Keeping My Eyes Fixed on Him

Just in case you didn't already know - 

Life is hard.

Life is not fair.

Trials will always be with us.

Not to burst anyone's happy bubble... but all of these statements are true.

BUT GOD!

These are my favorite two words in the Bible.

Holy words.

Words of the Creator of heaven and Earth stepping in...

BUT GOD!

He takes a situation that our human eyes sees as useless...

But God!

He sees our failures and shortcomings...

But God!

He understands the frailness of our bodies...

But God!

He sees the needs deep within our hears as of more importance than the ones in front of our noses...

But God!

 When the trials of this life are 

so loud

so strong

so present

so heavy

What are we called to do?

"My son, give attention to my words;
Incline your ear to my sayings

 Do not let them depart from your eyes;
Keep them in the midst of your heart;For they are life to those who find them,
And health to all their flesh."

Proverbs 4:20-22

We can CHOOSE...

To focus on the blessings He has brought...

To read His Word and trust in Him...

To speak words of Life into our world...

To humble ourselves enough to know that He has all the answers...

 To love Him so much that we can lay down EVERYTHING...

Our dreams...

Our plans...

Our desires...

Our wants...

To serve.  Period.

Serve Him - without measure, without bounderies.

We are all called.

Sadly, only few will respond.

Beyond our walls there is a lost and dying world...

 Lost in sin...

Lost in lies...

Lost in despair...

Where is their hope?  

Who will show them the way?

There are children - lost and alone...

 Who will step in and care for them?

There are children dying for lack of food and care...

 Who will feed them - who will go?

Will you challenge yourself with me?

Let's take ONE STEP

If everyone took that one step...

WOW!

What an amazing world we would be transforming...

Through Him!
For His Glory!

This is His heart!

 And, as we are taking those steps for Him

each of our problems and worries and cares

may not go away...

but they will certainly fade away.

 

Thankfullness...!

Well, a dear sweet bloggy-spiritual-mama-to-many encouraged us to write a Thanksgiving post.
At first I actually wasn't going to.
Not that I am not thankful for many things, 

but I just didn't feel like it...

Plain.and.simple.

Then God brought the story of the Israelites to my heart...
so many times God told them to set up altars to mark God's faithfulness.

So here I am...
going to set up some altars declaring His faithfulness in what He has done
and secure in the promise for what He has promised He will do.

First and foremost, I am thankful to my Savior who loved me
when I didn't even know who He was.  Who called me out and touched my life -
not because I deserved it in any way...
but because He loved me so much He wanted me to be with him...

I am thankful for my husband that I was blessed with!
Not that our life has ever been perfect,
but I know that he is who my savior called me to be with
and that He is and always will be the center of our lives...

I am in wonder that my savior has blessed the deepest desire of my heart - to be a mother.
He took an area of my life that brought me pain and shame and made me a mom
to my step-children,
my bio children,
and now to these precious foster children
that He has entrusted me with... I still sit in awe!

For the provision that He makes in my life on a daily basis....
for the lessons learned -
sometimes gently,
sometimes not -
but always cherished along the pathway.

I am immensely thankful for the body of believers He has allowed me to be a part of -
my precious church family,
for all of our lessons learned together
and the growth we are still progressing through...
thankful that beyond all - He is Lord of it all.

I cannot begin to touch on my thankfulness for His mercy,
His long-suffering,
His love that NEVER fails,
His truths that have no end...

To my Savior, my All - it is all for YOU!

Amen!

Making the Difference...

Now that God has been opening my eyes, I have spent so much time feeling very overwhelmed.  I'm sure I'm not alone.  We are just a mass of good-intending Christians... but when we are faced with REAL problems that face others around the world we just don't know what to do.  Yes, we can be amazing when we do a "collection drive" and give piles and piles out of our excess.  But what can we REALLY do?

Most (sadly) feel completely satisfied that they have done their good deed and that they received a check mark in that spiritual box marked "giving".  Yet I can't seem to get these two little facts out of my daily conscience...

163,000,000 orphans worldwide
15,000 children die EVERY DAY due to starvation

One very familiar story has been echoing in my spirit... the story of the starfish on the beach...

An old man walks along a beach and sees a young boy throwing something into the water. As he approaches, he sees hundreds of starfish lining the beach, washed in from the tide. The young boy is walking along, throwing the starfish back into the water one by one. The old man asks why he bothers, it’s pointless. There are too many starfish to help them all. As he flings a starfish deep into the water, the young boy replies, “It mattered to that one.”

I, just like that old man, sometimes feel like the numbers are so many... how can I help?

All those lost and lonely children!   All those that I can't feed with my hands!  What can I do?

And yet, Jesus has reveled to me the same answer that the young boy gave to the old man...

I can make a difference to ONE.

I can't take in all 163 million orphans, but I can stand in the gap for those who need me to.

I can't bring food to the 15 thousand who die every year, but I can make sacrifices in our family and teach my children to sacrifice in order to do my part financially to support those who are on the front lines of this battle against starvation.

Who will join me?  Every one we help really does matter!

Learning to Set (and Receive) Limits

Ok - Let's face it, we all want to be "in control" of our own lives.  But we never even consider the cost of that control.

Just to be transparent for a bit... being a parent is hard.  And I don't think I would have one single parent disagree with that statement.

Being a FOSTER parent, however, has got to be the hardest thing that God has ever called me to do.  We all know through our christian walk the saying that "our lives are not our own" refers to the fact that we were purchased by the blood and now we are in forever debt to serve Him.  And serve Him well!

Fostering has brought about an even deeper challenge.  With many, many more people involved in their lives, each of them needing reports, phone conversations, visitations, appointments, and meetings... our lives here on the homefront (which were already exceedingly busy) have just tumbled and tossed in the wind.

God has been laying a challenge before me often these days... are my days really dedicated to Him and His call for me to fulfill?  What do I spend most of my time doing?  What is most important to me?  What is most important to Him?

There is only one thing that He has commanded and that should be my life goal.  Everything else should be secondary.  Schedules and meetings and visitations and chaos will all pass away.  Only what we do IN HIM remains.

Did we serve Him?  Do we touch others with His touch?  Do we focus more on ourselves than we do on serving others for His glory?

Who needs our time?  Who needs our money?  Who needs a touch of Jesus here on earth that they will never experience without us stepping out in faith?

Thank you, Lord for opening up my eyes.  Help me, as I begin to pare my life down to my single purpose.