Monthly Archives: March 2015

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
    And who shall stand in his holy place?
 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
    who does not lift up his soul to what is false
    and does not swear deceitfully.
 He will receive blessing from the Lord
    and righteousness from the God of his salvation

Psalm 24:3-5

This has been a verse that a friend has shared with me and I look to it as an important verse to live by.   Do we want to know who can  be with the Lord and receive all of His blessings?  He tells us right here, those with CLEAN hands that do not do things with ulterior motives and those with PURE hearts.  “Well, my heart is pure.” You might be saying.  “I don’t have any evil motives in MY heart.”  Those were my words before as well.  I didn’t want to admit that my heart was NOT lined up with God.  I used excuses.  I blamed my husband.  I blamed my circumstances.  I blamed that I didn’t have enough time for such spiritual matters. Besides, I was a keeper at home.  I wasn’t to look to those “other women” who invested time in seeking spiritual matters.  That was for my head, my husband to do.  Mine was to be submissive, read my bible, and train my children.  I didn’t need to have God’s anointing, His Holy Spirit.  Those were just “spiritual” words that bible people threw around.

“God knows my heart, and my intentions.” I would say.  “He knows what I want out of life.”  But I was not taking the time to find out what God wanted for my life.  I was just going through the motions.  I was going to church, doing my duties faithful.  I would come home and TRY and have a peaceful week.  I might “have a moment” a few times a week.  I might talk with my friends and “complain” about my marriage or my children.  But just excuse it away and not do anything about it.  Sure my heart was pure, I had all the right intentions.  I just wanted everyone to line up with what I thought was good and then life would be perfect.  Right???

Wrong!!!!

We cannot expect to have a pure heart if we are not knitting our own hearts with God.

It all begins with accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior.  I assume that you have done that.  Now, I have learned that you can do just that, attend some ladies bible studies, read your bible, and pray and it makes you comfy.  You can along and be good to people, donate your time to worthy causes, and feel good about yourself.  That sounded good to me from my switch from being a heathen to become a believer in Christ.    But there is so much more.

I would read my bible many times  and it seemed that the words would get lost and all jumbled.  Sometimes they were hard to understand, sometimes I would even fall asleep!!!  I know so bad, but I did.  I read numerous books.  All self help, homemaking, Christian mom books that talked of being submissive and loving the Lord, fulfilling your purpose, and they helped.  It seemed that I was getting more of my help in life through books then from the word of God.

Books are great help, especially when you are struggling with a particular thing.  But what I am saying is that the Word of God is supposed to be our number one self help book.  All that we need is wrapped up in it.  We just need to take it, read it, mediate it, and learn from it.

I had to make a change.  I had decided that I wanted MORE out of life. Sure, I was a stay at home Mom of 10 children. All I did was change diapers all day long, make meals for a large family, and occasionally talk with the few friends I had.  There wasn’t much excitement going on in my life.  I wasn’t making a big impact on others, or so I thought.    I was happy, but I felt like I was missing more.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Matthew 5:8

I wanted to experience those feelings from God that could bring about a contentment and a peace in my life.  I would see other women that were living a life full of zeal and joy in God.  Sure they were older, they weren’t changing three children’s diapers every day,  and they had much more time then I did to focus on seminars and services, etc.  But something inside of me wanted that.  I know we were both at different places and seasons in life, but why must I have the “boring” part while they experienced such great anointing, power, and experiences from the Holy Spirit?

Then it started…………

All I had to do was seek it.  I had to start reading the word of God everyday.  I had to mediate on God’s word.  I had to pray and ask what I needed to work on.  I had to ask God to reveal my sins.  Things that were holding me back.  Now, I thought I was a good person (smile).  Don’t we all.  Then God started showing me things that I didn’t even realize I was doing wrong.  Imagine that.

I was a controller.  I liked to manipulate my husband.  After all, it was what God wanted.  No, it was what I wanted.  I had to give up control and let God work things out.  I had to learn to humble myself, suck in the lower lip, and let God do what I couldn’t do.

 John 15:7

I had to change my thoughts.  I had to get rid of any toxic thought in my brain.  Any negativity at all.  I had to learn to take no offense.  Our pastor told me this once.  So nonchalantly, I asked God to help me on this. Well, he gave me the best person to learn this by, my husband.  Oh, how hard it is to not take offense at things your closest person in life has done to you?? He taught me how to have much patience and love instead of taking offense.  It is hard, but I am working continually on it.  But this has helped me hugely in life.  I think that if people didn’t take offense, it would be a whole lot better world that we live in.  More on why this is so important and how it hinders our walk with the Lord later.

If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

Psalm 66:18

I had to continually seek God.  Even though I was tired, I had to read God’s word.  I had to ask Him what He wanted me to learn from it.  It was better to get through one paragraph and get something out of it then skim through an entire chapter and get nothing from it.  Whatever time allows, just do something.  You can’t learn to have a heart knit with God, if you don’t read what He wrote for us.

Change

We have to change from what we know, to something new that we want to become.  We don’t want to just live .  We don’t want to be defeated.  We don’t want to walk around with the mentality that our life is crap and that we made mistakes and now we are paying for them.  Stop blaming the reaping and sowing effect!   God does not want us to stay that way.  He wants us to walk in victory, everyday.  There is no reason to walk around defeated.  We need to be content in our hearts and in our lives.  If something is unchangeable in your life and you have done everything in your power to try and fix it and can’t, then good.  That is when you have to let it go, and let God do a work.  He will.  But you need to detach yourself from it.  The more we hold onto something and try and manipulate it, then God cannot do His  work.

And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

Acts 15:9

Do you struggle with your husband? Leave it alone.  Do all that you can on your part. Have no flaws.  Don’t do things in anger.  Why do we treat complete strangers with more compassion and love then we do our own family?  We need to start looking at our immediate situation–the people in our home–and treat them as a ministry field.  Would you sass back to the homeless man on the street?  Would you yell in a moment of frustration to the ladies group at church? No, you wouldn’t. “But God I want more, I want more opportunity to serve others.”  Okay then start with your own home.  Start treating your family members as you would those that you want to minister to.  God sees what you do in private, He can’t give you a ministry field if you fail on one as simple as your own home.  It starts there, small and comfortable.  Then God can move you out of your comfort zone and into something even greater.  Home is the BEST place to minister to, but you can make a huge impact on others going through things that you yourself have overcome.

There are so many different preachers, churches, avenues of Christianity out there it is hard to find where to be.  We have attended numerous different styles of churches.   In the beginning, we went to the “feel good, beginner church.”  The one where you got saved, they didn’t preach condemnation, and just taught you to be a good person.  Or so you thought. Sins go beyond the obvious— of murder, stealing, and addiction.  They dig deep into our thoughts, motives, and what is in our heart.

 2 Timothy 3:5

Then we went to a more spirit filled group.  This one taught about living your life with God and the Holy Spirit guiding your life.  They show much about getting the sin out of your life.  They direct you to scripture that says why your prayers go unanswered and how we need to be walking with love in our hearts.  If our hearts our knit with God then only love can flow from it.  God will flow from it.  The Holy Spirit can flow through your life, directing you what to do and say.  Then God’s work are manifested and we can give Him the glory.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

You also have your positive self-help groups.  They focus solely on being happy.  Living a life undefeated.  Walking in God’s blessing, his anointing, abundant living, and  financial blessings.

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

John 15:7

So we have heard them all.  Some people shut out and shy away from certain groups, because they think they are evil and teaching the wrong things.  Maybe so.  But I think that we can ask God for discernment and guidance.  I think that ALL of these situations we can take and learn from and implement in our own lives.  I know that in my own life.  God put me in different places so that I could grow. If he would have put me in my current church when I was first saved, I might have thought they were crazy.  He had to mold me and shape me as He wanted me to be.  He had to show me the wrongs and what to avoid, and also what to take with me for the next step in my life.  All of it helps mold me as a person to be used by God effectively.  I can take what I have learned from the different types of groups and use them in my current situation.  Everyone has flaws, unfortunately even in our churches.  We need to pray for a heart that is knit with God.

When we were attending one of the churches and trying to “fit” into it, I was struggling.  Why was it so hard to conform a way that I was not feeling comfortable in? I reached out to a friend whom I met in that church, looking for wisdom.  I wanted answers of what to do.  My friend said, “Amy, I don’t know what God has planned for your life, all I can do is pray for you.  Pray for the Lord’s leading in your life and that you would be obedient to Him.” That is the ONLY line I remember from her letter.  “THE LORD’S LEADING”  and “OBEDIENCE”  It is all about Him, not us!  It isn’t for us to conform to a certain standard, it is about where He wants to use us.

When our hearts are knit with God, then our lives will reflect Him.  No matter where God has us, we can be a light in the world.  There are all types of people in the world, God will speak to them in the place they are in.  But it starts with us as believers to have our hearts knit to Him so that we can do whatever His will is.  Stop trying to fit into a certain group, start fitting into God’s word.

All this begins with studying the ONLY book that will get you to that point. The bible.  Take the time NOW and start reading a little each day.  Find a schedule that shows reading the bible in a year plan.  It will help you to stay focused on reading it every day.  If we don’t take the time because we don’t think we have it, then we are already deciding not to listen to God that day.  Expect things to go wrong, frustrations to mount, and woe is me to happen.  God knows what is coming today, He already planned it.  But he plans for you to take a few moment with Him to start it out.  If you worked at a job, you would want to find out what you are to do each day from your boss right??  God has us working each day as well, turn to Him for guidance and direction.

As a side note, especially if you are just starting out.  It may be difficult to read and understand any of it.  I know I was there.  I started grabbing bible studies and trying to learn from different people.  Those were good, yes, but they took away from what God spoke to me directly.  When I finally just started reading God’s word, consistently, I started seeing things.  It didn’t happen at first, I had to really focus.  I sometimes copied what I wrote and put in where I would read it each day.

Then I had to pray.  I asked for direction, for discernment, for understand of His word.  When I asked for things that I struggled with, it seems I got many opportunities to work on that!!!

Remember the devil would love nothing better than to keep you from this.  He will put distractions in your life.  He will try and come against you, especially if you are just starting out.  But guess what?  We have already WON the battle.  Satan is undefeated, he does not win.  Only God does, but we must join sides with Christ and let the devil know, you are not going to be manipulated by him.  Stand in times of trial.  Keep consistently at it, he will realize you are tougher than he thinks.

The ONLY way to get closer to God, to have our hearts knit with God is by spending time with him. You CANNOT cultivate a relationship with God by having a spiritual occurrence at church on Sunday, but do nothing with it after that.  God’s existence and power is real.  But it won’t keep manifesting in your life, if you don’t stay in the Word.  Pray, believe it, ask for guidance.  It is a constant thing.  You shouldn’t look to God only on Sunday or only when you need Him.  He should be in your heart ALL of the time.  Just as you may cherish your children or spouse more than anything else in this world, that is where God should be in your life.

part 3 renewing of your minds

This is the last in our series of decluttering our home.  If you want to buy the book, I go more in depth as far as decluttering and include areas such as seasonal items, diaper bag, purse, garage, yard, etc.  You can click here to buy it. 

Today we are doing the clothing!!!

Depending upon how your organize your clothes, you might have a dresser as well as a closet to store clothing into.  If you have a dresser, then start by emptying out drawers one at a time.  Wipe the insides out and let dry as you are sorting through clothes.  Throw away old, ripped, stained clothing.  Remember just because you are donating your items to someone,  it doesn’t mean that they need your trash.  Most people can afford to wear non stained clothing, don’t be rude and hand them stained or ripped items.  **Note if they use them for rags or have told you that they want them because they wear them under things that is different story.  Just be considerate.

If you or your child hasn’t worn the outfit in over a year, pass it along.  If it is too tight or small, donate it.  Fold like items together.  When ready to put them away, see if you have multiple items of the same thing.  You really don’t need 10 black t shirts.  Share the excess that you have with others.  Having less stuff will cut down on your time to take care of it.  This is especially true for children’ s clothing.  I find that with a large household, it is much easier to handle 5 outfits per child verses 10 or more outfits.  It takes up less space and is easier to put away.For our children, I make it easy and label each drawer as to what goes in.  We keep it simple.  One for pajamas, one for socks/underwear, and one for leggings.  Everything else gets hung up.

Move onto the closet.  Take all of the items out of here. I know it will be A LOT!!  Go through all of the items.  In my book, I share how we keep all of our children’s clothing mess down to a minimal amount.  It has saved on my sanity, as we have LOTS of laundry.  Much less, then we used to, but it is ONLY because I have stuck to my organizing principles.

I also have many tips about the master closet.  Tips for keeping those “fat clothes” and for those “one day” clothes.  (smile)  Go through all of the items.  Throw away any ripped, torn, or stained items.  I used to have many shirts that had stains all over the front.  It was impossible to keep my shirt clean, by the time I was running around all day, wiping noses, preparing food, touching greasy things–oh that would do it.  I finally got smart and bought some aprons.  I know sounds old fashioned. I got mine at Walmart and they are cute. I usually put one on each day, if I am going to be doing any type of cleaning or cooking.  Which is usually every day!!!  It has kept my need for purchasing more tops, erased!!! Look into them, inexpensive.

Then separate out the clothing that you haven’t worn in over a year.  If you are determined to lose weight to fit into those skinny clothing–THEN DO IT!! Don’t just hold onto it and never do anything.  Actually work towards losing the pounds.  It takes time and effort, but you can do it!!!  I recommend getting rid of the FAT clothes.  You are only tempted to return to your ways.  If you don’t have them, then as your skirts and pants get more snug, you will think more about stopping eating and starting exercising.    If you keep them because you are in the child-bearing years, put them in a container in a basement or storage area.  Don’t keep tons.  Be determined to lose the weight.  Not to let it stick around for years to come.

Then sort the clothing according to style.  Put your shirts all together, your long sleeve shirts all together.  Your dresses, nicer tops, etc.  You can then do an inventory of how many of each item that you have.  If you have too many, get rid of them.

As you are putting your clothing away, put them away in a pattern.  Put seasonal items, or fancy dresses towards the back.  Then put nicer tops, long sleeve tops, and t-shirts in that order.  I then sometimes, sort them according to color.  My daughter used to do the rainbow colors ROY G BIV .  But I usually only wear brown tones, so that doesn’t work for me.  If your closet is still stuffed, start by taking some of the items away.  You really cannot wear all of that clothing.  A person usually picks a few favorite outfits and wears them continually.  I know for my children, I used to think they needed tons, then I realized that I do laundry enough and they wear only 2-3 of their favorites.

Keep it simple.  Make it easier on yourself.  Don’t stress. Life is not about laundry and toys and having everything.  Make it about memories, ease, sanity(smile).

We have all seen the ads, the promises of a better body with this special diet or that special exercise program.  The pictures are promising.  Wouldn’t we ALL love to look like those models used in the print advertising?

So let’s say we joined in all of the hype and decided to make some changes to our diet and to our activity levels. At first it’s hard. Dieting and sweating are not two of my favorite things.  I like food, I like GOOD TASTING food.  I don’t like sweating.  There are soooooo many better things that I can think of that I would rather be doing than sweat.  But we do it.  Why?

We may be at that point in our life when we start looking at our children and realize that we need to be around for them for a long time.  For some, it may be due to medical reasons.  Maybe we are tired of feeling lethargic all of the time.  Maybe our bodies ache from carrying around too much weight.  Maybe we are tired of looking at ourselves in the mirror when naked.  Whatever the reason, we start something.

We begin and things start looking good. We start feeling better by drinking more water, and making better food choices.  We have more energy from exercising and that scale starts moving down.  That is when the excitement begins.  It is good to see physical results when we are aiming and striving to make changes in our life.

Then life happens and we stop doing all of those things that are good for us and we start reverting back to our old ways.  We start binge eating.  We trade exercise for computer and television time.  Those extra pounds seem to sneak back  onto our hips and butt.  We start to feel guilty.  We start to think that there isn’t any hope. You start telling yourself, ” I am just going to be fat.” You convince yourself that your children made your body this way.

And you settle…………..

Does this scenerio sound all too familiar?  I know for myself, this was an excuse I used many times over the years.  I weighed about 180 lbs for many years while having babies.  I used the excuse that having babies made me fat.  But that was a lie.  All of the food choices and my inability to choose to exercises is what made me fat. Making poor choices when I wanted to satisfy my self loathing self did nothing but make me feel poor physically.  I had to change and I did.  I worked at it consistently and have not reverted back.

But this series isn’t about our physical bodies, it is about something more important…….. our spiritual bodies.

I wish I had an image that would portray a Christian woman living life to the fullest potential.  One that was living in the supernatural blessings of the Lord.  One who lived a complete life of faith. One that did not take offense on things.  A woman who had the joy of the Lord very present in her life.   For myself, that is a woman that I want to strive to live like.

Unlike the worlds standards of having a total body makeover and the perfect looking body, Gods’ standards of having a total body makeover would include our lives portraying Him.

Instead of writing about changing our physical bodies, which is important, but this series is about changing our spiritual bodies  the MOST important.

Everything that we do should be a direct reflection of Him.  How do you determine whether you need a spiritual total body makeover?  Ask yourself these questions:

• How many of you are run down and tired most all of the time?
• When was the last time that you sat and read the Bible and did not fall asleep reading it?
• How many of you think that God seems just too far away?
• Do you feel like sometimes your prayers go unnoticed?
• Do you think that your friends seem to have it all when you just can’t seem to keep it together?
• Are you bogged down by your past?
• Do you have recurrent feelings of anxiety, fears, worries, and doubts?
• Do you let others dictate what type of mood you are going to be in for the day?
• Are you easily offended by comments made from your husband or friends?
• Do you feel like maybe you made a mistake by marrying the “wrong man” and want out?
• Do you sometimes spend hours or even days in bed with the “cloud of doom” hanging over top of you?
• When reading God’s word, do you ever feel like He isn’t speaking to you or that you just don’t get it?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions,  it’s time for a spiritual total body makeover.

This series will target the different parts of us that  need to be changed to fully walk in the anointing and power of the Lord:

• Give us pure hearts to be knit  with God
• Renew our minds to have the mindset of Christ
• Ears that learn to listen to God speaking to us.
• Give us clean hands that perform the will of God in love.
• Eyes that focus only on God and His will for our life.
• Feet that don’t hesitate when God says to do something.
• Mouth that speaks words of life into others.

Each week will include a new topic.  I pray that you will join in because you want a change in your life.  Stop settling for a second rate life.  God DOES NOT want you to live a life full of defeat.  We should be walking in the victory!!! That begins by walking in the anointing of God.  Want to learn how to do that?  Follow the series………..part 2

Today we will be tackling the bedrooms!! Skip any type of clothing areas, that will be for next week.

For most of us, this is probably a huge problem area.  Even for myself, I tend to throw things into the bedrooms because they are usually out of sight for me.  We are going to tackle this room just as we have the others.

Grab:

• your cleaning bucket with rag for wiping out the insides of things
• your trash bag for garbage
• your donate box
• your basket for delivering items to other areas

Start with one thing, and move around in a clockwise pattern around the room.  If it is your child’s room, it is best to do this room while they are asleep or gone.  I know that my children are apt to not allow me to throw anything away, especially if they have 10 art projects and 20 different rocks!

Choose a workspace and use that for sorting, the bed is a good flat area.  Start with a nightstand and take all items off of it.  Wipe the inside drawers out that way they can dry as you are sorting through your items.  Looking at your items, grab up the pieces of trash, receipts, empty bottles of lotion, etc and throw them away.  Next look and see if there is anything that does not belong in here and goes somewhere else, put that in your basket to deliver later.  Take each item and look quickly at it, deciding if you REALLY want to keep it or have not touched it for some time.  Donate those items right away.  The rest put neatly back on the nightstand.

Move clockwise to the next item.  A dresser perhaps.  Start by cleaning off the top of the dresser, removing items and then wiping it down.  Place hair items and miscellaneous things in the basket to deliver to other areas where they are kept.  Put away jewelry and any makeup.  Keep it minimal.  If it is a child’s room, how are they supposed to learn how to keep it clean if you have it so full of items that take too long to straighten each day?  Give them a few items and that is all.  Even if it looks bare, it will teach them how to straighten things.  This is a good rule for you as well.

Continue moving around the room, tackling the items.  If you have a bookshelf, start by going through all of those books.  Decide which ones are worthy of keeping and pass along the rest.  If you haven’t read them in years, get rid of them.

Clean out ALL of the nooks and crannies.  Oh, and don’t forget the areas under the bed!!

If you are in the children’s room, find a container to hold all of their toys into.  We like those plastic dish pans that you can buy from the Dollar Store.

They are sturdy—which is a requirement around here.  I give one to each of the little ones and then they are responsible for picking up their toys.  If cleaning up toys is taking a long time, or they don’t do it, maybe they have too many.  Fill just one small container and keep it in their room.

Take the rest of the toys and put them away.  Better yet, give them to someone else! But if you cannot depart, rotate them every couple of months.  Don’t stress your children out with tons of things to keep neat.  Keep it simple.

We have a couple of shelves that each child gets to display special things on. If they are older, it usually is neat.

One is by their beds and it holds a mirage of different items, depending upon the day. Sometimes the younger ones collect a vast amount of things at one time.

Here Jadyn was working on painting, so it holds her new creations.  I don’t  fuss and make this stay nice and neat.  I encourage them to keep it picked up.  But I am not freaky on making them keeping it perfect.

If your the youngest, it looks like this….with nothing but a stuffed animal.  (smile)

The other is part of a bookshelf. Each child gets one shelf on our bookshelf.  The older ones hold books, but the younger ones haven’t accumulated many yet so they look like this.  This is Brooklyn’s. Simple

Then I have Jadyn’s.  She is more of my saver and collector.  Likes to keep everything.  Just the other day, I had thrown out some cords that we no longer needed and guess what, the one time came that I needed a certain cord that I have never used before and I was like “OH!”.  I looked on Jadyn’s shelf and she kept the cord I  needed.  (smile)  It pays to have a child like that.

The younger ones get the body shelves and usually will set up a dollhouse on them.

I love to look at our shelves and I can tell right away which one of my children is more like me, the minimalist, and the ones more like my husband, the hoarder (smile.)

Finish off by wiping down the walls, dusting the corners, and wiping all of the furniture off.  Don’t forget windows, blinds, and curtains.  Vacuum the entire floor, this includes under the bed and under furniture.

Next week  we finish out with closets part 8!

Whenever we are to make hard boiled eggs, they seem to stick to the shells.  I have tried numerous ways to make “the perfect hardboiled egg” and I have only failed.  Yes, I can admit, I am a failure when it comes to making the smooth hard boiled kind. I am sure that I don’t pay attention to the exact times or I don’t wait for them to be completely cooled.  Well whatever the reason, I had to make some the other day for salads.  My daughter happened to come out and said, “let me try this Life Hack that I found for peeling eggs.”  I just smiled and thought, sure go ahead.  Well she did it and the shells came off with ease.  It was pretty neat.

Here is the video of her doing it: