WoW! What a hectic few days it’s been in Texas. The power grid can’t handle all this wintery stuff. Rolling outages and so many without power for hours upon hours. It’s not for the lack of people trying to get electricity back on though. Lineman are working around the clock to try and restore what they can. Cray! Cray! With more on the way tonight into tomorrow.
Hoping y’all had a very Merry Christmas, we sure did, and may we all have a very blessed, Happy New Year!!
In light of the year it’s been, this Thanksgiving’s “thankful for’s” could be very different from years past. I know mine is but in everything we are to be thankful.
“Rejoice always and delight in your faith; be unceasing and persistent in prayer; in every situation [no matter what the circumstances] be thankful and continually give thanks to God; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 AMP
Scripture tells us that Jesus will have a second coming and that we should be prepared for that day, every day, because we do not know the day nor the hour of His return.
“But of that [exact] day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son [in His humanity], but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man (the Messiah) will be just like the days of Noah.”
Matthew 24:36-37 AMP
So for 2020’s world changing year, I am thankful that Jesus has given me a second (multiple) chance (chances) to get my affairs in order. While I am saved, this trying year has taught me that I need to prepare more than ever for Jesus’ return. Some things I thought were important to me aren’t as important as I thought while other things I thought weren’t so important are very important. Thank you Jesus for never giving up on me!
So, what are you thankful for this year? Comment below…
Well I’ve had another rest from blogging, and other stuff, as I’m sure y’all that follow me have noticed.
I never know when I will feel good and when I will feel awful due to this chronic pain I live with. Let’s just say that I’ve had more down days than up lately for a number of reasons. I pray to be on the track to feeling good for more than a couple days at a time now. I just never know what each day holds for me until I begin it.
I have found myself cancelling things and saying no more than ever, even when I really want to. I apologize more than ever because I just can’t!! I hate the hold this autoimmune disease has over me. It isn’t just one thing. I have a number of things that taunt me daily.
So many say there “well just do this” or “have you tried…” and “I know that feeling” when really they don’t have a clue! I don’t even try to explain anymore I just say “thanks for that advice” or “I’ll try that” just to move the conversation on from even talking about it any further. Most days I just want to scream but even that’s to exhausting. 😂
Any-who, enough about that!!
Pray for me and my husband! Say a special prayer for those not even in my life these days, whether they’ve chosen to walk away or I’ve just distanced myself from them, to love me through it anyway.
Good night world! May God hold your hand through the hard times just as He does for me because without God, I probably wouldn’t even be here. 💕
Kelly Clarkson sings a song called “Broken and Beautiful” and it is so relatable for me because I feel so broken, most days, these days BUT GOD and loved ones y’all; right!?!
I live with lots of chronic pain in my entire body, due to a few medical issues, that causes me to live with so much pain around the clock. Some days it’s “hide-ably” tolerable and some days it hurts to just wake up! Lots of days, I just wanna sleep and not wake up until the pain hurts no more.
So many Dr’s!!!!! So many surgeries!!!!! So many “Let’s Try This!” So many “Lets Run This Test.” So many “Xrays and blood work!” So many unknowns but let’s keep seeking for answers until I am so sick of it all!!!!!😫
My most recent surgery, just 5 weeks ago, was for them to put in a nerve stimulator implant in my back. For those that don’t know what that is, it’s a machine that’s basically an internal Tens Unit that blocks the nerve signals that go to my brain telling my brain that I feel pain. While it has helped, it’s not as helpful as we’d hoped. I would say it’s helped by maybe 30% when it’s turned on.
As I type this, it’s 2:20 A M and I can’t sleep. And since I’m awake, I feel the aches and burns going on through out my entire body. In my shoulders, arms and hands I feel aches, throbs, burns, down to my finger bones hurting so bad at times that I just shake them off and hang them down to my sides for a few seconds of that momentary cold sensational relief. Some times I just wanna take em off and set em aside for a bit, swap em out with another pair, massage them momentarily, just something for some kind of relief! This is not what the stimulator is for, that’s for my feet, legs, lower back, and hip pain (which didn’t help my left hip much at all). To be fair though, I rarely mention my shoulders, hands, and arm pains at all because there’s so much other crap that hurts way worse.
I don’t know how to explain it, all I can say is I just HURT ALL OVER and I don’t know why. I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t want sympathy. I don’t want more freaking medicine. I don’t want another dang surgery. I rarely even want to be touched but I don’t want to be rude. I don’t want to seem mean to any one. I don’t want to hurt anyones feelings. I don’t want to hurt anymore PERIOD! So, to avoid things in this paragraph, I stay home a lot more.
So much of this unexplainable pain just makes me so danged irritable at times. I have gotten to where I just avoid being around people and certain situations all together. I rarely get out and about by myself anymore because I never know from moment to moment what I’m going to be able to tolerate because the pain changes from day to day through out each and every single day. Simply put; I just hurt and I don’t want it to become an excuse for any thing in my life but it’s very debilitating at times. Thankfully though the migraines have almost completely stopped since my neck surgery was done in December of last year. So that’s a positive praise! Thank you Jesus!
I just simply have “unexplainable chronic pain” that’s un-relatable to anyone and everyone around me therefore it’s hard for you to understand. Just know that some days are good days for me and some days are bad but more often than not I just “fake the smiles” to make it through the day with as little complaining as possible because I don’t want to be a burdensome person to anyone. However, I do love deeply and I want y’all to know that I truly appreciate ALL of the prayers and support from you all! I feel ya 🤟♥️
To those of you that do show me true genuine love and support (not just when ya want something) through all of the “maybe this’ll help” processes that I continue to go through to find relief, I love you from the depth of my being and I apologize for not being able to physically help any of you but I do pray that I’m there for you, as you are for me, to the best of my abilities because without God and y’all I don’t know how I’d cope with this life.
So thanks for just being your true selves y’all 😊 #ILYMTTYBLTT❤️
When we take our eyes off Jesus and focus on self, most of this worldly pain is unbearable.
We must continue the path that God has us on because only He knows the lessons we are to learn and the many lives that’ll be touched by our obedience to Him.
Pain hurts, no matter the reasoning! The lack of understanding that we have toward said pain is why we begin to question God and what He’s allowing to take place in our lives. It’s not until we begin to fully trust Him that the pain becomes tolerable.
Keep your eyes off the world! Stay true to who you are in Christ! While things won’t always make sense, it’ll always be worth it because there’s always life lessons to learn that’ll strengthen our trust and faith in Jesus.
I don’t know how I’m suppose to feel but I can tell you how I do feel.
A couple of days ago now the news was shared, on a Facebook group that I’m in, about a wreck that took place locally. There were only four comments posted before the comment thread had been turned off as to not allow any more comments, yet the headline simply read “Car Accident” with the picture below attached to it.
Accidents, in many forms, come about so frequently these days that I never stop to ponder any more if it could be anyone that I may know. I just always have the mind set, with technology today, that surely I’d know by now if it was anyone that I’m close to or related to.
When I read headlines and/or comments about anything like this that takes place, I immediately feel sad for those involved, in any way, but I will usually pray something simple like “God please be with those affected by this and allow them to all be okay” and scroll on as I did with this one.
When my daughter was little she was very active in little league softball, summer league tournament softball, Jr High and High school softball, as well as dance, and even cheerleading. All the way up through her senior year she remained very active in softball and dance, in any way she possibly could, because they were her two favorite things to do. So there were so many of her coaches, teachers, class mates, and even parents that have touched my life and have remained a part of my heart even after all of these years.
Through out my daughters upbringing, she is now 23 and married herself, many of her classmates will forever remain in my heart as I’ve been able to share in their own upbringing and life experiences not only through real life but also through social media life. This allows me to still be able to smile for the joys in their lives and makes me feel that I still get to be a small part of their own life happenings. Through this, even when they don’t know it, I’m cheering them on like I used to do from the side lines and I still get to witness and share in their own life happiness. That’s one of the biggest perks of social media in my opinion.
But rarely do I get to witness or get to be a small part of their heartbreaks and life shattering moments. This is because most people, me included, don’t like to share the true vulnerable parts of their lives for the world to see. We don’t want to let people see inside of our pain and heartaches because they would for sure judge us. Plus that would taint our own outward image of ourselves that we want people to see right. Not that it’s a bad thing necessarily, it’s just how life works for so many of us in today’s world.
As I’m typing this, through so many tears flowing down my face, my own heart feels shattered into many pieces for one particular young lady and her family that touched my heart from my daughters upbringing. She has been a part of my heart from my daughters very first year of little league softball. “God please continue to wrap Your arms around them all as they need You now more than ever before!! In Jesus name I pray, Amen!”
Anyway, when I read that “Car Accident” headline never did I imagine that one of my daughters classmates lives, especially one that I have personally loved since they were in elementary school as well as loving her parents still to this day, would be changed forever!!
Not only are her and her fiancé new parents together but, after having read so many Facebook posts and comments, it seems as if they were the light of one another’s world. It appears as if they’ve been through so much with one another, good and bad, in such a short amount of time.
BUT GOD YALL!
It appears as if they’ve been able to overcome the world together with God as their anchor. God must’ve continued to bring them back to one another because, the way I understand what I was reading typed in their own words, it’s as if God intervened for their relationship to be. God must’ve brought them back to a sense of forgiveness and security with another because He completely healed their relationship for reasons unbeknownst to many of us looking into theirs lives through Facebook. It’s as if God continued to carry them through all the heartache and love the two of them have for one another and even gave them a beautiful baby girl to cherish together in that love. Both of them seem to give God all of the glory for their successful relationship and now parenthood as well.
And as I scrolled through Facebook, two days later now, for reasons that we are never meant to question or understand the three of them were involved in this car accident together as one happy little family only for the young man not to make it!?!
Like “WHAT”!?!
Instinctively I want to know why. I want to know what happened. I want the young lady to know how much I love her. I want her parents to know my heart is shattered with them. I want to know so much, as do so many others, but God doesn’t work the way we want Him to. He doesn’t allow us to know so many things because we wouldn’t be able to handle the answers given to us.
I don’t believe that God “allows” bad things to happen to us but I do believe that everything that happens to us, God uses for good.
So as I type this through the tears and continue to pray for all involved in any minuet way, the thing I want shared most of all, is that only God knows the answers to our why. Only God knows our future. Only God knows how long we get to live and love those that we do. Only God knows why bad things happen to good people every single day. Only God knows ALL things because we aren’t suppose to know! We couldn’t handle to know the answers to every why question that we have. What I do know is that, once the young lady heals and is released from the hospital, she and their daughter are gonna be okay…eventually.
Their baby girl was unharmed physically but she will forever now have to grow up without her biological father and the perks of having him be a active part in her life. So I pray that she grows up to know and cling to the only Father that she’ll ever need and that’s God The Father.
More of what I do know is that this family is a God fearing family that loves the Lord, even through their heartaches, with ever ounce of their being. I do know that their church family and community of loved ones will shower them with such agape love that they will overcome this tragedy and be stronger in their faith because of it. I do know that God will continue to help them heal as a family together. I do know that I am a better person having been able to know them and witness how they love God so deeply in their own walks of life. I do know that I am thankful that God put them in our lives so many years ago. And I do know that I will continue to pray for them, as well as everyone affected by this car accident, with every thought of them that I have.
My thoughts, prayers, and love go out to each of them as I continue to love and pray for them from a distance!
My husband got me the most beautiful jewelry armoire for our anniversary! I’m so proud of it. He even picked it out himself!
The first one was delivered a few days ago but was damaged so had to send it back. Got the second one in today. This box has way more damage than the first one did so I’m praying it is not damaged. He’ll get it out when he gets in this wknd. Keeping fingers crossed. Below is a picture from the site of the one he got me. I just wanna show it off. I love that the necklace pegs are on not on the door to tangle up every time I open it.
What do y’all think?
He did good right!
Happy 24th babe! Cheers to many years to come. #ilymttybltt
Yesterday was Father’s Day 2020 and I was alone, as I was on Mother’s Day, and our own son didn’t even acknowledge his Dad just as he hadn’t acknowledged me on Mother’s Day. This was not like him but given the times we are in it wasn’t a shocker either.
Being alone is good for every one at times, but being alone all of the time is not what we were created for. God created people to mingle. He even scattered us all about and gave us all different languages so that we may not understand one another. Look it up and read it! It’s scriptural (Genesis 11). God created one race, the human race, yet made us all different on purpose and ordered us all to love one another FROM A DISTANCE! From the beginning, God made us all different and told us to love one another in and through our differences. In our different genders, different skin tones, different languages, different areas of the world, different countries that we live, etc.; in all of our different everything’s we are called to love one another. It’s a commandment from our Lord and Savior, NOT AN OPTION. He did not give us the option to pick and choose who we love amongst our differences, He simply said to love one another PERIOD.
Now, back to my yesterday.
I had a very rough day yesterday both physically and emotionally. I went through different stages of emotion all day long. It began with regret that my husband wasn’t here with me; that led into blaming myself for the way our family has been separated; that led into pure anger toward myself and even toward God; that led into me questioning everything that I’m going through as an individual, wife, mother, and even as a new grandmother; that led into me wallowing in pure self-pity for most of the evening; that led into me being mad at God for allowing all of this to happen and not stopping the hurt when He’s the only one that can; that led into me losing ALL hope that anything and everything will work out let alone turn out for good; that eventually led into me going to bed to sleep the pain away WITHOUT even being thankful for what God is doing in and through my life. I went to sleep without praying because I felt so overwhelmed with emotions that I didn’t even know what to pray about. I even had a brief “break down” over text with my best girlfriend and I don’t like to let others in, especially to see me at my lowest.
Through out my texts of “upset” and her texts of “encouragements”, I found myself questioning God. I found myself doubting my abilities to overcome the heart ache. I found myself blaming myself, other people, and even God for things going off balance in my life. I found myself spiraling out of control to the point of hyperventilating with a grief-stricken cry session. Briefly, for how ever long the texting back and forth lasted, I was a total hot mess! It wasn’t until I pulled myself together and finally got into bed that I found myself losing focus on God and His abilities to help me. By turning my focus onto myself and believing more in my own “feelings” (selfishness) than what I had “hope” in God for, I was just at a total loss for anything and everything. I found myself so hopeless in what Christ was doing in and through all of this that I felt so lost and confused as to why I had even allowed myself to get this way. If I couldn’t trust God to take the hurt away and to “fix” everything, then I have no trust or belief in anything. I lost hope because I lost my focal point! I lost sight of Jesus! I turned my focus and attention toward myself rather than keeping my eyes on God. When we take our eyes off of God, we lose all hope and in that very moment last night, I was totally hopeless!
Every day I receive daily devotionals by email. I often see notifications from emails, texts, and even a few YouTube channels that I follow on my cell phone screen before I even unlock it. There’s also a couple of churches that I get notifications by text messages from when they upload to their YouTube channel. All of these notifications will show up on my screen without me even having to unlock my phone and most nights they add up. So, when I wake up of a morning, every morning, the first thing I do is simply pick up my cell phone and look at the lock screen to see which notifications are showing up on the front of my phone from the night and early morning hours while I was sleeping. I do this every morning, as I’m sure most of us do these days.
This morning one of the notifications by text that I received is from a church that I follow on YouTube. There’s a link to touch that sends me to the video. So, I watch it, it’s only 3 minutes long and won’t take up too much of my morning time, right?
Well, once it’s over the next video in my list of follows automatically starts. It peaks my interest because of what it shows on the thumb nail for it. For those of you that don’t know “thumb nail” computer terminology, it’s a small picture glimpse of what’s inside the video. This one shows James 2:14-26. For those that don’t know me personally, when I gave my life to Christ in 2009, God used the book of James to help transform me. While I don’t have it all memorized, any time I see scripture as a headline from that bible book, I want to check it out. So, I clicked the thumb nail and watched the entire 28-minute video, not even caring that it’s going to put me further behind.
In the beginning of the video I laughed out loud as I was taken back to a child hood memory of my brother and I embarrassing our Mom inside a grocery store as we begged for “name brand” cereal. So it started my day off with laughter, which God knew I needed after the day I’d had yesterday. As I kept watching, throughout the entire sermon, God began to teach me about what I had felt and gone through yesterday.
My horrible emotions and feelings from yesterdays basket of hormones began to take shape within me. I began visually seeing and thinking about how Mary must’ve felt as she watched, in helpless agony and heart break, her only Son hanging with nails in his hands and feet on the cross as He was being tortured and mocked. In that moment, God made me realize that while my own son doesn’t seem to want anything to do with me/us right now, I am so thankfully grateful to God above that he isn’t being put to physical death while I watch kneeling at his feet helpless and hopelessly in anguish. I am so thankfully grateful that we live in a time today where I can see, even if only from a distance, and know that he and his immediate family are safe and well. In that moment, I began to appreciate the things that I could not see yesterday. For Mary, while Jesus was moving about the earth living his own life, she was left behind not knowing for sure that her son was okay or not minute by minute. Mary, a mother second to being a child of God, felt more anguish and heartache than any mother should ever have to endure in life, yet she never lost hope on what came first in her life and that was God Almighty. By the end of this sermon, not only had I been laughing but I’d had a realization of what true mother hood was like (in a sense) for Mary. While seeing the physical pain her child was in, she never lost hope of what God was going to do with her son Jesus.
Once that video was over, the next one automatically began and I found myself “sucked in” once again. The headline on the thumb nail for this one is “Why Do You Push People Away?” Yet again, God showed me a glimpse of my life in a very fast vision and how I do that so often. I push people away from me and, more often than not, without even realizing it. It’s not my intension but it’s happened with so many people in my life. So, I watched that video too. Again, without a single thought about it pushing my day behind. I watched the entire video and I didn’t have any thoughts, other than those that God had intended for me to have. He orchestrated my morning to go exactly as it had. I wasn’t distracted by time, Facebook, emails, texts, work, or anything. In this very moment, just as God had ordained, I was totally focused on Him and His teachings for me. As I watched this video the lesson that God showed me is in Romans 8:25-28; faith grows in the things we DO NOT KNOW. I don’t know why things are happening the way that they are in my life but God knows and His plans for us (Jeremiah 29:11), we aren’t supposed to know. It’s in these moments that our faith in Him grows and we begin to lose sight of ourselves. In the words of Steven Furtick; “Hope is a focus, not a feeling.” We must, in ALL THINGS, focus on Christ alone so that we do not focus on our own feelings of pain, hurt, anguish, etc. When we focus on self rather than Jesus, we lose sight of His goodness for our lives, even through the hardest of times. I’ve always told our kids (still do) that, no matter what situation you are in, there is good in any and every situation your facing but often times we must dig for it to find it. It’s through the digging that we learn the most about ourselves.
I eventually do get to the checking my email part of my morning only to find that today’s “daily verse” email is Proverbs 22:6. That verse from the amplified bible says it this way: “Train up a child in the way he should go [teaching him to seek God’s wisdom and will for his abilities and talents], Even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
God showed me, once again, this morning that I shouldn’t lose hope in Him and what He’s doing through all of the changes in my life. I should never focus on my own doubts and “feelings” because it will cause me to lose site of Him. While our children’s raising wasn’t perfect, they were taught and witnessed first hand the Word of God and how it changed our lives for the better. They were taught that we should live as Christ like as possible even through our imperfections. Whether they stray from it or not as adults, they will return to God as they get older and mature in life.
In summary, what I was reminded of this morning is that it’s not up to me and my husband to necessarily be active “in” the lives of our adult children because, ultimately, it’s their choosing as to whether they allow us to be a part of their lives or not. We no longer have control over or are held responsible for what they do, say, act, or how they treat us or any one else for that matter because our part is done; they are now raised. The only thing that is still up to us is how we show others that Christ lives and dwells in our own hearts and souls even through heartache and that, my friend, is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing anyone can ever see in any one of us, especially our own children.
Ya’ll! Take the time and listen to this. He’s slow to start but WOW what an awesome way to explain what’s happening today! Let us never forget that God is in control and He always will be. So don’t let the ways of how things are changing make it quick to anger. Just breathe, do what you can, and live for Jesus each and every day. We must love one another through our disagreements in politics! Don’t let the enemy destroy your witnessing! That’s what he’s after….
