Multitude Monday (or Tuesday, as the case may be)

Is there a better time to stop and count the blessings? When overwhelmed by stress, when struggling with patience and accepting God’s will. Lord turn my heart to you as I reflect on your endless blessings.


#1 ~ Warm home with season’s colors

#2 ~ Beauty in candlelight

#3 ~ Comfort of Mama-made warmth

#4 ~ Joy of planning birthday celebration with a friend

#5 ~ Loud purrings in a pile of laundry

#6 ~ Beauty even in the midst of work

#7 ~ The warmth of his hand

#8 ~ Love and thoughts from states away

#9 ~ Being able to share His Word in a moment

Staying on task...

The to-do list floats in my head, one above the rest “write out your list, get an idea for today, for this week that is already half over.”

Phone rings.

Email dings.

I continue to pididdle around, avoid what I need to do.

Oh look! Another update…

Ignore the clock ticking away.

Read the rest on Blissfully Domestic...

The challenge of gratitude

If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness
and all perfection, he must tell you to
make a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything
that happens to you.

It is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you,
if you thank and praise God for it,
you turn it into a blessing.

If you could work miracles,
therefore, you could not do more for yourself
than by this thankful spirit.

It heals and turns all that it touches into happiness."

~ William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

Oh how I struggle with this… It is so hard for me to let go of the ‘what if’s?” so easy to follow rabbit trails in my mind until I’m exhausted and worn out, so sure that this cannot be a good thing.

Yesterday morning my car broke down and I could not bring it to life again. This car is our only car, in an area where mass transportation is expensive, time consuming and unreliable. I know very well the limits we have financially, how little we have to fix it with. When I look down the roads of what if’s… I only see stress and backwards financial steps. How can I thank God for what feels like a cruel joke?

But our God does not deal in cruel jokes, He is not vindictive, He does not delight in our discomfort. But He does not make the way smooth, for that would be to my detriment. If I wish to follow Him, to go higher up and further in, I must be willing to stumble and climb. If I wish to truly trust Him, then I have to let myself be in positions to make that choice. So, I will praise Him and thank Him, even in this small storm.

Thank you Lord for getting me to work this week.
Thank you Father for the kind man who moved my car out of the way of traffic.
Thank you for the tow truck to take our car where it may be worked on.
Thank you that it broke down before I got on the freeway.
Thank you for sending a brother we can trust to work on the car.
Thank you for dear friends willing to go our of their way to help.
And thank you for whatever you are doing that requires this.

No matter what happens now, no matter if the car is fixed tonight, sometime this week, or not at all. I will trust you, no matter the circumstance.

You are my Redeemer, my Savior, my Prince of Peace and I will be still and wait on You and You alone.

Fighting back lies...

I’ve always had an internal battle going on in my head. I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a small voice taunting me, poking me, telling me I’m not good enough, that I’ll never get it right, that I’ll always fail, that I’m not worth loving, etc. etc. etc. It was a normal part of my life, I never considered that life could be different. During the ‘mountain-tops’ of my walk it would be rare, but in the ‘valleys’ I would feel overwhelmed by the voice, unable to defend my heart or my mind from it’s attacks, taking them in and letting them wound and bruise my heart. I would hesitate to fight for myself, I felt like I didn't know how.

One late night during my freshman year at college I was the only one to help a friend through as she was attacked by those very same lies that simmered in the back of my own mind. As we sat in the courtyard, God reminded me of all His promises, His truths about our identities and I fought for her heart, I fought with all I had to wrap her up in the beautiful tapestry of God’s truth about her. Verses that I had forgotten I knew came to the front of my mind and became my weapon for fighting back each lie. Using God’s word as a sword had sounded so cliché to a girl who grew up in the church… but that night I learned how true it is. Each verse, each passage, each story is a testimony of Truth, God’s Truth, the only true weapon or defense you can have against the lies of the Enemy.

Though I still am far from having verse upon verse memorized, surrounding myself with His Word, making it a part of my daily life has greatly changed my life. I still know that voice, am familiar with it’s lies but now I recognize it for what it is; an attack to hold me back, to keep me from clinging to Truth, to my Redeemer and His love for me. The most effective shield I have found is hiding in the knowledge of who my Redeemer is, clinging to the knowledge that my God is ever faithful (Gen. 17:7, Isaiah 26:4), always loving (Exodus 15:13, 1 Chron. 16:34), never changing (Num. 23:19, Job 23:13, Psalm 33:11), gracious (Exodus 34:6), all powerful (Exodus 15:11, Job 42:2, Matt. 19:26). If I can trust in this God, who is all these things and chose to love me and save me, no lie can nestle its way into my heart.

Study our wonderful Redeemer with me? The Psalms are a great place to start. Let His Word protect your heart, “for it is the wellspring of life” (Prov. 4:23).