Hand Sanitizer

The year 1996... Bath and Body Works was huge to a middle school girl then. I still enjoy a good smelling lotion or candle from there. Remember the scents Sun-Ripened Raspberry,  Country Apple and Juniper Breeze? Those were my scents then. I remember when the store came out with a mind-blowing idea: SCENTED hand sanitizer. I mean, could it get any better? It actually cleans your hands, you can fit it in your purse, AND it smells amazing? Who wouldn't want to smell like a fresh, country apple?! My best friend in middle school and I saved up our money and decided to go in together and buy 4 and get the 5th free. So we scrounged up allowance and got to the store and began the smell test. She chose 2 and I chose 2 and then we had to decide on one we both liked to split. We were so excited (and really cool ha!). We got back to my house and found a little container to squeeze the 1/2 of the 5th bottle into. And we guarded that stuff. We would only use the tiniest amount because we wanted it to last and we didn't get it out in front of many people because we knew they'd all want to use it and we had to use our hard-earned allowance on this stuff. Stingy. We were stingy with our hand-sanitizer. The sad part is I remember having to throw out at least a bottle of it because it was getting so old and nasty. All that hoarding and being stingy and it didn't even get used.

Last night I was reminded of this experience and how it relates to our lives. When we get dealt hard things in life, so many times we pull back and don't want to release it to God. Whether it's from shame, fear, insecurity or bitterness, we dig our heels in and won't let go. And the result: we are left bitter and crusty instead of pouring out our lives for the good of others. Like that hand sanitizer that had to be thrown out...

Our hurts in life are the very things God uses to encourage others. So many times I think we feel like we have to be in that perfect place in life for God to use us. We have to get ourselves together first and then we will help others. But God is saying "I want to use you right where you are...in your weakness, because I will be your strength and my strength will shine through your weakness." So whether we are weak right now because of infertility or a divorce or an illness or depression or grieving the loss of a child or friend or just struggling to be a mom to our unruly children...God wants to use us in your weakness right where we are.

In my weariness right now of some recent health issues, I find myself wanting to just shrink away until all is better. But I can feel God saying to me..."I hate what you're going through right now. This was not my intent. It was never my intent to have sin and suffering in this world. But I can bring good out of it IF you will release it to me. Release your grip. Don't waste the hardships you have been dealt. Don't let them be hidden. Pour out your life. Encourage others with your pain." And I realize when I let go and become vulnerable and help someone else, it almost redeems the suffering we are going through. Only our perfect God can cause something GOOD to come out of something that is BAD.

Let's take our hardships and weaknesses and let God use them instead of holding on to them so tightly that they can't be used. 

There's no space that His love can't reach
There's no place where we can't find peace
There's no end to Amazing Grace

"Each time he said, 'My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.' So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:9

The Key to Your Life

This morning, I read Deuteronomy 30.  The title for the chapter was A Call to Return to the Lord.  Moses is speaking to the Israelites and imploring them to return to the Lord.  He urges them to make the right choice.  He presents them with two options: choose life or choose death.  Even after the Israelites had turned away from God so many times, God still extends His mercy and grace to them.  God wants them to have life and He knew that they could not have true life without Him.

The Lord your God will change your heart and the hearts of all your descendants, so that you will love him with all your heart and soul and so you may live! Deuteronomy 30:6

This verse is so encouraging because it shows that God wants to change our hearts...He wants to replace our desires with His desires and help us love Him with all our heart and soul.  And the result is so that we may live!  He knows that to truly live is to live only for Him.  When we live for ourselves, we are not living at all.  We are taking...taking from others, taking from this world to try and satisfy a longing that will never truly be satisfied.  

Sometimes we can get a distorted view of God.  We can feel like He is so out of reach, so intangible, a standard that we can never attain.  We can feel like since we know we'll never measure up, we shouldn't even try...that He is going to be disappointed no matter what happens.  But this is so untrue.  Deuteronomy 30 reminds us that His commands are not too difficult for us to understand:

This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you to understand, and it is not beyond your reach...No, the message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it  (vs. 11, 14).

Yes, we are all sinners and we will not always make the right choice.  But, His Word is there to guide us and bring us back to Him.  God doesn't want us to fail.  He wants us to cling to Him, to forsake everything else and to choose life.  When we are tempted to think that His standards are too high for us to ever attain, may we remember that it is not too difficult for us to understand.

God wants to give us a new heart to obey Him in place of our former stubbornness. This new heart will teach us how to love the Lord wholeheartedly.  Thank God that He can replace our sinful hearts with a new one so that we may have life.  But, are we willing to let Him have control of our lives, to surrender our old heart's desires for His new heart?  It may be hard to let go of our pursuits, our dreams and our goals.  This world has a way of making our desires look so attractive.  The enemy wants nothing more than to see us choose our own way of living instead of His way of living.  But the sad part is that when we choose our way of living, we really are not living at all.  Because He is the key to our life. 

You can make this choice by loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him.  This is they key to your life...(vs. 20). 

This whole chapter is so full of verses that remind us to forsake our old way of living. Take time to read Deuteronomy 30.

Discipline is Not Enough

Psalm 73:25-26

I don't have anyone in heaven but you.

I don't want anything on earth besides you. 

My body and my heart may grow weak.

God, you give strength to my heart.

You are everything I will ever need.   

I've always been somewhat of a disciplined person.  If I feel convicted to do something, then I intentionally think of ways that I can accomplish the task and I set about accomplishing it. Of course there are times that I may cheat (ex. eating something unhealthy, not going to the gym, etc), but I know that in order to accomplish a task, it takes self-control and discipline. While it's good to be self-controlled and disciplined, God is showing me that I can't just make a "check list" and expect my heart to magically be in the right place.

Recently I have noticed that my attitude has been a little less than stellar (to put it nicely).  So, I began to think of ways I could fix this.  I started developing my check list:

• I'll get up earlier and spend more time reading my Bible
• I'll post Bible verses everywhere 
• I'll try to do thing for others throughout the day
• And the list goes on...

Of course, none of the things on this list is bad.  It's good to spend more time reading my Bible and memorizing other verses.  But, a check list cannot change my heart.  I so wish it could. I wish that I could just write "love Jesus with all my heart" on a list and it would be taken care of.   I can't just make a list of things I need to work on without first asking God to search my heart and forgive me for the sinful way that it is.  God is showing me that I need to repent more often.  Repentance is not fun. It takes time and it can get messy.  If I'm really being honest, sometimes I don't want to take time to really look at my heart because I don't want to know what all is there.  It's a lot easier to not deal with it and just pretend that my heart is in pretty good condition. But, if I sit still before the Lord and ask Him to reveal to me sin that is in my heart, He might show me some stuff that I didn't know was there (or tried to pretend wasn't there).  He might remind me of some bitterness in my life or reveal to me my pride, my fear, my insecurities.

Sometimes it's just easier to keep going through the motions, keep reading my Bible and singing the praise songs but not dealing with the state of my heart.  When we do this, it's so easy to compare ourselves to others. We feel a nudge that God wants us to come before Him and search our heart, but we begin to become filled with pride as we look at others. We begin to list off all of the things we are doing for God, trying to justify the fact that we are doing so much for Him.  But that's the most tragic part of all because I'll never do enough...I can never make a good enough to do list.  Why? Because I'm a sinner and because my heart is deceitful and because each day I am facing a battle against my flesh.  And, I need Jesus.  I need Him to reveal to me where I am weak and I need His help to show me where I am not like Him. If I don't take time to come before Him and repent of my sins, then I am only relying on my own strength to cross items off of my to do list.  See what Paul has to say about the power of sin in our lives:

But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?  Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. Romans 7:23-25

I want to rely on Christ's strength and be filled with a new heart as I see a new sin surfaces in my life.  I don't want to rely on my own strength because then I will never really overcome it.  And, as easy as it is to do sometimes, I don't want to just pretend sin is not in my life.  In order to become more like Christ, I must repent and ask Him to help me turn from my sinful ways with His strength.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.  Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Psalm 139: 23-24

Instead of making a to-do-list, my prayer is that I will ask God to search my heart first and help me rely on His strength.  Then, I will rely on His power instead of my power.  I love this quote by Matt Chandler about how we can be a great wife and mom:

You don't have to be a perfect wife to be a great wife. You don't have to be a perfect mom to be a great mom. 'Where's that line?' That line is confession, repentance, and getting back up and staying moving. We take on the perfection made available to us in Jesus Christ, his righteousness, not my righteousness, not a false veneer righteousness of my own. Not my strength, his strength. Not my perfection, his perfection. We rest in that. Then we walk as best we can every day.

Repentance takes time. It will probably be messy because it's when we see how evil our heart's desires truly are.  But, when we repent of these sins, we are agreeing with God that we hate them, that we want to turn from them. And, when we come before Him with a humble heart, He. will. hear. us.  So, why would I not repent?

Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. My eyes will be open and my ears attentive to every prayer made in this place. 2 Chronicles 7:14-15

It's Hard to Love

"Love is patient and kind.  Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.  It does not demand its own way.  It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."
-1 Corinthians 13:4-7 

Every day I say the words, “I love you.”  I dearly love my children and my husband.  Of course it is a little bit more challenging to show love to those who are more un-loveable and with whom I don’t have a close relationship, but I know we should always seek to do that because the Scriptures tell us to.  Today, however, as I was reading the familiar “love chapter” in 1 Corinthians, it made me realize how bad I am at showing love to others, even those I do love dearly.  If I have trouble really loving those closest to me, I know I am struggling with loving those who are harder to love.  Look at 1 Corinthians with me, and ask yourself if you are struggling with loving others too. 

Love is patient

• Ouch.  The first definition of love is convicting for me.  As Americans, we are known for our less-than-patient attitude.  I get impatient at my three year old for taking so long to get out of the car.  I can feel my blood boiling as he takes his precious time unbuckling his seat belt and stopping to admire a toy he found, and tripping over his shoe laces as he climbs out the door.  No joke-this happens multiple times a day.  And, I get the same exasperated look on my face and make the same sigh and tell him to “hurry up, please.” This is definitely not loving patiently.

And kind

• Do I display kindness throughout my day?  Am I looking for opportunities where people could be in need of a helping hand?  Or, do I see someone in need and pretend that I don’t notice because I don’t want to be inconvenienced?

Love is not jealous

• This one can come out when you least expect it.  I try not to look at others and want things that they have. I try to be content with what I have.  But, what about when someone else gets acknowledged for something in which I don’t get acknowledged?  Someone else gets praise for spending a lot of time on an event that I spent even more time planning, but I didn't get the praise for it?  Do I sulk and get mad that I didn't get credit, or do I participate in praising the person for their hard efforts as well?  Or, have you ever been around people who just always seem to get it right?  They must be overflowing with compliments all the time.  So, you don’t compliment them because you think they already get enough of those.  I’m learning that this is usually rooted in jealousy.  Because I’m jealous that I’m not the one who is good at everything, I’m hesitant to compliment the person who is.  What a sad way to live. I want to celebrate with others when they accomplish something, even if they seem to always get it right.  By celebrating with them, I get to share in their excitement instead of wallowing in jealousy. 

Or boastful or proud

• The other day I was talking with someone about why women gossip. It’s easy to say we just want to vent or get advice, but I think the main reason we gossip is so that we can feel better about ourselves.  By bashing someone else, we feel better about ourselves. By putting down others and their decisions, we puff ourselves up.  This is not love.  This is pride…at the expense of others.

Or rude

• When we’re having a bad day, sometimes it just all comes to a head right when our husbands walk in the door from work.  Instead of greeting him with a smile and asking him how his date went, it’s easy to offer a rude remark and give him a list of things in which you need his help.  This is not showing love towards my husband. 

It does not demand its own way

• I am a bit of a planner.  When I take the time to plan something, I have expectations that it will happen, and when things don’t go as planned, it’s really hard for me to accept.  While some people never make plans and never have expectations, this can be harder for those of us who do make plans.  When things get thrown off course, how will I react?  Will I pitch a fit because things did not go the way I envisioned, or will I make the best of the change in plans?  God is really growing me in this area right now because it seems like none of my plans are turning out the way I expected.  Sometimes it’s just out of our control, and we can learn to accept that or we can choose to be a person no one likes to be around (and NOT display love because love does not demand its own way). 

Booklist of 2014

It can be hard to carve out time to read a book when life is constantly busy with little ones. But, I've come to realize that books greatly influence my spiritual life.  By reading from others about what God has taught them, it can motivate us, inspire us, and challenge us to get out of our comfort zones.

I've also discovered that is is so important to make sure and read from Christian authors when it comes to topics where we are wanting advice or counsel.  When we are trying to learn and apply something, we want to make sure that we learn from someone who is pointing us to Christ.  When we hear from non-Christians on topics such as parenting, marriage, etc., we have to be very careful because their chief concern is not pointing us to Christ. They are just giving us their opinion and opinions come and go, but the "Word of Christ endures forever" (1 Peter 1:25).

Disclaimer: it can be tempting to put great books ahead of God's Word and this is a huge mistake that we should guard against.  NOTHING can replace God's Word and it has to be top priority.  If I try to replace His Word with a book, it will always fall short and I will not be able to grow in my walk with Christ as much.  If, however, we use books in conjunction with God's Word, we get the best of both worlds.  We get the infallible truth from Scripture and the personal insight from others that can help us live for Christ.

Here are some challenging books that I've read this past year.  I hope these books challenge and encourage your walk with the Lord as they have mine.  Blessings!

Bible:
I got a new Bible for Christmas that I'm really excited about.  It's set up with a devotional for each day along with a passage out of the Bible. Though it does not contain every chapter and verse from the Bible, it offers a complete view of Scripture without being overwhelming.  It skips material that appears more than once, giving a stream-lined look at the entire Bible.

It's called the Women's Sanctuary Devotional Bible

Spiritual Growth:
The Church Planting Wife by Christine Hoover
Seven by Jen Hatmaker
Makeover: Revitalizing the Many Roles you Fill by Jen Hatmaker
Unglued by Lysa Terkeurst
Follow Me by David Platt
Mindset for Moms by Jamie Martin
Mom Enough (FREE on John Pipers site)
Radical by David Platt
Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by Nabeel Qureshi and Lee Strobel

Raising Children:
Hands-Free Mama by Rachel Stafford
Shepherding a Child's Heart  by Tedd Tripp
The Strong-Willed Child by James Dobson
Am I Messing Up My Kids? by Lysa Terkeurst
Don't Make Me Count to Three by Ginger Hubbard
The Mommy Manual by Barbara Curtis
Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noel Piper

Marriage:
Sheet Music (only for married couples ;) by Kevin Leman
What's it like to be Married to Me? by Linda Dillow

Misc:
The Grain-Free Family Table by Carrie Vitt
What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty (this is a fiction, non-religious book, but it was kind of an eye-opener for me to remember to love your family and not get caught up in worldly things)

My Weekly Planner

See link to PDF download at bottom of page

It's so much easier for me to be productive when I have something written down each week.  And, it's so much easier to write something down when it's on cute paper!

I plan to use my weekly planner by putting it on a clipboard and hanging the clipboard on the wall where I can easily see it, make changes to it, etc.

Feel free to use my weekly planners for yourself too.  I made a Christmas one and a regular one. Hope it helps keep your week more organized!

For my weekly planner, I have included the following:

• Weekly Menu: It's so much easier to cook at home when I have already planned out our menu for the week!
• Memory Verse: I think it gets even harder to memorize with age, but I know it's so important to commit to memorizing more and more Bible verses.  
• Goals: I have this broken down into 4 sections:

1. Health: What goal do I have this week that can make me healthier (ex.Cut out sugar this week)?
2. Relationships: What is one relationship I want to strengthen this week?  This doesn't necessarily have to be an estranged relationship, but just a reminder to reach out to others.  Maybe you can reach out to a new co-worker or neighbor, etc.
3. New Habits: What new habit do I want to incorporate into my life?  This is just a great reminder to keep working on things.  An example might be to intentionally read a book to the kids for 30 minutes, etc.
4. Other: Any other goal you want to work on/accomplish (ex. pick out a paint color for the bathroom)

• Housework: Each day, list a household chore you want to accomplish.  Monday might be laundry and bathrooms, etc. 

• To Do: Write down daily schedules such as soccer practice, lunch appointments, etc.

• I am thankful for:This is just a reminder to be thankful.  It's hard to complain when you are cultivating a thankful heart.  1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, "Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."

Download the Weekly Planner here.

Download the Weekly Christmas Planner here.

Sins that Sneak Up on Us

"But maybe I need to view my trials in a new light because trials show us what is in our hearts..."

Sins can have a funny way of sneaking up on us.  Just when we think we are overcoming one sin, we notice a different sin in our lives.  It can be discouraging because it feels like a battle that we always lose.  When we focus all of our attention on overcoming sins, two things can happen:

1. We realize we cannot win, and we are overcome with guilt and shame.
2. We rely on our own power and start to gain victory over a certain sin.  We become filled with pride and look down on others for not having the power to overcome as we have.

Both of these things happen because we begin to take our eyes off of Jesus.  We try to overcome the sin with our own power and we either fail or allow another sin (pride) to take its place.  Instead of focusing on Jesus and using His strength to replace the sin, we try to overcome the sin ourselves.

When a trial comes my way, I often see new sins pop up in my life that I have never had to deal with before.  For example, I never really struggled that much with anger until I had children. I may have looked at people who struggled with that sin and thought they just didn't know how to manage their emotions and pride had settled in my heart.  But now, years later, I see that, in the right situation, we are all capable of ANY sin.

I didn't know that I would struggle so much with the sin of fear and unbelief until my health was threatened and I became terrified of leaving my family behind.

I didn't realize how much I loved material things until we sold our house and moved into an apartment.

I didn't realize how much I loved my children above God until one of our children was very sick and we were afraid he had a life-altering disease.

Sins creep in our lives so quickly.  Many times we notice this happening when we are under extra stress or going through a trial. Sometimes we are in denial that they have crept in, and we try to push them aside, without ever acknowledging or confessing them.

Trials. are. no. fun.  I want out of them as soon as I enter them, and I am always looking for a way around them.  But maybe I need to view my trials in a new light because trials show us what is in our hearts. If a new sin surfaces when I am going through a trial, it is an opportunity for me to cut off a part of my life that is not looking like Christ, a part of me that I may not have seen if I had not gone through a trial.  I was probably struggling with that sin all along, but it didn't come to light until I opened up my eyes to see the stronghold it was having in my life.

As new sins sneak up on us, may we use them as an opportunity to cut off whatever it is in our lives that doesn't look like Christ.  Is my mouth causing me to sin by constantly complaining and arguing?  Then, maybe I need to talk less until I can train my mind to say things that are encouraging and uplifting.  Is fear keeping me from joining a home team and being around new people?  Then maybe I need to make myself join a home team and push past the fear.  Is pride keeping me from making things right with my husband when we got in an argument?  Then, I should humble myself and apologize so that the relationship can be restored.

May our sins be used:

When God Re-directs Our Plans

"You can make many plans, but the Lord's purpose will prevail."

Prov.19:21

Sometimes we pray about something and feel like God has told us exactly what do to and we set out to accomplish it.  Sometimes, however, we think we know what God wants us to do, but when we set out to accomplish it, He changes things completely.  When things do not go the way we expect, we have two choices: will we keep trusting Him OR will we lose faith in Him and try to do things our own way?  Our family recently went through a major shift of plans.  I'm writing this so I can look back on it and remember that God led us to do this when life gets hard in a few months and we begin to question things.  

When Scott and I were first married, we served as short-term missionaries with the International Mission Board for a year. After that, through a series of God-ordained events, Scott and I came to Macon, Georgia to work with the youth group at Northway Church over 6.5 years ago. These past 6.5 years have been some of the greatest years of our lives.  We love nothing more than getting to see our teenagers fall in love with Christ and obediently follow God’s call on their lives.

Several years ago, we began to sense that God was calling us to serve Him overseas as missionaries again.  Of course we were willing to follow God, but it was definitely a lot harder this time.  We had a family now and we loved our students at church, but we followed the calling and began the application process with the International Mission Board.  We also put our house up for sale, knowing God would have to take care of the sale of our house amidst a very unstable housing market.   After lowering our house several times and knowing we would lose all of our savings, we lowered it one final time and received an offer over Christmas break last winter. 

After our house sold, we moved into an apartment and were about to share our news with our church family when a health crisis put a major halt on our plans.  I almost had a heart attack and had a stent placed in my LAD artery, where 70% blockage was found. Our plans to go overseas were not going to be able to happen.  So, we had just sold our house and gotten rid of a lot of our possessions, we had just lost all of our savings, and then we are told that we can’t do what we felt God calling us to do.  We began to wrestle with God about what He was doing, not understanding why all of this would happen.

To be honest, I started to have a crisis of belief.  Sure, I knew all the right answers. I knew God was in control of the situation and was not surprised by any of this.  But, I could not understand why He would place a calling on our lives to go overseas, have us sell our house and then close that door.  It made no sense.  People are dying everyday who have not heard the name of Jesus and we are willing to go, and yet, God says no. 

Had we not heard Him correctly when we started the process to be overseas missionaries? 

A few months later, God began to show us that He did have a purpose and a plan for us; it just looked a lot different than we imagined.  My brother, Will Blanchard, is the pastor at a church plant in Northwest Arkansas called Northwest Community Church. Will began sharing with us their main needs at Northwest: they really needed someone to help them launch a brand new youth and missions program. We began to see that God would be using our calling for overseas missions and our love and experience of working with youth.  But then came the scary part: Will shared with us that Northwest would initially only be able to provide our health insurance.  Scott would need to be bi-vocational and Scott's parents would have to help provide our housing for this to be possible.  

Were we really considering this?  Were we really about to leave a stable job in a church that we loved to move to Arkansas where we would not have a salary?  

When I think back to when Scott and I first started the mission’s process, I truly believe we were being obedient to the calling God had placed on our lives.  But, God re-directed it.  He may have re-directed it in a way that was hard for us to accept, but that doesn’t mean that He doesn’t have a plan for us.  Two years ago, I never would have thought that we would be moving to a small church plant, where my husband would be working as a school bus driver or substitute teacher and we would be depending on his parents to provide our housing.   But, God used His initial calling on our lives to get us to where we are today.  Two years ago, we may not have been strong enough to accept a call like this.  But God has used these past two years to strengthen our trust in Him, even when life’s circumstances were out of our control. 

One thing that I have really learned through this experience is to KEEP WALKING IN OBEDIENCE, even when my plans don’t go the way I originally thought. We were completely confused and crushed when we were told we could not go overseas.  But that’s when it’s the toughest to keep walking in obedience.  It is then that we have to decide  to keep trusting and looking to Him because God will not fail us.  We can’t always control the outcome, but we can control whether or not we will be obedient. 

May we walk in obedience, trusting that He has a plan, even when life doesn't make sense.  

"We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God." 

-2 Corinthians 3:4-5