a mouth full of praise

"I will bless the LORD at all times;

His praise shall continually be in my mouth"

(Psalm 34:1)

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I am thankful that my oldest granddaughter, Mikaela, turned 8 years old Tuesday and is happy, healthy and full of love for Jesus! When she spends the night with me, we read out of my 'Jesus Calling' devotional and when she found out they had one for children she said she wanted one.  I got her one as part of her birthday present and she was so excited when she opened it.  It really does something to my heart to see her already desiring to spend time in God's Word.

I am thankful that Melissa made it home safely from Baton Rouge on Monday. Megan's husband was at the deer camp, so Melissa and I spent the night with her and and my 4 grandbabies. We stayed up late and watched a movie and just had a fun girls night. It was nice to wake up to some little sweet faces. I am thankful for family.

I am thankful that Ashlie's husband, Cody, has a job that is providing for their family. Even though they are in Wyoming and I miss my daughter and two little grandsons so bad, I know that for now it is what God has ordained for their lives. He is so good.

I am thankful for a Savior that loves me unconditionally. God overwhelms me everyday with His goodness and His mercy. He never ceases to amaze me with His tender care and his generous grace.

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I pray that everyone of you have a wonderful and joy filled Thanksgiving. I pray God's richest blessings upon you and your family and pray that He grants you peace and safe travel. May we remember to be thankful to our awesome God for all things. He truly is worthy to be praised!

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If you have a minute, stop by Titus 2 In Action and read my post there today entitled "Are you a seeker?"

search me, O God and know my heart...

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24)

This is a prayer that should never be taken lightly. It is one asking God to carefully examine and search our hearts and our very intimate thoughts. To search them deeply and see if there is any offensive or wicked thing abiding there.

When you cry out to God with this prayer, you had better be prepared for His answer. You better brace yourself for what He will indeed reveal to your spirit. It is not a prayer to be offered up half-hearted. It is one to be lifted up in all sincerity and with a prepared and receptive heart.

He searches our hearts with His omniscience. His all-knowing and superior wisdom.A knowledge that has no bounds.

He examines us with His omnipotence. The all-encompassing. mighty and unmatched power of God.

He knows everything about us. Even the hidden things. The small and the big things. He knows the offensiveness and wickedness of our nature.

And He reveals it to us.

With the revelation comes heartache.  Broken hearts responding to the brokenness of our relationship with our Savior. Once the offense comes to light, it is our responsibility as a child of the King to do something about it. We have to get all-in, or stay all-out. Because the truth of the matter is, if we aren't 100% in with God, we may as well be out.

He demands our all. He wants us to surrender everything. To honor and obey Him in all things.

Matthew 6:33 tells us to 'seek ye first the kingdom of God'.

In Mark's gospel, Jesus tells the rich young ruler to rid himself of all his possessions, take up the cross and follow Him. But it was too much. He wasn't willing to get all-in, so by default he was all-out.

One thing that strikes me in this passage of scripture is that there was the distinct possibility that if the rich young ruler had said, 'Yes, Lord, I will sell all of my possessions and follow you", Jesus could have said, 'Never mind. Don't sell everything. I just wanted to know you were willing."

Just as God had stilled Abraham's hand as he held the knife over Isaac.

He was searching their hearts. Searching for surrender. Total surrender.

Searching for their acknowledgement of His Lordship.

Searching for their willingness to confess the need for a circumcision of heart.

As I am praying and embracing this prayer, I am asking God to search my heart. I am asking Him to know my heart. I am ready to acknowledge what He reveals. Ready to take captive any offensive or wicked thing and lay it at His feet. I am ready to surrender my all. My everything.

I am jumping in with both feet. Eyes wide open to the Truth. Heart ready for Him to search and shatter if necessary. Hands lifted high so He can reach down, hold me up and begin a new work.
 

God is so good - thankful thursday

Join me in Thankful Thursday by stopping in at Greg's place.

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I am thankful that God gave me the opportunity to sit by a friends side Tuesday and minister. As she lay in bed at her daughters house she was in obvious pain from the cancer. Physical, emotional and spiritual. I am so thankful that God gave me the words to say to try and bring her some comfort. I am thankful for the strength He gave me to keep myself together emotionally. My heart is in turmoil over her pain and anguish. I hurt for what she is going through and I hurt for what I know is coming unless God intervenes. I am thankful for the way God is working in the situation and I am blessed that He is allowing me to be part of it. Thank you, Lord, for your gracious Holy Spirit who is our Comforter.

I am thankful that God sent a mighty man of His to our church revival this week to bring us a HUGE Word from His throne. The Word certainly circumcised some hearts and the Word was painful at times. But, oh praise God, it was the TRUTH.  It was a necessary Word for God's people and I pray that all of us who heard it will take it to heart and let it change us from the inside out. May we never be the same again. Thank you, Lord, for teaching me what Christianity really looks like and what it means to be an authentic disciple of yours.

I am thankful that God has graced me with 6 grandchildren that I love with all of my heart. I am so thankful that they love me too. Nothing fills my heart with more joy than to walk in my daughter Megan's house and have Mercie, Eli and Mikaela all run to me with such excitement and call out my name. "Nana's here!"  Silas can't walk or talk, but he certainly gives me the biggest smiles!

I am thankful that when Ashlie calls me from Wyoming, Bryton gets on the phone and tells me that he wants to come see me and that he loves me. Even Sawyer will tell me he loves me.

I am thankful that at the end of the day even in the midst of the storms and when nothing else will do.... God's Word is enough. Thank you, Jesus.

Oh, Lord, thank you for helping me to see what it truly means to be a Christian. A true disciple. It's not about us at all. It's only about You. Help me to die to myself daily and pick up my cross and follow You. Where ever You may lead. At whatever cost. I surrender ALL.

Worship the Savior...

I'm a worship girl.

There is nothing I like better than to pop in some praise music and worship my Savior with all of my heart. I love to worship and I love to meet with Jesus in the midst of it. I can't think of a better way than that to sync my heart with His in preparation of hearing a Word from the Throne of Grace. I just love to worship.

I think that many Christians have either lost that desire to worship or perhaps they never had it to begin with. Worship is the way our hearts come together with the heart of God. It is a joining together of our souls and spirits. It is opening ourselves wide for the filling of His Spirit. It is about an encounter with an Almighty God. An all-out, holy-ghost, heart-changing, consuming-fire encounter with Jesus. True Worship.

When I listened to Chris Tomlin's newest endeavor (to be released November 16th),  And If Our God Is For Us, I was transported into such a place of worship as that. Every song on this CD was full of the power and goodness of God. Every song touched my heart in some way. Chris has a way of getting right to the heart of who God is and who we are in relation to Him.

As I was listening to the CD, one of the songs just spoke so loudly to my heart. "The Name of Jesus" is a beautiful song about who Jesus is. He is our refuge and our shelter. He is our fortress and our hope. But two little phrases just hit me with force.

"When we fall You are the Savior.
When we call You are the Answer"

Those words just touched my heart deeply. Those words just seemed to sum it up. He not only is our Savior, He is our Answer. For everything and in everything. We fall. We call. And He is there. Thank you, Jesus.

I want to worship Him with an unquenchable thirst. An unending hunger. An unsatisfied desire.

I am so thankful that God has anointed Chris Tomlin with a heart to hear from Him, a voice to praise Him with and the unction to share that gift with others.

it's not fair...

Hospice (def.) - 1. a lodging place for travelers (wordnet.princeton.edu)

2. providing comfort and support for patients with terminal illnesses. (Webster)

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Until recently, I never once heard the word hospice without feeling a stab of fear in my heart. Just the word itself conjured up visions of death and suffering in my mind.  Hospice just sounded like a death sentence. Finality. The end.

When my husband first told me that he had been asked to become the hospice chaplain for our parish and the neighboring parish, I was a little disturbed by it. I can remember telling him that I didn't know how he could even think about doing it. It just seemed like it would be so depressing.  So heartbreaking.  So sad.

The truth of the matter is that it can be all those things. It is depressing. It does break your heart and it certainly is sad. But it is more than that as well. It is also an awesome ministry. It is a way to minister to patients and their families. It is a huge opportunity to share Jesus with those who need Him in a very big way.

The small town we live in is where my husband was born and raised. He knows everybody and everybody knows him. We've lived here for over 20 years now so it's really my town, too. In the year or so that he has worked with hospice, he has personally known all but a handful of his patients. Some of them just acquaintances and some of them close friends.

Today, I went with him to see his newest patient. She is 54 years old and he has known her almost all their lives. She taught my oldest girls in middle school. Our son-in-laws worked together. One of her daughters was a customer of mine in the insurance business and I grew to love her dearly.

Short of a miracle, she will be on hospice until she goes home to be with Jesus. Short of a miracle, it won't be too long. Her cancer has returned. Again. It hasn't responded to treatment and is in fact spreading. There is nothing more that the doctors can do.

Her daughters checked her out of the hospital today and brought her home. As I sat in one of their homes today I was struck by the unfairness of it all. I sat there with my bible opened up in my lap and just kept thinking, 'it's just not fair'. I watched the anguish on her daughters' faces and thought, 'it's just not fair'. 

We were all gathered in the living room getting all the details of hospice worked out and my heart was in such a grieving state. A very real and painful state of mourning. She was clearly in pain and as the nurse was trying to find the right dosage of her pain medication to get it under control, my heart just hurt so bad. It was all I could do to keep the tears from rolling down my face. They were brimming in my eyes and my heart was completely filled with them. I silently grieved.

I was grieving for those 2 precious young women as they were bracing themselves for what was to come. Young mothers in their early 30's that shouldn't have to watch their mother die. I was grieving for those 7 precious grandchildren who had no idea what was about to take place in their lives. I was grieving for the ex-husband who was so lovingly sitting by the side of his children's mother. I was grieving for this sweet woman, who was worried about what this was doing to her loved ones.

But as I sat there, God spoke so sweetly to my spirit. I knew that life wasn't fair. It never has been and it never will be. Life isn't about fairness. Life is about Jesus. It's about living our lives for Him and His glory. It's about doing what God has called us to do. It's about a real and personal relationship with our God.

Death isn't the end. It is the beginning. It is the start of an eternity with an Almighty God. For those who are the children of God, death is victory.

"Precious in the sight of the LORD

is the death of His saints"

(Psalm 116:15)

One day we will shed these old earthly bodies and we will  finally meet our Savior face-to-face. We will experience the true fullness of joy. We will see Him for who He really is and we will be worshiping our Lord like never before. We will worship in spirit and in truth. We will worship for all eternity.

Life isn't fair. But what we receive in death isn't either. We don't deserve the mercy and grace our God gives us. We don't deserve eternal life. But because of His great love for us, we inherit it when we become a child of the King.

"And God shall wipe away all tears from

their eyes; and there shall be no more

 death, neither sorrow, nor crying,

neither shall there be any more pain;

for the former things are passed away"

(Revelation 21:4)

Even though we have heartaches here on earth and even though we have to endure trials and sufferings, one day we will be with Jesus forever. We will leave this earthly lodging place and reach our final destination. And it will have all been worth it.

Oh, precious Lord, send your comforter to those who are hurting. Minister to their hearts and souls. Reveal yourself to them in a mighty and awesome way. Wrap them up in your sweet embrace and grant them peace.