... corrupt in nature.. Pride is the root of all evil....

just read a little booklet on humility...by Andrew Murray....

humbled I have shed tears, my heart has been stirred and I am yearning to live in humility every day of my life... depending solely on the Lord, knowing that I am nothing and all that is good in me is from the Lord, that I am a sinner, I have nothing to offer to Jesus .... all the days of my life I am committed to follow in His footsteps.....

 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

 Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

 rather, he made himself nothing

    by taking the very nature of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

 And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    by becoming obedient to death—

        even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:5-8

there is no way that I am able to live this way, only through the power of the Holy Spirit in me am I able to do this... realizing that only in my utter dependance on Him can I ever be stripped of the pride in me....

"Praise God! the work has been done, and finished and perfected forever. The death of Jesus, once and forever, is our death to self. And the ascension of Jesus, His entering once and for ever into the Holiest, has given us the Holy Spirit to communicate to us in power, and make our very own, the power of the death-life. As the soul, in the pursuit and practice of humility, follows in the steps of Jesus, its consciousness of the need of something more is awakened, its desire and hope is quickened, its faith is strengthened, and it learns to look up and claim and receive that true fullness of the Spirit of Jesus, which can daily maintain His death to self and sin in its full power, and make humility the all pervading spirit of our life."


on my journey to know Him more and lead a life pleasing to Him, through drawing near to Him daily, He has been working in me .... this next quote from the book by Andrew Murray resonates with me because this has become a reality for me.. Praise be to God!

"The presence of God becomes not a thing of times and seasons, but the covering under which the soul ever dwells, and its deep abasement before God becomes the holy place of His presence whence all its words and works proceed."

I know that only He through me, me being the empty vessel available for Him to use, is at work whenever there is fruit, whenever anything wholesome is said or done by me... I am so immensely thankful.... so humbled that He would love me so.... this is what Andrew Murray suggests we pray:

"..That of His great goodness He would make known to you, and take from your heart, every kind and form and degree of Pride, whether it be from evil spirits, or your own corrupt nature; and that He would awaken in you the deepest depth and truth of that Humility, which can make you capable of His light and Holy Spirit..."

... in our family portrait we look pretty happy.............

a long time ago.... I think it was 2006..... we got a family portrait done... I remember my children later comparing the lyrics of a song called " family portrait" to us.... it hurt, but it was true... some of it at least...

In our family portrait we look pretty happy 

We look pretty normal, let's go back to that 

In our family portrait we look pretty happy 

Let's play pretend, act like it goes naturally 

then, 3 years later.... this is what happened.........

In our family portrait we look pretty happy 

(Can we work it out? Can we be a family?) 

We look pretty normal, let's go back to that 

(I promise I'll be better, Daddy please don't

leave) 

Daddy don't leave 

Daddy don't leave 

Daddy don't leave 

Turn around please 

Remember that the night you left you took my

shining star? 

Daddy don't leave 

Daddy don't leave 

Daddy don't leave 

Don't leave us here alone 

desperate to "move on" and to create a "New Normal"....  in 2010 we had our first Family portrait done, missing one......  

   #1 in 2010                                                               #2 in 2011

  

# 3 in 2012

today, we had another... # 4 in 2013

before going to get our pictures done, this time, it was only my youngest daughter and I at home getting ready.... the typical "Family Photo shoot Melt Down" happened.....

each of the 4 times.. drama, tears and more drama and tears... finally, today, on our way to the farm, she told me why.... not only because she, being so many years younger always feels insecure and inadequate when she compares herself to her sisters.... but really, because she hates taking family portraits... because , and there it was, we are not a family anymore... I almost broke down and had to control my tears, after all, we were going to a family shoot, needed to look as pretty as possible...... but it totally broke my heart.....  almost 4 years after our family broke apart, the youngest member of the family finally verbalized her feelings.... praying that she will choose to go after what has been available to her and all of us all along... she knows about forgiveness and healing and where she can find it... praying that she will seek out the counselling that has helped some of us........ 

had a nice dinner after we were done and, at least this first "Sneak Peek" photo looks like this was a great photo shoot, smiles all around..... hearts broken, mended in some places, living the consequences... even today... in our family portrait.. we look pretty happy...............................

...despair???... but one thing remains

I love iTunes ... who wouldn't... it is perfect... all my music in one place, easy to make new playlists... on my iPhone and iPad those fav playlists go with me wherever I go..

just listening to my list "Cuddle time" .. it's when I spend my most favorite time of the day in my Daddy's presence..

woke up this morning, well rested, fell asleep at 9:30 last night after 24 hours of tremendous stress and woke up with a song on my mind...

Higher than the mountains that I face

Stronger than the power of the grave

Constant through the trial and the change

One thing… Remains

Your love never fails, never gives up

Never runs out on me

On and on and on and on it goes

It overwhelms and satisfies my soul

And I never, ever, have to be afraid

One thing remains

In death, In life, I’m confident and

covered by the power of Your great love

My debt is paid, there’s nothing that can

separate my heart from Your great love...

Your love never fails, never gives up

Never runs out on me

some huge roadblock, hurdle, test occurred, appeared from out of nowhere Thursday night, robbed my peace, my sleep, and my "timidly creeping out of the deepest crevices of my soul" hope - no surprise here- collapsed... despair took hold and the deceiver / hope stealer had some fun time with me.......

not nice... my day had been planned out ahead of time by my loving Daddy in heaven in such a way though that I received His ministry throughout the day by His people... grace and mercy communicated to me through trusted and even surprising channels... oh how GOOD He is my God...

so... peace regained, trust restored and the little "Hope-plant" ..... well, maybe slowly peeking up again... because His love never fails, it never gives up and it never runs out on me......... and you :) 

... focused on the needs of others..... #SoliDeoGloria

....Love patiently and passionately bears with others for as long as patience is needed; Love doesn't demand others to be like itself; rather it is so focused on the needs of others that it bends over backwards to become what others need it to be; Love is not ambitious, self-centred, or so consumed with itself that it never thinks of the needs or desires that others possess; Love doesn't go around talking about itself all the time, constantly exaggerating and embellishing the facts to make it look more important in the sight of others; Love does not behave in a prideful, arrogant, haughty, superior, snooty, snobbish, or clannish matter; Love is not rude and discourteous - Love always expects and anticipates the best in others; Love never quits, never surrenders, and never gives up, Love never disappoints, never fails and never lets anyone down......

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

taken from the Devotional "Sparkling Gems from the Greek" by Rick Renner...

such a high calling... and yet, how amazing if we all could love one another like that..

read 1 Timothy 1 :1-11 over the last week in my quiet time with my Father, and this is what jumped out at me:

The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 

 For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Galatians 5:5-6

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

1 Corinthians 13:1

seems like there is a theme her... duh... obviously there is.......

agape love, God's love for us, in order to serve Him well, we need to ask Him to refine us in such a way that we can love the same way... otherwise we will not be very effective... the goal is to advance the Lord's work, the Gospel... through love.... 

in the last 6 months of my marriage I made it a habit to pray those 4 verses ( the "regular, not the extended version) every day asking the Lord to help me love my husband this way....

I realize now that I need to love everyone this way.... like I said, a high calling, but I have the Helper by my side, or should I say inside me, He won't give up on me, but mercifully pick me up when I fail and urge me on to try again...... He will complete the good work He started in me... I am eternally thankful for that..... #SoliDeoGloria

.. my GPS is set to "God of Zion"....

How lovely is your dwelling place,

    Lord Almighty!

 My soul yearns, even faints,

    for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh cry out

    for the living God.

Psalm 84:1-2

my heart... sickened by hope deferred, cries out for the Living God... my soul yearns, even faints, to be in His courts, in the presence of the Lord... and so.... putting my strength in you.. in my heart I know I have to be on the pilgrimage to this place....

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,

    whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.

 As they pass through the Valley of Baka,

    they make it a place of springs;

    the autumn rains also cover it with pools.

 They go from strength to strength,

    till each appears before God in Zion.

Psalm 84: 5-7

the valley of Baka, the Valley of Weeping, dry, acrid and difficult to wander through, it nevertheless is an unavoidable part of the journey, the path to where we want to go, the way to the dwelling place of the Lord, leads right through it......

the road through the Valley of Tears can be a blessed journey... it will be a blessed road, when my strength is in the Lord and Him alone... my heart that cries out for Him, the heart that is sick because it seems that hope had to be deferred, it can take strength in the Lord and it can be blessed... my heart needs strength to hope, even when all seems black, strength to obey, strength to suffer.. strength to go through the painful times...

when I press forward in on this course I  shall find God adding grace to grace, (John 1:16) . I shall be changed from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18), from one degree of glorious grace to another, until, finally, I appear before God in Zion, to give glory to him and receive blessings from him. growing in grace I shall, at last, be perfect in glory. and it will be all by His strength...

if my heart is set on Him, He will also give me direction .."Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee;

in whose heart are the ways of them" ( Authorized King James Version ) ..guided and directed by the Lord... because, who knows the way better than He :) I will need to surrender FULLY to His leading and trust Him...

passing through the Valley of Weeping, I make God my fountain... as I pass through the Valley of Weeping, all the water I have is tears, there's no fountains, there's no pools, there's no oasis, but by faith  God becomes my fountain .....  the tears fill the pools and so through the pain God provides.. ha

eventually.. I will arrive at my destination... if the GPS in my heart was set to "God in Zion" the blessing is in the arriving in the presence of the Lord.... 

Whom have I in heaven but you?

    And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

 My flesh and my heart may fail,

    but God is the strength of my heart

    and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:25-26

rejoicing in the journey, praising Him, I will keep my GPS set on Him, and Him alone....

and this I choose to believe : 

Blessed are those who keep his statutes

    and seek him with all their heart—

Psalm 119:2

.. refining hurts... :(

it is a chilly morning in Minneapolis, Minnesota......  it was about 40F when I got here this morning at 7:30.... took a shuttle from Duluth, Mi which is across the St. Louis River from Superior, Wisconsin :)

chilly and dark and sad, this morning at 4:45 am, when I had to start my journey back home..
now that I am sitting here and the sun is shining on the window at my gate, the world looks a bit more inviting and brighter..


missed my girls and my puppies and it will be good to see them again.....

thinking of the last 4 days, my head and heart are spinning... so much to understand, learn, grasp and to trust Him for.. such blessing and deep things..  can't really describe it very well.....

I feel like He has been taking me on this new path, has been starting to work on a level a lot deeper than what He has been refining and shaping before.... unchartered waters, can be a bit scary and yet so wonderfully amazing...

just as I am writing this I received some information that took me a aback a little... if that's how you word it when you feel betrayed and hurt in some rather very vulnerable place..

this is why the whole " hopelessness" in this life, here just lingers... it seems it never ends.. it seems that this is what life will always be.. and it obviously is fine, pain is part of life in this broken world, where anyone, even your most trusted and closest people will cause you pain...

have been talking a lot about forgiveness... I guess I get to prove again that I mean what I say, when I say that it is just a matter of obedience, something that needs to be done because God tells us to, because Jesus did it first for us... how can we withhold it... this one came out of nowhere, and I am just shocked right now... accepting to live with the consequences of someone else's inconsideration... not sin, just something I didn't think would happen... I can get past it and giving it to the Lord is the best way to do that...

ok.. that was not what I had in mind when I started writing this..

bottom line is.. we are on a journey.. He loves us too much to not always be at work at refining us and transforming us into His likeness and the unfortunate truth is that most of the time this is painful...

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Colossians 3:12-14

I know... and I will forgive, before the sun goes down... just a bit numb at the moment.. God is still good and He is blessing me tremendously :) all the time

.. Hope deferred makes the heart sick.....

I lift my eyes up to the hills,

where does my help come from,

my help comes from the Lord,

the maker of Heaven and Earth.......

meditating on hope today, because like I found out .... deep inside a hopelessness exists which is detrimental to my health, my living for God, serving Him and being effective for Him..

this is one of the many scriptures a dear friend once gave me... and I needed to look at it again today... refresh my memory and pull this up again....

Show me your ways, O LORD, 
       

teach me your paths; 

guide me in your truth and teach me, 
       

for you are God my Savior, 
       

and my hope is in you all day long. 

Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love, 
      

for they are from of old. 

Remember not the sins of my youth 
       

and my rebellious ways; 
       

according to your love remember me, 
       

for you are good, O LORD. 

Good and upright is the LORD; 
       

therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. 

He guides the humble in what is right 
       

and teaches them his way. 

All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful 
       

for those who keep the demands of his covenant. 

my hope is in the Lord, my hope is in an eternity with Him, my hope is in Him finishing the work He has started in me, my hope is in Him giving me the strength and grace to deal with anything that comes my way, my hope is in His promises and the fact that He is faithful..

this hope results in rest for our souls, blessing, we will receive strength and courage, we will not be put to shame, we will be sustained, we will know God's delight, we won't be disappointed, faith and love will spring from this hope, we can endure, God will richly provide us with everything for our enjoyment, we will be greatly encouraged.....

how then, do we gain hope?

by choosing to remember God, and what He has done in the past, Praising Him for what He has done, we can ask for hope and He won't hold it back, knowing and trusting in His promises, knowing God's character, engaging and meditating on His Word, choosing to be joyful, enduring and being patient......

as I am writing this, all truths that are based on scriptures that tell us about hope, I am convicted again that at the bottom of my hopelessness, not in God and what He can do, but hopelessness in regards to me living the blessing out each day, is rooted in a distrust in God's goodness.... I was not aware that this is still going on, and even those that know me wouldn't think that.. and yet, it is true.. so I need to go to my God and confess that somehow I doubt His Goodness towards me in my daily life here.... just for me and my "human" desires.......  because if I don't do that... that's what will continue to happen:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12...

and there needs to be end to all this.. :)

My life is in You, Lord 

My strength is in You, Lord 

My hope is in You, Lord 

In You, it's in you 

I will praise You with all of my life 

I will praise You with all of my strength 

With all of my life 

With all of my strength 

All of my hope is in You! 

... love that never quits.....

" Love passionately bears with others for as long as patience is needed, love doesn't demand others to be like itself, but is so focused on the needs of others that it bends over backwards to become what others need it to be, Love is not ambitious, self-centered or so consumed with itself that it never thinks of the needs or desires others possess..."

recognize this?

it's from 1 Corinthians 13... and we all know it like this:

"Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy.."

got this "extended" version from a Devotional book called "Sparkling Gems from the Greek" by Rick Renner...

extended because it tries to include all that  the original greek words really stand for..........

in 1 Corinthians Paul calls us to love with an agape love, the highest level of love because it is selfless, it never quits, is more concerned about others, it loves and never gives up..
it is the love that God has for His children and why He even went that far as to send His only Son to die on the cross for us.......

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,  not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

 Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

 rather, he made himself nothing

    by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

 And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    by becoming obedient to death—

        even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:3-8

this kind of love is available to us, because once we died to sin we were filled with the Holy Spirit, this is what Romans 5: 2-5 tells us:

And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

God has already poured out His agape love to us... as we ask Him to love this way we will love more and more and more and we will never quit......

when going through the worst rejection and heartache in my marriage, God manifested this agape love in me through loving my husband more than I ever had before... I never gave up until he walked away for good...

I know it happens and we can do it.... how blessed am I to know this before entering into a new relationship, and how blessed am I that the one that God might have for me knows it too.....

All praises be to GOD!!!!!

... whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother.....

family obligations... honor your parents... childhood trauma .. healing... pleasing God not men....
love your neighbour like yourself...  "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers"... "Who are my mother and my brothers?” Jesus asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother."

so......... Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.....

not being liked for my stand in regards to certain family issues...
was wounded and trampled upon... then Jesus stepped in, and I found healing and purpose, I am now trying to live my life pleasing God, not men,
honoring my parents, being there for them, dealing with consequences of lives lived inconsiderately and selfishly by them..... how does that look, with my values so different than theirs... what will it mean?

doing good, my family of believers, my calling, my ministry, my children.... on the other side of the equation the ruins of lives driven by greed and narcissism... forgiveness yes, but to be pulled back into it all?????????

not sure, I have to admit.. loving my parents, and walking alongside them when sickness strikes, trying to share my hope with them and praying for them always.... those are no brainers...

"“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."

it's the truth, that's what it all comes down to.... so, who am I pleasing, who I am to please?
persecution to be expected... healthy boundaries needed... out of His love will I love them and minister to them, help them as much as I can, without losing focus, still having my eyes fixed on what life is all about......... a light in the darkness... by His strength only... exhausting and overwhelming it is.. no doubt..

getting where they are, since this is the truth too:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Oh Lord have mercy.