Immorality, Immodesty, General Mind Pollution...

I'm so tired of the immodest way women are dressing, I'm tired of trying to find clothes that fit but aren't immoral. Worse still, I'm tired of seeing children dressed like prostitutes right under their parents noses. What amazes me is the parent's seemingly indifferent attitude about it. "But she's so cute!", "She's only a baby (4 years old) she doesn't have to be modest....per se'". And the most unbelievable yet, "I couldn't find anything modest for her to wear at the store.", "All the skirts are that short", "All the shirts were cut that low". What scares me is this one, "She's only 14, no one is looking at her anyway." That one came from a father if you can believe that.
When you let your children dress that way you're teaching them that flirtation is cute. Overt sexuality is cute. Down right cheapness is cute. What, they're going to stop dressing that way by some magical sense of righteousness when they become teenagers? We have such a horrendous time getting employees to dress appropriately for work. They're always hanging out of their tops, or wearing jeans cut so low you can see their panties over the top of them, or worse the string of their thong. I just don't understand why more parents aren't appalled by this and therefore go out and buy these things for their children, whereby encouraging the clothing industry to create more provocative, more trashy clothing for our children to wear. All I have to say is.....Thank you Lord Jesus for giving me boys. Now the challenge will be to keep them pure as long as I can and to teach them that women are not objects but something to be cherished and treated with respect. God give me strength...

"16 And Saul's son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God.

I Samuel 23:16

We can't always physically go to our friends but thank you Jesus for phones and email. My "Jonathan" lives in Atoka, Oklahoma and my heart aches to think about how far that really is. Treva is my intercessor when the world is threatening to destroy me. We all have been in situations where it feels like God is so far away. I'm sure David felt that way in Horesh. Running from Saul with all he had. I can't imagine having an entire army after me, hell bent on my destruction! What I can feel is Satan hot on my heels with all the fury of hell bent on dragging me down. God is so good to not allow Treva and I to be clawing out of a pit at the same time! We just go back and forth reaching down to pull the other up and reminding eachother that God is STILL on the throne, forever and ever, amen! About a year ago I found my father. He hadn't even known I existed so it was hard to deal with all of these emotions without having anyone to point the finger at. I really wish I could say that I had clung to Jesus and rode out the tidal wave of pain but I have to be honest and admit that Satan took me to depths I pray fervently to never see again. When my sin was discovered, I was devastated and mortified. In my shame and with my slayed heart I cried out to my Lord for relief and He told me to call Treva. I didn't want to. I didn't want to explain how I could fall so far. I didn't want to hear the disappointment in her voice. I called anyway. I wasn't met with disappointment. I was met with tears, with comfort, with prayers for restoration. I only hope I can be so gracious in her time of need. So I pray for you, reader, that you would have your own "Jonathan" to point you back to your Lord when life beats you up, because it will.

Come quickly Lord Jesus.

This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it! My spirit cries out Thank you Jesus! After being at work all week with people who worship themselves and have no desire for God or the things of God. I'm so thankful for the Lord's day and to sit and learn from a gifted pastor. We're between pastor's right now but our interim pastor/church planter is definately annointed of God and I absorb so much from him. I really couldn't tell you why. Maybe it's really just a thirst in my soul for truth in the midst of so much garbage. My 6 yr old nephew was baptised last night. I was amazed at the sense of relief it gave me. I actually caught myself thinking that baptism would save him. I'm not sure where that came from, it shocked me. Only he knows if his salvation is real, that's the same for all of us. And at 6 years of age, some people would question. His parents are godly people and personal I believe if Nik and Joe didn't truly believe it was real they wouldn't have let him go ahead with it. Adding to the sweetness of the moment was Joe baptising his own son into the family of God. How I long for that experience for our own sons. Derek and his brother, Joseph both gave their lives over to ministry. Derek goes about it by attending seminary and prayerfully waiting for opportunities to serve, currently that is an opportunity to lead a mens bible study in our church. Joseph studied under a godly pastor and many godly authors and prayerfully waited for his assignment from the Lord, pastoring a sweet little church in Spring Valley, Ohio, while working another job to provide for his family. He views it as evangelistic opportunity (Correct me if I'm wrong on that one, Joe.) Both of them are the product of a mother who pours her heart out in prayer and studies her bible dilligently and a father who does the same, but also questions what his pastors, teachers, authors tell him while absorbing an astonishing amount of information. I'm telling you if there was anything I wanted to know, I'd know exactly who to go to. It makes for good conversation.. My upbringing was vastly different but no less shaping of me. I grew up in a lost household by a single mother who worked so hard. My father never knew I existed until recently. It wasn't until Derek and I got married that I realized my need for Christ and since then I've been learning to lay all of my issues at his feet. It's amazing though how God uses your circumstances to give you what you need for ministry. I have such a heart for hearting women. I don't really know what God has in store but I know he's working. Meanwhile I'm going to sit under the tutaledge of a gifted pastor and a godly family and pray for his will. Thank you God for another Lord's Day and give me Your heart for the coming week.

Worries.....

My sweet little Reagan. We had an anxious visit to the opthamologist yesterday morning to see if his left eye was lazy. Praise the Lord! His vision is just as it should be...I was so worrying about having to put a patch over his eye and getting it to STAY there...ugh. But God is good and has taken my worry away. I keep reminding myself of Philipians 4:6 -7 " Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." God is slowing showing me to take this verse to heart. I'm such a worrier. If it's there to be worried about believe me I'm worrying. I don't know why I do that. I used to think it was a mom thing, then I thought it was a woman thing, but as I thought about it I realized it was a me thing. I've always worried. Now I have to learn to lay those worries where they belong, at the feet of Christ. It's interesting because even in some very scary times, I felt the most peace because it was all in God's hands and I had prayed and laid it all bare before him. Peace would wash over like a river and yet, sometimes I still hang on to those worries. It's a process, every day confessing and allowing the peace to come. Lord help me to be strong....

A little Venting

I'm just going to vent here for a minute. I noticed this article on Yahoo just a minute ago

DALLAS (AP) -- Flamboyant Dallas Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens tried to kill himself by overdosing on pain medication, even putting two more pills into his mouth after a friend intervened, according to a police report obtained Wednesday.

What a sad situation. It's bad enough that the poor man has to have it blabbed all over the news, then I see this further into the article

Watson and fire department spokesman Joel Lavender cited privacy laws for the lack of information they could provide. Lavender said more details could come from the 911 call. The Associated Press filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to get the contents of the call

Why would the AP be allowed to hear the 911 call?? What in the WORLD makes them think they are entitled to that information?! Are we so bored with ourselves that we need to pry so deeply into someone elses pain? I don't know anything about this guy except that he is an awesome football player. I don't need to know why he attempted suicide, how many pills he took, what his buddy said to the 911 operator and neither do the rest of us! This is yet another example of the press usurping our privacy. They claim the right to free speech, what about his right to have an emergency without the free world knowing all the details?! Does the press' right to invade our lives override our right to keep things to ourselves? How ridiculous!

They do this with all the celebrity babies, celebrity romances, Politician's personal lives. It's disgusting, and yet nothing happens. You know why? Because we keep buying the magazines and reading the articles, and buying into every little piece of questionable and sometimes biased information they put out there as truth.

I don't know about you but I've had enough.

Whose life is this anyway?!

It seems I have forgotten whose life I am living again.

As I reread that last sentence again the truth of it slaps me in the face. I go about my day filling it with what I think needs to happen, what I think I should do, working toward filling my goals for MYself... Anyone else noticing a pattern? I, I, I, I have taken over a life that doesn't belong to me. My life belongs to God. I know that, and yet most of the time I forget. He made me, He breathed life into my body, He has plans for me. The Bible says in Jeremiah 29:11,

"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."

Rick Warren pointed out the obvious in "The Purpose Driven Life", it's not about me. My life isn't about me at all, it's about what God would have me do. I admit fully to fear of this. It's hard to stand up in the midst of mockers and profess the love and salvation of Jesus Christ. Some times your own family thinks you've lost it....completely. There are times, big and small, when I stumble. I'll lose sight of who I am in Christ and I'll curl up in a dark pit and berate myself for all the things I've done wrong in the past. Every time there has been a beloved brother or sister in Christ who has pulled me up helped me to dust off and get back on the path. I'm so grateful for them. I don't want to live in that pit. I want to live the life God has given me, His Way. He has equipt me to do the work he wants me to do. Now I need to chuck the fear and do it. Lord have mercy that's so hard. Those of you who work in a secular workplace know how hard it is to shine the love of Christ in that environment. Sometimes it's cut throat, sometimes the sinful nature of man has taken over and people are just plain mean. It's so hard. I find myself repeating to myself over and over, Lord, not my will but yours.
His Will is perfect. I know and believe that and yet it is sill hard to submit to it most of the time. Call it strong willed or bull headed or even just stubborn but I'm human and I always want to take care of it myself. Why I do it when I know that God's way is so much better I have no idea. Tomorrow starts another day of work. Lord be with me and help me live out your will. Everyday.


"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God." Psalm 42:1

To Guilt or not To Guilt? That is the question.

Mommy Guilt

I'm finishing up my first month of working full time and you know, I kinda like it. Enter...mommy guilt. Everyone talks about it. I keep waiting for it to come and it doesn't. So I develop a new and more viscious hybrid of the mommy guilt.....the "I don't have mommy guilt, mommy guilt" I didn't realize I was doing this to myself until a friend of mine asked me how I was doing and I found myself rationalizing why I didn't feel guilty. Shouldn't I be glad I don't have to deal with guilt when I leave every morning for work? I'm blessed to have a husband who takes excellent care of our children and works very hard at home while he studies and does his homework. God has worked this situation out His way and it's perfect. I may not understand why but I know that HIS will is perfect. Now we are in the midst of a church search. I keep asking God to give me wisdom but every Sunday I'm more confused. Is this the church we are supposed to serve and worship in? Or was it that one we went to last month. Then I find myself whining in my spirit about what this or that church doesn't have.

James 4:3 says "When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

What a wake up call. I'm not asking God for wisdom to do His will, I've been asking him for wisdom to find the church with the most friendly people, the best children's programming, the most Godly pastor. All of these things are to enhance my experience there, not to be within God's will and plan for my life. Somehow I've forgotten that. Shame on me. Hopefully I can mold my heart to His and learn to long for what is His will for my life. Is it me or is that really hard!! I know God's will is perfect and that He knows what he is doing but it is so hard sometimes to seek His will because I know that sometimes he's going to ask me to do things I may not want to do. They might be the best thing for me but if it makes me uncomfortable, confrontational, unlikable....I don't wanna. Believe me I can be as obstinate as a two year old. Realizing your obstinate nature is the first step in eliminating it.....I pray. Lord give me strength...