Prayer Ladies

On Friday while at work a Pastor came in. We were talking about Easter Sunday coming and somehow I told him I went to church in Jamesville. He turned his head to the side and said, “Jamesville? That is such a nice little town”. I smiled and said, yes sir. I could tell by the look on his face he was wondering…wanting to know more….so I told him. Told him how some years back this lady came to work at the bank I was at. Told him how she was the reason I began going to church. He smiled and said, “She took you under her wing, didn’t she”. Yes sir, I replied with a smile on my face and a tear in my eye.

Fast forward… God had ladies praying for me when they didn’t even know me. I joined Cedar Branch, was saved, and gained a family. There are prayer ladies in every pew of that church and I thank God for all of them. There are a few though that I refer to as MY prayer ladies. God has used them in my life in ways I would have never believed all those years ago. Their personalities are as different as can be but you can visibly see their shared loved for God and people.

As I sat in church this morning and watched our Easter drama, I cried and thanked God. You see, prayer is a powerful thing. Where would I be without the prayers of these Godly women? He sent them at the right time, His time, when I needed them most…I was lost, in a need of my Saviour.

One beside me, one behind me, and the one who told me all about Jesus, was the one who was narrating our drama, telling every person in those pews about Jesus. God used them so that I may know Jesus, so that today on Easter Sunday and every other day of the week, I can celebrate that my Saviour lives! He has used these ladies in countless lives, as they whisper prayers up to Heaven for so many, as their lives are examples for so many of Jesus’s love.

I am forever thankful to God, so thankful for my prayer ladies.

Attitude and Thankfulness

Breathe…

The world is spinning on around me, someone made an ugly face, a snippy comment, things haven’t gone as I planned, too much to do, not enough time.

Breathe….

My mind is working overtime, people getting away with things I think they shouldn’t, stress, worry, time just rolling on.

Breathe…

Driving home from work, saying a prayer for a lady I’ve never met, watching people walk with bags in their hands, a homeless man with nothing to eat.

Breathe and be thankful. So very thankful that my God loves me so very much, so very thankful that I am stressing and worrying over minuscule stuff, thankful for my health, that I have food to eat, that I have a car to drive, that I am loved.

Do my thoughts, my attitude, my actions reflect how thankful I am? If I’m honest with myself I would have to say no. Most people probably cant see it or would even notice but I can, and thankfully God pointed it out to me. I’ve been grumbling when things dont go the way I think or if someone says something that makes me upset or when others are taking advantage of situations. We all grumble right? I mean I’m human like anyone else. But what I have noticed is that I have been letting other people and situations that I have no control over control my attitude. In turn my eyes have been closed to all the opportunities around me to be thankful, to show others what I am thankful for.

So I will breathe and be thankful. God has given me WAY to much to be thankful for and I am going to share my thankfulness with as many as I can. Attitude reflects thankfulness.

All Things New

Rain drops, birds chirping, cats meowing, beautiful voices singing next to me in a church pew, even the refrigerator running…all of these sounds are new to me. For more than half my life I have listened to these sounds through a sort of muffled tunnel. My husband sitting right beside me, talking to me, having to ask him to repeat himself at least twice. I have lost more than 45 percent of my hearing in my right ear and 75 percent in my left….but God made my hearing brand new.

I have been told over and over again that hearing aids would not benefit me because of previous ear surgeries but no one ever tried to see until last week. I was tired, tired of not being able to hear, tired of not being able to hold a conversation for embarrassment from the fact that I could not hear the person directly in front of me. I walked into the office expecting to be told the same thing I have been told before, that the surgeries would not allow hearing aids to work in my ears, instead they sat me down, tested my hearing, and put hearing aids in my ears! A whole new world opened up for me in that instance. Tears flowed freely down my face. I could hear people in the hallway of the office, I could hear every word, clearly. It has been absolutely amazing, I feel like a child exploring the world for the first time!

As I was sitting on my couch the morning after receiving my new gift, I heard a sound that I couldn’t quite make out. I listened and listened…finally it hit me, it was the rain. I was hearing the rain from my couch, inside my house. Tears flowed again. I moved to sit by the window so I could listen some more and I thanked God. I felt like a brand new person. It reminded me of how when we put our trust in Jesus, when we believe on Him, He makes us a new creation, the old has gone. He makes all things brand new…when I gave my life to the Lord He wiped all the old, dirty, crummy parts of me away and made me as white as snow. My life changed. I saw things I had never seen before, felt things I had never felt before, thought things I had never thought before. I remember my first beach trip after being saved…I had never experienced the ocean in such a magnificent way. The sky was a shade of blue that words just don’t describe. The water was rushing in up to the shore, the seagulls were flying and playing around, the smell of the sea was one of salt and freshness that overwhelmed my senses. As I looked around, I could see God in it all. It was a brand new world that I was exploring…He had made me brand new.

I am once again on an exploration of Gods magnificent creation. Every sound is like a hidden treasure. I can hear my husband tell me “I love you”. I have cried many, many happy tears this past week. Thanks to God and to some wonderful people I can hear❤

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone. The new has come.

Revelation 21:5 He whi was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”….

Our Mountains

Time has flown by…I can’t believe this year is already almost gone. It’s been a tough year for a lot of people. There has been loss, heartache, burdens that just weigh us down, and just so many things we don’t understand. I read something a little while ago that brought tears to my eyes. It said, “The mountain you face today, whether it’s been lifelong or only for a little while, is your opportunity to shine the light of Jesus to those around you. To find His purpose in your pain, to use your experiences for His glory and to overcome them in His name. There are others hurting just like you, struggling with similar problems and many of them are without the love of the Lord in their lives. They are battling their mountain truly alone. They are without hope and darkness threatens to overtake them. These are the people who need your help. You have the light and love they need. You have Jesus.”

This world, the day to day harshness of it can bring us down. We are all going through something. I have been reflecting on that a lot lately. We can use our heartaches, our losses, our pain for good. Helping each other is what it is all about. Understanding, patience, empathy…these are all things God is working on with me. Let the negative go, let the positive burst forth, let the light He has given us shine so brightly that people are blinded by it. Other people need to know that someone is listening, that someone is standing with them.

Everyone of us has a mountain. God can move mountains. God can use me and you to move mountains.

He Restores

We are all human, perfect by no means and we fall flat on our faces sometimes. All it takes is one little thought to set root in your mind to take you on a destructive journey. Those negative, destructive thoughts are put there by the enemy, he likes it when you fall on your face. But thank God we have Jesus…the precious blood of Jesus.

Jesus comes after us. We are His. He will not allow us to wallow and wade in sin. He leaves the 99 and goes after the 1. Oh thank God He never leaves any behind. He takes our filthy, undeserving selves and restores us. He wraps His loving, tender arms around you and whispers, “Dear child, you are forgiven”. His grace, His mercy, His love, His forgiveness…makes me tear up…He loves a wretched sinner like me.

Jesus…Jesus…Jesus. I fail. I fall. I do wrong when I know what is right. Yet He loves me. He has restored me. He has restored my life, my marriage. He calls me by name. Do you hear him calling…He is calling for you too…

Hearing Him

My ears have given me problems since I was a child. I have never passed a hearing test. I had tubes put in at three, one surgery at thirteen, and another at fifteen. I have been told since about age eighteen that I would need hearing aids by the time I turned thirty. I am thirtyfour and can now hear nothing out of my left ear, yet I do not have a hearing aid because the surgeries damaged some of the tissue in my ears. If I was to put a hearing aid in my ear I would only hear a high pitched whistling.

 Thankfully I don’t need my physical ears to hear God. He speaks…maybe not in the audible way He did in the Bible but He does speak. The question is can we hear Him or rather are we listening?  I’ll be the first to admit I let the background noise drown Him out….circumstances,  feelings,  and even the mundane, day to day stuff. He has given me all the tools I need to hear Him….His Word, prayer,  and the Holy Spirit. Being able to hear Him rests on the relationship I have with Him. The more I get to know Him, the more I spend time with Him, the better I will be able to hear Him speak. I have to unclog my spiritual ears and my life and LISTEN. He is telling me something right now. He is using my circumstances to teach me and mold me. I need but to listen.

There may come a time when my hearing leaves me completely. There may be a day when I can no longer hear my husband’s voice or the sound of the waves rushing up the shore or a child laughing but it’s okay…as long as I am listening I will be able to hear all that He needs me to hear.

Great is His Faithfulness

I am in awe of His love and His faithfulness. I am in awe that He knows me, knows me personally. The God who made the Heavens and the Earth, knows me and wants a personal relationship with me. Over the past week I have had a verse on my heart, “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness” Lamentations 3: 22-23. They are new EVERY morning….thank You God.

In this flesh filled body, in this world of chaos and pain, so many times it is so easy to get drawn away. Drawn down a path of darkness and silence, a path of sin and rebellion, a path of pride and deceit. YET because of His mercies we are not consumed. YET He has compassion for us. YET His mercies are new every morning. YET He is faithful. Can you not just feel the love He has for His children? How patient is He? I cannot count the times I knew He was talking to me and I shrugged it off, ignored it. Well, the next time He got a little louder and a bit more clear. Once again, I didn’t want to listen. So what did He do? He kept after me. He let me do my own thing for a little while since I decided to be a hard headed child, but He never left me alone. He is faithful….oh so faithful.

You see, He loves us SO much that He gives us chance after chance, His mercies are new every morning. I can promise you I don’t have patience like that. He sent His Son to die for us, to give us everlasting life if we were to trust in Him. He seeks after us….even just the 1 out of 100 that wanders off on their own. He is a personal, faithful, loving, compassionate God. And we deserve none of it. YET He loves us still. He loves us when we ignore Him, He loves us when we are too busy for Him, He loves us when we are in pain, He loves us when we feel alone, He loves us through the struggle and in the struggle.

Thank You God for Your mercy, for Your grace, for Your faithfulness, for Your love.

 

The Prayer Room

You can pray anywhere-in your car, in your living room, in your bedroom. Some have a designated spot they go to pray. My church has a “prayer room”, though I can assure that every room in that church is a prayer room, there is one room set aside especially for prayer. Every Sunday one person goes into that room and prayers throughout the service. There are prayers for the congregation, for the Pastor, for the music, for the Word to be heard and felt and for hearts to be changed.

Today I had the honor to be in the prayer room. There is nothing special so to speak about that room, it’s just a room. What is special is how God meets you there in that room. He teaches you how to pray in that precious room, He pours your heart out for other in the quietness of that room. It is such an awesome thing to be able to pray for the people of my church, to be able to pray for the people who will be touched by the people of my church. It is a cycle….and as I prayed today I realized that or really God showed me that.

I went into the prayer room this morning needing to find refreshness for myself. I needed God to speak to me…I needed to hear Him. To be honest, I was being selfish. My prayer life hasn’t been what it should be lately, I have let stressors get in the way. When I should have been running to Him, I was trying to make it on my own. But as I sat down and closed my eyes I could picture all of my church family sitting in those pews not far form my door….my heart swelled and God took over.

That close, intimate time with God is the most gratifying place to be. He meets you there.

Mothers Day

My emotions are quite raw today. Some years it hasn’t been too bad, I could get through the day without a waterfall of tears and some years, well some years the tears just don’t stop falling. Today is the day that we celebrate moms. Today I celebrate my mom through my memories.

I can remember her smile, the way her eyes shined, the sound of her voice, the way she would hold me and tell me she loved me. She always put my sister and me first….always. She never went a day without telling us how much she loved us….never. She taught me so much about life and how to treat people. She loved so many….our house was always full of people. She made it their home and her business to show them love and kindness.

I also remember all the missed opportunities that I had with my mom. The visits I didn’t make, the time I didn’t take. I remember the times I let her down and the times I made her cry. When you are a child you never think about life without your mom in it so you take her for granted and the moments that you share for granted. I wish I could go back and change so many things….but that is not possible. I know that she knew how much I loved her and I am thankful for that.

I’m not sure why I am so much more emotional this year than past years. Maybe it’s because of all of the things that have happened this year. Maybe it’s my yearning for a child of my own….I really don’t know. But please if your mom is still with you, hug her a little tighter, tell her how much she means to you and how much you love her. And be ever so thankful that she can hug you back and that you can hear the words, I love you too.

Operation In As Much

Matthew 25:40

⁴⁰ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

I got to participate in a function with my church yesterday called Operation In As Much. It involves people from the church getting together and going to other church members houses that may need a little help around the yard or even in the house….to do whatever is needed to be done. All I can say is that I was absolutely blessed. It was such an experience to get to work along side my church family and to be a help to another.

I think sometimes we over think things. For instance there are many times when I want to help, I want to be involved in ministry but financially I just can’t. Well, finances have NOTHING to do with being involved in ministry, God made that abundantly clear to me yesterday. What does it cost to help someone who isn’t physically able to dust or vacuum or pull weeds or mop their floor? NOTHING. What does it cost to pray for someone? NOTHING. And the reward is far greater than money could ever buy. The gift I received yesterday is something I will carry in my heart for a lifetime. God will use us…if we are willing, no matter what we think our limitations are.

God is showing me new and wonderful things each and every day. I am so thankful. I am also so thankful for such a loving and giving church. They truly live out the scripture above.