Enjoy the gift...Worship the Giver

It seems to me the world is searching for their identity.  I read the number one problem in the life of the Christian is they do not know who they are.  I also have read repeatedly that the main problem in the life of the mental ill is they do not feel they have any value.

Daily on social media people brag or boast about who they are, what they have, what they have done.  All looking for significance, worth and value from their new born baby, marriage, most beautiful, new job, home, and on and on we cling to any and everything to feel good about ourselves.

I remember finding value in that I was the wife of a winning coach or beautiful and intelligent and talented children.  My family was my identity.  How many of us brag on our awards, our promotions, or the next book written.



I once heard it said the alcoholic knows he is an alcoholic when you take his drink away.  We will know if we struggle with our identity when it is taken away.


We are told that we have value and worth because of the blood of Jesus.  That we are new creations in Christ.  No one is justified by the works of the law but because of faith in  Christ and what He has done for us.  His love for us is what should make our hearts sing and dance with joy.  It is the only thing that cannot be taken away.  Gods love for us.


I beg you to not cling to your successes or your failures.  Your sins are remembered no more.  When the Father looks at you He sees the lasting, beautiful, holiness and righteousness of Christ.  You please the Father by trusting in His Son.  It is that faith in Jesus that pleases Him.  It is there you will find peace of mind and value and worth.  It is there you see your purpose is to glorify Jesus in a life of trusting in Him alone.

It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me.  I boast in Christ and Him crucified.

Learning to glorify God through His gifts and enjoy Him... not find my identity in them or our accomplishments or lack of importance in our defeat has been the difference in peace and joy.  I love  my family but they do not determine my worth.  They are much more valuable that anything they could possibly do.  They are mine.  I love them and think they are wonderful no matter what.


My husband was a national championship coach and today he is a cattle farmer.  I love him more each and everyday. I am in awe of his accomplishments but more amazed in the wonderful person he is to  me by how much more there is to this man that I never knew.   My children become more beautiful in themselves and their gifts.  They are my best friends.  I adore them and am so very blessed.  They have taught me what real love is and who Jesus is more each and every day.


I may struggle but I enjoy my life and my friends and family more than I ever thought possible.  I know who I am and who they are.  Seeing the beauty and wonder of God in who we are is so much greater than holding on to what we do or have to feel important about ourselves.  It is the most unstable thing we can do.

When we start to live out of who we are instead of what we do or have life is so much more depth than we can ever imagine.  God brings surprises and joy and miracles we never imagined. Gods love and acceptance and security gives you a boldness to see others and life in ways you have never seen before.  It is the world through Jesus.  It is spectacular in every breath of His creation.  We can never find identity apart from our creator with the lasting joy and peace and assurance found in Him.  It is a gift unfolded.


When it is no longer about you or for you, it is in His power and for His glory.  It is a life full of love for others in a way you thought you never could.  Your selfishness begins to fade and Jesus life begins to be lived through you.  It is Him others see and what wonders He does as you find your identity in Him.

You might say I am learning to see the world and others through the eyes of Christ.  It spreads a sparkling rest.

The saying at our house has always been love you will or lose, I cannot love you more.  Be sure and enjoy God no matter what you do.

His Perfect Time

He never ran out of answers or patience in my questions or thoughts or doubts.  I Never grew tired of just being with Him and being loved by Him.  I grew stronger but weakness is where my strength would grow.  It was in not being able to live the good life turned me to the one who delighted to give the good life to me.

Living the life of love was impossible until I saw my need for the one who would give the love to me.

Living  a good life alone.


I became a christian at a very young age and was a good girl people would say.  I knew the rules.  I obeyed my parents.  I was good in school and everyone liked me and I liked them.

Life continued until I was married.  Had children and I tried to keep up the good life.  It never occurred to me I was trying to live life apart from God.  All on my own.

Time hit me when I became sick mentally that I was insecure about all my decisions.  I ask God about everything.  Big and small.  I ask Him for strength.  Direction.  Change of heart.  I became aware I could do nothing on my own.

I had raised my children and been the best wife I could all alone.  I didn't know what it was to repent of my sin and ask for love and the power to do Gods will.  I thought HIs will was my will.  I had not idea that His plans were not as I had envisioned.

Now my prayers are more not my will but your will Lord.  God can give a heart of love when there is no love at all.  He is the power and strength to give the heart of a loving Father.

The other day I had a disagreement with a friend.  I was surprised at the condition of my heart.  I was shocked.  My prayer immediately changed to give me a loving heart.  A heart of Jesus.  God is in the heart changing business.  Living our life apart from Him is impossible.  We can do nothing apart from Him.

Only God does what we cannot do.  He chances hearts to be like His.  To love and surrender and obey when we can't.  He is the change maker.  He reconciles and redeems in ways we cannot possibly do.


It is a partnership.  A relationship.  A love of God.  His surrender and His strength and His grace to make it day by day.  It is HIs wisdom and His direction.  His peace and joy that gives us a contented life when we trust Him throughout the day and night.  As we lay down our desires and wills for His life takes on beauty and love that we never imagined.  It is not easy to give up our desires especially when it seem like it is the thing we thing should be happening.  But as we lay down day by day our desires and seek the humble life of Jesus we see a new way to freedom that we never knew.  Serving God and others becomes our joy.    He who loses HIs life for Christ sake finds it.



Life and the world becomes hope in Jesus as never before.  It feeds you to do the will of the Father.  It gives you strength and life.  Being taught by HIs word by the Spirit and worship in all you do becomes a new way of life.  You love people as you never did before.  You give up your right to be right.  You see the beauty in others and bring out a life in them they never knew.   It is a new way of living of life in peace and harmony.  Even working out the hard things in life become an anticipation and expectancy of life and what surprise God might bring next through this new faith and trust you have in Him and His Son and Spirit.


How could I ever think I could live this christian life apart from His Spirit, Son and Father.  The thing I never considered is He never left my side, Never!  Although I felt sad and lonely at time He was was always near.  He was always there drawing me into His presence, waiting, and loving me more and more than I thought, felt or knew.  He changed my doubts to cuddles of assurance of His love for me.  For even the difficult times in my life in abundance... IN HIS perfect time and purpose.

Just give me Jesus with a smile.

Jesus met no strangers.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

As long as I can remember I have talked to God and about Him.  Even as a  child He occupied my seemingly every thought.

I remember talking to several friends as we walked...They both ask me.  Is it natural to talk about God all the time.  My response was...What else is there.

Even now He occupies my thinking.  My dr says I am overly religious.  I am consumed with thoughts about my faith.  He thinks this is part of my illness.  I would respond and say...It is just as I am.  It is who I am.

I do not mean to imply that I am overly saintly or spiritual it is just my life.  My life with Christ.  I filter everything and everyone through who God is and who I am.



God is continually working in me and my heart to bring me to a greater trust in Him.  I have been told I am obsessed with religion.  It just is who I am.  I don't know how to not think on Jesus.


I have been consumed by the thoughts of my sin.  I had to work on not being obsessed with inward thinking.


There were times when I was sick I would spend hours in quiet and meditation.  Jesus and the Father and Spirit are my constant companion.  They enter my life through thought of their love for me.  They continually teach me, correct me, comfort me, draw me and lead me where I should go.  I am one with them through the grace and compassion and love of God for  me.  He loved me in my mothers womb.  Some of my thinking is natural.


I  have many friends and our time is spent talking about the gospel and how God is working in our families and our lives.  It is a joy to be with them and pray for our families and teach each other.


There was a time I did not talk about God so much.  Then I thought it is who I am.  I am not going to change and not talk about the love of my life.  So I began to talk about God more graciously.  God worked in me and I think my family and others began to see change in me.  I was not just a preacher that talked and didn't live what I believed.  God humbled us all and we began to love each other with a pure love and selfless love and it showed.


I see God in and though everything.  His heart has become my heart over the years and His desires mine.  It has taken a lot of suffering and guidance and help from others more wise than me to bring me to a point of the joy that I have with God.  I depend on those more wise than me to guide me and I am so very thankful.  I learn from everyone.  My children are some of my greatest teachers about God and life and people.  They are wise beyond their years and I pray for them to love God more than anything.


This is just a few lines into who I am and how I walk with Jesus.  He is my constant companion.  He is teaching me now about His glorious righteousness and peace and contentment in Him.  How my life is not my own.  I am not my own.  I am His servant and it is a joy!  I Have learned this through much pride discontentment, jealously of the life I wanted and didn't have.  I have been healed and loved into the kindness of God beyond the preciousness of a child that I am and do not deserve.  My love continues to grow and I continue to see how I bring nothing to Jesus but my heart and that is a challenge.

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All I know is God pours His grace out on a lost people and it sings with hope and joy in the midst of a world that is His own.

I love to talk to my special friends about my relationship with God and my family.  I boast in my weakness that Gods glory might shine.   I talk to everybody and any body about it.  I don't have to know them to ask them if I can pray for them.  To tell them what God is doing.  To ask them if they know Jesus.  To ask them if Jesus is why they smile or are so happy.  It is the greatest joy in my life to talk to anyone anywhere about my Savior.  He is who I want to grow to serve and when I serve others it is partners with Him, for and with Him.  I see it as never before and with great joy this is not my life.  I have been bought with a price and Redeemed.

Beauty is brighter

For all you who have been so faithful to think and pray for me and my family thank you so very much.

Even when we do not see or understand Gods purposes never fail.  God will only allow those things in our lives that will refine us, Tim Keller.

I have gradually felt better as there have been a shift in meds. Your prayers carried me as I had no idea of what would transpired or how long the changes would take.  Always knowing that to feel sorry for myself would be a temptation when things seem to not get better.  Gods mercy kept my spirits and kept my eyes fixed on Him even though without reminding I would not have remembered how good and kind God and others are even if I do not understand what is happening or why.  Those who believe that Jesus is always enough kept the faith unto righteousness.

 Today was very good.  I got to spend the day with friends.  Doing things I enjoy.  I even feel like my thinking is so much more clear.

I was reminded how beautiful the righteousness of Christ is and how He keeps us unto Himself.


My heart is sad for several of those whom I love and have ties with.  Life is such a challenge and so hard at times.  It seems I celebrate with some and grieve with others.  I praise God always and thank Him we are so blessed even in difficult times.

I have prayed that God would not leave me to myself and He does not.  He rescues me over and over again.  I think I am close to quitting and I dare not.  I think I am close to letting go and He never lets go of me.  Hope never stops and I do not fail to see beauty and my heart does not faint and lose hope in Christ and the gospel.  He is my hope and my identity.  I no longer live but Christ lives in me.  I must decrease and He increases.  The more I lose of myself the greater I know who I am in Him.  I feel inspired to serve and love as never before.  My focus on the gift of Jesus is greater than my eyes and heart can contain.

As many suffer they have the hope of knowing Him more.  I praise Him in greater ways than ever.  As more of myself is not my own the love of Christ indwells me.

I have spoken of how drugged I have been trying to get the dose right on my med.  It has taken patience and lots of care from my family.  It has silenced me.  I have seen my pride as never before.  I love to reason and think and I have been prevented from that with my confusion.

It is a humbling thing to have family and others sort your meds, appointments, etc tell you what and when to do what because you are not thinking straight.  The brain disorder is a very humbling illness to have.  You can tell others about the stigma and that is one thing.  But having others taking care of you hurts your pride when you are as strong a woman as the line I come from.  You want to be able to take care of yourself and think and remember.

So God knows what I need.  Last night as I lay in my confusion and sadness of the whole thing of what might be happening I look to Christ.  I come back to having nothing to offer but my sin.  Knowing that Jesus is enough.  Seeing my pride and heart deeper that ever and being humbled again but God stripping my strengths once again.

Resting in His goodness to show me the depths of my need of Him.  Wondering what else I need to see to say enough is enough.  He is enough and I will bend my knee and close my mouth to the care of those wiser and stronger.  To claim grace is for the humble and see He has once again humbled me.

His beauty is brighter.  My heart is lighter.  My peace is only possible by His presence.  It is a time of celebration and rejoicing with gladness the goodness of God to me once again.  My quiet heart and the stream of tears of giving him my heart once again is enough to bring contentment within.

It is all about His beauty, presence, faithfulness, love, power that drags me into His side of heart of love for me that over shadows in smallness of this life and gives Himself in greatness.  Love is the fruit of repentance.  Others centered with Jesus glory just is as doing and loving in ways I cannot do without even trying.  Love and others and Jesus just is.

What will be is yet to see

Thinking why are we the way we are....

My once pastor said that maybe our life is a reason but it is not an excuse the way we are.

How many times I have thought well I am just like my mom.  Or if it doesn't work I may try being like my did without even realizing.  I am who I am because of the way I was raised.

There are influences in our life that help determine who we are but we can use them to our advantage and for our good instead of a complaint and excuse.

My mom was that way because her dad died when she was a baby  The excuses go on and on.  My dad was not hard on me or my mom was a soft lady  The excuses go on.  Why I should have had this opportunity and poor me.  I just couldn't help it.   This made me the way I am.  I blame my life, my opportunities, my parents, those bad breaks.

Yes these thing do help form us but we can use them all to our advantage and we are not prisoners to our lives or the people who have been a part of our lives.  We may think we are a product but it is not the final say of who we are and the life we will have.

They were small when that happened.  That is why they are like that.

They can't help the way they are.  They were born that way.


Life would be all together different if we believed we had a say so in who we will become.  I am like this because my parents and my world has shaped me.  I can't help who I am.  What I do or what I am like.

The truth is we have a will given to us by God and we have the Holy Spirit given to us.  We have a say so about the people we become.  It maybe a reason why we have a struggle but we do not have to stay that way all ways.  We have a choice about many things.  A God given choice.

We need to see the wonder in our lives and in our world and the people that has helped for us and what we can do and change and help.  Our lives would open wide open and we would become fearless and full of wonder if we saw our lives as no limits.

May we see our lives, others and our selves with the wonder of God.  We are not slaves to sin nor this life but full of hope and Spirit that has no limits.


This does not send a discontentment but instead a huge contentment for who we are and the life we have rather than that we are forced into a place or a life we are most unhappy with.  It gives us a huge measure of control and purpose instead of complaint and discontent.

Life becomes the glory God intended it to be and the joy that it was made to have all at once.

Living each day in the moment and in the fullest.  In the now and present is all we have.

Having nothing

Is it important to have nothing to know how really rich you are?

I have been sick for about 6 mos.  I have been in the hospital, mental.  I have lost my memory short term.  I have been confused.  I have slept for days and weeks and not been able to eat and drink.  I had to get fluids.

We, friends and family and I sat for hours waiting for a room.  We saw the broken, bloody, the sick, the hungry, the insane for hours on in wondering when I might get a space to be.

I was given 124mg/ medication and watched intently.  I stayed for a week.  My new friends were the ones with problems beyond my help.  All I could do was be there.  I had nothing.

My friends and family had to do what I could not do.  My daughter had to change my sheets in the middle of the night because I could not keep from going to the bathroom all over my self.  My husband and children and friends sat with me for hours and watched me sleep for hours.  I could't even make a pot of coffee.  I was so confused.

My heart was before me.  My intent.  I was given nothing but grace and love and care over and over again.

My meds are better now.  I am able to see that I never had anything of my own.  My friends and my family shower me with love and grace and I am so very rich with the Fathers love and my family.  All I want to do is talk to my friends and family and thank God for them and love them for loving me.  All I have is grace upon grace and love upon love and your prayers and care for me.

It falls on my grateful heart as I am in control of nothing I have.  Nor do I feel there is anything I have to give.  I do not even know about writing this piece with a confused mind.  I feel completely empty handed begging for grace.  Pleading with God to never let me feel I am worthy or valuable of anything but given more and more grace and love and gifts and kindness and mercy and love by my family and friends and my God.

May His Mercy continue to follow me all  my days.

Looking Back on Going Forward

Life goes forward and then seems to turn us around and we take the same steps, maybe a little wiser, but sometimes even more challenging. Does this ever happen to you?

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Lately, it seems, everyday is a struggle.  It has also been great joy in meeting new friends and being with old ones and my family.  I have ask friends, had talks, read articles, sermons and blogs...why do I continue to struggle?  I love Jesus, Father, Spirit.  They are an essential part of my everyday life.  I truly can't function without God.

The world and even the church says to be mentally ill, is because of sin.  

It appears they are saying, you struggle because you do not have Jesus.  Just have more faith and you will not struggle.  Having a brain disorder is not a prestigious thing.  There are stigmas.  People are afraid of what they do not understand.  They also tend toward quick fixes and pat answers.  Our lives are to never be minimized or limited as such.

The brain is an organ, just like any other organ in the body...It can be sick.  When this happens things happen to your thinking.  (Am I defending myself here?  Maybe so.)  You have fears, like the average person but, they are not so average in that, they are bigger than normal and can be all consuming.  So grand are any possibly positive, but also negative thoughts.  The negative affects them, in a most negative way. The unmerciful, intense, sometimes untrue thoughts can be debilitating and extremely painful.  To keep them inside, unshared,  is self destructive.  The person is usually left without hope and truth within themselves.  They are helpless and desperately alone in their madness.  They are whipped, tortured with the thoughts that hold them prisoner, until God intervenes by His Spirit or by another person, in some way,  actually sets them free.  If the person has the truth to these lies within them, by reality and Gods word, they may discipline themselves to redirect their thoughts by these truths or by activity.  The activity gives the brain relief and they can sometimes begin to rethink more clearly.  If they do not have truth, more than likely the fears will reoccur, only to take them captive once again.  Mental illness is a disease, like high blood pressure or diabetes.  One in four of us struggle with some form of the disease.  It cannot be ignored.  Either we have it or someone we know and love does.  It affects us all to some degree.

It may sound like a contradiction to say, my faith has grown more in my sickness than in my health.  

I had many fears and struggles when I was healthy minded, but was unaware of many of them. My mental weakness has actually helped me beyond what I could have ever gotten otherwise.  I am such a determined, self willed person, without Jesus grace to see in my heart.   I have been trying, not to let my emotions control me, but to go about where Jesus leads me.  I thought through doing this,  things would get easier, but it hasn't.  But to imply, that the christian with struggles mentally, has more sin or  lack of faith in Christ, than every other christian, is unfair and untrue and shuts them down and of from one of the very things, that could help them in their struggle.  That being in an honest and caring relationship with them.  Bringing Jesus into the struggles of their heart, that we all have, letting them know their true identity in Christ.  Their false identity is so enlarged in their hearts.  We are all on this path of faith to fear to faith until we have a full glimpse into His face.  Today, may we see Him more clearly that yesterday.

I sat in my car yesterday, waiting on a friend to have lunch.  "Are you there," she called out.  I was praying.  Lord, do not let me envy.  Do not let me be jealous, especially of the ones I love.  Of the life they have.  Feeling sorry for myself was not too far in the distance, lurking just outside my heart.  Why can't I confess my fear, trust God and then move on and have this wonderful life of joy and peace and thanksgiving.  To be content in Christ and not struggle.  I want to be a witness that does not struggle. Lord may I see the blessings you have for me in this life of mine, even in suffering, doubt and struggle.  I want to see your glory God.

I can't dismiss it, why do I struggle?   Jesus ask Peter, do you love me Peter?  Jesus ask him three times.  Peter replied, yes Lord, you know I love you.  Peter had just denied Jesus three times.  Jesus was restoring Peter.  He was offering the rescue.  Feed my sheep, Jesus said.  Then Jesus continued you will be led a way, you do not want to go Peter, in your death.  Peter ask Jesus about John.  Jesus said, what business is it of you Peter, what I do with John.  Follow me.  Jesus had just told Peter how he would glorify God in being crucified upside down.

We each are individual...

We each have a unique personality, gifts and weakness and strengths

We each have a will and a mind that is our own

We each have a personal, intimate relationship with the Lord, who are His

We each are told to not ask for suffering, but are told we will suffer in this life

We each have a separate journey, a special story, all our own to share Gods faithfulness and greatness

We each reflect His glory in different ways

We each reflect the person of Christ in different and beautiful ways

I don't know the life God is calling you to, how He will work in you to bring you to dependence on Him or to manifest His power in you.  I don't know.  I know for me, yesterday I struggled, I prayed and He rescued me, as He has over and over again.  I ask myself, if I didn't know the struggle, would I know and experience the divine rescue?

Today the fears are gone...I have a greater awareness of Gods control and His love for me and goodness that I did yesterday, of who I really am...a child of God.

I want to leave you with these verses to think upon, to reflect and mediate on today.  2 Cor. 4:7-12 tells us that we have these treasures in jars of clay.  That we are hard pressed, but not crushed.  To show that the all surpassing power is in Christ, not in ourselves.  God is not calling us to greatness but  reflect His greatness.  Not to our power, but to His.  Not our plans but His will.  Not to trust in ourselves, but a child like faith, in weakness, in our Father.   I pray we are not to be determined or defined by fear.  He longs to meet us in the eclipse of the struggle, in the paradox of resting in Him, in the midst of it all.

I have this picture in my mind, of a little fearful sheep, that has lost his way, not realizing the Good Shepherd was there all along.  I see the sheep being rescued and resting in the arms, of his Shepard.  The Shepard caring him along the path to green pastures, in places he is too afraid to go on his own.  Holding the little lamb, tight and secure to His chest and in His arms whispering, I am here...you are going to be fine.  You are mine.  I have found you now.  You are ok.  You are ok.  Just fold yourself into my arms.  We will go together.  The little lamb, looks into the eyes of the gentle Shepherd and His heart calms, his fears are mellowed in, into the embrace of his keeper's arms, as his eyes are washed by His keepers tears.  He presses in and is safe and secure once more.