Let it rain

This morning started out like most mornings.  I woke up at 4:30 AM and did my normal routine of going jogging with my sister's in sweat.  We were two laps away from finishing our 3 miles when it began to drizzle.  It was so refreshing to feel the rain on my face,the wind began to pick up and a cool breeze began to blow.  Just a half an hour prior to that it was so thick and humid that I was almost ready to give up from pure exhaustion. We stuck through it though.  We were able to help each other get through two of our Bible verses that we memorized through the Summer so it was well worth the sweat.  What a relief it was to have that rain fall on us.  We began to run faster just in case it turned out to be a storm.  All three of us were giggling like little girls as we finished.  What a gift it was to feel refreshed after enduring that tough run.  

Rain.  I'm usually not excited for rain.  It's actually something I dread.  It can be such a damper sometimes.  Some people are counting their raindrops in feet in some states right now.  It can put someone's plans to a complete halt and sometimes cause destruction to one's home.   Here I am embracing it, thanking God for this wonderful gift of rain.  By the time we finished our run the rain had stopped.  We huddled together for our prayers and then went home to begin our day. 

The whole ride home I reflected on Lamentations 3:22-23 "The Lord’s lovingkindnesses  indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning;  Great is Your faithfulness." (NASB) I know it's such a small thing, it's just rain.  However, it was a great reminder that everyday He has new mercy for me.  My sins are washed clean because of my Savior.  I reflect on how my mind used to think before getting swept up by His Grace and can't help but think how much he loves me.  As I walk up to my house I look at the flower that sits at my back door.  It was glistening bright from the raindrops still dripping as the sun just started to come up.  I take a deep breath and embraced it's beauty right in front of me.  Just one more reason to whisper "Thank You."

How lovely is your dwelling place

There's a special place that I go to every morning.  It's a place that I like to call my sanctuary.  Whether I'm coming back from a morning jog, waking up on a lazy Saturday or  sometimes a rainy, gloomy morning I go to my porch with my Bible, my devotional and my favorite cup of coffee.  It's where I can go for quietness even when my loves are sleeping.  The birds are already up and singing their songs and the day has been untouched by most who are still sleeping.  I open my Bible and let God's Words pour into my heart.  It's a special time that I GET to spend with Him.  Sometimes I get special little gifts like butterflies landing on my table, a birdsong that for a second I thought was a song that I knew and even bunnies coming right up onto my porch that I can almost reach out touch but I don't because I don't want to ruin the moment.  I'll just watch and whisper Thank you. 

This morning I was reading in Psalms and went to my favorite Psalm.  It starts out as "How lovely is your dwelling place," I stop and think how lovely it is to be here in this moment to feel His presence.  I then read on..."Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young, a place near your altar". Then I think of my children who are peacefully sleeping right above me.  They are safe and loved.  They too live a life recognizing His daily grace.  They love to tell me their "Jesus Moments" as this is what we call them.  I love to hear them too.  It just feeds my soul knowing they love Jesus and share it with others.  Then I got to thinking how sometimes I get so frustrated with them.  When they don't live up to my "perfect" standards.  They leave messes.  I'll come home from work and walk onto my sanctuary and I can feel the ugly come out of me.  It's that thing I try to throw off everyday.  I can feel the steam come out when I see their untidiness.  Toys left on the porch...left right on the walkway where someone can trip right over it.  My chairs moved all around, magazines and markers just left on my beautiful table that I left for me to enjoy my Jesus time tomorrow.

Then I stop and think to myself, my dwelling place, that place that I love to live my life...they too are my life and they love to be out there too.  I work a full time job that is fortunately only 10 houses away from my home.  My oldest is almost 13 and she watches her brother for the day while they are home for Summer vacation.  So here I am in my "dwelling place" that place I go to feel God's peace only 12 hours prior and I'm burning up in anger because of their "mess".  Why.  Why do I do this to myself.  Why do I see it as a mess?  Why not see it as a little gift.  I get to see the toys my little boy played with today and wonder what his little mind explored today.

  

Why not look at the "mess" my pre-teen left on the table as a gift.  There is going to be a day that this is all gone.  She will have her own dwelling place where she can have her children grow in love.  Why not look at all this and whisper Thank You.

I read on further.... "Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage."   I spend my day in pilgrimage.  I want to spend my day going to God.  Leaving behind my "mess" and going straight to God.  This Psalm reminds me that I can do that.  Through Christ, I can look at my mess and my children's mess as a daily gift. I throw off that ugliness that causes steam and instead feel that joy that bubbles until I have no choice but to smile and thank Him for that moment.

Psalm 84

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.   Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young—a place near your altar.   O Lord Almighty, my King and my God.  Blessed are those who dwell in your house;  they are ever praising you.     Selah.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.  As they pass through the Valley of Baca,  they make it a place of springs;   the autumn rains also cover it with pools.   They go from strength to strength,  till each appears before God in Zion.

 Hear my prayer, O Lord God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob.  Selah
Look upon our shield,  O God; look with favor on your anointed one.

Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God  than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

 O Lord Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you.

Downward facing dog with a cat on my head

So while the boy was outside playing and my social butterfly was out at youth group I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to relax and stretch.  I figured I deserved it.  I turned on OnDemand and put a yoga exercise on.  I grew rather impatient trying to find one that wasn't too "Namaste" or didn't require "humitating".  Wasn't getting off to a good start huh?  So I find one.  I started out with a little prayer and then began.  The first stretch I step right down on a piece of wood sticking out of my carpet.  Jumped up and then performed surgery to get the splinter out.  Ok, I was ok.  I hit rewind back to the start.  So then I get into the downward facing dog position.  He has you doing deep breaths in between.
  That's when all the fun began.  The cat comes bolting into the room and jumps on my head and starts attacking my hair that is hanging down.  I have to get down on my knees real quick to pry him off my head.  Boy was I feeling so at peace!  So while I was reprimanding the bad kitty (who thought I wanted to play more) my dog thinks she has to take over the situation and bark at the cat.  I put the video on pause and then yelled at the dog for barking at the cat.  I put the cat in the dining room so that at least he was two rooms away and the dog can chase him in there.  As I'm holding the little furball I tripped over my hubby's size 13 sneaker which was about a foot away from the other sneaker that as I was trying to gracefully step over as I'm holding the cat in the air trying not to drop him. Kicked the shoe (I'm barefoot by the way) and it hits the dog.  Yelled SNAP DIDDILY! (not sure what that means)  Dropped the cat on top of the dog, the cat is now hissing and making haunted cat sounds.  If my husband and children were around they would not call me blessed!  I was done.  I walked back into the living room to get away from the wild things.   I go back and rewind the video AGAIN.  Get back into the position and got a few stretches in when the cat comes flying into the room and jumps over my back and the dog comes flying in and clips my legs and somehow I wound up on my back.  That was it!  I was 6 minutes into a video that I had started 35 minutes prior. 

I was now sore and nowhere near relaxed.  Of course I turned off the video and sat on the couch and stared off into nowhere for probably 10 minutes. I think I felt my eye twitch!  Looked down and there is the cat rolled into a ball peacefully sleeping on the floor and the dog is on the couch with her eyes blinking shut.  So the whole moral of the story is don't do yoga.  It causes splinters, big hair, back aches, rug burn, a bruised toe, cat scratches, Christian curse words and an eye twitch.  I'm going to take a bubble bath!

Getting off the detour

"A detour will, by definition, eventually lead us back to where we need to be" ~ Carol Lewis, First Place 4 Health National Director

These past couple weeks have been a detour for me as I'm coming off having bronchitis(which was not in the plan).  Four months ago I finally gave in an listened to God about getting up early to go walking with a few sisters in Christ. My dear friend Claire once referred it to "Get up and die".   I hated the walking part but loved the fellowship.  Most nights I'd peak my head out the window and hope to hear raindrops so I didn't have to go.  Time went by and I found it easier to jog...go figure!  So I finally gave in and bought a good pair of running shoes.  I started to fall in love with running.  So I got myself into the routine of running 3 miles on the track and running up and down 16 bleacher steps.  So finally, the scale was going down in numbers.

The funny thing was that for the first time ever I wasn't focusing on the scale.  Matter of fact in the beginning of April, I had just come off doing a 6 week workout of "Insanity" and only lost 5 lbs.  I even asked my husband permission to take his sledge hammer and break the scale.  He was okay with it (he's so used to me).  Then I didn't want to go and break a $30 scale so I didn't do it.  Then the running started.  I was seeing the difference in my clothes so I figured I'd get on and see if there was finally a difference.  You have to tap it and then when you see the 00 you get on.  I tapped it and the 00 never came on.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  I looked up at our creator and laughed....He's got quite a sense of humor!  So after trying a new battery I discovered I no longer own a scale.  So I had to start using my Sunday School scale, knowing there was a 5 lb difference from my own.  Was thrilled when I saw I lost 20 lbs!  Then within the next few months I lost another 10.

Okay, no more focusing on the numbers!  My getting up and running has nothing to do with numbers.  It's a special time that I get to share with God and my sister's in sweat.  We usually recite our memory verse each morning, cheer each other on, share our stories.  We then end our time with our hands together thanking God for His strength and power that none of us thought we could do 4 months ago.

So I hit a major detour a few weeks ago.  I started to get a cold that just wouldn't go away.  I went running on a Monday and coughed as I ran.  The next day I played it smart and only walked but decided to speed up and jog and paid the price.  I couldn't even get it up.  Finally, I gave in an went to the doctor to discover bronchitis....what??   I was to the point where if I heard raindrops at night I was sad because I couldn't go out in the morning.  I was so afraid that I'd let my old self take over and not get back on the track.  So I rested for well over a week.  But I used that time of rest to call out to God and asked Him to restore me.  I rested in Him through the whole detour.

Yesterday, I was feeling much better and went out on the track.  I took it slow but was able to do the whole 3 miles.  Today I did the 3 miles and did 9 bleacher sets. Thank you Jesus!

"I am still confident of this:  I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

-Psalm 27:13

A good giggle and a touch of God's grace

Sometimes our days can be so hectic and spun out of control with our stacks of to do lists and what we didn't get to do list but all we need is a good giggle and a touch of God's grace to get us motivated again to live this crazy thing called life.  I'm happily married to my middle school sweetheart and blessed with two kids.

So lets just get right to the God's Grace part.  In 2008, I made the best decision in my life to put Jesus Christ first in my life.  I've always loved Jesus, he was always a major factor of my life.  My parents introduced him to me at a very young age and his presence was always known by others when they walked into my parents home because of their humbleness and love towards others.  I like to describe my past relationship with Christ as an uncle/niece relationship.  I went to him for Christmas, Easter or when I really really needed something.  I didn't ever read the Bible unless I wanted to try and scare myself by reading Revelations.  My favorite song growing up was Amazing Grace but I really didn't understand the words.  Not until that last night of October of 2008 when I was not so graceful and stumbled to one of my lowest points and asked Jesus to save me.  Show me a way out.  I found a church down the street and showed up there two days later.  The second song played was "Amazing Grace (my chains are gone)" which I never heard that version before.  That was it.  I fell apart, but it was a good fall apart.  I didn't know who was looking at me or how silly I looked crying like that but I was inviting Jesus to take over my life right at that moment.  My life changed forever that day. 

The best part about getting caught up in God's Grace is that I can still be me.  I can laugh and have fun.  I can still crack jokes (of course not at someone!)  So this blog will most likely have few topics.  What God is doing with my life; whether it's my health, my crazy family, my sister's in Christ or what my cat and dog are doing to drive me absolutely crazy.