Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Commitment in Marriage

"Love, by itself, is not enough to sustain even the most loving couple -- at least the kind of love Hollywood pumps into our culture is not enough. Marriage requires new skills in communication, conflict resolution and so on. Love cannot protect a marriage from harm. But love combined with effective skills can overcome all”
~Author Unknown

As I grow wiser, I am learning that the very thing that I thought would sustain my marriage will not. Love is a good thing, but can't work alone. In marriage, you must be committed to seeing it through no matter what. It is very easy to give up and say, "I quit." The marriage grows and blooms when you go through adversity, when you face realities, when you weather the storm. I have shared with friends, as well as myself, that have reached difficult points in their marriage that you said for better or worse, but it was never defined as to how worse it would get.

My husband and I have been married for 11 years and I am constantly learning, constantly growing. I'm not where I need to be, but thank GOD I'm not where I used to be! There are challenges, we go through things like the next person, but each time I look at every situation as a stepping stone to reaching that place of marital bliss. I am hopeful because I know he is a God sent. Sometimes I just need little reminders:). Just like God is always here for us through whatever mess we conjour up, we should be that way with our spouses. Loving unconditonally and being committed until the very end.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Just Beautiful

So I'm sure most of my friends are tired of me ranting and raving about this new book I'm reading and harassing them to get it IMMEDIATELY (you know who you are...if you haven't gotten it don't be surprised if the UPS man pops up with a "package" from Amazon). But yesterday I read this excerpt from the book that they quoted from T.D. Jakes and was just about in tears! Enjoy!

"If you are looking for someone to be your everything, don't look around, look up! God is the only One who can be everything. By expecting perfection from flesh, you ask more out of someone else than what you can provide yourself. To be married is to have a partner: someone who is not always there or always on target or always anything! On the other hand, should you ever get in trouble and you don't know who to look to for help, you can count on your partner! It is to have someone to curl up against when the world seems cold and life uncertain. It is having someone who is as concerned as you are when your children are ill. It is having a hand that keeps checking your forehead when you aren't well. To be married is to have some one's shoulder to cry on as they lower your parent's body into the ground. It is wrapping wrinkled knees in warm blankets and giggling without teeth! To the person you marry you are saying, "When my time comes to leave this world and the chill of eternity blows away my birthdays and my future stands still in the night; it's your face I want to kiss good-bye. It is your hand I want to squeeze as I slip from time into eternity. As the curtain closes on all I have attempted to do and be; I want to look into your eyes and see that I mattered. Not what I looked like. Not what I did or how much money I made. Not even how talented I was. I want to look into the teary eyes of someone who loved me and see; I mattered."

AHHHHH! I'm just getting chills as I read it again. So beautiful. Make it a great day!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Time


I recently ran across this book, Love at Last Sight: 30 days to grow and deepen your closest relationships. I ordered the book for a friend and myself and we are taking the challenge! It has been awesome so far and I'm only on day two! One of the things that has really stuck out to me is the following excerpt:

"When you choose to be all there for someone, you give them your most valuable possession: your time. Time is much more valuable than money, because you can lose money and make it back again. With time, however, once it's been spent, it is gone forever. So every minute you spend with someone in your life is adding tremendous value to the relationship. You are making a powerful statement that the relationship is worth your most valuable commodity. In Hebrews 13:5 God says to us, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." That verse is a powerful reminder to me of te value of my creator places on his relationship with me. God chooses to be all there for me no matter what I go through in life. God is never too busy. God is never preoccupied with something more important. He is always present and available."

That to me speaks volumes. We get so busy and don't have time for others. God has all of us to look after and he is ALWAYS there. That's something to think about....

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Making Time for God

"Show me your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths." (Psalm 25:4)

Spending time with God is one of the most rewarding experiences in life. Unfortunately, a lot of times this is the one relationship that tend to neglect. I get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the day and when I do sit down to commune with God, I'm normally too sleepy to focus on his word like I should.

I read this quote recently and although I'm no longer on facebook, it put things into perspective for me. "One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.” Wow! We have time for a lot of other things, but when it comes to the most important thing, we short change him.

If it's just five minutes, make time for the Lord. Become intimate with him and discover him in ways like never before. He will speak to us and give you the desires of our hearts when we allow him in. He's always there waiting. We just have to open the door. My days tend to be a lot more clear and smoother when I spend that intimate time with God.

Anything that is not growing is dead. If our relationship with God is not growing, it's dead.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Love Day!


And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
1 John 4:16

Happy Valentine's Day! I love love! I love to be in love! I love love stories! Love is the key to it all. God loves us unconditionally. If we showed that same love to those around us, the world would be amazing! Love conquers all things and it covers a multitude of sin! I am so thankful to have others to love and be loved, but most of all to be loved by God. Without his love, we would be nothing. Let's love everyone all of the time and watch God work!

Have an amazing day! I LOVE YOU!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Let Go and Let God

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us." Isaiah 26:3,12

As I listened to the song "Let Go, Let God" today, I just meditated on the lyrics, As soon as I stopped worrying about how the story ends, that's when things start happening. Wow....I think about when I sit down and read a good book how sometimes I can't enjoy the story for flipping to the last chapter to see how it will end. That's how I think a lot of us are with life. We don't enjoy the moment because we are too worried about the end result.

A dear friend told me the other day that life is a series of complicated events. That is true, but God allows those complicated events to become easier when we keep our eyes and minds stayed on him. No one ever said this life would be easy, but we have to just let go, and let God. He is in complete control.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

What Kind of Fruit Are You Bearing?

"And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience....."
Colossians 1:10-11

Trees and vines are used as symbolism in the bible for bearing fruit.

What does it truly mean to "bear fruit"?
To bear fruit means to produce successful results. To bear fruit means we must stay steadfast and hold on to God's word, not faltering and succumbing to sin, but glorifying God in all that we do. John 15: 8 states, "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples." As I studied scriptures on this topic, I noticed several passages in the bible talking about if the tree was not bearing good fruit, then the branches were broken off and cast into the fire. It gives me hope that although there may be some imperfections about us, the whole man isn't totally corrupt. Those bad things can be broken off and thrown away, preserving the whole "tree."

Good Fruit
Even good trees, as John 15: 1 states, "Every branch that does bear good fruit is purgeth that it may bring forth more fruit. So although a tree may be "good," it has to be pruned. My husband and I decided to plant some trees in our yard. We both worked very hard on that tree. After a year, unfortunately, my husband accidentally ran over the tree. I mean tore it down to nothing! Well, a year later that tree had grown up and was beautiful! Although it had been broken down to nothing, it turned out to be probably more beautiful than it would have been had he not mowed it down!

Bad Fruit
Matthew 7:17 tells us that a corrupt tree bringeth forth corrupt fruit." 19. "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast unto the fire." There is no use or space for a bad tree. It's not worth keeping because it is not producing anything beneficial.

Fruits of the Spirit
If we possess the fruits of the spirit, then we surely will be good trees bearing good fruit. We can't have some and lack some. We have to possess ALL of these fruits in order to bear good fruit.

Love
Joy
Peace
Longsuffering
Kindness
Goodness
Faithfulness
Gentleness
Self-control

I will leave you with this verse from Matthew 7:10:
"Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them." Let's be known by the good fruits that we bear!

Peace & Love

Monday, February 7, 2011

Flying Bunnies & Frozen Snail Shells

"He restores my soul." Psalms 23:3

I had an amazing weekend and am sooooo rejuvenated as a wife, as a mother, and as an educator. I attended a three day workshop in Jackson just learning on ways that I can improve in my classroom. It's kind of like a revival at church, you go to get that renewing of your faith. My kids were looking at me like I was a new human when I returned (probably because I took a 15 minute hot shower with no interruptions and I watched televison without getting the remote snatched out of my hand).

When I returned home, my own children were in ready mode (they never get out of ready mode), but we were so productive. I think it was because I was so hands on with them as opposed to being in the other room working on something else. We shot a commercial for my oldest daughter's English class, we completed a Newton's Law poster board for her gifted class. My oldest son found a snail shell in the backyard and decided to freeze it (I got an IM from his teacher this morning asking me what in the world was this thing unthawing in her class???? Yes, he took it to school without my knowledge). We also cleaned the yard and I actually killed the clothes monster....well almost. He never really dies.

Anyways, I particularly like to have sit down time with my kids at the dinner table (something I rarely do), but I notice every time I do sit, there is some intriguing conversation going on. Well, my kids were playing a game where they would say a word a phrase and the other would have to say the opposite. Well, my oldest two children where all into it and the youngest two decided they wanted to play. They are five so they come up with some of the most outlandish things to say. Well, my youngest son says, "Flying Bunnies!" and every body just stopped and looked at him like he was a flying bunny and burst into laughter. I realized at that moment that it is the simple things in life that means the most AND that things are a lot less chaotic when I'm right there in the middle instead of being all over the place. God has a way of teaching us lessons when we aren't even expecting them. Now, back to the frozen snail shell. Any other time I would have flown off the handle for him taking something like that to school, but I realized that he is a boy and boys will be boys. Moms just have to choose their battles.

I'll leave you with this: God is amazing. Life is amazing. Someone sent me this little quote, "Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance."

By the way, for those of you who receive this via email, these are my blog post and not just me emailing you random things :). You can check me out at writingmamaof4.blogspot.com Be blessed!