God is so so so AMAZINGLY GOOD

My efforts to keep my faith have been rewarded today! Two weeks ago we prepared and hand delivered Brandy's application to the Shriner's to a Shriner in Muskogee. Today, in the mail we received the letter approving her application! Her first appointment will be November 10th. I struggled with this GREATLY! I even put a call out to my facebook friends asking for scriptures to use ~ repeat to myself ~ when thoughts of doubt would creep in. When those thoughts came, and did they come!!!, I would read one of those scriptures or I would just pray and thank God that He was at work on this one. I refused to NOT believe this was going to happen. To many indicators pointed to the fact that God was opening doors for us to even get as far as actually preparing the application. But still, I fought thoughts of, "what if I want this so much I am just making it seem like God is opening a door"....oh Satan...you lose again! Victory belongs to Jesus!

At church Sunday our youth pastor spoke about FACTS v. TRUTH. I had pretty much always lumped them together. But as I sat there listening a little thought popped ( I believe God put it there) into my mind. "FACTS say there is not a cure for Brandy's disorder, TRUTH says GOD HEALS!" Praise God! Praise God! Praise God! Believing for healing and doing all I can and should do as this precious childs mom to make her as strong and healthy as she can be from a human perspective. Putting her in Gods hands to do all that I can not do.

I am ashamed at how much I struggle to pray and believe for answers. Humbled when God does answer them despite my lack of full faith. God loves Me. That is so hard for me to accept sometimes. Though I know beyond a shadow of a doubt he loves everyone so much. To allow my self to focus on the fact that HE LOVE ME is enough to bring tears to my eyes and to bring me to my knees.

Lots of love to all!

D. J.

On our knees

So, one of Brandy's exercises is to walk on her knees. So we play games and have her walk on her knees. As I watch her I think about all the strength she is building in her thigh muscles, the muscles that surround the knee, the hip muscles, and her little tummy muscles and lower back. Those muscles are building to provide better support, to make her balance more solid so that when she stands - she can stand safely and strongly. If she gets off balance she is better able to recover and hopefully not fall completely down.

Do you know where I am going with this?

I got to work one morning this week and was kinda being attacked by doom and gloom. So I decided I would spend the day "on my knees" in prayer and praise. That caused me to start thinking about Brandy walking on her knees. I may not be on my physical knees. But I humbled myself before God and worked out my spiritual muscles while on my knees before God. As Satan tried to knock me off balance I stood firm - on my knees. As the day continued I felt spiritually stronger, I felt better able to stand. That was the strength and solid balance I got from spending time on my knees.

Much like Brandy - the more time she spends on her knees, the stronger she becomes so will we become stronger the more time we spend on our knees in prayer and praise.

It's beautiful to watch. Now understand she doesn't like doing this knee walking all the time ( neither do we if we are totally honest) but she does it because we have told her it is building her muscles, making her stronger so she won't break as easily. I praise God as I watch her now, because I KNOW what is happening as she walks on her knees AND it prompts me to get on my knees because God told us what will happen when we submit ourselves to prayer and praising him.

I encourage you today - get on your knees and stay there for a while.

Lots of love,

D. J.

Missing God and Humbled by His Attention

I just have time for a quick note. I am overwhelmingly aware of how out of whack my personal relationship with God is right now. I am further overwhelmed by the fact that I can't seem to figure out how to get my time in His Word and time with Him in prayer back to the top of my priority list. I am failing miserably. Yet, My God, full of compassion and unconditional love is still opening doors of hope and opportunity for me and my family. I am humbled. Please make time for God everyday! He misses you. I know for me personally, the less time I spend with Him, the further I get from Him. With the insanity of this world we all need to draw close to the One who can keep things in control and protect us.

Lots of love to all,

D. J.

Well it's been a while - I am still here and God is still awesome!

I have been incredibly behind at work and at home and it seems that things are just getting more hectic each day. As I dig myself out and through I have to rely on God. I have to know He is helping me catch up, He is helping me plan and organize (prioritize) my days for maximum impact, He give me HOPE in the fact that working with him this state of insaneness is only temporary. I have to rely that if I listen to His promptings, nothing will fall through the cracks. As I trust Him with a little (right now it's just with digging out at work and peace at home) I realize I can trust Him with more. For me (the mild control freak) this is actually hard. I know that I know that I know God is faithful. So why do I still hold on to so much? Why do I pray and then worry? Will I ever arrive at the place where I literally give it all to God each day and live each day based on His guidance and promptings? I don't know. But for right now, I will do what I can and progress a little at a time. I could be frustrated that I am not to my desired point with God or I could be happy with where I am and the determination I have to grow toward my ultimate desire. I believe God honors this. It's called GROWING. As long as we are growing we aren't dieing. My growth may be slow, but it is growth none the less.

Hope you are growing daily in your relationship with God!

Lots of love,

D. J.

Just a weekly little update

I try to post to this blog once a week about the spiritual aspect of my life at that given time. This week, I can't quite explain it. Initially I want to say God is being quiet but that isn't true. I have been prompted to pray and prompted to rethink some things. So no, God isn't being quiet. I am inclined to say I am too busy to be hearing from God, plus, I didn't go to church on Sunday or Wednesday this week...little bit of self imposed guilt comes through there. But that is not entirely it either. I think, perhaps, that the spiritual aspects of our day to day life don't always have to be profound! In relationships (as we are in with God) each day is wonderful but not always full of "aha's" and "wows". Humanly speaking, some of our best relationship days are just quiet days where we get to just simply be with one another. Maybe not a word is spoken! Life is just calm and we are together chillin'. That's good even looked forward to. I know my husband and I have been talking about this and dreaming about it :-). Could this be my spiritual place this week, just chillin' with God? I rather kinda like that thought and I rather kinda like being here...just temporarily though. Ponder it!

Hoping your walk with God is always in forward motion!

D. J.

I love Norman Vincent Peale

I don't know how many years it has been since I was fortunate enough to read Norman Vincent Peale's book The Power of Positive Thinking. Recently, after many many years, I have picked the book back up and I am reading it again. It's all about thinking positive thoughts - why? Because God through His Word gives us so much hope, so much promise, so much to be happy about!

I am reminded that we, as Christians, simply don't pray enough, we don't read God's word enough and we don't apply God's word to our daily lives enough. I think of the Norman Vincent Peales, the Zig Ziglars, oh...there is one more I can't think of right now, anyway - they lived their faith totally in faith, solid knowledge, and dynamically! Sadly I think these types of Christians are literally a dieing breed. I want to change that. I want to be one of "those Christians" I want to bring about true change in someones life - not just because they BELIEVE the GOOD NEWS but because they BELIEVE AND LIVE what the GOOD NEWS has to say and offer.

I read the scripture this morning that says "who can add an hour to his life by worrying". So true. Why worry? Just pray and believe. We are told to come boldly before the throne. We are told God is able to do abundantly more than we can ask for or imagine. If God be for us, who can be against us? I know the reason I am not prospering as much as I would like right now is because of me! My thinking, my lack of Godly knowledge and my lack of applying Godly knowledge to my daily living. The power to change this is in my hands. I am not just talking financially here. I am talking emotionally, spiritually, through relationships, through work, through mothering and wifing. Doing it all - that's my Call -- I want to do it all with God's power right with me. If I want to drive to Wal Mart I have to put the power of gasoline in my tank, right? Well if I want to live my faith the way God wants me to I have to put the power of God in my mind (by reading His word and thinking positive right thoughts) and on my tongue by speaking truth, life and positive things into everything I say!

That's where I am today. Pondering what I haven't tapped into.

How about you?

Lots of love,

D. J.

Wives - stop putting too much on those husbands!

God has shown me an interesting thing this week. Not through any major life happening - just an eye opening word to my spirit. My husband always keeps a stash of cash hidden. I rarely ask how much is in the stash and rarely get into the stash. But, I know it's there. I depend on my husband to always have it there. Knowing this, sometimes - well most of the time, my spending habits are rather sloppy and my budgeting discipline has been non existent. God, for quite some time, has been prompting me to pay better attention to our finances, to be disciplined, and while I have acknowledged the prompting - I have done very very very little to act on the prompting. So I spend, without a budget, a little too much here, a little extravagantly there, and there is nothing wrong with 3 or 4 $4.00 lattes in a week - right? And inevitably we end up in a bind - but that's okay because Bobby always saves us with the stash. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG! My husband isn't stashing to save my undisciplined hiney - he is stashing to SAVE. What an insane amount of stress and pressure I put on him to bail us out because my spending is careless. As a side note - does my husband spend as God would have him to? Well, let me be quite frank here - it is none of my business if my husband is following God's personal promptings and guidance for him - that is between God and my husband. You know the plank in your own eye scripture....Yes, pay attention to what God is telling you and don't whine "But he gets to do it" Okay, back to my point. God is our ultimate provider - not our husbands. Our husbands are here for us to love and to be loved by and to enjoy and grow together. We all know marriage is HARD - so why make it more difficult. I would rather work with my husband in the area of our finances rather than dumping on him when my negligent spending finally catches up. I would rather lean on God together with my husband - trusting God together to be OUR provider. That's what God wants us to do! He wants to provide, but we must trust Him to do so, straighten up our own sinful deeds that would block the blessing of provision, and then stand. I like to envision my hubby and I standing, holding hands and smiling. We all know when we "discuss" money - this is usually not the pose or expression we have.

This week I made a budget for the next two weeks - it's all I could grasp and it's UGLY. But, God is prompting me to look at the budget and the checkbook daily - so He is walking me through this daily. He is honoring what I have done and what I continue to do. I was able to show my husband our SCARY budget last night and we did not argue. I let him off the hook - I told him I didn't expect him to figure it out, I just wanted him to know where we are standing. I also told him I was finally listening to God - thus the budget - and that I am praying about and trusting God to provide. This was a much nicer "discussion" to have regarding our finances. It was good - and I don't think either of us are worried, rather we are focused and full of faith.

Hoping this speaks to someone!

Lots of love to all,

D. J.