amazed each time I focus on HIS glory.

HE paints without a brush or paint. HE evokes emotion so powerful it can brings you to your knees. HIS lakes and oceans beauty can bring water to your eyes. HIS color brightens a dreary day to the point of laughter.

So much is there in this world to focus on, dare I take a minute to focus on HIM? Just a moment to take my eyes off the world man has caused, but instead see HIS Glory everywhere.

Birds still sing, dogs still wag their tails, trees still worship in changing color. Do we not see we are the only species all a flutter? We are in the very eye of the storm we brought about and now we cry "oh Lord where art thou"? Just as a child gets caught up in his own mischief only to then cry out for a parent do we now cry out "Lord Help me?" Then we go about the normal daily grind of satans music, I feel like the organ grinders monkey, please stop the organ God !!!

Lord today I am grateful for your absolute beauty, for you showing me who I am and who I was created to be. Lord I'm grateful for your tender heart as you give me a clearer picture of myself. Lord today I am most grateful for the lamp unto my feet, for your ever present direction. Father you are my light, my love, my life. May I ever turn to you, and more so never allow myself to far from your love, this is my prayer, amen

walk with me ...talk to me...

Sometimes I can feel God saying "walk with me, talk to me". Other times I feel myself saying to God, "walk with me, talk to me".

Yesterday as I read about The Beloved Disciple John I felt excited, so much so I just had to stand up as I read. Then I began to pace and sway back and forth. Soon I realized The Spirit was teaching me something and my entire body was responding to the education, it was real I felt it, it was awesome, I loved it. Completely humble I am in awe of God. The more I walk with HIM the more HE talks to me. Whether it be via a message at church. Or maybe an answer to a question asked during life group. Most often it is when I am in HIS word, or studying up on my family in the bible via another text. I feel God is always eager to walk with us and talk to us if indeed we are walking with HIM and talking to HIM.

I have so very much to learn and by GOD'S grace The Spirit is always eager to teach. If I can just get it thru my head that walking with GOD and talking to GOD, is infinately wiser than asking HIM to walk with me and talk to me. I am limited to my ability to walk, I am but flesh, and my talk is only of the world, the right hear and right now. Oh Oh Oh if I could wrap my head around the awesome adventure of walking with GOD and talking to GOD, HE is so much more, HE shows me so much more than my poor little mind can even fathom.

Today Lord I am overwhelmed by your constant desire for me to walk with YOU and talk to YOU. I am so grateful for the open invitation to join you, to be blessed by YOUR very presence in my day. Lord I am just floored by YOUR love and YOUR holiness, that a flesh covered woman can experience YOU at all is love in every sense of the word. Thank you GOD.

The depth of HIS sorrow...

Oh it must be tough watching all this from above, from HIS place of love.
To see HIS children spend lifetimes needing to beg, sometimes steal, other times borrow.
As I glance towards the skies hoping to catch a glimpse of HIM, I wonder are there tears in HIS eyes?
I admit sometimes I have wondered "how can God allow all this", other times I ache for HIM because we are HIS and HE watches all this happen.
To see your child hurt can break a parents heart, God is our Father how does HE stand all HIS pain?
Israel oh Israel when will you call upon HIM as The Most High?
In the beginning of learning about these wondering disobediant Israelites I was so hasty to judge, "how could they be this way?" To see God daily, to have HIS daily bread every morning, and still disobey? You are HIS chosen, be humbled and serve.
Lord, my Father, today I am grateful that you have given me an Israelite view of myself. I am wondering about my desert, seeing you daily and still not completely being obediant to you. I know of Your glory firsthand, I have felt the tenderness of your powerful hand in my life, I am just like an Israelite. God I am your chosen child, we all are, just like the Israelites. God today I am grateful for you showing me I am judging myself ,I am just like them. With one exception: I am blessed with their history in writing, YOUR word is there to teach me, to allow me to not judge them but attempt to learn from their mistakes. Today I am grateful for YOUR word, and the blessings you give us thru it.

without any thinking on my part :)

How do I know when it's God's voice? Well most times it's when an answer is instant, clear, genius. Just the genius part lets me know it wasn't of my own gray matter. Then the clear part and the instant part pretty much cinch it up for me. My own thoughts are very rarely clear, and even more rare are they instant. I struggle with decision, then doubt kinda lingers about trying to nudge me away from clarity.

'cept when I'm in church, listening and whammo a question I have been gnawing away at is answered. Or in a bible study and I am blessed by an ahhhh.ha moment. Or it could be while reading HIS word and wondering what in the world HE'S going to use this for. My favorite is when I am praying and HE answers questions I didn't even ask !!! How HE knows I need to know this stuff before I ever ask is a constant thrill for me.

Last night in life group HE let me know I needed to start praying for faith. Faith that will remain sure and complete during a challenge. God said to pray for this faith before a challenge, to pray for this faith during a challenge and to pray for this faith after a challenge. Not to wait till I am knee deep in troubled waters before I begin to pray for steadfast faith. Now I'll admit I get scared when GOD says pray for an enduring faith, wouldn't you? But then HE guides me and says do not worry about troubles, just pray for faith. So without any thinking on my part I just will pray for faith, because HE said so.

God today I am grateful for your guidance, your love and your absolute knowledge of whats best for me and when. God today I am grateful for your love and mercy. You know what I need and let me know what I should be doing.

oh the Joy of hearing Him speak.

It's a funny thing to be so overjoyed about discipline. Thru so many people, verses, and books have I heard God speaking to me. Granted it's Him telling me what has to happen at the very real possibility of losing my job, but still I'm thrilled He's speaking to me. It's very comforting to know that even when I make a dumb mistake (which by the way I have learned lots from) God is still there calling me to a road of correctness. He's not mad, just anxious that I not allow this to get any worse. Oh and can I shout with JOY that in the midst of my stupidity God has showered me with His grace in another area of my life. God has my husband talking to me about faith and the word!!!! Yeah I know, to be given this supreme blessing in the midst of my stupidity is just like Him. God knows I need to be able to talk to my husband about this stuff, He knows my husband needs Him even if right now he doesn't necessarily want Him.
God has been very clear on whats expected of me, and I plan on delivering that, if my job is the only thing I lose I am grateful. But even more better, if my husband begins to share in my faith I will have come out gaining so much more than I lose.
Today God I am grateful for your attentiveness, you are not allowing me to guess at all, I am clear on your command on this. And God, how you have decided to be so generous with me is beyond my comprehension, but if you have deemed it than I will receive it with praise and gratitude.

waiting...watching...wondering...knowing...trusting :)

As I sit and wait to see how the Lord will get me thru things, watching for His mighty hand to mold each situation. Wondering what will happen next, I am blessed to know He loves me, that His desire is always what will be best for me. Whether it is the path I would've chosen or not, I trust that what He does is in His best interest for me. God today I am grateful to know that as I put one foot in front of the other in faith, whether the road be lined with delight or things that distress me, I can walk in faith that this is by love, that I am going to get to the other side of this closer to you, looking back and knowing your love was with me. You sent the counselor to assure me, remind me, love me and guide me. You sent your son here to wear flesh and show me the way, you sacrificed Him to take away my sin. God your love is so overwhelming to comprehend, but today I am grateful that even though I can not comprehend it's magnitude, i can rejoice because I know it to be real.

and the beat goes on.....

It's fairly easy to allow anger/ negativity to boil over. It would not be hard to get on a roll and just go on and on about what I may see or feel as wrong/unfair. But I have come to see that as dance music for satan. And the beat goes on if we allow it, satan gets down at our expense. Funny his happiness is ALWAYS at the expense of our happiness. Catching myself before I really begin to sink in self pity is an awesome blessing. Feeling myself settle into the muck of discouragement is so unsettling. Cool thing is I can always pull myself up by my boot straps with a simple word or two of gratitude. Then as if eager to wash the muck completely away and stop satans dance party I begin to list more and more reasons, realities I'm so grateful for, then as if a new song plays, the beat is mine, a joyful noise. See me, I'm dancing to the gift of worship, to the sound of praise. satan no longer is dancing, he is stomping mad, then in the presence of the Most High, satan must leave, I've made it known he is not welcome at my dance party. Gratitude is catchy and soon my neighbors will see my dance and ask me what I'm listening to. They will want to join the celebration too.
God today I am grateful for the opportunity to live like I'm at your party, to not allow satan in, and to make others not only welcome but eager to see whats it's all about.
Lord, thank you for the responses I receive to threads of gratitude, thank you for giving me this window into your workroom, that I may see The Master at work.

on those days??

During "those days" when I may not feel His presence, I seek Him. Mornings when I feel more alone than others I have learned to seek Him. I reach into His word for Him. I will begin counting blessings to remember His grace. I will read a blog, or dive into a study or just open my eyes to see Him around me. My children are eating breakfast, by the grace of God they have food and vitamins:). My boys ready themselves for school, by God's grace they have an opportunity to enrich their minds:) The morning is chilly, by the grace of God we have shelter:). Then as I bathe myself in His love I begin to "feel" Him. Silly me I'm not alone, I'm just not open to Him, so I begin to open my eyes to see Him. I'm not sure I will ever be able to really feel as the prophets of our past did when they physically heard His voice, or saw Him, until I enter heaven. But the humbling of my physical body, the tears that water my heart are very real when I am sure He is with me. To witness Him at work is a thrill I will ever seek, my body quakes with emotion, tears just fall from my eyes I am blessed to know on "those days" I can look back to moments when I was as certain as anything ever before that my Father is real, my Father is personal, and my Father seeks me. I can say that on "those days", I hang tight to my absolute faith in Him being there, and me just needing to seek Him. Today God I am grateful for Your love. and Father today I am grateful for bloggers that share their faith and testimonies with everyone so that on "those days" when I may not feel you I can rest in the fact that you are hard at work, trying to bring us all home:)