LACED WITH GRACE....moving day!

Today you can find me over at LACED WITH GRACE where I have shared a devotion entitled, "Moving Day"! ...

"If you have ever moved from one house to another, you know how much work it is. This past summer we helped two of our sons move on two different occasions. We have lived in our current house for nearly 20 years and I had actually forgotten just how much work moving could be. The thing about moving is that almost everything needs to be boxed up. Not only boxed up but then when you get to the new place, unboxed. It is quite the work to figure out what is what and where it all belongs. If you don’t label the boxes, it could take days to figure it out. One of the things that I noticed about our moving adventures this past summer is that some of the boxes we moved came out of the storage area. To be quite honest, I think some of these boxes had not been opened since the last move. Isn’t that just like us to just move things from one place to another?" ...

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THANKFUL THURSDAY...burying the bone!

We have 3 dogs. We have a large dog (a black mixed lab), a medium sized dog (a beagle) and a small dog (a silky terrier). As you can imagine they all compete with each other over everything. If we pet one...we have to pet all of them. If we feed one...we have to feed all of them. When we give them a treat....you guessed it, we give all of them one.

I love watching the dogs when we give them treats, each one does something different. The large one inhales it in one breath, the medium sized dog sniffs it first and then very gingerly enjoys her treat but the small one, she is the funny one. What she does with her treat is rather smart - she doesn't smell it, she doesn't inhale it, in fact what she does is she takes it and goes and buries it!

The problem is she really isn't burying it. She takes it and places on the floor in the corner of the family room, takes her nose and acts like she is burying it and then she sits and guards her treat. If one of the other dogs come near it, she "digs" it up and places it somewhere else. Except the whole while her treat is in complete view of everyone. It really isn't buried at all.

We laugh but isn't that exactly what we do sometimes?

We try to bury some things that don't need to be in our lives, the only problem is we just go thru the motions of burying it. The act of burying it sometimes isn't enough. When we just attempt to bury something but make no changes in our life, then it is still in the wide open for all to see, just like my little doggie does.

We can think that those burdens are buried, but in reality, they are still very much visible in our life. Not only to us but to others as well.

Many of us have "bones" in our life that we are guarding. We think if we could just keep it all to ourselves, nobody will see our "secret" place. The bones that we try to hide are things like emotional hurts, financial troubles, mourning of a lost loved one, loneliness, depression, and sometimes even sin.

If we are not careful, we can become like my little silky terrier and become consumed with our treats (our bones) (our burdens). We miss out on the joy because our "bones" have us so worried and fretful.

"Come to Me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest...for My yoke is easy and my burden light." MATTHEW 11,28,30

What a great encouragement to know that instead of focusing on my bones (my problems), I can focus on Him and He will give me peace. I am so thankful for His rest and His peace!

Do you have some bones that need to get buried? Completely buried!

IRIS is hosting THANKFUL THURSDAY this week. Please share your grateful heart with us over there today. Next week we will meet at Lynn's place for the month of October. What an awesome blessing to see so many thankful hearts...join us, won't you?

A PIECE OF MY HEART...changing my perspective

I have always heard the age old question..."Is the glass half empty or half full?" I usually saw it as half full, but yet many of you probably saw it different. You may have saw it half empty.

Which is right?

I don't know that either one is right or wrong. It is just different.

I think many times we encounter things and even people, that have different perspectives than we do. Its not that their way is right or wrong...it is just different.

Often times, when we come across situations that cause differences of opinion, we look at it like strife or condemnation. We might even take on a judgemental attitude of judging the motives of others rather than looking at it like the glass illustration. Having differences of opinion is not wrong but how we handle those differences is what gets us in trouble most of the time.

I am a peacemaker. I struggle with people who run from making peace. The "it's my way or the highway" mentality just doesn't cut it in the Kingdom of God, this should never be our attitude. We are on the same team. If we cannot get along down here, how are we going to walk the streets of gold up there arm in arm?

It is amazing to me how two people can look at the same cloud in the sky but yet see something different. One sees a sheep, while the other sees an angel flapping its wings. It really just depends on their perspective, I guess. Once you point out that you see a sheep in the clouds, the other might change positions and then they too can see what the other saw...a sheep! What changed? Their perspective!

But we have to be willing. It is not pleasing to God to have his children quarrelling, disagreeing and just not on the same page with each other.

"If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." Romans 12:18

Is your thinking so rigid that all you can see is a half empty glass? It just might be time to ask God to help you change your perspective..I am asking Him to help me see things like He sees things. Differently.

And this has been a piece of my heart today;

Meet me at the church!

At the young age of 17, her best friend asked her to meet him at the church. It was there that he took her hand and made a promise to love, honor and adore her for the rest of his days. That was 30 years ago and so far that promise has not been broken.

That 17 year old young girl was me, and my best friend is still my best friend after all of these years except now I also call him husband and father of our children.

30 years of marriage bliss. I know what you are thinking, 30 years of love, adoration and honor sounds almost too good to be true. It sounds like a fairy tale. I guess in a sort, it has been a fairy tale, except in my real life fairy tale, everything isn't always perfect.

Perfect isn't always what it is cracked up to be. After all, if things were always perfect, there would be nothing to work at or improve. Right? See, this might explain the high rate of divorce in our society. People are looking for a fairy tale that is perfect and if that is not what they get, they bail out. Instead of adhering to the godly principle for marriage as we see in the book of Genesis, society has given us excuses to break away from God's divine plan for man and woman...

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called ‘woman’, for she was taken out of man." (Genesis 2:18-25)

I like what Matthew Henry has to say about this... "Not made out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved."

Matthew Henry in such an eloquent way summed up exactly what makes a marriage last 30 years and more. It not only takes love, honor and adoration but it also takes faithfulness, commitment and making good choices. The first and most important chose in marriage to ensure its longevity is choosing to put God at the head of your marriage.

When you combine all of these ingredients, your marriage can most certainly be fulfilling and even though not all of your days will be perfect, I can promise you it will be a beautiful fairy tale with a prince (your hubby) and a princess (you) and a King (God). Living happily ever after!

 

Happy Anniversary to my prince.

He is not only my rib but my life!

Beware .. Snakes present!

Earlier today, as my husband worked out in the back yard, he found a snake. It was slithering in the grass and because of the camouflage color of its skin it was almost difficult to recognize.

Once my husband spotted it, he was able to pick it up and while I was inside the house, I could still hear him hollering, "I caught a snake!" He wanted to show it to me and my daughter. Of course we weren't as interested in it as he was. He wasn't sure what kind of snake it was, so he found a container to put it in. I asked him why he just didn't kill it? He said, "I'm not gonna kill it until I find out what kind it is. If it is not poisonous, there is no reason to kill it."

I guess I see his reasoning. My reasoning would be different. It's a snake. In my yard. I don't like snakes. Kill it!

The Bible refers to the enemy as a serpent. A snake. And just like that slithering snake tried to camouflage himself in our grass, the serpent (the enemy) also deceives us by camouflaging himself as something else. He often slithers around and surprises us when we least expect it. How absurd would it be if the enemy pre announced his arrival..."Laurie, I am going to come and attack you tomorrow at noon. So be ready!" That's not how it works. The enemy lurks around to rob, steal and destroy. Most of the time people are not even aware of his work. He likes to camouflage his work. Many times in our mind, we can even justify his evil schemes. All along missing the mark that the serpent is leaving behind.

When it comes to dealing with the sneaky serpent, often times we are like my husband was with that little snake found in the grass. We want to hold onto it. Show it off. We don't want to dispose of it.

But do you know what kind of danger that puts you in when you do that? Poisonous or not, a snake is a snake. Snakes do what they are equipped to do and that is slither and hiss. There are no cute serpents slithering around you, your family and your ministry.

Luke 10:19 Behold, I give to you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the authority of the enemy. And nothing shall by any means hurt you.

God has given us the authority to crush the sneaky ways of the devil. But we must be alert. Today after seeing that snake so close to my home, I have prayed and asked God to help me to have discernment in recognizing his sneaky ways. Often times he comes disguised as an "angel of light", it can be difficult to spot him among the saints. We must not rely upon our feelings, but only God's Word. Line everything up to God's Word, if it doesn't match up, then BEWARE...it just may be a snake!

LACED WITH GRACE...empty eggshells

Today I have shared a devotion with the readers of LACED WITH GRACE entitled "empty eggshells"...
Sometimes there is nothing else we can do besides accepting that the old is gone and the new is what is best. An old, cracked, empty eggshell is not going to make scrambled eggs, but a fresh, new supply of eggs will do the trick. In the book of Mark, there is a passage that speaks about this very thing. Laying aside the old and finding purpose in the new...

CLICK HERE to read todays devotion!

Staying in the moment

Have you ever had one of those moments in life that you wished would last forever?

The good, happy kind of moments are like that. When things are going great in our life, we have lots of friends, the job is going great, our marriage is solid, the kids are healthy...on and on we can go with happy moments. It would be awesome to freeze frame these kind of  moments and keep them forever.

But what about when the moments turn ugly, they turn bad, sad and lonely. The moments like receiving news of a loved ones death, or a loss of a job, or a repossession of your car. These are moments that we would like to see pass quickly from our life.

The thing about moments that I have learned, whether they are good or bad, is that all moments come and go. Often times we have to take the bad with the good, but in the end the crisis or the happy time will come to an end.

That's just life. Good times come. They go. Bad times come. They disappear also. It really isn't about the moment, as it is about how we allow the moments in our life to form us and define us.

If all we do is concentrate on the bad times in our life, no doubt we will be grumpy, distant and extremely unhappy. On the flip side of that, don't live in the world of  "use to be". If you "use to" be happily married, or you "use to" be a successful business person ... it may be time to press in and move beyond  your "moment of use to be's"!

Recently, God opened my eyes to see that sometimes I get caught up in my "use to be's". It has been hard for me to let go of something that has always been a part of me. I found myself caught up in the memories or "moments" that I shared in my past with certain people. Some of these moments (or memories) have been joyful and some have been hurtful. But even so, I kept going back to the moments that "use to be".

God had to show me, just like He showed Elisha that sometimes we have to move past the moments of our past and grab hold of the moments that await us. Elisha was holding onto the moments he shared with Elijah, until Elijah was caught up in a whirlwind to heaven. Just like that, the moment that Elisha was in quickly changed.

2 Kings 2:11 "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven."

There is one thing I am sure of and that is that moments in my life are going to change, and when they do I must be sure that my attention is not on so much the people or the circumstances of such moments, but that my focus is on Jesus Christ. It would have been easy for me to be in Elisha's shoes and worry and grumble and complain that Elijah was no longer with me, instead of seeing the power and the opportunity that God was placing upon me to create new moments in my life.

May we always remember the moments in our life, both good and bad, but may we never remain there. God has so much more for us than to live in the past. Good and bad things is what makes us who we are, trusting God for what is to come is what moves us from moment to moment. Don't be afraid to move past your moments.