Free to Be

One of my top prayers for my girls is that they would not struggle with the crippling insecurity that so many girls and women face in this day and age...the same insecurity that crippled me on many occasions throughout my childhood and on through high school.  Abbie, our oldest, has always been a social butterfly, so walking into a room full of strangers is no big deal for her, but, Emma, our youngest, has always been a little bit more timid, well...until you get to know her. :)  She started Mother's Day Out last year and every day was a battle to remove her from my leg.  Even at church it was a struggle getting her to go into her class.  I've prayed that this wouldn't continue because I remember clinging to my mom's leg for many years in elementary school.  This year, Emma started Pre-K and I've been covering her with prayers that she would be secure in who she is and who Christ has made her.  Today, those prayers at work became evident.  I prayed a prayer over her

Today during my time with God I read Deuteronomy 8 . I was going to quote it all here, but it is a bit long, so encourage you to read it on your own preferably in The Message version. Reading that passage led me to this post today. When we are in our wilderness seasons of life we often want a quick fix. We are a drive thru, microwave society. We want things and we don't want to have to wait for them. We get frustrated with God when He doesn't answer our requests immediately, but I believe He isn't holding out on us to be mean, but to get us to draw closer to Him. He has a bigger purpose and plan for us that only He can see, so we must yield to His plan.  In Priscilla Shirer's "One in a Million" Bible study she says this: The wilderness is designed to reveal whether we really want God or if we just want to "get out of town" and to Canaan as soon as possible. He is interested in knowing if we've submitted to   the wilderness only to receive the re

Being in the wilderness is never any fun, well, unless of course there is a spa involved. But, in my wilderness experiences I haven't had many spas show up. I've been in the wilderness in some areas of my life lately and sometimes it is lonely, frustrating and my nature cries out "God, rescue me now, please, LORD, do it now, this is too hard!", but it doesn't always turn out that way, in fact, very rarely does He ever rescue me immediately. I've learned that He doesn't always take us the easy route because He wants to grow us & protect us from future harm. He wants us to get to the place where all we need is Him. It is so amazing to me that when I experience times like this that He always shows His love & His presence to me through the words of a song, pages of a book or a blog, someone encouraging me or hearing a message that I feel is for me. An example of that is when I was picking out a new Bible study for our women's group to start

Psalm 33:20-22 Our soul   waits for the LORD; he is our   help and our shield. For our heart is   glad in him, because we   trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,even as we hope in you. I heard this song, "Love Came Down" by Brian Johnson for the first time today and as I listened, God's love flooded my soul. These words spoke to me so clearly in the exact moment I needed to hear them: If my heart is overwhelmed and I cannot hear Your voice I’ll hold on to what is true though I cannot see If the storms of life they come and the road ahead gets steep I will lift these hands in faith I will believe I remind myself of all that You’ve done And the life I have because Your Son Love came down and rescued me Love came down and set me free I am Yours I am forever Yours Mountain high or valley low I sing out remind my soul I am Yours I am forever Yours The last few weeks my heart has been overwhelmed. To be honest, I get so overwhelmed at times