March 2017
I want to be positive, I want to quit correcting the kids all the time with the words, “don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t, don’t, DON’T;” instead with a filling of His Spirit, “let’s do this, how about this way, you can do it easily if you think about it like this….” Going the negative route is my automatic default. I want to press “delete” and redirect - the way I want to scream at Siri when she makes a mess of my voice text no one can make any sense of.
God, I need Your Spirit to voice-text me right into my brain the joy-filled, faith-filled, Spirit-filled dialogue I want to have with my children. And everyone for that matter.
60 days later…
Ok, well that took forever to get back to this! That’s how busy life is in our household. No time to think much less write anything. But alas, the kids are playing. Yes, summer has begun - 5 days, 12 hours, and 3.6 minutes ago!! Any mom’s relating out there?
Let’s skip to the skinny of the day. I joined a bible study for the summer… I know, what was i thinking?…I’ll tell you what I was thinking, “HELP! I NEED ADULT CONVERSATION - TOPIC NOT IMPORTANT!!” Fortunately, my friend chose an appropriate book for the study, Goliath Must Fall. Yep, right on schedule. How do I do the emoji for the winking from God? I’m still on His radar ;)
At the end of the first “getting to know one another” gathering with a small group of 6 lovely gals on the porch for tea/coffee, my thoughts were, “I’ll get to the Giants I need to overcome in my life, that’s a big bite, but first things first! How do I restore the Joy of the Lord?” I plain don’t feel like singing “zippity-do-dah, zippity-day, my-oh-my what a wonderful day.” You know what I mean? It’s more like,”Ugh, another day with a to-do list of 50 things more than I can possibly do in one day for TODAY! Get up Deborah and let’s get on the move… the eveready Energizer bunny… charge! 100 miles an hour, no holding back on that throttle!” By 3pm most often I’m brain-dead, energy gone, and looking for a pick-me-up herbal organic tea to get me through the rest of the day.
I know in my head what I’m supposed to do to get His Joy back: confess, believe, have faith, trust, pray, seek, pace yourself, etc, etc… but all that doing weighs me down to get JOY. All I want to do is pull the pillow over my head and stay in bed! Can anyone relate?!?! Well, I can’t afford to do that, life calls - children, the farms, chores, school, home, yard, AHHH :0!!!
I know that the Word, His Word, Jesus, is the place to go. But how do I get back to it? That may sound ridiculous, but the only time to get uninterrupted time alone with the Father for me is before anyone in my home is awake… right, that would be 4:30-5:00am!!
I actually begged our Lord, (yeah I’m a beggar) to wake me up early, to make me feel wide awake, not be ABLE to sleep anymore, so my only option was to get up and read the Word or lay in bed with nothing to do. I’ve said for weeks, no, MONTHS, “Today I’m doing it. I don’t care how tired I am, I’m getting up extra early. I want to seek God. I want to read His Word and get refreshed, renewed, encouraged….I’m doing it!!”
And day after day, the alarm would go off and I would roll over and say, “I just need one more hour of sleep. I can’t get up. I won’t make it thru the day if I don’t get enough sleep. Ugh!” Can anyone relate? Sounds ridiculous and flimsy, I know, just get up for crying out loud! I hear you. But my body says NO, my feelings agree, and I go back to sleep.
That’s why I needed supernatural strength. For the next 3 days, I found myself wide awake around 2:30-3:00 am!! Guess what I did? Yep, you’re right, I said, “Oh come on God. What am I going to do after our time together until they get up at 6am? How about doing this at 5am? That would be a good time.” And I would toss and turn in bed until 6am. Whoops, then it was too late. How bad do I want this joy?
Ahhh, but my Father...relentless, faithful, merciful, and on a mission. After a few days of this, I finally got out of bed to meet with Him. His plan succeeded, I was up and walking.
I stumbled onto a very familiar passage about joy and began reading, re-reading, meditating, and taking it apart.
John 15:1-12
“I AM the true vine, and my Father is the Vinedresser…. Abide in Me, and I in you….If you keep my commandments you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that MY JOY MAY BE IN YOU AND THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE MADE FULL!”
Ok, let’s get one thing straight... I CAN’T STAND “FORMULAS”! However…..here it was in red type... the answer. I love flow charts and here it came to me...
ABIDE IN HIM----HE IN ME----BEAR MUCH FRUIT----ASK IN HIS NAME ----IT IS DONE----ABIDE IN HIS LOVE----KEEP HIS COMMANDS----(LOVE ONE ANOTHER)----HIS JOY IN ME----MY JOY MADE FULL!!!
It’s THE WAY, ABIDING. I have to choose to abide, not work it up. Simply enter into every moment one day at a time. I find myself saying, “Grace for ONE day.”
Today - I let go, I abide, I receive His Presence with me now, I’m breathing out the air of anxiety, stress, negativity... Letting go and receiving His Presence, grace, mercy, freedom in Him... Doing this over and over in a day.
When I have a mental meltdown, because I am reacting to the tenth thing being broken in the house, the fifth fight between kids, a deadline missed, an employee walked out of milking, I missed an appointment, or the car is on empty and we’re late; I’m managing to re-group… breathe in... then go do it all again… Abide, rest, receive - now bearing the fruit of peace. Asking Jesus to enter the moment, receiving again His love. Forgiving anyone, thing, or circumstance currently holding me captive. Taking in His Joy. See it, taste it, believe Him - and allow His Joy to be mine.
Most times, I find myself smiling after this {Sigh}, or should I say Selah :)
That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Until next time!
I want to be positive, I want to quit correcting the kids all the time with the words, “don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t, don’t, DON’T;” instead with a filling of His Spirit, “let’s do this, how about this way, you can do it easily if you think about it like this….” Going the negative route is my automatic default. I want to press “delete” and redirect - the way I want to scream at Siri when she makes a mess of my voice text no one can make any sense of.
God, I need Your Spirit to voice-text me right into my brain the joy-filled, faith-filled, Spirit-filled dialogue I want to have with my children. And everyone for that matter.
60 days later…
Ok, well that took forever to get back to this! That’s how busy life is in our household. No time to think much less write anything. But alas, the kids are playing. Yes, summer has begun - 5 days, 12 hours, and 3.6 minutes ago!! Any mom’s relating out there?
Let’s skip to the skinny of the day. I joined a bible study for the summer… I know, what was i thinking?…I’ll tell you what I was thinking, “HELP! I NEED ADULT CONVERSATION - TOPIC NOT IMPORTANT!!” Fortunately, my friend chose an appropriate book for the study, Goliath Must Fall. Yep, right on schedule. How do I do the emoji for the winking from God? I’m still on His radar ;)
At the end of the first “getting to know one another” gathering with a small group of 6 lovely gals on the porch for tea/coffee, my thoughts were, “I’ll get to the Giants I need to overcome in my life, that’s a big bite, but first things first! How do I restore the Joy of the Lord?” I plain don’t feel like singing “zippity-do-dah, zippity-day, my-oh-my what a wonderful day.” You know what I mean? It’s more like,”Ugh, another day with a to-do list of 50 things more than I can possibly do in one day for TODAY! Get up Deborah and let’s get on the move… the eveready Energizer bunny… charge! 100 miles an hour, no holding back on that throttle!” By 3pm most often I’m brain-dead, energy gone, and looking for a pick-me-up herbal organic tea to get me through the rest of the day.
I know in my head what I’m supposed to do to get His Joy back: confess, believe, have faith, trust, pray, seek, pace yourself, etc, etc… but all that doing weighs me down to get JOY. All I want to do is pull the pillow over my head and stay in bed! Can anyone relate?!?! Well, I can’t afford to do that, life calls - children, the farms, chores, school, home, yard, AHHH :0!!!
I know that the Word, His Word, Jesus, is the place to go. But how do I get back to it? That may sound ridiculous, but the only time to get uninterrupted time alone with the Father for me is before anyone in my home is awake… right, that would be 4:30-5:00am!!
I actually begged our Lord, (yeah I’m a beggar) to wake me up early, to make me feel wide awake, not be ABLE to sleep anymore, so my only option was to get up and read the Word or lay in bed with nothing to do. I’ve said for weeks, no, MONTHS, “Today I’m doing it. I don’t care how tired I am, I’m getting up extra early. I want to seek God. I want to read His Word and get refreshed, renewed, encouraged….I’m doing it!!”
And day after day, the alarm would go off and I would roll over and say, “I just need one more hour of sleep. I can’t get up. I won’t make it thru the day if I don’t get enough sleep. Ugh!” Can anyone relate? Sounds ridiculous and flimsy, I know, just get up for crying out loud! I hear you. But my body says NO, my feelings agree, and I go back to sleep.
That’s why I needed supernatural strength. For the next 3 days, I found myself wide awake around 2:30-3:00 am!! Guess what I did? Yep, you’re right, I said, “Oh come on God. What am I going to do after our time together until they get up at 6am? How about doing this at 5am? That would be a good time.” And I would toss and turn in bed until 6am. Whoops, then it was too late. How bad do I want this joy?
Ahhh, but my Father...relentless, faithful, merciful, and on a mission. After a few days of this, I finally got out of bed to meet with Him. His plan succeeded, I was up and walking.
I stumbled onto a very familiar passage about joy and began reading, re-reading, meditating, and taking it apart.
John 15:1-12
“I AM the true vine, and my Father is the Vinedresser…. Abide in Me, and I in you….If you keep my commandments you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that MY JOY MAY BE IN YOU AND THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE MADE FULL!”
Ok, let’s get one thing straight... I CAN’T STAND “FORMULAS”! However…..here it was in red type... the answer. I love flow charts and here it came to me...
ABIDE IN HIM----HE IN ME----BEAR MUCH FRUIT----ASK IN HIS NAME ----IT IS DONE----ABIDE IN HIS LOVE----KEEP HIS COMMANDS----(LOVE ONE ANOTHER)----HIS JOY IN ME----MY JOY MADE FULL!!!
It’s THE WAY, ABIDING. I have to choose to abide, not work it up. Simply enter into every moment one day at a time. I find myself saying, “Grace for ONE day.”
Today - I let go, I abide, I receive His Presence with me now, I’m breathing out the air of anxiety, stress, negativity... Letting go and receiving His Presence, grace, mercy, freedom in Him... Doing this over and over in a day.
When I have a mental meltdown, because I am reacting to the tenth thing being broken in the house, the fifth fight between kids, a deadline missed, an employee walked out of milking, I missed an appointment, or the car is on empty and we’re late; I’m managing to re-group… breathe in... then go do it all again… Abide, rest, receive - now bearing the fruit of peace. Asking Jesus to enter the moment, receiving again His love. Forgiving anyone, thing, or circumstance currently holding me captive. Taking in His Joy. See it, taste it, believe Him - and allow His Joy to be mine.
Most times, I find myself smiling after this {Sigh}, or should I say Selah :)
That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Until next time!
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