She Stands

      Over the last several years, the Lord has given me one word for the New Year. I keep each word tucked away as a reminder of each season I walk. This year I have waited for my word; the word from Him that will send me into the New Year with a new found hope and assurance. Up until 5 minutes ago, I had no word. As my fingers began to flow over my keyboard with the belief I had been given a scripture instead, my word, His word for me, rings in my spirit. "EXPECT" , He tells me.   Expect your hearts desires..... Expect my will to be done..... Expect the road your are walking will bring you to the place I have set aside for you.   This beautiful word now falls into place with the last two words given to me.  2015 I was to "believe His words over my life, 2016 came and I was instructed to "declare" His promises over me. 2017 I am to now "expect" all that has been told spoken to manifest in its fullness. Not only has He given m...

 I can relate to this picture in several ways. Holding to the things I love in life, at times, can be a downfall for me. I clutch to the small with the belief this is the best I can do. I put restrictions on my daddy God as I live my daily life in a complacent safe zone; a area where no growth is available and a season that has come to its end. The reality is I get comfortable and convince myself I am right where I need to be. And all the while He is telling me "Trust me. I have better."   The definition of trust . .... to depend on, believe, have faith, and assurance in. And yet I continue to cling to what I think is best. The truth, my truth, is the struggle I have been battling within myself and my reasoning behind it. Though I feel my reasons are warranted, my complacency however is not. The world will have me to believe what I am holding in my hands is it, all there is for me to receive in this life. That's the worlds version However Jesus gives me...

I am so excited to have Lyn Livingston guest post today. Her love for God and all his children is beautiful and her words of truth reflect her heart felt love. Please join me and welcome Lyn to She Stands. !! I know she will bless you as she has blessed me!! I felt my heart break in half. A wrenching tearing pain signifying a part of me was no longer there.  I felt hot tears burning my eyes and rolling down my cheek. How did this happen?  How could I have lost a friend just like that and not understand why? Laying the phone down, I held my face in shaking hands, crying out to God between sobs.  “Oh Father, Help me.” I cried. “Help me give grace & mercy, help me understand.  If I have done something wrong show me so I can ask for forgiveness.  Father I need you.” When rejection becomes personal it develops into a relentless searing sting unlike any other.  I will be honest, my first reaction was “What! How dare she? After all I did for he...

Love..... a word used to express  heart felt emotion; to express the importance of feelings towards something or someone. But what if I told you love is not just a feeling but a choice? Let that sink in for just a moment......... How is that even possible? Real love is when we choose to love those who are set against us; those who are set against Christ. It is easy to love those whose beliefs are ones of my own. It's even easier to love those who love me , treat me with respect and stand in agreement with me.  The difficulty comes in loving those who rage against me, speak words of destruction, and engage in behaviors that are meant to break me. I have even found it to be strenuous  when those close to me attempt to speak good in my life but yet pick apart my heart with their words not realizing the impact of pain they have now caused. And yet I choose to love. Years ago I asked the Lord to use me as a instrument of  His love and in mo...

 Leaving for work I  snapped this picture from my front porch. The brilliance of the sun coming up and breaking through had glimmers of gold dancing across my front yard; such beauty to behold in the few moments I had before scrambling off to begin my work day. Perfection would have been for me to be able to stay and enjoy my morning coffee sitting in the rays of sunlight, however the brief moments I had were enough for me to be thankful for witnessing another one of God's beautiful moments of His divine artistry in the morning sky. I began to think of the times when my life has been covered with "shade"; when it appeared to have no sunlight breaking through. And, on a larger scale, I began to reflect how the world has had its own shade of darkness covering its every corner ringing its cries for just a little light to shine.Creeping slowly down my driveway I realized had I kept my head down, hustled down the porch all I would...

  Heart......the organ that pumps blood throughout our bodies entirety; supplying oxygen and nutrients to our tissues and removing carbon dioxide and other wastes. Our physical life line; if unable to supply blood to our organs and tissues, they die..... We die.  We all know the physical purpose of our heart. We are taught what eating habits and physical activity are best to keep our hearts functioning properly. However do we ever really seek how to keep the emotional and spiritual health of our heart at its best as well?   What do we do to guard our hearts  from emotional deaths; a death that causes our once soft, fleshy heart that held compassion, empathy, grace and love to become a cracked jagged and jaded stone? A stone that buries deep within the cracks the brokenness of our self worth and harbors the anger of our hurt others have pierced with their arrow of disdain. ...

I love this picture of McKenna. I have been blessed to know this precious young lady since she was in junior high school. She is now a wife and mommy of two beautiful babies. McKenna started doing cross fit when she was pregnant with her first child( maybe before? ) and has continued her fitness goals to this day. This picture is the first time she ever made it to the top of the rope. What an accomplishment!! It did not happen over night. It was not accomplished the first or even her second try. McKenna had to "endure" the process . She had to fight through the sweat and pain, the burning muscles and the constant desire to meet her goal. And met it she has!!  I then ask myself....... How do I press through a growth process?  When the pain is too much to bear and my muscles burn with the intensity of a boiling furnace , how do I endure? My endurance comes from my daddy God;  a process of growth and strength training in the spirit.  It...

  John 13:12-17 12  When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13  “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14  Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15  I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16  Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17  Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them .  Washing the feet of others may not be what society considers serving in the year 2019, however in biblical times it was an act ones servant would do when guest where invited in. Jesus preforms it as a symbolic gesture of serving one humbly and unconditionally. He was setting an example not only for his...

   The only sound I heard were the engines of the plane humming beneath me as I starred into another world through the tiny window my face was resting against. I did not want to come down from this place of solitude, this beautiful surreal atmosphere of  peace where the sun light penetrated through what appeared to be a city of serenity and a moment in time where I could breathe.   Just breathe............   In the quietness is where I find my daddy God waiting for me; a place I long to return to from all of the noise , from my endless thoughts that run rampant through my mind. It is here I ask, " Lord who am I? "  As a single mother whose children are grown and gone I find the place I have maintained in this world no longer the same and unable to grasp. I do not know how to let go of what was to become what is to be. Once again I hear my heart whisper to Him, " Who am I Lord? "   The sun light is now dancing before me o...

I don't recall a time in my life where my faith has ever wavered, I trust God. I believe in Him and His promises.   However in the recent events I am finding it's not my lack of  trust that has me on my knees, it's my lack of understanding . The grief that has consumed my community and our nation is smothering the very essence of my heart. So much death..... So much violence..... So much brokenness..... Division at it's worse. As a nation we grieved for Dallas and the loss of the fallen officers. Today as a community we grieve for our own. The three hero's, Montrell Jackson , Matthew Gerald and Brad Garafola , who lost their lives in a purposely orchestrated attack. A senseless act which has now placed Baton Rouge on the map of sorrow with others across the US. And one question that screams at us all............ WHY? I do not have the answer nor will I pretend to.  I wish I did. I pray my words of comf...

       In lieu of my nations recent tragic events and those that have hit my hometown, I find myself in a place of bewilderment. A place where words do no justice to the pain and grief that seems to have swallowed cities, coummities and the nation as a whole in a place of grief that is larger than I could have ever imagined in my lifetime. I do not cry from a place of fear.  Gods words promise me he did not give me a spirit of fear but of love, peace and sound mind. ( 2 Timothy 1:7) My tears come from a place that shelters my hearts deepest emotions for those I know, those I don't and those whose pain is more than they can bare. It is my secret place where my walls fall and my weeping is earth shattering. Where I have no words, my tear stained face is deafening to my soul. My tears have purpose. Psalm 56:8-9 " You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book? When I cry out to You, The...

  Ephesians 4:26 "In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry."  (NIV) " Many times bitterness is the result of unresolved anger; anger with ourselves or with others. . Anger that is not dealt with can easily become a dangerous bitter root in our hearts......" ( Click here for more on overcoming bitterness )      My mom has told me time and time again, " Stacey you forgive so easily, that's just who you are."   Truth be told, I do forgive fairly easy; I have my moment , express my emotions, shed any needed tears, and move on. Am I perfect? Not hardly. Some situations and circumstances in my life have had me not wanting to forgive, and secretly hoping for God to smite them. Harsh? Yes I know. " Lord forgive me."   However over the years I have purposed to do my best to see others with the eyes of my daddy God in spite of my hurting heart. And  there are tim...

Goliath....   A Philistine giant who stood over nine feet tall, wearing full armor and came every day for forty days, mocking and challenging the Israelite's to fight.  His stature was massive with a physical strength no man could match. He put such a vast fear into the army of Israel and King Saul no one was willing to confront him, until David, a boy after God's own heart, stood to face this giant with the colossal power of God standing with him. Some may ask how does a sling and a stone become such a victorious weapon of war? My answer...... It was the trust and faith in God alone that gave David and his sling and stone such a victory. All though I may not actually face a nine foot giant in life, I do however have had my own Goliath's to encounter. And the one over the last few years has refused to fall........... Just when I think peace has finally found it's place in my life, this giant surfaces with its mocking and taunting war cry, challenging me to...

In reading the book of Isaiah I have been fixated on  Isaiah 60:1-22. Here it speaks of the prophetic promises of restoration and the hope for Israel while in captivity.  I began to think about the promised restorations for my life and what has held me captive.  One in particular has been my financial struggles over the years, robbing Peter to pay Paul maneuvers , but then again who hasn't had a struggle such as that from time to time? As a single parent I became good  surviving from pay check to pay check  and accepted my captivity of  financial stress as a never ending norm of life.  It was not the lack that held me captive, I knew my daddy God would provide,  it was the stress of the unknown as to how and where all would work together in my favor. Stress has its own special way of showing up out of no where.  It is famous for sneaking in on me during the midnight hour. I wake up to find sub consciously I have been grinding ...

Years ago had I seen a bible ripped , torn or in any other condition other than perfect my gasp would have been louder than a bull horn. My religious law attitude had me so tangled up I believed the bible, my bible, God's holy word should be nothing but in pristine appearance. And to see one full of highlighted passages and notes written in the margins,was unthinkable for me. My thought process sadly was distorted and bound by a religious spirit which could not see past law and embrace relationship. Once I began to learn of the precious relationship Jesus wanted to have with me and that His words are yes indeed holy however they are written with love from a father to his daughter, my lawful spirit began to crumble and my relationship began to grow. As my thirst for His knowledge  began to increase , my idea of my bible's appearance changed.  I highlighted, made notes in my margins, placed sticky notes out to the sides of certain passages, circled and underlined scriptur...