"One of a Kind!"

Why is it that we love to complain about what we don’t have instead of celebrating what we do have? How about when it comes to our looks, our bodies, our hair…even how our toes look? I have heard so-o-o-o many complaints from both men and women about their looks that it’s exasperating! Come on now! It’s time to stop! It’s time to take a deep breath and exhale slowly. It’s time to really look at ourselves, not from our point of view or from any other human’s point of view. It is time we look at ourselves through God’s point of view. 

Years ago I was confronted by God on this very issue. The lack of appreciation for how He made me was something that I was unaware of. I was so caught up in the “why is it?” that I was too distracted to realize God’s tugging at my heart, mind and spirit. It wasn’t until I was confronted with His Word that I was able to see, truly see just how special He made me. 

You see, my dear friends, I was blinded by what the world was saying was beautiful or even acceptable, that I couldn’t see the reality! The reality was and still is that I am one of a kind and so are you! “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.” Psalm 139:14 (NKJV) When I was confronted with His Word conviction soon followed. Did my “soul” really “know very well” that God created me exactly the way He wanted just like an artist creates a beautiful piece of art on a canvas that was once blank?

It is when we finally accept that every part of us is what He intended for us that we can finally see just how precious we truly are! It is then that we can take our eyes off of what we think we lack and put our eyes on what we do actually have! Everything, including how we look, is part of His one of a kind, tailor made, plan for us. He’s given us all we need, inside and out, to accomplish our purpose, our calling here on earth! “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:10 (NLT) 

My dear friends, you are a masterpiece! You are one of a kind! There is no one that has ever existed or will ever exist that is just like you! That in and of itself is mind blowing! Stop falling for the lies of Satan! You are unique! Beautiful! Not just good enough but a MASTERPIECE! You are one of a kind!!!

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Thank you for reading! I consider it such a blessing to share my writing with you! I'd love to read your thoughts on this topic in the comments below. Praying for you my dear friends!

Feeling Better!

Hello my dear friends! I'm feeling so-o-o much better! Praise God for His healing! Thank you Lord for your answered prayers. My sciatica is no longer causing havoc! Woo-Hoo!

I hope you are all doing well. It's been a little more than a month that I wasn't feeling well but now I'm back! Looking forward to all God has in store this year! Thank you for your prayers! God bless you all!

Class on Romans

Praying you all have a wonderful weekend! 

If you are not already committed to something else on Sunday's @ 10:25am I teach a class on the book of Romans. You are more than welcome to join us! Faith Assembly of God, 9307 Curry Ford Road, Orlando, FL, 32825, Room E-202. There is a service at 9am and another at 11:15am and there's something for everyone of any age there, from babies through 100+. 

If you were already planning on going to your church/a church that makes my heart smile. In fact I'd love for you to share where you guys go on Sunday mornings! I'd love to pray for your church (I pray for all of our church's in the US and across the globe. So what I mean is specifically for your church or your church's prayer requests).

May God continue to bless you and yours! Love you guys!

“Do resolutions go hand in hand with procrastination?”

Hmmm. I think the obvious answer is “No,” of course not. The reason they don’t go hand in hand is because they’re complete opposites. I was curious as to just how opposite these two words were. So, I looked them up on Dictionary.com and following are their definitions (the short, version).

Resolution: “the act of resolving or determining upon an action, course of action, method, procedure, etc.”

Procrastination: “the act or habit of…putting off or delaying, especially something requiring immediate attention.”

Trying to mix these two would be like trying to mix oil and vinegar. This is why resolutions never worked for me. It’s not that the resolutions themselves never worked it’s that I never gave it a chance to work because of procrastination. That pesky word! It’s been a problem of mine for years. It’s one of those bad habits that if you don’t pay attention to it, it can linger around for years without ever being detected. Mind you, others can detect procrastination quickly in you, but we tend to not see it in ourselves. Maybe because we don’t want to?

I decided not to name my goals for the new year “resolutions” this year. For whatever reason the temptation to procrastinate on implementation of those resolutions in my life are too great for me to handle. I tend to cave into the temptations and before anything new can stick for good in my life I quit! There, I shared a very personal bad habit of mine. Don’t judge me.

So, instead of calling them resolutions I just call these desires for change what they really are, “things you better do or else!“ No, really, I call them “dreams,“ “the year of change,” or, okay really being honest here, “things God wants you to change now!” I write my list in my prayer journal and frankly, pray over them, all year. It takes more than just a couple of days or a month for lasting change to occur, at least that’s how it is in my life!

You may be wondering where I’m at with that pesky procrastination problem. Hmmm. PRAY FOR ME! Okay, I am better at it but, still have a ways to go. So, attention off of me and where it should be. What does the Bible say about resolutions? Romans 12:1, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” This same verse in the Message Bible reads, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life-your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life-and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
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Thanks for reading! I'd love to read your thoughts on this post in the comments below. What do you think about resolutions? Are you good at keeping them or do you even bother making New Year's Resolutions?

May God continue to bless you & yours!

Thought of the Day: Jesus is the Reason for the Season

Christmas is in 11 days! There are Christmas-y things to do! Like going to see Christmas lights. Going to church Christmas events like  musicals/dramas. Decorating the house with Christmas tree, lights (oh wait, we haven't put up our lights yet...), house decorations. Going shopping. Baking cookies. Wrapping presents. Decorating. Visiting family. Get ready to cook for Christmas Dinner. Cook Christmas Dinner. Clean up after Christmas Dinner :(  But wait...among all of the things to do what's the one thing we should be most pressed to do?

It's the same thing we should be doing year round! It's...thanking Jesus for coming as a baby! Thank God for sending Him! Thank the Holy Spirit for being with Him during His time here in ministry! Thank you GOD for Jesus! Jesus is the reason for this season means more than just a beautiful slogan. He really is the reason this holiday even exists!

It's in memory of the beginning of His time here on earth as all man and God at the same time. We cap our celebration of Jesus' ministry while on earth with Easter. So, Christmas is the first celebration in memory of Jesus' ministry and Easter is the second celebration in memory of Jesus' ministry. Christmas is my most favorite time of year! I love all of the celebratory things that we do but, it's so important that we remember why we celebrate it in the first place! So, Happy Birthday Jesus!
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Thank you for reading all of my Thought's of Days in 2014! I may post at least another one before the end of the year, but just in case I get too busy (which we're all pretty busy this time of year) I want to say thanks! Love you! Praying for all of you my dear friends!!! May God continue to bless all of you & Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

Building or Tearing Down?

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ’Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:1-5 (ESV)


It’s really easy to point out the faults in others, isn’t it? There are hidden lists of faults of people in our personal lives tucked away in our hearts and minds. The minute one of them messes up we quickly add their blunder to their list of faults. These lists of past blunders can sometimes be added up and then we have several blunders we keep holding on to for years and years. The purpose of building these lists of faults is due to the unwillingness to forgive and let go. What we do is use these lists of faults (usually during a heated “discussion”) against them. The list of past offenses and or faults starts to fly out of our mouths faster than anyone can blink. That’s when words like “always,” or “never,” or “here we go,” are used.

These words, among many other negative words can quickly become harmful. We neglect to realize that these words can tear down instead of build up a person. Our need to win, or to prove that we are right at any cost can quickly cost us the closeness of the relationship we have with the other person. We tend to forget that God is paying close attention to how we are managing our “discussions.” We do however notice when our feelings get hurt. The words that are told to us, that is if the other person is willing to say anything at all back to us, are the ones that we tend to focus on more. Why is that?

Are any of us free of any faults? No. Are any of us willing to admit that having to always be right or the need to win a “discussion” is a fault in and of itself? What did Jesus mean in Matthew 7:1-5? Is it that we can’t point out anyone’s faults at all? No. We can but, we need to first look at ourselves, really look at ourselves with the same type of measurement or expectation we have for everyone else. Let’s build up our loved ones instead of tearing them down. ‘“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’” John 13:34-35

Really?

"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." Matthew 6:34 (MSG Bible)

"Really?"

Okay, I don't know about you, my dear friends, but I'm in a state of shock here. Is the year really almost over!!! It's November!!! What! Really???

Our youngest the other day happily said this to me, "Mom, in about a month and a half it's Christmas! I can't wait!" The look on my face surprised him. I was shocked. I just didn't put the math together. December 25th is quickly approaching which means that the New Year is quickly approaching too! Really?

I pretty sure I'm not the only one in the world that's shocked by how fast the clock seems to be ticking. Time seems to disappear. Our way of life not just here in the States but in most of the world has changed dramatically in just the last twenty years. Everyone seems to be busy all of the time. "Down time" is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Who has time to stop and take it easy?

It seems as though every other person I speak to is so busy. They're exhausted almost all of the time. When I suggest they take it easy they look at me like my son did. Like I'm clueless. I live in this world too. I know how stressful life can get. I know that there are "twenty-million things to do" just about all of the time.

Thing is, I have had to learn how to slow it down. I'm easy going by nature so it wasn't too difficult for me to learn how to slow down but, I did have to work at it, still do. It's all in our perspective. If we look at our lives as a never-ending-to-do-list then that is exactly what it will be. But, if we look at our lives as something precious, a gift that had a start date (our birthday) but an end date was not given then that's what our lives will be, a precious gift.

We know our birthdays but we do not know when our last day on this earth will be. I'm actually thankful that I don't know. Life would seem too sad. Every day would be one day closer to the end. No, I'm happy not knowing but, I also know that I shouldn't live as if there is no tomorrow. That means that I can take today for granted and expect a tomorrow. That is also not a good way to live.

The Bible teaches us to live our lives one day at a time. Sound familiar? We know it in our heads that we need to enjoy every day that we are given. We know in our heads that we need to stop and smell the roses. But, do we know it in our hearts? Are our hearts and mind connected to the fact that every day well lived is a day lived well? Does that make sense? What I'm trying to say is it's one thing to know and its another to live it out.