You Say It's Your Birthday! Happy Birthday To Me!!!

Another year gone by. It's amazing how time just seems to fly by. I am 39 today. 39 Amazing. 40 is just around the corner. I can remember when I thought that it would never get here, that it be forever-an eternity before I would begin getting old.

I've had one daughter graduate, get married and give birth to my first grandchild, a grandson. The concept of getting older has never been one that easy for me to conceive. It's something I have to think through. I believe that over time I have finally began coming to the place of accepting that there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it, the best I can hope for is to embrace it.

I want to do things for the Lord I've never had the nerve to do. I want to LIVE each moment to make Him proud. It's time for change in my life and it's about time. It's time to stop looking around and wondering what everyone else thinks of me and look to my Father.

Father, have I made you proud? Have I fulfilled even partially the call that You have placed on my life? Let me live today and everyday to come for You. I want to please You and fulfill Your will and not my own. I want to live for You and die to myself. It isn't about me, it never was, it's always been about You. Lead me, guide me, use me. I surrender all. I give You all my love and praise this day for You are worthy! Holy is Your name! Hallelujah! Jesus is Lord!

Finding Myself

You know I've spent the last few hours reading over some of my older posts again.

My discovery is so odd, and yet at the same time, somehow...now-it makes perfect sense.

The Lord was filling me around the end of 2009. At the time I thought that He was getting me through the moments, the days, the trials, BUT as I look back and read what the Lord was speaking to me, what He was saying so clearly, He was teaching me, preparing me...well at least trying to prepare me, as much as I would allow, for the attack to come during the early part of 2010.

Instead of absorbing and really learning, truly listening and retaining, I shared with everyone as though I had word of knowledge for THEM and I emptied everything out without retaining the lessons He was teaching ME.

The lessons that were meant for ME.

Sharing is perfectly fine, but if you empty out what has been given to you without absorbing it, you've gained nothing.

As I look back now, I can clearly see how my Father provided me absolutely everything I needed to overcome every obstacle, every trial that came my way. As I prayed it was like I was asking Him to do it for me, take care of this for me, make it go away but He expects us to do our part. He gives us what we need and He expects us to use it.

It seems almost silly now, so obvious, but at that time I couldn't see it. I was so hungry for God, yearning for Him to speak to me, convinced that my relationship with Him wasn't good enough or strong enough or right enough or real enough......

Then I wind up here.

And the view from here shows me that it WAS good, it WAS strong, it WAS right and it WAS very very real.

I needed this.

I know my way now.

Thank-You Father for Your revelation. I am truly on my way back.

Off Track

I am so off track with my exercise and my eating. UGH. I usually get off track a few days and get right back on board but this time it's been two weeks. Two weeks can do a lot of damage. I wouldn't even be concerned at all if I had any thought of getting back on track. I mean, I'm thinking I need to but I'm not feeling good. All this year I've felt wonderful and had all this energy and now I'm wondering where it has gone. I cannot continue down this old path. I've lost 31 pounds and gained back 2. If you think of me, could you pray for that determination and energy to return? I want to make it to my goal of running a 5k! Thanks

Friday Funnies

I was looking for a short and sweet Friday Meme and I came across this over at my old friend Susan's place at Forever His.

Thankful Thursday

“Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”- Romans 15:7 
I am thankful to have a husband who accepts me for who I am. He doesn't think that I should aim to be like others. He doesn't desire that I should worry about getting older or how I look. He loves me, bedhead, bad breath and all. He is satisfied with my housekeeping. He never complains about whether dinner is ready or not. He is simply happy when I am happy. The love that he has shown to me over the past 17 plus-years has taught me much about love. He brought love to life for me. 

1 Corinthians 13

The Greatest Gift

 ¹ Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. ² And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
⁴ Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; ⁵does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; ⁶ does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
⁸ Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part. ¹⁰ But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. ¹² For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
¹³ And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Thank-you Tony. For loving me no matter what. 
I love you.
I am ever so thankful for you.
(To participate in Thankful Thursdays visit Iris at Grace Alone)

Drawing Near

I love seeing people draw near to my Lord. Especially my family. We have been under such an attack of the enemy this past year. How I wish I could have/would have/should have recognized this attack and put on the full armor of God available to me and fought back instead of giving in.

I'm so thankful. Ever so thankful for God's mercy and grace.

I've been praying for such a long time for my sister and my brother and then I blew it myself. It seems that just a few months after this I am seeing God answer those prayers that I had prayed so long ago and in many ways given up on.

God is so faithful.

My sister is serving God. Tonight she inspired me. It was incredible being on the other end of things, having her minister to me. Praise God! What an awesome experience.

My brother is coming to church, reading his bible and praying.

These are miracles.

Their hearts were so cold.

God is all powerful.

It isn't easy trying to get back to where I was. I just want to please my Father. I'm trying to look forward and not back. It is so wonderful to see God moving on my loved ones. So wonderful to be reminded of forgotten prayers.

God is good.