Fearless is next on the Agenda of Life

I have begun a bible study called Fearless by Max Lucado. These are just some thoughts on the questions so far that are asked for chapter one. I think this is going to be the bible study of all bible studies for me. I think becoming fearless is what I want to be. Read on and let your thoughts take you to what fears are in your life and how you too can start conquering them.

What a Life without fear looks like to me. Without fear, I see and feel a confidence in myself. I can do and be all things that God wants me to be. I can go to the bus stop and not worry that I don’t seem to be meshing with any of the moms there. I can go to work and not wonder how come I don’t have that friendship connection that everyone else seems to have with someone else. I can come home after a long day at work and not be afraid of just being myself, even if it is cranky and tired. I can be the wife I want to be without all the worries that I am never doing anything right. I can be the mother to my children that isn’t afraid to let them grow up and isn’t afraid that one day there mother won’t be here anymore and what will that be like for them. Letting go of all that fear and probably more that is un-named would be complete freedom and peace. Instead of fear, there would be love and peace and trust. What am I more prone to… dread of failure, rejection or calamity? All of the above, I say. I fear failing as a wife and mother on a daily basis. I fear the rejection of other women because I can’t seem to find the connection. I fear driving off a bridge into oblivion and leaving my children behind too soon. I fear what the world is doing around me and how I can keep myself and my family out of it. I am prone to all three. Fear is eating at me and I am done with it.
Getting on board with Christ into a ship that will be caught in a storm. Hmmm. Sounds scary but in order to gain the freedom and peace of life without fear I will have to get into the boat and be willing to get wet. I will have the one and only Lord of Heaven beside me who will protect me and keep me from falling overboard and drowning in life’s storms. There is no such thing as life without storms but we are impatient people by nature, I believe, so we hope for something better and expect it now and many of us will want to believe that just by believing in Christ that suddenly those storms will never come again. We have to be patient and trust in the Lord to get us through these storms. He is growing us through these storms into something a little more worthy and pure, a little more holy and just. Like a flower caught out in a storm, it thrashes about in the wind, maybe even looses a petal or two or three but it is rooted well in Christ so it comes out of the storm and grows into more than it ever was before.
Fear corrodes our confidence not only in ourselves but in God. How could He let this or that happen? If He loved us, He would have stopped it from happening, etc, etc. You hear those questions all the time from people especially after something bad happens. But God loves us more than we can even comprehend and his goodness is far more than we could even fathom and because of this without a full trust and faith in God the fears that we will experience in our fallen world will eat away at that trust and faith and corrode our confidence in who and what the one and only God is.
The opposite of fear is courage and confidence. So, if we are letting fear creep in, we are chiseling away at our faith in God and without that faith we are feeling unloved, worthless and dejected. It’s hard to be loving and generous to others when we are so consumed by our own fears of being loved and worthy. We have to believe that the love of God is enough. If we let go of those fears and believe how much we are loved by God than we will be more able to love and give in return.
I have fear of my own self. That is my biggest fear. As I read about the story of You are Special being read to children in China and how they all cried because they live in a culture where they are from the get-go rejected because of who they are and how they were made. I cried right along with them. My biggest fear is rejection, not fitting in, that who I am isn’t good enough. I have and always will be full of ideas to do something awesome but it’s the fear of who I am that is keeping me from taking these ideas and running with them.
Don’t be afraid. He says it again and again in the bible. Jesus is trying to make a point here. We will be constantly bombarded with fears in this world that belongs to the devil because he will take any seed of fear and make it grow if he can because he knows it keeps us from growing more in Christ and therefore becoming better soldiers in the war for human souls. Jesus wants us to realize that fear will take us away from him. It’s like a brick wall is being built up between me and Jesus every time a fear of something clouds my focus on Him and who he is. The wall is getting bigger and fears are taking over. I am taking down those bricks one by one if necessary so I can clearly focus on my King and be the soldier and person he knows I can be.
Conquering fear… It takes faith and courage… Believing that you are loved beyond measure, that your value is priceless and that you are capable of all things thru Christ. I have to stop using the excuses that the devil has used to build up my wall between me and Christ. No more excuses. No more of “my personality is just so rare, it is harder to find connections”. No more I can’t think of things to say so I am not very good at this relationship stuff. No more I am getting old and my hormones are controlling me and how I react to the world and the people I love. No More! Satan be away from me!!

Jesus Loves the Little Children

We have been having a serious of sermons at church recently on Jesus and Children. He wants us to have faith like a child. There have been three points that have come up within these sermons that are the most important to remember and grow with. First, we have to trust like a child trusts. A child will just trust. They are dependent on their parents and so to we need to be dependent on God and trust fully in Him. The second point is that we need to live in the present like a child does. Children don't fret about the past or worry about the future. Those things tend to come with more age and responsiblity but we have to learn to not be always focused on the past or the future but looking at what is happening and what we have today. The third point is how well a child receives love. They don't over anaylzye it, evaluate it or question it. They just except the love given to them. Adults have a harder time with this as we have put up barriers because of past experiences, our personality, etc. We have to continually be praying to our Father and opening our hearts to receive his love. Don't let the things of this world lead you away from the One who loves you without failing and will love you always no matter what. I really loved the visual that the paster gave in the sermon yesterday with this statement, "All is well when we're holding the Master's hand". We are God's children and we need to be like children and reaching for his hand to hold as we walk along through our journey in life.

Alive to God's Desire

I was thinking about our sermon series bible study. The title/phrase that the church is calling it is Alive to God’s desire. In this weeks study questions, it asked what is God’s desire and what does it mean to be alive to God’s desire. I knew that God’s desire has and will always be that each and everyone one of us, the good, the bad and the ugly, all of us; he wants us to love him back. I thought of that in bed this morning before getting up and tears came to my eyes because I felt so much how similar we really are to God. He made us in his image. I have pondered that and really didn’t grasp what that meant but I believe it all has to do with love. God made us because he loves us and wants to be in a relationship with us. We are SO the same. The greatest need in all of us is to be loved and to love. The world and the sin in it, I think truly hold us back from our full potential to love that God has given each of us. He just wants us to love him back. Tears…. So how does this desire of God’s make me alive. I so want to tell everyone! It’s that simple. God just wants us to love him back. So, it’s our call as believers to help in this cause. We have to fight the sin and the devil at work in our world and overcome so that more and more people can see the truth that all God ever wanted was us to love him back.

Kindness can be done with Focus

Well, writing down all the kindness I saw and did didn't happen. I started off really good and thought I could just keep it all in my head. Do you know how hard it is to write down something everything you see it? Not going to happen but I did have kindness in the forethoughts of my mind all day and did a few things I wouldn't have done otherwise or may have just let the opportunities pass. The one that I was giddy over was actually helping my hubbie by prepping dinner for him a bit. It was as simple as getting out the box, reading the instructions and getting a pot of water ready for the evening to boil and the colander out in the sink. Not much but I was thrilled with myself and it felt SO good to do something for him and he noticed! It is all about the little things! I have realized how I have really had so many opportunities throughout our marriage and I have made excuses for not doing them. For example, for years he wanted me to hang his shirts in a particular way. I was so annoyed by it and always thought what difference does it make. Well, he now does our laundry so I don't have that chore to deal with but I realize I could have done it how he asked and been showing him that I love him by that simple act of doing something the way he really wanted it done. It really is all about the little things. So, I wonder what other little things I can do today to help someone and make them feel loved and cared for?

Discovery

It seems like everyday there is something new that I discover about myself, my world, my faith and everything in between. I began a more in depth discovery about love after a discussion with Nathan. I was not showing him the love he needed but in all honesty I thought I was. I had already briefly looked at the Five Love Languages book so I was familar with the concept so at that point I knew it was time to really delve into it further and figure out how to show my love not just to Nathan but everyone in my life. I ended up finding, I believe is the latest book by Gary Chapman called God Speaks Your Love Language. I have read through it once and am now going back and going through it again, highligthing, taking notes and answering the questions at the end of each chapter. So the first thing I had to figure out is what is my predominant love language. There are five love languages: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Quality Time, Gifts and Physical Touch. I was a bit confused at first as I read through each one and it's examples and stories. I found myself thinking I was all of them. Of course, we are all of them but there is one that will be your predominant love language that you speak to others and it's the same language that you recieve the best. As Gary Chapman puts it, when you receive love in your love language your gas tank gets filled up. So, my mind let all of this simmer for a while and gradually it started coming to me all the different ways that I really feel the love the most and they all end up being Words of Affirmation. I am not a big talker and my communication skills are really NOT the best but Gary says there are many dialects in each love language so I am discovering my dialect is in writing and reading words. I feel more loved when it's put into writing and I give more love via the same mode. So, here I am... Starting this blog... About my journey with love and everything else that comes my way down the course of my life. I hope that it will help others, give insight to my family and friends about me and just be a way to express my love. I will be here most everyday so I hope you will come often and share my journey.