"Unimportant" Days

July 26...November 8...June 8...August 7...February 3...

These are important dates in my life. Ever since grade school, this is why I hated history. Not because of the history but because of the dates. Give me 100 vocabulary words and DONE A+ but you give me a few dates to memorize and I'm burnt toast.

We've naturally been raised to put great emphasis on important dates. Birthdates, Anniversaries, Salvation birthdates...trust me, my calendar is near and dear to my heart (and my sanity). Dates are circled, highlighted and underlined three times so that I won't forget! But what about the "unimportant"? The blank squares in your calendar, dates that aren't written in red, circled, highlighted, and underlined three times? Pslam 68:19 says, "Blessed be the Lord who daily bears us up; God is our salvation." Reading this, and being my calendaring-type-A-self, the visual in my mind is God's calendar with every.single.day highlighted and circled. God daily bears us up, he opens doors of opportunities for us every.single.day. There aren't those days-He-doesn't-have-anything-to-do...you know, those days that we yearn for.

Going into this week, I had one thing on my mind. Be intentional with Brooklynn. And no, I'm not the perfect parent that goes into each day with that as my goal. On Sunday, we leave to serve the people of Harmons, Jamaica and will be gone 7 days. The longest I've been without Brooklynn is 2. To top it off, we can't FaceTime, talk, or have pictures sent to my phone to keep my blood pumpin'. It's going to be tragic. SO, this week, I'm putting down the phone, the computer (she's sleeping right now, by the way ;), setting aside the dirty clean piles of laundry to play outside or just welcome her presence as she crawls all over my face.

What would happen if we all circled every day in our calendar as a day to be intentional about something or someone. I think it would change the direction of the Church and our own personal lives. Circle those un-important dates in your calendar and make them important to you! Our life is a vapor.

Combing Out The Tangles

Hi friends! No Alive Wednesday night so no re-cap. We went over to the SNAEXP Tour with Passion Band & David Platt and well, if you missed it, I hate it for you. My bro-in-law explained it perfectly by saying that he can't imagine what Heaven will be like if it gets better than that. Agreed!

So, since there's no re-cap, I thought I'd share a little bit of what's being revealed to me during my personal QT. Sometimes my QT causes me to literally laugh..out loud. Why? Because He knows me so well.

*source

In Romans 8:1-2, there's that passage that "I know" ("know" meaning I recognize the verse...not "know" as in I have instilled it in my heart and live by it daily). You know the one, the one that says that if we claim we are in Christ then there's no condemnation ...for we are now free from sin and death. It's a good one.

I condemn myself a lot. Actually, I like to make up things that I THINK people are condemning me for. So, in reality, I need more of the "no condemnation...you are free" part ingrained in my head on the daily. Just so we are clear here...condemning words are not from God. When the Holy Spirit convicts us of our tangles (I'll explain in a minute), it reminds us of God's promises to us using words such as: bought (1 Cor. 7:20), Holy (Gal. 4:19), or Justified (Romans 5:1) If you are unsure of your identity in Christ, scripture is full of His promises to you to remind you that you are not who people say you are but you are who HE says you are.

Occasionally, I'll read an excerpt from Jesus Calling during my QT. She used an illustration that hits home for me. Tangles. She states that the Holy Spirit works at "combing out tangles of deception". "YES! HAIR! Speakin' my love language and getting on my level!" Now, she wasn't necessarily talking about hair but this is where you buckle up your seatbelt and ride along with me and my brain. Tangles can be a multitude of things: sin, condemnation, an identity crisis, etc. I don't know about you (girls) but I probably have the.most.dangerous.set.of.knots.ever in my hair. My poor hair girl whom I love dearly. I feel so bad for her. It takes an intense conditioner and brush to get my tangles out. Sometimes I feel like that with the condemning words I speak over myself. It's a lot of work to comb through those tangles of deception and condemnation but if I don't do it, my identity becomes rooted in the world and not in Him.

As much as we wish we could just "brush things off", it's a little more work than that to combat condemning words. It's like trying to comb through my tangles with Brooklynn's comb. Not gonna happen. It takes daily speaking God's promises over ourselves. Knowing who He says we are. Letting HIM have His way with our minds, souls, & bodies. Not people. I'm always working on not letting people have that kinda power of me. He's a promise maker...promise keeper...(enter song)