Small things.

 

 

 

Today,

for the first Valentines Day since my husband and I have been married,

I woke up alone.

 

He is working out of town.

 

Bummer.

 

It seems as though, lately, my entire family is scattered.

 

All of our schedules have been wacky, crazy busy, and rarely line up with eachother's.

 

Between work,

school,

appointments,

commitments,

retreats,

sleepovers,

and life in general...

it's been almost impossible to get all of us under the same roof at the same time.

 

The last two times my daughter has spent the day home from college, her Dad was out of town working.

 

We haven't even been able to celebrate her 20th birthday all together yet.

 

We keep waiting for the time that we are all available and in the same state!

 

Her birthday was January 31st!

 

Very, very sad.

 

This is not like us at all and I think we are all beginning to feel the effect from it.

 

I am blessed to say, that we all really do like to spend time with eachother.

 

The truth is,

things flow better when we all have time together.

 

We are able to connect in a special way that only the five of us can.

 

I must admit,

for this momma and wife...

it's starting to get to me.

 

This momma hen loves her chickadees and adores her rooster!

 

This new season has been a great reminder for me of how important it is to make the very best of the moments that we DO have together.

 

Soak them up mommas and wives.

Let them seap into your heart until they are overflowing!

Hug them, hug again, then hug some more!

Squeeze em' tight!

 

 

A couple of years ago, my husband and I stopped giving to one another on Valentines Day.

Sounds a little crazy, but really it's not.

We found, after 20 years of marriage,

that our love needed to be celebrated 365 days of the year, not just one.

We do our best to make every day special.

And it's not just about gifts.

 

It's about creating intimacy with one another, and I'm not talking just physical.

Intimacy is creating an atmosphere of closeness and familiarity.

It's about having deep understanding of one another.

It's an expression of love.

 

For me...

there isn't anything more romantic, than walking in from a long day of errands to your husband standing at the stove cooking supper.
Or when he calls me in the middle of the day, in the midst of his crazy schedule, to see how my day is going.
Or when I get in my car, and he has filled up my gas tank.
Hubba, hubba!

 

For him...

he loves when I listen to him. Intently.With all of my focus and attention. No cell phone in hand. About whatever it is that he wants to tell me. Whether that be his day at work or a new tool he saw at Lowe's.
Or attempting to still learn his first language, Cajun French, after 23 years together.
Or helping him tend his vegetable garden and watering it before he gets home from work.

Be still my heart!

 

For both of us...

praying together for our family,
accomplishing our goals,
fixing one another's cup of coffee in the morning,
 and holding hands while watching TV at night.

It's about caring about what eachother cares about.
It's about learning their love language.
It's about loving extravagantly every day.

It's about doing small things with great love...all year round.

It's about loving today and each day that follows, just as God loves.
Without ceasing or without fail.

It's something we want to pass down to our children,
 because they will look to us and our marriage and our life together as they begin theirs with their own spouses one day.
We want them to know we loved eachother well.
Not always perfect, but consistently.

The way we show our love every day will have more impact on them,
than just the love we show on Valentines Day.
 

So, with all that said...we started showering our kids with love on Valentines Day.

They are the product of our love and that is something to be celebrated!!

 

 

In the celebration of Valentines Day,

I found a few pictures and quotes that best describe how I feel about my Fantastic Four!

 

They have truly made my life worth living!

 

 

 

 

 

And for my Savior,

Who is my heart's delight!

 

 

 

 

1 Corinthians 13

 

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

² If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

^3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

 

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

^8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

¹¹ When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

¹² We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

¹³ But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

 

 

 

Happy Valentines Day!

 

Do small things with great love!

 

 

 

 



Not even you.

 

 

 

 

Psalm 36:5-6

 

God's love is meteroric,

His loyalty astronomic,

His purpose titanic,

His verdicts oceanic,

Yet in His largeness nothing gets lost;

Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks.

 

 

Not even you.

 

Wherever you are, His love will find you.

 

 

 

 



I've never missed you as much as I do right now!

 

 

 

 

 

I woke up this morning and began my normal routine of stumbling blindly and half asleep to the coffee pot to make some "liquid gold".

 

I then turned on the computer to begin checking emails
 and walked down the hallway to wake the children so we could start our day.

 

About thirty minutes into our morning, the lights went out.

 

No electricity. Uuggh.

 

No electricity means no school work and we had a full agenda planned out for the day.

 

No worries. We shall do housework instead. This always makes me happy.

 

Except...

I noticed, as I began to clean,  that the water pressure was a little low.

I also noticed that the toilets girgled back at me when I flushed them.
Well that's weird.

 

Oh. no.

I got a bad feeling that this wasn't supposed to be happening.

 

I didn't worry about it and continued to pick up around the house.

 

About an hour and a half pass by, and "Alas!" our electricity turns back on.

 

Yippee! The schooling festivities can begin!

 

About this time, my husband calls.

He's working out of town for the week.

(insert sad face here)

 He called to see how things were going and if the electricity had turned back on or not.

 

I told him that it did in fact turn back on and mentioned that the water was acting funny.

 

To which he replies, "Oh, no."

 

To which I inquire, "What Oh, no?"

 

Realizing at that very moment what the "Oh, no" in fact means,

I say, gulping in fear,

 

"Oh. No!"

 

We live in the country and have our own water well.

 For some reason, unbeknownst to me,

each time our electricity turns off,
the water pump stops running and

we have to reprime our well.

 

This, my friend, is no easy task.

 My husband, my amazing husband, does it ALL the time,
without complaint.
 

But, where is my sweet husband, the problem solving-jack of all trades I married?

 

Not even in the state!

Oh! No!

My man has skills ya'll.
 He knows things that I didn't even know could be learned.
 He is so smart and intuitive and can do just about anything he sets his mind to do.

But, he's not here. It's just me.
 

I begin to panic, slowly.

Okay, more like rapidly.

So, my husband begins to tell me how to reprime the well.
Joy.

 

Let me just paint a picture for you...

 

I'm still in my pajamas.

Still sipping on a cup of coffee.

I hadn't brushed my hair

or my teeth

or had done anything else in the hygiene department at this point.

Those my friend, were my fashion plans for the day.

The whole day.

I'd hoped to get out of pajamas just to get into new ones later in the day.

That's it.

 

I hung up the phone and proceeded to get dressed to go outside and reprime the well.

 

I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, because everyone knows it's just better to reprime a well, in the country, where nobody can see you...with your teeth brushed.

 

I turn on the faucet just in time to realize that now...

there is NO water.

None. Zilch. Notta. Not even a drop.

 

To which, I may or may not have shrieked in horror.

 

I then go outside to face the giant, AKA, the well.

 

Let me just interject right here,
 and say that I am not a wimpy diva-fied gal.

I'm not afraid of a little hard work or harsh conditions.

I love camping. I love the outdoors. I don't even mind sleeping in a tent if necessary.

I've helped my husband several times on his job,

 pushing wheel-barrels around filled with brick and mortar, going home with sand and dirt in places where...

well let's just say where there should NEVER be sand and dirt.

I've helped him remodel our house, enjoy working in the yard and completing projects around the house with him.

I can honestly say that I know my way around a tool box.

(We make a pretty great team.)

 

But today, I was alone and

I had no desire what-so-EVER to prove my wo-MAN-ly tough girl abilities.

None.

 

But, we had no water and we needed it. Badly.

 

Being that we did not have any water,

 I had to sneak over to the neighbor's house and borrow their water to reprime our well.

This meant I had to get our water hose and connect it to their water hose and then connect that hose to their water connection outside.

 

Seems fairly easy, right?

 

Wrong-O!

 

Their water connection did not have a knob to turn to open it,
so I had to get a crescent wrench to open the valve.

The only crescent wrench I could find belonged to our neighbor and it was all rusty and it wouldn't even budge to open.

I knew I needed to get the rust off and loosen it with some sort of greaser, and my husband had the WD40 in his work truck, which was out of the state!

So, I went inside and grabbed the Pam spray from the kitchen.

It worked!

 

It took a little while, but I finally got the wrench open and opened the water valve.

 

Then I proceeded to drag the water hoses to our yard and to our well.

 

Today was a really pretty day.
The sky was blue and the clouds were white and puffy like cotton.

 

But,

and I mean a big ole' BUT,

 there was wind.

 

Not a light relaxing breeze.

Wind.
Lots and lots of wind.

Hurricane force winds!

That's right. Hur! Ri! Cane!

 

My little guy came outside to help me and at one point he said,

"Mom, the wind is blowing so hard it feels like a tornado is going to fly out of the bushes at any moment!"

 

I'm not sure what he meant by fly out of the bushes, but you get the point.

 

It was strong!

 

It was also cold wind.  Freezing cold wind.

(Of course it was.)

 

Our yard was also sopping wet and muddy. It rained a monsoon last night.

(Of course it did.)

 

So there we were, me and my little guy, fighting the wind, the cold, and the mud.

Bleckkk!

 

After getting the water hose to the well, I called my husband for the rest of the directions.

 

I had to turn off the breaker to the well,  then unscrew two screws that opened valves and begin to put water in them to prime the well.

 

Easy right? Sure it is.

 

That is if I could only remember one simple thing.

 

I'm not sure what happened between getting the hose and the wrench and the wind and the cold and the not enough coffee and the no getting to brush my teeth and everything inbetween,

but I totally forgot something I have been teaching my children since they could talk.

 

Lefty loosey. Righty tighty.

 

Who doesn't know that?

 

Apparently I don't.

 

I tried for fifteen minutes straight to unscrew a screw the wrong way.

I swore to my husband, who asked me several times if I was turning it the right way, 

that I knew what I was doing.

 

But....ehemm...

ooops.

 

I finally unscrewed the screws to the valves,
poured the water in and finished the steps he told me,

word for word, step by step.

 

It was time to test it and see if I had done it correctly.

 

My son walks to the faucet, turns it on and...

no water.

 

I seriously thought for a few seconds,

"That's it. I'm done. We don't need water today. We can wait until he gets home."

 

Then I realized he wouldn't be home for several days.
Then I thought of the children.
Then I thought of me and my unhygiened self.

Nope, that won't do.

 

My husband then told me I would have to repeat the process all over again.

 

I. wanted. to. cry.

Like a tantrum, pre-school, three year old with an attitude cry.
 

By this time,

my hair was flying in my eyes from the wind,

my pants were soaked all the way up to my thighs,

my socks were soaked,

my shoes were so wet that they squished out water when I walked,

 I was cold and very aggravated.

I was spent. Simply spent.
I had been outside for an hour now, trying to get the water on.

 

My husband encouraged me on the phone to try it again,
"You can do it. Just try again. I know you can do this."
 

 

I did.

Without even thinking about it.
 I hurried through it without a thought and within 20 seconds,

I was done.

 

I walked over to the faucet, turned it on,

and there was water!!

 

Beautiful wonderful amazing clear water!
Woohooooo!!

 

My little guy started jumping up and down in our wet muddy yard, with his arms waving above him,

"We did it Mom! We made water!"

Oh man, it was such a great feeling!
 

I called my husband after I was finished.

He congratulated me for getting the well primed

 and told me how proud he was of me for not giving up.

I replied, 

"Thank you, but I've never missed you as much as I do right now!"

 

Today I realized, how much I appreciate him.
 

I don't want to ever take for granted how important my husband is.

He's not just the leader of our home, or the bread winner, or the muscle around the house.

 

At times...he's the lifeline that runs through it.

 

He's the one that keeps things working smoothly and the one that takes care of them when they don't.

 

He keeps our home safe and protected.

 

He does like the Father,

and keeps watch over our flock by day, and by night.
He stays up and watches over our house when the weather is bad.
He wakes the kids and brings them into our bed to keep them close to us. 

 

He prays for all of us. Every day.

He encourages me when I feel like giving up. He believes in me when I don't believe in myself.

 

He's that strong voice on the other end of the phone that gives me direction and comfort when I need it the most.

 

He has the heart of His Father.

 

He loves fearlessly.

He loves me. Oh, how he loves me.

I've never loved him as much as I do today.

I'm so thankful for God's hand on his life and ours.
I'm thankful that he chose my husband just for me, and just for our family.

(I'm really really glad he will be home in a couple of days!)
 

Thank you God for my sweet boy who helped me today.

Thank you God for water!

Thank you God for my amazing husband!
Thank you God for placing him as head of our home and guiding his steps along the way!
 

 

Thank You, Jesus, for being the Well that never runs dry.

 

Hug your husband today when he walks through the door from work.
Hold onto him for a while before letting go.
Tell him how much you value him as a person and as the leader of your home.
Tell him how much you appreciate all that he does.
Tell him how much you miss him when he is away.
Tell him you've never loved him as much as you do right now.

Love him fearlessly!


 

 Ephesians 5:22-24
 

 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

 

 



 

 

Exactly where I want to be.

 

 

 

We celebrated my honey's 40th birthday this past Wednesday.

 

It has left me reminiscing over our life together.

 

I spent yesterday afternoon going through photo albums looking at old and recent photos, and wondering how extremely fast time has flown by.

 

We were only 17 when we met.

 

Geeesh, we were babies then.

 

He walked into my Biology class and as soon as my eyes saw him,

I knew he would be mine.

 

I just knew.

 

My children say that this is the moment that I proceeded to "stalk" him over the next couple of weeks.

 

Stalk. That's such a strong word.

 

It wasn't like the weird stalking you see on CSI, 20/20 or something like that.

 

It was the innocent and sweet "I love you and I know you will love me. I think I need to have your babies." stalking.

 

Ehemm...

Yeah okay, that's still weird.

 

Let's just call it "pursuing".

 

Anywho...

so yeah, that's where we started.

 

Yadda, yadda, yadda...

 two years later on September 7th, 1991 we were husband and wife.

 

(It worked!)

 

This man has made my life worth living.

 

It hasn't always been easy for us,
but it has always been worth it.

He is a beautiful person and has a heart as big as the moon.
He has a heart for God's will and leads our home with great conviction.
He has walked through his life with great courage and I am honored to be beside him.
He is a problem solver and has the most creative mind of anyone I know.

He is gentle and strong.

He is strong enough to protect our home, deer hunt, change the oil on my car, fix the motor on his truck, remodel our home, and whatever else strong men do.

But on the other hand...

He is gentle enough to wipe the tears off his children's faces, pick them up when they have fallen, be silly with them, hold me when I have had a nightmare, cry on sappy movies with me, tear up when the kids give him homemade birthday cards and when his daughter sings a new song with her guitar.

The other day...
I watched him as he tried for 30 minutes to revive a sick kitten that our momma cat had, while our two youngest looked on with tears in their eyes.
He then took the little kitten, put her in a box, and buried her in the back yard.
Two nights later, he held me close to him as I lay in bed crying over the second little kitten that didn't make it...only to get up and repeat the burying process a second time.

He never once made fun of me for crying hysterically over a 5 day old kitten.

He just looked at me and said,
"I love your heart. It's so big that even animals have a place in it."

I just might have fallen in love with him all over again in that moment.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABE!

I love you more and more each day.

Your life is worth celebrating!

I'm glad your heart was big enough to have a place for me in it,
because that is exactly where I want to be.


Song of Solomon 8:6

Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
 for love is as strong as death,
 its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Victory is sweet!

 

  

 

 

Jeremiah 29:11-13

---

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

 

 

 

I write this post,

sitting comfortably on my Dad's plushy beige couch.

 

 

I haven't been myself these past few days.

 

At least that's what my husband keeps telling me.

 

This first bothered me when I heard him say it,

and I got angry and offended.

 

Then after marinating on it for a little while,

as I often do...

I realized (painfully) that he was right.

 

My thoughts seem to be all over the place.

 

 

Today makes five days that we have been away from home.

 

Hurricane Isaac entered the gulf and headed our way,

so we decided to take a few days away to visit my dad and step mom as a nice getaway and to flee the oncoming doom of the storm.

 

The storm didn't hit us directly, but the winds and rain knocked out our power and it has been out ever since.

 

No power means no water.

 

No power and no water makes for a cranky little family,

so we opted to stay at my Dad's until our power is restored.

 

Which still,

has not happened.

 

Although I am enjoying the visit with my parents, and they have opened up their home to us as if it were our own...

 

I am out of my element and feel all discombobulated.

 

Hence...I'm just not myself.

 

I even began to make preparations for my own little pity party-party of one,

 being that tomorrow is my birthday and due to the storm...

my previous plans have been cancelled, washed out, blown away with the wind...

you get what I'm saying.

 

So there I was,

ready to stretch out my rubber band on my little pity party hat and tuck it tightly under my chin,

when...

 

I looked to my right and saw my sweet husband sitting on the side of me.

He glanced at me, smiled and grabbed my hand in his squeezing it tightly.

 

I exhaled a huge breath of air and thought to myself,

 

"Oh ye, of little thanks."

 

Yep. That's me.

 

I remembered within those few seconds where I was four years ago almost to the exact day.

The. exact. day.

 

It was August of 2008 and Hurricane Gustav was heading straight for us.

 

My husband and I had separated just four days before.

Our family was divided and broken.

 

I decided to grab the kids, a load of food, their baby pictures, some important papers, a weeks worth of clothes, my dog, and my very broken and confused heart and head to my Dad's house to avoid the storm in the gulf, and in my life.

 

Things were bad, really bad, between my husband and I.

 

The word hate left my lips way more than the word love did those days.

 

 

The day after I arrived at my Dad's house, we packed up and left for Texas to evacuate the storm even further.

 

The next day, the storm hit...on my birthday. 

 I was on my own with my three kids,

 an entire state away from our home,

and desperate to find some sort of peace in my life.

Looking for a Love that didn't cause pain anymore.

 

 

I longed to hear God's voice of direction within the midst of such a huge storm.

Within such a huge mess that had become my life.

 

 

It came...

that Voice. that Peace. that Love.

 

 

And now here I sit,

four years later,

at my Dad's house,

in the aftermath of a hurricane,

the day before my 40th birthday,

with the man that I love.

 

Once again He brings me full circle.

 

Oh how I love this man of mine!
I have so much to be thankful for.

I never imagined I could love him so much.

My companion,

my lover,

my best friend,

my partner,

my husband,
my future.

 

 

These days,

I can't stop telling him "I love you" .

 

And hate,

 is just a bad friend who isn't allowed to visit anymore.

 

 

After pondering all that we've have been through to get to where we are,

and all the places that we have gone together,

 

I realized that it was no coincidence that God had me in the same place I was four years ago,

but this time,

 sitting beside the man of my dreams.

 

It was to remind me where He brought me (us) from.

 

It was to remind me to be thankful even in the midst of a storm.

 

To truly see the blessings around me in spite of the winds that blow from time to time.

 

To realize what really matters.

To see and appreciate, with an open heart,

the little things,

that are actually BIG things.

 

 

I've learned that

God will often bring us to the ruins, so that we can stand in the rubble,

smell the dust around our feet,

and realize as we are standing there...

that we are doing just that,

standing there.

 

And as we are standing in the ruins, that we once knelt down in at our weakest moments,

we can then see from a higher view,

where He planned on taking us in the first place...

 

into victory.

 

 

I'm thankful today to stand in the ruins of what used to be,

and be able to see now where He has brought me from and intended to bring me all along.

 

Take it from me...

Victory is sweet!

 

 

Happy day before my Birthday to me!!

 

 

God is good...oh so good,

and He is so good to me!! 

 

Psalm 34:8
Taste and see that the Lord is good.


 



The perfect Friend.

Let’s be women who no longer compare and compete, but celebrate and complete our friendships…with the unique offering we bring.
~~Renee Swope

I've been blessed in my life with many friends.

Some are constant, some are seasonal, and some are new.

I know the importance of friends.
How their love and closeness can wrap you up in a warm blanket when it seems the cold world is engulfing you.
How the giving and receiving of ones self within the friendship can nourish your soul.


Jesus Himself had friends around Him most of the time,
even though He was the perfect entity of a relationship within Himself.
He knew the importance of friendship...

John 15:12-15
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.



It was my Senior year of highschool, and a group of us stood in a corner of the hallway.
In just a few short days, we would all stand on stage and receive our diplomas.

My long curly haired friend stood holding six little bracelets made of beeds and stretchy rope in her hands.

She handed us each one, as we all looked on intently, tears swelling up within our eyes.

We all placed the bracelets over our hands and around our wrists.

We vowed within that small space in the corner of the hallway to forever be friends joined by one common bond, our love for Christ.

Our smiles lit up that quiet corner.
Time stood still as we clenched our hands together in agreement.

No questions were asked, no doubt spoken.

We knew...
that friends were friends forever if the Lords the Lord of them.


That moment was over two decades ago,
and I can count on one hand how many times I have seen those friends since graduation.

Our lives took roads that didn't necessarily intertwine with one another.

But...
I still have that little beaded bracelet on the stretchy rope.

When I come across it from time to time,
I am reminded of that day and those words and my sweet friends.

I am reminded that He is still Lord of all of us.

I am reminded that we are still friends.

It's not our common grounds that make us friends, or the careers that we have chosen, or the house that we live in, or the way we each parent our children, or the way we speak or live...

it's Him.

He is forever constant in all of us,
because He is that common ground we stand on.

He is that forever Friend.

The perfect Friend.

Our faith does not lie in who we each are, but in who He is.


Too many times,
we put our faith in people.


Then,
when something goes wrong, or we disagree, and hurtful words are spoken,
our worlds come crashing down around us.


We expect perfection from imperfect people.


Sometimes, more often than none...
we expect perfection from ourselves and we allow the disappointment in ourself to keep us from moving forward into a friendship.

This one thing, will stop us from opening up to others and growing in the relationships that God has ordained for us.


Only Jesus gives us never-disappointing, always-fulfilling friendship and support.

I've realized as a woman,
that our worst enemy in friendship is our comparison to one another.
There seems to always be a competition brewing.
Envy and jealousy steal joy from our hearts.
This causes us to give less of ourself than God would have us give.

If we are constantly trying to live up to one of our friends, or act like them, or be who they are,
then we are not being who we are supposed to be, or living out our God destined purpose.


God doesn't want you to be a reflection of your friend or someone else,
He wants you to be You, a reflection of Him.



How boring would it be if we were all the same?
If we spoke the same and reacted the same and had all of the same views and dreams.
It would be like living on a planet of robots...
not living breathing spiritual beings.


We were all created by a perfect Creator in our own perfect way,
bringing our something special and unique into a relationship that needs it.



I want to be comfortable and secure enough in who I am and who I am not,
that I don't hold back on the giving of myself in a friendship.


I want to be that friend who loves at all times,
 encouraging and supporting with my words and my time.


I want to be content in my imperfect relationships...
so that His perfection is all that we see.


I want to be the best friend that I can be,
and leave the rest up to Him.



I found this little list on a blog I read the other day about friendships.
I thought it was appropriate for today's post.

It's a challenge to be a great friend allowing Jesus to shine in and through us.
I am going to do my best to live up to each thing on this list.
I want to take care of those friendships that God has given me, and do it well.

Are you up for it?

A Manifesto for You, Friend

I will be a safe place. I won’t share your confidences.

I will talk about you behind your back, and I will use words that build you up and show you off.

I will defend your reputation rather than contribute to its demise.

I will show humility through encouragement, and do my best to let my actions reflect the way Jesus sees you.

I will allow a united spirit of completion rather than a divisive spirit of competition enter our friendship.

I will pray for you when you ask me to.

I will be accountable and trustworthy ~ my yes is a yes.

I will be for you and not against you, even when what I say may sting a bit.

I will be there to share in both hard and good, to divide the sorrow and double the joy.

I will give your kids extra grace when they are ornery in front of me. And when they are having a moment, the only thought I’ll entertain is it must be your turn for the hard day. Yesterday was mine. And probably tomorrow, too.

I will forgive you when you make a mistake. While I can’t control how you behave towards me, I can control how I behave towards you. And I’ll do my level best to err on the side of grace and love. Because heaven knows I need to receive it as much as I need to give it.

I will bring you chocolate cake, or anything in the chocolate family,  when you are sad or hormonal.

(Okay, that one I added myself.)



If there is something that you would like to add to the list,
please leave it in the comment section below.




God, I thank you for all of the friendships you have allowed me to enjoy, whether they be past, present or future.
Let me see that special gift that each person has and is bringing into my life.
Help me to not hold them responsible for my feelings or worth, for that is a burden not meant for them to bare.
I want to see You and represent Your love in all of my friendships.
May I always be reminded that You alone are the perfect Friend.



Call a friend today and remind them why they are special to you.

Have a blessed day!
.


Beauty in the silence.

Exodus 14:14 (The MSG)
God will fight the battle for you.
And you?
You keep your mouths shut!

It's been an eventful few weeks since the last time I've blogged.

Our house has been all-a-buzz with activity after activity.

Our oldest graduated from her first year of Master's Commission.

Wowzer! 

It amazes me how fast time flies by.

It seems like only yesterday that we moved her out of our house and into her new apartment, and I spent the following two weeks crying like a big ole' sissy.

We are so very proud of her accomplishments this past year!!

She continues to grow into an amazing young woman with a heart to serve God.

Our two youngest have been busy trying to put an end to our first year of homeschooling,

 and I am happy to say that we are rounding the finish line as we speak!

Not to mention,

that we ALL survived our first year and we actually still like one another.

Can I get an AMEN?!!

My two youngest and I just finished an entire week of kid's camp.

Camp Courageous to be exact.

The coolest kid's camp in Louisiana!!

It was my daughter and I's first time working the camp, her as a junior leader and myself in the kitchen serving up a ginormous amount of food to over 400 hungry campers.

By the fourth day...

I couldn't feel my feet.

I just had to trust that they were still there holding me up.

It was a huge blessing for me to be able to watch my 15 year old serve in ministry.

Whether my children become nurses, lawyers or whatever they decide to do,

I pray that they have a heart to serve the Lord!

This past weekend was Father's Day.

It was the kids' and I's time to show their Dad how important of a role he plays within our family.
How much we love and appreciate all that he does for us.

We attended an amazing church service that morning.

Our oldest daughter surprised her Dad by cooking Father's Day dinner for him.

He was one proud poppa!

And I must say,

she did an exceptional job!

She cooked a fajita casserole! It was Yummy!

With all of the activities lately,

it has given us the opportunity to spend alot of time together as a family.

It has been absolutely dreamy!

Having all of my chickadees under one roof is a rare occassion these days,

so anytime I get it,

I make sure to soak it all in,

each sweet ounce!

Throughout all of the busy activity,

God has somehow continued to show Himself to me.

I love how He finds me even in the craziness of life.

How He continues to mold me and shape me into something more beautiful each day.

How He continues to keep me in check,
when my head begins to swell a bit.


There was a certain incident that happened a couple of weeks ago concerning my son.

My son was hurt in an incident involving a neighbor.

It really got to me.

It upset me beyond words...

or so I thought.

I apparently was using many words to describe my frustration and aggravation,

and my little guy was hearing every single word of it.

I ranted on and on.

In my mind,

 I was acting out of defense for my son,

 going on about how wrong the other person was.

I excused my words by thinking I was a good Mom, because I was so upset over it.

I felt that I needed to take a stand against that person.

All the while,

his little ears were being filled with the junk and hatred coming out of my mouth.

The night of the incident, my husband was away at work, so my little guy decided to sleep with me in my bed.

I was lying there fuming in anger and going over and over retaliation in my mind.

My little one softly says,

"Mom, can you hold my hand and pray with me?"

I turned over and grabbed his hand when he said,

"I want to pray for the neighbors Mom, for them to feel the love of Jesus and take Him into their heart."

And there it was...

the words I should have been saying all along.

"for them to feel the love of Jesus"

...instead of my wrath.

I sunk deep within my pillow with shame,
asking God to forgive me for my actions, my words,
and my lack of silence.

Quietly realizing the hurt and slander I was throwing at one of God's own.

My little one would have learned so much more from me,
if only I had chosen to be silent instead of ranting on in anger and my need to be right.

I forget way too often that it is not my job to bring revenge,

or make someone pay,

or to get even with my enemy,

or to be the revealer of their wrongs,
or to voice my complaints towards them,
or even to have the last word in an argument.

It is my job to love them,

just like Jesus loves me.

Just like He loves them.

Just like He asked us all to do...

John 13:34-35

Let me give you a new command: Love one another.  In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples-when they see the love you have for each other.

I hoard mercy and grace from others,

yet I so desperately need it myself.

God doesn't need me to plead my case,

because He already knows what it's all about.

He needs me to trust Him to take care of it and give Love,

even when I don't feel like it,

even when I don't see the change in the other person.

It's not about showing others who I am, or who I'm not...
it's about showing them who He is.

 He is love.

A week or two later,

God placed me in not just one similar situation,
not just two,
but three.

One where my strength and faith would be tested,
one where my faith and "christianity" were attacked,
and one where my integrity and honesty were questioned.

Giving me two choices...

to give mercy and love freely,

or to give my opinionated and defensive words filled with malice.

I could have either let it all spew out and cause more harm than good,

or I could put my hand over my mouth,

bite my lip,

love unconditionally

and let God be God.

I'm not going to say it was an easy task,

because it was not.

But I will say,

silence is wisdom.

And if you give it half a chance,

you will find the beauty in it.

There is beauty in the silence!

Proverbs 14:29 (The MSG)

Slowness to anger makes for deep understanding; a quick-tempered person stockpiles stupidity.

I think way too often that if I just say what is on my mind,

say what I am feeling,
voice my disapproval,

or give my hotheaded opinion,

that I will feel better.

When in reality,

when it's all said and done,

I end up feeling pretty horrible.

I end up being left sitting in my own word vomit,

and smelling pretty stinky.

God has shown me that if I focus on what I can do...like loving people,

and not what I can't do...like judging or attempting to fix them,

I see more results and I feel freedom from the situation.

Maybe it's because when I stop trying to be God,

 I can actually see God.

That's where the beauty is,

in Him!

It's not in me being right,

or getting my point across to the other person,

or attempting to show the world that I am somehow better than them,

or me thinking I know more than them,

or getting the last word in...

it's in loving!

Loving.

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstacy but don't love,

I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day,  and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't have love,

I'm nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't have love,

I've gotten nowhere.

So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have,

Love doesn't strut, doesn't have a swelled head,

doesn't force itself on others,

isn't always "me first",

doesn't fly off the handle,

doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

doesn't revel when others grovel...

takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

puts up with anything,

trusts God always,

always looks for the best,

never looks back,

but keeps going to the end.

Continue to teach me Lord

to give the same grace, love and mercy that you so freely give to me.

Continue to let me see You in the silence.

Love is waiting.

Today is Valentine's Day.

A day to celebrate LOVE.

I could spend the next few minutes typing a blog about how in love I am with my husband and how much he loves me...

or how much I love and feel love when my kids are all around me.

But,

what good would that do for you?

Instead,

I'd like to tell you about a Love that surpasses all of the Love mentioned in the first few sentences.

It surpasses all of the love that you have felt in your entire lifetime on earth.

You see,

over 2,000 years ago, you recieved a Love letter from the One who wanted your heart more than your spouse or your children or your friends have ever wanted it.

That love letter was in the form of a man, Jesus.

A precious Lamb, born of a virgin,

wrapped in swaddling clothes,

slain on the cross,

and resurrected to bring to YOU only what He could...

 

the love of His father.

John 3:16-17

For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

Think about that for a moment...

Has anyone ever loved you that much?

With That LOVE, He brought salvation for you and me.

So that we might live free from our sin and the bondage of terror that it brings.

Don't you want to find freedom?

Don't you want to feel Love that consumes your entire being?

Aren't you tired of searching and running and filling empty, only to come up exhausted?

Did you know that your heart was designed to fit perfectly within His?
That the hole or emptiness that we all long to fill within us, can only be filled by His love, not anything artificial made by man.

That your life, your precious life, was created for His glory.

He is LOVE.

He is Salvation.

He takes you as you are.

He redeems.

He makes new.

He heals.

He fills you up.

He completes you.

He never leaves you.

He LOVES you!

Make this Valentine's Day the most amazing one yet...

surrender to the King of Kings, the lover of your soul, who surrendered it all for YOU.

Love is waiting.

If you have never invited Jesus to come into your life as Lord and Savior,

I invite you to do that today.

Jesus,

I know I'm a sinner and I know that my sin separates me from You,

and I don't want that.

I believe that you died on the cross for my sins then resurrected, so that I may live eternally with You.

I ask you to come into my life and be Lord of my life from this day forward.

Cleanse my life and make me what You would have me to be.

I thank you Jesus for saving me.

If you just said that prayer,

congratulations, you are a new creature in Christ!

Old things are gone, new things are to come!

Happy Valentine's Day!

(Please message me or email me if you prayed the prayer above. I would like to personally congratulate you and hear your story.)

tammy.stelly@yahoo.com