Beautiful Friendships

To me, friends are equal to family. I make few friends but adopt them fully invested into my family and personal space. My friends are always fully welcome to anything of mine and they are exceedingly precious to me. I am not sure if being brothers/sisters in Christ has made my friendships so much more powerful with that essentially deep spiritual connection. The reason I do not know is that no close friend I have adopted has ever been an unbeliever/unsaved. So I do not know for certain but I am pretty sure it plays a strong role in bonding. Thank you, beautiful friends. I pray for you and love you and am here if ever you need me. ❤

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How Jesus Meets Us As We Are

Jesus meets us where we are as we are. All He needs from us is a humble heart that allows Him in. That is it. The rest does not matter, He happily does the rest of the work out of His enormous love and grace.

For example, when He met and changed me recently, I had been a hot mess. Seriously, I was lost and depressed, having lost my daddy and two close friends I absolutely loved. I was depressed, trying to survive while raising two kids full time and caring for a home and husband who was very mean to me. And I broke before God, realizing I had nothing left I could muster. I humbly said, “Ok, help me.” Huge prayer right there. Then it began. The good work.

He put it in my heart if I had to sleep alone that I would be covered by Jesus and reassured He never left me or forsook me. He put the notion of a quilt and I hand-stiched every block and applique and border and everything to include 5 blocks in the center that depict the life of Jesus. I put crosses and hearts on the corners and our family in there and have been covered by Jesus every night since. As I stiched, Jesus was healing me. I was changing.

Then He kept me wanting to read the Bible. I could not get enough. And I prayed and prayed. I walked with Him alone and had great conversations. I cried a lot. Then I fasted and prayed and deepened my relationship with Jesus. And here we are today, and I am ready to go to heaven anytime He is ready to snatch us up out of here.

And it is all from Jesus meeting me where I was in a broken mess with my tiny humble prayer and acceptance of Him. Jesus comes to us and is big and wise and loving enough to take care of us and meet us where we are. There is no holy pill to swallow, no formalities we need to do, no sacrifice we first must make except that ego. We must humbly pray and accept Him. Then He meets us in whatever else we got into and fixes everything. Yes, we may have work to do but it is easy with His help. ❤

So Shocker, I am a Coach Again

In this health quest, I determined to say yes when they again needed a coach for 2nd and 3rd grade homeschool PE. There was a need and I decided to step in but requested a co-coach that can fill in if we need to be elsewhere. And it was granted… Perfect!

And after coaching my very big class, I am not tired but revitalized. I love coaching. And the sheer energy and excitement of these kids is energetic and helping them be healthier and learn different sports just makes my day.

And we start every day with prayer, so they are getting the “God made us to be healthy” connection. And that is one of my favorite new thoughts.

God made us to be healthy. Health is a choice. We were not made to be a lump, to be waited on, to do nothing but be entertained. All that is garbage. We were made to be healthy, to serve, to help, to love on people. And my kids remind me of that and so become the teachers. Beautiful!❤

It Begins

So, I cut down on a few things this homeschool year. However, we will be doing Fall Baseball. So here we go, starting tomorrow with practice Tuesday and Friday nights. “Woo hoo!”, she says sarcastically.

Since my daughter did not want to play baseball this season, she and I will be working on tennis at the same time. And that will be great. And all bets are off what will be done once games start. They are short of coaches, so I may coach. We will hit that wall when we run into it.

So we are about to be a bit busier, however we cut out 4-H and a lot of other small things we used to do that took lots of time and I will only assistant coach PE instead of doing everything. That will free us up for mornings we need off to wrestle an alligator or something. You never know what will happen in a day and we must be available to help.

Despite the starting-tomorrow-busier-schedule, I find joy now in doing these little things with my children. I find that doing little things for them blesses and honors God. I find to be true that God wishes us to love on people with the same energy and generosity that He does. It makes Him happy. And making Him happy makes me very happy. So here we go…😄❤

1 John 4:17-21

1 John 4:17. “This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19. We love because he first loved us. 20. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”

Loving God is Natural

I don’t have to work hard to love God. It is natural.

I was designed to know and love God.

Yep, you were too. Hey, even the wounded person screaming that God doesn’t exist was made, designed lovingly to know and live His Creator. The proof is how angry they are, they are going against their makeup.

We were designed by God to know and love Him.

He loves us and built within us the wisdom to love Him back. We were designed to relate to Him. All our intricacies point to Him. All our gifts point to His love of us. All of our blessings remind us this has never changed.❤

Happily Caught in the Light

When the garbage attitudes and evils and distractions of this world weigh in, we have a better way. Instead of falling for the garbage, we can focus on God, the light. When we fall for distractions, we become contributors to it so we must rise above it. And what is higher? God is highest, no one is greater. So I choose to put the garbage out to the curb and instead focus on being caught up in praising Jesus. What more worthy cause is there? What is better than worship? Nothing. So when the world throws relentless supplies of garbage at you over and over, flip the script and praise Jesus, our worthy Savior, who gave His all for us despite the garbage going on around Him and who proved His love right then and there, shining out light like day in the darkest night. Jesus is worthy of our focus and concentrating on Him will dispel the garbage and cast you into the fresh, clean light where He wants you to be. Protected. Loved. Happy.❤❤❤