I am not James Holmes judge

Last night while I was lying in bed trying to drift myself off to sleep I was praying. It started off as a seriously innocent prayer.  While praying I started thinking about the victims in Colorado who had their lives taken away or changed dramatically by James Holmes. I started thinking about the news report I had heard earlier in the day how a mother had lost her 6 year old daughter to this man and how while the mother was in the hospital suffered a miss carriage as well and was probably paralyzed. I was so upset just thinking about it and thinking of her suffering and how I hoped and prayed that this man who caused her so much grief would be tortured and killed.  I know it was a horrible thought! But, how many of us have already thought this? How many of us when we heard this reacted in our hearts pretty much the same way?

Now, as I said in the beginning, this all started off as a prayer and my mind had wondered a bit.  But God brought me right back to my knees. I had judged this man and it wasn’t even my place. Who is to say this man should die for his crimes? Sure he did a horrific thing that in human eyes is so unforgivable that most of us would agree with my thoughts and want this man dead and now! and send him straight to hell while you are at it!  But that is not how the God of the universe feels about this man at all. Funny thing, he died for ALL SIN and not just the little ones.  Jesus didn’t come to save those who were healthy but sinners to repentance.

I was very humbled when I realized that God was upset with my heart and what I had thought about this man. In my heart I was no better than the man who had killed the victims as I was hoping and praying for a death for him.  But God, He doesn’t want him dead. He wants him saved! Imagine that the God of the universe who loves me also loves this man, just as much as he loves me.

I laid there a little perplexed with my thoughts. First wondering how God could love someone like that and then of course this verse came to mind, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners- of whom I am the worst.” I Timothy 1:15 Paul already admitted to being the worst of all sinners and Jesus Christ saved and loved him and gave him such a ministry for the cause of Christ that we view him as one of the greatest Christians who ever lived, a saint. Yet if you look back Paul probably killed way more Christians than the man in the movie theater shot people.  Paul killed Christians on purpose and it wasn’t just a few of them, he was out to destroy them all!  But, no matter how many people he killed Jesus loved him anyways and used him in more ways than Paul himself could have imagined.

After my first thoughts of wondering how God could love him and realized how and why he loved him just as much as he did me the next thought was so humbling. I laid there and prayed until I fell asleep asking God to find someone to send into this man, James Holmes, life who knew about Jesus Christ.  Even if this man gets the life sentence you never know the plans God has for him while he is in prison and the people he may still affect in the days to come.

I think this is true for all the men and women in this world that we find ‘evil.’ If we were to pray for their salvation instead of praying for revenge our world could truly change. I bet when we get to heaven we find out that there were Christians who were praying for Paul’s heart to be one for Christ. Those who seem to have the biggest heart to be against us if turned could be the biggest heart for the cause of Christ.  It’s time to get on our knees and pray for the lives of the people we find terribly evil and unforgivable.

 And also I know for me I need to keep praying for a heart that is of Christ and not of normal human nature so that I do not judge the people that only God should be judging. I pray for a heart full of Christ love that I do not see other's sin just a heart needing to be filled with Christ love.

A woman's sense of Dignity in our perverted world today

This summer it has really become evident to me that women have really found ways to demoralize ourselves. We must have the lowest self-esteem ever! We even pass it on to our little toddlers, 10 year olds and pre-teen girls. Walked through the grocery store the other day and saw a girl who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old wearing short shorts, wedges that were way to tall for her and a shirt that if she was 5 years older would make the guys say nasty perverted comments about her to her face and behind her back. My first thought was why in the world would her mother let her dress like that and walk out of the house?  Then I realized this girl was too young to be going to the mall and picking out her own clothes which means, mommy dearest was the one who picked out the outfit.

Now I am not saying that women should go back to the 1800’s and wear dresses that come up to our necks and down to cover our toes, but don’t you think that it’s about time we take back our divine power as women and give a little mystery to what we have?  We should teach our daughters what self respect is, and also give ourselves more credit to our gender than just our looks. Sure it’s nice to be noticed, everyone enjoys someone checking them out once in a while, but don’t we want our daughters coming home with men who aren’t just in it for ‘that one thing?’ I personally would want my daughter coming home with the guy who ‘checked her out,’ because she seemed personable and nice, not because she went out with hardly any clothes on her figure.

The worst part is that you can find mom’s dressing their toddlers in outfits much the same as this girl had on at 10 and people commenting on, “oh how cute are you.” Really!?!?! This is cute!? I do not find little girls in bikini’s to be cute or little toddlers in belly shirts, short shorts and the like.  It’s rude to teach your daughter to dress to show off every ounce of skin she owns. No wonder girls grow up and think that the only way they can get a guy is by having as much of their cleavage show as possible and pray to God they get long skinny sexy legs so that they can wear short shorts and show off a little extra skin there too. No wonder women of today do not know who they are as an individual and serve a purpose worth living in this life. What happened to conservatively dressing our girls so that they can be ‘cute,’ but not ‘sexy?’ Dress them so that they look like they have pride in themselves as an individual and not just in their body.

Honestly I know I don’t have any girls but here is the thing, I have two wonderful boys and if they ever brought home a girl they were interested in who dressed like that I would make them sit at home and I would drive her home no questions asked probably escort her butt right up to her door. I do pray though that my boys find a better sense of respect for women and just know to stay away from a woman, girl who dresses for physical attention.

I really do not understand the mom’s who are Christians who allow their daughters to dress in such fashion.  We are daughters of Christ and we are to be examples of his Bride. We are to be lights of Christ in this world and be different, set the examples of confident women because of who we are in Jesus Christ. We should not only be portraying that to the rest of the world but also helping our daughters understand what true confidence is and where our true self worth comes from, helping them to grow into the daughter of Christ that he would be proud to call His bride. We all know as grown women that Christ would be the last one to look at the outward appearance when looking for his Bride.

Let’s take back our sense of pride as women, put a little mystery back into the game and teach our girls what it means to dress appropriately and pleasing to God. There is no shame when we reach heaven for covering our daughters up too much, only shame in not teaching them the moral values that the Bible instructs us to give them. Titus 2:3-5 "teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure"  

Your daughters are truly beautiful, let’s teach them to portray their inner beauty more than the outer beauty. Teach them to stop being so vein and conceited. Stop teaching the daughters to be flakey and fake. Teach them to find their true beauty which is found within and will undoubtedly when found be revealed on the outside. 

Proverbs 31:30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

The secret quiet time for mommies

Can I just say it’s really hard being a young mom with young ones in the house and trying to balance out keeping a house clean, changing diapers, doing laundry, making sure dinner is on the table for everyone, trying to find time to read to the kids and play with them, let alone find time to have personal time to spend reading the Bible and talking with the great creator who made the beautiful babies?  Sometimes I get so stressed because I know I just need that time with God but yet I don’t get it, or I don’t get much of it. I feel like most days it’s just a struggle to get up and function throughout the whole day and I know I need that calming peace I can get when I get my time with God, alone.

When I was working I use to not have so many problems with this. I at least I knew in my 10 minute car ride to work and home again I would get that time to myself to think and pray and talk with God.  As a stay at home mom it is honestly the biggest struggle of my life to try and stay on top of my spiritual walk.  I no longer get the set aside time of an hour or even a half hour of personal quiet time. I can try as hard as I want I cannot seem to find ways to get a full amount of that kind of time where my brain is still functioning to actually sit down and read the Bible to comprehend it, or be able to close my eyes to pray without secretly nodding off. There are days here and there were I am blessed to be able to spend some real quality time digging in the word and praying to God but they are few and far between.

With Elijah I have not been able to get on a real schedule. As soon as I think I know his schedule so I can start waking up early to have my personal quiet time he changes it up on me and wakes up three times in the middle of the night so I end up with no energy in the morning or motivation to get out of bed and spend even 10 minutes alone with God before I start my day. Many times I end up feeling like this is just an excuse of being too tired to function. But the truth is my body needs the sleep in order to function throughout the day. So how in the world do we find that time to get close and personal with God, to get the calm emotions only He can provide?

Lately I have come to realize that I need to be thankful for the few minutes I get here and there throughout my day and I need to take advantage of them. Seriously the bathroom is one place that I have been able to steal away a few minutes of time just for me. I don’t get a long time, not even five minutes, but sometimes it’s just the couple moments I am in there that help rejuvenate me. I have a very small devotional in the bathroom upstairs it takes less than 2 minutes to read and sometimes those two minutes are honestly the best two minutes of my day because I know it is God quietly finding a way to speak to me. 

Other times I find that just reading a short Psalm from the Bible or a few verses of scripture from the New Testament where Jesus is talking really speak the most volumes to me. Many times I have realized that even in my long private sessions with God it’s only a couple verses that really hit home for me but I just have longer to think about them and pray about how to apply them to my life. 

Really stay at home moms don’t get lunch breaks or 15 minute breaks in the middle of the day to try and get away and find some peace and quiet.  We have to take it in the short little bursts of quiet that might come periodically throughout the day, and usually they are never the same.  It’s remembering to use those moments when you find them to talk with God and bring your focus of what your day is really about back to Him. Remember that the day is about bringing honor and glory to him and if he is not in your day it’s hard to remember your goal to serve Him.

I am starting to enjoy my little bursts of secret quiet time and I think they are the part of my day I look forward to the most. Not that I don’t love my children or my husband, I just love hearing the quiet things God has to say to me to keep me going on my journey and keep my perspective on Him and not on myself or what is going on around me that could easily frustrate me if He is not controlling my day. When I let God control my day it seems to go a lot better and smoother than when I leave him out of it completely. The secret quiet moments are totally worth finding in your day to hear from and talk with God.