Do you like me? Am I valuable? Am I beautiful?
Have you struggled with any of these questions? The desire to know that we’re loved, valuable, secure, and accepted is part of being human. These are the questions that our hearts ask when we are depending on ourselves to feel beautiful and whole.
What’s underneath this need to know that we have what it takes? Have you tried to build an identity on what you can accomplish or what you look like? The longing to prove we are adequate, valuable,and loved lurks beneath the surface of all our trying. You may think you’re the only one who feels this way, but we all feel this way at times.
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When you need faith to move your mountain…
This passage has been a challenge to me. It’s easy to feel like somehow we must manufacture mountain-moving faith–as if it is some secret formula only the most devoted can learn.
Sometimes we’re trying to move the wrong mountain.
I struggled with the questions in my heart about how to have faith to move my mountains. But sometimes we’re trying to move the wrong mountain and too often we ask the wrong question.
Jaque Banas of Vision Writer’s International teaches the concept of journalizing, a specific way of meditating on Scripture by taking dictation from the Holy Spirit and writing to capture, assimilate and obey His personal instructions.In
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The end of this school year has screamed by like a Jet Ski stuck at full throttle. Sucked under the wake of a busy schedule, I’m ready to get off this ride and slow down. I’m feeling frazzled and need to refresh my mom-i-tude so I can enjoy this summer with my family.
Juggling schedules and sports, homework and the countless things that mom’s do in a day, it’s easy to feel exhausted by the end of the school year.When busyness crescendos into chaos, frantic moms can feel a little nuts. I’ve been there, and I’ve had days when I was camped out next to crazy.
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Jesus… got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself. Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.–John 13:4-5
Am I willing?
Acts of service require that we get up from the table. Service begins with a willingness to stop and serve others.
Laying aside his garments…Jesus prepared to do the menial work of a servant, washing the feet of his disciples. As I read these words, the Holy Spirit quietly asks, “Are you willing to get up and lay aside in order to serve?”
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“Mama, I NEED the glue stick,” my daughter hollered from the kitchen table.
“Mommm…she took my sticker. I wanted the big heart,” whined Big Brother.
I remember standing at the sink, looking out on a yard that needed cutting and toys scattered in the driveway. Hands in hot suds, I sighed and wished away the irritation. Couldn’t the little people in the other room just get along? Did they have to argue about everything? This was supposed to be a fun Valentine’s Day craft.
We are GOING to feel the LOVE.
Like it or not.
I hurried to finish the task before Big Brother decided to give someone a hair cut with the sissors.
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There is something profound about stepping into a new year. Stretched out before us are months, fresh and unwritten as the blank pages of a new calendar. Waiting for us are experiences yet to be lived, adventures yet to be enjoyed, and blessings yet to be discovered.
There is such possibility in the start of a year. Some of us jump into all of this open possibility with the best of intentions and maybe even some resolutions and goals. We race into plans to organize, improve, shape up, slim down…or whatever happens to have made our hit list.
But sometimes we can get stuck.
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November is a great time for cultivating an attitude of gratitude. November has become synonymous with thankfulness in our associations.
Thankfulness is our response to the countless ways that God expresses His goodness in our lives.
Because God is good, and chooses to shower us with blessings, we have lots of reasons to be thankful. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can get so caught up in enjoying my blessings, that I forget to express gratitude to the giver. When my first child was born, I remember rocking him and wondering, how do I love God first when I hold the wonder of this child in my arms?
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