simply amazed...

"Lord, I'm amazed by You..." is running through my head this morning. I'm just simply amazed at the obvious Hand of God on my life this week...

1) I pretty much walked into a new job without even realizing it. Amazing!
2) I thought I was going to be an assistant table leader and ended up being the leader (while taking a Leadership class at school and participating in Leadership breakfasts... I think He wants me to be a Leader!)... Amazing!
3) He sat me at a table of women where one woman is walking through the grief of loosing a child... Amazing! I wept last night at His Great Love for us.
4) He gives me a new Beth Moore study which currently is reminding me of how God provides for His people in some pretty amazing and astounding ways... and then shows me with personal examples. Amazing!
5) How I started school with one goal in mind and He has redirected my steps to follow His plan for my life... even though I'm not really sure what that will look like in 2 years... but I know He does and He is definitely leading & guiding me!
6) How He allowed me a moment to hug a woman walking the path of "overwhelmed" like I was last year and I could truly say I understood how she felt!
7) I'm just amazed at how He shows me on a daily basis... how much He loves me.

Amazing!

lions and tigers...

This morning, in the early morning hours, I had a dream. Three times. Each time was a continuation and progression of the last. I haven't had anything like that happen and I especially haven't had a dream in a long time that I remembered and saw this clearly. I feel like I'm supposed to write this out here... hopefully I can make this entry shorter than what I wrote in my journal when I first woke up! :)

The first dream, I was inside a room of a cabin-like structure. I went to the door and looked out to see a white tiger coming towards my door. I closed the door but it was just a little half door and the latch was a hook. As I did this, the tiger put its paw on top of the door. I woke up but didn't really feel afraid. The words white siberian tiger came to me and I went back to sleep.

The second dream I was in this same room but this time I was leaning outside and looking out below me to all these kids and trees. I was telling the kids to use the front doors of their cabins and not to play in the back because of the tiger. They heard the word tiger and screamed and started running. Of course with all the commotion, the tiger chased some of the kids away and started to come towards my door. This time I closed a more normal looking door and there was an inside door that I closed and tried to lock. I woke up to hear the scripture, "the devil is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour" and then I went back to sleep.

The third time I was outside the cabin and I was walking up steps to a side door. When I reached the door I saw it was covered in spider webs, the thick, strong type. Ew. I asked the person behind me to get me a stick or a board so I could knock them down and we could go inside. With that, I heard the tiger jump on the deck. I looked up and saw the tiger on the deck up above me and in the same instant, we saw each other. With that, he jumped down through the deck at me. It was like he was going for my neck. I pressed my head to my shoulder and pinned his head to the ground. I didn't feel like he made contact but I had him pinned. With that I woke up... and my head was bent tightly to my shoulder.

When I woke up I felt I should come out and write the dreams out. I got up and put my glasses on and started toward the door but then went and laid back down. But I kept feeling like I should get up.

As I was typing away... I looked up the tiger. White Siberian tigers are very rare and very powerful. They're quiet and able to sneak up on their prey. I learned the attack the nerve at the spinal cord so the prey has a painless death.

The scripture is found in 1 Peter 5:8 but when I looked it up in my Bible, I wrote out the verses around that. Verses 7-9 say:

"Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are."

What I got from all of this is that as we focus on our worries and our cares... it keeps us open and vulnerable to the attack of the enemy. When we turn them over to God, we are better able to stand firm against him by staying strong in our faith. We trust and rely on God and He is our protection. In my third dream, the deck covered me but somehow there was an opening that he could break through.

I feel like this is a prompting... to draw even closer to the Lord... to remember to turn all my worries and cares over to Him so that I can stay strong in my faith and not waver. Every morning I wake up with a song going through my head. This was the song this morning after the third dream (hopefully the link works):

Closer by Shawn McDonald

thanks...

"Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim His greatness.

Let the whole world know what He has done."

(Psalm 105:1 NLT)

This morning I am giving thanks... 1) Because the verse at the end of the devotional I just read had this verse so it was God's voice to me telling me to share... and 2) because my heart is overflowing this morning with thankfulness and I just have to share!

Two of my dear friends from church blessed me with the wonderful experience of attending the Women of Faith conference here in Omaha over the last two days and... it was amazing! There are so many things that God spoke to my heart through the voices and stories of the wonderful ladies who spoke. As I sat and listened to their stories, their hearts, their voices... it was like sitting and having coffee with them... learning more about them... and seeing that their lives are like mine... broken. The difference I saw was they were using their broken life stories to share about how the grace and strength of God had picked them up, put those pieces together and "made something beautiful for His love to shine through."

So this is me... applying the verse God dropped in my heart this morning... giving thanks and proclaiming HIS greatness... He has taken my brokenness and He is putting all those little pieces together to make something beautiful for His Light to shine through!! He has brought healing to my hurting, rejected, broken heart and is making me NEW!! He is using those hard places in life to make me stronger and to help me lean on and rely on Him... a little more than I did yesterday!

God is GREAT and He has touched my heart!!

morning revelations...

So much to share this morning... I apologize in advance for the length of this post! :)

I woke up this morning with thoughts of a conversation I need to have and the fears that were rolling around in my head about dealing with a situation (well... a few different conversations & situations). I have been playing the "what if" game... what if they get mad.... what if they reject me... what if we're not friends any more... what if I'm backed into a corner and I can't find my way out... what if... I can feel in my spirit I need to have these conversations and yet... I've been afraid and not sure how to deal with these fears. So I got up and went for a walk since I knew I wasn't going to be going back to sleep.

As I was walking I heard God speak to my heart... "You can play the "what if" game for the rest of your life and remain in bondage or you can take this step and be obedient and begin walking in freedom." It was a pretty powerful moment... I've missed my morning walks! :)

And then... when I got home I picked up the Made to Crave book to work on the reflection questions. Immediately when I did I felt like I was supposed to re-read the chapter I read a few days ago. I have been feeling frustrated that the scale sure doesn't seem to be moving in the downward direction very fast. Last night though God helped me see the gradual progress is still progress. Anyway... When I went to the chapter to re-read it I found this title.. "I'm Not Defined by the Numbers"... and I chuckled at God. His timing is just so... perfect. It made me smile.

There was so much that spoke to my heart in this chapter... I'll refrain from sharing everything but... this part was just powerful to me:

• God's divine power has given us everything we need to experience victory in our struggles.
• We are to reflect a divine nature - a secure identity in Christ - which helps us escape the corruption of the world and avoid evil [sinful] desires.
• It is through biblical promises that we find the courage to deny unhealthy desires.
• Getting healthy is not just about having faith, goodness, and knowledge. We have to add to that foundation by choosing to be self-controlled and choosing to persevere even when the journey gets really hard.
• These qualities keep us from being ineffective and unproductive in our pursuit of healthy eating and, even more importantly, in our pursuit of growing closer to God.
• If we make the choice to be Jesus girls who offer our willingness to exercise self-control and perseverance to the glory of God, we can lose weight, get healthy, and walk in confidence that it is possible to escape the cycle of losing and gaining back again. We can be victorious. We can step on the scale and except the numbers for what they are - an indication of how much our body weighs - and not an indication of our worth.

But then... there was just a little bit more! She writes:

"My classmate's inadvertent statement was not life and it was not godly. Therefore, I didn't have to internalize it. I could leave it on the gym floor and walk away. That statement didn't belong to me. That statement wasn't my issue. I had a choice to make. I could feed that comment and let it grow into an identity crusher; or I could see it for what it was, a careless comment."

"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5)

"We can literally say to a comment or a thought that presents itself to us, "Are you true? Are you beneficial? Are you necessary?" And if the answer is no, then we don't open the door of our heart. We make the choice to walk away from the comment and all the negative thoughts it could harvest if we let it in."

I've heard and read this scripture many times but this morning... these words just jumped at me. I have been asking God how I can stop reacting to things out of the scars of the past... how do I respond in a way that displays growth and letting go of the past? And this morning... He gave me the answers through Truth that spoke deeply to my heart.

The things I encountered in my past... the words that were spoken to my little girl heart... they weren't words of life and they weren't godly... those words weren't true then and they aren't true now. They were careless comments made from people where were insecure. Those words... those situations are not beneficial... they weren't then and they certainly aren't now! I hereby make the choice to leave them on the "gym floor" and walk away! No longer will those words and their actions hold me in bondage!

Wow... Thanks God!! :)

letting go...

Saturday, a friend & I were chatting over coffee. I had been sharing how angry I was over a situation that had arisen in class last week. I was angry about an assignment we had to do and in essence I felt like I was having to defend my faith and I felt like the instructor was making GOD look bad. My sister felt my anger stemmed from when I was a child and an attempt to witness to a couple of friends went bad. All this anger & defensiveness rose up in me as an adult that I wasn't able to express as a child. My friend very gently told me that I should let go...

Tuesday I saw a counselor and talked about this whole situation and she explained to me about how our minds imagine situations which may or may not happen and it's as if we are prepared to react before those situations arise....

So basically... I was holding onto a lie... a lie that I needed to defend GOD who doesn't need defending... a lie that I would be attacked again like I was when I was little... a lie that I would be backed into a corner, unable to get out. None of those things happened but my mind and body were prepared for the attack... to the point where I physically ached for a couple of days afterwards.

This scripture has been going through my head since then:

"The poor, deluded fool feeds on ashes. He trusts something that can't help him at all. Yet he cannot bring himself to ask, "Is this idol that I'm holding in my hand a lie?" (Isaiah 44:20)

Today as I was waiting for class to begin I read this from a devotional:

I have a Great Work to Do

(Overcoming being offended)

"Sanballat & Geshen sent to me, saying, 'Come, let us meet together... in the plain of Ono.' But they thought to do me harm. So I sent messengers to them; saying, 'I am doing a great work so that I should not come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?'" (Neh. 6:2-3)

"Our adversary is constantly inviting us to meet with him in the valleys of "Ono". One of the things he want to talk with us about is how we are justified in being offended by the actions of others. Being offended meant that we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. All of us will experience things like these. It is important, however, to realize that the mistreatment itself does not cause the offense; but we choose to be offended when we place more value on protecting ourselves than for the call we have and the assignment we have been given."

"...being easily offended causes a "going down" from the high place of God."

"Do you sense God has given you a great assignment to devote yourself to? If you don't, you will be tempted to go to the valley of Ono to dwell on offense rather than on God's vision for your life."

Choosing to be offended... means choosing to hold onto the lie. It's protecting myself against what "might" happen (which is a lie) rather than focusing on the call God has placed on my life (the Truth).

I read a little more of this story in Nehemiah and after several attempts of trying to get Nehemiah to come down to them ... to the point of threatening him even... he replied with, "There is no truth in any part of your story. You are making up the whole thing."

I don't want to hold onto the offenses of the past any longer. I don't want to listen to the lies the enemy whispers in my ears in the valley of Ono any longer. There is no truth in what the enemy says to me! I want to instead focus on the Truth of God's Word and listen to the Words He whispers to me... don't be afraid... I'm right here with you. I will protect you. There's no need to be offended because I will deal with them in My time. Keep your eyes focused on me and do the work I have called you to.

So here I am... letting go of the anger... the fear... the offenses of the past and I turn my eyes toward You Lord and the "Great Work" You have set before me.

great reminder...

wow... this just made my day!

First... "Even in our weaknesses, the Father delights in giving grace (divine enablement), so we can experience the abundant life."

Then:

I don't have to be perfect

(overcoming chronic unworthiness)

"The next time you feel like God can't use you, just remember that...

Abraham was too old

Isaac was a daydreamer

Jacob was a liar

Joseph was abused

Moses had a stuttering problem

Gideon was afraid

Rahab was a prostitute

Jeremiah & Timothy were too young

David had an affair and was a murderer

Elijah was suicidal

Jonah ran from God

Naomi was a widow

Job went bankrupt

Peter denied Christ (3 times!)

The disciples fell asleep while praying

Martha worried about everything

The Samaritan woman was divorced (more than once)

Zaccheus was too small

Paul was too religious

Timothy had an ulcer...

AND... Lazarus was dead!

A poor background [or bad choices] does not disqualify us from a great future or to be used of God powerfully. Everything can change today. Obviously we want to move out of dysfunctional behavior, but praise God, we rejoice in knowing there is hope for all!"

~ taken from Victorious Mindsets by Steve Backlund

Praise God there is Hope for me yet!! I'm so thankful for His love and grace and the fact that His mercies are NEW EVERY morning!!

one of "those" days....

This morning I woke up with a killer headache and was so sore and stiff. Not a good way to start the day. I had class at 9:00 and I think that was part of the problem... I went to bed a little cranky about the assignment that was due today. Basically I was feeling like I was going to have to defend my beliefs and faith in God. First, I'm not a fan of debating how I feel with someone and second... it would be with other people around. I think inside my spirit was stressed and that was the reason behind waking up the way I did. Well... it set me in kind of a cranky mood from the beginning... not a good way to start the day... unfortunately the headache and soreness stuck with me throughout the day.

When I went into work the headache was still lingering and one of the managers could tell something was up by the look on my face. She told me I could leave early so I was thankful when the time came that I could leave.

Now here's the deal... when I was on my way home I had the urge to get some ice cream. It seems to be my current "feel better" treat. I've been asking God to help me with my food issues... to show me when I'm about to cave in "I'm made for more" ... and to make me aware of my triggers. As I was on my way up the hill to McD's to get some ice cream I heard His whisper say, "You were made for more." Just like Lysa had talked about in MTC (Made to Crave). And as I was turning the corner I responded in my heart, "... but I really just want some ice cream and some down time." After I went through the drive-thru I sat in the parking lot and began to eat my ice cream. I pulled out a little devotional book I have in my purse and... it's just like God to do this... my book-marked spot opened to this:

There is a Way

(Overcoming hopelessness and mediocrity)

"No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape...." (1 Corinthians 10:13)

I was convicted as I read these words.

The devotional went on to talk about how "God has a way to get you from disaster into the blessing of His will.... there is also a way to get out of the temptation to stay mediocre or average in life or ministry."

I realized as I was reading this that I had disregarded the whisper of the Holy Spirit... I had disregarded the way of escape He had provided for me... I had chosen instead to stay in mediocrity... I had blatantly chosen to what I desired over choosing to walk in victory.

As I sat and pondered on these words and on my actions... I realized I had pacified my pent up anger and frustrations of the day with ice cream rather than seeking Him first. I had chosen to get the ice cream first. Maybe if I would have listened to His voice and seen the way of escape ahead of time... if I would have chosen to read the devotional BEFORE getting the ice cream... I could have stepped beyond mediocre and average into the blessing of victory.

I repented... and was truly sorry for not listening to His voice. He paralleled it with when I tell my thoughts to one of my kids and they choose to do what they want instead... I feel disappointed. I knew that I had disappointed my Father... but then... I felt His love and grace. Just like I still love my kids even when they don't listen... I knew in that moment He still loves me.

Once again.... Lord, please forgive me for giving into my flesh and choosing the mediocre way instead of the better way. Please forgive me for not taking Your way of escape. Thank You for loving me and for Your gentle discipline. May I remember this the next time I hear You whisper... "you are made for more" and may I willingly choose Your way of escape instead of my own selfish way.