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.

Being Fat and Ugly- or your not!

“I’m fat!” “My face is so disgusting!” “I wish I had her figure” “ I don’t like my legs.”

Through the years I hear these complaints all the time and I hear them more and more now that I am getting older and many of my friends are not teenagers anymore. Have you ever thought that every time you look at yourself in the mirror and find something to complain about you are bashing what a beautiful creation God made? Have you realized that he took that time to make each part of you? He took the time to make your hair hair, straight, curly, thick or thin, He made your legs, your hands, your eyes, your whole complexion, everything about you God made. And He made you uniquely you.  There is no other like you out there in this whole world.  He created you special and unique and the last thing he wants to hear is how you don’t like something about you that he designed specifically for you. He made you perfect in his eyes and you dogging yourself in the mirror or in front of your friends makes the God of the universe upset. He wants you to love yourself looks and all. Some of us he gave high metabolisms too, some of us don’t have that, we have the opposite problem and we look at food and it puts weight on us no matter how healthy you may eat. But the point isn’t about your weight or how clear your skin is or how long your legs are or how other areas of your body may be attractive to other humans, remember that God made each and every part of you so unique and special and he loves each and every inch of you he created.

So women of the faith and not in the faith please always remember how beautiful you are to God and please stop degrading the art work which the Lord has made you into.  Rainbows, mountains and diamonds are all things God made, but you he made special. You are so unique to him that there is no other equal!

Psalm 139 13-15 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

    Most of all my beautiful sisters in Christ remember this, the God of the universe saw you and made you and has a plan for you and each part of you is beautiful to Him.  You are never going to change his mind about you and the beauty he created no matter how hard you try. Thank him and give him praise in the beauty He gave only to you. Look and see the beautiful creation the Lord has made you to be! 

Parenting with God as my leader

Parenting is not something I think any parent would say is easy. It is fun, rewarding and even sometimes inspirational. But just as many times that you come across fun and rewarding you also come across agitating, annoying and frustrating times.

  There are so many times life is frustrating because of people outside of your family than within it. For instance there are so many options out there how to raise your child.  From the word go there are choices.  Who the OB is going to be?  Are you going to deliver with a midwife or a doctor?  What hospital are you going to deliver at? or Are you going to choose at home birth? 

And the choices for raising your child get that much harder once you have the baby. What diapers to use?  What pediatrician to use? What clothes to put on them? Are you going to co-sleep or not?  Do you do day care and if so where do you leave your precious bundle of joy?  Are you going to nurse your child? If so for how long? If not or you can’t what formula is best for your baby? Are you going to vaccinate or not?

 As the child gets older even more harder choices come up such as what school to choose, how to discipline and setting barriers so you don’t become that ‘way over protective over worrisome parent.’  Each parent has their own choice and should never feel judged for the choices that they choose to make for their children.  Though I think everyone should be handed their options clearly it doesn’t mean if someone leans one way they made a wrong decision. God gave the child(ren) each parent has for a reason and he entrusted us to care for them the way that we saw best. 

Honestly parenting is not easy and some of the decisions are not right or wrong. Trust God to lead you with your parenting and He will.  Not everyone agrees with my parenting choices I have made. To be honest I know several people do not agree with them but I am ok with that. I am ok that they think I have made wrong choices. At first it irritated me that they seemed to judge the parenting styles I choose because I am one of those people who leaves parenting to each individual. I don’t think people’s choices are wrong or insane but that they are made with the child’s best interest in mind along with many other factors.  Therefore with this in mind I usually think people should be ok with mine.

I love my babies and would never make a deliberate choice to harm my children.  I also know that God is leading my husbands and my parenting skills. I think so many people focus on the nitpicky little things in parenting that they don’t look at the overall big picture, which is the end result. Getting them from baby to adult hood with as few issues as possible and able to fit into the society in which we live.  “Train up a child in the way they should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6  To me this is the most important advice I have ever read or received. My actions with others and with my children and the truths I teach them while they are young are what they will take with them into the future to pass on to generations to come. 

My children may not ever be the most well behaved, talented or most intelligent, but I do know I am training them to face the world out there and prepared with Jesus as their Lord and leader of their life. With Christ leading them they will never go astray and that is the most important choice they will ever make. That is my main focus as I raise my children the rest of my decisions I pray God helps me make wise choices and if I make a mistake I pray he helps to keep my children healthy and strong. I also know I cannot guard them the rest of my life from making their own mistakes and when they do make mistakes I want them to know that there is forgiveness not just from me as their mother but from the one who matters most and that is God. If I can show that I believe in forgiveness when I make my own mistakes I am sure they will also take this into their future which will help them to be free from worrying they are constantly going to make a wrong decision wither with parenting or any other choices which they encounter as they get older.

With God leading me I cannot fail, and as a parent I have to constantly remember that so that others opinions of my children and of me do not hinder my path of parenting.

Because I said so, That's why!

Years ago when I was growing up my dad had a shirt that said “Because I said so that’s why.” I hated when he use to use that phrase. Now that I am an adult and a parent I get the reasoning for saying it so much more.  My now three year old is always asking me, “why mommy?” or saying things like, “but I want too.”  In their three year old minds they want explanations and sometimes it gets really aggravating answering there constant why’s.  Sometimes the fact that I am the parent and I said so really is the only explanation I have, they should need no other reason.  And sometimes because it’s beyond their comprehension for why I am saying what I am it’s just easier to pull out the, “because I said so” phrase. 

How funny that many times I find myself questioning the God of the universe the same way. Why this or why that. For two years now I have really been doing a lot of questioning regarding why miscarriages happen, or sad things to babies and children, or my biggest questions that has often sent me into oodles of tears is “why did you take Per? Why did you make him suffer the majority of his life? Why, what was your purpose? What was the goal in forming such a sweet innocent boy only to put him through torture of cancer, not just once, not twice but three times? Seriously what was your purpose God? I have not been able to receive a real answer that has ever caused me peace.

Today I got a lot more peace don’t ask me why today but it was today.  While in church we were singing the song The Great I AM.  While singing the bridge to the song these following words really hit home,

The mountains shake before Him 
The demons run and flee 
At the mention of the name 
King of Majesty 
There is no power in hell 
Or any who can stand 
Before the power and the presence of the Great I am 
The Great I am The Great I am 
The Great I am The Great I am The Great I am

Great I am 
The Great I am The Great I am 
The Great I am The Great I am The Great I am 

As we were singing the first part of the song I was kind of in my own little mind having a private conversation with God once again asking him about Per and begging him to explain to me his reasoning for taking such a sweet life.  Then this song hit me like a hand upside the head.  I was talking with the Great I AM, the one and only God of the universe. Who was I to question him so bluntly like I have been the last two years? What made me think God should answer to me for all of the things He ordained for the world?  If mountains can shake and demons run and flee at the sound of his name and yet I have the audacity to stand before Him and question him as though he owed me an explanation?

The answer to my question was really one that I repeat on a daily basis to my three year old when I know he cannot understand my adult parenting decisions, “because I said so.”  Even though I believe God has a reason for all the things I find unfair that happens to babies and children in this world He does have a purpose for everything that happens under heaven.  Some of those reason I may never understand I just have to trust that he is the great and awesome I AM.

Falling in love- after I got married

Love is something that many of us just don’t get. We don’t understand it. We think it’s all about butterflies, shooting stars and orchestra’s playing in the back ground when we kiss every time. 

The truth about love is it’s really none of those things. Sure they may happen in movies but in reality love is about sacrifice. The greatest love you’ll ever know happened from a sacrifice that God put in place.  He sent his own son to come here to die for us because he loved us. There were no shooting stars when it happened, no orchestra playing romantic music in the back ground and no butterflies.  The truth is the sky went black as night, people shouted blasphemy the whole time and the only things flying around were probably flies and vultures.

In this picture of love, it was the greatest love ever given to us. We didn’t deserve it! The same goes for relationships even here and now. Our marriages, boyfriends or other loved ones shouldn’t have to ‘prove’ their love for us. Honestly, I don’t deserve an ounce of the love my husband gives me. Don’t get me wrong I’m so thankful that God has given him the ability to love me, but I am so undeserving of it more than I am deserving.

My husband is awesome. Sure, he makes mistakes (he’s only human) but he sacrifices a lot for me. He sacrifices time, money and tons of effort to make sure our relationship works. Now, when we first got married I did not even care that most of this happened. I will put it out there. I was so selfish. I wasn’t even in love with him. I was in love with the idea of being in love. I was in love with the idea of being married. But honestly, and he knows this, I was not in love with him.  It’s sad, so sad I know but I learned so much from it. He was doing all of these things for me because he loved me, he seriously fought for our marriage.

I kept telling myself he didn’t love me that if he loved me he would be doing so much more for me, that he would fight for our marriage that he would do everything I wanted him to. I thought that there would be shooting stars and romantic orchestra music in my mind and that in all terms of romance he would be that wonderful guy.  The problem was I wasn’t living in reality. I knew that those things happened in fairytales but eventually real life would take over and that stuff wouldn’t happen every day.

When we started going to church and we both started living our lives for pleasing Christ and not others I really was struggling with myself internally because I knew that I wasn’t in love with my husband the way I should be. I wasn’t even sure I loved him all that much.  Sure I liked him and I could tolerate living with him and he was a great guy but, love, that one just had me stuck.  So I prayed and prayed and boy did I ask God to ever change my heart and my mind in the way I saw my husband.

A couple weeks into my desperation for God to change my heart regarding the way I looked at my husband and felt about my husband it dawned on me.  I saw him doing all of these things for me just simply because he loved me.  I had never noticed all the things he had done for me and for our child before. Yes, I will admit I was that selfish.  Sure prior to this I knew he was a great guy but in all honesty I really didn’t see him doing enough for us. But, in the long run he was doing way more than enough. Who was I to think he needed to fight for me? Who was I to think that the world and our marriage should revolve around my happiness?

In that moment it dawned on me ever so clear.  Love wasn’t about what he could do for me to get me to fall in love with him. It was about what I could do for Matt to make sure his happiness was fulfilled.  I stopped trying to be so selfish. I tried to make sure that I did my fair share of helping out around the house, and making sure he got him some alone time too and I started sacrificing things I wanted so he could have some things he wanted. I started actually fighting for his happiness. It was different than I had ever thought. When I started doing things for him because I was concerned about his happiness I realized that the more I worked and strived to make him happy and content the more I fell in love with my own husband.

There was no real defining moment of shooting stars and butterflies and rainbows and all the romance but there definitely was a day when I woke up and realized that I really had finally fallen in love with the guy I married. He was a great guy and I knew that from the start, but he became an even greater guy than I had imagined when I let go of my selfishness and started trying to actually love him. I stopped focusing on what he wasn’t doing for me and instead I started focusing on what I wasn’t doing for him but what I should be doing for him.

There still isn’t always romance in the air, but I do see it much more now than I did when I was the selfish one in the relationship.  I hear so often women who are like I was, saying that their husband’s aren’t doing certain things that they need to in order know that they are loved.  Here are my thoughts to that, start doing things for him and you’ll learn to find ways to love him, ways in which you never dreamed possible.  Stop looking for the fairytale and help write a new love story that would make the fairytale seem like a child’s dream because in all honesty that is what a fairytale is.  You have the ability to make a love story far greater than you’ll ever see in any movie.  You just have to stop trying to make your life a movie.  Man made movies and the dreams in those movies, and God can make so much better than that if you just surrender the idea of what you have and let him fulfill his dreams in your love life.