them now.

And now, as an adult... I know what the Lord has called me to in life, and I want to start it....now.

Up until now, I haven't felt released by the Lord to fully start this season of my life...He has allowed tastes of it, which has left me even more excited.... And now through so much prayer, I feel as if I am being released to fully start the journey! ...but now I am overwhelmed beyond belief.

Where to start? How to start? Do I even know what I am starting? Hardly. I know that a deep hunger for the Word and communion with Him has been planted in me. I know that the Lord has put in me a love to serve others for a very large reason.

There are so many ideas, so much "planning with God" happening. It's so fabulously exciting!...and yet, so scary and so unknown.

Prayer. Prayer is the key to starting this season of my life. Prayer from myself and others! I'm asking to be entered into your daily prayer life! Whether it be a journal...or just done by memory... I'd love for my story to be unfolded through many souls, so that it can be shared for His glory!

I started a blog post around 7:30pm tonight and never finished it...

I'm sure you're wondering why I would bother to tell you this little bit of useless information in the title of this post... It's so important though. I started writing a blog post on how the younger generation (so...mine.) isn't doing enough in the church and how we all need to step up....you get the gist. I was having some serious writer's block. I eventually put it on hold and spent some time on pinterest and watched some baseball/Jimmy Fallon with a dear friend. Either way, I never finished the post...and eventually just headed home.

Now, another little insider to this story: I've been telling another one of my friends how I need to just lock myself in a room for a week and pray the entire time. Figure out my life, figure out what God wants from me (even though He has told me many times in the past few weeks what He wants from me, I just am not a very good listener sometimes)...and all that jazz.

So, I'm driving home.... I hate driving with a burning passion by the way. And I'm like HELLO. You have 20 minutes until you're home, why aren't you praying? I then hear the same voice I've heard all week;

 "I want all of you." 

This sentence has brought me to tears more than once....even in front of my dear small group, simply because as I told them "I thought He had all of me, what else does He want from me, I didn't think I had anything else to give."

 Tonight it brought on full sobs.

(Please just forget that I was driving...it was 1am, no one else was out, right?)
The light bulb went on. A situation I have been struggling with for probably like 2 years, that has me in a state of constant worry and wondering if anything will ever happen to fix it. And the Lord wanted to take it from me.
I think that perhaps I didn't want to give it to Him all of this time.
 I wanted to try and control the situation by myself.

So, as I drove down Pine Island Dr. at 1am I tearfully gave the whole thing to the only One that could possibly do anything about it. This meant giving myself, people, and the future to Christ once and for all. Vowing to not let them distract me without cause. Asking God to show people things in His timing and not mine. And as quickly as the tears came they were wiped away with peace and joy.

So my dear friends, what started as a rather somber post at 7:30 this evening is now ending as a glimpse into my life at 1:45 in the morning.