Prayers at work!

I love looking through this past year and seeing God’s mighty hand work in our lives! We serve an awesome God, don’t we!?

Over this past week I’ve been seeing how He works and the prayers He answers! There have been thousands of prayers lifted up for my dad and I can’t be more grateful for all the prayer warriors we have out there! God is to be praised!

This week has made me think about my dad and how special he is to many people! Pop’s strong love for the Lord always shows.  He has a big heart for the lost and homeless on skid Row.  He has dedicated himself to serving God by helping the lost and needy in downtown LA.  I admire him and my Mom for their faithfulness to God and each other.  When Brian and I were engaged we gathered in my parent’s bedroom. Our family and a friend who was a pastor shared communion and we had a prayer time.  Pop presented us with a family Bible, a blanket with a marriage message on it, and a rock from a prayer altar built by his great grandfather in South Carolina.  Pop stuck the rock to a piece of a wood taken from the stump where he proposed to my mom many years before.  He also shared with us the importance of praying together in marriage.  This is something I don’t think I ever really thanked Pop for, but it has surely meant a lot to Brian and me.  To this day that piece of stump with the prayer rock stuck to it sits on our headboard as a reminder to us to come together and pray.  I don’t think we’ve missed a night praying together in all our 11 years of marriage (except for when Brian was gone for the Men’s retreat).  I can’t thank the Lord enough for Pop and the special things he has done and still does for us.  Now during this hard time in his life we are lifting him up in prayer and seeing God work to heal him!  We will continue to pray and see what God has in store for him!

Love all my church family and thank you for your prayers! God is great and greatly to be praised!

Growing Kids

"If our gardens need cultivating to grow well, our children need that attention much more. Seeds of excellence and grace must be planted and tended. The weeds of selfishness and bad attitudes must be plucked. The plot must be protected so that the wild storms and prevailing winds of culture will not damage the fruit."
The Mission of Motherhood

Infiltrate, Not Isolate

"I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one."
— John 17:15


What is the biblical worldview on our culture? Are things getting better? Is humanity improving the world around it? The Bible is really clear on this one: our culture is dark, and it is getting darker. That is what the Bible teaches. It is not going to get better; it is going to get worse. Despite the fact that humanity has increased in scientific, medical, historical, educational, psychological, and technological knowledge to an astounding degree, we have not in any way, shape, or form changed our own basic nature. And we have not improved society.

Our confidence has increased, but our peace of mind has diminished. Our accomplishments have increased, but our sense of purpose and meaning have all but disappeared. Instead of improving the moral and spiritual quality of our lives, our discoveries and accomplishments have simply provided new ways to show ourselves for what we really are: depraved, sinful, and wicked.

Modern man has simply discovered new ways to corrupt and destroy himself. We go from war to greater war, from immorality to greater immorality, from perversion to greater perversion. The spiral is downward, not upward.

Some Christians try to isolate themselves from the world around them. But that is virtually impossible. You may remove yourself and your children from the culture, or at least attempt to, but know this: your culture will find you.

Withdrawing to a Christian subculture is not what we are supposed to do. Jesus prayed this for us: "I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one" (John 17:15). The objective of believers is not to isolate, but to infiltrate; not to evade, but to invade. We are to impact our culture without being compromised by it.

Greg Laurie

Loved this!

Constant Cleaning

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Ask any mom what she’s been cleaning today and prepare for a long list. Cleaning up never stops. It’s true in the kitchen, and it’s true in our hearts.

Spending time in prayer and the Word of God is like constant cleaning. As a child of God, I’ve been made clean once and for all. That’s my position in Christ. But my practice is another thing. While living in this corrupt world, I often get my spiritual hands, feet, and clothes soiled.

That’s why I need worship, prayer, and God’s Word. I need to ask with the psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me” (Psalm 139:23-24).

You may have spent a lot of time dealing with dust, crumbs, and grime already today. Have you asked God to clean your attitudes, your thoughts, and your actions?

With Seeking Him, I’m Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Serving Christ by being a Mother

I started reading this book "The Mission of Motherhood". I'm loving how it is causing me to dig deep into God's Word and see what He's trying to teach me about being a Godly wife and mother. I'm learning much. God has a lot of work to do in me. I'm so ready to make changes and be a better mother to my three sweet blessings!

I think today there are many that don't realize the need our kids have for us (Mom's). Parents don't realize the importance of stability, and structure. This saddens me. I know there are Mother's out there that have to go to work. I have a dear friend who had to start cleaning houses and bringing her kids along with her so she could school them while she worked. She had to do this to help bring in a little money so they could buy groceries, since her husband was out of work for over a year. Her husband would help her do this some as he continued the search for the job that God had for him. I know there are many more stories out there like this. But at the same time I think there are far more stories of women desiring to have a career and "do something" in the world (as if having children and raising them isn't doing as doing "something"). Traditional Motherhood has sort of ceased to be the society approved "norm". It is sad that more people don't consider the possibility of being a full time mother at home with her children. I believe that God designed mothers to be the person to create an environment for her children to grow in and prepare them to live in this world in God's image. He intended it to be a full time job, not just a side job. It's all about priorities. Once one makes the choice to be the homemaker/ mother, God will allow everything else to fall into place. After all, if he designed mother's to be at home tending to the children and raising them up then He will help provide creative ways for mothers to bring in a little extra money if needed.

It's not easy being a single income family (especially in California). I can't say we are completely debt free! I can't say we always have tons of extra money laying around. Although, I can be grateful to the God we serve that provides us with enough money to get by and make our payments and in time be debt free. There are little things I can do as a mother to try to make it easier for Brian. I can be on the look out for deals in order to save us money, coupons, meal plan for the month, babysitting and working at the church. All these things help in some way and makes it financially easier for me to stay home with our kids. I'm grateful that we both talked about this before we got married, and how important we both thought it was for me to be home during the years they are growing up in our home! I'm thankful that I love my job as wife to Brian and Mother to Gregory, Adam and Luke.

As I'm studying more about this I'm realizing how selfish I can be. The world's view is all about "self". So often in the media we are encouraged to make time for ourselves and look out for our self. However, Jesus paints a very different picture. He wants me to loose my life for HIM. And by loosing my life for Him, I'll find life. The Joy that we all long for comes ONLY FROM HIM. It is a sacrifice to be a Godly mother. A sacrifice of our self in order to follow God's original design of motherhood. I'm learning that I have to give it over to God. All my worries, and fears, and trust Him to direct and change me to be the Mother He wants me to be. God wants me to wholeheartedly serve Him through my job as a wife to Brian and mother to my boys. As I strive to meet the needs of my children and husband, serving them in whatever way God wants me to, and pouring out love, I can picture it as serving Christ himself. Its a process of learning to give the BEST love I can. If I'm serving Christ, I want it to be my best!

I think if I can picture serving Christ himself in all that I do, it will make even the tough days easier. I pray that during those tough days I can use opportunities to teach my boys and show them love that Christ would have me show them. I pray that each and every day I can commit to living selflessly in order to show more love to my family and be the kind of mother God would want me to be. Remembering always to do it as unto the Lord.

I have so many more things to write, and more will come as I continue to dig into God's word about Motherhood. More to come........ later....

Important to model for our kids

"When I model patience in the midst of difficulty, joy in the midst of messes, contentment in the midst of lack, then I provide them a pattern for their own lives. They will learn that my joy is not circumstantial but real because I have an endless source of strength through the power of the Holy Spirit in my life" Sally Clarkson

Able to deal with problems with peace and patience

"I have already mad ea decision to make myself available in the routine tasks and myriad interruptions of daily life because I believe it is God's will for me to serve my family through them. Making this choice ahead of time means I will expect problems and needs to arise and be ready to deal with them in peace instead of impatience and resentment." sally clarkson

"But its the way I respond to my children in everyday moment that gives me the best chance of winning their hearts. If I have integrity and patience in the small moments of life that are so important to my children, and if I approach them with a servants heart, then I have a far better chance of influencing them in the larger and more critical issues of life. "
Sally Clarkson

Glory to God

Our main purpose in life is to bring God glory and enjoy Him! Psalm 16:11 “You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.” If we are to enjoy God we have to spend time with Him. The more we spend with Him, the better we get to know God and know how awesome He is!

Everything else in life is going to fade away or maybe fail us in some way. But God stands forever and will always BE! We can lean on Him and let Him lead and direct us. Habakkuk is a great example. Things were destroyed in his life and yet he says “ ….yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!” Habakkuk 3:18

In all things we do it should be to bring God glory and enjoy Him. Let us not forget our main purpose and why God put us here.

Temptation

I took my oldest boy out for a little one on one special day. A time to spend together before he started 5th grade. Being that I knew Gregory came to a saving faith in the Lord 4 years ago and is a very bright little boy; I asked him "what’s the toughest thing about being a Christian" he quickly responded with "not giving in to temptation".

Honestly, isn't that the truth with all believers!? We are tempted in so many various ways every single day! We have a choice sin or not sin. Gregory and I continued our discussion for a while. I shared with him the importance of building our relationship with our best friend Jesus Christ and He will help us turn from temptations that come across our paths. We can build that relationship by staying in fellowship with Him. We stay in fellowship with Him by being in the word and seeing what God wants to say to us, study, prayer and gathering together for Bible study and church.

"....let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.” Hebrews 10:22