Sometimes I will hear my man say to my youngest son, "You are NOT listening. God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason!" I'm guessing this pragmatic observation likely brings the boy irritation, but it always makes me giggle inside because of the "duh" factor. Our body parts DO imply that our Creator intended us to listen twice as much as we speak. It's a good thing to remember sometimes that we weren't meant to do all the talking. Especially for those of us that are blessed/cursed to be extraverts. Man is it hard to filter that tongue and bring it under control! But that's a rabbit to be chased another day...
This morning as I was having my time alone with God, I found myself doing quite a bit of venting. Please tell me I'm not the only one who runs tattling to God about the real or perceived injustices in their life. Anyway, I had a little list. Not a big one. I'm not a grudge holder. But my little list was making me have a really stinky attitude. As I prayed, I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to try what my favorite devotional author, Sarah Young does. ( If you haven't read Jesus Calling, you might check it out--I've seen them at most bookstores, Christian bookstores, and even Walmart.) Sarah wrote her prayers down for years, and one day she decided she was doing too much of the talking. So she set out to write what she felt God was saying to her heart during her time of listening to Him in her prayer time. Uh, listening? That's so PASSIVE. But is our purpose of praying to complain, give God our to-do list, or to simply make ourselves feel better? Are we approaching prayer as if it were a magic pill to take to help us with our troubles? Of course, most of us don't consciously think those things, but is that the way we are approaching God? I wonder....how does it seem to Him?
Anyway, as I said, I decided to try what Sarah Young did and just take out a pen and notebook and sit and listen for what God spoke to my heart. How do I know it's God? It's really hard to explain, but for one, it ALWAYS matches up with His Word. The other is that it is typically contrary to my human nature, whatever it is that He is pointing out to me. In other words, I would've chosen a different path. An easier path. A more crowded path. There are more ways I've learned to recognize the Voice of God, but I think I might be chasing another rabbit. :-) So, I'll save more musings on this subject for another day. This is what I wrote down this morning when I was clever enough to stop and listen:
So Lori, you're feeling mistreated, disrespected, taken advantage of ? Does any of that REALLY matter? Is your goal in life, the reason you think I left you on earth, to be in constant state of concern for yourself and your feelings? Or are you here to glorify me by loving others? Regardless of how you're treated?
Instead of getting indignent when you perceive someone is treating you in a way you don't feel you deserve, try praying for that person. Pray that you can show my love to them regardless of how they are treating you. Try looking at them through the lens of my love.
"But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Matthew 5:44
"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." Ephesians 4:2-3
"Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." Ephesians 4:32
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves." Philippians 2:3
D,D,&D,
Lori
Monday, July 23, 2012
Thursday, July 19, 2012
25 1/2 THINGS ABOUT ME: Who I Am...on the lighter side.
1. I am crazy, head over heels in love with Jesus and His Daddy but I hope that isn't really random b/c it permeates every aspect of my life!
2. I married a boy I met in the 4th grade and I'm crazy, head over heels in love with him too--that was the second best decision I've ever made.
2.5 My man is in the Air Force--he just celebrated 20 years from when he pinned on in May of 2012! We have moved 11 times in that 20 years, and I have loved every single moment of the adventure. In 2010, we built our first home, the one we live in now. As much as I have enjoyed the military life, my catch phrase during the build was, "Oh, we don't need to worry about re-sale value. This is the home our grandchildren will visit us in." :-)
3. I don’t like dark chocolate and I feel guilty about it. I love milk chocolate however, especially when it’s been violated by caramel.
4. I don’t like to cook and I feel guilty about that too. I do it anyway. I'm actually on a quest to enjoy it more by being more deliberate about it (sound familiar?) and finding ways to challenge myself with it.
5. I am from the deep South and really missed the slower pace of life when the military had us in other places. I make great fried chicken, cornbread, and sweet tea, but I do NOT cook with bacon grease.
6. I have four kids but don’t like loud noises AT ALL. It isn’t working out well for me.
7. My kids are the sunshine of my life and I live daily with the fear of them one day leaving home. Please God, let them all live right next door!
8. This year (2012-2013) will be my 11th year of homeschooling our kids and it is one of my favorite-ist things I’ve ever done! I wake up ALMOST every morning looking forward to it.
9. I love to laugh and I have a very dry sense of humor which takes some people time to understand about me, and it’s usually women. I’m patient.
10. I think all of our kids are funny and fun—actually they are all nutcases and my husband blames me. I’m not sure why. It’s undeserved.
11. I love to read (which homeschooling has hampered) and I love to write (also hampered by hs). I just LOVE words! I find the combination of them fascinating at times.
12. I started piano lessons as an adult at 41 and it brings me peace and joy that I would never have dreamed I could feel. I'm in book 3. I really stink but no one in my family tells me because they know it's my happy place.
13. I have always loved having red hair, even as a little girl when I was teased mercilessly. I am somewhat offended by people who, as adults, get red hair from a bottle, never having endured the “character building” opportunities I did, but I'm getting over it. :-) (i.e. “I’d rather be dead, than red on the head.” Puh leez)
14. I have been leading women’s Bible studies for many years and it is my passion—I long for others, especially women for some reason, to know how their lives can change for the better when they hand it over to God and walk daily in His Word and in His love.
15. I was a youth and music director at a church in Mississippi when I was in college and it was one of the highlights of my life.
16. I wear perfume almost every day—I love nice smells. I choose my perfume according to my mood. At this moment I own 8 bottles of perfume, 4 perfumed body powders, and I don't dare count the number of perfumed body sprays and lotions I own. It's ridiculous.
17. When I was in my early 30’s, a tornado formed right over our van when we were driving down the road and blew the windows out of it. I had to go through counseling to stop the panic attacks from coming when bad weather approached after that. My older kids spent many nights sleeping on a mattress in the hallway with me in Shreveport b/c of MY tornado fears. My husband slept peacefully through each tornado scare in our comfortable bed. I'm working on forgiving him for not being afraid with me. :-) Now thunderstorms are delightful to me and I only wake up if a child stands by my bed and seeks comfort, so I guess I'm cured.
18. My mother taught me that when I’m feeling discontent, I should rearrange my furniture to make it feel new. I have done this since childhood and do it often for her when I visit her home since she can't do it as easily by herself now.
19. I’m married to a man who hates change and feels physical pain when he sees a room rearranged. I try to do it less frequently now.
20. If God had not blessed me with children (and I’m so glad He did), I think I would enjoy being a writer who professionally organizes people’s homes and lives on the side.
21. I am organized, but not in an anal retentive way. I do however, have a fetish about my picture frames being turned the way I want them. Like now, I’m feeling uncomfortable b/c someone tilted the picture frames on our piano too far to the righ…hang on, I’ll be right back.
22. I love my mom and dad so dearly and call my mom nearly every day. I feel at home in her home (although it is not the home of my childhood) as I do my own. She demonstrates unconditional love in an amazing way.
23. I have two older sisters who I am crazy about—I LOVE having sisters!! (My oldest sister does make fun of the picture frame thing though.)
24. I love to travel, especially out of the country. I’ve been to Russia, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, and Canada and have collected teapots and cups from a few of those countries.
25. I’m crazy about nature. The beach is my favorite place to meet with God, and now I live 15 minutes from the most beautiful beaches in the world. I LOVE it when He starts playing with colors and shows me a gorgeous sunrise or sunset. When He lets snow fall from the sky I feel like He is raining down gentle kisses on my head.
2. I married a boy I met in the 4th grade and I'm crazy, head over heels in love with him too--that was the second best decision I've ever made.
2.5 My man is in the Air Force--he just celebrated 20 years from when he pinned on in May of 2012! We have moved 11 times in that 20 years, and I have loved every single moment of the adventure. In 2010, we built our first home, the one we live in now. As much as I have enjoyed the military life, my catch phrase during the build was, "Oh, we don't need to worry about re-sale value. This is the home our grandchildren will visit us in." :-)
3. I don’t like dark chocolate and I feel guilty about it. I love milk chocolate however, especially when it’s been violated by caramel.
4. I don’t like to cook and I feel guilty about that too. I do it anyway. I'm actually on a quest to enjoy it more by being more deliberate about it (sound familiar?) and finding ways to challenge myself with it.
5. I am from the deep South and really missed the slower pace of life when the military had us in other places. I make great fried chicken, cornbread, and sweet tea, but I do NOT cook with bacon grease.
6. I have four kids but don’t like loud noises AT ALL. It isn’t working out well for me.
7. My kids are the sunshine of my life and I live daily with the fear of them one day leaving home. Please God, let them all live right next door!
8. This year (2012-2013) will be my 11th year of homeschooling our kids and it is one of my favorite-ist things I’ve ever done! I wake up ALMOST every morning looking forward to it.
9. I love to laugh and I have a very dry sense of humor which takes some people time to understand about me, and it’s usually women. I’m patient.
10. I think all of our kids are funny and fun—actually they are all nutcases and my husband blames me. I’m not sure why. It’s undeserved.
11. I love to read (which homeschooling has hampered) and I love to write (also hampered by hs). I just LOVE words! I find the combination of them fascinating at times.
12. I started piano lessons as an adult at 41 and it brings me peace and joy that I would never have dreamed I could feel. I'm in book 3. I really stink but no one in my family tells me because they know it's my happy place.
13. I have always loved having red hair, even as a little girl when I was teased mercilessly. I am somewhat offended by people who, as adults, get red hair from a bottle, never having endured the “character building” opportunities I did, but I'm getting over it. :-) (i.e. “I’d rather be dead, than red on the head.” Puh leez)
14. I have been leading women’s Bible studies for many years and it is my passion—I long for others, especially women for some reason, to know how their lives can change for the better when they hand it over to God and walk daily in His Word and in His love.
15. I was a youth and music director at a church in Mississippi when I was in college and it was one of the highlights of my life.
16. I wear perfume almost every day—I love nice smells. I choose my perfume according to my mood. At this moment I own 8 bottles of perfume, 4 perfumed body powders, and I don't dare count the number of perfumed body sprays and lotions I own. It's ridiculous.
17. When I was in my early 30’s, a tornado formed right over our van when we were driving down the road and blew the windows out of it. I had to go through counseling to stop the panic attacks from coming when bad weather approached after that. My older kids spent many nights sleeping on a mattress in the hallway with me in Shreveport b/c of MY tornado fears. My husband slept peacefully through each tornado scare in our comfortable bed. I'm working on forgiving him for not being afraid with me. :-) Now thunderstorms are delightful to me and I only wake up if a child stands by my bed and seeks comfort, so I guess I'm cured.
18. My mother taught me that when I’m feeling discontent, I should rearrange my furniture to make it feel new. I have done this since childhood and do it often for her when I visit her home since she can't do it as easily by herself now.
19. I’m married to a man who hates change and feels physical pain when he sees a room rearranged. I try to do it less frequently now.
20. If God had not blessed me with children (and I’m so glad He did), I think I would enjoy being a writer who professionally organizes people’s homes and lives on the side.
21. I am organized, but not in an anal retentive way. I do however, have a fetish about my picture frames being turned the way I want them. Like now, I’m feeling uncomfortable b/c someone tilted the picture frames on our piano too far to the righ…hang on, I’ll be right back.
22. I love my mom and dad so dearly and call my mom nearly every day. I feel at home in her home (although it is not the home of my childhood) as I do my own. She demonstrates unconditional love in an amazing way.
23. I have two older sisters who I am crazy about—I LOVE having sisters!! (My oldest sister does make fun of the picture frame thing though.)
24. I love to travel, especially out of the country. I’ve been to Russia, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, and Canada and have collected teapots and cups from a few of those countries.
25. I’m crazy about nature. The beach is my favorite place to meet with God, and now I live 15 minutes from the most beautiful beaches in the world. I LOVE it when He starts playing with colors and shows me a gorgeous sunrise or sunset. When He lets snow fall from the sky I feel like He is raining down gentle kisses on my head.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Who Am I?
I know, I know...my blog title is verbose. But it perfectly states who I am--and I too, am verbose. Exactly how does "Daily and Deliberately with Delight" state who I am? Thank you for asking! :-)
Daily: I am a God-follower. I am not only a born again believer in Jesus Christ, though that certainly was the beginning of my journey. That was just step one. For years I stayed as a born again believer, and that was great. It was just enough to get me to Heaven and be able to spend an eternity with Him. A much more pleasant place than the alternative. But that was not my motivation in becoming a child of God. Not to escape hell. And not to earn a spot in heaven, though that is a lovely side benefit. No, my motivation in following God is I am in awe of WHO HE IS. I'm crazy about Him. Head over heels in love with my Savior! I realized one day that my walk with God didn't match up with my talk about God and that was not a pretty thing to face. So I started on a journey of finding out what it means to follow Him daily. In my opinion, that means my Monday-Saturdays should look remarkably similar to my Sundays. It means I make time each day with Him and look for opportunities to serve Him. And that gets me to...
Deliberately: Loving God, serving Him, walking with Him on a daily basis does not happen naturally for me. So I have found myself over the years enamored with words like "deliberate" and "intentional", because I long to live every aspect of my life in this way, and especially my spiritual journey. I want to be deliberate in the time I spend with my kids, with my husband, with my friends. I want to be deliberate in the way I home school, in the activities I choose to participate in, in the way I serve others. I want to be intentional about my schedules, my grocery shopping, my homemaking. You get the picture. I don't want to wake up near the end of my life, or even at the end of a week, and realize life "happened" to me and I let it slip by without deliberation on how I lived it. I want to live every moment that I possibly can deliberately for God. When I accepted Christ as my Savior, He left me on this earth for a reason-to glorify Him with my life. The BSU I attended at Mississippi State said it the most succinctly I've ever heard: "To know Him and make Him known".
With delight: How does that fit in? I. love. to. laugh. I laugh alot. God has blessed me with four kids that laugh alot, and that I can laugh AT alot. ;-) I think I have a God-given ability to find humor in things that might seem mundane to another observer. So...if you were to observe me in my home, I might be chuckling about something I heard my kids say, something I (or they) did that was goofy, or just some way that I have inwardly tickled my own funny bone. It's kind of hard to explain, but I don't think I could describe myself without somehow including laughter.
Before I go on, I hope I haven't given the impression that I'm doing all of this well. If that's what you thought I was saying, forgive me for misrepresenting myself. I am a woman on a journey to BECOME more Christ-like, but the road is narrow and actually pretty bumpy and often times I find myself on some crazy detour that I never meant to take. That's where grace comes in--God forgives me, I forgive myself, and I start fresh day after day. Some days I get it much better than others. Some days I want to throw the covers back over my head and yell "DO OVER" before 9 a.m. Most of the time, I'm somewhere in-between.
Okay, so I've put off creating a blog for years because what in the world do I have to say that someone else hasn't already said? I mean, there is nothing new under the sun, right? After years of debating with myself over this same question, I've come to the conclusion that I LONG to write, I have a NEED to write, and I'm tired of trying to make my Facebook status updates into a blog. I'm not trying to pretend like I have all the answers, but I do have lots of questions. Authenticity is incredibly important to me--if you read my blog you will read about the good, the bad, and the ugly. My hope and prayer is that what you will find on here is a woman who is on a journey toward the God I absolutely adore and seek desperately to serve. I am also pretty regular about falling short and seeking and receiving His forgiveness. And then, with God's mercy that is fresh every morning (Lam. 3:22-23), starting over again with a clean slate.
D,D, &D,
Lori
Daily: I am a God-follower. I am not only a born again believer in Jesus Christ, though that certainly was the beginning of my journey. That was just step one. For years I stayed as a born again believer, and that was great. It was just enough to get me to Heaven and be able to spend an eternity with Him. A much more pleasant place than the alternative. But that was not my motivation in becoming a child of God. Not to escape hell. And not to earn a spot in heaven, though that is a lovely side benefit. No, my motivation in following God is I am in awe of WHO HE IS. I'm crazy about Him. Head over heels in love with my Savior! I realized one day that my walk with God didn't match up with my talk about God and that was not a pretty thing to face. So I started on a journey of finding out what it means to follow Him daily. In my opinion, that means my Monday-Saturdays should look remarkably similar to my Sundays. It means I make time each day with Him and look for opportunities to serve Him. And that gets me to...
Deliberately: Loving God, serving Him, walking with Him on a daily basis does not happen naturally for me. So I have found myself over the years enamored with words like "deliberate" and "intentional", because I long to live every aspect of my life in this way, and especially my spiritual journey. I want to be deliberate in the time I spend with my kids, with my husband, with my friends. I want to be deliberate in the way I home school, in the activities I choose to participate in, in the way I serve others. I want to be intentional about my schedules, my grocery shopping, my homemaking. You get the picture. I don't want to wake up near the end of my life, or even at the end of a week, and realize life "happened" to me and I let it slip by without deliberation on how I lived it. I want to live every moment that I possibly can deliberately for God. When I accepted Christ as my Savior, He left me on this earth for a reason-to glorify Him with my life. The BSU I attended at Mississippi State said it the most succinctly I've ever heard: "To know Him and make Him known".
With delight: How does that fit in? I. love. to. laugh. I laugh alot. God has blessed me with four kids that laugh alot, and that I can laugh AT alot. ;-) I think I have a God-given ability to find humor in things that might seem mundane to another observer. So...if you were to observe me in my home, I might be chuckling about something I heard my kids say, something I (or they) did that was goofy, or just some way that I have inwardly tickled my own funny bone. It's kind of hard to explain, but I don't think I could describe myself without somehow including laughter.
Before I go on, I hope I haven't given the impression that I'm doing all of this well. If that's what you thought I was saying, forgive me for misrepresenting myself. I am a woman on a journey to BECOME more Christ-like, but the road is narrow and actually pretty bumpy and often times I find myself on some crazy detour that I never meant to take. That's where grace comes in--God forgives me, I forgive myself, and I start fresh day after day. Some days I get it much better than others. Some days I want to throw the covers back over my head and yell "DO OVER" before 9 a.m. Most of the time, I'm somewhere in-between.
Okay, so I've put off creating a blog for years because what in the world do I have to say that someone else hasn't already said? I mean, there is nothing new under the sun, right? After years of debating with myself over this same question, I've come to the conclusion that I LONG to write, I have a NEED to write, and I'm tired of trying to make my Facebook status updates into a blog. I'm not trying to pretend like I have all the answers, but I do have lots of questions. Authenticity is incredibly important to me--if you read my blog you will read about the good, the bad, and the ugly. My hope and prayer is that what you will find on here is a woman who is on a journey toward the God I absolutely adore and seek desperately to serve. I am also pretty regular about falling short and seeking and receiving His forgiveness. And then, with God's mercy that is fresh every morning (Lam. 3:22-23), starting over again with a clean slate.
D,D, &D,
Lori
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