Breakthrough

Do you ever feel like you have a breakthrough in a specific area of your life: diet, marriage, friendship, or spiritually? I do. I have breakthroughs in my marriage, in parenting or should I say disciplining, in my friendships, and even the occasional breakthrough in eating healthier (a.k.a. dieting, which doesn’t usually last for to long). Recently, though, I feel like I’ve had these “mountain top” experiences with God: having my time with Him everyday, pursuing relationship with him, and then I get distracted. I might get distracted by parenting, housework, or even church-work, and I forget. I forget what the mountain top felt like, and so quickly. I forget what He wants for me and the promises that He has given to me. The story He is unfolding before me is breathtaking and I just seem to check out. Kind of like reading a really incredible book and then just putting it down for several days and forgetting how captivating it was. Why do I forget so easily? I wish I could blame it on A.D.D. or something, but that just seems superficial.
The GOD of ALL creation who gave His ONE and ONLY son for me, who loves me beyond all that I could imagine, regardless of the fickle person I am, who has a plan for me (Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a HOPE and a future”), and I can’t get it together to show Him the adoration and praise that He so desperately desires from me with any kind of consistency. Seriously!!! I mean I love God, and desire a relationship with Him, but it has to go beyond just a desire to some serious action. It has to exceed church-work, praying, and time with God. Should those things be included…OF COURSE, but it needs to be deeper than that. The perspective needs to change. It needs to be a life lived in amazement of God’s grace and goodness in our lives. Take time and not miss the everyday gifts He sets out just for us . God has so much He wants to share with us if we would just take the time to listen and pay attention. My prayer is that I would give God the adoration and relationship that He so desperately desires to have with me.

The Lost Art of Hope

What happened to HOPE? When I was little I would hope for a new pair of roller-blades or for a friend to be able to come over and play. I would hope for my family to be okay after my mom miscarried 2 different times. I would hope that everything would be okay? I would play the silly game M.A.S.H. in hope that I would marry a cute boy by age 22, have 2 kids, a dog named “scruffy”, and live in a mansion. Even though those may seem silly now, I’ve lost part of that. I’ve lost the ability to look to the future with anticipation for what was to be. I’m not saying I have a doom and gloom perspective about life, just wrapped up in the duties and mundane everyday things. I live exhausted and frustrated at times. I’ve lost a sense of HOPE.

Now, Dictionary.com defines Hope as: to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence. Confidence, Faith, HOPE. I don’t feel like I have a very good grasp on those these days. Has my perspective on life become so jaded through my life experiences and just plain getting older? Why don’t I look at life with a more consistent perspective of Hope and Faith. Hope that my marriage will survive the staggering statistics of 50% failure rate or Hope that my children will see Jesus in a real way and learn to love and trust Him. Hope that I’m going to survive motherhood with all my hair and hope that I’m not always going to feel alone. My perspective most days is, let’s just make it though the day, but other days it can be, why isn’t my daughter listening to me, or, why can’t I keep up with the laundry, or even, why am I so frustrated. Honestly, I haven’t taken those things to God. I haven’t laid all of my frustrations and exasperation at His feet. I wasn’t made to carry the job of wife, mother, daughter, friend, and woman alone. God made me to need a relationship with Him, a relationship that if I go without will make me very lonely, frustrated, and burnt out. If I don’t lay my hopes and fears before Him and allow Him to take care of them I’m going to be very frustrated and always exhausted. Many times in the Bible He is declared to be the God of Hope. So why have I stopped hoping and just lived as if this was it? Always exhausted and wondering if there is more. Well, let me just say, THIS IS NOT ALL THERE IS. When we learn to live with a perspective of HOPE, even for an obedient child or for deeper relationships, a seed of Faith is born and God says that He can move mountains with just a mustard seed of Faith. So let’s hope for more and believe God for what He has in store for us.

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.