Sharing The Love

When are you most yourself? As I have gotten older, so much in my life has become clearer!

God, You are such a loving God. You love everyone so I will love everyone.

Your grace and mercy are new everyday. My grace and mercy towards others will be new every morning.

You are a giving God, to the point that you gave it all. I will give until it hurts, too.

You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I will be my best in all I say, do and think.

~Forever Grateful

This is a part of my devotion for today from the book “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young.

TASTE AND SEE THAT I AM GOOD.  This command contains an invitation to experience My living Presence.  It also contains a promise. The more you experience Me, the more convinced you become of my goodness.  This knowledge is essential to your faith walk. When adversities strike, the human instinct is to doubt My goodness.  My ways are mysterious, even to those who know Me intimately….Spend time experiencing My goodness.

Psalm 34:8

Isaiah 55:8-9

I just came off a 10 day trip!  Oh what fun!  I got to see parts of the U.S. I had never seen and I enjoyed every place.  This also gave me an opportunity to attend church in Washington, DC at National Community Church.  I had the privilege of meeting and hearing Mike Godzwa speak.  He is the Georgetown Campus Pastor and Team Director of the D.C. Metro Chi Alpha.

First I have to tell you how authentic everything felt. From the worship band to those serving free coffee and bagels!  And since this congregation meets in a movie theater, (which I thought was genius and fun!) this was definitely one of the highlights of my trip.  

Let me tell you that during this trip I took my youngest child to college, moved her into her dorm and prepared myself for the goodbyes.  Maybe that is why this message was so relevant to me!  I was delighted that God was speaking directly to me (once again!) 1400 miles away from home!  But then again, home is where your heart is, and mine is Jesus. What an awesome God we serve.

Mike talked about not only receiving God’s forgiveness, but becoming part of His family. Offering our entire lives to Him as living sacrifices-this is good.  Everything we do needs to be an act of worship, honoring God. EVERYTHING! Every word, action, thought and decision. With that in my mind we are able to sincerely live for Him.

This was my favorite: We find God’s will for our lives when we give ourselves to Him. Experience the pleasure of His will.  His will works through you to bless others. What He has done in you He wants to do through you.  I have always known (well since I gave my life to God) that whatever I am going through is not only for my benefit, but also to allow me to use those circumstances to bless others.

The next statement from Mike shifted my direction, “Be available to be used as God sees fit.”  I know this to be true, yet at this stage in my life I realized I was not as available as I should have been.  Being wrapped up in so many changes in the past year, I found myself barely keeping my head above water, gasping for air periodically! Now I am using these changes in hopes that sharing them will bless and encourage others who need to see God through me.

Thank you Mike, for allowing God to work through you to bless me!

God, use me for your glory!

What was said…..or unsaid
What was done….or left undone
Promises made and not kept
Time spent thinking of what could have been instead of making peace with what is.
Decisions made hastily rather than thought through.

Losing our temper.
Losing our focus.
Losing a bit of our integrity as we join in mindless chatter.
Feeling frustrated.
Feeling jealous.
Feeling unwanted - what a blow that must be to the One who created us for His purpose, the One who knew us before we were born and wanted us then and desires us now…


These things
do not define who we are.
They are meant to teach us something.
Sometimes it takes a lot of teaching!
Sometimes we realize what it is we need to change and we begin to work on it.
And sometimes it takes something bigger than ourselves to make us realize the need for change.

Either way, there is one constant:
God’s love for you.

Bask in that love.
Know it is very real.

Respond to His love by giving Him your best in all you do.
Even on days when you feel your best is not good enough.

Keep going,
Move forward,
Run in the direction of your miracle.

What’s stopping you?

As I was doing my devotion this morning, I came across something that I knew, but reading it again in print made me think of it differently somehow: 

God’s grace is greater than our sin.

So that reminded me of this verse in Philippians:
Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:9 NIV)
Therefore, shouldn’t we, being imitators, followers, believers, also have grace toward others when they sin against us?

In most situations, that is not easy and sometimes it does not even sound like an option.  However we do it for our God. He will take care of everything else when we obey Him.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ~Philippians 4:7

God has a plan for your life, every part of your life. Every day of your life.
Sometimes, we forget that. Sometimes we fail to acknowledge that. and for some crazy reason, sometimes we feel we can do a better job at it than God!

Let go.
Know that God loves you so much, He gave up everything for you.

Give Him control, you’re not really that good at it anyway…..

~I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out-plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. (Jeremiah 29:11 MSG)

Self esteem is the value or opinion of one’s one worth.

This morning as I was preparing for my day, I was thinking about the way we women view ourselves. In my travels, I have had the honor of meeting women from all walks of life. And there seems to be a common thread that I see among most, whether they are royalty, diplomats, celebrities, successful business women, moms, or anyone in between-low self esteem. The reason? We are relying on ourselves for an opinion of ourselves and we are our worst critics! We believe we are not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not enough. Why? Because somewhere back there, someone told us we weren’t. Someone told us we would never be. Someone didn’t give us the time we needed, the love we deserved, the touch we craved. Someone and that someone or perhaps someones still has a hold on us today. And we somehow allowed those lies to become our truth. We put those lies into our life making them into what we call our self esteem.

I do not want to esteem myself in any way!! Because God has already accepted me, forgiven me and expects me to reflect Him in all I do so that others may see Him and come to know Him.

God-esteem is the value or opinion of one’s one worth in the eye’s of God. And He holds you in very high regard. You are extremely precious to Him. He GAVE all that He had for you. You are his heart. He loves you intentionally and extravagantly. Our worth must be encompassed in Him. Let us not degrade ourselves for that is pure disrespect to the One who created you for His glory.

Believe what God says

about

YOU,

He only speaks truth.