Brandon Heath - Stolen

Mike called me from work tonight and asked me to pull up this song on YouTube and listen to it...totally what I needed to hear and such a beautiful and awesome song! Hope you are blessed by it as well!

What's Burdening You?

In my morning devotional this morning, this was my Bible verse:

The things that you carry are burdensome.
Isaiah 46:1

Um, ok God, I hear you! I needed that this morning, I really needed that this morning. I was carrying anxiety today. The kind that leaves a lump in your throat, makes you feel naucious, keeps you from sleeping and eating, and just makes you feel awful body, mind, soul, and spirit. The kind that is definitely not healthy for the beautiful babe growing inside me. The kind that keeps me from trusting the Lord and giving my problems to Him. The kind that belittles my husband by not trusting him as much as I need too. And I'm working on letting go of some trust issues of trusting God to provide for our family, waiting in Him to provide for our family, and not worrying about things that I have no control over.

But I just loved this verse. God wasn't asking us if we were carrying things that were burdensome, He was telling us that we are carrying things that are burdensome.

What are you carrying right now that is burdensome? Sin, Worry, Anxiety, Trust, Faith, your Lifestyle....

Dear Jesus

Thank you for being Beautiful even when I am going through hard times, even with tears streaming down my face, knots in my stomach, anxiety everywhere my mind turns, thank you for being You through that. Thank you for being patient with me when I don't trust You like I should. Thank you for Your gentle reminders of your provision, through your Word, through my loved ones, and in my own life. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to know you. I know I take it for granted that I found you at such a young stage in my life. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to get to know You more and learn more about You every single day. Thank you for your provision. I've never had to go 40 years in the desert, and I feel so challenged in my faith when I can't plan and predict every step of my life and my future. Thank You for the job that you have provided for me for the last 10 months. Thank You for the ways you will continue to provide for our family now that that job is gone. Thank You in advance for answering my prayers however You see fit, even if it's not my way, and even if it makes me even more scared. Lord, let me have a heart that yearns only for You. I love you Jesus, be my Stronghold and my Strength, my Savior and my Redeemer, please be my Light and my Rock now and forever more. Amen.

Psalm 142 - For a Friend In Need

 ¹ I cry aloud to the LORD;
   I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy.
² I pour out before him my complaint;
   before him I tell my trouble.

 ³ When my spirit grows faint within me,
   it is you who watch over my way.
In the path where I walk
   people have hidden a snare for me.
⁴ Look and see, there is no one at my right hand;
   no one is concerned for me.
I have no refuge;
   no one cares for my life.

 ⁵ I cry to you, LORD;
   I say, “You are my refuge,
   my portion in the land of the living.”

 ⁶ Listen to my cry,
   for I am in desperate need;
rescue me from those who pursue me,
   for they are too strong for me.
⁷ Set me free from my prison,
   that I may praise your name.
Then the righteous will gather about me
   because of your goodness to me.



I can honestly say, I have never read this Psalm before today and was so encouraged by it. I think we've all gone through a time in our lives before where we feel alone, where we feel uncared for, where we feel like our problems are too big to conquer. Even though I am thankfully not in that position today, I know what it feels like and I feel like God had David write this Psalm for those days. What an awesome encouragement this Psalm can be for our loved ones who are going through times like this, one who know Christ and ones who don't. I'm so thankful this was my Psalm this morning and I'm really looking forward to sharing it with someone when they feel like they are in a dark moment, and meditating on it during my hard moments too.

"11 Rules That You Won't Learn in School About Marriage." by Dennis Rainey

I got this in my email this morning and it really really really blessed me. I am going to print it out and keep it in my purse, such wonderful and beautiful reminders!

Rule 1: Marriage isn't about your happiness. It's not about you getting all your needs met through another person. Practicing self-denial and self-sacrifice, patience, understanding, and forgiveness are the fundamentals of a great marriage. If you want to be the center of the universe, then there's a much better chance of that happening if you stay single.

Rule 2: Getting married gives a man a chance to step up and finish growing up. The best preparation for marriage for a single man is to man up now and keep on becoming the man God created him to be.

Rule 3: It's okay to have one rookie season, but it's not okay to repeat your rookie season. You will make rookie mistakes in your first year of marriage; the key is that you don't continue making those same mistakes in year five, year 10, or year 20 of your marriage.

Rule 4: It takes a real man to be satisfied with and love one woman for a lifetime. And it takes a real woman to be content with and respect one man for a lifetime.

Rule 5: Love isn't a feeling. Love is commitment. It's time to replace the "D word"--divorce--with the "C word"--commitment. Divorce may feel like a happy solution, but it results in long-term toxic baggage. You can't begin a marriage without commitment. You can't sustain one without it either. A marriage that goes the distance is really hard work. If you want something that is easy and has immediate gratification, then go shopping or play a video game.

Rule 6: Online relationships with old high school or college flames, emotional affairs, sexual affairs, and cohabiting are shallow and illegitimate substitutes for the real thing. Emotional and sexual fidelity in marriage is the real thing.

Rule 7: Women spell romance R-E-L-A-T-I-O-N-S-H-I-P. Men spell romance S-E-X. If you want to speak romance to your spouse, become a student of your spouse, enroll in a lifelong "Romantic Language School," and become fluent in your spouse's language.

Rule 8: During courtship, opposites attract. After marriage, opposites can repel each another. You married your spouse because he/she is different. Differences are God's gift to you to create new capacities in your life. Different isn't wrong, it's just different.

Rule 9: Pornography robs men of a real relationship with a real person and poisons real masculinity, replacing it with the toxic killers of shame, deceit, and isolation. Pornography siphons off a man's drive for intimacy with his wife. Marriage is not for wimps. Accept no substitutes.

Rule 10: As a home is built, it will reflect the builder. Most couples fail to consult the Master Architect and His blueprints for building a home. Instead a man and woman marry with two sets of blueprints (his and hers). As they begin building, they discover that a home can't be built from two very different sets of blueprints.

Rule 11: How you will be remembered has less to do with how much money you make or how much you accomplish and more with how you have loved and lived.

Surrender: From Casey

My friend Casey posted an awesome post this morning on her family blog, jcmfamily.blogspot.com, about surrendering things to Christ. I really think that God has an awesome way to telling us what we need to hear, or pointing us in the direction we need to be focusing on, and have seen Him do things many times in my life through my family and friends. This was one example where I really believe that God blessed me by not having Casey just keep her thoughts to herself and let her share them with everyone, because my heart really needed to be spoken too about surrendering.

Here's the definition of surrender:
Definitions of Surrender: a : to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand <surrendered the fort> b : to give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another


And here's my list of what I need and am going to surrender to Christ daily:

• my anxiety (my worries, fears, things that cause my heart to race, irrational thoughts)
• our insurance situation (that I would trust God's timing, provision, and safety for our family)
• my pregnancy (for good health, insurance, what's going to happen after)
• work situations (that I would let God open and shut doors)
• finances (being a better steward of our money and helping us live on less and cut debt)
• marriage (that I would really seek God's goal and will for our marriage and seek to implement that)
• parenting (that I would parent in a Christ-like way)
• determination (that I would become a more determined person, harder-working in all things and less willing to admit defeat)

And once again, from Casey quoting the Bible, one of my favorite verses, Proverbs 3:5-6

⁵ Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.

What do you need to surrender to Christ?

Not About Us

Psalm 147 

¹⁰ His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
   nor his delight in the legs of the warrior;
¹¹ the LORD delights in those who fear him,
   who put their hope in his unfailing love.

Comforting to know it's not about our strength, not about our greateness, our physical features, our personalities. It's all about our heart towards God and our yearning for Him!

Joyful Bedtime

Let his faithful people rejoice in this honor
   and sing for joy on their beds. Psalm 149:5

I'm reading Psalms backwards, and today I read Psalm 149.  I read the verse above twice, a verse I would usually probably just scan and pass over, but it made me think: When we lay down in bed at night with our spouses, by ourselves, are we singing for joy? Or are we talking and thinking about the burdens of our days, grumbling about the things that didn't go just quite right, or so busy making plans for tomorrow? What an awesome opportunity each night to lie in bed and rejoice in what God has done that day and who He is! Something I am going to try out tonight!

On the Radio

I caught the end of something while heading back to work from my lunch break this afternoon. I was bummed I didn't get to catch the whole thing, but I know I tuned it at just the right time to hear this:

Three Things to Do Every Morning
1. Get Up
2. Ask Jesus what He is doing (not what He is doing in you, for you, just what He is doing)
3. Ask if you can be apart of it

Hmmm. Just seems perfect doesnt it?

Reading Goals

Somewhere, somehow, I fell off track of reading my Bible everyday.  And not just reading it, but desiring to read it, desiring to find what knowledge God could impart to me, desiring to see more of God's character and desiring to see how I could really work on myself.  It's been something I've been struggling to get back to but somehow I let life's "responsibilities" get in the way, as well as sleeping in, getting on Facebook, and whatever other excuses I have.

Anyways, as posted on my family blog, I really dont like resolutions at all, but have purposed myself to get into a daily Bible reading schedule again. Right now, my goal is to read a Psalm every morning before I go to work, and at least one chapter in whatever book I am studying at the moment before I go to bed that night. Right now, that book happens to be Romans.

I do enjoy reading my Bible and I do love to see what God has to say to me through His word, and I am really looking forward to this "schedule" bringing more joy into my time with God, more desire on my part to carve aside that time everyday instead of making time for it.

What does your Bible reading life look like? Do you have a set place, set schedule that you stick with?

Unashamed Love (YouTube)