A Birthday Prayer – For Rachael

Father I offer up this prayer as I celebrate

A gift for which I deeply care given on this date

Yes today I celebrate the giving of the life

Of a precious woman, sister, mother, friend and wife

I love those rare occasions when we get to have time

To share our hearts, paint our nails, laugh at life and unwind

I ask Lord that You bless her until it spills over

That she turns to You in hard times and lets You hold her

I pray that You will be the focus of her heart and mind

From when she rises until she lays down to unwind

I pray for You to draw us together as sisters ought be

First as my sister in You then a sister to me

I pray this year will be the year that we become close

For no friend is better than than the sister You love most

Lord, my heart is so longing that she would let me be

The sister You want me to be as she is to me

I pray that our hearts would unite filled with You this year

And that You would give her joy in the place of her many tears

Use me, Lord as a godly example of a sister

And help her to understand how I love and miss her

Let my words be from You to lift her when she is down

To shine light in her darkness and lead her to firm ground

And most of all, Lord, thank You for the day of her birth

My sister is a gift from You of infinite worth

I pray she will see her value to You and to me

And that this year You will bless her life abundantly

And may part of that beautiful blessing also fall

On our friendship as You become more her all in all

Happy Birthday to my Beautiful Sister

I Love You Bunches and More!!!

Even the Little Things

So, there I was, pacing back and forth between the living room and the bathroom.  It’s a little after 10 am and I have already made the bed and cooked breakfast.  My quiet times get very intense.  I get so into the Bible study aspect that often it takes hours before I come to a place where I can stop.  I don’t want to quit when God is speaking to me through His Word. What God says to me is important, so I want to write it down.  This is where the dilemma comes in.  If I do my Bible study first thing like all the “good teachers” dictate I should do, then I end up in my pajamas until 2:00 in the afternoon!  I also feel more alert after I take a shower. But, often after I take a shower, I end up distracted and procrastinate the Bible study time and well, often it doesn’t get done at all.  This is why, many days, I totally don’t have my quiet time until bedtime because I know once I start, I may be into the latter part of the day before it’s over.  But, if I have the time available…and God is meeting with me…why would I want to do anything else?

This takes me to the pacing back and forth between the living room and the bathroom with my prayer shawl over my head as I try to reason and start praying for what God would have me to do. Yes, this is warfare.

The enemy never lets up.  It is his job to distract us from the things of God, even and especially in the little things.  He especially works on us to distract us from our quiet time.  He is there the whole time putting thoughts into my head about things I need to get done and how time is passing as I am soaking in God’s Word and hearing from Him.

So, as I write this, I am still trying to determine if I should shower first or study first. I think I will shower first so I will be fresh and awake and I won’t be sitting in my jammies at 2:00!  I can’t wait to hear what God has for me today!!!! Hopefully, I will be posting about it soon! First step…walk away from my puter!

Just When Everything Seems to be Going Right

Triggers

In my Bible Reading Plan I am on Genesis 42 when Joseph is overcome by emotion at the sight of his younger brother for the first time.  I often ponder this scene and try to put myself in Joseph’s place to understand why he may have responded in this way.  Today, I came up with something I never really thought about before.  Instead of asking myself, “Why did he respond this way?”, I understood a little more about how past hurts don’t always go away just because life is good.  Sometimes we suppress things when all is well.  Joseph was extremely blessed in everything he did.  He understood his purpose and how God allowed things to happen to cause him to be in the position he was in.  He had a luxurious life, a beautiful bride and two healthy sons.  He was second only to Pharaoh.  It would appear he had it all.  But, he obviously had harbored some bitterness towards his brothers in spite of the fact that God used it all for good.  When he saw his little brother he probably felt so cheated that he never got to grow up with him and know him as a brother.  All the pain and hurt that he experienced from the day he was thrown into the well seemed to rise up from the depths where he buried it. 

Oh how I can identify with him.  God has used the abuse, neglect and rejection that has so deeply wounded me in the past.  He has used it to bring me to a place with Him that I could never have arrived at without those events taking place. What was intended to harm me, God intended for good (Genesis 50:20). He has turned the ashes of my past into the beauty of my present.  I have been abundantly blessed and given positions in leadership that could only be at His hand. But despite all the blessings, I still have days when something will happen or somebody will say something at just the right moment that will trigger all that pain and hurt to come rushing back in.  I have to be very careful to get my focus back quickly or I will slip into a pit of despair and self-pity.

Do You Stuff the Hurt?

For so many years I have stuffed things because well, all good Christians “forgive and let go” right?  Often we paint on a smile and let the world think that we are “over it” instead of being transparent.  We cry in private and stuff it back down, paint on the smile and go on as if we are healed.  Often we even convince ourselves that we truly are, yet we live in denial.

What I have learned from this story is that there is a difference between ignoring the painful event and letting it go. Peace comes with forgiveness. It doesn’t necessarily mean the memory will go away or stop hurting. But, when we hurt we don’t let it turn to bitterness. We forgive as many times as necessary and give our hurt to God instead of burying it deep within.  

Forgiveness doesn’t mean the memory will cease to hurt, but it ceases to have authority in our lives.

Joseph’s circumstances cause me to think about how I treat others as well.  One misspoken word can injure a person for life. I have done this more times than I’d care to admit.  This is why God teaches us that we need to guard our tongues.  We have the power of life and death in our words.  It also teaches us that we are only to speak words that encourage and lift up.  This doesn’t mean that we should not hold people accountable or correct things that are wrong, but that we should do it in a way that restores and gives life, not in a way that only causes more damage to occur.  It must be God’s words spoken from God’s Heart in God’s time.  It will be Truth saturated in Grace. Our words say a lot about our heart (see Matthew 12:34).  If we pay attention to our words, then we can identify areas in our heart that are not right.  Then, we must take action to do something about it.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean that we will feel love and joy when we think about the incident that hurt us.  Forgiveness means that we no longer hold it against the person who inflicted the hurt.  We will not bring it up to them. We will treat them with kindness as if the incident had not happened.  It means we will no longer blame them in our hearts, nor will we continue to speak of the incident to others in such a way as to continue to accuse the person who caused the injury.  Forgiveness doesn’t mean the memory will cease to hurt, but it ceases to have authority in our lives. 

The Beauty of Scars

We all have scars.  The memory or how the wound was inflicted may always be painful.  Some scars never fade away completely. We can choose to see the scars as ugly or as a beautiful reminder of the healing that has taken place. Scars show us where God has brought us from.  Joseph chose to forgive and lived in peace with his brothers.  He loved them.  He provided for them with joy and celebration.

 Joseph’s brothers repented.  This helps a victim to extend forgiveness.  But, sometimes, those who hurt us never repent and we still must forgive.  It is in these moments that we must remember that God only asks us to do what He is willing to equip us to do.  Forgiveness is not for the person who has caused the pain so much as it is the healing balm to the wound that has been inflicted. It also heals the brokenness of our relationship with God that an unwillingness to forgive causes.

Forgiveness allows the wound to heal and sets the injured free. Forgiveness can restore broken relationships.  Jesus is the perfect example of the redemptive power of forgiveness.  To each of us who repent and accept His forgiveness, we are reconciled to God and cleansed from all our wrongdoing.  When we don’t forgive, we allow the person who injured us to continue to injure us when they may never even give us a second thought.  God’s heart breaks for those who will not accept Christ’s forgiveness. They don’t see that they have done anything that warrants it.  This breaks God’s heart but He still chooses to forgive.  For this, if for no other reason, I am compelled to forgive. Remember….

Redefining Womanhood by Lauren Pinkston

I have stumbled upon a new blog that so far I totally love!  I want to share a post from a series called Redefining Womanhood about how comparison is killing the women of God .  The title of the blog is Upwardly Dependent.

Holiday Hangover

This is just a blurb to apologize for the lack of posting.  I have not been getting drunk over the holidays.  This is NOT what I mean by hangover.  The hangover is the aftershock on my body after the chaos of the holidays is over.  I push myself beyond the limits that my body wants to go.  I have so many things I love to do.  I get so busy and by the time New Year’s day hits and I have to start clearing the debris, I’m already beginning to feel the wear and tear of the holidays.  But, it’s not until after all is packed away that it really hits.  I have been dealing with fibromyalgia, arthritis, and chronic migraine among other health issues for several years now.  I am not able to keep up like I once did, but I fight it.  I want to do it.  I don’t want my health problems to keep me from the life I love so I push through today and pay tomorrow.  Well, I’m in the paying period now and wishing I hadn’t pushed myself so hard.  I need to rethink this.

I would like to write more during the holidays and spend less time on unnecessary overindulgence of Christmas traditions.  But, each year, I get so caught up in it. I’ve been doing this all my life.   I just don’t know how to shut it off.

As a result, I blogged little, if any at all.  So many wonderful things happened and I’ve written about none of it and this post is just a “throw it up there” because I am currently trying to ward off another headache.

So, again, I apologize to all my readers (I write this as if people actually read my posts lol).  I do hope within the next week to have a post about the wonderful blessings God gave to me in 2014 and over the holiday season.  (Good thing I don’t have a lot of followers..they’d be sorely disappointed..then again, maybe this is why I don’t! No matter…I write because I enjoy it.  Not to impress as I am sure I’m not doing these days!).

In Loving Memory

I just found out that a dear friend has passed today. She is known as Anna-Alden Tirrill, Author. I know her as Jo and she knows me as Katie. I met her about 5 or 6 years ago when she sent an email asking to quote my blog in a devotional she was writing. I was so humbled and honored! I contacted her and we quickly became friends. She ended up quoting me several times in multiple books. But, that was just the spark that started a beautiful friendship even if we never would meet face to face. We communicated fairly regularly for a season and talked on the phone often. She was such a source of strength and support through some very difficult and transitional times in my life. She mentored me in writing and has had much to do with the things I am working on now. She even asked me for advice and sent me her works before publishing the final copies. I got to be a part of the process! The books I have now, I have memories with. I remember her sending me all kinds of proofs for the covers and how they came to be. I have old versions of her books that never went to market because of things we discovered that needed to change first. She even ran it by me when she was considering combining two of her books into one and it was a great idea! I still have some of her books if anybody is interested.

Thank you Jo, for being a loving friend when I felt I had lost so much. Thank you for lending me your shoulder and for sharing your life with me. Thank you for mentoring me as a writer and as a Christian. A part of you lives on through every life you touched and changed. I know it does through me. I will get a book completed this year in your honor and in honor of my bestie who passed years ago who, in our last conversation, celebrated that I had made a major life adjustment to make more time for writing. I will dedicate my first published works to both of you.