Encouragement Prevails

The other morning I was laying in bed trying to fall back asleep after my husband had left for work. I didn’t get much sleep at all that night and just wanted a day where I wasn’t exhausted and moody. My 4 month old started fussing. My train of thought went something like this. “Nooooo…...please go back to sleep. God please have him fall back asleep so I can have more rest. I need it. I’m tired. You love me right? You’ll give me rest. …. No he’ll probably wake up, because you don’t care and I’ll have an awful day.” Ohh how God convicted me that morning. “If you love me you’ll _____”. I’ve heard talks on this many times and know we aren’t to treat God as a genie. He isn’t there to grant our wishes and give us whatever we want. Yet, still I fall into this. Is it wrong to pray and ask God for things? Absolutely not. To throw a fit when we don’t get what we want? That’s not really a respectful attitude to the Creator of the universe. To doubt that God won’t do something, because He does...

For a large part of my life I dealt with loneliness. I felt as though no one cared about me except my family. I longed for friendship. I went about 5 years or longer wishing and praying I had a friend. I honestly was praying God would give me a friend and make this friendship just happen. I didn’t want to be rejected or step out of my comfort zone. I didn’t want to have to work for it. I just wanted this longing in my heart to be fulfilled. The whole time God was working. He was showing me people I should seek friendships with. He was preparing relationships for me. None of it could happen though without me taking a step. There are definitely times when we are called to wait and be still. Such as now. Besides staying home and taking some precaution there isn’t much we can do to end this. We just have to wait for those who can. While we are in a time of waiting though we are called to act. One of the hardest things about this is being separated from those we love. Feeling lonely...

I don’t know about you, but I have had a lot of moments recently where I have felt like I was “drowning”. Completely overtaken by the rough waves of life. Waves of anger, pain, sorrow, fear, loneliness, chaos, you name it. Acts 20:9-11 A young man named Eutychus was sitting in a window. As Paul was talking on and on, Eutychus was gradually falling asleep. Finally, overcome by sleep, he fell from the third story and was dead when they picked him up. Paul went to him, took him into his arms, and said, “Don’t worry! He’s alive!” Then Eutychus went up stairs again, broke the bread, and ate. When praying over this set of verses I was led to think about our sin. We don’t want it. We don’t want the troubles of life. We want to connect with God and receive the Holy Spirit and all He promises us (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control). Yet time and time again we slowly allow ourselves to drift away from it. We drift and drift further ...

Something I have been struggling with lately is being screamed at, what feels like constantly. My 3 year old has decided that screaming is her way of communicating every emotion. I'm upset - scream. I'm bored - scream. I'm excited - SCREAM. I also have a 3 month old that is just finding his voice and is witnessing it all. Which has of course turned into him wanting to scream. I want attention - scream. I'm happy - scream. If they're not both screaming just because why not scream back and forth for fun, then one is screaming demanding my attention. It's exhausting and sometimes defeating. At least that's how I feel as an imperfect parent. 1 John 3:1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! Psalm 116:2 Because He has inclined His hear to me, Therefore I shall call upon Him as long as I live. Psalm 18:30 This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a sh...