Countdown to Christmas Day

Well, here we are.  Five days until Christmas. 

 I know that I am stressed and that my some of my family members are stressed, too.  Do you really think that what we do for Christmas has anything at all to do with the reason God sent his son?  The older I get, the more I realize that we have made Christmas into something so pagan that probably disappoints our heavenly Father.   Our expectations are always of peace and joy and the perfect amount of gifts and total harmony in our families.  Our high expectations seem to just magnify the hurt that we are also experiencing.

While we were eating dinner last night and trying to figure out our plan and schedule for the holidays, I started thinking about doing something radically different for Christmas.  What if we really focused on our hearts beginning December 1st?  What if we started focusing on our relationships with our family members? What if we actively and intentionally pursued doing for those less fortunate than us? What if we went on a mission trip for Christmas?   I know we do some of that to a certain extent but what if we went further?  Maybe only 3 gifts per family member?Maybe no gifts?  Maybe say "no" to all social commitments? Maybe my family members would kick me out. I hope not, but they just might.

I think our overall disappointment with the entire holiday is because of the focus on self.  I guess all of our problems stem from selfishness.  I think that there are few things that we can do to help ourselves during this season.  My strategy is to  pray, give and exercise!

I am really trying to increase my prayer time over the next few days.  I am praying for my family and for all of our relationships. Today, the Lord just really told me to focus on the healing of our family relationships and the healing of their emotions.  Today, I prayed "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed." 1 Peter 2: 24 and "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Psalm 147:3 and "Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. " James 5:16

One of my favorite things to do is to just take my Bible, open it up and walk my property line.  I wait for the Lord to lead me to certain passages and I pray those passages for my family and for my home.  I love to use Sylvia Gunter's Prayer Portions book and pray blessings for my family members.  I have a smaller book by Sylvia Gunter called "Prayer Portions Sampler for the Family".  It is awesome and can be purchased from Mark at the Carpenter's Shop in Vestavia or from Sylvia's website, The Father's Business.

I pray for spiritual blessing, emotional blessing, mental blessing, personal blessing, physical blessing and financial blessing.   It is so important for us to choose to speak blessings over our family and to choose to BE a blessing!

Sylvia Gunter teaches that one of the most effective bottom line prayers for the family is "Come, Holy Spirit, into our greatest needs and give us a revelation of Jesus. "  Thank goodness that Jesus lives to intercede for us, Hebrews 7:25 and that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, Romans 8:26!

Matthew 10:8 says " Freely you have received, freely give. "  That's pretty clear. There are so many organizations to assist you with giving.  I recently adopted an orphan through Amazima ministries.  That is the ministry that Katie Davis runs in Africa.   Check it out at www.amazima.org and Katie's blog is called Kisses from Katie and can be found here.  There is also Compassion International, World Vision and Heifer.org!  I ordered a flock of chickens for a family for $20 through Heifer!

If you don't have an extra penny to spare right now, give someone a smile. Help someone with a door at the mall. Or with their grocery cart. Compliment and encourage a salesperson in a store.  Speak a blessing over perfect strangers. Volunteer at a soup kitchen or a shelter. Take your old newspapers  to the pound. Do yardwork for your elderly neighbor.  When our kids were little and we had no extra to spare, Rusty used to load us all up in the van to head to nursing homes.  We visited with the residents, sang for them and played games with them. I think we brought candy canes.  The possibilities are endless. Go for it.

And lastly, exercise!  Get off of facebook and twitter and turn off the tv and get out and walk! Pray and praise while you walk.  If you have a gym, go! Walk your dog! Just move and get yourself a huge helping of endorphins.  I confess that I am addicted to two things and I must have them to be a kind person- coffee and endorphins.

 

Be intentional about this Christmas season.  Pray, get some endorphins going and make your plans for this to be one of the most precious Christmases ever for your family!

The Soil Really Matters

There are few things that I enjoy more than gardening.  My mother worked in the yard a lot while I was growing up and maybe it is a part of my DNA, but I also think it is because we are all drawn to beauty. It is a yearning that God just puts inside of us.  One of the happiest times of the year for me is in the dead of winter when my daffodils and peonies start to emerge from the cold earth.  When I see them peek through the pine straw at me, I rush to welcome them, like they are long lost friends. I  spread out the straw around them so they can get as much sun as possible. And yes, I talk to them, too.

These are a few pictures of my yard that Mary Margaret took with Kenny's balling camera while she was home.   I absolutely love blooms.  When my children were small, I used to drive them to the Zoo so I could load up my van with trash bags full of "zoodo."  They had a large area where the workers put the "do" from the animals who were herbivores. The kids stayed strapped in their car seats and I shoveled the do. It was a smelly endeavor and the children usually cried but boy did my yard look great! And it was free!

I use a great fertilizer now that Jamie from Leaf and Petal recommended, but the main reason I have these blooms is because of the soil in my yard.  When we built this house in 1997, Rusty's mom, Nell, (aka Martha Stewart) inspected the Alabama red clay all around the house and told me that we had to dig it up and replace it before the first plant could be installed.  I will never forget the day that we took 10 very large men to the house to dig up the clay.  They dug, we dug and we were all filthy and exhausted. After we took out several feet of clay all around the house, we dumped in truckload after truckload of perfectly amended soil.  I continue to amend the soil year after year because I want beauty!  It is just fascinating to me to watch a bud turn to a bloom and then into a large and glorious flower.  God's handiwork never ceases to amaze me.

I got to thinking the other day about how the soil of our heart is similar to the soil in our gardens but it is much more important.  The Parable of the Sower can be found in Matthew 13,  Mark 4 and Luke 8. Jesus used a parable to teach us a lesson four different responses to his message.  In the illustration he used descriptions of various types of soil to represent four different types of responses....the first one is the hard hearted person who rejects the message. The second is the emotional responder who quickly fades away. The third is the person who is not willing to pay the cost of being a disciple of Jesus.  The fourth person is the faithful disciple.   These are people with willing hearts who respond to the Good News.  They are committed and faithful and their lives change as a result! They bear beautiful fruit (like my flowers) and others are attracted to them because of this beautiful fruit.  They have the aroma of Christ! Paul says in 2 Cor. 2:14-15 : " But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.  For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. "  As believers we have a huge responsibility to be life-giving and sweet smelling to all we meet!

Get some time alone this week and examine your fruit.  Ask your husband and your children or your best friends "how am I doing?" Am I a fragrant aroma or do I smell more like the zoodo?

"The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.  For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. "
Luke 6:45

" A man reaps what he sows. " Gal. 6:7

Proverbs 4:23 "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."   1 Sam. 16:7 says: " The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. "  Lord, I pray today that we would be transparent before you. Bring to mind any "soil" that needs to be dug up and thrown away. Amend the soil of our heart so that we can bear much fruit.   Give us a desire to confess our sins to you for forgiveness and to each other so that we may be healed.  Bless us, Lord , with fruit that is pleasing to you and with fruit that will last for eternity.  Amen.

The Most Important Thing

I am so happy to be in the world of blogging! It is something that I have wanted to do for a while and my oldest daughter, Mary Margaret, has encouraged me to start today! So, here I am.  My heart's desire is to offer encouragement and hopefully, a little bit of wisdom to my readers. 

I have been married to Rusty for 26 years.  We have five children, Mary Margaret, Luke, Jake, Katherine and Julia.  Mary Margaret is married to Kenny Byrd and they live in Virginia.  Luke is married to Ashley and they live in Birmingham.  Jake is a senior at the University of Alabama and Katherine is a sophomore there.  The baby, also known as Julia, is a junior at Vestavia Hills High School.   I love my family so much and it is one of the greatest gifts God has ever given me and He has given me so much.  

I got the name for this blog last night, at Church of the Highlands, during Pastor Chris's sermon.  As he was discussing 9/11, he used the phrase "only a few things matter."  It sounds so simple and it is.  Even more so, it is true. God's word tells us in Micah 6:8, " He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. "  People do a whole lot to try to please God or get his approval.  We try all kinds of different things to perform for God.  He tells us clearly that pleasing him requires a person to be rightly related to others.  If we are not right in our relationships, nothing will please him.  It all comes down to that death bed example.  When we are on our death bed, it is going to be about relationships.  Nothing else will matter.  I don't know about you, but I don't want to be lying there with all sorts of regrets!  So let's get that right!

Our hearts should be full of mercy for everyone.  He tells us to LOVE mercy. We must desire justice for all people.  If we are loving and merciful in our relationships, others will see Jesus in us.   Do not overlook the word "require" in the first part of that verse.  It is a requirement from God.  That sounds like a pretty clear command to me.   What should you do if you don't feel like acting justly and loving mercy?  ASK the Lord to do it through you! He is faithful and he will!  This request lines up with God's will for your life and he will do it for you.  Humble yourself and surrender to him and you will be amazed at how he will change your heart!  

BOTTOM LINE is our relationship to God and our relationships with others.  I challenge you today to really examine the relationships in your life.  Go to your husband and your children and your friends and ask them "how am I doing?"  Another challenge....this one is kind of hard but anything worthwhile usually is....PRAY for the relationships in your life that aren't going so well right now. PRAY for that person.  PRAY hard for them.  It is impossible to be upset with someone you are praying for regularly. Something supernatural just happens.  

Well, that's all for now.  "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. " 2 Cor. 13:14