Grace is for Sinners

I bought her book today. Can't wait to read it...

Here is a clip about her life:

Love and War (by John and Stasi Eldredge)

We will be taking this course in the Fall. Eventually, husband and I will be part of a marriage mentoring team in our Church. I am pretty excited about it!

Song of the month

Quite a few people that we know are going through all kinds of heartache. Some are morning their tiny babies death, others battling health issues and the list goes on and on. This song (and the story before it) is so transparent, so beautiful and honest and filled with truth. I am sure you can't watch and listen with out being moved in your Spirit....

Desert Song

Shadow Lands
by John Ortberg

Had opportunity to sit under some great teaching this morning via a video at my Church. Here are some of my random thoughts as a result...

• We all need clarity and purpose to know what our "calling" is. But there will be things that pull us away from that calling (and he calls these things by the name of "Shadow mission").

• A Shadow mission is apart from God and is our sinful nature that lurs us to it. Some examples of this are: advocating responsibility, having a spectacular ministry (caring only about appearance), selfish pleasure, mood and ego, escape, always wanting more (money, clothes), etc, etc...

• Jesus was faced with a shadow mission as well. His was to be a leader with out having to suffer, or a Savor that didn't need to carry a cross. Because he was with out sin he was able to resist that temptation and did indeed, suffer (so we don't have to).
  

Question.
Who is more content? An man that has a million dollars or a man that has 12 children?
Answer.
The man who has 12 children. Why? Because he doesn't want anymore! heeheehee....

• If you are struggling with recognizing what your shadow mission is. Here is one man's answer: "To watch TV and engage in a destructive sexual habit when the world around me is in ciaos and lost needing someone to show them the way (to God)." Another persons is: ego and appearance. These will be things that are somewhat closely related to your gifts and wiring but in the direction of the destructive side.
  

• Question.
  What is your "shadow mission"?
  When you have figured that out, then you have to not give into it. Live in the fullness and live the life God has for you to be free and thriving!

Personal reflection and making this more real. ~My shadow mission is escape (hiding). A big part of my purpose is to lead. If I am escaping and hiding, it is pretty hard (maybe impossible!) to lead.

Bless you all on your own journeys...

Blur
...seem like the weeks have just flown by since the new year.

I had a strong sense that change was coming for me in 2010. Changes that would make me uncomfortable, stretching me and make me grow. Since I had started job hunting in November it was safe to assume that there would be more job hunting in the new year with hopes of finding one and getting to announce it here on my Blog. Ha!

We are only a few weeks into the new Year and I have seen glimpses of change all ready, time and time again. Thankfully, God has been faithful to remind that:

• He loves me enough to sometimes push me when my heels drag stubbornly. I don't always want things to change. I don't always want to the one that has to change (my way of thinking or the way I do something). If I am wise, I will not resist. I will stop the heel dragging, stand up straight and walk into my inheritance and destiny.
  

A lady that I know (only 3 years older than I), died in late December after a long fight with Cancer. Before she died, she made a point to tell all of us to live fully and with NO REGRETS. In this time of great change I am reminding myself of her wise words and trying not to let fear of change hold me back.

• "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9

I formally applied for a job yesterday. A job that would be really challenging for me. A job reaching out to people in crisis, woman who are lost, confused and in many cases broken. A job that would require me to be driving (I do not have my license), public speaking, leading small woman's groups and listening to heartbreaking tales of individuals. I would have the weighty privileged of holding hearts!

Do you think sometimes we are afraid to succeed? I am. My husband is a great listener. He is very patient to let me talk a blue streak. I talked his ear off last night. I was telling him that I thought that this job was just too hard, too stretching. What if it broke me?! And wouldn't bagging people's groceries be just about right for me after all? He looked at me and said: "Sounds like you are quitting an amazing job even before you get it." What?!! Yep, he was right. I am not afraid to fail. I am afraid to succeed! I am totally fine if I don't get this job but I will be terrified to get this job! HA! Weird so weird...

I do not know how many others have applied for this job. I am guessing that the others will be much more qualified than I! I have no clue if I will get this job or not. What I do know, is that if it's offered to me I will take it and trust that God will equip me! I will try my best not to be terrified. I will be strong and courageous.

I may end up bagging your groceries after all but I know it really isn't the point of what I am learning right now. I am changing, I will change and I will try not to resist it as much as I have in the past. It's not easy. It isn't safe. But oh man...it is GOOD!

Join me in living with no regrets!

God's Provision and Favor

To say that things are "tight" in our house right now would be about right. We have everything we really need but nothing left over for anything "extra". (temporary problem...job searching underway!)

1. I had a pretty good idea that my computer was on it's way out...husband was busy trying to get some pictures and music of mine onto CD's. Alas, yesterday it died. It is dead, dead, dead. Husband tells me that my information is safe and all we need is a new machine to put it all into. (I am so thankful he can do those kind of things! What would I do with hard drives, memory and the likes!??) The 2 kids and I use my PC lots for fun stuff as well as homework assignments. We are able to use husbands lap top but between the 4 of us when homework is heavy, it becomes an issue. With bills to pay and other necessary needs buying a new computer was out of the question. I think I did sigh but ended up announcing, Oh well...we will have to do with out it for a time. Little did I know that by the end of that very day someone (let's just say husband has the best boss EVER) had given us a new (to us) computer!!
2. God has provided recently for our daughter to be able to go to Quebec on a School trip this coming Spring. It has caused her (and ours!) faith to grow seeing how the funds have come in for that. But that is not the story that I am telling today! ~Her teacher phoned me yesterday to let me know that she had been one of three students chosen in her class to attend University for 3 days, a Program called "SEEDS" and would this be something that we would like her to attend? ~Our son got the chance to do this 2 years ago so daughter had heard all about it and dearly wanted to go herself!~ "Yes, yes, we would love her to be able to have this experience, but wondered about the fees"....Oh the fees? TOTALLY funded, totally covered for her! :)
   

I am thankful to God not only for His great provision but also for His great Favor for us and for our Children.
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Jer 29:11 says: I'll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. (the Message Bible)
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A Joyful People

Our Pastor talked about being a joyful people but also about "losing your song". To listen to the message in it's entirety, click on my title. That will take you to the Church Web Site and you can both view and hear the message. Everything he shared is so in my heart and I was sitting on the edge of my seat trying not to jump out and shout out loud "amens!"

I just finished re-listening to the message and took note in my journal. Thing is that I took over 16 pages of notes! So, I will condense it even further and share with you the highlights.

Summary:

God has made us to be in relationships and out of that relationship God has so designed us so that we are to have the resources, the gifts the capabilities so that we can step into that which He has for us. In that place, joy comes from living and operating out of our sweet spot.

But, so often we find: "When the demands of life exceed the resources of what you bring to the table, over an extended time then depression most inevitably follows." (Burning the wick, not the wax!)

Remember a time in your life when you felt the most satisfied, when life was fun and not a drudgery. I bet it will have been a time in your life when your giftings intersected with your calling. You were operating out of your true self. You felt the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing underneath you and you were flying. None of us can "stay" there all of the time but have had moments when we have put our feet up, sighed and said: "Life is good!" It isn't that we are not working. Actually, we could be working very hard. But because the work was coming from the core of where we are most alive, our sweet spot, work is a joy! Such joy is life when it is lived out of the places in which we are intended to live.

The reality is though, that we live in a broken, fallen world cut off from God. Think of a child running home to show off a newly drawn picture to parents. Rather then encourage the child, they attack the efforts. We live in a society were others try and knock us down a peg or two as they may judge that we are ego driven (so they are helping us to be humble). Ugh! This can cause us to run out of steam, we become discouraged and a hopelessness can set in. This is why there are so many addictions. And so many of us have lost our Song.

You will burn out when:

• you are no longer living in who God has created you to be
  
• you have to deny your true self in order to please the others who around you
• your resources are not sufficient for all the demands that are being made of you
  

Good news: The Gospel can Restore our Song
The "computer" of your life now becomes plugged into the power-grid. Drawing from an infinite source stuff happens:

• your dead battery gets recharged!
• the broken places are restored!
• as He restores you, you find the places in your heart where you are truly you, uniquely gifted, and He invites you to fly!!

Sometimes our defense mechanisms kick in and we try to hide these places because last time we let them show they were attacked and we had to run away and hide in a cave just to live. Walls may have been built and the only real living is done at night in the safety of the home and for some only in their dreams. God CAN step into those places. He can and He would say: This is who you are. This is who I have made you to be. These are your passions, these are your longings! Don't let anyone shame you. Don't let anyone be your God! I am your God and I am calling you forth! *preach it Pastor, preach it* As you hear His voice, step into it with fear and trembling and God will meet you there.

As you begin to practice those muscles, those facilities that have so died, amazingly God brings them back to life and we become stronger. We can start holding our own again in our world. Then God places us in Christian community. If it is functioning the way that it should, where God is present, where God's Grace abounds, where people truly love each other and rejoice with each others successes. Rather than being secretly gleeful about others failures, where people can come along side me like a parent with a child and encourage even after a failure. They can celebrate my victories with me, encourage me to find my own sweet-spot and fly. THAT is what the Church should be!

Challenge:

We live in a world of stress. The temptation for some is to just curl up in a ball and limit our world as stress increases it's demands on us. This stress seems to reveal the flaws that we have and we don't want others to see that! As our world seems to grow more "cranky" what a time for us to try to abide with Christ and live a full life, with Jesus in overflow of Grace and love.

Questions:

• What are the places in my life that I have shut down because life was too hard?

• Where is the Holy Spirit nudging me, encouraging me to step out, and take wise risks?

• What is the part of my heart that I have hidden in the deep basement that I need to bring up into the open so that my gifts are not lost to me and to all God's people?

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*last time I shared a message from my church I had a nasty comment left, someone arguing points with me. May I remind you that this is MY Blog which reflects my passions and my thoughts and opinions. Mean comments will not be published*

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Quote Worthy

I am enjoying a Beth Moore Bible study on the book of Esther called" It's Tough Being a Woman". I am only 4 chapters into it but it is EXCELLENT. This past weeks section was called: It's hard being a woman in the tight fist of fear. More than any command in the Bible this one is repeated over and over and over again: Do NOT be afraid.

Beth talked about her own fears and how God challenged her to do "the what if game" with it, all the way through. Her greatest fear was: what if my husband leaves me for a younger woman? What if she is really cute? What if my kid's all adore her? ~So, she thinks this though and decided that she would be angry, crushed, broken, a mess. But. Then after a time...that she would get back on her feet again and live. That fear lost it's grip on her and she doesn't struggle with it anymore. She encouraged us to wrote down and fill in the blanks: If ________, then __________. She said, get to the point that no matter what you write down in that first blank, in the second one write GOD! (ie. If my child dies, then GOD!)

God is bigger than even the very big stuff we face in life.

Beth says: "There is no denial in courage. If your Dr. tells you that you have Cancer and you pretend that you don't have it, then that is denial and foolish! Courage is when you look fat in the face of that "cancer" and do not deny it but you deny it's VICTORY over you!"

Recommended Christian Reading

Sue at Praise and Coffee has a wonderful Blog and I love her post today called: If your shoes don't fit, they may not be your shoes. Check her out: Here!

My dear friend Jenny at Beauty for Ashes wrote a beautiful post this week called Behind the walls. Awesome stuff: Here!

Cheryl, at Lifestyle of Worship: The Best things in Life are Free. Here!

Beautiful Unique Girl

Had a wonderful night at the BUG night. Many, many awesome truths impressed on our young girls in 4 hours. Did you know that when you were in your momma's womb and only the size of a little jelly bean that you had a unique set of fingerprints?

Amazing.

The girls were taught to recognize lies of the world (you are fat, ugly, etc) for the lies that they are. The lies are garbage that will stink up your life. The girls were given practical ways how to deal with the lies, throw it out (where garbage belongs) and to cling on to the truth. The truth being that they were created for a purpose and when God created them, He thought that He did a mighty fine job and announced: This is VERY GOOD! :) So, when their minds re-play the garbage and lies of the world, they can remind themselves that it's trash and redirect their thoughts to the truth: that they were created with purpose and that the creator himself is very pleased with their beauty and uniqueness.

I plan on taking a pic of our dear daughter wearing a BUG t-shirt with her newly polished nails. She loved her evening...the only disappointment (ha) for her was that she didn't get to dunk her head in the chocolate fountain and drink out of it! lol lol

Beautiful Unique Girl

I am very excited to have been invighted to a pretty special event. A night just for teen girls. A night to hang out in PJ's, eat pizza, get nails done, a special speaker, a teenaged girl singing (that made it on the tv show Canadian Idol) and last but not least a chocolate fountain!!! Again...how lucky that I was invighted to go (I am 36...slightly overage)!! lol I have pretty strict instructions by dear daughter, to give her plently of space but was told to bring money (in case there are things that she will want me to buy her for Christmas, she says)!!!! 

What is a Beautiful Unique Girl? 

A BUgirl is maybe, just possibly YOU! When you think of a beautiful, unique girl, what comes to mind? Do you picture a friend or a celebrity or someone else? Do you imagine a specific type of person? Where do you see yourself in the world of beauty and uniqueness? Where do your friends and parents see you? 

We are all born with beauty. Sometimes it’s hidden. Sometimes it’s obvious.

That’s why we’re here. Whether you're new to our site or you've already been to a Beautiful Unique Girl event, heard our artists' music, or own your own BUgirl BedBug, we want you to know that God made you special. He made you for a reason, and He loves you very much. You have your own set of unique gifts and qualities and your own set of challenges, too! When we open ourselves to God and His Truth in our lives, we discover our true beauty and our uniqueness. He's placed special things inside of you that you will be sure to discover along the way as you get to know Him and His thoughts towards you!

A girl who discovers her inner beauty and lives it out will fully experience what it means to live a beautiful unique life.

See more info by clicking here. That'll take you to the BGB web site. 

I will post later in the week and let you know how it all went. 

:)

Wondering What to do?

He has showed you, O man, what is good. 

 And what does the LORD require of you? 
 To act justly and to love mercy 
 and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8 

No Shame. Radient. ~Got to love, looking at our Creator!

One of my favorite Blogs

Check out "Don't Underestimate His Holiness, He's watching it all", at Praise and Coffee's Blog.

Check out this Blog post...

...over at Shelia Wray Gregoire's; called What does it mean to pray for Blessing? 

I have been thinking about many of the same things that Shelia talks about here. I think she articulated things so well.  : )

Here is a little snip it from her article: "When we worry about circumstances, we become slaves to this life. When we concentrate on God, we actually become free. So stop praying for your own safety and happiness and well-being, and pray for your heart. Of course, there's nothing wrong with asking God for safety at times, but if this is the predominant prayer, you have a problem. Your soul is worth so much more; ask God to nourish it this weekend!"

Please read all of it!! Click HERE!

I Remember

*warning* Images are quite graphic and most likely not suitable for children to watch

"Good Friday"

Trouble and Suffering

Just finished up watching a 4 part video series by Louie Giglio. He is a speaker that travels with artists such as Chris Tomlin and the David Crowder band. He is the founder of Passion Ministries. He speaks mostly to Collage and University Students.

I wanted to quote him on the topic of trouble or suffering:

"When life hurts most, the world listens most intently to our message, allowing us to broadcast through our pain, the goodness of the One who loves us the most."
Louie Giglio


The people that I respect the most have not have fairy tale perfect lives. They have lived though some hellish things like bankruptcy, being abused as a child, cancer, raising a special needs child, tragic divorce, loosing loved ones to suicide...and the list goes on. BUT. They have sent a message to us all that even though the dark night, they had hope in God and that yes, God was STILL good! It means a lot coming from them. I wish that being a Christian meant a life free of suffering but actually what the bible says is quite the opposite. It says that trouble WILL come.

Should we embrace "trouble"? NO WAY! But...we can be ready for it.
When it comes our suffering will be what allows our megaphone to be the loudest for everyone to hear.

Suffering is a megaphone that shows what is in our hearts.

Ever think about Jesus? I mean he healed the sick, turned water into wine, raised people from the dead. Yet the most powerful and most meaningful thing that he did was to suffer and die on the cross. He knows what it is like to be hurting. When we are in pain He ushers us into His embrace like a Mother Hen with her little Chicks and He loves us. Oh how He loves us!

No words from me today except to say:

You will keep me in perfect peace, because my mind is focused on you: because I trust in you. ~Isaiah 26:3

Jeremiah 31:3-14

The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: 'I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with loving-kindness. I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt,
O Virgin Israel. Again you will take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful. Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria; the farmers will plant them and enjoy their fruit. There will be a day when watchmen cry out on the hills of Ephraim, 'Come, let us go up to Zion, to the LORD our God.''This is what the LORD says: 'Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations. Make your praises heard, and say, 'O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel. ' See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return. They will come with weeping; they will pray as I bring them back. I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel's father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son. 'Hear the word of the LORD, O nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: 'He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.' For the LORD will ransom Jacob and redeem them from the hand of those stronger than they. They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the LORD--the grain, the new wine and the oil, the young of the flocks and herds. They will be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more. Then maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.I will satisfy the priests with abundance, and my people will be filled with my bounty,' declares the LORD.

Return to your First Love

I had little sleep last night due to an abundance of dreams. The theme of the dreams have me thinking about; returning to our first love (God) and also that He is jealous for us (that will be a post for another day). I did a little search on the internet and found this:

Lost our First Love?

1. When my delight in the Lord is no longer as great as my delight in someone else, I have lost my first love.

2. When my soul does not long for times of rich fellowship in God’s Word or in prayer, I have lost my first love.

3. When my thoughts during leisure moments do not reflect upon the Lord, I have lost my first love.

4. When I claim to be “only human” and easily give in to those things I know displease the Lord, I have lost my first love.

5. When I do not willingly and cheerfully give to God’s work or to the needs of others, I have lost my first love.

6. When I cease to treat every Christian brother as I would the Lord, I have lost my first love.

7. When I view the commands of Christ as restrictions to my happiness rather than expressions of His love, I have lost my first love.

8. When I inwardly strive for the acclaim of this world rather than the approval of the Lord, I have lost my first love.

9. When I fail to make Christ or His words known because I fear rejection, I have lost my first love.

10. When I refuse to give up an activity which I know is offending a weaker brother, I have lost my first love.

11. When I become complacent to sinful conditions around me, I have lost my first love.

12. When I am unable to forgive another for offending me, I have lost my first love.

from Pulpit Helps, May, 1992

Rick Joyner says:

"If He is our first love, then seeking Him and doing His will is the most basic devotion of our lives. More than advancing in our profession, more than accumulating wealth or any other accomplishments, we will measure the success of our lives by how close to God we have become, and how much more we love Him above all things. If we love Him as we should, we will love everyone and everything more than we would otherwise."