Do not be discouraged

Just to reiterate my post a few weeks ago about being CrAzY busy....I must mention before actually posting this that it was started on the 19th of April!! I love to write but WHERE is the time!!  :)

Have you ever been so excited about something and then when your least expecting it things take a turn and you find yourself feeling discouraged?  This happens a lot in our faith.  It can happen for different reasons.  Sometimes it is something called Spiritual warfare and sometimes it is simply God changing your course toward something different.  With prayer and careful discernment of a situation it can be easy to tell the difference.  Either way God is good, He knows what He is doing, and we can trust Him!  God's will always prevails and we must not allow the enemy and his lies discourage us.
A few days ago I posted some pictures on here of green sprouts that were starting to peek out in my yard. I talked about how encouraged I was by the fact that during this hard cold winter full of deadness these little shoots were coming up and showing new life.  God was working even when I could not see Him, and the new green leaves popping out were signs of His Goodness coming through. But check out these pictures taken just a few days later! 

Even in those times when we can not physically "see" what God is doing we have to trust him. The enemy is always out to try to distract us from seeing and trusting God's good work.  Don't let him win the battle. God always has the victory and nothing can stop His good work....not even an April 18th snow storm!  I trust that He STILL has plans to bring up pretty flowers underneath that snow, and we can trust that He still plans good for us even when we can't see what it is He is doing. 

..in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8: 37-39

He's always working

I remember when we bought this house the lady that owned it before us told me a whole list of things that were planted in the yard that would come up in the Spring.  I had forgotten about it until just this weekend when I began to see some of the little green shoots peeking out of the ground ALL over the yard, around the trees and in the flower beds.  It is kind of exciting seeing and knowing that something beautiful is coming but not really knowing what.
God is constantly at work in our lives in this same way.  We don't always know what God is up to but we do know that what ever God is doing it is going to be good and beautiful. I am so thankful that He wants to make me righteous, holy, and good just like Himself.  I know that in order to achieve this He is constantly working in my life and in my heart.  I think sometimes we can begin to feel a little stagnant. Maybe not "seeing" God working or what it is He is doing in our lives at the very moment.  Maybe just like I have been writing about, we are in a "waiting" time. But just like those flowers in my yard, God is still working. 

I haven't really "seen" anything going on in the yard or in those flower beds, but obviously something has been at work or those little green shoots wouldn't be peeking out right now.  I am not always sure what God is up to, but I do know that we can find encouragement in the fact that God is always working!  I am looking forward to seeing what will come out of those flowers in the yard, and I am looking forward to seeing what God is working on in my heart right now.  Even if I don't really "see" a whole lot going on at the moment.

Waiting on the Lord

As I thought more about waiting over the past few days I asked myself "what am I waiting for?" It seems like we are all always "waiting" on something. We always have a hope in something. Some people are waiting on that new job offer, some on that new baby, a husband, a vacation, for us military people....that next assignment. Seems like the next "thing" is what we are always waiting on. Sometimes we get so focused on the thing that we're waiting on that we forget to live right now. We find ourselves always waiting on the "next thing" instead of being content with that which has already been given to us. We are waiting for that pay raise...instead of being thankful and praising God for the money that he provides for us right now. We are waiting on that next phase of baby-hood so much that we miss the joy of the phase they're in now. I was guilty of this many times with my first baby. I found my self always saying things like "I can't wait until she can...." Sometimes saying "I can't wait until .." means we are not content with where we are right now. Waiting is hard when we know what we are waiting for. It is even harder when we don't even know what it is we are waiting for. Those are times when God calls us to be content right where He has us. Not looking for the next best thing. Contentment..... I am praying for God to teach it to me. Am I content just waiting on Him and Him alone? Or am I always striving for that next best thing? And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you. Psalm 39:7 But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; Micah 7:7

Happy to Wait

I am girl who loves loves the sun and summer. Most of my life I have lived in pretty warm places. Places ranging from Puerto Rico where I went to High School, New Mexico, Charleston, SC, even the Sun Shine State which I called home for the past 2 years, but this year I spent my first winter up north in Michigan. The experience kind of reminded me of being pregnant. The first few months were fun and exciting. The new clothes are fun to buy. I enjoyed the snow covered trees and houses. We enjoyed warm soup and hot fires. But right about February the fun and newness was starting to wear off! Christmas was over and the nostalgia of all this snow, ice and cold was fizzle off fast! My new clothes and boots that were so cute and exciting to wear in September and October wear getting old and I was so sick of my winter coat, hat and gloves that if I could I would love to throw them into the nearest bonfire! If you have ever been pregnant you will remember this same feeling about your maternity clothes about the 9th month of your pregnancy!! Well here it is the end of March and while I know Spring is right around the corner it is still 19* outside today and I feel like I have been waiting FOREVER!! One thing I did realize today though is that in all the warm places I have lived all my life, I have never looked SO forward to spring as I did THIS year. This will be one of the most exciting, heavily anticipated Springs I have ever experienced! It's funny how the things we have to wait for always are so much more appreciated than the things that come to us easily or quickly. Just ask any mother that has struggled through infertility and after many many years finally conceives that first baby. One thing that came clear to me today as I thought about the upcoming Spring is that while it seems to be a long time coming, it has already been promised to us. We know it is coming, but just like the saying goes "good things come to those who wait" ...everything that comes from God IS good, so we know that the more more He has us to wait the better whatever He has for us must be. Waiting means God is working! That makes me happy to wait. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. Lamentations 3:25

No time for anything!

I noticed my last my post was called "no time for that lie".....today I realized I have no time for anything! !! My goodness.... weeks goes by so quickly and where does it go? The older my kids get the less time I seem to have. For some reason I thought it would be the opposite!! As busy as my life is, I pray that God will help me to see His goodness and show His love even in the chaos of this season of my life. So grateful to serve my husband and my children in love, as hard as that may be sometimes. That reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my very best friends just a few days ago. We have been trying to plan to see each other for months. We had looked into a Lake House in Holland Michigan that belongs to one of her family members. The idea of a girls getaway had us both giddy with excitement. As we tried to put the whole thing together one obstacle after another kept coming up. Her husband is in school in the DC area and mine is at the brink of major career and life changes. Between home school conventions, spring break, husbands work and school schedules.....this girls getaway began to get more and more impossible. We both fell into the temptation of frustration and discouragement. As much as we wanted this time together, and actually felt deserving of it for that matter, we also came to the conclusion that this was not God's time. As hard as it was to accept, this time was a time for us to serve our husbands and our children. Sacrificing that which we both so badly desired. Our Lord sacrificed every thing for us...unto death He gave of himself. Why is it so hard for me to do the same? This is something I am still still seeking to understand, but for now I am being obedient and trusting that God has a perfect time. For now we will serve with joyful hearts! He will tell us when the perfect time is to see my sweet friend. There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven~ Ecclesiastes 3:1

No time for that lie

When I first started this blog I was starting it with a friend who too was starting one. Following in her idea I started out trying to share each day something God was teaching me spiritually as I sought to do just as my blog is named....Seek Him First. Sometime in the last few days as I sat trying to think about what to post I let the enemy feed a little lie to me. A lie that made me wonder for a moment if I really ever had anything of Spiritual importance to write anymore. Great things used to just come to me, but for some reason with four kids (consisting of a teenager, a tween, an elementary schooler and preschooler!) and a husband.....my life has seemed almost so overwhelming sometimes that I barely have time to think about what to make for dinner better yet what God has taught me today. So what the enemy wanted me to think is that God isn't teaching me anything....I don't have the TIME for Him to teach me anything. Well I know that just simply isn't true. As I was in a rush making dinner tonight I realized that there were 5 minutes left on the kitchen timer before my food was due out of the oven. As most nights are in this house we had a lot going on this evening and dinner could not be late. Everything was ready to go so with 5 minutes on the timer I wondered in my head what I could do with this spare 5 minutes....facebook...e-mail....then God prodded....I could pray. I walked in the office sat on the chair and gave the Lord 5 minutes of prayer. Even when that timer went off I pulled out dinner to cool and went back for 5 minutes more. ;) What I learned during this 10 minutes of prayer is that the only thing I don't have time for is the enemies lies. Yes, my life is crazy, yes my life is busy, but even in all the rushed wild craziness the Lord is teaching me things every single day. And as I continue to Seek Him First, He will continue to teach me and show me all that He wants me to know.

Don't fall for the Phish Food!

My husband and I started a little "healthy eating" plan together after Valentines Day. We were doing so well and then out of the blue my husband looses his mind Friday night and comes home with a pint of my very favorite ice cream...Ben and Jerry's Phish Food! I was so mad at him but at the same time didn't take it upon myself to do anything about it other than sit on the couch over the coarse of the last 2 nights and eat the whole container! Last night as I finished it off I thew the container in the trash. This morning as I came into the kitchen before my early morning work out I pulled the container back out of the trash to see just how many calories I had to make up for this morning after sabotaging my "healthy eating" plan over the weekend. That entire container of Ben and Jerry's Phish food had a total of 1400 calories!! I was so mad at myself for sabotaging my weekend eating that I got on my treadmill with the intention of working out as hard as I could and seeing how close i could get to depleting that 1400 calorie deficit. I was on that treadmill for 45 minutes about to kill myself doing intervals sometimes so hard that they would have had me flying across the basement if I had mis-stepped on that belt going faster than the speed of light. I was sweating like never before and in the end as I looked at the calories burned on the display it showed that I had burned a whole whopping 434 calories. Almost 1,000 more to go! Good grief I'll NEVER make it! That darn ice cream tasted so good at the time, but the after effects are nearing impossible to make up for! It was at that moment that I realized that sin is just like that. Sin always seems good at the time but the after effects make you realize that it really wasn't worth it at all. That is what makes our savior so great. He doesn't require us to "burn" off all that sin. If He did we would be hopeless. There would be no way we could ever work out enough to make up for all the sin in our life. Instead, He just wipes it away! Free! Without any "work out" from us. Oh how grateful I am for that. So as with my Ben and Jerry's when we mess up, all we can do is throw out the empty container....give it to Him, start over, and allow Him to help us make a better choice next time! if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 1John 1:7