God

Unconformity Conformity

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Yes this title could be counteractive or contradictory, but that is the point. Unconformity is the inability to conform. Conformity is compliance with standards, rules or laws.

Now, I know a joke that has to be explained is not a very good one. The same may be said for a  snarky title.

Point….  This world makes it out like it’s a good thing, to be unconformable. To never settle, to never agree with others who came before you. To have your own opinions and your own thoughts and to never to accept someone else’s as their own.  Yes this is all well and good. Individuals. We are that. But the humor I find is that with everyone trying to be their own person and to have their own ways, well they are becoming more alike, and less extraordinary.

I am a Christian, I believe that God made us all unique. I believe that we all have our own purpose and gift. I believe that we are all here to Love each other, and to Love and Honor God.

Me, personally I do not really care for people. Shocker and hypocritical, I am aware. I am a hypocrite everyday. I am a homeschooling mom, and everyday I tell my kids to better than I am. I tell them to go to bed early, I don’t. I tell them to not yell, I do. I tell them to respect and talk nice to each other, I fail. I am hurtfully and completely aware of my failings. I tell them to put God first, to not be selfish, to think of others, when so often I do not.  Now I can say me personally, that many times when I say this and when I write this down, this is my mirror for myself. Black and white on paper or screen, my sign to change. Now back to everyone else. just proving my humanity and flaws.

There are so many hypocrites in the world. A lot of them being Christians.

 

When we call for change and peace and prosperity. Are we accountable as well, or is this something that we demand and expect on a silver platter gently handed to us. Do we get to sit back, and wait… and wait….  and wait….  while yelling or quietly, judging and pointing fingers?

People get upset at injustice, which there is plenty of, but do we do anything about it? We yell, riot, and make more people mad about the same cause, and expect results.

Sorry nothing is going to change!

If you want to fix something you are passionate about follow the good. Follow the helpers follow the one’s you respect. Do not follow and aggravate the already aggravated. Following the hate will not lead anywhere good. Hate will not bring change.

Following the one’s you admire, will bring yourself peace, wisdom, courage and maybe a light to this darkened world.

If you  don’t like cops in your area, feel they treat people unfair. What if you took a step to work with them from the inside. If you feel like the problem is in front of you, stand up, but do not do it from hate. Do not stand up for hatred of people, stand up for the one’s you love.

If you feel that politics are crooked, take time to read more, from all sides. If you are passionate follow the one’s you respect. But yelling and screaming at the one’s you hate will not get anywhere.

If you do not like what the schools are teaching or feel that they may be unsafe, school your own children. Not because you hate others but because you love them.

Be the light. Be positive. Be the spark. The spark may light a flint, but be careful what is under the flint, what is going to burn, love or hate?

We have enough hatred in the sin fallen world. We will learn so much more if we try to respect each other.  If we study history and investigate or ask questions of why people have their opinions, we will learn, even if we still disagree, we will have better foundation for it.

 

Quicksand

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You are drowning. Not quickly. You are slowly sinking, how far down are you?

Are you at your ankles, your feet just being covered almost like when you sit at the beach and cover the top of your foot with sand? This sand though is not soft and grainy, this sand is like mud and heavy like when you are at the edge of the ocean and sink your feet in when the waves sweep up to the shore. Where it takes some effort to get your feet back out of it.

Effort is key.

Are you waist deep in the quicksand? Like you are pulling a whole other person with you when you try to walk forward? Or like you are pushing a car with a dead battery out of the road with it in neutral?

Now what is even more tricky is if the quicksand is up to your shoulders, almost up your neck. Where the only free thing is your head, It holds your brain, your eyes, ears and nose. Your shoulders feel heavy, you turn your whole body to turn your head, you are moving so slow that everyone else seems like they are fast-warded.

Even if you feel stuck to the point that only your eyes and top of your head are out. Well you are still in luck your brain is fitting for air for you.

This quicksand is not quick, why that name I do not know.

Now from what I remember about quicksand, you can not struggle, you can not wiggle, you can not crawl out of it. You have to pulled out of it quickly. You can not sit there and take your time to think about it, most of all you can not give up.

I am using quicksand as a description of life.

When you feel stuck, and like you are sinking…… or that life is overwhelming and you can see no change in your future. If you ever feel like you should just make yourself comfortable in this quicksand life. Please do not. Please do not feel like slowly drowning is the way your going to get out of this life.  Yes it will work, yes it will happen, if you do not TRY.

Crawling before walking, walking before running, stepping before jumping. These are the steps we watch our young children follow. But as adults we have to follow them too.

Now I know I said you can not get out of quicksand by all these things, that you have to be lifted out of the quicksand. You lift yourself out of the quicksand with your mind, with your heart, with your soul, with your longing to live for the others who love you, even if not for yourself. But the only you will stay out of that quicksand and not slide back is to have God pull you out. Now God can give the rope to get out, and he will pull, but you have to put your arms up and grab it without letting go.

I was in quicksand, I was almost comfortable with it, but this little nagging voice, the tired heart and body that couldn’t keep up with my kids. I am freshly out of it.

So, I wanted to share that you are not stuck unless you choose to be.

Grab the rope!!!!!!!!!!!

Who are you?

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First you are a child of God!

If you do not know who you are, you are letting other people tell you who you are. You are letting others define and sculpt and make you into who they want you to be.

This is not always done consciously.

I recently have decided that I am trying to learn who I am. Call it a mid-life crisis, hope this not my mid life point, but however it is my crisis of self.

Back story, I was in a really bad relationship got pregnant.  Further back story, I never loved myself or planned a future for myself.

So then I had to plan a future not just for me, but for this baby. So I turn to God!! He saves me and places people in my life to love and support me. He gives me the courage to leave my ugly abusive relationship.

I find myself in a new relationship with an awesome man who not only loves me but my son as well. So grateful!

I hated who I used to be, so I threw it all away, threw it all down the drain, every little bit of who I used to be. Every little bit!

So these new people, things and jobs defined me. I was completely starting over. Every compliment I got I grew with that, also every insult or criticism I shrunk with that.

Fast forward nine years with a new addition (little girl). It brings me to terms with the challenges of my past. I helps me remember who I was is still part of who I am.

God is helping me remember things I used to like about myself. He is helping me like Myself! He helping me become someone to like.

I let myself go for years, I didn’t deserve to be happy, I didn’t deserve all the blessings I had received in spite of the life I used to live. I made myself miserable.

I had and have everything I could possibly want to make happy and content and loving. But I was missing the key aspect, loving myself.

How can I give love when I am empty? I have people who love me, but I am still torturing myself from past, I still have not forgiven myself.

So when I got married I threw all I was out the window to be become a completely brand new me. Trying to shape myself into some who could be loved.  But I forgot to bring me.

My husband is a saint for keeping me and loving me with all my self struggles. He has always said that I was a diamond in rough. He would see the glimmers of love I had through my growth of tough skin, he could see the sparkle in my sarcastic smile, he could see the warmth of my cold heart.

Now I can finally see those things too. I thank God that he placed this man in my life to love me before I could. I thank God that he placed this man in my life to believe in me before I could.

He has helped me crack this shell, polish the charcoal of my heart and soul. He has helped me love myself enough to be able to have the drive and passion to love and hope to help others love themselves.

But also I am remembering that who I used to be was not all bad, I have always been a child of God, I just may not of always known it. I am not my past or mistakes, but I will keep them to learn from them and I will share them for others to learn from. I will not hide from them anymore.

Like it or not!.! 😉

How do terrible things start?

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When you are exposed to death young or with an immature mind, it shapes you.

Please talk to kids about it. Please, yourself talk to someone about it.

You are still here, and for a reason. God will bring glory out of messes, even if we can not see how.

With all this tragedy lately, it had brought up some answers for me. Why certain things happened, why I felt the ways I did as a kid.

When I was about 14 years old, I had the worst summer of my life.

A girl, a friend of mine who was the exact age and grade, was in a car accident, her and her older boyfriend were driving around and drove off a small bridge into some water and couldn’t get out of the car. That was my first funeral. She lived one street away, my parents did a lot to help them, and I watched their animals when they had to go away for a while. I was in her house pretending like it wasn’t strange.

 

My grandmother passed. She had come to live in our town a couple years now, but was at a point that she needed to move in with us. She lived with us probably close to a year. She was at the hospital when she died. But the only thing I remember from her living with us, was how she would get me in trouble, she liked to look out the window and I was sometimes playing or doing things I should not of been doing. There were two funerals for her, on of them I got to go out of town for with my mom and sister to Arkansas.

A boy I knew and had a crush on died. I knew him from another friend’s church. I would go with her to youth group sometimes and went a week in the beginning of that summer for habitat of humanity.  This boy was a couple years older than I, he was a devoted christian, and a very sweet and special guy. He was found dead in his basement after huffing paint. my fourth funeral, I do remember getting out of school for this one.

 

I do not remember much else. I do not remember being counselled or talked to.

But I can say I think this started my down spiral. This is the summer I started smoking, started hating life, the summer before my first year of high school.

I ruined my high school life. I did not care about anything or anyone. I had a brave face and did not talk to anyone about my feelings. I also had a bad attitude and almost  everyone saw it.  Some still would friend me, not the ones a mom would not want her to be friends with.

Later in the year I learned of some family revelations that I should not of. And although I do not blame anyone for my actions, it lit a spark. The match was already close to the surface, so it could of been something else that could of set it off.

I started to do drugs. I started to date and not care how I was treated or who I was dating as long as I was not alone.  This attitude lasted after school too.

I was very good at hiding the drugs from everyone, my family and real friends.  It was the typical starts with marijuana and leads to more so the span of almost about 10 years.

During this time I did finally start seeing shrinks. And well they prescribe drugs too.  I did thoroughly enjoy the talking.

I do have a happy ending. Finally.

But my point of this is to talk to others. Especially when they are not talking to you.  Pray for people, it is not the least you can do, it is the most.

Semi-Gloss

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How are you? Good? That’s great, happy to hear.

How am I? Well I should answer with good. I should answer with great, blessed, and happy beyond measure.

Those are true and correct but yet not quite how I feel.  When people ask you how you are, you mostly answer with gloss, maybe the way you wished you were or maybe how you think you should be.

I have a wonderful family, I have everything I have ever wanted, I have much more than I need. But still I am not satisfied. I feel a longing, I feel like something is missing, like I need more…  More of what? Well I can answer that with my long past of trial of error. I can tell you all the things it is not. It is not more money, it is not more books, it is not more stuff( that is for sure). It is not more children (though they are a blessing).

The answer is more of God! I am a christian, an acting one as well, have been for several years. But yet I still feel dissatisfied.  I know that Jesus saved me and that I have a better place to be, but yet I live like this is where I collect my treasure. I have been living trying to cling and hold my treasures.

New phone, iPad, computer. Bookshelves full, nice car, wonderful kids, hardworking good looking husband. I have these.

Inner peace, complete and utter joy, feeling of fulfillment, love pouring out. These I do not.

Now the hard truth. We gloss over our lives, we are like paint, flat is boring, glossy is too fake, we all want to be semi-gloss. Just the right amount of shine, the shine that is believable even to our selves. We can trick ourselves to think we have it. We know we should, so we act accordingly.

I have no reason to be unhappy, an unhappy christian.? how is that even possible.? It is, it is called a selfish christian, such a thing should not be possible.

Being selfish with God, he created me, he knows what I am to accomplish. But I don”t seem to care, I keep running and trying to take charge of my life, like I hold the reins, like I can really make a difference by myself, without him. No…

I’ve been doing this dance for many years. I have everything I could possible imagine and blessed beyond measure, but yet I still have a hole.

How to make myself Whole and fill the hole. Well this is a start. Rebuking, finding my sin that is keeping me from God. My idols, the things I can hold in my hands and spend more time with them than with the One who gave me life and my children’s’ lives, and all these material possessions.

People are idols too. Having a great day and run into a snag or argument, or even into someone having a bad day. Then all of a sudden even though their day or mood has nothing to do with you, you take it on like, you created it for them. Letting someone control the way you feel, letting them take away a smile, letting them take away your good mood, and replacing it with sourness, that’s the devils work. Don’t do it for him.

I write this out loud, and pray that this will help me heal my issues. I only share this to try to help someone else trying to figure this out for themselves.

There is only one way to fill the hole. That hole was put there for that exact reason, but to often than not we have to fill it with all the things it wasn’t made for before we can find Who it was made for. So please do not be has stubborn or hard headed as I, just let God fill it to start, and save yourself some trouble.

 

How close are we to becoming a persecuted church?

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We as Christians or myself I should say… Hold back in arguments, let this slide or that, just bite our tongues, turn the other cheek, close our eyes to this world- with our hearts in another.

How are we to let others have this faith, drive and passion when they are being tortured and sentenced to death. When we are only minorly inconvenienced by making ourselves feel a little uncomfortable.

How grateful I am to have a president that recognizes the existence of God!

This is my challenge to you and myself. Make it known what you believe in. Make it known what the TRUTH is. Who will defend the truth, when we all hide in shadows shaking our heads and saving Jesus help them. Well that’s me.

I post cute verses on Facebook, or quote Christian songs. But I am too scared to stand  out for a cause. I am afraid I will offend one my so-called “friends”. I am a Jesus following coward. In my heart, I want to follow, my mind wants to follow, but what good is that when my feet are cemented to ground?

I want to take time and pray for our presecuted brothers and sisters, and may I have an inch of their courage.

What if our next president does not believe or accept God’s place? Will it be illegal to worship in the United States. We will become the “intolerant”? We need to be LOUDER! While we still have a right to our beliefs. We can not take them for granted.

Will their be a time when we have to hide in basements? Much stranger things have happened.

I know this may seem far fetched, and I pray it is. I just want us to wake up as a free nation and take advantage of our free speech. I personally need to grow a backbone and stand up for what I know is right, not by my thoughts, but, by God’s word.

Earmuffs

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So our kids push their boundaries. We are surprised. Why do they have to  act that way? I know as adults we all push our boundaries. I really blew it this time. Oh no why did I spend so much again… I really shouldn’t eat this, as it is entering your mouth. These are just a few examples.

Defiance, just plain our not listening. Kids do this, and again adults do this too. The doctor tells you, some things you should or should not do, like exercise more and start a type of diet. Your husband says hey can we cut back on holiday spending, well we can all pretend these are just suggestions. Like, hey kids would you mind?… unloading the dishwasher, cleaning up your room.  It is sad but when we say things nicely they are simply taken as suggestions.

Anyhow, more importantly it is essential to listen and act to tasks or jobs that you know God is asking you to do. Now I know that we would all like these to only be suggestions, things that take us out of our comfort zones. But a lot of the times, we are only being set up during the hard times to be able to do the purposeful things that God is asking of us. It is like our training.

Are you meant to write, speak, teach or just reach out to a neighbor or even scarier a stranger. Some times it is even worse if it someone we know. But it is only in our simplistic minds that these things are scary or tough. God has already laid out the path, the ground work, and all we have to do is to step out in faith. Take that first step onto the water with Jesus in faith and see that we will not drown. Now the key is to step in faith, hope, knowing that we will not fail if it is His will.  If we step half heartedly we will fall, but only to get back up and feel this tugging and knowing that we are not doing what we are suppose to be doing. is that not what we all want, to know the purpose of our lives, to feel like we may doing something right, and may actually be good at it, but what’s better and more satisfying is to develop a knowing feeling that it is what are supposed to be doing.

We are all child like. We are all sinners. We were born that way, we are born with evil and defiance in our hearts. We have to strive to be better than that. We have to be intentional on being good. We have to have help. God’s grace is what gets us through hard days and his mercy is what makes our great ones. Jesus says for us to have childlike faith. I take that as to not need to know the “big questions”, to not have life figured out, to just know and believe. When we adults start to get into the questions and answers we can get so overwhelmed that is easy to walk away, to put the good book down. But if we can just read and believe and live like kids do. That may just be the simplest way to find peace and joy in our wonderful, loving God.

I am trying to listen and obey better yet, trust and obey. But this only works with a heart that loves Jesus. I am searching for peace and joy in my loud worldly life. I need to silence to world to be able to hear His word.

 

Self Esteem

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How do you teach this? How can you teach your daughter or sons that they are worth more than this world has to offer.  I pray that I do them justice to know their worth, and that they are loved.

I really wish I had been taught or the little I was taught I wish I would have believed it. I can now look back and see if I had only known that I was worth something, I would have had a completely different life.

It has taken me 30 years to finally feel worth it. To finally know that I am special, to know that I deserve to be happy and treated with respect. To know that my children could face some of the same troubles and temptation and tests in life that I so miserably failed scares me to death.

I didn’t feel pretty, never… Still fight with this one.

I didn’t feel special, I always thought I was ordinary well even less than that.

I suffered deeply with depression for many years. Too scared for suicide I chose the slow long-suffering way. I even made it seem fun, to pump my body full of toxins, and strangers, and take stupid reckless risks hoping I could prove to myself that I was not meant to be….

Yet here I am. 32 finally feeling like life is worth it… That I am worth it.

I use this story as my testimony. My testimony that there are far better things out there. If anyone has any doubts about their own lives or feel ordinary.

Please know that you are not ordinary, you are perfectly and fearfully made by God. This sadness in your soul is not your life story, It is something trying to pull down trying to recruit to bad side, trying to make someone feel unloved is their job. God can not make you go to Him, He has given us free will, that I personally took for granted and free willed myself away from him for 26 years. I am living breathing proof that He is real.

I live in a small town, I have lived in this small town since I was a young child. I have made all of my bad decisions in this same small town. I run into people from my past on a weekly basis. I have to face them, I have to relive all of my poor choices. But what I take away is how blessed I have become. Even I, after all my foolishness, am still loved and forgiven. For these people who I come into contact, that is what I hope they can see. That I am changed for the better, Thanks to God. Nothing I could have done on my own.

Fight the enemy instead of each other!

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Another day and something is going wrong, well that is according to our own thoughts and ideas of the way our selfish lives should go. We get frustrated, annoyed, (the over used excuse for our own bad behaviors) stressed and we use these words like they are acceptable excuses for losing our temper, saying things that hurt others’ feelings and we think that, that makes it OK. It is not OK. I am guilty of this, I get mad and angry and I tell my kids it’s not them, that I am just frustrated. BUT oh why is it them that I am losing it with?

I will tell you why I think it is. It is the devil in our heads and unfortunately in our hearts. Our selfishness coming through.

Also the devil uses others to get to us. If you are in a feud with someone, that makes absolutely no sense. It is more than likely the devil working through them. I am not saying they are the devil, no not at all, they are just being used by the devil and they do not see it. I personally have a issue that I used to obsess about and spend way to much time replaying and focusing on it, but then I realized that it wasn’t the people I was upset with and I also finally came to terms with the fact that, that I am not the reason for their hatred, they just put my face on the problems they were already facing because it was easy.

Any ways what I am saying is that the devil will find anyway to shake us, weather it is our hot water is out, our car won’t start or someone is just plain mean to us. It can be the real enemy working through these things to get us to doubt our sovereign Lord.

Lord, can you please help me see the difference between your divine intervention, and when the devil is trying to make me slip up. Please change my heart and my tongue so that I can live and act in a way to please You. I want my eyes on you, and not waste a moment giving the devil any glory. God you deserve all the glory and praise. Amen.

Where is God?

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AND WHERE IS God???????????
This is a question people too often ask. Well your answer is… Where you put Him. On the back burner, for a lot of people. For all of us He is our last hope. We will see a better world if we put God first in our lives.

He is still on our money but not in our schools. That’s rich… Well if we want to stop complaining so much about the next generation of Hellions, yes I have some too, bring God back to school! I want our kids to not be the “WEIRD” ones, for wanting to pray or to Thank God for the good things, even at school. How as parents are we suppose to encourage our kids to still believe when they come home and feel like the only one. I am tired of this line that has been drawn from God/ School, God/ Government, God/ workplaces. So the only place we think we are “SAFE” is at home. Well no wonder the World is in shambles.

We can not have God on conditions, we can not have God when it is convenient, He is in all aspects of our lives. We pray for world peace, well imagine if the whole wide world was praying that prayer, I think God would listen! But not if we hide in our closets to do it.

In some countries people are being killed or publicly persecuted for their beliefs, and that doesn’t even sway them, they still outwardly acknowledge God. Could you do that??????