I Read Too Much

This morning I am reading in 1 Chronicles.  I am coming to the end of the book and we have King David turning the work of the temple over to his son, Solomon.  While the Lord had given David all of the instructions, down to the smallest detail, David was not to build the temple because he was "a warrior and have shed blood." (vs 28:3b) A few verses later David tells his son, " acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever." (vs 28:9) Let's stop there for a minute. I don't know about you but I am equally humbled and thankful God searches my heart and understands every desire and every thought I have. Really!  This means I am NOT invisible to Him.  He knows every single detail about me.  He knows the things I love the most and He ...

This morning I am reading in 2 Kings. I need to be honest, these are hard books to read. The names!  Oh, my stars the names.  Not only the names but how close they all are and how the kings overlap each other.  People, these 2 books are full of joy, pride, anger, hate, plot twists, love, encouragement, fear, great military acumen, business deals, essentially you name it, these two books have it.  I have read the words and shook my head as well as cried happy tears of God's great love.  These aren't a fast read.  It's definitely taken me a minute, but I recommend them to you.  Now, to my point! Think of two opposites.  Like the ends of a battery, the poles of the Earth, light and dark, soft and hard. Ok.  You get the picture. What I read this morning was exactly like that.  I began reading in chapter 21 about King Manasseh.  It didn't take me long to realize this guy was awful.  He was pure evil.  In fact, the modern-day ...

I'm reading in Exodus right now.  I have to tell you, the names of the people in ancient times were something else!  I love the old testament stories.  I love reading about all the ways God cared for His people, about how He made ordinary people into leaders and protectors of His people.  I love reading how much God loves us.  It is absolutely amazing. There is something else that is absolutely amazing to me - the way His people missed all the ways they were being loved and cared for.  Now, I'd like to tell you I would never, ever in a million years behave, react, or otherwise compromise the blessings the way the Israelites did in the Old Testament.  However, I am most certain telling you that would be a farce.  You see, I do.  I do behave and act the way they did.  I do compromise the blessings I have been given the way they did.  How?  Let's look. In Chapter 16 the Lord tells Moses he is going to provide some food each da...

Good morning lovelies. I seem to be in a rare frame of mind these days and while I have never withheld my raw emotion, my deep words, my truest thoughts from you,  I wonder if this has any effect?  Are these for naught?  Does it make a difference?  Do I make a difference?  In the past 24 hours I have thoroughly questioned my existence.  I simply cannot find peace. This is a thing that has plagued me time and again over the years - finding my place, my reason, my purpose.  I seriously feel like a rather large bag of bones that is doing nothing more than taking up space from someone who deserves it more than I do. Now, there are some of you who, if you have read this post to this point, are shaking your head and thinking I need to just get over this and move on; that I am feeling sorry for myself, that a grown woman should have put away these pathetic nuances years ago - like in her teens. I won't deny you your thoughts and I won't justify me for havin...

Good morning.  As my Mr. likes to say, "it's been a minute!"  I've been having a rough go of things as of late.  No, not with work or family or anything of that nature, but of a spiritual nature.   I'm not questioning the Lord's position or His unwavering love - praise Him for that, and grace...goodness the mess I'd be if it weren't for His grace - what I am questioning is where I fit in. Actually, this very thing has been the root of it all since I was young.  I have always wondered where and how I fit in.  In some way, I have expressed this a million times over and may have called it for what it was a time or two, but it was while reading my Bible this morning a Tetris piece, of sorts, fell perfectly into place and cleared a line. I want to focus on one bit of what I read and hope, in so doing, it makes some sense. I'm in John.  I've really enjoyed being in the gospels these past weeks, the differences in writing style and the perspective ...

Today's blog post topic is surprisingly NOT from a Pinterest find, but rather, an email I received just this morning.  Years ago I signed up for a Scripture Challenge for which the goal was to create a 26 paged 6x6 album where each letter of the alphabet was to be used to study a word from the Bible.  She has, over the years, done many different studies all involving scrapbooking and scripture.  This year, she has decided to focus on journal prompts with a little artistry added in.  Phew...that is a lot to get through to get to my point! Anyhow, she listed 4 prompts today, one for each week of the month.  While all of them are good, and I will more than likely use them all at some point in this challenge, (ok, you know me better than that, I'll shout squirrel and change directions, but for now I'm going to run with this!) I am choosing this one quite purposefully. Do you write in your Bible?  Why or why not, and what do you write? First I need to let ...

In the past couple of days, with my personal studies and with the Women's Bible Study I am in, I have been constantly reminded of one thing.  This thing seems easy enough to know, often feels like a no brainer, is something most some people do not struggle with...  The thing?  Simply, God's Truth.  I'm going to come right out and tell you that I don't always run to God's truth, most especially when I absolutely should. It's embarrassing really, to put this out here, but I don't.  In fact, I will run to myself (the thoughts I can conjure up and the picture I can paint it into - I'll come back to this), my friends, my spouse, other books, but never straight away to the one thing I should run to. In our Bible Study we are doing Priscilla Shirer's: The Armor of God , and are just now on Week 2.  First, Week 1 was intense and humbling and scary and necessary and well, just do me a favor and run out and buy it, Ok? Or better yet, grab a few of your girl...

I started a couple of Bible studies/Devotionals to help my heart draw nearer to the Lord and also my husband.  You see there are days when I don't feel like being a loving person.  There are days when it takes more work than I think it should.  This is an ugly truth, but one I won't hide from. In her book, Wife after God, Jennifer Smith follows up each devotional with a list of journal questions.  I love these.  They are hard, and soul searching.  But they are also good.  They make me think beyond my immediate feelings to those that I have once all of the ickiness is scratched off.  This ickiness is something akin to an outer shell that I put around my heart (thoughts, feelings, etc) when I want to protect myself.  Anyway, to the reason for this post.  On Day 3 she talks about how God created us because he wanted companionship.  Just as He created Eve for Adam, He created mankind for himself.  What a beautiful thought!...

The other night I was in a great deal of emotional pain regarding this topic of being a step-mom.  I've had a couple of days to think about it and calm down.  You see, I know that no matter what, God has my back.  That even though I may not have wanted a divorce and as surely as divorce is not what God wants, it happens.  And because it happens, God gives people second chances at forever.  Sure, nothing is ever the same, but that doesn't mean there can't be something new and special and in some cases a greater blessing because of it. However, another thing I know is that it is going to be work.  A LOT OF WORK.  I know that; just like all the other things that can go wrong in life, all the other battles, struggles, and lessons to learn from in life, this is just another example.  I also know that God doesn't send us out into the world without first giving us the means to find the answers.  In fact, He gave us the answers before we even knew ...

Have you ever had deja vu?  Or perhaps had a conversation on the same main topic a couple different times with different people and in those cases you were not the initiator of the conversation?  Well, that has been the case for me this past week, especially in the past few days. I have heard a time or two where the Lord will give you direction through other people, now I am a firm believer in it.  The topic, you ask?  Simply, loving other people.  Before you misunderstand, it isn't that mushy love that couples have, it is that general love that one should have for their fellow man. You see, and I am just going to throw this out there, I have a really hard time loving other people.  Some see this as me being mean, pretentious, arrogant, strong-willed, and any other word that describes a person who isn't soft around the edges.  However, it isn't that I don't have the capacity, it is that I simply don't trust people and loving ...

By starting over, I don't me with my life, per se.  I can't rightly become an infant again anymore than I can redo yesterday.  In fact I can't even undo any of my past choices.  However, what I can do it chose today as a day to start over in a key area of my life; a life that was created and wanted before it came to be.  What I mean by this is my walk with Christ.  In case you haven't picked up on all the subtlety in the past few posts I have been noticing a great divide in my life, a chasm that needs filled and I know that the only substance that has the power to fill my Grand Canyon-esque valley is the living water, the truth of life.  I'm not trying to be poetic or flowery, I'm trying to put it into words the only way that I know how to. I often wonder if God has you do a few certain things in life, against your knowledge, that will redirect your path.  Here is why I ask that.  I shared yesterday the three book series that I just finished....

Last Wednesday, during the Bible study at church, we continued the discussion on How to Spend Time with God .  I know, there are some of you that are rolling your eyes and getting ready to click away from reading this and for that all I can say is, "do as you wish."  There are a few points that really stuck out to me as I went back over the outline tonight; they are: God wants to spend time with us. You cannot be a healthy Christian without it. The purpose of a daily quiet time is to express your love to God and to receive guidance from Him. Set a time and place and stick to it. There are going to be distractions; be prepared. It takes 3 weeks for you to become familiar with something new and an additional 3 weeks for it to become part of your lifestyle. You may be wondering, that is if you are still with me at this point, why on earth is she bringing this up now.  Well, last week really convicted me.  I mean, the Lord gives me 24 hours in a day,...