Beautiful in Your Heart

Today is one of the rare occasions that I have stayed home from church. My boys are gone to a football game, and the girls and I decided to take it easy after a very long, full week. To be honest, I just needed some time to recharge with the Lord in quiet. So here I am, still in PJ's in the bed, reading the Word. I have been reading through the Psalms and hit one verse that just grabbed my heart: "Oh Lord, do good to those who are good, whose hearts are in tune with you ." Psalm 125:4 Whose hearts are in tune with you... oh, how I long to have a heart like that. You know, one of my favorite possessions is an old General Electric radio cabinet from my Meme. It sat in her den as the TV table for my whole life, and I always thought it was just...a table. But when she moved a couple of years ago, we were going through things, and I discovered that this "table" actually housed an old time radio and record player underneath the surface. There was eve...

For the past month, I have sat down numerous times to write and pour out what the Lord has been showing me, but each time, my mind would freeze. I just couldn't get words to paper because of some interruption or another. So today, here I am, praying for no interruptions, searching for what it is I need to share, and this has been put on my heart:  Patient Endurance.  So appropriate, right?:) But what does it even mean? According to Webster, patient means "bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint." Endurance is "the ability to withstand hardship or adversity; especially; the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity." So put them together, and my definition becomes... Patient endurance: the ability to withstand a prolonged hardship calmly and without complaint. Wow. So why has this been put on my heart? Well, because LIFE y'all. Piles of dirty dishes, popsicle dripped across the floor right.after.being...

Why does it have to be so difficult?  It being so many things. Being kind. Being helpful. Being unselfish. Giving grace. Speaking encouraging words instead of tearing down. Listening. Just living day to day with no drama. So. many. things. I feel like it's one of those "two steps forward, ten steps back" kind of things lately.  And it is exhausting to to see situations that could be made better with just a little more of those things above.  But yesterday, as I came to the Lord, just praying for encouragement, He answered. I was reading in Nehemiah and came to Chapter 9. The people are praying a prayer to the Lord, recounting all that He has done for them.  It was so awesome to read because when I was so frustrated, feeling like so many things were not going right, the Lord reminded me that He is not passively sitting by. He is a God of action, moving and working and preparing and growing and holding us, even in the midst of what seems to be one t...

When I first started teaching, I went in with big hopes and dreams and roses and lollipops on my mind. I was ready to conquer the world one kindergarten child at a time. I was giddy with excitement over my story time and small groups and center time and projects...my kids were going to be so enthralled with my teaching that I was going to be an education rock star in no time! But I had NO IDEA the amount of exhaustion it would bring. My naive little self didn't take little things like behavior and bathroom accidents and untied shoes into consideration. I neglected to account for the 3453498598 times that I would be interrupted during my amazing lessons with helpful information like, "My mom's poots smell like..." I just had NO IDEA. The beauty of those first years teaching was that I was single and later married, but had no children of my own. So on those days when I could not bear to hear one more word or put one foot in front of the other....I came home and ...

Mother's Day is around the corner, and I have been thinking about all of the responsibility motherhood brings with it. And how over the past few years, I feel like it has quadrupled! Being a mom is never  just "being a mom." Over the years, I've held many other job titles: maid, cook, nurse, taxi driver, etc...you know what I mean. But every mom has some titles specific to her. My kids gave me these: "back-scratcher," "a-million-to-infinity picture-taker," "hours-long shopper," "funny-dancer," and "Coke-drinker." But today I got a new title that I had not heard before...PARTY POOPER. Here's how it went down on a field trip with Whit: Me: "Hey-boys-no punching and wrestling in the courtroom! Hands to self...hands to self..." Whit: (completely flat look on his face) "Party Pooper!" Me: (in my head) "Party Pooper??? Did he really just call me that out loud???" Yes, yes he did. ...

This weekend, I went to a ladies' conference in Birmingham with one of my sweet friends. The speakers (Morgan Cheek, Katherine Wolf, and Lysa Terkeurst) were wonderful, and the Lord really spoke to me about a lot of things. One thing imparticular has weighed on me because I have some friends in tough circumstances , and maybe some of you are too. So I wanted to share what the Lord put on my heart.  The overall theme of the conference was hope.  More specifically, hope in hard circumstances.  Lysa Terkeurst's focus was this (and her whole lesson was amazing!): God is good. God is good to me. And God is good at being God. I don't have any trouble with the first two.  But that last one...that one, I struggle with sometimes.  It seems like it should have "(most of the time)" beside it. Because I think I know better than He does every now and then.:) I question the path He takes me down sometimes.  I wonder why He has to make it so bumpy and ...

Yesterday a member of my family was sharing all about their day. I was listening but also running through a list of things on my mind when all of a sudden this popped out:  "Yep, that's the joy of a stuffy nose! Not smelling farts!"  I won't lie. I got completely tickled, even though that f-word is a no-no in our house (along with the other one, of course). The story continued and it turns out that during the day, a friend of this unnamed family member was holding his nose in class. When asked why, it turned out that someone had passed some gas and  he was protecting himself from the unfortunate smell that followed. To which, my unnamed family member expressed the joy in not being able to smell much at that moment in time.  I got a good laugh out of that one, and my unnamed family member got pretty tickled as well, and in that moment of comic relief, the Lord reminded me of a very important lesson. You can find joy in the most unlikely of scenarios. This...