Searching for Fruit...

Some of the things I hear, see, and read are meant to be seeds that haven't started to grow.

Sometimes I start to look for fruit on those trees before the seed has started to grow roots or sprout above ground.

I expect myself to have fruit to produce fruit when God hasn't caused it to grow yet.

Maybe this seed is patience...

It's hard not to throw a fit...

The inconsolable crying began when I made the statement, "You HAVE to keep your shoes on when we go to our friend's house."

Now that seems like a benign statement, but it wasn't. It was an all too clear example of me disempowering my child.

Let me back up to let you know how we got here. You see the previous morning it took my child 30 minutes to get his shoes on and tie them. He's five; shoelaces are a new thing for him. Sadly to say, my level of patience for him this previous day was lacking. My tone and decibel level painted a harsh learning environment. When he finally completed his new task, by himself no less, I let out a sigh of relief. Ahh, he finally he did it, we can go.

So this was the second day of him trying to get the new shoes on by himself. God's Grace was present with me and the fruit of the Spirit, Patience, was with me. There were no white knuckles here. There were no outbursts of frustration just good old fashioned victory for the child and mom.

As parents we celebrate these moments, because we know we did best for our child, and we're proud of ourselves for not losing it like a 2 year old. So, running with this theme and wanting to keep my universe happy, I made the statement, "You have to keep your shoes on when we get to our friend's house."

Many of you have been here before. You've seen a pit that you don't want your child to fall into, so you create a boundary for him so he doesn't fall into it. The reality in this case was that I wasn't trying to protect my child, I was trying to protect myself. I didn't want to loose it (especially in front of my friend). I didn't want to look like that out-of-control mom we've all seen before. I certainly didn't want to deal with him losing it either. Hmmm, this sounds familiar, this sounds like that sneaky slimy "little" thing called control.

Because I attempted to control my child for my benefit, I set up a boundary that gave no freedom to my child.  The reality is he is learning something new. Something that's hard to learn, and I effectively punished him for my own fears and insecurities. In short, I was saying, "You can't do what you want to do because it bothers and inconveniences me. And because I'm bigger and more powerful, you have to do it my way. It's my turn to be and feel powerful."

Praise God He gave me the presence of mind in the moment to realize I had stolen something from my child. I had taken his ability to manage this new task away from him and said that he was too small and too unimportant to do it.

I knelt down towards him and held his hands. Locking my eyes with his, I gave him a choice. Holding his soft small hands, I said, "You can either stop playing 30 minutes early to put on your shoes or leave them on your feet."

In what seemed like an instant, peace rushed over my child, and his crying stopped.  In a moment we were no longer dangling off the cliff of anxiety, control, and fear threatening to destroy our relationship.  We were transported underneath the most beautiful waterfall of God's love and never ending peace. I could see the lush green vegetation all around us; a rainbow of God's hope and promise encircling around us. Hope for a lasting relationship with my child.

God gave me a choice in that moment. I'm so glad I chose to move toward my child.

To my surprise he chose to stop playing 30 minutes early. Once again, I was reminded he doesn't think like I think.  We forget the verse says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." The key word being he.  This episode of family life was an example of helping him find his way and not necessarily the way I think he should go.

With joy and pleasure he put on his shoes.  A bit quicker too.

Anxiety: Friend or Foe?

As I was reading the book The Supernatural Power of Forgiveness, a breakthrough happened upon my soul.

Jason Vallotton was feeling anxiety one day, and he didn't know why.  As he began to dialogue with the Holy Spirit, he was shocked to hear, "You use anxiety as a tool.  You've partnered with it to help you."

Conviction hit every ounce of my being.  It reverberated in the deep parts of me and declared with a trumpeting voice, "Ooohhh that's been my problem this whole time."

You see from an early age I was taught to be motivated by anxiety.  I can still hear my mother's voice enticing/ yelling/coaxing me to hurry up.  Procrastinating became an art form.  Balancing the delicate high wire act of waiting just long enough to get motivated with just enough time to accomplish my goals or deadlines.

The sneaky part about this motivator of anxiety is that he can come in all sorts of decibels and tones.  They can be soft or loud, sweet or harsh, inviting or off-putting.  He was an enemy cloaked as a friend because I became successful.

He showed up today when I didn't want to make the necessary emails to transfer insurance agents.  I found myself wanting to put it off.  I could feel the enticing nature of anxiety slithering across my feet.  As I realized an opportunity to make him my friend again, I wrote the email.  "Get her done," as Kris Vallotton says.  Freedom lies at my doorstep, and I plan to make Him an even more intimate friend.

I'm inviting God into this newly vacant space in my heart and soul.  It's a little disconcerting when you've broken up with a friend that was really your enemy.  You kinda miss him and want to go back to relying on him especially when he was such a good motivator.  You realize that the reason you can't seem to clean the house or accomplish your to-do list isn't because you don't want to, but because the Lord is delivering you from all forms of anxiety.  I need to discover a new friend.  Rather, I long to discover the facets of Holy Spirit's ways of motivating.

At one time He lead Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.  The Holy Spirit knows exactly how to motivate even at some of the darkest times and seasons of our lives.  My whole world is changing for the better, but it feels a little bit shaky for the moment.

On a practical level I've committed to waking up at 6:30 when the school year starts so that I don't pass on anxiety to my children.  I need to give them enough time to get ready at their paces, not my rushed one.  I don't want them to become intimate friends with this enemy of mine.


As I've watch them grow up, I've discovered they aren't born with anxiety as a motivator.  They move at their own paces regardless of what's on the agenda.  Any parent can attest to how troublesome to your peace this can be.  I'm challenged to rid this foe from my life for my own benefit and to the blessing of my children.


Yeshua HaMashiach is continuing to shake the shakeable things within me.  I'm so thankful because I know this process is bringing me to a place of complete peace and rest in His heart and under His Wing.

Learning Important Spiritual Lessons From My Kids

I picked up my kids the other day from school.  After parking in the garage and beginning my after school routine, my eldest son came through the door to the house whining and in tears about how his brother NEVER closes his car door.

Now, you see, there is a reason why younger brother doesn't close his door sometimes.  It's because he can't.  I have to move the door in such a way to enable him to do his job.  About a third of the time, I forget.  It doesn't bother me.  The lights in the car automatically turn off and it's in the garage.  This insights the frustration of the older brother.

"YOUNGER BROTHER NEVER CLOSES HIS DOOR NEVER!!!!" is something I hear on a regular basis from my eldest.  This begins teaching time for eldest.  "Sweetheart, that's between youngest and me.  Don't worry about what he's doing, just make sure you've done what I've asked you to do."  Apparently this is not an easy concept to learn because, I do the same thing.


"FATHER GOD, LOOK WHAT THAT CHRISTIAN IS DOING OVER THERE!!!!  THEY'RE NOT OBEYING YOU!!!  THEY'RE NOT DOING X, Y, OR Z"  Never mind that it's not my responsibility.  Never mind that I'm not the Holy Spirit in that person's life.  Never mind that God never asked me to take care of them.  Never mind that I still need to close my own door.

I've been learning recently to release people into the hands of God.  He's always had them in the first place, and He never gave me His place with them.  We see in part and know in part, which means I don't fully know what's going on.  I don't know what God is trying to show, teach, heal, deliver or work on with any given person.  I must learn to release people and walk by His Spirit and not by my flesh.  My flesh will always get it wrong, but His Spirit is always there to teach me how to obey and follow the LORD.  I must throw my fleshly judgement out the window and be lead in the Spirit.

This means releasing myself from worrying how God's other children are going to get their work done.  I never asked my eldest son to help his younger brother close his door.  It's not his responsibility to make sure it gets done, but I know he feels the weight of it.  He shouldn't and neither should I.

Reminder that hope does not disappoint

I was listening to my kids' cd of Bible verses turned into song tonight. These cd's have been such a place of renewal of childlike faith for me without all of my adult baggage. The song that struck me was from Romans 5. It speaks about our process of suffering and that it ultimately produces hope which won't put me to shame. As I was listening to the song, I was remembering this past weekend of the triathlon. I was remembering my brick workout from late this afternoon. Those felt like suffering; my history in sport has taught me it will bring endurance. I'm not afraid of that kind of suffering in fact I embrace it. I'm so thankful that the spiritual benefit of suffering produces so much more than a good showing at a race. It produces hope because, "...God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit." I long to embrace the spiritual suffering the same way I can the physcial.

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:1-5 ESV

20 Miler = Overcoming

I ran my first 20 mile training run ever, a couple of weeks ago. It was brutal. Because I was tired from the week of getting up super early to get the other weekday runs in, I totally failed to get up Sunday morning. Alas I could not get up. I turned off my alarm after way too many snoozes, and thought, "I can run tonight. " Next thing I know, it is 10am, and I realize, "I have plans tonight. Stink, I'm gonna have to run in the middle of the day in the heat."


So with my wonderful husbands help and assurances that I could do it, I made it out the door. "Crap my ipod's not working." Okay, new plan, hubby, "will you charge it for an hour and I'll come back and get it?" "Sure, of course." Okay, I can do this. Three miles in, Garmin freezes up on me. "Really today. Today you're going to freeze up of all days. So glad this isn't marathon day." Okay get it together. It will be okay. You'll make it back home soon and you'll have your ipod and it will be great.


Not to be. Apparently this was my goggles in the face moment (See Michael Phelps Beijing 2008 Olympics.) Made it back home and my ipod wasn't working either. How in the world am I going to make this. God please help. I can't finish on my own.

There was lots of stopping to pour water over my head, there were bathroom breaks, there was walking and there were the tears. Needless to say, it was an ugly run. Probably the ugliest run I've had and it took forever. It probably took longer total time than it will take me to run the actual marathon.

Made it back home with 4 miles to go. Changed clothes cause I was sopping wet from sweat and water. Gave my husband a look like I'm going to die. He lovingly said, "You can do this, you can do it." Okay, just pretend that you haven't run 16 miles, and you're just going out for a 4 mile run.

And then, I made it. I finished it! Wow, I didn't quit. Thanks God for helping me. This was no pretty run. This run had lots of "bumps" in the road. Like my walk with the Lord, I expected this run to be perfect and it to not be hard. Hard meaning I'm about to give up and quit. Then it dawns on me, my walk with God isn't always about how "pretty" it looks, it's about overcoming. I overcame. I didn't quit this run and I'm definitely not quiting believing in my Lord and Savior, Jesus. It gave me so much faith to keep running my race with God because through the "bumps" in the road, I will overcome and see my Saviour face to face. I will overcome!

Hypocrisy?

It's easy to think that people and Christians in particular are hypocritical. I mean I'm a Christian, and I think other Christians are hypocritical. It's unfortunate that I think that, but it is the truth. (So maybe I'm not as bad as the next guy/gal, hahaha.)

As I pondered this conundrum, the hypocritical thinking others are hypocritical, I realized, "What if I'm not? And, what if they aren't" What if I am in those first steps of taking over the promised land of the new heart that the LORD has given me?

In the old testament when the Israelites took over the promised land, The Lord said that He would not give them the land all at once. It would be too much for them and they would be overtaken by the wild beasts. So they took portions of it over at a time.

What if what I call hypocritical is really just this process in me and in others called maturing? I've been thinking a certain way all my life. God begins to breath upon this sinful thought process. Now I see it everywhere. It really bothers me. I don't like it in the next guy, and I definitely don't like it in me. But my thought patterns haven't changed yet, even with my new belief in the truth. So I fight with judgement upon others and myself thus sounding hypocritical to me and others. But wait, I'm not. I just don't agree anymore and my actions haven't lined up, yet. They will. I will mature into the new belief/truth because Jesus made the way. He will complete this good work in me.

Maybe we're not so hypocritical as we all think we are.