Just really trying to figure out....

How in the world to post. So much has gone on in the last week and I have been in awe of what God has done. How He went before me to prepare my heart and my mind for the week He knew would exhaust me. I wasn't surprised just totally amazed at the way scripture, sermons, Bible study and music all came together to prepare me for the battle that we would be in.

I have repeatedly had the words Be Still put in front of me. Because I talk with my hands as much as my mouth, be still also means be quiet. :)So this week when my human gut reaction was to speak, my heart felt the Spirit tug and say be still and quiet. THAT my friend was and is hard.

Very hard.

I will defend my family and friends with everything in me and when one of them is hurt,I become a 5'1" pit bull.

God taught me several years ago that He doesn't always need me to vocally defend my loved ones to another person...He wants me to fight that battle on my knees. I can already see God's hand and even though there are still unresolved issues, Light has been brought to a dark corner.

If I have learned anything in my life, it's that when you start shining Light in the dark corners, you see all the filth you have worked so hard to hide. Some of that dirt and grime can be old and it may be hard work to get a deep clean. That process can't be accomplished on your own. It takes getting real honest with God and allowing Him to show you all the cobwebs, the dirt, all that junk that is keeping you stuck in that dark corner. For me, it meant I had to own up and admit that my choices had affected others. That my friend can be the hardest thing, however...

Submitting to that process and allowing God to clean out my dark corners was the most freeing experience.

Not easy to talk about, not easy to walk through but worth every tear. We are letting God clean out another corner in our life right now and it hurts. It is hard, BUT.....

There is freedom when you live in the Light. We know this and are already thanking God for the process. Only He can clean out this corner. So we are being still (and quiet in my case!) and looking forward to the day when this dark corner is clean and we can say look at what happened when we added Light in this corner.

Oh My Blog, I Haven't Forgot You

The past two weeks I have said "That would make a great post" about 20 times...and then we go back to the pool.

I love summer, but find that is absolutely throws my blogging time for a loop. Part of me loves that and the other part is twitching big time. :)

I'm thrilled to be doing "Me, Myself, and Lies" with so many of you! This first week has been a little tough for me.

Part of that is coming off of the Freedom's Call Conference from last weekend. My friend Debbie F. blogged about it here. Go check out what she says and then hear me say "ditto".

So I walk away from last weekend beating myself up left and right over what I should have said, could have said, missed notes, forgotten lyric....do you get the picture?

And then we start "Me, Myself and Lies".

Timely huh? Just like God isn't it. Check out this statement from week one that has sunk deep into my heart:

"When we meditate on God's wonders and word, we have little room in our thought closet for anything else!" Jennifer Rothschild

So friends...what did you hang in your thought closet this week?

Boy oh boy, I am doing a little spring cleaning in mine and there is a lot of junk in there. I can tell this purging of my closet is going to be hard.

His Word says He gives beauty for ashes, and honestly...some of the things I've been hanging in there are nothing but nasty ashes. I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and toss out the ashes and watch God hang some beautiful new garments. :)

Weekend Ponderings

What a weekend we had. It was incredible, exhausting, powerful, reflective...the list could go on and on.

I was once again reminded just how much I take for granted. At one point on Saturday I sat on the floor and watched some of the ladies taking notes. Most were soaking up everything Jill was teaching. Others, were just there because it counted as a meeting. That is okay, the Word of God never returns void and believe you me they heard the Word over and over.

I'll be honest, Friday night I had this wave of inadequacy fall on me about the time we broke out into small groups. The majority of the ladies in my group didn't really want to talk, they wanted to know all about me. (Did I have children, how I met Chad, if my children had the same father, were my parents still married, what kind of face cream I use...yes that was a question.) It hit me later that before they were going to open up, they needed to know me. We laughed a little and somehow, God showed me how to relate all that question/answer time back to the breakout guideline. Only God could do that. And let me tell you, I am taken with this ladies. They have my heart. (And they thought Chad was pretty cute too.)

Jill was anointed and as usual taught her heart out. She shared some very personal parts of her testimony that I had not heard before. It was beautiful to see how God provided and was so faithful to her and her children during very hard times. He was and is her everything. She reminded us all that we are in a process. Until we see Jesus, He has some work to do in us!

I wanted to share just a few pictures with you.

Jill praying with a sweet lady..



This beautiful lady was like this each time we worshipped. She was on her feet and tears on her face. So thankful for what GOD has done in her life.



The next two are my favorite. They are soaking up the Word as Jill is teaching. I love that they wanted to SEE what she was reading. May we all have that passion for the Word of God.







Oh boy. This one makes me cry. Jill is big on visuals so we had given them small items to place on their dressers to remind them who they are in Christ. At the end of the day Saturday they traded the chains we gave them on Friday night, for a wedding band and a veil. We clipped those veils on those precious heads and told them what a beautiful bride their Jesus had and this lady just broke down. (These were happy tears) Debbie and I were honored to serve her.




I have to say thanks to Jill's daughter in love Laura. She grabbed my camera, her camera and documented the entire weekend for us.

I also have to say a special thank you to Chad. He was the ONLY man in that room of 125 women. I know we scared him part of the time, but he hung in there and as usual did an awesome job taking care of all our tech stuff.

Thanks to so many of you who were praying for us over this weekend. Believe me, we felt it. I can't tell you how many times God brought you to my mind and reminded me that people were praying. THANK you for taking us to the Father.

Matthew West Winners!!!

I'm thrilled for you!

Angela at Refresh My Soul

Sheryl at From My Heart

Jenmom at Mother of Three

and

Leah at The Point


Okay girls send me your addresses and I'll pass the info along to the proper people!

Happy Weekend (A day early!)

FIRST
****Scroll down and enter to win a Matthew West CD!!!***

Okay with that out of the way, I wanted to explain where I've been this week and where I'll be this weekend.

Freedom's Call is preparing to go spend a weekend in the word with the beautiful ladies here. I would love for you to click on that link and check out this incredible ministry.

I have spent the week getting ready and today, I'm asking you to join us this weekend by praying. Jill is speaking on "High Places, Hard Realities and High Hopes". She is still recovering from pneumonia and we are asking God to give her an incredible dose of strength Friday and Saturday.

The worship team is blessed to have my favorite sound man behind the board for us. I'm so glad that I have a husband who is willing to go sit in the back of a room and watch a bunch of women worship Jesus.

Would you pray that God is pleased and that He would speak to these ladies in a fresh way? Pray that He would move like only He can.

I'm speechless that God allows me to be involved in weekends like this. Speechless.

Thank you for praying! I hope to have a few photos up on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

How About Some Free Music???

If one song could sum up how I feel about my walk with Jesus right now, I think it would have to be "The Motions" by Matthew West. The message of this song is one of the deepest desires of my heart for my family and friends.

This song is touching many people and they are responding this challenge to not settle for just going through the motions. You can go here to see some resolutions and to listen to the song. Be ready to be challenged.

Now about the free music...

Allison from Sparrow Records is being very generous and allowing me to give away 5 yes 5 CD's. SOOOOOO here is the deal.

Check out this link,listen to the song, and read a few of the resolutions. If you feel led to, leave your own.

Come back here and let me know what you think about the song. Does it challenge you? Make you want to live a little differently today?

Tell your friends. We're giving away 5 so your chances to win are pretty good!

I will leave draw for winners on Sunday afternoon June 21 and post winners next Monday.

Now....GO LISTEN!!!!

No Dark Corners

I'm not real sure how to begin what God has put on my heart. You know from my last couple of posts that God has placed Colossians 1:11-14 on my heart. He has gone to great measures to put those verses in front of me.

He's had me soaking in them for two weeks now really focusing on verses 13 and 14

"He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

This week I visited my old worn out workbook "When Godly People do Ungodly Things". I pulled it out because we are living that right now. I needed direction, scripture, and guidance as we answered questions from our children. Questions I never thought we would answer.

The enemy has deceived again and a Christian has fallen for it. As I explained to one of my daughters, satan does not need to tempt, trick or attack a non-believer. He already has them. It's us he wants to bring down. He lives to steal, kill and destroy. BUT, our God is greater. Our God is stronger and He has already defeated the enemy.

Over the past few days so many in our life have been on an emotional roller coaster. We have experienced everything from anger to extreme sadness. It's been a very long week. My heart hurts, but God has listened to every word. The words I have said and the words I couldn't say.

He has been so tender with my heart, but at the same time very stern. The minute I got too big for my britches and began to go all "Pharisee" in my thoughts and actions about this situation, I felt Him say "Not so fast little girl. Let's talk about your dark corners." Oh yes, He went there.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have them or have had them at some point in life. Those areas that we go to great measure to hide from family, friends, our boss, even people in our church. The thought or actions that we would HATE to become public knowledge.

Dark corners. I know what mine are.

Shoot for a while I lived every minute I could in my dark corner. I worked very hard to convince myself what went on in that corner was not a sin...after all it wasn't on the "big 10" list. Wrong.

Sin is sin.

It's all unholy. It's all disgusting, it's all vile and God can not stand it.

This week as I became physically sick at this situation, God reminded me that my sin..well it's just as nauseating. It is just as disgusting, just as vile. The difference is that my sin like a lot of yours, is "acceptable". We decorate our dark corners so that they compliment our life.

No dark corners.

God tells us in Ephesians 5:8-9 "for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and and right and true)."

No dark corners.

The thing about hanging out in those dark corners is that over time you become so numb to the sin you don't realize how consumed you are. For me, when I would attempt to step out of the corner and into the light, what I saw was nasty. It would scare me back into the dark because I didn't want to face up to what I was covered in.

As a Christian you are inhabited by the Holy Spirit of God. NOTHING can change that. Regardless of what goes on in the dark corners you keep, you are HIS. If you choose to keep those dark corners you'll never be happy. You will never be satisfied and life will be miserable. Peace will become a foreign word to you. I'm speaking from experience.

God made you and died to save you, to live, walk and breath in the LIGHT.

Still in Ephesians 5 but down in verse 15-16 He says "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil."

My corners became dark when I did not make wise choices. I did not make the best use of my time. I pretty much took Philippians 4:8(whatever is true, honorable, just ,pure, lovely...) and did the opposite.

Oh how I love that our God is forgiving and full of mercy. I love that the very minute we ask Him to, He will flip on the Holy Light and illuminate our dark corners. (And sometimes, when we don't acknowledge the conviction He sends...He will flip the light on whether we want it on or not.) I'm thankful for the way he flipped the light on my corner and let me fall down that staircase in December of 2005.

As Psalm 107:14 says He brought me out of the darkness and the deepest gloom and broke my chains away.

1 Peter 2:9-10 "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of the darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."

He gave me LIGHT where there had been darkness, FAITH where there had been doubt, PEACE where there had been guilt and blame.

You can have this too. It starts with making one wise choice....

No more dark corners.