Devotions

 Friends, life has been absolutely crazy lately. Like, busy, wild, jam-packed, stressful, tiresome, busy, and did I mention… busy? I don’t know why I pack my schedule so tightly, or why I insist on adding more things to my plate even when I am already drowning in to-dos. It’s all too much, and yet when I survey the work of my hands at the end of the day, I feel I’m not enough.  I replay the failures I had, the frustrations I unleashed, and the impatient impulses that drove me to paralysis. I recount all the times I responded to someone in anger, or judged someone with hurtful thoughts, or even worse, hurtful speech. Somehow, it doesn’t matter how hard I try to “do it all…” As long as I’m doing it all as poorly as I have been, then what’s the point? And I’m not writing this for sympathy. I don’t want any words of encouragement. I need a wake-up call, and for the Holy Spirit to speak truth into me when I need it most. I don’t need another human’s words or actions to comfort me. ...

  Father , I want a lot of things. I want the Reds to play well this season. I want to be a better cook. I want my plants to grow and explode with life in my garden. I want these cicadas to just hurry up and die already. I want chocolate. I want to have a marriage that lacks nothing. I want my family to all live long, healthy lives with their eyes fixed on You. I want my friends to come to know Jesus as their Savior. I want answers to hard questions. I want things to be immediate because I hate waiting. I want to be firm in my identity and stop seeking it in futile places.  I'm starting to feel a little like Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. "Daddy, I want a pony!" In all seriousness, though, I have a lot of wants and desires, Jesus. I take tremendous peace in knowing that You already know my thoughts. Your Word says that you know my words before they're even spoken... every thought inside my brain (...and You still love me enough to die for me? ...

 Spoiler alert: life can be just downright terrible sometimes. There can be terrible, awful, terrible things that happen all around us and it's so, so hard to see "the good." But we search desperately for it anyway. Cancer, famine, war, orphans... in no particular order, we all can name more things than we'd like that just plain suck . And I hear a lot of people struggle to justify "how God could let this happen" or ask, "If there's a God, then why is there _____" and I'm not going to be belittling these wresting questions, nor do I claim to have the answers to them. I think they're rational questions to ask, especially for those of us who have met this AWESOME, life-changing God who is the Maker of all things good and perfect. Because when things are terrible and we lose a loved one, or we don't get the job, or we get our hearts broken, I think a natural response is to ask this good God: "Why?"  Or even more pressing, ...

 " Don't ever miss out on a woman with a guarded heart . She's usually protecting the deepest most caring soul you'll ever know"  -Sylvester McNutt I don't know who Sylvester McNutt is, nor do I think this particular quote says anything radical or life-changing. I posted it because when I Googled "guard your heart," there were a slew of random quotes and bad (like, really bad) stock images to choose from, and it made me wonder what the phrase even means .  Does it mean to be guarded, like as a person? Private? Skeptical? Shy?  Does it mean to save yourself for your future husband / wife? Does it mean to protect your heart and all your fragile feelings? Let's get down to it.  The passage I read today is Proverbs 4... specifically verse 23, but we'll get into that later. Proverbs 4 is, like most passages in the book of Proverbs, about wisdom and what it means to "get wisdom" and "be wise." This specific Proverb is titled ...

 Well, in my "Phonics and Literacy" course yesterday, we focused completely on spelling and writing, and why kids stop loving to write... how we write, hold our pencils, etc. I saw it as a little nudge from my Father, yet again, for me to keep on writing... so here I sit.  I've been reflecting on a few posts ago... about be being a "try-hard" and how I wish I weren't "so much" all the time. A book I was reading yesterday said that amazingly, most women feel they are both "too much" and "not enough" at the same time, which is hard to conceptualize I'm sure for men. But I'd venture to say that most women get it. Because with every "too much," there's a corresponding "not enough." It's like a double-whammy.  I wish I weren't so talkative. I'm not quiet enough. I wish I weren't so hyperactive. I'm not peaceful enough.  I wish I weren't so judgmental. I'm not gracious enough...

Warning: this post is not going inspire you. I'll be lucky if it even makes sense. But there's something inside me telling me to write again... you can call it a calling, if you want.  I feel that my Father wants to connect with me and this is oftentimes how I think is best for me to do that-- which, when you think about it, is INSANE.  The God of the universe wants to connect to ME. He sees ME and sees how I best communicate Him, and since He wants intimacy with me, He's been slowly and quietly nudging me to get back into the blogging game. So, here I sit.  I'm going to force myself to write something - even if it's a short prayer of apology for not making enough time to write something profound - every day this week. I even took off work this morning... not to write, specifically, but to have a little time of rest before a busy week.  I woke up with a big headache after crying last night- something that doesn't happen too often, but when it does, I'm wreck...

Okay, friends. You want to hear something really confusing? (Or really wonderful, if you love words?) The Bible was not originally written in English, but a few different languages that have been translated into English. So, there's a bit left up for interpretation (literally) and depending on who translates the word and from what language, there can be a few different meanings.  If you're a "glass half full" kind of person, you may find it fascinating. Each translation is a new opportunity to gain a better, fuller understanding of God's Word! Learning more about what the original translation said and the author's intended meaning can bring a certain richness to the scriptures, I think.  But what about when you're trying to understand what God is saying to you about a verse that's been on your mind lately... one that you feel He's trying to speak to you through? What if, hypothetically, you looked it up just now via Google, and clicked on BibleHu...

Today we'll be reflecting on Paul's letter to the Romans, a special passage that I selected because it makes me feel less alone. It's one of Paul's rather rant-ish monologues, so maybe that's why I relate to it so much. Or perhaps it's my human nature that connects me to his writings... the world may never know. It's going to sound pretty depressing, I'll warn you. But I'm determined to understand it, because if there's even a glimmer of  hope in it, I want to find it. Read his words in Romans Chapter 7, starting at verse 15 (my thoughts are NOT in italics) "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. (Redundant, but oddly relatable) And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.   As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. (Wait, what?) For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do w...