365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 356

You would think a household could go one day without electricity. Not mine. I got home and the family was out taking Tristan to bible study group so I went around lighting some candles and than they got home. Immediately they all, including my daughter who was so gung-ho about us doing it, agreed that our No electricity experiment was done. TV won. I was actually very thankful as it had been one of those days at work trying to play catch-up to being gone the afternoon before for my shoulder appointment and dentist appointment and vegetating in front of the TV felt like a good idea.  So, my new shoulder PA and doctor take a look at my shoulder and told me I have “frozen shoulder”. Try putting your arms by your sides and hold up you lower arms with fists; keeping your upper arm by your side, move your arms outward. My right one goes out but my left one I could move out about ½”. Wow! Range of motion is dramatically gone. So to surgery I will go. PA explained that this is a fairly common problem especially for women in my age group. The cause a lot of times is related to diabetes or thyroid but I don’t have either of those issues so the doc thinks the probable cause is an impingement which he will take a look at during the surgery and fix anything else that needs fixing. There are lots of things to praise the Lord for in this situation: being listened to, having answers, having hope and knowing that God is in control and taking care of me. I know everything is in His timing and I am thankful for the Holy Spirit filling me with the patience to endure, peace to keep my mood from becoming dark and especially the loving tender care the Lord provides.

Phillipians 4:19 And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 83

At my bible study last evening, we got off on a 'bunny trail' and ended up talking about negativity and how it can affect us. My first inclination was to pray about it everyday. If anything is bothering you or making your life not all it can be, pray about it. My second thought was keeping the focus on Jesus. It seems to be the major theme throughout the bible study Fearless by Max Lucado. How do we keep our focus on Jesus? Prayer, being in the Word as much as possible, being around other believers and more prayer. This morning I read from my email called Words of Wisdom from Crossing Your Bridge about change and peace and found this so 'right on' with the negativity discussion I had just had the night before. God provided a scripture that can be the focus of our prayers. Here's that little snippet I read:
2 Thessalonians 3:16

May the Master of Peace himself give you the gift of getting along with each other at all times, in all ways. May the Master be truly among you!

INSIGHT:

People who irritate, that happen to be in our lives, are there so we can activate God's peace. God's peace can help us see them as He sees them and allows us to not have them bother us. We can't control them but we can control how we react to them and how we allow them to bother us. People can't bother us unless we let them.


ACTION:
Activate God's peace in our lives when we are faced with someone who is irritating us.

Thank you Lord for bringing your Word to me that can help us change our outlook on the negative people that are around us.
Jeremiah 33:3 Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 47

I was seriously in the grips of the worst migraine ever last night. It was indescribably bad but in the morning I was at least able to move my head a little without it going into full blown intense pain mode and after about an hour it went away. I am just thankful today to be able to get out of bed. I sang in my head last night to help me see past the pain and be able to calm dawn and stop the crying which, of course, makes it worse. I thought of my Grammie who I have been told suffered from these migraines as well and asked her to talk to Jesus for me. Have you ever been so down by something whether it be physical like my migraines or depression or some grief that you can't even think. Praying words aren't possible and all you can do is moan and cry. Thankfully our Everlasting God is always with us and knows what we need without us speaking them. In the sermon on Sunday, Pastor Jim Smith said that the Reward of prayer is God himself not the answer to the prayer. I held on to that thought and kept talking to God and we got through it together. He was with me and yes, there was reward just in that. Have you ever looked back on a difficult time that the Lord helped you through and saw the reward of God's presence?
Matthew 6:8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 32

My praise is for clarity! A lot of my answers and guidance from God comes to me early in the morning when I awaken, perhaps it comes in a dream or maybe my mind needs to rest through the night to mull things over and get the clarity. In any case, my best ideas, thoughts and guidance comes in the morning. My letter for the last couple weeks has been "P". The word that most comes to my mind has been "prepare". So, with January 15th looming over me for the first introductory crop, I realize that my preparation for this is far from complete. God took us through all the old testament times before he had Jesus born to us on Earth to save us. He was preparing the way for Jesus and he did it in his own time. I realized that I am running on "my timing" and I have concluded finally in my mind that that won't do. To be successful with this ministry, it has to be about God's timing and being prepared. Like any good business, the planning is the most important part to it's success and though I have had plenty of thoughts on this ministry I haven't yet really layed down the plans. God has put it on my heart that this is more than a one-person ministry. It will need to be a team effort to be successful so my first step in planning is to build up a body of Christ for this ministry. Each of us has gifts and this ministry will need more than what my gifts are in creativity. Do you have some spiritual gifts that can help this ministry? Do you have friends either in town or far away that may be able to not only participate but be a part of the team. This is a call to action to not only participate in this minsitry but become an integral part of it's success in reaching out to everyone for Christ.
Ephesians 4:12 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.