The Tree

Today, the day before Thanksgiving we went on the hunt for the perfect Christmas tree.  We went with our dear friends, Michael and Marty Short and their children to the family farm. 

The kids got a ride up the hill.

MOO!  They were not happy that we made them move out of the way.

An old dried up spring.

Our motley crew.

 

A very cool tree we found.  It is a thorn tree. 

Before decorations

 I am now sitting here looking at our cedar tree (before decorations) that we found this morning. It's kinda thin, a bit straggly in places and definitely not a prefect full tree you can buy at many Christmas tree lots. It reminds me of how I was before I found Christ. A bit of a mess, straggly and definitely not perfect! In a while we will decorate it, add lights and this straggly tree will become beautiful and perfect to us. You see that is what God does with us. He takes our messes, our straggly lives and transforms them into what He wants for us when we yield to His plans and trust in His guidance. Am I perfect...far from it, but I am fully of joy, I have hope and I am blessed beyond measure. It may not make sense to the world for I do not base my life or my blessings on material things and ya know what that is ok with me. I know where I place my trust and hope and I pray you, my friends, find that hope if you haven't already.

Our straggly tree has transformed into a beautiful little tree.

Simple Reminder

I hit a wall.  I knew it was coming.  So the last few days I have drastically changed my eating habits.  Tonight I had Chinese..yea I know, "WHAT was I thinking!"  Ha!  I was thinking I want Chinese food.  Got beef and broccoli and did not eat all the rice.   I will be back to the grind tomorrow and through the week till Thanksgiving.  Giving myself that day to just enjoy what the Lord has blessed us with...with in reason naturally!  It's just our family so I only make what we like...turkey, broccoli, green beans, mash taters and my husband wants stuffing.  Oh and don't forget the cranberry sauce.  For dessert, pumpkin pie and apple pie.  I will not be eating the carbs but will save a place for a piece of pie.
 Anyway with our dinner naturally we get the fortune cookie. This is what mine said...

   I think this is appropriate!  What do you think!  God sure does have a funny way of reminding us to stay focused!  Never give up!  Never give in!

I Quit!

I quit!  Yep I quit! I am giving up to never do the same thing again!  I am never going back to the way things were!  I quit that life and have picked up a new one. One where I face the mountains and will tell them to move.  I shall over come this monster of obesity.  One pound at a time!  I am not throwing in the towel when the going gets tough.  I am not going back to the 300s.  Never again I shall over come and reach my goals.
   Speaking of goals, I did it again! I had a goal to bring my A1C down from the 8.0 it was in August and according to my lab work I had done last week it is DOWN to 5.8!  WOO HOO!!  Yes medicine plays a role in that but I have to say I believe that the exercising and the weight loss so far has impacted it as well.  I am proud of my accomplishments.  I am excited for what the future holds.
   This is tough!  VERY tough!  I have struggled with every step, every day I have to chose to eat right, to exercise and to not fall back into old habits of eating and thinking.  I have struggled this week up till today.  Having the results back from the labs just tells me I am making an impact for the good for my health.  I can't give up!
  My new slogan.....   Not giving up!  Not giving in!  Going to beat this monster and win! 

The Slide

What a journey I am on! You never know what you will encounter on a journey, good and bad, you may have to face both on a journey.  This week has been one of many emotions.  Some great, some not so great.  My attitude has not been the best and I have fallen a few times.  Fallen to the temptation of Halloween candy, carbs and just not wanting to exercise at all.  Attitudes and thoughts such as, "When do I get to stop exercising, why do I have to fight for every ounce?"  Just mucky thinking.  Then something happened! Something remarkable!  Something awesome!  Something that just proves to me that I have to PUSH through those mucky thinking days!

What in the world does this slide have to do with pushing through you wonder?!  EVERYTHING!  This is similar to what I faced at Kingdom Karnival with my children at our church.  It is a 24 ft tall slide that you have to climb to the top of.  Oh, it's easy you say, NO IT IS NOT! It was a true work out!  It was a climb up that thing and I had NEVER done anything like this in my life.  Not even in my childhood.  But I DID IT!  I climbed to the top.  Okay, let me back track a little.   You see I got half way up and my legs started hurting.  I was fearful I was going to injure my knee or ankle again. (I did aggravate the tendonitis in the ankle.) I was using the ropes on the sides to pull myself up.  It literally was like climbing for my life.  I even stopped and thought I can't do this, I am just going to go back down.  But when I turned around all of these kids (including mine) were there climbing up too.  Then this precious little girl named Kayleigh, who I just love to death, came climbing up to me and said, "You can do it Messa! I know you can!" It was exactly what I needed to hear! I climbed up there and then sat at the slide thinking WOW I did it!  I slide down and it was crazy fast.  But I did it!
   Kayleigh's words reminded me that God is FOR ME!  He will never forsake me in my weakness!  I know He is for me and He used Kayleigh to remind me that He is there saying, "You can do it Melissa!  I know you can!"  Thank you Lord for sending Kayleigh up to encourage me!

This song says it all.... God is for Me by Kari Jobe

Encouraging Words

Sometimes all you need is someone to tell you they have been there and support you.  Thankful that I have people in my life that do that for me.  But sometimes you gotta tell your self the same thing.  So the last few days I have been thinking about doing something to encourage myself. 

 I came up with this! 

 It's a little hard to read but you get the point!  Keep fighting!  No giving up!  No giving in!  You can do this!  Your life depends on it!  But my favorite is "Don't look at how far you have to go, look at what you have achieved!"  Which is what my 12 yr old son told me to add to my list!   I am so blessed with great kids!  Thank You Lord!

Surrendering to YOU

My dear friend Pastor Tara posted this song on Facebook tonight.  You can read her blog here!  I highly recommend reading Tara's blog called The Fight Within.  I do believe I have found the song of the year for my life.  I will share it in a second or you can just scroll down and click play.  But this past week has been an awesome week!  Have spent this past week watch General Council and the Influence Conference for the Assemblies of God via the internet.  You can listen in on the sessions via videos now at General Council. Anyway they were very powerful messages.  God got a hold of my heart like never before... uhm ...well not in a long time have I surrendered everything to Him the way I did this past week.  I am so thankful for His touch and His Holy Spirit that has been gently calling me to Him.  God has set me free of some things this week that I am not going to share here but this song I am sharing really explains a lot!

Dancing with the Father

Lately I haven't been posting much of anything substantial but today I want to share some things the Lord has shown me over the weekend.  On Sunday, during worship, the Lord showed me some pictures that I want to share with you.  I have tried to find some pictures on the web that can illustrate what I saw and I hope it helps you see what the Lord showed me!

 

First picture was of the Father holding a baby or small child in the air dancing in circles. 

The child was in full trust of her Father as they danced, no fear of falling, 

complete eye contact, and full of love and trust.

 

How fun!  To stand on your Father's feet, trusting his steps

and yet with out stretched arms.

 

The last with the daughter's head against the father's chest in a warm embrace.

 

Now what the Lord revealed to me is that when we first accept Him as our Savior we are like a small child or baby who fully trusts the Lord, never taking our eyes off of him, fully trusting his hands to support us, guide us and protect us.  As we grow we experience things that keep us at bay.  We trust the Lord (represented by our feet on our father's feet as we dance) but we want to do things our way (arms stretched out keeping our father at bay).  Oh we want to know His plans and we want to follow Him but by our terms and how we think He wants us to go.  But the last scene of the child with her head on her Father's chest represents how the Father wants us.  He wants us in his warm embrace. Fully trusting Him!  With our ear against His chest hearing His heart beat.  HEARING HIS HEART BEAT!!!  How are we to hear His heart beat for our lives without that warm embrace.  Trusting, relying on, fully engulfed by his arms.  Hearing His heart beat so much so that if it beats to the left we follow and if it beats to the right we follow.  To fully know what God wants for our lives, to trust and obey we must hear His heart beat!!! 

   I will be honest, I tend to be the little girl on His feet but with outstretched arms keeping Him at bay.  Oh I fully trust the Lord but I want to see around me (and Him) at times, to see if there is a way out of a situation instead of being embraced in His arms.  What I have found is that when I am in that position I am longing to be in His embrace hearing His heart beat.   You would think after 22 years of dancing with the Lord as an adult I would realize I need to be within His embrace hearing His heart beat.  For it is within that embrace that I have peace, I have rest, I have comfort and protection.  

   I don't know about you but I am choosing today to dance within His embrace to hear His heart beat for my life.  What are you going to chose to do?

Not here today

So I was going to post something here to day but decided I really wanted to post it over here instead. So if you want to go to Pastoring Partners Network you can read up on Christmas Messes there.

Ten Way You can Prepare Now to be a Pastor by Guest Speaker Deanna Shrodes

From time to time I repost articles or posts from other bloggers. Today I have the priviledge of sharing this post from my dear friend Pastor Deanna Shrodes from Lifetime Intimate Portrait.
Enjoy as you read and learn:

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Most people will tell you to listen for the voice of God, spend time praying, fasting and reading your Bible. That's definitely top priority, but here are some other things you can do to prepare.

1) Set your cell phone alarm to go off at all times of the day and night and interrupt you. When it starts beeping, don't just turn it off. Stop what you are doing for at least an hour, and do something totally different that you didn't plan on at all. Come back later to the project you were working on before. Finish it even if you have to stay up until 2 am.

2) If you are just starting out, make sure to stock up on ramen noodles, easy mac, and peanut butter and jelly.

3) Ask a few people to follow you around all the time, and find out what you're doing, who you're doing it with, where your family is eating, and where you shop.

4) Install cameras everywhere to keep a watchful eye on everything your kids are doing 24/7 to report back to you.

5) Plan something that will take a tremendous amount of help to pull off. Delegate jobs to all your friends and but instruct them that what they are really going to do is call you at the last minute with a bunch of excuses and tell you they can't follow through. Somehow pull off the huge event with just you and your spouse doing everything. Do this repeatedly throughout the year as you prepare.

6) If you are a man and your goal is to pastor a traditional church make sure your wife knows how to play the piano, and fry chicken.

7) If your goal is to pastor a contemporary church be sure to update your look to be as effective as possible on church advertisements. If you're a man, shave your head and get a pair of trendy glasses, jeans, and a crisp cotton long sleeved button down shirt. If you're a woman, get an outfit from somewhere like New York and Company and make over your hair in a style that requires a flat iron.

8) Invite your friends to call you up and email you at inopportune times, to criticize you for random things that are ridiculous "share things in love." Ask them to make those things as unexpected as possible - things totally in left field that you don't expect. Make sure that when they do this, you thank them, and keep a smile on your face. In fact, right after they do it invite them to go out for coffee and underscore to them how much you love them and don't hold anything they just said against them.

9) Start stopping by the local hospitals on your way home, and eat in the cafeteria just for fun.

10) Have your family members throw a bunch of bulletins, Sunday School papers, empty water bottles, an umbrella or two, and a bunch of other people's Bibles around your house. Schedule an event that evening at your house that requires it to be in perfect order. Make sure you will be the only one available to get it ready before that time. Clean it all up yourself and talk God while you're doing it.

These are just a few little starter exercises you can do to prepare yourself -- there are many more and perhaps I'll share them in days to come so stay tuned.




**ME again...unfortunately as insane as this may sound it is ALL true! You can read more from Deanna at Lifetime Intimate Portrait

Happy New Year! Well our church has started a 30 day fast. Sean and I have decide to fast everything except veggies & fruit. Which means Sean is only eating veggies cause he barely eats any fruit. You would think it would be easier than doing a true fast but it's NOT! I have really struggled the last couple of days craving meat. Giving up the pasta and breads isn't as hard as the meat. Anyway, so we started Monday and I decided that this year I plan to read through the whole Bible. Did it once about 18 years ago or so and decided it would be a great challenge for me.
So I have started with the book of Jeremiah. Which the first few chapters have been very interesting. In fact I almost decided I might want to read something more uplifting but once I really started reading and digesting what it is saying I am more ready to read it now than before. I think digesting what you read is important. Let it sink in and really think about what you are reading. Not just read through and say ok that;s done.
The Word of God is manna. Well when we eat we have to difest the food to get the nurishment our bodies need. It's the same as reading the Word of God. In order for your spirit man to get the nurishment it needs you have to think about what you have read and let the Holy Spirit speak to you.
Well that is what I have been doing this week. Let me tell you something the things that are revealed are amazing! I read through the first chaper and didn't catch it at first. But then I stopped and reread it. Guess what, when I stopped and took the time to let it sink in, I was WOWed.

The LORD showed me something in a vision. Then he asked, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" I answered, "A branch of almonds that ripen early." "That's right," the LORD replied, "and I always rise early to keep a promise." Jer 1:11-12 (CEV)

Do you see it? " I rise early to keep a promise!" NOT only does God keep His promises but He rises early to keep them! Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus! When it's time for Him to fulfill the His promises to us He rises early to do so! How can we even doubt that He will fulfill them when he reassures us that He will not only keep the promise but rise early to keep it.
That encourages me SO MUCH! You see I stand on His promises of healing, provision, guidance and protection. In Jer 29:11 He promises us that He has a plan for our lives one of hope and a future not evil. What we must realize that He has thought about our future and we can trust that He will rise early to keep that promise and will see us through what ever it is we are going through.
Thank you Jesus that not only do You keep your promises but You rise early to keep them. I am trusting you today for many things and know you will do as your has pormised us! Thank you Jesus!