Me? Me.

I never imagined that God would use me to help Him carry out His plan. I have always felt like I was just an average girl…growing up nothing really stood out…at least I was never told that there was anything really unique about myself, nothing really special. Really, I never gave a thought to whether or not God had a plan for me. I was basically a good kid; I never did anything more than talk back to my parents or lie to do something that wasn’t even a big deal.

I accepted Jesus into my life when I was 8 years old and from that point on I lived by man-made rules that made me very judgmental; the only thing that was important to me was how people looked, how they talked, where they lived, what they wore, what kind of music did they listen to and the judgmental list goes on. I never gave a thought to where people were in their life. What their struggles were, what their hurts were or what their life was like. This was for sure not what God wanted for me. He took me and turned me inside out. When I started understanding what the Bible said, I realized what God actually did for ME. And truthfully, until I had my own children I didn’t understand the gravity of what God did when He gave up His own child for me. ME? ME. He gave His own child to be a sacrifice for me…. why? Because of His great love for me. That’s it right there; He took me from being an average run of the mill person to being a child of the Most High, Creator and God of all. Yes, He chose me. And if God did this for me, how dare I judge the rest of the people He did this for. I have learned to love others based on who they are in God’s eyes, not who they are in the world's eyes or even my eyes.

God has been so good to me that sometimes I am overwhelmed at the thought, I am not saying that life has been easy, but it has been full of blessings. There are so many answered prayers, stories of miracles, and so many wonderful people that have been placed in my life by God I would never be able to recall all of His goodness. How amazing is it that God has actually trusted me with the lives of some of His precious children. God has allowed me to raise, nurture, teach and direct to Him some of His finest creations, not just my own children but others that He has purposefully place in my life.

Me? An average girl >>>> Me. Hand picked to be used by God.

Layers of friendship.

1 Peter 1:22
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.

Relationships. The most important part of life. There isn't anything else that matters as much in life. Without relationships life would be miserable, lonely, boring and just plain pitiful. Relationships. The most important part of life....and the most difficult part of life. Endless amounts of tears are shed over relationships, the closer, the more devoted the more dear to our hearts the relationship the more tears, tears of joy and tears of sorrow.

God made relationships His biggest priority and because He values relationships so much, so should we. The Bible is all about how to handle relationships, from the most intimate to the least intimate, strangers and even enemies.

The main point of this blog is friendship. A relationship far different than family, neighbors, co-workers or people we worship with on Sunday. Friends are chosen, this is the main distinction from other relationships, most all other relationships are chosen for us {family, neighbors, co-workers, classmates, ect....}

Friendships come in layers, the visual that comes to my mind is one person standing alone with three or four other people standing around them in a close tight circle, with the next layer of about ten people circling those people, then 20 more people circling around them, then 40, then 80 and so on. We all have to stand alone at times, but life would be impossible or at least sad and lonely if we weren't layered up with friends and acquaintances.

If we are serious about making life choices based on what God wants us to do and God gave us Jesus’ life to use as a model, then can we learn about the “layers of friendship” from Jesus' life? I think so.

••When it comes to the closest of our friendships, are we showing favoritism or is it permissible to have relationships that are closer and more intimate than others, those people that God has clearly put in our life for a deliberate purpose••

If we use Jesus' life as an example then we can use His relationships with the twelve disciples as an example of how friendship can and will be. Jesus was perfect in every way even in His friendships, we of course are not, so all of our relationships will be flawed in some way but we can still learn from Jesus in regards to friendship.

Jesus chose a wide variety of men to be His twelve disciples, these were the people that Jesus spent most of His time with, these were the people He could depend on,{most of the time}but since they were mere humans they disappointed Jesus on occasion. They were there for Jesus and Jesus was there for them. They traveled together, they worked together, and they ate and rested together. I would even venture to say that Jesus and His boys laughed a lot to. Just think of all of the crazy, exciting and interesting things they saw while they were together.

Someone once said that we are lucky to have two or three really close friends in a life time. By really close I mean someone that you can spend unlimited time with, someone that you can be truly honest with, someone that accepts your faults and weaknesses. Someone that wants the best for you, someone that will encourage you to be more than you ever thought you could be, someone that will not let you get by with bad behavior and someone that will help stretch you in all areas of your life, especially the most important areas of life, your relationship with God and your ability to love others. If you have a friend that will stand strong with you in these areas, you have a true friend. God wants us to love everyone, be kind to everyone including strangers but God also expects us to nurture the relationships that He has {purposefully} created for us, the ones that for whatever reason have more depth to them.

John 13:23

{One} of them, {the disciple} whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him.

In thinking through Jesus’ friendships I can’t help but wonder about His relationships with those men that were sometimes called, His "inner circle," James, John and Peter. These three men had a more intimate relationship with Jesus than the other nine. Jesus called on them more often than the others, He invited them to some of the most important events ever recorded, these men were closer to Jesus than the others. Was Jesus showing favoritism??? I don't think so, He was perfect and favoritism is not a practice He would have participated in. I think that Jesus’ inner circle and His other nine disciples give us a great example of "layers of friendship." We all have people that we are closer to than others, it’s not intentional it just happens this way. God calls us to have deep heart felt relationships with people, and it is impossible to have that depth of relationship with everyone we meet and I believe this is where God allows for us to have "layers of friendships", some people that we have a deeper, stronger bond with, people we enjoy being with for certain occasions, people that we see and talk with sporadically and the people we see and just say hello to in passing. These are what I call "layers of friendship."

Is there a difference between being a part of a clique’ and having a few very close friends. A clique’ to me is a group of people that are not accepting of anyone else. If you have an inner circle of friends that is not loving others, being kind and welcoming to everyone, then there is a problem. Our inner circle of friends should be encouraging us to love others, to welcome new friends, to go out of our way to reach out to people that don’t have friends, even those that appear to be unlovable. A Godly inner circle of friends wants you to be pursuing Godliness, which ultimately means loving as many people as you possibly can.

Is your inner circle of friends encouraging

you to be all that God wants you to be?

Proverbs 12:26

"The righteous choose their friends carefully,

but the way of the wicked leads them astray."

"The King's Speech": my thoughts.

While it’s fresh in my mind I want to share my thoughts on the movie, “The King’s Speech”. Yes, it is rated R, but I personally will allow my sons see it. And those of you that know me know that I don’t even let my kids watch PG-13 movies, (maybe someday I will write a blog on movies and how I think they affect the adolescent brain!!) It’s rated R because of the use of some inappropriate language, but in reality any kid that goes to a public school no matter how old he/she is has heard these words in a disturbing way, the use of these words in this movie, are at least befitting to the story.

This movie touched me on many levels, but most of all the idea of being a “kindred spirit” with another person is what moved me. We all have friends throughout our lives that we have connections with perhaps by a shared event, a common cause and perhaps even a vague connection with those friends of convenience (I think you all know what I mean by that) but few people go through life without a friend of some sort. But the idea of a “kindred spirit” is what I think this movie relayed to me. The definition of a "kindred spirit" is: An individual with the same beliefs, attitudes or feelings as oneself. But I would take this idea a step farther, to me there are people we come across in our life that we share a deeper type of bond with, I’m not referring to a romantic type of bond. I am referring to those people weaved into our lives that when we think of them we smile and long to talk to. Those conversations that start out as a simple “hello” and can lead to a real thought provoking conversation. A person you can trust with your most heart felt feelings, that you can share ideas with, and that person you see great potential in and want to see them succeed in life for no other reason than your deep feeling of fondness towards them. This is the type of friendship that this movie is about. Two strangers that met each other through a common cause and ended up being “kindred spirits.” Sharing the good bad and the ugly, lovingly pushing that friend to be a better person, to perhaps achieve goals that they may have never achieved with out the encouragement, kindness, tough-love and unconditional friendship that is shared by only a few people in a life time.

How wonderful it would be if we could all be “that” kind of a friend to everyone. I think that the reason God only allows us to experience this type of friendship with a few people in our lifetime is because it takes a lot of heart space for this kind of friendship. Just by default of being human, we rarely have the capacity to love to this extent. But on the road to becoming more Christ-like, the more capacity God gives us. Ultimately we get our example of this type of friendship from Jesus. Oh, to be able to love as Jesus does…what a beautiful place this would be.

John 13:23 (The Message)

“The disciples looked around at one another, wondering who on earth he was talking about. One of the disciples, the one Jesus loved dearly, was reclining against him, his head on his shoulder.…”

Can you even imagine being so close to Jesus that you could put your head on His shoulder? Wow.

This movie and Jesus' example of friendship makes me eager to evaluate, what kind of a friend am I?

Give me a sign.

“God, how do I know I am doing what you have called me to do? I think I am but when I meet resistance from people that I would typically trust….I wonder. I need a sign God that I am where you want
me and I am doing what you want me to.”

This is a frequent prayer of mine. I know that God is not a deal maker and I know that ultimately God has a plan for me, but when I am in the trenches of everyday life, sometimes the opposition becomes overwhelming…I won’t lie, thoughts of quitting cross my mind. Sometimes I wonder if living a life for Christ is worth the frustration...maybe it’s just easier to let myself and my children do what we want regardless of how God feels about it.

But then I think about the •joy• I get from hearing and seeing signs from God, they by far out weigh my desire to live a life of apart from Him. (thank goodness)

The story of Gideon came to mind during a conversation with my daughter, so she read it, then I re-read it and we both decided that it’s OK to ask God for signs, especially for prayers that have been weighing heavy on our hearts. Life directions are some times hard to follow when we are trying to hear from God, so I decided I needed some hard-core visual and audible signs. I asked God to speak loud and clear to me and sure enough He has honored my request.

Here is the short story of Gideon: Taken from Judges 6-8
via The Bible Stories Library

“"How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest of all Israel, and I am the weakest of my clan!" cried Gideon. "If this is true, give me a sign." That night, Gideon prayed to God and said, "Father, if you are really going to use me to save my nation, make the dew form on just this fleece and keep the grass around it dry."

He placed a wool fleece on the ground and went to bed. The next morning when he awoke, he checked the fleece. It was so wet, he wrung a bowl of water from it and the grass around it was dry.

That night he asked God, "Dear God, please don't be mad at me. I want to be sure you are going to use me to save my people. Tonight, make the fleece dry, and the grass around it wet." He placed the wool fleece on the ground and went to bed. When he awoke the next morning, he picked up the fleece. It was as dry as popcorn without butter and his bare feet were soaked with water from the grass. It was true, God was going to use him to save Israel.”

I didn’t actually put a fleece out for God to get wet or keep dry, but I did ask for a sign, OK, I asked for more than one sign. Since the time I asked God to humor me in this way, He has done just that. Yes, I admit being in need of reassurance, especially since the opposition is coming from a place very close to home. My question, “God am I where you want me in this season of my life.” God’s answer, “Yes.” How did I hear this you may ask, well…. through people that have encouraged me over the last few months and through very clear answers to prayers. This is not an exaggeration, at least once a day for about the last 4 months I have received either words of encouragement or a sign from God that He hears my prayers and is taking them very seriously.

God knows our heart and knows when we are in deep need of reassurance, that is when He becomes our Encourager and often uses people to be the messengers. In the following verse, God gives us words of encouragement to keep us going.

Isaiah 35:3-4
“Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts, be strong, do not fear;
your God will come, he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

**special note of interest, while I was writing this blog God thought it would be fun to send me another sign, a facebook message that answered an ongoing prayer**

{{I love how God works}}

A missionary?

“Be careful what you pray for,

because one of your kids may become a missionary and move far away.”

Someone actually said this to me, many years ago and I am happy to say I decided to ignore that advice. The prayer I’ve prayed for my children since the time I knew I was going to have them, was that they would love the Lord their God. I knew I would take them to church and talk to them about God but my most earnest prayer was that they would make my God, the God of the Bible their God.

Well, the time has come to see if I really stand by that prayer, the one that God has so graciously answered thus far. My daughter Courtney, born a little 3-pound preemie with a heart condition, who had open-heart surgery at 11 months old, surgery on her eyes at age 2, a girl that is EXTREMELY cautious in life has made the God of the Bible her God. So much so that she is taking off on January 8^th to Australia to study Evangelism/Discipleship and to take this information to the “…ends of the earth.” She is going to spend this season of her life being a missionary, moving far away, just like the lady I mentioned earlier warned me would happen!!! Praise the Lord. Of course I am going to miss Courtney, but I think that my excitement and awe for her choice to follow God’s leading trumps my sadness that she is going to be so far away.

I have been tearing up a lot in the last week thinking about her, not because I am sad, but because I am so amazed at how God is moving in her life. How blessed I am to be the mother of this wonderful young women. How filled with astonishment I am at how God has made Himself known through preparing my sick little preemie girl for this Divine assignment.

Talking about God answering prayer and guiding our life journey is easy to do, but recognizing when God is doing it is just sometimes more than my heart can take. The phrase, “tears are words the heart can’t say,” comes to mind. Just listening to Courtney in the car today talking about how cool it is that God has paved the way for her, brought tears to my eyes. I told her I couldn’t really talk about it right then because crying and driving don’t mix well.

God has so beautifully orchestrated her life. Not coincidentally in 7^th grade Courtney did a project on Australia. Also not coincidentally there is a girl from Texas who is going to be traveling with Courtney to YWAM Australia, they are going to meet up in California, this girl is from Ireland and travels internationally often, God used Facebook to connect these two girls!! God has placed people strategically in Courtney’s life to encourage her to just “do it!” And the time has come.

Acts 13:47

For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’

I never thought about how intense these five weeks are until now. Thanksgiving is self explanatory•Christmas is filled with emotion for me•New Years is a reflection of a year gone by and a vision of hope for the future•

Thank Christ for New.

My mind and heart are filled with Thanksgiving for what Christ has done for me and the Newness He gives me everyday not just once a year.

I realize the tradition of Thanksgiving is a celebration of the wonderful country, America that I live in. I am very thankful for the freedoms I have by just living in this country, but my Thanksgiving is geared more to my appreciation for what Christ has done for me and everyone else who believes in His unconditional love.

Christmas, when I allow myself the time to sit and think about what we are actually celebrating it it quite sobering.
A baby sent to die...for me.

What? A precious newborn born to die for the sins of man. If we actually saw and held that new baby in our arms, looked into His eyes, kissed His rosy cheeks and nestled our face against His...how would our life be different? Knowing that He would die a painful, bloody death for me? For us? For the world? A mother, a father, a Heavenly Father giving up their precious Son for me? Sometimes it is just overwhelming to even think about.

Reflecting on the past year I can hardly believe the amount of answered prayers I have experienced. To spite my sinfulness, God has chosen to bless me beyond measure. As I have mentioned before I can't really share the extend of my answered prayers because of the involvement of other people, but what I can say is, very specific prayers have been answered for me. Relationships have been healed, relationships have been nurtured, relationships have grown to a new level and new relationships in Christ have been created. Every need has been met and many wants have been fulfilled and life long prayers involving my children have come to fruition. God has opened my eyes to His abilities, His creativity and His plan. It's amazing how different I view life, when I remember that God is in charge and He will be with me through life no matter what. It makes it easier to live life when I know that in the end no matter what happens I get to spend eternity with the Creator of the universe, and that He loves me and gives me a New beginning when ever I need it.

One of the amazing things about God is that He has the ability to love, take care of and answer the prayers of every single person in the world. Calling on the Name of the Lord involves our heart, God judges us on the motives of our heart, if our motives are to please Him and love others God is faithful to answer our prayers. We have to be looking and ready to accept the answers God has given us and work with in the guidelines He has laid out for us in the Bible. When we do that He is ready and willing to give us the desires of our heart. The desires of my heart in the past year was to love others with the help of God, and in doing so I have experienced an unfathomable amount of love myself. A love that I know comes directly from God Himself.

Just a glimpse of some of the people I have had the privilege of spending time with this year.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Facebook or No Facebook, this is the question.

So many people I know have been taking a Facebook vacation. I have heard recently of a pastor who wants everyone to delete his or her facebook accounts due to the amount of gossiping and inappropriateness that is on facebook. I thought I would share some of my thoughts on the subject.


Facebook is a place to keep up with friends and family, share pictures, express yourself, share events, and basically get information out to as many people as you want to. Can facebook be used for evil and inappropriate things, of course? Facebook itself is not evil though; it’s the people that use it for inappropriate things that are evil. Similar to the Internet, is it evil? Evil no, but people use it for evil. TV? Cell phones? Cars? Money? Cameras? Ok, I think you get my point.

Everything created has the potential to be used for evil. Why? Because humans are basically evil, and it’s people that turn these cool inventions into evil. Last I checked an automobile did not randomly run itself into a family and kill them. I’ve never seen $20 bills pick themselves up and buy crack or pay for a prostitute. I’ve never seen a cell phone dial itself up and send out inappropriate pictures to someone. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, is a quote that I really like and it’s true for many things. Facebook doesn’t gossip about people, people gossip about people.


I have an idea for people that think Facebook is evil, use it for something good. Be that person that uses their facebook for encouraging others, sharing pictures and other respectable things.

What man intends for evil, God uses for good.