Day 29 - Cleanse

Day 29 – I had a wonderful day worshipping the Lord at church. Then, I was blessed with spending time with my middle daughter. Finally, I was able to finish my evening talking to my oldest daughter.

The not so great part of my day was when I pulled out my fridge in effort to clean behind and underneath in preparation for a new fridge. Our fridge is 20 years old and yes, I have cleaned underneath it before. However, you wouldn't know that based on what I saw there. The bottom of our fridge is starting to rust out as well as the compressor starting to fail. Let me describe to you how awful it really was. It looked like someone poured molasses all over the tile, took a heat gun to it to crystallize it and then finally dumped a bunch of trash on it which was cemented to the ground. Lovely picture isn't it? While I could have ignored it and just moved a new fridge in on top of it, it would have just been ignoring a major problem that would probably mold and grow into a new problem. It took hot water, lots of cleaner and major elbow grease to get it clean and all in a tight space.

It is so exciting to get something new but getting rid of the old and cleaning up the old is always difficult. Isn't our life a little like that. Sometimes it is very hard to let go of sin because it is what is there and what we are used to. We can ignore it, stuff it under the fridge but it is still lingering and cementing it to our lives. If we don't let God clean house in our lives, we will just stink and be gross. There are times when it is hard work and times when it is hard to work around but ultimately, we will love being clean in the long run and more precious in His sight.

We are very blessed in that God will accept us wherever we are and it doesn't matter how far off track we get. He wants to clean our heart and have us draw closer to Him. May you be blessed knowing that he will cleanse you and make you new.

 

Psalm 51: 1-12¹ Have mercy on me, O God,
       according to your unfailing love;
       according to your great compassion
       blot out my transgressions.

 ² Wash away all my iniquity
       and cleanse me from my sin.

 ³ For I know my transgressions,
       and my sin is always before me.

 ⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned
       and done what is evil in your sight,
       so that you are proved right when you speak
       and justified when you judge.

 ⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth,
       sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

 ⁶ Surely you desire truth in the inner parts ;
       you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

 ⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
       wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

 ⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness;
       let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

 ⁹ Hide your face from my sins
       and blot out all my iniquity.

 ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,
       and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

 ¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence
       or take your Holy Spirit from me.

 ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation
       and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me

Day 28 - Pride

Day 28 – Proverbs 21:21-26 ²¹ He who pursues righteousness and love
       finds life, prosperity ^[c] and honor.

 ²² A wise man attacks the city of the mighty
       and pulls down the stronghold in which they trust.

 ²³ He who guards his mouth and his tongue
       keeps himself from calamity.

 ²⁴ The proud and arrogant man-"Mocker" is his name;
       he behaves with overweening pride.

 ²⁵ The sluggard's craving will be the death of him,
       because his hands refuse to work.

 ²⁶ All day long he craves for more,
       but the righteous give without sparing.

 

I can't really explain why these verses stuck out for me today. Today's mile took on a different form in shoveling snow. I was standing in the sun at one with God while I shoveled very deep snow. Normally I do not shovel snow because my husband normally does that for exercise. I would be happy to be at one with a snow blower but far be it from me to argue with him…until there are days like this. The poor man has been so sick and I did not want him to suffer outside.

 

Anyway, as I was sitting outside shoveling the deep snow and listening to the quiet, I was thinking especially about pride and how it can take you down in a moment. Do you know how many times pride is mentioned in the Bible?! It is mentioned a lot…and almost every time it is followed by someone deeply repenting. It is such a fine line to walk. How to do you live a life and be happy to use God's gifts and then not be prideful? I will be reflecting more on that over the next few weeks. This isn't so much of an area where I struggle but I am definitely around people that do. There are times when it is extremely difficult to be around someone that is prideful. How do you share that without hurting them deeply? I don't ever want to be someone that is so full of themselves that no one wants to be around me or worse, that my witness is ruined as a result.

I pray that we can all listen to God's leading in this area and know how to Biblically approach it whether we struggle with pride or whether someone else around us does.

Day 27 - Derailed

Day 27 – There are fewer rewards greater than watching your children succeed at something they love. I cannot tell you how Satan tried to derail me from various wonderful things this evening.
First, let me say that my middle daughter went to school yesterday and then I got a phone call saying she had 102.6 fever. It came on suddenly and she was miserable. What was so tender and sweet was that she was concerned about missing a vocal concert tonight. I thought maybe she was concerned because she wasn't going to get to do her special duet but she was concerned that she would let her teacher down because her choir is pretty weak. I tried to get her to focus on the fact that she just needed to get well.

Tonight, I met up with my husband at school to watch our other daughter sing in that same concert. She, too, had a solo and I didn't want to miss it. Within 20 minutes of arriving, my husband looked pale and like he needed to get sick. He looked at me and said that he needed to go home immediately. Luckily, we drove separately. He left and I wasn't quite sure he was going to make it as it was pouring snow.
I sat and enjoyed my dear friends and was able to hear Grace sing. She sang like an angel and I was very blessed knowing that God is using her and her gifts. It is definitely a turning point in my life and hers. I sat realizing that my job with her is almost done. Not completely, but you get what I mean. Someone came up to me and asked if I was training her to sing so well and I had to say…no. She truly is just gifted and is blessed to have a chance to use it.

After the concert, we left school in a horrible snow storm and I couldn't see the lines on the road. I just prayed and knew that God would guide us there. About midway home, I got a txt from my husband saying that he was throwing up for the first time in 15 years. Wow!

I got home and was pretty wiped from the day. I still had not done my mile and truly did not want to miss out. Within minutes of even contemplating that, my middle daughter, Hope, came in and she was burning up…AGAIN. I quickly ran a bath for her to try to cool her down a little. Then, my husband started running a fever. He then remembered we had no milk and again, there is a nasty snow storm outside and we will definitely need milk. He asked if I would please go out and get milk. I told him I would AFTER my mile. I did NOT want to miss out and I was wiped.

Do you have any idea how easy it would have been to skip my mile tonight and probably justify it?! How quickly Satan creeps in and tries to get us off track in the most subtle ways. I had to fight it every step of the way tonight. I was so in awe of how God was using my daughter and am so grateful I realized how much Satan was trying to pull me off track in little ways. It is like a wolf in sheeps clothing – looks innocent but the smallest things can be deceiving. May this always serve as a reminder to us.
Matthew 7:15-20
¹⁵"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. ¹⁶By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Day 26 – Mundane Chores

Day 26 – There are certain jobs in this world that are pretty thankless. Things like doing laundry and the dishes just drive me crazy because it is never ending. It isn't like a job that you complete and move onto another task. As soon as I finish one load of laundry, I can pretty much count on one of my children to walk up behind me and dump a bunch of clothes into the hamper.

When I was younger and we didn't have very many clothes due to finances, I thought that might be a bad thing. As a mom, later in life, let me tell you – I'm thinking that 5-7 outfits thing might be GREAT. Very little laundry to do and mass appreciation for new clothes from the kids sounds like a wonderful plan. So, I whine periodically and feel frustrated occasionally and yet, why am I complaining?!

However, I am so very grateful and thankful to have clothes, to have the ability to clean them and to have more than one outfit. Today, while my two daughters were in chapel at school, they learned of a friend of theirs whose house burned down. I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to wake in the middle of the night, run outside of my house with only my bed clothes and then watch the house burn to the ground. Nothing is left. I imagine that it truly puts everything in your life into perspective and you find out what you truly have left. The love of Christ is how we come into this world and if we choose to believe, it is his love and the promise of eternal life with which we leave. That's it and that is truly all we need.

How often do we sit outside our proverbial house and complain about various things while other things around us are burning to the ground? Whether it is our health, our relationships or you name it. Our focus tends to get skewed and off of God and onto material things. What are we without His love and sacrifice? We are nothing. I truly will sit every time I have to do laundry or the dishes and be grateful that I have the option rather than complaining from now on.

Philippians 2:12 – 16 says:

¹²Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

 ¹⁴Do everything without complaining or arguing, ¹⁵so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe ¹⁶as you hold out^[ the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing

 

Take heart my sisters and brothers and appreciate everything you have and know in your heart that none of it matters without Christ.

Day 25 – Hidden Picture

Day 25 – Wow, is it really day 25 already? Very hard to believe and I feel incredibly blessed.

Have you ever just sat looking at a piece of artwork? I used to live in the DC area and as part of my French class; we took MANY trips down to the National Gallery of Art. I could literally just sit and stare at various paintings for hours. Whether it was looking at the various strokes or dots or trying to really figure out what the painting was saying. While I am more of an Impressionism lover, I truly can appreciate almost every aspect of art. Even in the modern art wing, I was fascinated…sometimes morbidly but fascinated nonetheless. At the mall, I always felt art challenged with those goofy 3-D prints that had a picture hidden beneath the other picture you saw. I never did see those.

The point is, sometimes we see things at face value and can appreciate them but at other times, we can see the deeper hidden meaning and value them all the more. I had a youth grouper about 7 years ago that I had to have removed from her home. She had been abused in every way you can imagine. Everyone had given up on her because she had a rough exterior and did not talk much. Every week at youth group, she would ask if I would give her a ride home and asked if we could talk. Every week, she wouldn't share anything and we would just sit and I would ask her questions or just talk. My friends told me to give up, my husband told me to give up, and my pastor told me to not waste my time. God kept telling me different. After a year, she started to tell me everything. I knew I had to help her or she was going to finish herself off either with drugs or by some other means.

She was 16 and I managed to sneak her out of the house and get her a ride to go back to New York to live with her dad. While her situation wasn't perfect in NY, it was better than where she had been. We would talk at least once or twice a week and often at the wee hours of the morning. I just kept telling her to make it to graduation and everything would be okay. Truthfully, I wasn't sure what would happen after graduation, but I knew she needed to get there in order for her life to move forward. There was so much to her and her heart but if you didn't dig deeper than what you saw, you missed out on something incredible. There were many days I would await a phone call telling me she didn't make it. I would just sit and cry and pray. I knew God was watching over her. She did make it to graduation and eventually enrolled in college. I am thrilled to say that she is even graduating college this year. She's had her ups and downs but NO ONE can take that degree away from her as she earned it even in the face of adversity beyond what I can even describe here.

Ironically, she is an artist and has done many paintings over the years. I bought one from her. She was willing to give it to me but I wanted her to feel what it felt like to have something bought and valued. When I look at that painting, there is so much I see because I know the heart and soul of the person that painted it. Furthermore, it means life to me because she made it. It also shows me God's beauty and how He will make everything good. God is such an incredible source of strength when we think we have nothing. I will continue to sing his praises about her because it is ONLY because of Him that she is alive. Next time you want to give up on someone, ask yourself this question, "Would God give up on me?" Dig deeper and see what God sees within. Look beyond the surface and see the hidden picture. He will bless you beyond measure.

"But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble."- Psalm 59:16

Day 24 - Beautiful

Day 24 – I am getting to my post a little late tonight. I know how you wait with baited breath in anticipation of what God has taught me. 


I am always in awe of beauty around me. Whether it is a beautiful thing, wonderful creation or the beauty that shines through someone especially if they have the Holy Spirit living within, I am amazed by how awesome God is and how creative he is. I think we are naturally attracted to that beauty especially if the Holy Spirit is in someone. It is hard not to feel that love radiating. God did say they would know us by our love.

Today’s mile was longer than I had hoped. I was a bit weary from the day and tired from lack of sleep but so looking forward to my time with God doing the mile. I started to daydream in order to pass the time about what Heaven would be like. I was imagining flowers, creatures and items that I had never seen before. I was picturing the most beautiful music and praises. I was thinking about colors that we couldn’t begin to describe. We can get a mental image, but we have NO clue what is in store. He even says:

I Corinthians 2:9 says:

9However, as it is written:
"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him


Our understanding of beauty is often what we can see, and more often than not, what we see in the mirror. Sure, we can see beautiful things around us but it is different than how we judge our own beauty. I have talked with so many girls and women along the way who do not see themselves as beautiful. Truth is that women are just little girls inside that have matured enough to fool some people. We still fight the same insecurities that we did when we were little just on a different level. Ladies (sorry gentlemen), stop buying into the lies. God made you and created you so special. While we can’t imagine what things will be like in Heaven, we can clearly see beautiful things around us. Guess what, we are the most beautiful of all. God does not make mistakes and he clearly has YOU here for a purpose. You are precious in his sight. Don’t lose sight of that as you start to question your age, your weight, or whether others like you. While our external beauty starts to fade, I truly believe the inner beauty just starts to blossom daily with such an incredible fragrance of Jesus. Suddenly the outside doesn’t matter anymore.

I love roses and part of why I love them is because I enjoy watching them slowly fan out. They start as a small bud and it is fascinating to sit and look at how each petal gently folds into the next one and perfectly blossoms into a gorgeous bloom. God took so much time to make the simplest thing like a flower to be beautiful. Don’t you think He took even more time to really focus on you? When you go to breathe, do you have to think about it? No, that is automatic and God made you to be able to do that. God gave you a brain and a heart to think and feel. How beautiful is that? Finally, He gave you the option to choose Him or not. Can you imagine doing that with your children? “Ok son, I have given you everything and I love you – now you can choose whether you want me to be your mom or not.” Not a totally fair comparison but you get the point. How could we not choose Him when He so clearly has given us EVERYTHING?

So, next time you see something beautiful, stop and thank God for how much time and care he took in creating you. Thank Him for making you beautiful. Imagine that place that he has prepared for us and dream along with me. I can’t wait!

Day 23 – Cast of Characters

Day 23 – Today was a crazy day as most Mondays are. After a meeting with one friend, I met up with another one to do some power thrift store shopping for our play. You may laugh about power thrift store shopping but on Mondays, it is 50 cent day for green tags. Woohoo!!! That is very exciting for us. It is always exciting to walk out of a store with 3 gigantic bags full of clothes and have spent only about 50 dollars. We managed to knock out over half of the costumes that we needed in that time.

As I was doing my mile, I started to laugh about the cast of characters and how most of the kids we work with have no idea who they are. For example, a Winkie is a soldier for the Wicked Witch's castle. What a ridiculous name! You have munchkins, witches, monkeys, and people that only dress in green. Those made me think about the people in the thrift store that were another set of characters. You have no idea how they got there and sometimes wonder what planet they might inhabit. Some make special noises as they surf through the clothes while others shriek with joy at their finds on the racks. Yet, God loves EVERY single one of them and each one of them has a victory story attached if they love Jesus.

How often do we feel like we were in a twister and the house dropped us somewhere we just don't understand. Furthermore, we need a way to get home. I know how many crazy journey's God has taken me on (hello, this might be one of them) and as long as I keep my eyes on Him and the path (yellow brick road), He really will direct my steps. I just keep thinking about what Glinda says to Dorothy at the end of the movie and play. "You always knew how to get home – it was inside of you." The Holy Spirit lives in us and we have him there ALL of the time to help us and guide us on our crazy adventures.

I have a dear friend who is struggling with direction due to various circumstances which she cannot control. I ran across these verses today and hope that she can take heart and pray this daily. For those of us that are married and don't always agree with our spouses, it can be a challenge if there is an impasse. We must have faith and focus on Jesus even in the midst of the crazy journey and oddball cast of characters.

Proverbs 3:25-26  ²⁵ Have no fear of sudden disaster
       or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked,

 ²⁶ for the LORD will be your confidence
       and will keep your foot from being snared.

Perhaps we can all focus on that and see that if we strongly step out boldly in faith and confidence in the Lord, he will set our feet firmly on the rock and help us walk steadily in the light.

May we all feel blessed knowing that He will firmly grasp our hand and take hold when we let Him.