It Doesn't Help To Hold Your Breath.

     
  It's in every human's nature, when we are in pain, to want to hold our breath.  Hold our breath, close our eyes and just get through it 'til it's over. Somehow we think that if we stop breathing the pain will stop too. But it doesn't work that way. Holding our breath never helps. It actually makes things worse. That's why they teach pregnant women breathing techniques to use during labor. It's why when our kids get hurt and start crying we tell them, "Just breathe, Just breathe, Just breathe".  Because we all know that even when it hurts, goes against our instinct and is the last thing we want to do...
                                          
   The same thing is true in our spiritual lives. Sometimes when we are hurting the last thing we want to do is "breathe". Or at least it becomes more difficult.
   "Breathing" spiritually is God. It's spending time with God. Talking to Him, reading His Word, letting Him in on what's going on with us and looking to him for help.
“It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.”
-Matthew 4:4 (the message)
God breathed the breathe of life into us (Genesis 2:7) and he is the breathe of life within in us.
Spiritually we have to spend time with God in order to
                   
  The problem is that a lot of the time when we are in pain emotionally we don't want to spend time with God. It makes us feel vulnerable. We think the pain will stop if we just close our eyes, grin and bear it. Besides sometimes God himself is the one we feel upset with. But we can't get better if we stop breathing. If we stop breathing we die.
   A few weeks back I was feeling fairly confused and upset about something. Normally when I get out of sorts like this I'll just go have it out on my keyboard. I'll sing, play, pray and get the junk out. But this time it seemed like just the same old thing that kept happening over again. I was tired of it. Oh poor me (yada yada). And I didn't want to get vulnerable about it. I wanted to close it off. So I randomly started cleaning my sons room that was pretty much already clean. It was in the midst of this un-needed cleaning frenzy I heard Him say, "It Doesn't Help To Hold Your Breath. "
When you are hurting...
                                                          
                                  He will make it better.
  

 

   Today in the car my son Ezra asked me, "Mommy when we get older do we get to pick new names?".
I said, "No, you keep your name. "Why, did you want to change your name?" "Yes", he answered. "Well, what do you want your new name to be?" I asked. "Jon", he said. "Jon Ezra, I want my last name to be Ezra".  Aww, my heart smiled. My husband's name is Jon.
   Watching my little boy grow up it fascinates me how much he wants to be like his Dad. I think it's the sweetest thing. What he asked me today in the car reminded me of something he said a little over a year ago. He was still too little to understand the idea of wanting to be like someone. He simply said to me, "Mommy I want to be IN Daddy."
  That got me thinking about this verse and how Christ is in us and we are IN Him. " For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ IN God." Col.3:3
   It's like a little boy's dream come true.
 

John 8:31-32

 ³¹ So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; ³² and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 


Let the truth make you free, not angry. Even if someone else doesn't see it.

Moguls (thankfulness)

    

I'm kinda crazy about the mountains.

As in really crazy about the mountains.

But I live in Oklahoma. (I'll get to that in a minute)

Talking about Thankfulness here.
The Bible says to...
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!
-Psalm 100:4

Good stuff.

When I was younger I remember my Mom always teaching us to enter into His gates with thanksgiving and praise then after you get in there worship God intimitely and passionately. She said thankfulness should be the first step in.
I was taught, taught, taught this. Yet, sometimes I forget it. I forget to be thankful. And when I forget to be thankful I feel like I can't get to God.
I want to enter his gates every day. I want to walk with Him and spend every waking minute with Him. I've got to be thankful all the time. Which leads to this. "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." 1 Thess. 5:18. 
I saw someone tweet recently that thankfulness and depression can not co-exist. It's impossible to be truly thankful and discouraged at the same time. I think I would agree with that.
So now back to those mountains...

Ahhh... I really do love them so. I love skiing, I love the way they seem to smell. I love how they're so gorgeous you'd think it's a fake background. But, like I mentioned before, I live in Oklahoma (which does have a lot going for it with it's beautiful skies) no mountains though.
I could go one of two ways with this. 1 Be crumpy and sad that I don't have these alpine beauties in my back yard. 2. Be thankful for what I  have. I'm gonna go with the latter.
God can help us see things this way.He can help us be thankful. With his strength it's kind of like Pollyanna playing the "glad game", or the "glass is half full" type of scenerio.

I think to myself "man I sure would like to try skiing some moguls today"
Which could lead to me feeling bummed out.  Or...

When I go for a run I pretend these are moguls! haha.
I live in such a great place. It might not be on top of a mountain. But, it is on a little hill. Which in Oklahoma is kind of mountain'ish because you can see so far.

The view it's not to shaby.
But enough about mountains. The real thing to be thankful for is Christ no doubt.
Jesus says, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10
A full life for me isn't found in the mountains. It isn't found when the bank account is full. It isn't found when I finally have a great house to raise my kiddos in. It isn't found when every aspect of my life is perfect. A full life is found IN him. Everything, it's in Him. And I am so thankful.

       

Taking out the trash & worship

Lately, God has been talking to me about where I dump my "trash". Just wanted to share some thoughts with you in case they're helpful to you as well. Here goes... So what is the first thing you do when you've had a crummy day, when you're feeling hurt, you're at your lowest low, you feel stuck, or things just aren't fitting together? The obvious answer to that is we go to God, right. We lean on Him for our strength, support and encouragement. After all, He is our source. I gotta admit, though, that sure isn't alllllways what I've been doing. It's also not always what I've been encouraging others to do. If someone comes to me saying that they totally need to "just vent", my response is usually," go ahead dump it all out". But, wait a minute (for realz) dump it all out? Do you know what happens if you dump out all your garbage on someone or if you let someone dump it on you? You're both full of garbage that's what happens. Think about it. Would you let someone come into your house and just dump out their trash for the week all over your clean floor and leave it there. Umm No.
So here is where the worship part comes in.You might be thinking what does worship have to do with venting/complaining. Worship is the exact opposite of that,isn't it. It's about hope/joy and bringing honor to God. Yes, it is. But, God's been showing me some more...

When you think of the book of Psalms what do you think of? I primarily think of praise. Phrases like "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord!"and "Give thanks to the Lord for he is good!"or,"God is our refuge and strength!".But, there is a lot more in there. Take Psalm 13 for example it starts out, "Oh Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart everyday? How long will my enemy have the upper hand?"
One year I made a new years resolution to write a worship song out of each of the psalms in the bible. When I got to Psalms like this, though, I was completely stumped. I can't sing that to God I thought. No way, I can't complain to God like that. Then I looked back at the begining of such Psalms as #13 and it says "For the choir director sung to the tune of.." and I realized that David is singing his junk to God. In the very most real and honest way he is pouring out his heart in worship. And it must have been ok with God. In fact, the bible says David was a man after God's own heart.
So one day I was driving in the car stuck in a very low low. It was one of those days, weeks , times... I felt like I was at a breaking point. I needed someone to talk to. So, I called my husband,no answer. I called my sister, no answer. I called my best friend, no answer. "Alright, God your all I've got", I said. Then I started to pour out my heart in gory, honest, country song like worship. And do you know what happened??? I felt absolutely ridiculous. And that's why it worked. You see if I'd have gotten my sister on the phone that day and complained out all my woes to just her she would have given me empathy. She would have said something like, "I'm so sorry you poor thing that shouldn't have happened to you". Then I would have left that conversation feeling justified and feeling like ya, she's right this should not have happened to me. But, when I poor out all my complaints and hurts to God in worship like David did it always ends up turning back around into praise. Because when I sing things like," I feel like your never there and everything is all wrong, my car broke down ect,ect.." to THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE. I feel ridiculous and the truth starts to pour out in praise instead. "God I know you will never leave me or forsake me, God I know you are good ect, ect. ". That's exactly what happened to David in the Psalms as well. For example, the end of Psalms 13 says, "But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. I sing to the Lord because he is good to me.".
We all need each other and we need help and encouragement from others. But, let's not dump our junk in our friends living room. Rather, take it to the only one who can handle it, heal us, and turn it back into praise. Make him your first phone call and pour out your soul to him first like David did. It really works.

Shoes

  Did you have a favorite pair of shoes growing up? You know the ones you wanted to wear every day, even if they didn't match your outfit, much to your Mama's dismay. I did, always have I guess. My favorites just gradually change and then change again over time.
  Life can be kind of like a pair of great shoes! (Ha!) The thing is sometimes I find myself looking back thinking, "Man, I wish I could wear my old favorites again. Man, I wish I could go back to that place where things seemed better/easier." God recently talked to me about this. He simply said to my heart, "Don't keep trying to put on the shoes that you've outgrown. It will hurt you." After all we can't run in shoes that are too small now can we?

Ewwwww..Gross right! Sorry. Just sayin' Don't do that!
Matthew 9:17
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.”
  Of course, I've got to try to keep myself from wanting to jump to far ahead too. Planning and having vision,and goals while working hard to achieve them is awesome!!! It's just that wishing and getting discouraged or depressed because those things arn't happening RIGHT NOW is not awesome.You can't run in shoes that are to big either.

So enjoy the shoes your in! They weren't your favorites yesterday and they might be too small tomorrow :)

tootsie rolls

     A man that I look up to a lot, who is a missionary to Bolivia,  once told me a story about his desperate hunt for some tootsie rolls. One day he got a fierce craving for this hard/chewy/chocolatey treat (I'm actually not a fan). So he searched all day in every marketplace he could think of for them. The more he searched the more irritated he became. "Come on God", he thought "I do all this work for you, leave my family, give my free time, give my money, give my life, sacrifice sacrifice, sacrifice out the wazoo, do everything you tell me to do AND ALL I WANT ARE SOME DANGUM" TOOTSIE ROLLS!!!! By the time he got home that afternoon he was in quite a frenzy and quite candyless. Basically he was in one of those moods that everyone else knows to walk a safe distance around. His wife walked right up to him, though, gave him a hug and said "Hey babe, we got some mail today. There's a package for you." Still in a funk he opened it up and I'm sure you can guess what was inside...Tootsie rolls. Someone mailed him a whole heapin' box of them. Of course, he felt like a complete cotton headed ninny muggins and apologized.
   I thought of his story today as I had worked myself up into a cotton headed ninny muggins frenzy of my own. I was competely irritated over dumb stuff,small stuff. When I thought of this story I remembered I don't need to feel like I'm entitled to have God give me stuff because of the things I do for him. He's the one that's entitled to have me do stuff because of who He is and everything He's given to me. Instead of searching wildly for the things I'm after I'd rather just keep searching after him. I also know that  He's an amazingly generous God, who has a special way of giving out tootsie rolls.