She Stands

 My heart is full of desires. Many are for my children and grandchildren to succeed and to be prosperous and live godly lives. For their every need to be met and for God's favor to be a continuous rain over them. I have desires for my family and friends. For happiness and joy to be a foundation in a world that screams sadness and despair. For their every struggle to strengthen their faith and victory to chant their names. And I have my own desires, those that I have hidden deep within the core of my very being.  Those I have tucked away behind the beating of my own heart. The ones I have secured and intertwined around my soul. Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. I love that verse. It reminds me how very much Jesus loves me that He will give me my desires. He will shower me, his daughter, with those things which I hold in my heart. But notice the first part of the verse...."delight yourself in the Lord"  To delight ourse...

    John 13:12-17   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.   “You call me ‘Teacher’  and ‘Lord,’  and rightly so, for that is what I am.     Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.     I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.   Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master,  nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.     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, however in biblical times it was an act one's 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 ...

  The changing of life seasons can be joyous and yet there are some that can be difficult. I have discovered in this season of my life I am having a hard time finding who I am or finding my place I should say.  I am a mom, a title which will never change. However, my role has changed since both my girls are grown . No more running after children, homework, sporting events or sleep overs.  I am a grandmother who is blessed to witness joy in life through the eyes of my grandchildren and a newfound love that cannot be measured. I am a sister whose goal growing up was to make my younger siblings lives miserable with my constant grief- giving as the eldest. Now we are more than siblings. We are friends with a bond that cannot be undone.   I am a child, no matter my age, who shares my mom's beautiful strength. I am a friend who cherishes my deep-rooted relationships; those filled with loyalty, love and respect. But when I look in the mirror and strip away all those titles,...

  Colossians Chapter 4:6.   Let  your speech always  be   with grace,  seasoned with salt,  that you may know how you ought to answer each one. Speech with grace, seasoned with salt ...………… Admitting out loud the numerous times I have tripped and tumbled over my words in my younger years can be compared to eating a tablespoon of vinegar. Many times, my words have been less than desirable. Rank-smelling, mouth puckering, and eye-watering pain would be a better description.   They held no salt, only the salty tones of my utterance. My salty tones were not spoken to encourage, lift up, or be a positive influence. They were the back tones of my own emotional injuries that I had selflessly chosen to share like an arrow hitting a target.  Jesus tells us in Matthew Chapter 5:13. You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underf...

 It was day 6 of my 21 days fast a few years ago when I discovered just how much I relied on social media for my daily encouragement. It's so easy, just one click of my mouse, and it's there for me to see. A short cut of sorts, a quick fix in a world, my world, that is constantly moving and changing. But when I dig into the word of God, when I take the time to seek Him, the encouragement is more. So much more. Today I am encouraged by the woman who suffered with the issue of blood. For 12 years she suffered a life of misery and in her culture was considered unclean. It was a chronic condition which means she probably had anemia as well as physical weakness. She was hopelessly incurable by the many doctors she had sought out for medical care. She had become destitute for she spent all that she had. Everything and everyone who she would come in contact with would have become ceremonially unclean making her shunned by all in society including her family. Her husband, if she had on...

  The  bible defines darkness as ignorance and light as knowledge. To live in the darkness of the world causes one to live in ignorance, but to live in the light of Christ allows one to live in knowledge. Whatever we give ourselves to, it will give back in the same measure we use. Are you giving in to darkness or surrendering to light?   - Pastor Ron Carpenter. I go back to those  words again and again. Their resonating sound in my heart causes me to pause as I take in a deep breath and exhale. I can hear the tapping of these words running through my mind. It can be so easy to slip into the world of ignorance, to trust what we choose to believe rather than what we know to be truth. Darkness or ignorance does not always appear to be what one would call red flags shouting for us to stop. Many times, it appears wrapped in a pretty package, clothed in what we believe to be real, and yet the true agenda is hidden behind the fal...

  In the story of Jonah, God instructs him to go to the city of Nineveh and preach a message of repentance. This charge was given to Jonah as a Prophet warning the people of Nineveh of impending judgement for its wickedness.  However, Jonah fled from the Lord and ran in the opposite direction. After being thrown into the sea and swallowed by a giant fish for three days, Jonah cries out to the Lord and is then spat up from the belly of the fish to go and do as he was instructed. Jonah Chapter1 verses1 through 3. The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me." But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So, he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarnish, paid the fare and went down into it to with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. I have such a time wrapping my head around the fact Jonah was in the belly of a ...

  "Lord, I want to love as you do."      Just shy of thirty years ago, I recall a time when I was sitting on the back pew alone in church, I whispered those words to the Lord. I had been watching the doors open as others came in for Sunday night service and through my people watching silence, I began to notice the slumped shoulders of many as though the world was sitting on top of them. The slow-moving steps, unsure were to sit or the facial expressions asking if they should even stay. The plastic smiles hiding the hurt buried deep within, and the lonely eyes that scanned the sanctuary in hopes someone would welcome them in.  With every deep breath I took I could feel a sledgehammer of affliction hitting its mark.  I looked down, in the hopes no one noticed my eyes gazing throughout the church, at my shaking clasped hands and realized I am no different.  I too had felt the world was sitting on my shoulders that night.  My feet were uncer...

  The book of Esther is one of my favorites.  A young, beautiful Jewish girl living in the Persian Empire who lost her parents at a tender age was in the care of her kinsman, Mordecai. I do not believe he ever once entertained the notion the child he took as his own would come to live in the palace of Shushan as queen. Nor save their people.   But. God.   Esther 4 verse 14 .......Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?   Esther's story is one of great faith and redemption. Her trust in God was greater than the circumstances that surrounded her.   There are seasons we find ourselves in not quite knowing how it is we came to such a place. Over the last several years I have questioned the station of my life. I had believed it to be one way and yet it's been something totally different. I often think how Esther was taken from all that she knew and placed in a life that was foreign to her. We...

                                                                                                               First Samuel 1 verses 10 and 11.  In bitterness of soul Hannah wept and prayed to the Lord. And she made a vow, saying " O Lord Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head."       Hannah's story in the book of first Samuel details a woman whose desire to have son but yet through her barren years clung mighty to her faith without abandoning h...

 Speaking has never been a fear of mine. I can speak to anyone, anywhere and at any time. Truth is, I love to talk, even if it's a brick wall.  It has been my family's forever life-long running joke about me. And honestly, I am good with it.  God has blessed me with the gift of gab. A gift I proudly use when He will have me speak into the lives of those He chooses. I love when He gives me an encouraging word; my heart explodes with excitement! After all who doesn't like hearing a promising word of truth right? My problem comes, notice I said, "my problem", when He will have me speak a truth to someone and it is not what they want to hear. I have those moments when I am ready to run as Jonah did or debate "why me" as Jeremiah. No one enjoys being ridiculed, nor do they relish the idea of having someone reject what God has called them to do or speak. It's easy to hear a spoken word, a promise of truth, or a correction of love to tuck away for my own he...

 Why is it society deems crying as a weakness? Little boys are taught that one criteria to be a man is not to cry. Little girls who cry are labeled as too emotional. It seems shedding tears is frowned upon in the grand scheme of life, however truth be told,  tears are the voice of our emotions. I tend to cry at the drop of a hat these days. Maybe it is hormones or lack of?  Maybe I am going through the "change" of life? Or maybe, just maybe,  my heart has become more sensitive to the things that surround me? I choose to believe it's the latter. I choose to believe my daddy God has answered my prayer when I asked Him to allow me to see others through His eyes. Sometimes. I. Cry. And I'm not alone.  John 11 verse 35 is only two words. Two heartfelt words.   "Jesus wept." Scripture allows us to see the depth of His love for Lazarus when He heard of his death. Through his tears we see the voice of his heart, and we hear the sound of his emotions. If Jesus ...

  There have been season's in my life when God has instructed me to walk through the desert. He doesn't give me the whole picture, just one softly spoken instruction for each step directed and ordered by Him. I am in one of those seasons now. Walking through a desert in faith, believing the promises from my daddy God. It can be difficult; this walk in the desert. I want to continue and succeed. I want to get to the place He has for me. My steps get heavier.  My lips are parched> I am tired and my soul cries out.  Should I turn around? Should I sit down and cry? Should I beg and plead for him to move me faster? My flesh is growing tired and weary.  And then I hear in my heart. Matthew 26 verse 41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.  I walk on, not giving in to the temptations of my flesh, when all I want to do is sit, cry and beg for this to be over. To keep my sanity through this season, I ta...

 Jeremiah Chapter 17 Verses 9 and 10 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, The Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. I read those words over and over and the seven words that stood out to me "according to the fruit of his doings."  We know whatever is in the heart of man, it will manifest itself through words, actions and in behaviors and thoughts. In the days of Jeremiah, we know he was called to speak to a nation whose hearts were filled with deceit, a place where no good fruit was found.  And once again I go back to those seven words and this time, I change them a bit .... " According to the fruit of my doing."  Did you hear those words?  I put my own heart in that verse for the Lord to search.  That is not an easy task. No one likes to be called out for the wrong we say, do or even think. It's so much easier if we can jus...

  "Way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness... my God, that is who You are."  Those lyrics depict my life as single mom when my girls where children living at home. I struggled raising my children, and I struggled hard.  Struggling was not a choice I made; it was a reality of a single mom working long hours on low wages.  As very young children I do not believe my girls realized the struggles their mom had, but as teenagers I know the reality was front faced for them both.   Seeing what some of their peers had versus what they may have lacked in material things broke this mama's heart time and time again.   I know material possessions are not the end all be all of life, however for a teenager it can be in their world. And it caused some resentment in my home.  Teenage years are tough. Not only for the parent but for the teenager trying to find their way and their purpose in life. There were times, I believed I had...

                                                                                                                                                                  2 Kings 4:5 So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out.       2 Kings chapter 4 tells the story of a widow woman on the verge of losing her sons to pay off the debts owed. With creditors on their way to take her only means of future support, she cries out to ...

  If I were to write a complete list of every time the Lord blocked a situation in my life and I broke through the barricade, my list would lap the world a few times over. Disobedience through my emotions has caused me great pain in my lifetime. Caving into what my flesh has desired has never lined up with what the Lord has had for me. And my own justifications for doing so, well let's just say pride had a lot to do with it.  It has taken many of falls, much heart break and several do overs to get to a place in my own thinking where I have realized to trust the block, to accept the barricades for my own wellbeing and the wisdom to see past my own wants. His plans are far better than any of my own. And in this season of my life, I have a profound peace in that knowledge. However, in my earlier years, my foolish ways caused an abundance of unnecessary hard lessons. I never sought the Lord in my decision making. I made what choices I believed to...

                                                                        Mark 4:5-6 New King James Version.  Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth, and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away.  Scorched and withered.  When I read those two words the pain, I imagine cannot equate with the reality of the pain one would feel of having a part of their body scorched.  Nor can I fathom the pain of someone who is withering away from a torturous illness.  Just as our flesh can become scorched and our bodies can wither away so can our spiritual lives if we allow the seeds of our faith to be planted upon stony ground.  A plant, or fl...