Just Trying to find My Way

I haven't written for a really long time. There are many reasons why, but mostly because of my own self. I think I get in the way of a lot of things that Jesus is trying to do in my life, but I don't know how to stop. I want to do better...I want to forgive more...I want to be a better wife and mom...I want to not hold grudges...I want to love people better. I want all these things, but I don't 'be still' long enough to work on them. My mind never stops long enough to be able to focus on one thing for very long or to see clearly. So I just keep going--the checklists of each day are much the same and they start the moment I wake up and don't stop until I lay back down. Today I stopped for just a minute. I was watching out the window at my husband playing catch with our youngest son. I thought to myself, "he's gotten so tall, how did he get so tall". For what seemed like so very long it felt like they would never be able to do anything for them

There is a man in the town where I live that walks regularly in my neighborhood. I do not know this man, but I would describe him as "weathered and bent over by many years of living." His steps are slow and careful. He seems to walk with purpose even though he doesn't seem to have a destination. He seems to always be walking, sun, rain, cold, and snow....He just keeps walking. The biggest thing that I have noticed is that he walks with his head down and rarely looks up--- I have recently found myself in a season of weariness. Not so much tired, but weary. I looked up the difference between being tired and being weary and this is what I discovered....tired is something physical, having to do with the body. Being weary is emotional, having to do with mind. There are mini-seasons when my mind goes on overload and I begin to focus on things negatively, I begin to hear things negatively, and it's all down hill from there. I wanted to stop walking....I didn't, but I s

This past week I was challenged to share a verse a day for 7 days that meant something to me or that I loved. I started out with my very favorite verse which is I Thessalonians 5:16-18. After that I went to some other great ones that I have clung to when life turned ugly. Then yesterday I stumbled onto one I hadn't really noticed before. It's in I Corinthians 1:18..... "The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction. But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God." Tomorrow is Easter and also my birthday. The older I get, sometimes I think the more jaded I get. I started reading that verse over and over and it started to tug at me. I've decided that it's because I think I would be less jaded if I could really learn what it means to live in the power of the cross daily!!! God's power became mine to use the moment that Jesus took all of my sin on Himself on the cross, died for it, and 3 days later rose from th

I've heard so many people over the years say at the end of their failed marriage, "we never should have gotten married to begin with...he/she wasn't who I was 'supposed' to marry." This is something I've wanted to write about for a long time and it took a friend having me sit down and listen to a song that made me finally do it. The song was Dancing In The Minefields by Andrew Peterson. The first verse of the song got my attention when it says "everyone said we were much too young but we did it anyway.....'I do' are the two most famous last words, the beginning of the end, but to lose your life for another I've heard is a good place to begin." Goodness gracious. That last line right there....to lose your life for another I've heard is a good place to begin....is at the heart of why our marriage came to a halt three years after we said 'I do'. I selfishly entered marriage with the attitude that Dave was supposed to make m

This week has been I one that I can't help but write about. There aren't many times in life that we get to have conversations with people that change something in us. It is more than changing our minds, perspectives, or views. I feel like these conversations touched a part of my soul that I had either forgotten about or just plain didn't know existed. The first one was with a sweet woman who found it in her heart to trust me enough to share parts of her life that would have stopped the ordinary person from ever getting out of bed ever again! I don't feel like I can share the specifics of her story because I don't have her permission to do so, but I can tell you this.....I have been to some dark places in my own life that I thought I would never recover from: That dark and that painful! The events of this woman's story don't scratch the surface of mine. The kind of things that keep her up at night with tormenting night mares; that keep her in constant fea

The last few Friday's I've been watching a show called Undercover Boss. I have seen the show before but not for awhile and I was struck by something 2 weeks in a row.... The first week there was an employee of the "undercover boss" that had a daughter that was born something like 15 weeks early and 2 years later the medical bills were closing in on 2 million dollars. Because the little girl will always need some kind of medical care there was no realistic hope of that weight ever being lifted. Until the end of the episode.....the owner of the company was so moved by the story that she paid the debt!!!!! I wish I could accurately put into words the look on the man's face as it dawned on him what she was offering. First you could see the struggle because he said he was never one to take a handout. Then you could see the complete and utter relief as the boss kept saying "let me do this for you, let me do this for you". Someone cared about what he was car

It's a new year and I started a new devotional. Well, actually, it's an old devotional by Chuck Swindoll called Seasons of Life. I discovered him back in the 90's when I was in college. Back then I read a lot by him. Over the years I kind of just stopped..no real reason why and that's exactly why I'm writing today. The topic of the devotion I read this morning was finishing well or finishing what you start. I was challenged to think of something I had stopped doing. It was an easy choice. I had stopped writing. No real reason why. I can't help but think that it has something to do with the "season" that the book starts with...Winter. Friends, I really, really, really don't like Winter!!!!!!! Never really have. Cold, gloomy, dark, tired, and generally brings out the sad in me. Not things that I enjoy. But in the book Mr. Swindoll calls it "a season of reverence". Huh?! The dictionary defines reverence as, "a deep respect for someone