I went through my stage as a young mother and young wife, when I didn’t think I was going to make it through this thing without a homicide charge.

I had a three year old who had just now started sleeping through the night, a newborn, a teenager, and a husband who worked twelve hour swing shifts. I would be up all night alone with the non sleepers, then waking them up at the crack of dawn to drive the teenager to school, and not be able to go to bed the next night because at 10:30pm the bus would just now be pulling back in from a basketball game and I would be dragging the toddler and newborn out to go pick up the teenager.

Those years were not always filled with good days… Did I mention I was completing a college degree during that time?

I feel like I was an emotional wreck most of the time. I remember being angry with my little ones because my heart was hurt because of something or someone else, but they caught the lashes. Their childish spills and moments of messiness would catch my overreactions due to my own built up anxiety.

I wish I could go back and do those years over again.

My youngest will be ten tomorrow. Ten. All my babies are in double digits. The years have flown by so very fast. Did I say that they have flown by fast. Because just in case I didn’t, they have. Fast.

What I learned almost too late… was that it was not them… it was me.

Young mother, young wife, what I desperately want you to know is that the problem is not your kids… the problem is you.

Work. On. You.

Any time you point your finger and blame someone or something else for your own actions… the problem is not them. The problem is you. Whether the emotions, hurt, frustrations, etc is valid or not… it might be very valid… but your reaction to that is on you. You are responsible for your own responses.

I learned to spend a lot of time on my face in the bathroom floor. I learned to apologize to my kids. I learned to sit down with my girls and tell them it was not them… it was indeed me. I learned to recognize the sin in my own heart… so that I didn’t spew my vile onto my kids.

Now listen… I still have my moments. Moments when it creeps up. I have not arrived by any means.

Last week we were having work men come over to do some repairs. They were going to be on their hands and knees in our bathrooms. So the bathrooms had to be clean. My husband and I see things a little differently sometimes (shocking I know). My plan was to wait to attack the floors after all the showers and hair blow drying had been done. So I was waiting…

Well my husband rolls out of bed and I hear him making commotion upstairs. I just assume he’s getting ready. He’s not. He’s cleaning the bathroom… and he’s now irritated because he thinks I ignored the job. So this leads to me getting irritated back.

I had planned to let the girls sleep to a certain time, but in my irritation at my husband I literally screamed up the stairs for the girls to get up an hour earlier than what I told them they could sleep to. They woke up scared to death.

To which my husband turns and says, don’t scream at them because you are mad at me. 

That quickly, the redheaded reaction momster reeled her ugly claws… yet my husband now quickly recognizing her, called me on it. So she was put to death pretty fast.

In our early years we were both too caught up in our own agenda’s to think clearly enough to diffuse a situation that quickly. We have come a long way.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:21

That emotion that rises up from your gut… that makes your ears ring… your neck twitch… and puts that tingle in the back of your throat… that seems like it will only go away if you unleash it with a voice that sounds like it comes straight from the pits of hell… a voice that after you hear it with your own ears you ask yourself… was that me?

Yeh.

That.

Remember Romans 12:21. Memorize it. Begin quoting it in your mind and in your heart when that moment… that temptation arises… and don’t be overcome with evil… but overcome evil with good.

And what is good?

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

Ask yourself is your reaction just?

Is it kind?

Is it humble?

Is God with you in it or have you stepped out of the Light of His fellowship and are you now walking in the darkness? Is pride controlling you or is consideration for the heart and mind and soul of your family?

Just because you think you can validate your emotions by the circumstances surrounding them does not mean you should react according to them. Remember you are responsible for your own response.

Christ did not die on the cross, be buried in a tomb, arise from the dead, ascend to heaven to serve as your Advocate and High Priest, and send His Holy Spirit down to dwell within you for you to remain under the control of your sinful flesh.

He promised you more.

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.

Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be supplied to you.

2 Peter 1:2-11

Are theses qualities increasing in you? Or do you lack them? Are you still blind and short-sighted, trapped in the circumstantial moment?

Have you forgotten the purification from your former sins?

Oh precious one, heed the Scriptures, don’t just read them. Be all the more diligent to make certain about His choosing you.

He. Chose. You.

He chose you that grace and peace would be multiplied unto you. He doesn’t want you to lay down at night with regrets over the countless times you have lost it with your kids. He doesn’t want you to count the hours until school starts again and you can send them out the door. He wants you to be victorious. He wants you to be an overcomer. He wants you to love them with the love that He loves you.

Is it easy? No… there is a reason that diligence is mentioned twice in this passage… but as you grow in HIM… in these things… it gets easier.

I don’t know where you are in your parenting journey… maybe you are just beginning and you have the colicky 3 month old that has not slept through the night since they were born… perhaps you have the sixteen year old who thinks they know it all…  where ever you are don’t make surviving till bed time or graduation your parenting goal.

But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

1 Timothy 1:5

Let your goal be to love your children with a pure heart, a good conscience, and in sincere faith that God is able to accomplish all that He has promised in you… and in them. Don’t just love your kids because you think you have to… learn to like them. Raise them to be people that you like and not relatives that you just tolerate.

And remember that it’s not them… it’s first you. It always begins with you. When you allow God to love you… to work in you… then you will begin to see your children through His eyes and love them through His heart. Remember the promise is that in your diligence to apply what you do know and what you do have… then what you do know and have will increase and if you are faithful to teach what you do know and do have to your children and help them to apply these with all diligence as well… and teach them that they too are responsible for their own response… then it’s quite probable that you will all grow together.

I wrote this post a while back when I reviewed the book the first time… I am sharing again with an opportunity to win a free download of the book… 

I am reading and reviewing Pulling Back the Shades by Dannah Gresh and Dr. Juli Slattery. This book is thier thoughts and argument against erotica… particularly the new rush of it due to the book Fifty Shades of Grey.

I shared a little about this subject in one of my own blog post, O Romeo Romeo, several years ago in my Thirty-three Day Challenge series. I also have taught youth and counseled many young ladies on this topic of reading erotica… so no I have not read Fifty Shades… nor do I ever plan to. I have a well educated stance on this type of “literature” through enough past experience without having to subject my heart and mind and soul to it again.

Anyway…

As I opened up the pages of this book and began to read, Dannah and Juli begin with an introduction and their discovery of the five longings of a woman’s heart compared to the five similarities found in all successful erotica.

 

The two of them made this list completely independent of one another and were coming from two different directions… yet if you noticed… you can see how the erotica industry has been able to seduce a many a female. That’s just how Satan works.

Last night during a devo with my youngest daughter the Scripture verses we were going over were Ephesians 5:6-10…

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. 

In this devo concerning these verses the author pointed out how Satan’s best deceptional work is done when he tells us things we WANT to hear. Erotica works because it tells us things we want to hear. It meets the legitimate longings of our heart in an illegitimate way. We too easily forget that Satan can do nothing more than pervert what God created as good. He uses empty words to produce empty emotions that lead to empty lives.

For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me,
The fountain of living waters,
To hew for themselves cisterns,
Broken cisterns
That can hold no water

Jeremiah 2:13

Ladies, the longings of our hearts are legitimate. They are real. They were indeed endowed within us by our Creator God. However, if we attempt to meet these needs apart from Him… they will never be satisfied. Never.

In the closing of this introductory chapter of Pulling Back the Shades, the authors ask us to look at the longings list and see which ones we are struggling with as unmet. I caught myself smiling and had to send a message to my husband… because I realized that all the longings of my heart were met.

Now granted they are not all five met on a daily basis. We have moments when we are so aggravated with one another that we can’t even talk… but looking past those moments and seeing our marriage as a whole… I am a very satisfied woman.

I have talked to my husband about this… and I am not sure when it happened, but at some point something changed in our marriage. Trust me… it was not always this way. Apart from Christ it never would have been… that’s one of Satan’s lies, that your sex life is somehow separate from a holy life. The truth is… a holy life… leads to an amazing sex life!

Like I said, I don’t know when it happened, but at some point I began to trust my husband’s words. At some point I began to actually believe that when he saw me… he was attracted to me. You see I had always believed that he was attracted to what he saw in the movies, on tv, past relationships, etc… and I was just the outlet he used.

I also lived with my heart in reserve as I feared being played the fool… or being the locker room joke. So I never had actually “given myself” to him. I had never surrendered to him because I was afraid that I would, and it wouldn’t be enough, or he would leave and I would have poured out my soul and been left stranded.

I was afraid to really love… and to be loved.

At some point, my husband rescued me… and I in turn rescued him. At some point I was able to trust in him and for the first time ever in my life, unashamedly and unabashedly surrender to him sexually. We have been married for over 15 years and our marriage bed is undefiled and holy and fully alive.

If you are a husband and you are reading this… let me tell you how my husband was able to get all of me in a way that no one else ever has and never will…

My husband was willing to sacrifice for me. My husband was willing to lay aside any hobbies or personal interest that competed with me and he was willing to see when my reality became overwhelming and was willing to step in and give me a break from that reality. Whether it be by doing laundry or the dishes or sending me upstairs to a candle lit bathroom with a tub full of rose petals and soft music playing… and threatening the life of our children if they even considered interrupting before 2 full hours had passed.

My husband was willing to do what he needed to do to prove to me that he cherished me and me alone. There are no comments made by him about how “hot” some half-naked woman with a personal trainer and money for plastic surgery or computer imaging touch ups is. I no longer in any way feel like I am competing with any other woman in our bedroom, real or imaginary.

My husband became my protector. My husband was able to show me that he was on my side. He was there to protect me, if I would just let him. So I have… and I rest more now because of him.

My husband allowed me to rescue him. I know for a fact that there has never been another woman who has experienced my husband the way I have. I have seen the deepest darkest of him and I have seen him change. I have seen him love hard enough to be loved hard. I didn’t change him… Christ did… but I got to be on the front row while the transformation took place and is still taking place. As he has for me.

My husband makes me feel sexually alive. I am a spiritually alive woman who is also a sexually alive woman and there is no shame attached to my spirituality in connection with my sexuality. Christ is just as present in my bedroom as He is in my Bible study time.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Genesis 2:25

So all this reflection is gleaned just from the first pages of Pulling Back the Shades… yep, it’s gonna be a good read.

Here is another post I wrote from the book: Let’s Get Honest

And you have an opportunity to win a free download of it! I will be giving away two free downloads. Enter below to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

I’ll never forget it. I was piled up on my Shelby’s bed a couple of years ago and we had just finished our bed time devo when she looked at me and asked when she could go on a mission trip. I told her I just didn’t know the answer to that… it was in God’s timing and plan. She next, with all the sincerity her then just barely 11 year old eyes could muster said, “But Momma, I know God has called me to go?”

Now here beith the dilemma. This is the child that just loves “to go”. It doesn’t ever matter where… if someone is going somewhere… she wants to go. She is our “can I go” child and our Bekah is our “can I have” child.

So when she looked at me then, those couple of years ago, I had to wonder if she was really called… or if she just wanted to go.

So I did what mother’s do… I pondered these things in my heart.

Now here we are two years later and in July she leaves with my husband and her daddy to serve in Guatemala at an orphanage with MANNA Worldwide.

When this mission opportunity came available my husband and I both new it was time.  It was not just time for her to go as a missionary, but it was time for her to learn how to be a missionary.

A missionary is to be dependent upon God (Romans 8:32, Ephesians 3:20).

A missionary has to know how to trust God to raise funds from and through the saints while giving all praise to God (2 Corinthians 9:1-15, Philippians 4:15-19).

A missionary must be willing to work (2 Thessalonians 3:6-10)

Here is Shelby serving last year in local missions as she served with her youth group.

We don’t know if God is preparing our Shelby for a life of overseas missions, or just using this as an opportunity to teach her how important it is to support missionaries, or just to use her to serve others in this day and in this way, for such a time as this… but either which way, as her parents, and as followers of Christ, we knew we could not miss this teaching and training opportunity.

Shelby would write her own letter telling her story and what mission she would be attending and what she was asking. She would be the one who would walk our neighborhood going door to door sharing this mission and asking for support. She would be the one who filled out and stuffed and mailed the letter she had written.

Her main fundraiser has been selling these shoes for the orphans in Guatemala.

She asks $21.00 for the shoes. $7.00 of that goes toward the purchase of the shoes and $14.00 goes toward the cost of her to personally get these shoes to the orphans. Her and her Dad’s goal is 200 pair of shoes. So far they have sold 102 pairs! 

They are 98 pair away from their goal. If you are interested in purchasing a pair… let us know. I will get you to Shelby and she will hook you up! 😉

She would also look for every opportunity she could to make her own money to go towards the mission. She would also willingly and cheerfully sacrifice other money spending ventures in order to make sure that she was spending and saving with this mission in mind.

She would also be the one to type out and mail the thank you letters to those who had given.

Several months ago she tearfully asked what she could do to get people to hire her to babysit or tutor younger kids… She knew she was only twelve and she didn’t know how to let others know she was willing.

I shared with her that God had a way of opening up doors in His will, in His way, and in His time.

A couple of nights ago I received a message from someone who needed a sitter for her daughter. All of her regular sitters were not available and she began to pray. As she prayed the Lord directed her to our Shelby and she asked if Shelby would be able to babysit and as payment they would make weekly donations to her trip.

It brought tears to my eyes to once again be reminded of God’s faithfulness to provide and to be able to share that with my Shelby… I love God-proved moments! Thus the name of this ministry, Proven Path.

He always proves His Word… we just have to trust Him.

Shelby is pretty crafty too (she does not get this from me), and her Grandmother discovered some necklaces on Pinterest, so she and Shelby spent the night making them so that Shelby could sell them to raise money to go towards this mission.

She is selling them for $5.00 if you are interested 🙂

Yes, we have helped her. We stick to the rules of Facebook and so she doesn’t have one. She has a Twitter but the privacy settings are on high, so no one can share her tweets. Therefore, her Dad and I have been the social media outreach for her… and well her Dad is going as well, so he is just as invested in this mission.

They leave in July… Her first plane ride and her first out of the country experience won’t be for a vacation or a business trip… but for a mission. May she be used by her God to love others from Him, through Him, for Him, and to Him.

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:18-20

 

I was in the middle of reading a book by Beth Moore… and I was in to it. I mean taking notes and posting quotes IN TO it…

It is indeed a great book, but as I was reading I get to this point where she talks about being locked away in a cabin in the woods all alone while everyone else is taking care of all her responsibilities back home while she writes her little heart away… and well it just put a bad taste in my mouth.

Thou Shalt Not Covet

Everything I have ever written is in the midst of the chaos of life…

Yes those are little legs running circles around me and I am sitting in the middle of the room with my kids, and my kids’ friends, and their lunch and toys and clothes… this is definitely not a cabin up in the mountains out in the middle of nowhere.

<sigh goes here>

Yesterday while my girls were working on their school work all sprawled out on the living room floor, I was helping them with school while working on the Bible study handouts I was making on Romans 11 for my kids in Children’s Church. I had a song that had been on my mind for a few days now and I really wanted to listen to it… The song was only 4 minutes and 20 seconds long. Surely I could stick my earbuds in and drift away for 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Right?

I tried for over an hour to listen to this 4 minute and 20 second song… Never making it more than 45 seconds in before someone was needing me for something… Or just wanted to tell me a story about something.Finally in desperation, I asked for my girls to please give me just 4 minutes and 20 seconds… that’s all I need. Just 4 minutes and 20 seconds…

After the third interruption after my plea I gave up. It wasn’t going to happen. The name “Momma” could not go that long without being uttered out of one of my kids mouth. This is my life…

I surrendered and looked at my girls and said… “You just can’t do it can you?” But this time I actually chose to smile and pulled out my ear buds and got down in the floor and helped one child research the Spanish Armada and helped the other learn how to convert ratios and use the property of proportions.

I am my girls mother, teacher, and Children’s Minister. They are with me twenty-four seven… and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Yes it makes writing Bible studies and blog post difficult… but I will have plenty of time to do that when they are out on there own. 

Not only that, but I don’t know if they will have me tomorrow. None of us are promised tomorrow… So I guess I will sacrifice as many 4 minutes and 20 seconds that I have to and try to never forget that I will never have yesterday again. Today becomes yesterday really really really fast.

I read this in a Chuck Swindoll devo several weeks ago:

Charles Haddon Spurgeon remains one of the most colorful and gifted preachers in the history of the church. Any man who loves to preach and desires to cultivate the art and skill of communication must study Spurgeon. Before the man was 30 years old, he was the most popular preacher in England. The new Metropolitan Tabernacle was filled to overflowing every Lord’s Day as people came miles by horse and buggy to hear the gifted man handle the Word of God. They were challenged, encouraged, exhorted, fed, and built up in the Christian faith. He was truly a phenomenon.

As a result, he also became the object of great criticism by the press, by other pastors, by influential people in London, and by petty parishioners. The man, not always a model of quiet piety (to say the least), had numerous enemies. Normally, he handled the criticism fairly well . . . but finally, it began to get to him. He began to slump beneath the attacks. The persecution started to take a severe toll on his otherwise resilient spirit.

I am told that his wife, seeing the results of those verbal blows on her husband, decided to assist him in getting back on his feet and regaining his powerful stature in the pulpit. She found in her Bible Matthew 5:10-12, and she printed the words of this passage on a large sheet of paper. Then she tacked that sheet to the ceiling of their bedroom, directly above Charles’s side of the bed! Every morning, every evening, when he would rest his enormous frame in his bed, the words were there to meet and to encourage him.

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:10-12)

The large sheet of paper remained fixed to the ceiling for an extended period of time until it had done the job. May Mrs. Spurgeon’s tribe increase! It is refreshing to think how a marriage partner can be such a vital channel of encouragement.
~ Swindoll 

As I read this, I remembered a lesson the Lord taught me. I have shared bits and pieces of my families journey in this blog. Sometimes boldly, sometimes openly, sometimes its woven in but I try to be pretty transparent for those who actually bother to read this thing, because the Lord has called me to be.

If you think you see an air of self-righteousness in here, you have completely missed it. I have nothing to be self-righteousness about… I am a full blown mess who has been and is being fully redeemed by the grace of God for the glory of Christ… and so is my family. You might catch me in a frustrated fed-up for now moment… but I don’t stay in that place. I live in this place called Faith, Hope, and Love and I believe with all my heart that if God can redeem me… He can redeem anyone!

So as I share Mr Swindoll’s words with you, and approach my own life lesson, let me ask you woman of God, before you walk away from this man… this family… have you asked God to give you eyes to see the attack that is being made against him and against your family?

Woman of God, have you asked the One who gives sight to the blind, if your husband is under attack? Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t know how to recognize and fight an enemy that he cannot see?

Woman of God, are you fighting with him or for him?

Not long ago I shared with a hurting wife how the Lord opened my eyes to see the lies that were being whispered in my ears by the kingdom of darkness. This whisper from the kingdom of darkness can even take Holy Scriptures and twist them and speak them crookedly directly into your heart and manage even to convince you they are your own thoughts… and even quite possibly the thoughts of God… when they are not.

Satan twisted out of context Scripture in the wilderness and used it against the Word of God Himself… what makes us think he won’t attempt to do that with us?

What my husband and I have learned is that we need to see past the obvious… grace is this amazing thing that gives us eyes to see things with reality instead of with suspicion and assumption. We have learned that the “voices in our head” that speak to us when we are having a “bad day” are usually lies straight from the pits of hell that are intended to raise from its death our crucified flesh.

When we find ourselves in a funk or in a fight, we now both step back and analyze… is this a real issue we need to address in order to grow stronger and closer or is this Satan creating a conflict to cause dissension and division in our home in order to derail something that God is in the midst of doing in and through us.

You see, I might not be able to see the alignment of the spiritual realm as God works in and around and for me and my family… but Satan most certainly can.

My husband and I have learned to speak to each other and instead of saying “well I think…” We now say “well in my head this is what is being said…” We have realized that just because a thought enters our mind it does not mean it’s actually our thoughts. We have also come to realize that just because we are ill it does not mean that we are ill with each other. The majority of the time, one or both us are actually under a spiritual attack.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

Ephesians 6:12-13

This verse especially relates to our families.

So before you walk away have you asked how can you pray for and encourage your husband? Are you as his wife, speaking life into him and over him or are you constantly condemning him and speaking death? Are those that you are seeking council from co-condemners or co-encouragers? If they are co-condemners you need to walk away now. I don’t care how horrible it is at home… if they co-condemn your husband you are seeking counsel from the wrong people. 

I have heard of women of God walking away because their husbands fight against them and their relationship with Christ and the church… Woman of God let me challenge you to ask yourself… if you were called to the mission field in the Middle East and God called you to witness to a man who questioned your authenticity and your relationship with this man named called Christ and His church would you condemn him or would you be on your face before your Father in heaven praying for him to have eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to believe?

Have you considered that your husband just might be testing your authenticity to see if you really believe what you claim and as he challenges your heart with his persecutions have you considered that when he sees you stand firm in your faith and choose to love him in spite of himself this might be the very thing that God uses to melt his heart and bring him on his face to the cross of Christ?

When was the last time you were on your face before your Heavenly Father praying for your husband instead of about him…

Woman of God, before you walk away… have you asked God if this man is your mission?

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a beautiful woman of God… her testimony… her husband preceded her in glory because he was her mission.

For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? 

1 Corinthians 7:16