365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 187 & 188

My Saturday turned into a nursing day as my daughter came down with some stomach bug. Thankfully, she seems to be better this morning so we will prepare for her going off to camp later this afternoon and hope that this feeling better stuff sticks around. There is something about my kids being sick that spurs my compassion and my fears. I will do whatever they need to feel better and I will sleep fitfully because of fear of how they are doing in the middle of the night. I am sure I am not alone in this. Most mothers out there are nodding there heads with a been there-done that kind of attitude. I got up once at 4am and went to check on her. Something about seeing how they are takes the fears away. As all this was going on, I was concerned about some spots that appeared on my lower legs and my arm. The Shingles sign at the pharmacy has been on my mind and so my imagination worked with my fear but I stopped myself from continuing this line of thought and prayed for God to take away this fear. Having more knowledge about shingles has helped. They recommend getting the very safe vaccine for ages 50 and up so I have a couple years. I just don’t do well with pain and from what I have heard and seen about shingles it is not something I want to get. Prayer and thanksgiving are the best antidotes to these kinds of “what if” fears. So, I am thankful these spots I have are probably a bug that bite me a few times to many and I am thankful my daughter has a strong immune system and that I know the Lord is watching out for her. Peace has taken over the spots of fear in my heart.

Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 359

We watched the movie Brave last night. It is well worth your time to watch especially if you are a mother or a daughter since the plot is about the relationship between the mother-queen and daughter-princess. The thing I love most about this movie is how it shows the conflict within a person when it comes to facing their sins. The princess ultimately faced what she did and asked for forgiveness. This conflict within a person came up in my reading from a Tim LaHaye book called The Spirit-filled Temperaments. He told of a woman who asked him to tell her the truth about what she was doing that was making her ultimately be depressed. He was hesitant about it but she pushed more and so he told her the flat out truth, it is because you are selfish. The sin of selfishness was making her thought patterns turn negatively and so she ends up depressed. This lady obviously was having conflict within herself and finally was brave enough to ask someone who was going to give it to her straight. The main point in both of these stories is that we have a choice but in making that choice we have to be brave. We have to be able to see the truth of ourselves so that we can go on and ask for forgiveness and be cleansed. Facing our sins for what they are is the first hurdle in restoring our relationship to God that was ripped apart in the Garden of Eden. It is like the symbol in the movie of the tapestry that the princess cut in two with a sword. One side was her and the other side was her parents. One side is us and the other side is God.  Jesus came and he can stitch the tapestry back together when we bravely face our sins and ask for forgiveness. Thank you Lord for giving us the motivation and bravery to face our sins each day and ask your forgiveness.

Romans 14:11-12 If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 154

Conflict is not may favorite thing to be in the middle of but I found myself exactly smack in the middle of it on my trip to San Antonio. My sister had gone into her more quiet moody mode and though it didn't bother me, it bothered my mom. She ended up blowing up mostly towards my sister but like I said I was right there in the middle. It turns out I was the problem. My sister, at first, denied there was any problem but my mom persisted and it came out. She was thinking that mom loved me more because she thought my mom was talking with me more during our trip. Funny thing is I have felt that way a bit here and there with their relationship in the last couple of years because it seems to have gotten closer and I have felt left out but I have been quickly able to put it in the proper perspective and let it go. It was spiraling out of control so I suggested we do a bible study together as I had my notes from my workshop recently about John 16:33. We had done a bible study kind of thing together on our trip to Phoenix a couple years ago and it was wonderful. To me it was a common link that could bring us together. Our love for and faith in the Lord. My sister didn't respond at first but when I got up and stood in front of her I gently told her that we needed to bring the Lord into this and let him help. She came and sat down with us and we started the bible study that eventually led to other topics that helped show us that we are all the same, we all feel alienated or like we don't belong. We all feel like we aren't loved as much as someone else. We all feel like we have no friends. In the end we were laughing and saying we need to do a bible study at the beginning of our trip instead of at the end. The Lord helped bring peace into each of our hearts and brought us together as one body. It really was a beautiful thing to see unfold before me. Thank you Lord for my mom and my sister and for bringing us together as one in you. Col 3:15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as memeber of one body you were called to peace.

We always get something for each of us to remember the trip by. It's always been jewelry. You see crosses everywhere in San Antonio and because of our conflict and the Lord bringing us back together again, it seemed very appropriate that we get crosses. So, we found a shop with lots of cross jewelry and we each picked our own cross. This is a photo of us in the airport to head home where our crosses.