A New Direction

 Its that time of year when you  hope the good in mankind comes out.  The time of year when you become more aware of peoples needs, kindness is shown, and helping hands are extended.  I would hope that this would happen throughout the year, but its most evident during the Holidays. Today, a friend was told she was being evicted because the pipes in her rental house burst because she didn't have heat.  She didn't have heat because the gas was shut off earlier this summer.  She works hard, very hard, and it just broke my heart to hear that someone would do that to her the day before thanksgiving.  My immediate thought was "Why won't they pay to turn it on and then have her pay them back?"  A few minutes after I got the text she calls me and says "Its all fixed!! They are going to turn the heat on and have me pay them!".  How stinking cool is that?  God heard my thought, not my prayer...just a thought!  He took care of her by spea...

Above is a list of verses and phrases that tell me who God sees me to be.  Do I say those things to myself?  Do I believe them?  Do you? Do you ever feel like you don't measure up to the standards set by this world?   Back in the 40's and 50's, Miss America was on average 5'6 or 5'7 and weighed between 140 and 150 pounds.  Today she is taller and 40-50 pounds lighter.  She is viewed as beautiful and women across the world sit and watch the Miss America Pageant and see themselves as failures.  We are far from it.  God says in His word we are Fearfully and wonderfully made.  We are made in His image so why do we look in the mirror and see less than who we are? Today I want you to know that I think you are beautiful...If you are a guy reading this I think you are beautiful...God loves each and every one of us for who we are, what we are made of, the image we reflect.  We reflect Him.  So, today I vow to see myself different...

I wonder how many of your prayers aren't answered because you aren't asking?  Or how many aren't answered because you don't believe God can or will answer them?  Ordinary prayers get ordinary results.  God meets us where we are.  If you ask small, you receive small.  Once I asked BIG....really big.  I look back now and with tears running down my face I am in AWE of the faith of an 11 year old girl.  Let me tell you the story... When I was 11 I fell out of a swing one sunday afternoon.  I was standing up on the seat, tried to sit and lost my grip.  I fell hard and broke both of my wrists.  This was just the beginning of a faith journey God sent me on.  I grew up in a church that believed in Faith Healing.  So I didn't even think twice about whether God could heal me or not. I knew he could.  I prayed he would.  This happened in the spring and within a month or so, I was able to use my hands again.  My left ha...

I know a  few ladies who read this will know where this came from - this notion of pride.  In studying my Beth Moore Bible study this morning, I read of Uzziah, the King of Judah.  Uzziah's name means "The Lord Saves".  In the first 15 verses of 1 Chronicles 26 it shows how Uzziah served God and was brought to much wealth and power and then.......PRIDE came.  After pride comes what?  The Fall.  Uzziah was powerful and wealthy and smart and then he became prideful and approached the temple of the Lord - something that was set aside only for the high priests.  They warned him to leave, begged him...but it wasn't until God afflicted Him in that place with Leprosy that he realized he wasn't so powerful after all. Uzziah lived the rest of his days with Leprosy.  His son ran the kingdom for him.  And when he was buried what was he known for?  He was known for having leprosy.  As I began studying this I thought "Where is this goin...

Don't you wish you could see the future?  Don't you wish God would pull back the curtain and let you know what is going to happen next?   God already knows what is going to happen next in our lives.  He is going before us, making our crooked paths straight....lining up the people, the opportunities, the circumstances that we need to straighten our paths and propel us toward our destiny in Him.  Do you trust Him? Do you have Faith in Him to do what He says He will do?   I have journaled for years.  I write down my struggles, my prayers, what God has shown me in my quiet times for him.  One day I sat down and grabbed a journal, randomly, and started reading.  Its funny, because I was thinking "Who wrote this?? She is so sad."  "She is soo worked up over this situation!"  " Wow what a struggle"  "How stupid could she be!!!"  and then further in the journal I see hope "God took care of that guy!"  "God provided whe...

Jeremiah 29:11 is a verse that I shared with my high school girls yesterday at Bible study.  We are starting a study that will cause us to start to see ourselves through Gods eyes instead of our own.  I asked them if they had ever considered this verse. One had - Jaden.  Her brother was adopted from Ethiopia and his name is Jeremiah.  This is his life verse.  God has plans for Jeremiah.  But let us not forget he has plans for us too.  I think that we sometimes forget that not only are the orphans and the least of these are Gods, but so are we. We can become so consumed and wrapped up in our circumstances that we forget to CONSIDER God. We focus on the problems or issues in front of us and they become bigger and bigger the more we think on them.  But, consider this:  My God is bigger than any problem.  He formed the universe.  He placed the stars in the sky and knows each one by name.  Is that obstacle you are facing bigg...

I have struggled with self-worth for as long as I can remember.  So many have tried to encourage me, lift me up and tell me I'm loved, but at the end of the day, the battle is in my head, in my heart...its one I fight almost daily. Looking back, it started when I was 5.  My dad left.  He'd found someone new to love and walked away.  I don't write this to make him feel bad, its just the way it was.  Seeing his truck at someone else's house on my bus route made me feel unworthy.  Unworthy of his love and attention.  I didn't feel good enough for him.  Have you ever felt this way?  Felt like someone who should have loved you unconditionally turned their back on you? Ever felt abandoned or discarded?  Have you internalized those feelings of rejection and allowed it to change how you feel about yourself?  Let me remind you what God's word says about you and me. I struggled with my weight since he left.  Most of my life I ...

"A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" painted by Georges Seurat is a beautiful picture.  I first saw this picture 3 years ago at a Big Stuf Conference in Panama City Beach, Florida.  I was there with our youth group and out on the boardwalk they displayed a copy of this painting.  I looked at it but didn't think much about it, until they explained why they were displaying it.   You see, the artist painted that painting not in brushstrokes, but in pin dots.   Seurat contrasted miniature dots or small brushstrokes of colors that when unified optically in the human eye were perceived as a single shade or hue. He believed that this form of painting, called divisionism at the time but now known as pointillism , would make the colors more brilliant and powerful than standard brush strokes.   When you stand afar, you see the beautiful masterpiece in front of you.  But, when you get up close you can see that it was create...

When I write down my goals, my dreams, I am writing them into existence.  I am believing by faith that they will come to pass. God spoke in Habbakuk, telling him to write down his vision on tablets, so it may be read.  God is telling us to write down our goals, our dreams, our prayers and petitions.  Make them concrete as in stone.  This way it is out of our minds and onto paper, making them more tangible.  Writing provides a channel for our thoughts and desires.  Writing brings our thoughts and desires from the mental realm into the physical realm and helps to provide clarity.  What we may wish or hope for may not seem such a good idea when we get it onto paper.   I love seeing what God was saying in the Old Testament.  I am so guilty of not reading the Old Testament and I miss out on so much.  Through my own study this morning, I was taken to Habbukuk and see these words from God that, although spoken thousands of years ago,...

God will finish what he started. He wouldn't have whispered that dream in your heart if He didn't already have plans to bring it to pass.   2 or 3 years ago I attended a Bible study at my church.  I remember a question was raised in the study that has never left my mind: "What is your dream job? What is the one thing you would love to do if you could?" I went home that night, pondered it, thought and prayed and in my mind I found all I could think about was ministry.  What kind of ministry? I had no clue.  I know that I have a heart for women's ministry and I immediately thought how cool it would be to work for an organization such as Women of Faith.  Being able to travel and touch women's lives, to be surrounded by Godly women and to be able to encourage others.  But, that seemed impossible to me.  Who am I? What could I offer that would be worthy enough of women's ministry?  As a single mom I knew that now was not the time for me to even c...

So many times we pray and ask God for things.  We ask him to provide a better job or to heal us or to allow the person we have a crush on to see us.  Maybe you need freed from an addiction, or you are wanting to get out of debt.  Whatever it is, you believe God can move in your situation. So, you pray and pray but what are you DOING to show God you SEE what he can do.  God is looking for people to demonstrate their faith . In James 2:14-26, James is showing us that Faith without works is dead.  Abraham believed God would save his son Isaac, and by doing what God told him to do, he acted on that faith.  God wants us to move.  He wants us to show Him that we see he can do what He promises in His word to do.  Its not enough to sit and pray to be delivered from and addiction and then continue to do what we always do in that addiction.  If you want freedom from overeating, act on that by passing up the cookie jar.  If you want a bette...

I've been sharing with you what I've been learning in my morning studies.  Today, I feel God is leading me to share a story from my past.  With the upcoming Holiday season fast approaching, and the amount of excess we see in America, we tend to forget that there are people out there who struggle for the most basic of needs - food, shelter, good clothing.  We take these things for granted way too often.  We have cabinets full of food and yet often hear ourselves saying "There's nothing to eat".  We have closets full of clothes, yet we say "I have nothing to wear".  We live in homes that many would consider good homes compared to the street or shelter they live in and and we say "I wish my house was bigger, or nicer".   God put it on my heart this morning to share so that as we enter this time of Thanksgiving, we can truly be thankful for what He has provided. From the age of 5 years old I grew up in a single parent home.  I loved my mom ...

I love the analogy of the potter and the lump of clay.  When the potter places the clay on the wheel it is just a lump.  Bumpy and full of knots.  But, as the potter spins the wheel and applies pressure, the clay goes thru a transformation.  The lumps get worked out bit by bit until a beautiful piece of artwork is formed.  God uses trials to help form us.  Each difficulty isn't there to discourage us, but to refine us.  When someone offends us, we need to overlook it.  When someone is hard to get along with, we make allowances for them. As we spin on the wheel and pass each test that comes our way, we step into a new level of our destiny.  We need to understand that each irritation is not God trying to make our lives miserable.  He just knows there is a masterpiece in all of us, waiting to be formed.  So often we ask God to change our circumstances, change that person, etc, but what God is wanting to do is change us.   When ...

In my study this morning I read the word "Uncontainable".  God is uncontainable.  The work he wants to do thru us can be uncontainable.  God has placed inside of all of us seeds of greatness.  Yet, so many of us never cultivate those seeds of greatness because we don't believe we are good enough.  We see ourselves as second-class citizens and think we don't have much to offer.   I know because this is how I've thought of myself most of my life.  I will be vulnerable and honest with you.  I see others doing great things and I have let my circumstances, my past and my limited view of myself keep me from doing great things as well.  I've told myself I'm "Just a mom", or "Just" a girl from small town Indiana.  We all start somewhere.  The difference is some of us have a limited mentality. But we all have something incredible to offer. Numbers 6:24-26 "The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you, ...

Have you settled in life for good enough?  The job I have isn't the job I wanted, but its "good enough".  I have a dream to be a writer but I'm not talented enough, so where I am is "good enough".  I'll never ______ (fill in the blank) because I'm not good enough or where I'm at is good enough. GOOD ENOUGH is not your destiny!   We all have seeds of greatness in us, but to see the fulness of what God has in store, we have to change our thinking and our perspective.  God didn't create us for good enough.  He created us for greatness.  In order to reach our full potential, we have to stretch.  We have to reach forward to the things God has in store.  That means we have to MOVE. It requires action on our parts.  We can't sit back and say God has more but then just stay where we are.  We have to stretch our faith, stretch our minds, stretch our abilities.  When we give God our natural, He will make it SUPERnatural ! Have you ...

What man means for harm God uses for good.  What is your test will become your testimony!  We all go thru storms in life - and when we are in the midst of one we wonder "God, where are you? How could you let this happen to me?"  The same God who is in control in the good times is in control in the bad times. When we go thru storms, God is using them to increase our faith in Him.  Nothing happens outside of His will for our lives - and while the storms may be hard, the will not keep us from our destiny.  God is using the storms for a purpose and we will come out of them better, strong and the storm will move us to a place of greater blessing and greater influence. There will come a point in our storms where will need to just say "God, I trust you".  We have done all we can do and must now relinquish CONTROL and let God lead.  Let Him take the storm where He wants it to go. God is a faithful God.  He will not let a storm stop His plan for our ...