If I were in charge I would wave my magic wand and make so many things “right.” But our all-knowing father sees things differently. Maybe there is a purpose for the suffering beyond what I can see – I have to trust Him in that. I have every reason to trust HIm.
Maybe part of His purpose is for me to seek comfort in His presence and in it alone.
Last night I was speaking with some 10year old girls about how we spend our time. “What do you think about the most?” “Your clothes? Your hair? Your friends? What someone said?” Do those thoughts bring you joy? Or discontentment?
I, of course, was completely convicted and so thankful for the opportunity to learn beside them. God wants us to set our minds on things above. Not because He doesn’t care about all of our problems and concerns… but because He does care deeply about them all. He knows that we can face them if we fill our minds with truth.
The truth is – God wins.
The truth is He- is all-powerful, all-knowing.
The truth is He loves us deeply – enough to die for us. A love greater than we can understand.
Why am I spending my time in worry? – it eats me up like a disease. When I spend my time being thankful – worshiping my King, He lifts me up. He fills my heart with joy.
Sister, don’t let anything you are facing today steal your Hallelujah.
Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Luke 12:22
November 13, 2019 my Mimi passed away from a blood clot in her lungs. It was the hardest thing that I had ever had to go through. 6 months later on May 20, 2020 my Pawpaw passed away from complications due to his dementia. That was even harder.
All of those feelings from losing my Mimi came rushing back to me. It was a very hard time for my family and for me. I realized that God and my family will always be there for me. So, that’s why I’m writing about my family, because I love it so much.
God blesses people with families for a reason. You’re lucky to have a family, but you’re even more lucky to get to spend time with them. So, when you have that family time spend it well and enjoy it while you can.
I’m so thankful to God for giving me the best family in the world. A lot of people say that they have the greatest family in the world, but it’s not true because the greatest family in the world is mine.
Proverbs 17:17 says, “a friend loves at all time, and a relative is born to help in adversity.”
Dear God, I pray that you would continue to bless more people with family time. Thank you for blessing my family and me with all of the crazy times that you give us together. I pray that you would show everyone that even when they’re going through a rough time you’ll always be there for them. I love you so much Lord. In your Holy name I pray. Amen.
Life is like hair. Not the whole girly thing everyone thinks of when a girl says anything about hair, just hair in general.
You can do many things to hair. You can dye it, cut it, braid it, wear it down, put gel in it, and whatever else you do to your hair. And that is a lot like life.
You can take care of your life, cut out the “bad stuff”, and style it differently for God, or you can let the “bad stuff” take over. Also, not one person’s hair is the same. Not one person’s life is the same.
Just like hair, everyone’s life is different, whether it’s a major or small difference, and that’s what God does in our life. He uses our differences to spread his gospel. So, are you doing to take care of your life and spread the word, or are you going to let Satan change your life for the worst?
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Romans 1:16
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed-or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)
The holidays are here. To be honest, the holidays snuck up on me this year. Now it is madness until January 1st with weekends filling up quickly. Holiday shopping, hosting family dinners, Friendsgiving, home decorating, the list goes on and on. Every holiday season seems to be a whirlwind and afterwards I’m left exhausted with the feeling that I wasn’t truly present in the special moments I was given. In these times, I think to myself, “am I being a Mary or a Martha right now”?
Martha may have been referred to as a “hostess with the mostest” by her friends, which is a title that I have always strived for. However, it wasn’t Martha’s hosting skills that captured the heart of Jesus. Mary sat at His feet soaking in the moment with her Lord. To Mary, it did not matter if the meal was presented “just so”, if Jesus used a coaster underneath his glass, or if He received the nicest present under the tree. Mary simply presented herself as she was.
I see so much of Martha in myself and I am sure there are times you can relate. Martha scurried about the kitchen, flustered and worried. Comparison truly got the best of Martha’s mind and comparison, my friends, is the root of discontentment. Jesus consoles her by saying, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed-or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better.” As the holiday season begins, I encourage you to let go of the Martha inside of you and embrace a Mary mindset. Come to the Lord without all of the fluff. Afterall, he already knows and loves you just the way you are.
11 I am coming soon.Hold on to what you have,so that no one will take your crown. Revelation 3:11
No one can take away what we have as a Christian. No one can take away the covenant that God made with us.
No matter what’s happening in this world, we have a hope. We have a promise. We have a future. We just have to keep our grip and not let go.
Nothing compares to what Jesus has in store for us. So no matter how rough the road gets – hold on tight. Better days are coming soon.
He promised.
Guest Post by Mrs. Lisa Lamey
Odds get our attention. We often rely on odds to help make decisions. We like to size up a situation before we make a decision. In a mathematical sense, odds are the expression of the probability of an event happening or what will be the likely outcome of an event. (I’m having flashbacks of a statistics class I had to take.. ugh). When we look at the odds in our personal situations we collect and analyze information about our strength, our power, our resources… looking to see what advantages exist for us… what are the odds against us… In other words, are the odds in our favor?
The odds are what the ten spies considered when they made the decision not to move forward in their conquest of the land promised to them. Information was collected – giants in the land. Information was analyzed-we can’t conquer them. Decisions were made and the wilderness wandering began.
And Gideon’s focus on the odds is why an angel of the Lord finds him threshing wheat in a winepress in secret, hiding his substance for fear of the Midianites who had come in great numbers against the children of Israel. The angel informs Gideon that he is the one the Lord is sending to defeat the Midianites. Gideon begins to consider the odds, collecting and analyzing information – “My family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” He was defining and confining himself by what he considered his deficits. And then… “The Lord said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shall smite the Midianites as one man.”
When the Lord is with us, His strength, His power, and His resources are with us. And so we see in Gideon’s defeat of the Midianites with only 300 men! Talk about some odds! There was no doubt that God was with Gideon.
What if when we are faced with odds, instead of focusing on what we consider deficiencies, we look at the sufficiencies of our Father? Odds are not meant to define and confine us. It’s in the midst of the odds that we discover more about our Father. “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth (Psalm 46:10.) God is exalted in our personal lives because of the odds. He will be exalted, not maybe but will be exalted. This tells me that the odds are in my favor because God is exalted in the odds! There will be no doubt that God was in our situation. Odds are in our favor because that is how God is exalted and glorified in our lives.. for all to see. Against all odds, when it looked hopeless, Abraham believed the promise and expected God to fulfill it. He took God at His word, and as a result he became the father of many nations. God’s declaration over him came to pass: “Your descendants will be so many that they will be impossible to count!” (Romans 4:18)
Do today’s situations have us looking at the odds? Are we allowing our own strengths and resources to define and confine us?
My prayer for you my “ friend “ is the same prayer Elisha prayed for his servant, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” … Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. ( 2 Kings 6:17)
He saw the strength, the power, and the resources of God. Against all odds, God will be exalted… The odds are in our favor… Let’s open our eyes. Blessings – Lisa
It’s never wrong to be kind. And it’s never wrong to be hopeful.
I’m gonna say it one more time – no matter what you’re going through, no matter what’s going on around you – you can still choose kindness. You can still choose hope. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.
🎶Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace
Oh soul are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior
And life more abundant and free🎶
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,” Colossians 3:12
“When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.”
~Psalm 94:19
My great grandmother used to say that constant worrying was insulting to God, She shared with me at an early age that when we pray to God to ease our worry, we are handing those worries over to Him. “Give it to the Lord and don’t take it back.”, she would say. I had to be reminded of this often, because I worried about EVERYTHING. Looking back on childhood, I was constantly anxious about the future, my safety, and the safety of those I loved. My mind always went to the worst case scenario and my vivid imagination would create so many “what ifs”.
How many times do we worry about something that hasn’t even happened? The fear of what could be can cause us to become engulfed in anxiety and blind of our blessings. Anxiety robs us of experiencing joy in the daily moments. It makes our blessings more difficult to see, It causes us to miss out on so much.
When I become anxious and worry takes over, I remember what my great grandmother taught me: give it to God, and don’t take it back. Although I fail miserably at this sometimes, I’ve found that her words ring true in every situation. My first response to feeling anxious is to count my blessings. Gratitude is food for a soul that is starving for peace. Being intentional about expressing gratitude provides a pathway to joy in the daily moments. God is waiting on us to be thankful for the abundance of blessings He bestows upon us! Even in the most troubling times, there is always something to be thankful for.
2020 was supposed to be a BIG year for the McEacherns. We began 2020 with an engagement and impending wedding, and we looked forward to our second child’s graduation from Texas A&M in May. Kiddo number three was coming right along in her college career. Things were good, great even.
Then COVID. PANDEMIC. The world shut down. And I panicked.
How were we going to plan a wedding? Have a graduation? Could we even have either of these things? How was I going to order flowers, pick dresses, choose a venue/caterer/baker/florist? Schedule graduation pictures? Coordinate the grandparents attending graduation and NOT getting sick? The list goes on and on of the details I fretted over. The devil is in the details, for real.
But then time slowed down while we quarantined, and I realized that the devil may be in the details but God is in control of the big picture. God had given me the gift of time. I suddenly had time on my hands to reflect and gain some perspective on what was really important in my life and what to focus on for the events coming up.
In-person graduation didn’t happen, but I got the chance to spend the day with my parents, safely in their own home, as we anxiously awaited Chase’s name and degree to be conferred on the big screen at Kyle Field. (Whoop!) Chase is just as graduated as he would be in person, and my parents remained safe from the virus. It was a relaxing, yet exciting day, and I wasn’t stressed about all the unimportant details (parking, social distancing, navigating the graduation itself, etcetera). We all just chilled out, shorts and t-shirts style, and waited for our graduate. It was perfect.
We planned and executed a beautiful wedding in the middle of a pandemic. We ordered a dress and booked the first and only venue we toured prior to March, just prior to everything closing. Were there pitfalls? Yes. Would I want to do it again under these circumstances? Nope. Did I possibly offer to bribe her sister to elope? Maybe.
But it was good. WE were good. Caitlin and I spoke more via text and Facetime than we ever had before. I realized very quickly that my demeanor determined her demeanor, so I vowed to “keep the main thing the main thing.” She was amazing. While I tended to get bogged down in random things like napkins, flowers, and signs, she was laser-focused on being married and building a life with her future husband. The devil may have been in the details but God had given her a beautiful view of the big picture He was laying at her feet and she didn’t really care about anything other than that.
My kids made me realize that this pandemic, while awful, was an opportunity to slow down, to take it all in. We watched TV together (remotely). We spoke daily. Two of my grown-up college kids moved home for a brief time. Time slowed down and I got to soak a little more of them in. I got to be involved in the details of their lives. Details that I wouldn’t have gotten to see in normal times. And it was a gift.
The devil may be in the details, as my mom said, but God has the big picture. ALWAYS.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
The ebb and flow of David’s pain was based on poor choices that he made. No one did this to David. He did it to himself. It’s easy for us to read about David’s shoddy decisions and get all kinds of Judgy McJudgy.
But seriously, y’all. We do dumb stuff, too. We are quick to close out communication with God so that we can bathe in our own worldly pleasures. We are quick to tune out the Holy Spirit in hopes that feelings of self-condemnation will not dance their way across our hearts and souls.
I said all of that to say this – David really did make some bigger than Texas mistakes.
But.
But David used all of his pain and everything he learned from it to encourage other Christians to hang on to God. To not give up. To show us that we are never too far gone.
Are you using your past mistakes to encourage others?
Someone needs you to do that.
Someone needs to know what you’ve done, where you’ve been, and who you’ve hurt along the way. Someone needs to know the nitty gritty.
Someone needs to know that God brought you up out of that deep, dark, gritty pit. They need to know He will bring them out, too.
“Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!” Psalm 31:24
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