Oh What A Sunday!

Last night I attended the live taping of Travis Cottrell's new worship CD at First Baptist Woodstock and let me just say that we did some worshipping! I have never experienced anything like it. Travis was amazing and ushered us right into the Throne Room to worship our Lord. His worship team was also amazing and when the choir joined in with them, well it was more than my ears could handle. I thought we were going to Glory Land! As an added bonus Beth Moore was there and well she was just Beth. What more can I say...I just love her. I have done several of her studies and I just love how deep we dive into the Bible.

As if the night could not get any better, I was able to enjoy it with some of my dearest friends and my mom. Here is a picture of me and my friends, Heather and Shannon. Now I would like to give you a piece of really useful info right here...If you are the only one not in all black, don't be the middle girl having to stretch both of your arms out. I am just thankful that I wore a black turtleneck. Truly from this picture you can not appreciate the full cuteness of my $10 jacket. I really hate that for you!

And to top the night off, I was able to meet one of the more famous bloggers on this lovely internet. Yes, I was able to not only meet but also get my picture made with none other than BigMama.

Isn't her jacket just divine! I don't know, but I am just guessing that it cost more than $10. She is just as lovely in person as you imagine her to be from her blog. It was a real pleasure getting to meet her.

So needless to say, I woke up today in a great mood still excited after my wonderful night! It is definitely going down as one of my greatest events in 2009!

Happy Monday!

The Woman We Strive To Be

A wonderful marriage, great kids, good job, beautiful home, fit, healthy and beautiful all describe the Proverbs 31 Woman. And these are the things that most of us look at when we think of her.

Proverbs 31:28 says "Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:"

Isn't that what we all want? Don't we want our husbands to appreciate us and value us? Don't we want our children to do the same?

As I studied the text, it became so clear to me that the attributes listed above are not what makes this woman so great. What makes her great is in verse 30, it is her relationship with God "...but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."

That is the key to everything. In all things, it all goes back to our relationship with God.

He alone is the key to our success.

The more time we spend with Him, the better our marriages will be; the better our relationship with our children will be. Believe it or not, the better our homes will be.

God showed me this personally last week. I made the decision to spend more time in His Word and more time with Him. I specifically asked God to order my steps and order my day. I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for my life (Jeremiah 29:11) and I also believe that He has a plan and a purpose for my day. Last week I was more conscience of living for His purpose and according to His plan daily.

I am excited to tell you that I got more accomplished last week than I have in a long time. I cleaned out closets and organized things. I prepared meals for my family. I ran errands. I enjoyed lunch with a friend. I ate better. I felt better. I prepared food to take to someone. My attitude was better. It really was just a great week.

I did close out my week feeling appreciated by my family. No one stood up in their chair at the dinner table and sang my praises, but none the less I felt their love. And then it dawned on me...they didn't see as much of me this week. Oh no, what made this such a great week is that they saw more of Jesus shinning through me than they saw of me.

And that ladies is the treasure that I uncovered in Proverbs 31 this week.

I'm So Sorry Mr. AT&T Man!

Today was quite a day! I was in a meeting at my children's school at 8:00 this morning with freshly washed, straightened hair and make up on. Let's just say since I left my full time job outside the home that being fully dressed and somewhere by 8:00 a.m. is really not the norm for me anymore. Which incidentally, according to Fly Lady is my problem but that is another topic all together.

I get back home shortly after 8:30 and am ready to attack my ever growing laundry and mess in general. I look outside and what do my eyes behold but the AT&T truck and it is parked beside my driveway. I wanted to shout for joy because I have been with out a house phone for a week. Now call me old school, but I like my "land line". Yes, I have a cell phone but it does not have a lot of bars at my house so for a week I have really not been able to have good conversation with anyone. I have the gift of being able to talk to a tree, so my husband has been bombarded with more words this week than he probably preferred.

I was busy in my son's room when I hear a knock at the door. It is my friendly AT&T man just letting me know that he is here working on our problem. I get back to working when I hear another knock. Again it is my AT&T man, still friendly, but now he needs to come in the house to see what is really the problem.

I could drag this out because I have a lot of words built up inside of me, but I am just going to give you the short version. After about an hour, I am finally able to shut the front door behind the still friendly but I think partly stunned AT&T man. To find our problem I had to move every bed in the house and I have a king size bed. He was so kind to help me. But I was horrified. I was silently praying that he did not have asthma because if he did I was sure the dust was going to kill him!

It was bad, really, really bad!

And it only gets worse. He went through my hall closet, laundry room, kitchen, upstairs bonus room and both of my kids rooms. And not just my kids rooms, but I had to move their beds for him to get to the phone jack. An eight year old boy can hide all kinds of stuff under his bed!

Why, oh why is my house such a mess?

I know the poor man was worn out when he left my house because of the obstacle course of junk I had created for him. I was worn out because the moment he stepped out to get a tool from his truck I was picking up and hiding things like a crazy woman. I know he had to wonder why I looked to sweaty!

Oh, and I can not forget to add that my Christmas tree is still in my living room. It is disassembled and laying in the floor. This year we bought a 9 ft prelit Christmas tree. Lowe's put their trees on sale for 50% off at the beginning of December so my husband drove over an hour to find a store that had one left. The only problem is that it was the display so they did not have the box but they discounted it 60% so we did not really care. Only now I am really caring because they do not make a storage container long enough to hold even one piece of it. Hence why it is still laying in my living room floor.

As I looked around my house and pondered the situation, I began to think of the Proverbs 31 Woman. I feel certain that her house was not cluttered and her closets were not overflowing. The description of the Proverbs 31 Woman that gets me everytime is in verse 27 "She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness."

I'm going to be honest with you and tell you that I've not only eaten the bread of idleness, but I have gotten fat off of the bread of idleness. And do you know what that leaves me with? Excess baggage in the form of feeling useless. And do you know who delights in making me feel useless? Yes, you guessed it my enemy.

I know that God did not put the Proverbs 31 Woman in the Bible to make me feel useless and worthless. No, He put her there to give me and you something to strive for.

So, if you are up to it I thought I would spend some time over the next few weeks blogging about things I have learned about this woman. Dig in to Proverbs 31 with me and lets find the treasure that God has waiting for us!

It's A New Year

If you have turned on the tv at all since the first then you know that weight loss must be the #1 resolution out there. It is rare for a commercial to come on that is not about weight loss. Oh, but wait, McDonalds is really helping in the resolution department by offering their Double Cheeseburger Combo for only $2.99. I mean it all makes sense!?!

No, it doesn't and that is why "we" have the same resolutions every year. We want things to be different and we try really hard to make them be different. But then failure occurs around week 3 and we fall off the diet band wagon and just lay there on the dusty road.

Do you know what I have learned and it has only taken me midway into my thirties to learn it; I am prone to failure. Yes, left to my own strength and my own devices, I fail more times than I succeed. I need help and that help is not found in the latest diet or hottest exercise gizmo.

"My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth!" Psalms 121:2

Oh, that I would live that way everyday!

I say it and I believe it, but still I try to do things on my own apart from Him. Why? He created you and me to be dependent on Him.

We are at our best when we lay ourselves down and depend solely on Him.

I got to thinking if God sees me as "needing to loose a few pounds". We are told in Samuel that man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. So, do I look sickly to God or really healthy. Because really when God looks at me I want Him to see a heart that is really big. A heart that is full of His Word. A heart that is full of love for Him and my neighbor. A heart that is filled to overflowing with a desire to serve Him.

The sad truth is that I spend way too much time focusing on what man looks at and less time focusing on what God looks at. I have it backwards.

So my desire for my new year is that I have more Jesus. I fell in love with Him when I was eight years old and I want to spend my year falling more in love with my first love.

What about you? What are your resolutions focusing on?


Happy New Year!