Tuesday, February 27, 2007

"Mama"

From this very moment captured on film, I longed to hear those words out of the mouth of the one who made me a Mama. For months, I felt a disconnect to my child, as if my role of Mama was not significant to her. After all you read, and all you know, the Mama is the most significant of all. So when my little social, independent baby did not seem to prefer me, Satan had a field day in my mind. But after much encouragement, prayer and simply pressing forward, my baby has become a little girl...and that little girl and I have become the best of friends. With an inherited flair for the dramatics, her THRILL of things makes life so fun. Like when she walks around the kitchen island, only to catch me in her sight again and squeals "MAMA!" running to my arms. Like when I leave the room when she is happily watching Veggie Tales and she glances up, smiles sweetly and says "bye, bye Mama." Or even yesterday, watching her exert her will (and break my heart) after having to come inside after hours of play as she sobbed "nononononononono! Mama." That simple name holds such delight to me. It is truly incredible when your baby puts the noblest name, of all that have gone before you, to your face. It changes everything.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Blessing

I was driving home from Bible Study Sunday night, and a song came on the radio I had never heard. Leaving such a warm, sweet night of fellowship, I listened with tears streaming down my face, thanking the Lord for such great things in my life.
A week ago this past Sunday night, Bobby and I reached a turning point in our marriage. I have vowed authenticity and I believe one area of our lives that Satan wins most often is in marriages, so I am sharing with you a sweet victory. So many Christians painted a picture of marriage before me of a relationship that was so flawless that when mine seemed horribly flawed from the beginning, I felt alone. Marriage, most people will say, is the hardest relationship a human forges. It certainly was for us. Satan had won in so many areas, and on Sunday night, as we were in bed fuming over a fight, the sweet Holy Spirit poured in our room, diffused our anger, and opened our hearts to one another, perhaps for the first time. These past 10 days have been like the honeymoon stage we never experienced. Imagine that....1 child, 2 dogs, a mortgage and countless fights later, we are resting in the place God intended after we said "I do..."
One of the sentences in our vows was "I accept you as God's perfect gift for me." How rare is it that we actually do that? I mean really accept one another? I know there are areas of sin that our spouses will see most...and we do need to change those things but what about the things that bug us that are fundamentally them?
One of the things we did during our talk was say the things about ourselves that we were most proud of....how sad that we begin to only see the things in each other worthy of criticism rather than praise. So we made a promise to one another to "think on these things..." rather than dwell in the places of annoyance and selfishness.
So here is the song....it is by a new artist named John Waller. I am anxiously awaiting the release of his first cd (March 6th) but here is the lyrics and what he says of the song....quite appropriate in my life don't you think?
I never realized the incredible power of the spoken word until I read “Your Best Life Now” by Joel Osteen. I used to speak all kind of curses and negative self-fulfilling prophesies over my life. Not only our words, but our thoughts have tremendous power over us. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he..”psalm 23:7(NKJ). If we think thoughts of depression, we will be depressed. If we think or say we’re a failure, we will gravitate towards that. We must fill ourselves with the word of God, and then practice speaking it. He has set life and death, blessings and curses before us. It is our choice with every thought, word and deed to BE a blessing or a curse. “..now choose life that you and your children might live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.THE BLESSING (Deuteronomy 30:19) J.Waller & Troy Denning
Let it be said of us / while we walked among the living / let it be said of us / by the ones we leave behind / let it be said of us / that we lived to be a blessing for life / let it be said of us / that we gave to reach the dying / let it be said of us / by the fruit we leave behind / let it be said of us that our legacy is blessing for life / this day / you set life, you set death right before us, this day / every blessing and curse is a choice now / and we will / choose to be a blessing for life / let it be said of us / that our hearts belonged to Jesus / let it be said of us / that we spoke the words of life / let it be said of us / that our heritage is blessing for life /chorus/ for your Kingdom / for our Children / for the sake of every nation
You can listen to the song here
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