Category: Christian

My Brain, My Filing Cabinet : Confidence Uncluttered

Posted on by Mary

Confidence

This is my journey to finding my confidence.  I’m not sure I have  really experienced true confidence.  I can fake it well enough! Not the kind of confidence that I have in myself with, but the confidence I should have in my relationship with Christ!  This is a journey I am currently on.  I have not arrived, nor do I have complete understanding.  Will you join me on this journey and we will begin by unflattering confidence?

I have this filling cabinet, it sits in my living room.  It looks all nice and neat around it.   BUT I almost never open it.  Do you know why?   BECAUSE I knew what the inside looked like!  It looked like two years of paperwork crammed inside of it.   It was overwhelming to even consider the amount of work it would take to get back into it and make it use-able again.   It haunted me …it called to me from deep within me. There was no more room in it so the papers that were most recent were siting in mostly neat stacks…on the piano, on the couch, on my desk…and on the floor.  That is until last week.  And as I sat for HOURS every day,Sorting, and tossing, a thought crossed my mind….

The thought was this

This filing cabinet is really as my mind and heart have become over the last two years as I stuffed emotions, and  thoughts and…well anything else you shove into every crevice of our hearts and minds saying, “I will deal with this tomorrow or not this week I’m just too busy! ” It’s not a matter of it being to busy, it really is a matter of being too uncomfortable.    It’s too painful to deal with the hard places so we stuff it.  Just like my filing cabinet, I stuffed so much stuff into it that it started overflowing other areas. And that is what happens with our hearts and minds, stuffing things leads to negative overflow in the rest of our lives….It can lead to angry outbursts or even negative health effects llike high blood pressure and physical illness.

as I prayed the beginning of this year for God to show me my word for the year I asked Him for it to be one that would change my life, change me for the better and that at the end of the year I would be closer to Him than ever before. About a week after praying for that, the word CONFIDENT came to mind.   All the other years words were already set in my mind in November BUT this year it wasn’t until the second week of January.  I felt lost. I felt as though I no longer knew who I was…at all.  I felt as though I had to be all things to all people and I just could not do that anymore.  I was at a crossroads with a slippery slope straight ahead of me .    So as soon as I got my word I was off digging in scripture.  It took me two days searching God’s Word looking up verses and cross referencing them.  I went deep and I continue to do so.     My verses for the year to go along with my word landed me in the book of Jeremiah.  Here is what it says:

Jeremiah 17:7-8

But Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. They will be like a tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the stream.  It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.  It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”

But my study hasn’t ended there.  God directed me to various books.   Stripping away the years of clutter that had accumulated in my mind and heart muddying the waters of understanding as to who I was in Christ and who he created me to be.  I had lost my creativity.  I had lost my passions to pursue things that I loved.  I have asked God to reteach me , to show me who I really am  in Him,  And  to show me who He created me to be. I’m learning a lot and I have found a new sense of peace.

Am I there yet?  BY NO MEANS!   But where I am at this moment in time is knowing that I AM HIS.  My circumstances do not define me…HE DOES! And that is exactly where he wants me to be at this moment.

As for my filing cabinet, it is organized and back to working order!

How about you?  What is your word for the year?  Do you have some heart and mind clutter that needs to be stripped away?  And if so, have you taken that to God and given it to Him?  If not I challenge you to do so TODAY!

Next week We will discuss what the difference is between Confidence and “Godfidence”

Random Ramblings: CRAZY weekend

Posted on by Mary

Actually its been a super crazy week since I last wrote a Random Ramblings….. Crazy Crazy CRAZY!!!!

Let’s Start with last week.

J was home from school on Monday because he had a fever the night before..and the school holds to a 24 hour policy without meds. T, K, and S went to school, but we were all very aware about the storm heading our way.  Hubby had a meeting Monday night.  Snow showed up Early Tuesday morning and we quickly realized that things had changed over night…our original 12 inches was upgraded and by Tuesday evening we had 29 inches of snow.  did I mention the kids had a snow day Tuesday )YAY)…..and then Tuesday afternoon a travel ban was put into place…… so Wednesday no school….Thursday rolled around and the roads were much better excluding the drift spots, but no AWANA that night.  J’s respite care worker came Thursday and Friday instead of Tuesday and Wednesday…. Hmmm I wonder why. Hubby  was at church from 10-4-430 and then we had some errands to run and dinner out together (Are you getting tired yet, cuz I am just writing it.  THEN Friday Happened….Initially all the kids had off school for Friday but since they exceeded their 5 allotted snow days T, K, and S all had school on Friday  so it was just J home.  Hubby and J went to church to finish up the previous days project.  When they came home J’s service coordinator came for a brief meeting and his respite care worker came…we ate a quick lunch and were off to visit a church person who also had her gall bladder out last week (That is 3 of us from our church in about 3 months), then we had to pick up the kids from school (OOPS almost forgot that detail…thanks J for reminding us at lunch) had to o pick up K’s friend, whose parents are our church’s youth leaders, from her grandparents house so she could come spend the weekend with K while her parents, I and two teenagers went to a youth rally….. BREATHE!!! We drove home that night, stopped at Walmart  and came home….. slept….. then left AGAIN the next morning to head back.  We were there till 5ish and then headed home again… IN MORE SNOW.  I didn’t get to go right home though I had a meeting at church that took a while because it involved some artistic work… and you know artists, we are our own worst critics!   Yep OCD was strong!!  I came home to my children (T & K) preparing dinner for us!  What a blessing those two are!  And that leads us to Sunday with all the normal Sunday stuff for a pastor’s family.

This life is crazy and we all go through crazy times but in the end we have choices.  As the speaker at the youth rally I attended this weekend shared as he spoke through 1 Corinthians 13, we all have a choice in being loving we can be kind or we can be rude….. So in these times of  Crazy it’s very easy to become self absorbed and rude, I mean ungrateful… and much more or we can CHOOSE  to look beyond our crazy, our horrible, our circumstances and be who God has called us to be…… LOVING!   It’s not easy and it takes a ton of practice.  I know I’m not there yet.  I’m not perfect and I most certainly DON’T have this all figured out. So start small. That’s what I am doing. I’m picking one thing….. and I’m choosing to pay attention to others rather than my crazy! How about you? What keeps you from being loving when THAT is what God calls us to do?

 

Happy Homemaker Monday – 3/20/2017

Posted on by Mary

The weather::: today will be grey and very overcast with the high of 43 but the temps are looking up with a dip back into the 20’s but then rising again to 50’s.  we still have a very thick blanket of snow, but there are spots of grass in the areas the wind blew the snow away.

On my reading pile:::  Pretty much the same as last week.  Unglued, The Best Yes, You are Loved no Matter What, and I Am

Movies or Shows I watched this weekend:::  Nothing I was away most of the weekend at a Youth rally

On my TV:::I am about to put my TobyMac  station on Pandora on our TV

On the menu for this week:::

Monday Venison with Potatoes, Carrots, and  Tomatoes  in the crockpot

Tuesday Leftovers

Wednesday TaterTot casserole in the crockpot

Thursday Meatball subs

Friday Hamburgers and hotdogs and fries

Saturday Pizza (Hubby’s Homemade including my fave Bacon cheeseburger Pizza YUM)

Sunday Meatloaf and potatoes and a veggie (meatloaf and potatoes go in the crockpot together)

On The To-Do List :: I need to tackle my sewing cabinet this week.  When hubby built it for me there was no time to organize it so that is my major tackle for this week AND if I can complete that I will move onto the craft / exercise room

What I am sewing, crocheting, knitting or creating::: I have a couple of Cricut projects I need to work on.  I’m still learning to use my new machine, but I need to just practice more with it to build up my confidence

Happening this week:::Our friend is moving out this week.  we are happy for her that she has found a place so quickly, everyone is sad that they are going but it’s a new adventure for them.   God has blessed them greatly in this and we look forward to see how God works in their lives

Looking around the house::: the downstairs looks amazing, we have to find son #2’s AWANA grand prix car sine he lost it….and we can’t seem to FIND IT ANYWHERE   YIKES

From the camera:::

kitten therapy

What I’m wearing today::: comfy jeans…you know the ones with elastic…Hey don’t judge the girl I jam still healing from gallbladder surgery and real pants are very uncomfortable still, a blue sweater with navy and maroon plaid collar and tails  and my sneakers

One of my simple pleasures::: Coffee with yummy creamer…

Bible verse, Devotional:::

Hebrews 9:11NIV

11 But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here,[a] he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation

 

For More Happy Homemaker Posts Check out tDiary of a Stay At Home Mom

 

BOOK REVIEW: Reflections Of God’s Grace By Michelle Hanna

Posted on by Mary

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Reflections Of God’s Grace is a compilations of daily devotions meant to focus you on the grace of God. Michelle masterfully communicates the “God-sightings” from her own personal life on a day to day basis.Reflection is in ebook format and is published by Westbow Press. Each daily reading is short and concise it gets right to the point.

Reflections is a snapshot into Michelle’s life, where she shares how God reveals himself to her in her day to day life. She is real. She uses the simple day to day life experiences to communicate Gods truthes and encourage her readers.

In all honesty is felt like I was chatting with one of the ladies in my Bible study, Michele Takes the little things in life like a song currently playing on my radio and shares with her readers how God has used that song to minister to her. She passes it along to her readers as though a group of friends share those same tidbits to their friends.

Michelle is a relatively new author and I hope to see more by her in the future I thoroughly enjoyed getting a look into her life.I loved that it is just like the conversations my friends and I have. this shows that Michelle is real whereas other authors come off sounding “too perfect” I think Michelle does have some polishing to do but for the most part I totally identified with her insights and perspectives an d I felt as though we could have been friends for years. and that makes for a great read.

I definitely give this book a 5 stars out of 5.

This book was provided for review purposes by BookLook Bloggers This review is the honest opinion of the blogger and I am in no way compensated for positive reviews.

 

BOOK REVIEW: Jesus Always By Sarah Young

Posted on by Mary

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Jesus Always is a devotional book with 365 days worth of thoughts focusing you on Jesus. Sarah is author of other books such as Jesus Calling, Jesus Today and Jesus Lives.

(Personal disclaimer: I have not read other books by Sarah Young, this was my first so this is completely unbiased and not based on the other works with like titles.) These devotionals are written as though they were personal notes written by Jesus encouraging you on your daily journey with Him. Most of the devotions are one page long. Now the book itself is lovely. It is small, a lovely shade of pearlescent purple and has a chalice and a loaf of bread on the front. The front cover is padded and the paper and print is high quality. I loved the feel of this book in my hands.

I must confess that it worries me when an author takes on the role of Jesus….talking to me as He would, however this book did not arise such concerns as I read the pages.

I honestly think the book is beautiful aesthetically and well thought out passages from the Bible included at the end of each days reading. However there is next to no scripture mentioned in the body of the devotion each day, so it is easily skipped and if the reader is not diligent the reader could loose sight of what is really important and inadvertently putting the authors words of the book over that of Scripture.

I loved the fact that these devotions were not entirely written in a script or italicized print and was easier to read in comparison to other devotional books. (this is huge since I am visually impaired)

I greatly appreciated Sarah’s writing ability and her ability to communicate God’s truths in such a way that made you feel as though you and Jesus were having coffee together talking about life. I sincerely look forward to re-reading this book in the future. and I give this book 4.5 stars out of 5.

This book was provided for review purposes by BookLook Bloggers This review is the honest opinion of the blogger and I am in no way compensated for positive reviews.