Archives for March 2014

March 28, 2014

Legacy of Love

Today is the 50th wedding anniversary of two pretty amazing people. A couple I’ve been blessed to call Mom and Dad. Fifty years is a long time y’all, especially in this day and age. To honor their super special day, I’m re-posting a blog I did last year about their legacy of love.

Last week, as I was cleaning my new office space in my home, I came across a box. As I opened the lid and peeked inside, I saw it was filled with old pictures. Instantly my heart soared.

As I’ve said before, I am enamored with old photos. So much so that it sparked this insatiable craving to take pictures of people. To me, pictures are priceless treasures. I found a box full of moments, perfectly captured, allowing me to travel back in time.

I settled down on the floor, sitting indian style and pulling the box over in front of me. As I started rifling through the photos, I realized what I was actually looking at. A smile graced my lips. I was looking at love letters, in pictures, my parents had sent back and forth while they were dating. My dad was in the military and stationed across the country. So their only way of communication was through letters and pictures.

At first, I felt like I had barged into a secret diary. But I just couldn’t stop looking, reading and smiling. This is where the legacy of love began. The legacy that was passed to me and now on to my children.

And now the tears begin.

These pictures, so innocent and hopeful, with no idea of the future. Thinking about all of the highs, lows, and wonderful things they’ve experienced together over the years brought me to tears. They had no sense of the struggles they would eventually face. They had no idea they would someday have to hold each other through cancer, the death of loved ones and lost jobs. That one day they would travel to another state and adopt the sweetest baby girl ever. They had one thing…love.

Through that love, and devotion to each other, they sat such an amazing example of marriage and parenting for me. Every day, they wrote more of their legacy together. A legacy that will be remembered in lives long past their days on this earth. When we say words like legacy or inheritance, money or heirlooms usually come to mind. But the legacy I’m speaking of is different. It’s a legacy of priceless and intangible things. They’ve built a legacy of loving God, loving others before yourself and having a selfless heart.

I was given directly by God a family with two parents who are still married. I was given a family where both sets of grandparents were married until their dying day. A family that bonds closer together during tough times rather than throwing in the towel. At times, I wonder how I got so lucky…to be hand-picked by God and placed into this amazing family. Like a whisper in the wind I’m reminded that luck had nothing to do with it. This is part of my story, the one He wrote long before I was born.

They are incredible parents, living out a legacy of love passed down from both of their parents! They have never tried to be perfect, but they have tried to love me and others well and show us the best example of Christ that they could. They know how to fight when the enemy brings the battle close to home and they know how to praise when another battle is won. They are my legacy of love.

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March 28, 2014

Pray More, Worry Less {Trusting}

Hey y’all, welcome to the second week of our Bible study on praying more and worrying less. If you missed last week’s lesson, you can check it out HERE.

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.

Isaiah 26:3-4

We all have needs, desires, worries and concerns. Sometimes not knowing the difference between them. We know what would make us happy and we pray for it with all our might, asking God to help us get it. I mean surely because we prayed for it we should get it, right? And really, since it’s our life, we know what the right answer should be. When we don’t get it, we feel frustrated and disappointed. Or we actually get what we want, but find it doesn’t make us happy as we thought. Then many times we blame God for not holding up His end of the deal.

It comes down to one thing…trusting God. Trusting His timing, His answer, His plan and His heart. The remedy for anxiety and worry is complete trust and confidence in God’s ability to deal with anything that threatens us.

So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.

1 Peter 4:19

God has promised peace of mind to those of us who are willing to commit our worries and anxieties to Him. That’s where we (read this as where I) mess up. We want to trust in anything rather than the Lord. We’ll trust in our own abilities (hello diet failures), in peoples judgment of us, in our money or our doctor. But the Lord? Well…

Who do you trust more: yourself or God? When we trust that God will provide for us and we need not worry about anything, we are freed to love God and neighbor. When I trust that God will continue to bless me, as God has always done, it’s absolutely freeing and the weight is lifted off my shoulders. When I trust God to be God, I don’t have to be!

Sometimes it takes reminders…day after day or minute after minute, that God rules. He is still in control of all the situations life throws at us. He can take your troubles, hold them in His hands and create something beautiful {Isaiah 61:3}. The enemy wants nothing more than to have the pain in your life destroy you. But thankfully, our God is bigger! He can bring good out of any situation or hardship if we only put our trust in Him.

This week, take some time to consider where you put your trust.

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March 21, 2014

Pray More, Worry Less {Understanding}

Welcome and thanks for joining me! I am so delighted that you are here. I am so so so excited about this new Bible study! In this study we are going to learn all we can about how to pray more and worry less. Yeah, I’m pretty stoked about it too!

As I said before, this girl right here is a worrier by nature. Ugh, any of y’all with me on that one? It’s not one of my better qualities. I worry about paying the bills, about Joey driving, about my dog having arthritis, about Joe’s work, my family’s health, about my housework, about my business, blah blah blah on and on. My to-do lists keep me awake at night. Because clearly laying awake at night worrying will get my chores done, right? Questions like what if and should I have swirl around my mind, holding me hostage and keeping me chained to my worries and fears.

As we get started, let’s first take a look at a few definitions:

Worry – to think about problems or fears : to feel or show fear and concern because you think that something bad has happened or could happen. It comes from an Old English word that means “to strangle”.

Anxiety – an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physiological signs (as sweating, tension, and increased pulse), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one’s capacity to cope with it. It’s basically an emotion caused by fearful thoughts.

Now that we know what worry and anxiety mean, let’s look at what God says about them.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Matthew 6:25-27

So why is worry wrong? Jesus gives us several reasons in the above verses.

~ Worry causes us to lose sight of who we belong to. God is more than capable of taking care of us. We belong to a sovereign God. The word sovereign means God has absolute control over everything, all the details of life. God will take care of us and He knows just what we need at each point in our life. And because God knows what we need, He will take care of His children.

~ Worry is a sin. Would you categorize worry alongside lying, adultery or overindulging in alcohol? They are all sins. Sure, we can gloss over it, sweep it under the rug and call it a day. That’s easy to do, isn’t it? Or better yet, let’s rename it. That way we won’t feel guilty about it. Let’s call it stress, anxiety or just concern. Worry has taken on the form of a acceptable sin. We all do it…so, why even call it a sin?

We can’t trust God and then worry, those simply don’t go together. When we worry, it shows we don’t trust God. Period. Worrying is the absolute opposite of trusting God. Worry shows that we not only believe He isn’t capable of knowing our needs, but He doesn’t care. We all know neither of those are true. Worry really comes down to trusting Him.

~ Worry accomplishes nothing. Honestly, worry is a waste. It ruins your day, normally (if you’re like me) it ruins the day of everyone around you, it causes you health issues and it just plain stinks. There is nothing productive about worry and it leads to no where.

When we worry, often times our health suffers. It can cause ulcers, high blood pressure, heart problems, colon distress and headaches. Let’s not forget one other thing worry causes…sass, grumbling, grouchiness and shortness. We end up not sleeping well because of it. Which then adds to the sass and grouchiness. You know how God told us to be the light of the earth {Matthew 5:14}, worry will put that light out quicker than lightening.

When we replace worry with prayer, then we have trust. We need to faithfully turn to God in prayer. We are to give our worries to God in prayer, trusting Him with all our burdens and cares. As a result, we will receive in return the peace we long for. That feeling of doom will go away and a feeling of peace will wash over you.

Come back next week where we will take a closer look at how to trust God and give all our worries fully to Him. This week, keep your eyes looking up 🙂

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