Where I'm At....

Well, I cannot tell a lie...I have spent the last few days trying to catch up on my reading.  I am going to totally blame it on this weather that we are having.  Rainy, wet, a little chilly.  I'm so tired when I go to bed at night and seems like I am tired when I wake up.  Needless to say, I have not stuck with my early morning time with God and I can tell the difference.

One thing that has really jumped out at me so far in this book, is that there are other women out there that struggle with the same things I do.  I am not alone.  I mean, I know I am not alone and that God is always with me, but that I am not alone or isolated in the feelings that I may be having about being a wife, mother, sister, friend, coworker or whatever role I choose to play that day.

  I have a 2 hour commute everyday and let me tell you something, that is an awful lot of time for that darn devil to creep into your thoughts and mess everything up.  Some days he has me so fired up by the time I get home, my poor husband doesn't stand a chance.  At first I thought I was crazy.  I mean, I would actually take a conversation that I had 2 days ago (that I was feeling good about) and by the time I analyzed it and dissected it...Wow!!  That is pretty much all I can say, Wow!!  It was and has been so frustrating for me, but it was nice to read Tracie's take on it and how the same things can and do happen to other women.  In the past week, that has brought me some comfort.  Plus, now I try to fill my commute with GOOD music that makes you sing at the top of your lungs;)

Another wonderful thing that I have learned in this bible study is how to verse map.  Until OBS, I had never even heard of it.  But now, I am like a girl scout selling cookies...I can't get enough of it.  I map a verse, toss it aside and am yelling 'NEXT"...like there is some sort of production line and someone is there to hand me the next one!!  It is crazy, but I love it.

I have had a lot of ups and downs in my life, but in the last 8 weeks I feel like maybe I just might make it.  That maybe I am a lot stronger than I think I am.  I think I knew it all along, I just forgot where to find the strength and to stop trying to do it all by myself. 

Exodus 15:2

The Voice (VOICE)

² The Eternal is my strength and my song,
and He has come to save me;
He is my God, and I will praise Him.
He is the God of my father, and I will exalt Him.

One Word 365 - Whole



I am a little late to this party, but I happened onto a website today called One Word 365.  http://oneword365.com/about/  In a nutshell, you choose one word that will help you live out or shape who you are for that year.  The word may guide your decisions, give you something to reflect on that will challenge you and inspire you for the year.  So, I decided to take this challenge and use the next 6 months to live up to my one word that I have selected.

 

Whole

 

 

The World English Dictionary defines the word as follows:

 

1.	containing all the component parts necessary to form a total; complete

3.	uninjured or undamaged
4.	healthy

8.	in an undivided or unbroken piece

12.

as a whole considered altogether; completely I choose this particular word for this year because I do not feel whole.  I liked the irony of the picture of bread.  Whole Wheat bread with a hole in it.  And amazingly the hole is right where a heart would be (if the bread was a person).  I had BIG changes this year.  I got married.  Moved to a different state and away from my sister and my daughter (who is a Sophomore at Wichita State University).  Our house in Kansas has not sold.  Most all of my belongings are still there and my husband keeps telling me that he doesn't like clutter and is afraid of all the "stuff" that I will be moving into our house in Missouri.  Don't get me wrong...I love my new life, but I am just feeling a tinsy bit unsettled.  Okay, more than a tinsy bit;)  I keep telling myself that when the sale of the house is final and I get everything finalized in Kansas that I will feel a lot better.  I hope this is the case, but for now I am feeling less than whole. I am feeling broken and divided.  With the help of my online bible study buddies, the bible and an awful lot of prayer..I plan on erasing this feeling and I look forward to the end of the year when I can finally say that I feel completely, altogether whole.



Philippians 4:8

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Home

Staring out into the night, trying to hide the pain.
I'm going to the place where love and feeling good don't ever cost a thing.
And the pain you feel is a different kind of pain.

I'm going home to the place where I belong
where your love has always been enough for me
I'm not running from, you know I think you got me all wrong
I don't regret this life I've chose for me
Well these places and these faces are getting old, so I'm going home.

The miles are getting longer it seems, the closer I get to you.
I have not always been the best friend for you, but your love remains true
but I don't know why, you always seem to give me another try.

I'm going home to the place where I belong
where your love has always been enough for me
I'm not running from, you know I think you got me all wrong
I don't regret this life I've chose for me
Well these places and these faces are getting old

Be careful what you wish, cause you just might get it all
you might just get it all and then some you don't want
be careful what you wish, cause you just might get it all
you might just get it all

I'm going home to the place where I belong
where your love has always been enough for me
I'm not running from, you know I think you got me all wrong
I don't regret this life I've chose for me
Well these places and these faces are getting old
So I'm going home.  I'm going home.

Song by Chris Daughtry

Seek First

Matthew 6:33 ~ But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

This weeks verse packs a pretty powerful punch.  When I googled Kingdom of Heaven, do you know only 1 actual thing to do with God popped up.  Most of it was from the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" starring Orlando Bloom (not a bad movie) or of pretty castles, some disney stuff and then for some strange reason, 2 boy scouts reading a map.  Now, if those boy scouts were working on their eagle bagde and actually looking for the Kingdom of Heaven to make some birdhouse or benches, then I guess I have to give Google Images 2 thumbs up;)

I found it ironic that the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven" is found only in the book of Matthew where it occurs 33 times.   Matthew 6:33....hmmmm, interesting.  The biblical definition of the phrase Kingdom of Heaven is where there is the rule of God and is both a present reality and a future hope. 

So as Christians, we need to seek the Kingdom of Heaven in our present, everyday, sometimes mondane lives because one day we know that the future hope of living a life with God will be our reality.  Yes!!  Submerge your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions.  Don't worry about missing out on things, you will find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

The word "things" stuck out at me in this verse.  What did God mean by "things".  Did he mean the yellow VW bug convertible with a smiley face on the hood?  Did he mean the gorgeous house that I had been admiring for years and years?  Did he mean a home by the ocean?  Did he mean jewelry?  Did he mean a room full of quilting fabric (the one with the most fabric wins).   No, by "things" God meant, the deepest desires of our heart, the center of all human spirit.  God knows what is in our hearts.  He created us in the likeness of Him to one day fill his kingdom with us all.

Luke 6:38 ~ Give and it shall be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.  For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

So my dear friends, if you give away your life; you'll find life given back to you.  Not just merely given back but given back with bonus and with blessings.  Giving NOT Getting, is the way to God's Kingdom.

I'm a BiG girl ! ? ! ?

Titles can be deceiving.  Take the one above.  Even though I am fun-sized, I would not consider myself to be a BiG girl.  But my outward appearance isn't what I am talking about in this post.  It is my inward appearance, and how I am, without a reasonable doubt, not ever going to grow up.  For some circumstances, not growing up can be a good thing.  I am a free spirit and I will try anything once, even if it makes me look silly.  I love to be silly.  I love to make people laugh.  I find it a huge accomplishment when you can get an old grumpy Gus to laugh out loud, or to get someone you love very much to wet their pants...just a little bit :) 

I have had some experiences in my life that I feel made me who I am today.  At the age of 11, I lost my sister Kathy to leukemia.  She was 16 years old.  I didn't find out until years later, that one single event changed our family dynamic forever.  Having a child of my own, I cannot imagine the pain that my parents felt in losing that child.  Yet, they persevered.  They held tight to one another and held tight to God.

My teenage years were probably not the best years of my life.  I was a great athlete.  I ran track and played basketball and received many honors for both.  I was popular and was up for Homecoming Queen.  But as I transitioned into college, I was always looking for something else.  I turned to alcohol, drugs, sex and whatever else could numb the pain that I didn't realize was crippling me.  I turned away from God and I rarely went to church for 6 years.  But yet, during that time, God found the time to bless me with a young man that I would eventually marry.  My life took a turn and I felt alive and happy.

As my life has progressed thru the years, I have had some incredible highs and some incredible lows, but I have always tried to remain in my faith.  I know that God answers prayers because I have seen it myself.  My Mother, Father, Sister and Brother-In-Law have the most incredible faith and are not afraid to share it.  I am so grateful that the past 6 years I was able to attend a church called Risen Savior Lutheran and that I continued to grow my faith and love for God there.  I got to stand back and watch my daughter grow her faith at this church also and even though I want to remain humble, I did (we all did)  raise her up in the way that she should go and she has turned into a beautiful young woman.

  This online bible study has done wonders for me.  I am venturing into new ways to grow my faith and my knowledge of the bible and I have loved every minute of it. I am blogging, verse mapping, sharing personal stories with others, sharing music and fun quotes on face book.  This study has filled an empty hole in my heart,

and I am so grateful. 

 So the question is still posed, Am I a BiG Girl? Not even close, but when it comes to my faith...I'm getting there.

Plugged in.....

In the middle of my 8th grade year, my family moved from Maize, Kansas to Winfield, Kansas.  My Dad had the opportunity to buy or work his way into part ownership in a grocery store.  Some dear friends of ours owned the grocery store and Dad was really excited to be a part of it.  I was excited because I loved Winfield and my best friend, Susan lived there.

Even though we were Lutheran and attended the Lutheran Church in Winfield, for some reason that I cannot recall, we decided to go to church with my friend Susan and her family at the Methodist Church.  On our way back home from church that morning, I told my friend Susan "I wish we went to your church, I know more people and have more friends there than our church."  We got dropped off at our house, said our good-byes and then my Mom turned to me and said "WE DON'T GO TO CHURCH TO MAKE FRIENDS!"  Well, I was dumbfounded.  I didn't know what to say or what to think.  I went to my room to change my clothes for the day and the only thing I could think about doing was singing "What a friend we have in Jesus", with the emphasis heavily played on the word friend.  You know, I was a snot nosed 14 year old and I didn't understand what my Mom was trying to tell me.

It wasn't until much later in life when I realized what she actually meant.  We go to church to be plugged in to God.  To be plugged in to the worship and the music.  To be plugged in to His word.  To be plugged in to who He is calling us to be and to be plugged in to His direction of witnessing to others.  We don't go to church to make friends, but we go to church to make friends in Christ.  There is a purpose that they are put into our lives, whether it be to help guide us in our faith walk or to just be the influence that we need the most.  Sometimes it is to comfort us in our time of need when we lose a loved one or when we feel nothing but despair and wonder how we will ever get through it.  Christ puts these friends in our lives.  If we go to church, just because we want to make some friends, we are missing the bigger picture.

I am currently searching for a church home and am having difficulty in doing so.  Born and raised Lutheran-Missouri Synod, I want to stay in this denomination, but am not finding a church that makes me feel like I really belong there.  Melissa Taylor's Online Bible Study has filled a void that I was missing these last few months.  I have made some wonderful friends in Christ within our small facebook group and am looking forward to many more friends in Christ.  For now, I remain plugged in and open to the door that God will reveal to me in due time.

Power Surge

At the end of 2007, I started dating a very special man.  He was kind, gentle, loving and told it like it was.  Which is what I really needed at the time.  We had so much in common but the only problem was that he lived 250 miles away.  No, we didn't meet online (not that anything is wrong with that) we had known each other through our workplaces for a lot of years.  What started out as a friendship, blossomed into the love that we share today.

After my daughter completed high school in 2012 and was on her merry way to college, I began to transition myself from being a single mom to being a married woman.  I had to move to another state, quit my job, put my house up for sale, leave my daughter and my sister behind, not to mention my independence.  I had a great job, although I did hate it and was stressed more times than not, it provided me with a car and free gas.  Looking back I think that was the only string holding me to that job for 4 years.  So needless to say, when I moved to begin my new life with my new husband, I had failed to find a job and I had no car.

Luckily, my husband had another vehicle so we had that going for us but still no job.  Now, keep in mind that I had been aggressively looking for a job since July 2012.  Knowing how wonderful of an employee that I am; hard-working, smart, dependable, reliable and humble, I just knew that I would have a job before I ever moved.  Well that wasn't the case and it ate at me everyday.

I had been on several 2nd, 3rd and even 4th interviews in some cases just knowing that I was going to get that job.  Only to be disappointed and not given the job.  Needless to say, it put a lot of strain on my husband and myself in these first 3 weeks of living together as husband and wife.

Finally, one day I received a call from the staffing agency that I had been applying through and they had an interview for me.  It was about 8:15am when they called me and the interview was going to be at 1:00pm.  I had plenty of time to get ready so that I could knock their socks off.  And by getting ready I meant showering, blow drying my hair, curling it so that it looked professional and make-up that would pop my hazel eyes.  Who could resist me huh?  As I sat on the couch that morning drinking my coffee, I began getting more and more frustrated and depressed that I hadn't found a job yet.  What was wrong with me?  Why hadn't I finished college?  Am I not as great of an employee as I think I am?  All that self doubt just pounding away at my brain, making me feel worse than I already did.

When I got out of the shower that morning and was wiping away the steam off of the mirror, I remember thinking to myself....I'm wiping away this steam and all this self-doubt is going with it.  As I stared at myself in the mirror I decided that there wasn't going to be a blow dry session today.  I was going to put my hair up in a bun.  There was only going to be natural looking make-up today and maybe just a hint of lip gloss.  I was even going to wear my glasses (which I think makes me look old).  As I continued to get ready a sense of calm came over me and I actually started to feel joy.  As I took one last look I said out loud "Don't sweat this interview!  Someone will see you for the real prize that you are."

I arrived at my interview more calm than I think I had been for the past 6 months.  I sat down with a wonderful gentleman and we began discussing the job and it's requirements.  I answered the standard questions and then something miraculous happened.  He set his pen down and said me "Describe your value or belief system."  Dumbfounded, I just began having diarrhea of the mouth.  I talked about my faith and where it came from in my life.  I talked about experiences I had as a child with losing a sibling to cancer.  I talked about what I didn't like about past jobs and bosses.  But mostly, I was amazed at how I shared my love for the Lord.  Any other setting I would not have been able to do that.  A ginormous X would have been placed over my resume and application.  But here, in this tiny little office of 5 people, I could be myself and somebody saw me for the prize that I am.

I got the job;)

Transformed

Verse Mapping!!  I can't get enough of it.  This is the first time in my life that I have ever done this.  Why have I not heard about this before or if someone taught it....why didn't I attend the class or pay attention?  Better yet, this should be Lutheran 101;)

This week we studied Romans 12:2.  Although I used my standard NIV bible, I have really enjoyed Biblegateway.com to bring some insight to other versions.  The versions that I am ranting and raving about these last 4 weeks are "The Voice" and "The Message".  Both versions put it in simple terms that anyone can understand.  Well, that I can understand.  Don't get me wrong...I love my NIV, but there are times when you just want the words on the page to really speak to you, and this week they did.

The Voice ~ Romans 12:2
Do not allow this world to mold you in its own image. Instead, be transformed from the inside out by renewing your mind. As a result, you will be able to discern what God wills and whatever God finds good, pleasing, and complete.

Transformation is a process, not a single event.  In our society today, we all want the quick fix.  Instantaneous gratification.  God's want us for the duration - long-term, just not for the moment.  We have to be willing to go through the process with Him and for Him.  Only then will we be able to transform.

The Message ~ Romans 12:1-2
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

We have been taught that God formed us in the womb.  He knew exactly what he wanted from us as human beings.  He gave us free will to make our own choices but only to be used in that which would lead to moral & spiritual growth.  In the NIV version it states "His perfect will" meaning that no improvements can be made on the will of God.  It is perfect.

From today forward I will not conform to the evil and corruption of this world.  I will embrace what God has done for me so that I can begin to transform from the inside out.