Frustration

I have been very frustrated with my kids lately. I haven't been able to handle them the last few weeks and it's been very difficult for me. I think the enemy knows where I lack and that I don't feel so much as a warrior when it comes to being a wife and a mom. Earlier I was on my way to having a pity party. Feelings of worthlessness and despair came over me. I cried out to God. What's wrong with me? "This is one of your loads" He said. What do you want me to do? "Praise Me" So I did and this is what happened...
The Lord took me to the Lord's prayer. I looked it up in my daughters bible since I didn't want to go down stairs to get mine. Well, I don't know the passage by heart so after I found it I ran down stairs to look it up in the amplified thinking it was Matthew 11. It wasn't. But God is so good cuz that's exactly where He wanted me to go. A verse catches my eye and I turn the page to see if Joyce Meyer talks more about it and I see a short article she wrote entitled Lighten Your Load. I find the verse the article talks about and I begin to read from Matthew 11:28-30"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest.[I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.] Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle(meek) and humble(lowly) in heart, and you will find rest(relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet)for your souls. For My yoke is wholesome(useful,good-not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne."
I reread it and after about the third time I saw that I am not to be harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing but I am to be comfortable, gracious, and pleasant toward my kids just as He is with me. It also says My burden is light and easy to be borne. I looked up borne in the dictionary and that led me to bear. I saw that Jesus died to bear my frustrations with everyday life. His compassion overwhelmed me and I saw how much He loved and cared that I was frustrated and wanted to take it from me.

Grocery Bags Are Full

Yesterday the Lord showed me that I am carrying heavy loads. Like when we carry groceries from the car to the house I have my hands full. And Jesus is asking me to give Him the bags. He wants to carry them for me. I wasn't exactly aware of this until yesterday, all I know is I have been very frustrated lately.
So I ask Him what's in the bags? And He tells me "responsibility's" He showed me the bags are full with the responsibility's of cooking, cleaning, homeschooling, finances, being a mom and a wife. I told Him I don't know how to give those to You. You will have to show me how. He said "I want to take your responsibility's and wash them clean" I did not understand then what He is showing me now and I will blog it in another post.
Late at night, when the family is sound asleep and I am coming home from the store I carry as many bags as I can to avoid making a lot of trips. Now I forever have the grocery picture etched on my mind as a reminder to let Him carry my bags for me.

CrAzY For Christ

This post is inspired by my crazy friend Ange.

I have a cofession to make. I am crazy. Yep. You heard that right. I have some pretty crazy friends as well. And everyday that passes by I find myself becoming crazier and crazier.
Upon looking up the word crazy in the dictionary, I found that it means infected with madness..possessed by enthusiasm or excitment...intensley involved or preoccupied.
It's kinda funny but this describes me exactly. I am not talking about the kind of crazy that lands you in the mental hospital (all though I have those days to)
I am talking about being crazy for God for He is madly in love with us. And if being totally involved and preoccupied with Him and His word and living it out day by day no matter what that may look like to others makes me crazy. Then your right. I am crazy. And together we crazys make a crazy quilt wich is a patchwork quilt of pieces of cloth of various shapes, colors and sizes. Call me crazy but call me Crazy for Christ.

Guest Blogger: Angelina

Lately I have been struggling with the fact that God is not human. Like when we walk with God and often we can hear Him calling us closer to Himself. And instead of walking nearer to Him we demand that He come closer to us. It’s true that Jesus always meets us where we are, but where we get caught in that fact is when we try to stay there. And once Jesus meets us there, He never intends to keep us there. So what does that struggle look like on a personal level? This is mine:

I ask God to meet me and then when He draws so near I have the most difficult time allowing His unfailing love to embrace the ugliness of my flaws and the desperateness of my sin. At times I think I’ve gone too far, stayed away too long or fell too many times to have Him love me just the way He did when I thought I was beautiful and His love was okay. Sometimes the world whispers, “Don’t believe that kind of unconditional love”, and I listen. I struggle with the fact that God is not human because I try so hard to humanize Him. I resolve that God must think and process the same way I do because I become discouraged and then decide that God is not able. It’s when He reminds me that I am the one who is not able and I am the one who has carried a disbelief that He has never meant for me to carry that I step back from my world. I take in a deep breathe of God’s love and open my eyes to who He really is again. I have a habit of trying to bring Him down to my level. Old habits die hard and He wants to kill this one for sure. I am sharing this because I don’t think that I am the only human who does this. And if I’m not I wanted you to remember, just like I need to, that our Daddy loves us at all times, and He loves us too much to keep us where we are and there is not one time over another where we are more or less beautiful. We are beautiful always.

Copyrighted © 2007 by Angelina Gutierrez

Oasis

Well, a lot has been happening with me these past few weeks. I don't even know where to begin. I have been seeking Him and asking for more of Him and less of me. What He has given me is a ton of revelation. So much so that it has been hard for me to put into words. I believe as I write that the Lord is getting ready to move me into the new. He has been tending to my garden, working on my heart. Pulling up dead weeds that have been very painful. But Oh how His hands have been so gentle, so loving and so very faithful during this process of reconciliation. His living water soothing to my weary soul has been a refreshing drink to the dry cracks in my heart. Just a little more sifting and then the new will spring forth in living color and I shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth it's fruit in it's season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.(Ps.1:3)
Wow! This is the spiritual oasis the Lord has been talking to me about lately and I praise His holy name!

Mud Pit

I wonder if that book by Lisa Beavere entitled Fight like a Girl would tell me more about being a warrior princess. The last couple weeks have found me slowly sinking in the mud. Covered in dirt and not able to see my way out have brought feelings of defeat and despair. Lies of the enemy whisper in my ear. Different words but all mean the same thing. Never, can't, won't, give up...The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak.(Mark 14:38) Alas, I cry out to God and He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;He set my feet on a rock and gave me a place to stand.Psalm 40:2

August Verse

Not even a sparrow, worth only half a penny, can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it...So don't be afraid;you are more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows. ~ Matthew 10:29,31