Relinquishing the Reins: A Challenge

I want to lay down a challenge to you today. Some it may be easy for; others it will be one of the most difficult things you have ever had to do. I am one who has difficulty with this challenge.

As followers of Christ we should daily be handing over our lives to His control. Relinquishing the reins so to speak. This doesn't mean with just our life changing decisions but with the small ones as well. This is so hard for me! I am what you would call a control freak bordering on OCD. I try to plan and control every aspect of my life. It's actually quite stressful and I am sure irritates those close to me. I have challenged myself to every day turning that over to God. Actually in all honesty it is something God has demanded of me. Today is Day 1 and I must say I can feel my burden lighten. Not to say that I am not struggling with the need to organize, plan, make lists etc. but it is lighter!

So here it is I challenge you to join me in this. Make a daily conscious effort to turn everything over into the control of our Father. It will be freeing, it will strengthen your relationship with Him and those you are close to and it will allow you to spend more time with Him because you will not be spending all of your precious time trying to control!

Seasons come and seasons go.

I have been watching everyone post on Facebook that Fall is their favorite season and they are excited because we are on the brink of it. It got me thinking, "what is my favorite season"? My answer is complicated. I realized I like them all nearly equally. Every time a new season is approaching I get excited!

When Fall/Autumn is approaching I think of the beautiful colors we are going to experience in God's handiwork of nature and the crisp air. Plus it also helps that my middle name is Autumn!

When Winter is making it's debut I think of all the Holidays, family gatherings and wish for one good snow fall (not ice just snow!).

When Spring is beginning I rejoice in the new life of the trees and plants! I am amazed as I watch what looks like death be turned into new life by God's hand.

When Summer is here I get excited about all of the outdoor activities, the possibility of swimming, and though I don't have any in school yet, I get excited for the children on summer break!

Isn't our God so awesome that He allowed to have all of these seasons in nature? Shouldn't we anticipate the seasons of our lives in much the same way? While I might not always like how a certain season of my life is going, I look back and see how it shaped me as a follower of Christ and as a woman. Right now I think I am in transition to a new season. It has been slow in coming and while parts of the new season scare me I am choosing to anticipate it instead of dread it. After all our Father wants what is good and right for His children. So as I anticipate the approaching Fall I will also anticipate the new season in my life (with God's help of course). If you are reading this I challenge you to do the same!

The Desires of my Heart

I have a lot on my mind lately. Not really going into it on here but we have a lot of changes going on in our lives. Some for the better and some that feel like we are being refined in the fire. Right now I am struggling with a couple of decisions that have to be made. I have always worried (not a good thing) when I have decisions that are going to be life altering. My biggest fear is that my wishes and desires will so blind me that I will not be able to see what God wants for our lives. I have had two instances in the last few months that helped me with this.

The first one was right after I lost my job. I had just had B and had not yet been fully looking for a job. I was getting prayer during our Discipleship Community. The lady praying over me knew I was struggling with having to put our son in daycare and worrying about others raising him. She said to me, Armanda God wants to give us the desires of our hearts. I think you already know what you are supposed to do. Basically she was affirming what I already felt in my heart. I was supposed to stay home and nurture my son.

The second time God affirmed that He wants to give us the desires of our hearts was when we were talking to our DC Pastor about some major life decisions we were trying to figure out. I told him that I often worry that my wants are going to get in the way of God's. He told us then that when a Christian is trying to live out there life for God and seeking Him out that our wants tend to be God's wants for us. In other words if we are seeking God out wholeheartedly and pursuing Him then His desires for our lives become our desire.

Now while this elates me that my desires and His are parallel it doesn't mean that it is going to be easy. There are going to be sacrifices made and it will be a journey but in the long run it will such a deep and fulfilling journey. I am not just talking about being a stay at home mom mind you. Like I said before I am not ready to share everything God is working out. Let's just say I am being refined. No one said being the daughter of a King would be easy. Quite the opposite but it goes so much deeper than that. I am not living this life for the temporary. I am living it for the eternal. I have God's desires in my heart. I desire Him and He desires me.

I am sorry this didn't come out as eloquently as it would for some but these are the words as they pour from my heart. Then again I guess I am really not all that apologetic when it comes to my heart. After all it's God's heart. :) Good night for now.

Mini blog post: Random thoughts.

It occurred to me today while I was trying to take a nap with Braedon that I have the most random thoughts. As a matter of fact it is a good thing that Jesus is the only one who shares some of these random thoughts with me because they would just verify how looney tunes I am! Sometimes I wish there was an off switch for these thoughts. But most times I find I can keep myself pretty entertained. And no this isn't because I am a mom now. I have always thought randomly. As a matter of fact most of my thoughts come with full color images in there(my head) too. I will now contemplate the wisdom of sharing any of these random thoughts with other people besides my husband. I occasionally do divulge them to him and usually get laughed at or get odd looks but he loves me anyway. I know if you happen to be reading this you are curious now but seriously if I told you then you would just know how truly off the wall I can be. Then again if I tell you I may find I am not all alone in my random thinking.

Father's Love

Wednesday through Friday this week was the summer conference for our network of churches. This year the conference was titled The Father's Love. Such topics as Trusting the Father, Father Knows Us, Father Chooses Us and so on where addressed. There were a total of six sessions and one break out training session of our choice. One word to describe my time during this conference, AMAZING!

God spoke to me in some very profound ways. He showed me promises He was giving me and areas I need to work on in my life (worry being a major one) to better serve Him. Prayer Ministry time was so...... well you just had to be there because there is no word I could use to adequately describe it. I got prayer that totally rocked my socks off, nevermind that I was wearing flip flops every day! I felt the Presence of the Father so strongly! I felt cherished, loved, and protected.

It was not all about me though. The Father so touched me in the praying I did for others. If you don't go to my church or haven't been we pray as the bible teaches. Laying hands on someone and praying for them. When I say laying hands I don't mean we try to knock the people over! We just simply lay a hand on their shoulder. I digress. As I was saying I was so touched by the prayers I was praying over others. It is so amazing when the Holy Spirit tells me exactly what I need to pray over someone. I must say there are times I struggle with faith that God is going to make something happen with my prayers but this is an area He is working on in me. These last three days the Father showed up when I prayed. Things happened! I was able to hear him so clearly. I was even able to pray for someone for healing from physical pain and the Father moved as only He can. Can you tell I am excited? My words are running over each other in my head to say just exactly how I felt. Words just CANNOT express it.

Once again this is not about me! All the praise and glory for the Prayer Ministry time must go to the Father. He is good and wonderful and He loves His children. He wants nothing more than for us to completely put our trust in Him and to expect Him to show up and perform miracles in our lives. I am by no means a perfect Christian (anyone who professes to be is lying to themselves) but from now on as I pray, in my private time and for others, I am going to pray expecting the Father to show up. Truly this is how all Christians should pray!

Only the Father knows me completely and knew exactly what I needed from this conference. My heart is filled to overflowing with His love.

Psalm 139

God is Good!

Tonight I could blog about several whoa is me's but I am choosing not to. I am choosing to be positive. Don't get me wrong I have a ton of positive things going on in my life right now but right before I sat down to blog a ton of negative things rushed to mind. So on to the positive blogging.

My husband and I are small group leaders with our church. My husband primarily leads the discussions but due to his work schedule this summer I will be leading for the next couple of months. This thought has filled me both with dread and excitement. I must admit for my discussion topic tonight I underestimated God. The discussion topic was Building the Church, i.e. inviting new people to church and small group. I was concerned that our group members might not be receptive to this topic because of the difficulty many of us have initiating conversation with people we don't know. I prayed this afternoon that God would open their hearts to this topic. And you know what my God is bigger than my concerns!

I can't speak for the rest of our group members but I felt God's presence tonight. It was refreshing. It also told me I heard Him correctly while preparing this discussion. So many times I doubt and don't think I heard Him right. It is nice when He confirms things for me.

On to our group. I challenged them to step out of their comfort zones and pray that God would highlight a person for them to invite or talk to this weekend at church. I am so excited to see what God does with this. I know His hand was on us tonight. I pray that this means growth in numbers for our group as well as spiritual growth. So many times we are scared to answer the simple nudges God gives us. We fear the rejection or the difficulty of the task. I pray that God give me the boldness and courage as I step out in faith to do the work He has given me!

School again? Career change? Am I crazy?

Changing my career (temporarily) and going back to school at John A. Logan (online). Am I crazy? Some might say yes. But I have my reasons and the biggest one is a very good one. The biggest reason is over two foot tall and weighing in over 20 lbs .... BRAEDON. Enough said.

The second is job availability in SOIL and the economy. When I first lost my job I searched for new positions. I applied and either didn't get interviews or was told I was over qualified. All of the jobs in HR that I would be exactly qualified for, such as HR Managers and Directors, are already filled with people that plan on being there until they retire.

The third reason actually this should probably the biggest and should be first, God wants me too! God has been telling me He wants me to stay home with Braedon. But He has also told us He will make provision for us. I feel at peace and that I have His blessing to move on with this career change.

Now what am I changing my career to you ask? Medical Transcription. Why? Because I can work from home,I have always had connections to health care, and God wants me to. I plan to go back to Human Resources once the kids are in school. I say plan quite flippantly because this may not be what God wants from me. He may decide I need to continue medical transcription.

Once I am done earning my certificate I can be self-employed and continue to stay home with Braedon and any future kiddos. This is so nerve wracking for me because I have not been a student in forever! In addition to that it gets a little difficult when everyone knows I have a Bachelors degree looks at me funny when I tell them what I am doing. I have to remind myself these people don't know all the details. I am also a little excited too. I have always liked trying new things. I am excited to further diversify my abilities. I believe I am going to enjoy the career if not the school work!

Isn't it funny the twists and turns life takes us through. I look back where I started and can hardly believe everything that has happened to get to where I am now. But as I look back the most important thing is that I see God's hand on all of it. My Father has being lovingly and firmly guiding me through each twist, turn, mountain and kink in the road. So rather than despair over all the college education I am seemingly throwing out the window I choose to instead accept that my Father put me here for a reason!