Wow hasn’t the weather turned beautiful.  It is so wonderful to have clear sunny days.  To be able to sit in the warm sun and just bask in the warmth.  It is truly my very favorite time.  There is just a little problem.  This is when we in the valley receive our water for the rest of the year.  If we do not have enough water, we will be in a terrible drought.  I remember the drought of the early 80’s and it was not pretty.  Landscaping was lost, crops suffered, and even animals died.  So while I truly am enjoying the sun, I am very much in prayer for the days to be sunny later on, and for us to receive some moisture.

 

How many times in our lives do we tend to look round and see a wonderful situation?  It just seems perfect.  We are so sure this is the will of the Father for our lives.  But as we begin to pray, and search out the heart of the Father, we realize it is not what He would want for us at all.  In fact, it will cause great pain.  Now, in the proper time and season, it may be wonderful, but we cannot get ahead of God, for if we do, we may have some pain that could have been avoided.  So even if it looks perfect, make sure before you move!

Stress

My Health Class is studying all the effects and causes of stress.  It is amazing the amount of stress so many people are under.  In our discussions, people are afraid of loosing their jobs, their houses, and their health.  We have a young man that is taking the class while he is stationed in Iraq.  We have a young mother who is ready to give birth to her second child and her husband is deployed.  So many in so much turmoil.  One of the wonderful things in this section is the ability to provide a place of refuge, at least for a short time. 

But in all reality, this is all I can do by myself.  I cannot provide jobs, houses, or health for all of these people.  I cannot keep the young men safe in Iraq.  There is something that I can do that is much more powerful than just providing a shoulder to lean upon.  I can point them to the Father, who is the giver of life.  I can pray for them, lifting them into the presence of the only one that can help. 

Have you looked around you lately?  Have you someone that you know that is going through a stressful situation?  Are you in a stressful situation?  The very best thing to do is to look up for your Salvation draws near!

What's in Your Blood

A dear friend gave me a book this week.  It was “Blood Types, Body Types and You.”  My blood type is A so that means I should follow a vegetarian diet.  Now this sounds very terrible, especially to those with O type blood, but for me it so very perfect.  After following the books recommendations for a week, I feel wonderful!  I am so full of energy and stamina.  It seems as if my brain is cleared up, there are no longer any spider webs hanging around keeping me in darkness.  I feel totally jazzed. 

 

The Lord was showing me how we as a people (remember we have the blood of Jesus) have been digesting the wrong things.  We have been digesting the food of the world – fear, hopelessness, distrust, and unforgiveness.  These things are not good for us. 

 

Once we have gotten rid of them, we actually feel totally jazzed.  Remember when you were first saved?  That peace and freedom was glorious.  But instead of keeping a steady diet of the fruit of the Spirit, we just went back to the same old stuff we had before. 

 

Cool thing about God is we can just do a 180-degree turn, start eating the correct food, and we will once again be totally jazzed about all that God has for us.

 

So what blood type are you eating – the world’s or Jesus’?

Thankfulness

Thankfulness

 

What a word that is.  Have you ever had the occasion to give something from your heart to someone?  My kids have a special Christmas tradition, every year they give me a box of See’s Candy Molasses Chips.  And every year it is mixed with dark and light chocolate.  I wanted something special for work, so I parted with my dark molasses chips.  As I placed them on my desk, and imagining the joy they would bring, someone came and took one.  But they did not seem to understand the importance of my gift.  I was hurt and thought to myself, if they did not get very excited over my wonderful gift, I would just take them back.  Wrong attitude!  God then showed me all the many wonderful presents he has given me and I just blew them off.  I did not see each item as the truly wonderful presents He wanted to present to me.  Sunny warm days, a loving family and friends, a house to live in, food to eat, an opportunity to go to school, the list can go on forever.  However, each day do I take the time to say thank you or do I just eat the candy as nothing special? 

The Bible says in Ephesians to always give thanks.  I think sometimes we Christians tend to say, I will give thanks in bad things, but God also wants us to look at good things, you know, the everyday little things and be thankful. 

So go ahead and just say Thanks God!

The Monster Closet

There is a website that I truly love “flylady.org” whose sole mission is to help very unorganized people to become organized. I have reminders on my calendar on the areas to clean and tasks to perform, sometimes they are completed, but most often not.  This last Sunday evening, I decided to do one of my tasks, which was to clean out the bedroom closet.  Now this is usually something I usually close the door and never look at but as I surveyed the bottom of my closet with its many shoes piled high, papers galore on top, and clothes I had a burst of energy and began.  I decided to do the bottom.  I pulled out shoes – high heels, sandals, flip-flops, wedges, bags and numerous items that had fallen from the top shelf.  Fly Lady has a theory that simply states – if you have not used it in over a year, and it cannot be donated just throw it away.  I had shoes that I had not worn in 5 years and so decided they were a candidate for the trash.  I put all the summer shoes in one of the bags, and went through the papers and through over half of them away, hung up the clothes that had fallen down, rearranged the purses and shoes I would wear.  Now if you look at the bottom of my closet it is beautiful.  All the shoes are lined up next to their partners, and I got rid of at least four bags of trash. 

Every now and then, the Holy Spirit wants us to open up a closet in our lives where we have closed the door.  You know the ones, the areas in our lives where we have closed the door on unforgiveness, hurt, pain and it is easier to close the door and not look in and see the mess.  However, God is so good to us and wants us to be happy and whole in our lives and emotions.  He knows that if we do not deal with the hurt, pain, and unforgiveness in our lives we will never be free and whole.  So He gently calls us to open the doors and to drag out the things we have not dealt with, throw away the things we cannot change, place our lives in nice orderly rows and get rid of the trash.  Once we have accomplished this task we look back and see order where chaos once stood, peace where disorder raged, and we understand that God was merely helping us to climb a little higher on the mountain top.  So any closets that need cleaning – I am ready!