Tag: one word

RESTORE!

Posted on by Mary
Restore

When I began thinking and praying about what my word for 2022 was going to look like RESTORE was NOT on the list. Actually as I sit here typing I cannot for the life of me remember what was on the original list. YEAH they were THAT memorable lol!

I was praying though the words and none of them felt right at all. Then one day I was scrolling / tapping through my Instagram Stories and my friend Kalyn Brooke was asking her followers what they thought about the word RESTORE. I told her I loved it and asked if I could use it.

Why it struck such a cord

Restore

So much of my life is in a restoration phase.

  • We have an offer on a house that needed to be restored.
  • our home needs some restoration
  • my heart needed to be restored not just to where it once was but I want to move beyond that
  • and my prayer binder is littered with prayer requests for some form of restoration or another.

I just knew that was what this year was going to look like . I knew what lay ahead and RESTORATION was it.

AND I wasn’t wrong

The prayer list has grown longer….I have grown more and more aware of just how much my heart and mind need to be restored and renewed.

We are still hunting for a home which will probably have some form of “restoration” required.

Honestly I think that ever moment and every day and every month and every year should be marked by restoration.

As believer’s in Jesus we should be seeking to become more and more like Jesus and sometimes we get stuck wallowing in our pain and agony. We make excuses as to why we remain victims to our circumstances. We declare while beating our chests that we are survivors all the while making our circumstances our identity.

I don’t just want to be a SURVIVOR anymore….just surviving isn’t and option anymore. My goal ist to thrive. I want to be restored. I’m not hiding scars. I just don’t need to make them me. They are a part of me, BUT they don’t define me.

I am living breathing proof that God makes beauty from ashes and that my identity in found in him alone.

My verse for the Year

10 In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.

(1 Peter 5: 10 NLT)

Wow. What a promise!!!

And that firm foundation….I just wrote about that on my Happy Homemaker post on Monday.

You can check it out here

I couldn’t have planned that better!! When I started this blog post I hadn’t made the connection and yet isn’t THAT how God works!

How about what is Your One Word? Are you new to the whole One word for a year? Check out this book that helped me understand the concept My One Word This is not an affiliate link

Let me know what your word for the year is in the comments below! I can’t wait to share the growth and progress throughout the year with you!

When I Picked the Word Confidence for 2017……

Posted on by Mary

….I had no idea what was looming around each corner. CONFIDENCE. Confidence In God NOT myself!  I know I haven’t blogged about my word much, if at all.  Let’s be honest and right up front, I haven’t been blogging much at all..  I have been caught between crazy schedules and exhausted.    I had hoped to blog a lot on our two week vacation BUT that did not happen…I have less than 2 days left…..SIGH!  Oh well  but how do I move forward in the future?

CONFIDENCE

So back to Confidence.  My confidence has been tested and stretched SOOOOO many times over the last few years.  Confidence in my abilities, confidence in my faith in ministries (including blogging), ,confidence in God . For instance if when I started at the pregnancy  cente you would have told me that my role there would include people who had been in jail OR that I would be introduced to women who had been in human trafficking situations I would have told you NAH that’s not what I am called to do!  HAHHAHA I was so naive. And Naive is not a word I would use to define me…EVER! However just when I had thought I had heard it all a client made me cough coffee out my nose with one question…..(Yes Amy insert laughter)

The other thing, if you asked me if I would ever be involved in a conference planning ministry that  I am a part of the team I would have laughed and told you “not introverted me.”   Now I am in my second conference Planning session and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

And did I mention that I never thought I would be a pastor’s wife…ok so I didn’t want to be.  I wanted to be a missionary to a country that didn’t’t allow missionaries.  I wanted to be an inner city youth leader….Amongst some other things….Pastor’s wife was never on the list…EVER!!

Confidence or GOD-FIDENCE

My confidence was not there.  I need to have God-fidence as Renee Swope  calls it in her A Confident  Heart Bible Study.  and now I’m in yet another transition period….Another confidence area…A God-fidence area if you will….and it has to do with fear!    We have been listening to our friend Marc preach on it for the last week, and quite honestly it’s been hard.  Im not the same scared  young bride I was when I married my husband 14 years ago BUT there are certain things that grip my heart and mind tighter than anything else in this entire world.   It’s the area of people pleasing .  I worry about this ALL THE TIME. I obsess over this.   BUT there is a big problem about this…Worry means a mind divided!   I am torn between two masters….God who has called me to do this.  I have made a commitment to do this.  It is my  responsibility to use my gifts, to sharpen them, to hone them in, however I hide.  I hide this from social media.  I have not shared my blog on social media( as in my own personal wall) in  over two years, because I am AFRAID!  I worry about criticism, critique….people being angry with me .   and that leads me to my second master….Satan AND other people.  I am a person divided.

The Problem

The problem with all of this is Jesus himself promises struggles, that we will be persecuted that there will be problems . (John 16:33)  So I am trying to avoid and run away from the trouble that is promised. It’s what I do with that trouble. It’s not hiding from it, BUT it is taking it to God and allowing God to work it out.  It is having trust that HE will work through my words.  It is having confidence in Him…confidence to know what He wants me to write and share and when people aren’t pleased with me knowing that HE is because that is all that matters!

Instead I want a sound mind….a whole mind, a mind with one master, God.I want to serve Him and pleaseHim with all I say, do, and WRITE!  And that means if He has all of my mind then there is NO other room for anyone else.  This also means that I need to make sure that I keep my heart in check with God’s word because out of the condition of the heart Man speaks!! (But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. Matt. 15:18 NIV)

The end result

So here it is…

This blog will go back on my social media.

You are now free to share it.

  • I’m not living afraid I’m choosing freedom.
  • I’m choosing one master.
  • Im choosing to have a whole minded God-fidence.

Remember this is my story, a story that God is writing and I am sharing it to bring Him Glory, hopefully to bless others so look past you opinions and feelings and think on this that our friend Marc shared the other night,

Without Misery, there can be no Ministry

Yes it is going to look messy and yes we are going to get raw and we ARE going to talk about hard things, BUT if I don’t do this Im NOT in God’s Will.  He didn’t give me a story to hide it under a bushel….NO, THIS is my light and I’m going to let it shine!