Mexico

My heart was changed in Mexico! The Lord sent me on a mission trip to Mexico, although I thought I was going so that my son could go. I thought it would be fun to play with some kids and love on them a bit, but I really just wanted my son to have this opportunity. I was wrong, God sent me on mission. I was nice and comfortable here, working at my church, leading groups, homeschooling. Now, I see how important it is to get out of your comfort zone and view things from another perspective, an eternal one. From the moment I arrived in Mexico my heart was in the process of breaking and it's a break that was definitely for the better.

I looked around at the city and the orphanage and couldn't help but think about how good we have it and how much we complain. And it made me feel a bit ashamed. We took a moment to settle in and then we went to meet the children. Oh the children were amazing! They embraced us with so much love and acceptance! And their love for God and the understanding of the Scripture really amazed me! I tell you, there are some adults who could take lessons from some of these kids. There were two women who sacrifice their lives daily to care for these 36 children. They are their mothers, and they love them dearly. They were truly amazing and I will pray for them always.

There were so many kids that touched my heart, a few in particular I would have loved to have brought home with me. They were innocent and sweet, loving and accepting. They impressed me. I spent the weekend with these kids and when it was time to leave, I left a piece of my heart with them. I know that I cannot come back from a weekend like this and just leave it in the past. God loves these kids and so do I.

I learned that sometimes God will take you out your comfort zone so He can show you His heart. His heart breaks for these children and so did mine. His heart loves these kids, and so do I. His heart sees these kids and so many more. But one group can't impact all the people God cares about. How many people call yourselves Christian? They will know we are Christ followers by how we live. Are you representing Christ well? There is a world of people out there. Some don't know Christ yet and need to know Him. Others, like these children, know Christ but need to see His love for them in action. Are you really being active in your walk for Christ. At the end of every message on Sunday, Pastor Chris says, "Go out there and be the life of Jesus to your world". Are you really being the life of Jesus. If people looked at you would they see Jesus in action?

I saw on Max Lucado's twitter page this morning statistics about how many orphans there are worldwide. "159 million Americans call themselves a Christian and there are 132 million orphans worldwide. US Christians alone could house every orphan in the world". Are we really doing enough for the cause of Christ or are far too many of us caught up in our own life and our own to do lists and stuck in complacency?

James 1:27 says "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." To keep ourselves from being polluted by the world we have to live by Christ's value system. He isn't distracted by money, power, pleasure or stuff. He cares about people, and as this verse mentions, he cares very much for the widows and orphans, people who are at a disadvantage. We need to stop focusing on the world and focus on being Christ in action, serving others without hope of receiving something in return but merely because you are a follower of Jesus.

God's heart breaks for these kids, and in Mexico, my heart was broken and I was forever changed.

Life is a Dream in the Making

I'm reading a book entitled Soul Cravings. I'm enjoying the book and just read something that struck me.

"Life is a dream in the making". I love that statement.

I remember watching my kids grow. As babies, they began to crawl. Once they tackled crawling, they began to walk. The obvious next steps were running and climbing. They weren't afraid of anything! The world was out there just waiting for them and they were ready to take it on and nothing was going to stop them. My boys saw a tree and they dreamed of climbing it and that's exactly what they did. As they grow older, they begin to dream of a career and a family and they start a course to complete that. Their life is a dream in the making.

But too often, we give up on our dreams or we end up sleeping through them. Life gets in the way, we settle into a routine, and we give up on our dream. Bad things happen and instead of continuing on our charted course, we give up on our dream. We meet with resistance to our dream, and we give up. We sought God about the dream, we made a plan, and then life happened and we just gave up.

And why is that exactly? Because we grew out of our childlike faith and no longer believe in the impossible. God loves to give us dreams that seem outrageous so we have to give Him the glory when we achieve it. Start believing again in the impossible. Turn on the Rocky theme music and practice having fierce faith. So you've taken a few punches, who cares! In Christ you are more than a conqueror! If you haven't achieved your God given dream, then God's not done yet!

Keep fighting for your dream! Keep seeking God about your dream. He will direct you and if you submit to God, you WILL be victorious!

Don't sleep through your life! God has great things planned for you and you can step into that today.

Lounging by the pool

Today, I learned the following lesson. Lounging by the pool is good medicine and can help you gain perspective. I highly recommend it.

This week I've had a bit of a frustrating week. I've been running a lot and since I came back from vacation, I had committed to not making a habit of that anymore. So today, I took the day off and went to visit a dear friend. We lounged by the pool and talked. We swam and played with the kids and talked some more.

I left feeling relaxed and refreshed. Too often we keep up such a fast pace that we never have a chance to relax. I used to be that person. I was so busy all the time and then I went on vacation. Oh, I won't go back to that busyness again. When we build margin and relaxation into our lives, we have time for refreshing. We have time to hear from God because we've taken a moment to shut up and sit down for a minute.

I used to fill so much of my time that I never had a moment to really rest and when I layed my head down to rest at night, I still didn't rest. My head was already onto the next thing, busily making lists and thinking about the schedule for the next day. When do you have time to sit and listen to God? Not talk to God and pray and ask for things, but just sit and truly LISTEN for Him.

My advice, get up a few minutes early and have your time with God. That piece of advice is obvious but often not followed. My other advice, build margin into your life, lounge by the pool, spend time with a good friend. And don't forget to thank God for the time of refreshing.

attitude of gratitude

This past weeken at church, the message was all about gratitude. Too often in today's society we feel entitled and therefore have ungrateful hearts. Too often, instead of being thankful for what we have been blessed with, we complain about what we don't have. So I'm trying to practice being thankful this week.

Yesterday, while at work, my computer was acting up. It's rather old and incredibly slow. I seriously have to click on something, go work on something else and then come back to see if it responded. And yesterday it seemed to be worse. So in keeping with the message this weekend, I thanked God for the computer. It may be slow, but at least I had one. And then I proceded to ask God to give me patience since I was growing more impatient by the moment.

As you can imagine, that was a BIG MISTAKE. It seems everything since then has taken two to three times longer than it should. The trip to the bank yesterday took longer. It took longer to get home, which put dinner behind, which put everything else behind. This morning on the way to pick up Kanani and then go to the bank and run the many errands I had before staff meeting, the light took forever and I think it even skipped a cycle! I was undone at that. I threw my hands up in the air and said "Really" knowing that God was somehow mocking me for asking for patience. Then my darling 9 year old son said, "what mom". And feeling completely justified by my attitude I said proudly, "this light is taking forever and I have places to be!" to which he replied, "so does everyone else but they're not complaining". Now I would like to say that I immediately saw how I was wrong and repented on the spot, prayed and had a wonderful teaching time with my son. I'd be lying.

I zipped my mouth closed and just said with my lips tightly shut together, "you're right, sorry". but in my mind all I can think is, how does he know they aren't complaining and i'll be sure to remember this the next time he's complaining about something.

I mean sure, we did have that wonderful teaching moment about five minutes later when i was ready to receive it, but at that moment, every piece of my flesh wanted to stomp my feet because it just wasn't fair, this is what i get for praying for patience. The rest of the day went much the same. I went to the bank where I learned that they had lost my cash deposit from the day before and had to take time to find it before I could send the western union payment for the purse order. Traffic was insane, i was constantly stuck behind someone doing (not even joking or exaggerating) 25 in a 45 mph zone.

Except through the rest of the day, I kept a better attitude. Sure, my nerves were a little on edge thinking about what would be delayed next, but when the delay came, I breathed through and tried to maintain patience and positive attitude. Instead of complaining, I tried to exercise my faith and do thank ups.

It's so easy to just complain and let it be, because it's unfair or its taking too long, or who really needs patience anyway right, things should just be in my timing. Our sinful nature, makes it all too easy to go to that place. But in the words of Casting Crowns "somewhere between who i was and who you're making me, somewhere in the middle you'll find me"

You see, I'm not happy with who I used to be and i'm not happy with somewhere in the middle. A couple of years ago I realized who God wanted me to be and all the work that had to be done in order to get there. Now I know that I won't be complete until His return, but I also know that He doesn't want me to just be happy with who I am right now and sit around waiting for Him. He wants me to be constantly working and growing. And sometimes that means, praying for patience, when your flesh screams, "NO DON'T DO IT! YOU'LL ONLY BE GIVEN SITUATIONS IN WHICH YOU NEED TO BE PATIENT!"

I believe that God will give me the patience I asked for. I believe I'll be tested. I also believe, that whether I ask for patience or not, I'll still be tested, so I might as well ask Him to equip me for it. So today, after my day of problems and impatience. I pray once again for God to equip me with patience. That I would learn, in the middle of circumstances that would cause me to grumble, I would stop and quickly have an attitude of gratitude.

Today I am thankful for my son, who represented God very well today in multiple circumstances that could have caused him to react poorly. I am thankful for my husband, who is a wonderful example of a man and father to our kids. I am thankful for my friends, for my church and leadership staff, I am thankful for my vehicle with air conditioning. It may not be beautiful but its functional. I am thankful for my computer at work. I am thankful for the home we have, God's continued provision. And I'm so very thankful for God's patience with me.

purity on tv

The focus at church this week is purity. I've tried to be careful about what I've watched on tv. I've had my eyes opened to a new level on what is impure. Well, today I had some free time and I saw there was a movie on the civil rights movement. It was an old movie so I felt secure it wouldn't have any impurity in it. The movie wasn't bad but after the movie was over I let the credits roll because I liked the music and started to straighten up the house. All of a sudden this commercial comes on and flashes pictures of male actors and asks "who do you fantasize about?"

I promptly replied, "my husband!" and turned off the tv before anymore could pass by my eyes.

No wonder the divorce rate is so high today. If we fantasize about actors, we are holding our spouses to an unrealistic expectation. Believe me when I say that not even the actors are that way in real life.

Let's get our heads out of the books and turn away from the tv screen and turn toward our husbands. Tell your husband today how grateful you are for him. How wonderfully made by God he is. And remember when he is imperfect, so are you. I mean really, I am no more of a picnic to live with than my husband is. I thank God for my husband. He is an amazing, thoughtful, loving man.

Who do I fantasize about? My husband! And he is so much better than a fantasy!

Loving Life

One of the leaders of my church is reading through the Bible and he's posting on what he's reading every day. Today his reading should include Romans 12. Now, I am actually reading in Hebrews, but I love Romans 12 so I thought I would include it in my reading today. Oh what a treat! It's full of such goodness, such wonderful advice on how to live your life.

Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed any longer by the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

I love that verse. Whatever has happened in the past, whatever thoughts, memories plague your mind, God can renew your mind if you'll let Him. And when you do, your entire life will change. You will learn to love what God loves, desire what He desires, and yes, even love the people he loves.

"do not think of yourself more highly than you ought but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you"

We all think rather highly of ourselves don't we? Especially when things are going well and we've had a few successes. It's easy to think of ourselves highly. But we must remember that every success is from God, we wouldn't have it without him. But I think we could also go so far, with this verse, as to say don't think of yourself as too low either. So many of us are filled with self contempt but I believe this verse is telling us to cut that out. We are to think of ourselves with sober judgment. That means to look at ourselves with reality, see us the way God sees us. Well God sees us as His children. As His child, I wouldn't be worthless. I wouldn't "suck", or whatever you tell yourself when you put yourself down. You are a child of God and He loves you.

I love 17-21 where it tells you to love your enemies. Pastor Chris gave a sermon once that told us to "love the hell out of them". We are to love them, not for the purpose of "heaping burning coals on their head" in an act of vengeance but to love the hell out of them and transform their lives.

And what about the phrase "heap burning coals on their heads". In my study Bible it said that this may refer to an Egyptian tradition of carrying a pan of burning coals on their head as a public act of repentence. This would mean that when they use that phrase, we are loving them to bring them to a place where they would be repentent and have their lives transformed by God.

I love Romans 12. Such a wonderful picture of how we should represent Christ. Something I'm making a regular habit of asking myself and my kids whenever I'm speaking or perhaps reacting to something. How well am I representing Christ right now? If I react this way, will I represent Him well?

How well are you representing Christ today? Read Romans 12, you'll love it.

A Proverb a Day

Back in the day, there was a saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". Well today, I say a Proverb a day will keep the enemy at bay! LOL At church we've been challenged to read a proverb a day in the month of July. Today, on our independence day we are on day 4 and therefore Proverbs 4 and I thought I'd share my thoughts.

Often times, when I hear people talk about Proverbs 4 they focus on the passage in verse 23 above all else guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. The importance of guarding what goes into your heart. What you watch, listen to, the people you associate with. And that's very important. But today a different passage stuck out to me.

Verse 3 When I was a boy in my father's house, still tender, and an only child of my mother, he taught me and said, "lay hold of my words wth all your heart, keep my commands and you will live.

This verse is saying that from the time he was a very small child his father taught him. He taught him about God from infancy. His parent knew the importance of starting to teach his child from the moment they are born. Now, I was quite young when i gave birth to my oldest son, still only 18 years old. And this passage makes me think of my shortcomings. I was so young, I was still trying to grow up myself, I didn't know that I should start when they were an infant.

Since then, I've grown up and I see the value of starting in infancy. If your children hear you speak of the Lord and live a life of example to them from the moment they are born, they are going to grow with those values. If our children are surrounded with the love of their parents and the love of God from the beginning, then when the attacks come, they will have a firm foundation to stand on. Something they've grown up with their entire lives and is part of their soul, not something they've just started learning about and is a good way to live. But something that is part of their soul.

Be assured, the attacks will come. The enemy wants nothing more than to destroy our children and have them walk away from God. Our children need a firm foundation, and not just something they are taught but something that is lived by example in front of them. They need to know that wisdom will guide them through the storms of life. And they need us to talk to them about it. If your kids are older than the infancy stage, it's never too late to start, but if your children are still young, or perhaps you haven't had children yet, love them enough to start early.

So today, I leave you with this, from infancy teach your children the following things, v7 Wisdom is supreme, therefore get wisdom and she will protect you, love her and she will watch over you. v. 24-27 Put away perversity from your mouth, keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. do not swerve to the right or the left, keep your foot from evil.