Great are You Lord – Music Monday

September 12, 20168 Comments

As I cross through the valley of the shadows you never leave me to cross alone.

You are by my side with each step,

holding me steady,

helping me make my way through the shadow days.

You are a lamp burning bright,

my guiding light that I must always keep in sight.

You are my strength,

my comfort,

the breath in my lungs.

The only way I can ever make it through is when I walk with you.

You are my refuge,

Great are You Lord.

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
²He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
³He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

⁴Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever. Psalm 23

Sing a Song

February 26, 2016Leave a comment

I heard this song on the radio this afternoon and suddenly my whole mood changed. I am pretty sure it was one of those God sending me the right song at the right moment kind of things and I soon found myself singing along.

Listen and I am pretty sure you will find yourself singing along too.

I want to sing a song for You, Lord
Lord, for You I want to sing a song
And I want to lift my voice to Heaven
And listen to the angels sing along

A song of Your faithfulness
A song of Your grace
And of Your loving kindness
To the glory of Your name

With everything that’s in me, Lord
Listen to me say
I want to sing a song for You
I want to sing a song

Words by: Third Day – Sing A Song Lyrics | MetroLyrics

God is faithful and good, and with everything thats in me, Lord, I want to sing a song 🙂

Have a wonderful weekend,

Sometimes All You Can Do is Praise the Lord

July 27, 2015Leave a comment

This post was originally posted on A Story By Me

I have had something deep on my mind for the past several weeks.

Over the past few days it has really came down to me having to make a decision and that decision was hinging on me deciding and knowing without a doubt what it was that God wanted me to do.

I have prayed about it and prayed about it but things seemed really complicated. I thought I knew without a doubt what God wanted me to do at the beginning of all this, but after a while things were not matching up and nothing seemed to be making any sense. I kept praying about it but I finally became frustrated because I just wanted God to just lay it all out nice and clear for me, but that did not seem to be happening.

As many of you know I am a church secretary. A lot of the time when I am working nobody is at the church except for me. So after I finished my work yesterday I decided to sit in the quiet of the sanctuary for a little while and pray.

As I was praying I was feeling frustrated about all the stuff whirling in my head so I said out loud, “God please tell me what is it you want me to do?!” As the words left my mouth, suddenly my eyes caught on a banner that is hanging on the wall in the front of the room….

Praise the Lord…. I went back to my praying… suddenly I saw the banner again… Praise the Lord!

Suddenly the thought occurred to me…. Praise the Lord? Really? Lord is that what you want me to do? Praise you?

No answer… just the banner again with the words now stuck in my head …Praise the Lord!

click here to continue reading -> Sometimes all you can do is Praise the Lord

Have a wonderful day,

Sometimes all you can do is Praise the Lord

July 17, 2015July 18, 201520 Comments

I have had something deep on my mind for the past several weeks.

Over the past few days it has really came down to me having to make a decision and that decision was hinging on me deciding and knowing without a doubt what it was that God wanted me to do.

Praise the Lord…. I went back to my praying… suddenly I saw the banner again… Praise the Lord!

Suddenly the thought occurred to me…. Praise the Lord? Really? Lord is that what you want me to do? Praise you?

No answer… just the banner again with the words now stuck in my head … Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord…

So I did. I started with praising him for allowing me to have this quiet place to sit in… I looked around and realized how thankful I am for my church and I began praising the Lord for how wonderfully he planted me in this place that has been perfect for me to grow and learn about him. As I praised him for my church I praised him for my job or I would not even have been sitting here in that sanctuary in the first place.

Praise the Lord…

I praised the Lord for his awesomeness in thinking of life, we have kids, grand kids and friends; and not only does he love us but he gave us people who love us and who we can love back… wow! Praise the Lord for his love.

The list kept growing…I can see, I can taste, I can hear, I can smell! How amazing is that when you really think about it? How many different smells, sounds, flavors, and sights are there in the world?? Praise the Lord for Nature, praise him for sunrises, sunsets, wind, rain, flowers, and birds.

Praise the Lord I can sit, I can stand, I can walk, I can breathe…. God is so good!

As I praised him and I suddenly realized a person could never ever run out of stuff to praise the Lord about … Seriously how awesome is that?! How awesome is He?!

The rest of the day it did not matter what I did, the words ‘praise the Lord‘ where etched in my mind. By the end of the day as I was going to bed… I praised the Lord for blessing me with a bed, a pillow, a cold drink of water. When I had trouble sleeping I was praising him for my husband snoring really LOUD beside me 🙂 I never really thought of that snoring as something to praise God about but man am I soooooo thankful that man sleeps beside me every night

When I woke up this morning once again the ‘what do you want me to do about this complicated stuff?’ question came back to my mind.

And when I arrived at work I went to work in the sanctuary once again. As I opened the sanctuary doors there was that banner….Praise the Lord…. “Seriously God, is that really all you can tell me of what you want me to do?” I knew the answer.

So I Praised the Lord. As the day went on I praised him about the Good stuff and I even praised him when there was a lot of not so good stuff.

I still did not have an answer to my dilemma but late this afternoon. After praising the Lord most of the day the thought dawned on me, God has blessed me with so so much, maybe instead of stressing about what he is planning for my life I should just be praising him for all that he does in my life and just let him take care of the the planning?

Oddly shortly after I realized that everything I had been worrying about for weeks suddenly all just came right together as peace washed over me. I can’t explain it but I will take it.

God just amazes me all the time!

Praise the Lord!

I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever. ~ Psalm 86:12

Your Splendor

May 12, 2015May 12, 201511 Comments

Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by where God has been leading me and I find myself asking, why would God use me when I feel like I have so little to give?

The words in this ~~song~~ prayer moved me today.

With my roots deep in you, I’ll grow the branch that bears the fruit. and though I’m small I’ll be standing in the storm. ‘Cause I’m planted by the river, by your streams of living water. And I’ll grow up strong and beautiful, all for your splendor, Lord. ~ Christy Nockels

A gentle reminder of where my strength comes from and just how big my God is.

Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done. Colossians 2:7 NLT

And I’ll grow up strong and beautiful, all for your splendor, Lord.

Cleansing and Forever Healing Rain

October 27, 2014October 27, 201415 Comments

The day I met you I was broken and burdened

Running away, chains of yesterday’s past tangled tightly around me

Weights of shame and pain sinking me to the bottom of a pit of self-destruction

Ashamed of my past

Ashamed of who I’d become

So tired of running

So tired of the pain

And then I heard you whisper my name

When you whispered my name I was afraid to lift my eyes to you

Afraid of what you would see, if you looked on my face

so full of shame, I knew I didn’t deserve your grace

Burdens I had tried to bury deep years ago were festering like poison, decaying my heart

I was such a mess, but your arms were still open wide

Could this be a place of rest for my heart so broken?

Softly you spoke…

“Just come as you are there’s no need to hide”

“Lay your past at my feet it’s not yours to keep”

“If you open your heart and let me inside I’ll show you a love and a life like you’ve never known’

How could this be? Why would you love someone like me?

“I have always loved you,” were the next words I heard spoken

“Fix your eyes on me and don’t ever look back”

Deep pain hidden within the pockets of my memories of yesterday came flowing forth in torrents as hope fell like rain showering down on me.

Washing away stains of my past

Things I thought were forever branded were washed away

Burdens lifting as my newly clean hands lifted upwards to you

Grasping on to all you had to offer

Laying down my burden and shame

Sorrows of yesterday washed away

by your cleansing and forever healing rain

#write31days

Lord Send Me

October 25, 2014November 7, 201414 Comments

My prayer….Here’s my heart served up for you. Take it Lord and do what you want with it.

So he gives me hurting and broken people.

How do I help the broken people? The alone people? The lost? Sometimes I feel so inadequate or I tell myself things like my job or my family come first. Families and jobs are important but that also depends on the circumstances of which thing is God sending me to do at the moment. Sometimes I wonder if I am a hypocrite? I wonder do I sometimes want from others what I can’t give of myself?

She was broken and felt so alone. She knew Jesus and she knew he was there yet today things were really messed up in her life. Things were spinning out of control and she was spiraling down the pit of despair and for some reason she just couldn’t feel him as close as he used to feel. She reached out to people, but they had things going on in their lives and they were too busy to notice and those who did notice her pain didn’t know what to do, so they just avoided what was staring them right in the face. Many knew she had Jesus and told themselves that she knew where to turn.

And the truth is Jesus IS…always here and he is where she needed to turn.

We tell ourselves that Jesus is always with them, and that we are not him and that they need to turn to him not us.

We may even say that to them ….

Because we tell them what we know. We may tell them they’re not alone that they always have Jesus but isn’t it our job to show Jesus to them? Who are his hands? Who is supposed to shine his light? Doesn’t he do his work through us?

We ask God to send us and yet when he puts someone right in front of us instead of being there we have other things to do. So many things are blocking the way… so we say we will pray.

We pray he will help them. We pray he will show them that they are not alone….

Could it be he sent us in answer to that prayer? Did we give back to God what he gave us to do?

Maybe we are supposed to be the one to show them the hope. To take the time and show them the love of God.

Here I am Lord send me….

And when you send me please help me to see.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” Isaiah 6:8

#write31days

You are My Lamp

October 23, 2014October 23, 20144 Comments

You, Lord, are my lamp; The Lord turns my darkness into light. 2 Samuel 22:29

I was standing outside my church when I took this picture. I did not realize until later that the cross on top of the church steeple was in the picture. 🙂

#write31days

For the Hard Days and Every Day

October 16, 2014October 16, 20142 Comments

The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace. Psalm 29:11

He will give you the strength and the peace you need today and every day.

Blessings,

#write31days

Leaving Panic Behind Under Palapa #39

September 2, 2014September 2, 201417 Comments

Psalm 27:13-14 I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

I sit here in awe of the beauty and the spender.

White clouds of cotton floating over deep blue water

A sea gull crying while gliding softly, wings open, floating on the breeze

Your breath blowing softly in my ear whispering words of peace, “do not fear, I am here”

People from all over the world speaking different languages their voices mixed together like music.

The laughter of children playing,

Lovers kissing,

A man selling his wares as plane flies over,

Jet skiers,

Parasail’s drift weightlessly above waves lapping at white sand.

I see your face in this place

When I close my eyes I still see you.

Images forever snapped from the camera of my mind.

A few years ago I had a blood clot in my right eye and lost some of my vision in that eye. At one point almost all of my vision in the eye was gone but God gave me a miracle and healed most of my central vision back though I do have only about half the vision in that eye. I never really notice it unless I close my good eye.

About a year ago I started to see flashes of light in my other eye and gradually over the past year my vision has been having all sorts of odd things happen. I also started to have a bigger blind spot in my other eye and a constant flicker. According to my retina specialist all of this is do to the vitreous gel pulling on my retina. My doctor tells me that what is am seeing is the light reflecting off the gel. Over the past year I have had all sorts of odd things happen in my vision and it seems as if my vision has been getting worse and worse as we wait for the gel to finish pulling lose from my retina.

This past week my husband and I were in Mexico and the second day there I was noticing that I could not really take the bright sunlight a whole lot and my eyes seemed different. A little while later I was reading a book and I realized I was having trouble focusing on the words. It was as if they were jumbled or not clear after a while I closed my right eye and realized that with my left eye the letters in the center of every word was missing. Then I realized that anything I looked at seemed to have a small missing place right in the center. Needless to say I went into a panic I already have an eye which is half blind and now my good eye is missing the center!

Of all the things that have happened to me in my life, vision loss has to be about the scariest thing I have ever been through. Right after this discovery of the missing vision I went into a panic, I was on the beach with my husband, sitting there with my journal and my Bible and just could not bear to open my eyes to read, write or look at the beauty around me. It was like the blind spot in my eye was the only thing I could see. It is very hard to not think about something when it is right there in front of your eyes.

A little while later my husband went and joined a ping pong tournament leaving me alone on the beach. For the longest time I just lay there with my eyes closed, begging God to make this blind spot go away. After a while the sound of the ocean and the people around me started creeping in to my brain it seemed to relax me a bit and then I heard a voice say “open your eyes!” As I heard that voice I knew it was God, I was like “um no I can’t bear to look,” but he kept insisting I look so I finally reluctantly opened my eyes. There before me was the bluest water I have ever seen in my life. There was a storm off in the distance and the clouds were hanging low over the ocean, it had to be just about one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. As I sat there looking at the painting before me I realized that the blind spot does not show so much when I am looking at scenery unless I blink.

Shortly after that I grabbed my journal and managed to write a few things down without looking to closely at the page as I wrote. What I wrote was what you read at the beginning of this post and also yesterday’s post. God still amazes me how he manages to pull me back time and time again to realize that no matter what is going on it really will be okay. The rest of the day was a good day, my husband came back from ping pong and by then I was in a new frame of mind. We went for a short walk down the beach and watched the storm come in and then we sat under the palapa in the rain laughing as everyone else left the beach…Question…. if you have your swimming suit on why not just stay out in the rain?.. 😀 Later the sun came back out and we went for a swim and the rest of our evening was really great.

I seemed to be in great peace the next day and until we came home Overall I think we both had a great trip. Once we got home I seemed to have peace until this morning when I realized my eye is getting worse. When I woke up this morning I was so upset I decided I was going to stay in bed with my eyes closed because I could not bear to be seeing what is missing in my vision. I had the television on and there was a preacher speaking, I was not really paying much attention but all the sudden I heard him say, “The only way to be delivered is to get your eyes off yourself and keep them on Jesus.” At that moment I realized that I was laying there panicking worrying about something I have no control over. About that same time a friend of mine who is very very sick with cancer sent me a text, I spent some time with her and oddly I was able to talk to her without thinking to much about my eye. After that my mother called and said she and my dad were close to my house and wanted to come over, and two minutes later my son called saying he was coming over. I ended up spending the morning happily with my family. Today was a great day. I know God sent me those people in my time of need to distract me. No more panic and I truly am at peace about whatever happens. I can not say that I like it, but really I am sure it will all work out in some sort of good way. It always does.

My doctor seems to think I have a macular hole which she says if fixable. I am seeing her on Wednesday to get the for sure diagnosis. Until then all I can do is wait. I think I may be getting pretty good at that.