365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 19

My focus today is on verse 7 in 1 Corinthians 13: It (love) always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. These aspects of love are by far the most challenging. The word, “always” makes this the challenging part. I think when it comes to protection, keeping my kids safe has been a top priority but that is in the physical sense. Have I kept them safe from emotional strife and helped build a solid faith foundation in them so they are protected spiritually? I know I have tried but consistency is tough. Always trusting is a fairly easy one for me because it is in my nature to be trusting but have there been times where the trust is lacking even a little, absolutely. I wish I could say that I am always hopeful but even my hopes can be drowned out or covered with the dirt of day to day living and the depression and negativity that can bring. Persevering means never giving up but I think all of us have experienced those moments when you just want to lay down and sleep your life away rather than face the challenges you are in. Can we be protective, trusting, hopeful and persevere no matter what? We can do all things with the Holy Spirit inside us.  How can we manage to get the “always” to be in front of these? Try swapping “it” (love) with your name or “I”. Janine (I) always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres thanks to the Holy Spirit inside of her (me). Amen! Post it and say it everyday and you will find yourself living out the “always” parts of love.

Psalm 91:1 The person who rests in the shadow of the Most High God will be kept safe by the Mighty One.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 293

As I was driving to my church for the final interview, the rain was coming down very steadily and had for the last hour or so. The roads were getting very saturated. All of a sudden the car in the lane next to me who was just a car length ahead of me hit a big patch of standing water. All that water flew directly onto my windshield, blocking my view of the road in front of me for about 5 seconds. This has happened to all of us. I knew there weren't any cars directly in front of me or behind me but in the fear-filled seconds, I put on the brakes to slow down. The windsheild cleared and I uttered a nice sentiment to the driver of the car. Than I apologized to God because it really wasn't the driver's fault. As I continued to drive to work, the incident spurred some thoughts and I grabbed on to them and found another great example of something in life and how it teaches us about God. We learn from the bible that God is here with us. We have to have our hearts, eyes and ears open to hearing, seeing and feeling God's presence in our lives. Like the water hitting our windshields and blocking our veiw, life and the evil one can block our sight of God, can put too many voices in our ears blocking the one voice we should be listening to and can put a barrier around our hearts keeping us from feeling God's presence. But He is ALWAYS here! And like I did in the car, we have to put the brakes on our lives, slow down and rest in Him. Our brakes for this are our prayers, quiet times, reading of the scriptures, studying of the bible, bible study groups and other Christian-minded groups and worship in church and everywhere. If you haven't been feeling God's presense, seeing Him in everything in your life, hearing his voice giving you wisdom, strength, guidance and everything you need, than it may be time to put on the brakes or put on the brakes a little bit more. Praises to my AWESOME God who shows me these connections and gives me the motivation and drive to share these with others that they might help them. Thank you Lord for another great analogy that connects life to you!

Matthew 28:20 "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 44

Do you get bombarded with emails? Are most of them junk mail? I delete far more emails than I actually read and I am sure most of us are in the same boat. I do take a quick look at the subject line and if I have the time to take a look I will open a forwarded email to see what it's about. These are few and far between and I am very selective in my subject choice. I love animals and love inspirational stories so those two subjects may catch my attention. I recently opened one from my dad with the subject FROG. It was such an odd subject that I decided to take a look just to see and found myself reading through a story and the moral, FROG, forever rely on God. I have had those four words in my head for days now. I, of course, had to create a scrapbook page and a card for this great acronym. I used the Lucky paper pack from Close to My Heart which will be going away by the end of the month with the launch of the newest catalog. My arrows were created with the Art Philosophy cartridge and given dimension with an embossing folder. I have the frog jumping up to represent looking up to God. I still have to add my journaling about the photos I selected which are from a dentist visit for my daughter when she had to get her first tooth pulled.

We were definitely relying on God that day to get us through the trauma.
Psalm 16:8 I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.