It's a process

I blogged the other day about wanting to get rid of everything and hold on to everything all at the same time.  I believe that is not a sin to have things.  But I do believe it breaks one of the Ten Commandments when we choose stuff over the Lord.  You know that pesky little one about false gods before Him.

I have received an overwhelming reaction to that post.  Many of you feel the same way.  We want to get rid of it all because we know that we don't NEED it.  But is that really what the Lord wants us to do?  I know many people who have a lot and give even more. Should they still get rid of all they have?  What about those that don't have much but still give?  Do they need to get rid of it all? These are all things I have been thinking about. 

I feel like the Holy Spirit has been guiding me in this process.  Sure I have to make decisions on my own but I want to make the decisions the Lord has willed for me.  I feel Him nudging me to make better choices, to reevaluate what I think is a need and what is a want.  Amazingly most of my needs are really wants.  I have also began reevaluating what I am teaching my children.  Troy and I have conditioned them to think that "when we get money...you can buy this".  The reality is that we don't have the right to spend anything that we have without consulting our Banker first.  He provides it so we should honor Him with our spending.

This is a process and although we have made some drastic changes we still need to make more! What about you?  What do you feel the Lord doing in your life?

Move!

After my post the other day my best friend, Emily, sent me the link to this song!  I love it!

Let's Give it all Away....WAIT!!!!!

I have so many mixed feeling right now.  I want more and I want to give it all away at the same time! I have been really struggling internally with the stuff that as Americans we hold onto and aspire to have. I don't want to have stuff just because that is the way everything and everyone around me says I should have.  But at the same time I want to get rid of everything!  I want to sell everything and live in a travel trailer.  I want to give all of my money to others and not worry about how a bill is going to be paid.

So where is the happy medium?  How do we know what is okay to want and what is not?  When are we no longer honoring the Lord with our desires?  I am still trying to figure that all out.  I don't know the answer. Do you?

"Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:3-5"

Yesterday I had a friend call me and ask about anxiety attacks.  She thought that she might be having one.  There is only one word to describe them..SCARY! I don't know if she was comforted by what I told her or not but I was able to let her know that she is not the only one and that I could sympathize. 

I have had anxiety/panic attacks off and on for over 14 years.  At its height it was debilitating.  I had been through all types of medical tests only to find out that the racing heart rate and the skipped beats and the inability to breathe was all from the overwhelming amount of stress that I had but did not necessarily feel. After many years of enduring this pain and then lots of counseling (more recently) I have learned that I hold on to everything.  I internalize and take responsibility for things that are not mine to be responsible for.  I did not truly trust in the Lord to take care of it all for me.


I find it funny that others think that I am so transparent.  I am in some ways, I guess, but in others I am not.  Only 3 people (besides my husband) know what I am going through now.  So as I sat down at my computer yesterday, to play on facebook, I was taken aback when my arms went numb and my hands began to tingle.  My heart raced and my breath was short.  I felt the room closing in.  All I could do was type, "so overwhelmed my hands are tingling. I do not like this feeling. fighting back a panic attack. prayers welcome." 


Thank you to those that read those words of desperation.  I knew that I could not pray for myself in that moment.  I felt your prayers. What did happen is that the song that goes, "I will cast all my cares upon you. I'll lay all of my burdens down at your feet, and anytime I don't know what to do; I will cast all my cares upon you." Came to my head. I sang it and cried.  I felt better. 


Is my life all hunky-dory now? No. But I am just trying to remain focused on the Lord in this time.  He has a plan and like a dear friend said, "He is not surprised. He has already gone through it before me". Those words are more encouraging than you will ever know, dear friend.

I refuse...

This morning I woke up with a plan to clean my house.  So far I have been pretty successful.  I sat down to take a break and play my new favorite guilty pleasure, hearts.  As I sat here I felt the overwhelming feeling to praise my Maker.  He is so good and I just can't even tell you how much my actions have not reflected His goodness lately. So I did..I praised Him.  It was good.  I cried, it was cleansing, it brought me back to reality.

I have been struggling with some new information that I have learned about in the last few months.  Information about orphans. I have been comfortable in my North American bubble.  But now it has burst.  I am overwhelmed with the knowledge that I have received.  But what do I do?  How can I make a difference?  This is something that I have been praying about.  I encourage you to go to this blog.  It is by a woman that recently adopted from Eastern Europe.  Her babies were very very sick and nearly died.  There are hundreds that are still there.  And.They.Are.Dying.

"I can hear the least of these crying out so desperately..... I don't want to live like I don't care.  I don't want to say another empty prayer. I refuse to sit around and wait for someone else to do what God has called me to do."

An Encouragement

Hey friends!

In case you don't read or follow my other blog; I posted on there something I think you would enjoy! Please go check it out!


Christi

If you don't dish it you aint never gonna get it

The kids have been wanting to go to the pool.  I am okay with that except our neighborhood pool doesn't open until noon.  This is quite annoying to me..but whatever.  So today I decided I would go grab lunch with them and then we would all go to the pool.  So we did.  We pulled into our neighborhood pool at 11:55.  There was not a single soul there.  I thought "it's not 12 so don't get irritated yet". So we ate in the car and waited.  And waited. And waited. Finally after 12 someone showed up.  She was getting things ready so we waited so she could set up.  By this time the kids were done with their lunch and were chomping at the bit to get in the water.  So we walked to the gate where she met us.  She told me that despite the fact that it was 15 minutes after they were supposed to open she was all alone and could not open the pool yet.  I was immediately irritated. I responded like this...

Me-"What happened to the others that were supposed to be here?"

Her-"I am not sure.  I am really sorry."

Me-"Well that is not good enough.  It is already past the time.  I pay your salary.  You would think you could get here on time."

Okay.  That was horrible!  I know it was.  I gave her absolutely no grace.  As I sat in the car waiting for her coworker to show up I realized what I had done. Sure the situation was irritating but today I realized  that if I am not willing to dish out grace to others that I am never gonna get any myself. 

It's a process...

I always find it so frustrating how when the Lord starts working on something new in our lives Satan begins to work against it.  Often he uses things that we are not on-guard about.  Things that we would normally never worry about.

God has been good to me the last week or so when it has come to my struggles.  He has shown me my sin and has rebuked it in His merciful way.  He has allowed me to go through some things so that I would come out of it humbled and ready to serve. 

That is why when I was tempted with something new I was taken aback.  I was not expecting something like this to happen.  But the good news in all of this is that after I struggled with it a little bit I realized what it was.  It was a distraction from what the Lord is showing me.  It was not what I needed to be involved in. 

I am glad that I have been more focused on my walk with the Lord in this time because I am sure that I would have been sucked in.  And this could have turned into a deep deep pit.  But as it stands now it was nothing.  Truly nothing. (that is why I am not putting the specific thing on here). I do not want to give it power. 

So here I am.  Working on me, not in a "it's all about me" kinda way; but in a "I just want to be a humbled servant" kinda way.  It is a process. One that will not be achieved over night.  I just pray that the Lord will continue to lead my path and that I will be able to stay focused on Him.

Don't throw me in the belly of a whale.....

I would like to say that my quiet time is spent in the early morning hours with me in the prostrate position crying out to the Lord.  This season of my life it is not!  At this time in my life my quiet time is spent in the shower.  Where I am actually LEFT ALONE!  So this morning as I was getting ready for church, I jumped in the shower and immediately went into prayer mode. 

The Holy Spirit prompted me with some specific prayer points and then I began to pray about a big decision I need to make in the upcoming semester.  I have been praying about it.  But this morning I realized that I wasn't praying for an answer.  I was basically telling God what I wanted him to do.  No wonder he has been silent! So this morning I started out like I always do and then I started telling him the reasons why I needed him to answer a certain way.  Why I needed him to say no to one way and yes to another.  It all boils down to it is an inconvenience to me if I do this the way others want me to. 

My conversation with him sounded a little like this. "I don't really want to do it that way because it is too much trouble. If I do it that way then I have to actually be committed 100% and I really don't want to do that. Plus I will be making a huge sacrifice and I don't know if I can stay committed." Yeah, it went like that!  Pretty bold and stupid.  But luckily my Father is gracious and he scolded me ever so gently.  Immediately my soul was convicted by that conversation.  I knew that God does not call me to do things in MY comfort level.  He calls me to do things that are beyond my comfort level.  So that it is a true sacrifice to Him. 

A few of my friends are reading a book that is changing their lives.  I have not started it yet but I think that tomorrow I will be headed out to Lifeway to get it. In the mean time I am getting to hear some of their revelations. 

One was that God wants us to be so committed to him and to love him so much that the love we have for our parents looks like hate.  He wants our lives to be permeated with him and his truths so much that we reflect him in our lives on a second by second basis.  After hearing these words from my friend I have been meditating on that.  I have been asking the Lord to show me how I could do that.  It is so counter-cultural.  I think that this morning he showed me one way.  He has pointed me in a direction that I wanted to go just not the way I wanted to do it. I don't want to be thrown into the belly of a whale so I am going to go where he wants me to go.  I am going to do what he wants me to do.  No matter how uncomfortable it is for me.