Challenge...

I challenge you:

     Pray for God to open your eyes...to see the things around you...to see the people that surround your days.
So that you do not miss being a blessing to someone.
Who knows what surrounds your day?  Don't miss out on what it could be...
Open our eyes Lord...
Open our eyes...

See the World..........through the lens of God.
     "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? " (Romans 8:32)
When we are the seeing............the thanksgiving flows from within us.
How we see determines how we live!
Do we have eyes to see? To see through Him?
His beauty is everywhere.
We have to seek His beauty...........or else we may seek our own.
Blessings,
The Yahweh Sisters

Creating a quiet place for prayer..............

A prayer bench..............one with Scripture, a journal, a prayer book, hymnal and a candle.
      A place to escape the busyness..............of life.
      After all doesn't Jesus remind us that "My house shall be a house of prayer."
So how do we build a house of prayer?

I wanted that special place for God and I......not that we should try and confine Him!
We are suppose to pray without ceasing........ praying any-where anytime.....but this was personal
somewhere I could go before the house awakes...............and have a special place that is just for me and God.

A longing..............a need........a willingness........to purify the heart!

Knowing in my heart that a house of prayer is one grows the closer to God.
The closer you come to God the closer you come to finding your true self.

     To  simply draw us deeper.................deeper into himself.

    
Prayer is a gift........pray with books to help..........the saints before us can sometimes show us the way.

Music can help calm the clutter inside the head.....and quiet the soul.

My view from my prayer bench.....(Lord help me if the Fed-Ex or the UPS man knocks on the door while I am sprawled out on the church pew) they may never return. Sometimes I truly feel like I live in a fish bowl.
There are glass doors on both sides of my house that mirror each other. No privacy!

The reason I created this prayer place:

It's time to stop and pray but I am always the busy............busy cleaning the house.

I am busy wiping the crumbs from the counter.....putting one more load in the wash. Making one more bed.

The Holy Spirit is asking once again; "Where do I come into this relationship?" Only after? After the cleaning?

After the kids are gone to school? After you get caught up in your day? 

What am I putting first in my life?

Because it is an idol.

When will I learn to put HIM first? Making Him my first consideration everyday creates calmness in my home. Creates a ; "NO CONFUSION," zone! 

Knowing that the only thing that keeps me from growing closer to the Father is the ME.

I don't pray enough because I am living my life for ME.

I am the hoping by creating this quiet place to kneel and pray that I will stop and be still and maybe it will be the life changing kind.

When the kids are off to school in Babylon it's the me that has the inner struggle to cease the cleaning and do the kneeling!

Where does God fall in my life? Isn't He supposed to be the first?

I claim I want the Jesus more than the anything......it's the time and the effort that I don't invest.

Just when did I think I was the one who has it all together?

Shouldn't we take time each and everyday to be still and know that He is God?

 Trying to put God first in my life.....by finding a quiet place to be still and communion with HIM.

Wanting to learn to resolve..........just like Daniel did in Babylon!

Wanting that peace that only Christ can give......when He is first!

all of grace,

Robbie

thankful for:

the saints before me

good books

for a washer and a dryer

clean bathrooms

ceiling fans on the porch

rocking chairs

plants that always need a little water

herb garden

the grass that the lawn man never comes to cut

the old truck that my husband loves with seats that are duck-taped and the trash that flies in your eyes while you ride

for the work who calls for the home-made banana pudding to be made by tomorrow

the end of school year activities that are making a momma wild

transitioning...new birth

      I do not take credit for this post, but rather give the credit all to my beautiful sister-in-law who lives her life as a missionary in Lima, Peru.  Her name is Michelle, and God knew what He was doing when He put me with my husband because with him came the most amazing woman of God, my sister-in-law.  She has been an inspiration to me, a motivation, and has taught me and shown me so much over the years. 
The other night we were talking on skype (thank God for technology) and she began to share with me about some transitions that were taking place in their lives.  We all seem to be at a transition stage at some point in our lives and some of these transitions are not what our flesh wants, but our spirit needs.  We go through seasons with God and we change to become more like Him through the trials and seasons of our walk.  My sister shared with me about what takes place in a transition stage and what God had spoke to her about.  She always relates transition to birth pains.  When you are in the birthing process, you are feeling the best...you hurt...you scream...you say things to those you love that you may regret later...you say things that you otherwise would not say.  In the birthing period, you are hurting and nothing can relieve that pain no matter what you try to take it away...it is still there, causing discomfort and uneasiness.  But, at the end of that period, you are able to deliver a new birth...With the pain and discomfort comes new birth.
In our walk, in our times of transition, we may have pain.  It may hurt us.  Our flesh may not like the feeling of it.  And, we may not be able to totally understand what is taking place.  BUT...when we are able to see NEW BIRTH we realize that it was a time of transition for us...we had to go through the pain to get to the new birth.  With the new birth comes peace.  With the new birth comes new growth.  Even the smell of a new birth is different, refreshing, cleansing. 
We don't always like to transition.  It doesn't always make sense.  It hurts and you may lash out at those that are around you during this time.  But the end result is new birth.
Don't resist transition.  Learn from it.  Hold on during this time.  Pray for God to bring you through the stages and He will...
God bless you as some of you transition, as some of you move into a new season, as some of you hold new birth in your hands...
I love:
my sister -  for her words and her knowledge and her friendship over the years
my God - for showing me again another way to understand the ways and things of Him
my family - for forgiving me of all of my faults during times of transition
my friends - for understanding me even when I don't always understand myself
Jennifer

Weekends are for starting different seasons..............

May all your whereabouts this weekend be one of a new season................although the hands may work and the feet may travel, that you stop long enough to see God's Grace that is all around us!

"For everything there is a season"



praying for God to set eternity in my heart and yours!
For those of you with heavy burdens praying for God to do the lifting......remembering this weekend that God has infinitely better ideas....that the Man for All Seasons would walk with us in season and out; and then, when all is done, take us to eternity...........heaven
(from Mark Buchanan book: Spiritual Rhythm)

all of grace,
Robbie

grace..."God's favor"

She laid on the floor in my room while I was taking a shower....
I heard her sniffles when I got out............I asked her what was wrong and she said that she didn't know.....that it was God......and she was the worried!

I stand the still and ask her why is she scared? She tells me that she the afraid that she want go to heaven......because of her sins.
I take her into my arms and she cries the hard and I tell her that it is OK.......that she is saved by His Grace!
It's through our own children that we can sometimes read our own fears.......I take her precious face in my hands and tell her of His amazing Grace....and how her name is grace= which means God's favor!
I tell her how I have not done the right......through all the living tired....and the trying to keep the everything moving that I have failed to tell her just how much our heavenly Father LOVES US.

 I tell her:
It's all about His perfect love for you.......
Sin only exposes us............every human being is born a sinner!
It's all about the blood! The blood of Christ makes us acceptable to God.
The enemy wants nothing more but to keep us in bondage.
His precious blood covers our sins!
The very essence of who God is = GOODNESS.

 Isaiah 54:17;
 no weapon forged against you will prevail,
and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.
This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD,
and this is their vindication from me,”
declares the LORD.

 Romans 8:39;
neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I smile as I explain the ugly war that goes on deep inside our souls, that sometimes the old us can try and resurrect! But those nail scarred hands will never let us go and its the dying of the flesh that is daily!

I watch as she drys her tears.................I swell with holy joy knowing that the father is catching her tears as they fall. I raise my hand...... the held high kind after she had gone to her room and I praised God for I saw humility in her....knowing the humble will see the Lord! I praise him for her soul is growing.........she is the called!

My swelling over with holy joy is accompanied by my falling tears.

God is so Good...knowing that grace leads the way and telling her the meaning of her name......."God's favor," and she can rest assured she is His.

all of grace,

Robbie

teen talk..........

Every Thursday I cook dinner for the teens......they come in fast and starving after a long day.
When I asked what day they wanted to have the study on they all agreed on Thursday's so it would help them to make better decisions on the weekends!

The stand in a line like they are the starved................and I wonder starved for what?
We eat on the screened in porch..... We chew on the dead food first...

 Are we ever really hungry at all? What kind of appetite do we really have for Christ?

I mean,  if we were to choose between sitting and talking with each other, or reading scripture? Would we rather read scripture or feed our flesh with the dead food.

Knowing during my mornings when I should be sitting chewing on the real food I try the hard to cram one more load of laundry in; vacuum one more room, load the dishwasher.......always saying that I will sit with God as soon as____________!

It's always after the Thursday dinner, after the teens are finishing there desert...that they ask me the questions...the questions that give away their appetite.
It's then and the now that I hear him whisper to me............tell them.........tell them that:
 “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35)
These are the words that I keep saying to them over and over again. Hoping, praying that they take hold and that the Holy Spirit takes it deep within them.....and pumps them pure full of hunger for the living Christ!

It's always after the Thursday dinners that we are truly fed with the only food that lasts... the only food that feeds the soul. The eternal food. We eat the word!

Shouldn't we be teaching the young that you never leave the table without chewing on the real bread?
The word of God is alive.....the reading of scripture is life. After all aren't we all really starving? Starving for the eternal life? eternal peace? eternal Joy?

Praying for God's word to be pumped through their blood..........so it permeates deep down into their heart giving them a hunger for more.

Sometimes teens can be loud and there is always interruptions, but I gently push forward knowing that the enemy is knocking.......not wanting us to feed this future generation with the eternal food.
It's the kind of food that saves...........changes us all deep down to the core of who we are.

Wanting so badly for these teens to eat again and again......summer is near and the teen studies have

come to a close..... praying for these teens not to stop the feeding.

Without question I will start a study again for them in the fall.....it's a personal journey that God has me on

to plant a seed..........a seed for a future generation that hungers for the world but has a heart for God!

Wanting them to remember that everytime they sit to eat that they can't live life without the filling of the real nourishment..........the kind that saves...........the eternal food.

John 6:51;

 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

all of grace,
Robbie

The road less traveled.....

John 7:38;
"He who believes in Me, as scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."

Trying to find who I really am...........not the mom, the wife, or the nurse with all the obligations....but deep down to the core..............the real me the essence of who I really am.

Out of  the busyness of the day...........His grace is tugging.........tugging deep within my soul.
to sit a spell and think about who I am? As I rock..........I see.........and I feel.
The light of the day is warm...........the beauty all around us is a gift.
God can only find me when the old me is the dead.

     Sometimes the old me wants to live.......... wants me to travel down the path of the way it used to be........the young the carefree.
Back to the being............the being of a little girl when the parents were the young and the never wondering of  who I was.
Haven't traveled the road from where I came for the many years...............happy to just hold on to the memories.

I  can still remember the "Granny," walking around in the yard like it was the yesterday.........knowing even if I traveled down that road to the familiar that there would be the nothing left but the green house with the tiny carport..............and mostly the overgrown mess........Nothing ever stays the same........there is always change.
Can we go back down the road less traveled? That takes us back to our roots of who we are?
I am in search of who I am? Maybe it's the me who needs the seeing...........the seeing of where I came from again to really know.......to know who I have become in Christ!

The years fade and the years continue to pass on by............can you really ever go back?

Going back will never be the same.............people change and memories fade.............what was is no longer the now.

We all have a past............memories that are etched in our brains.......to remember where it is we came from is to remember who we are.

The roads less traveled is not what leads us to the now............to the who we are in Christ!

Time moves on and so do we.

Maybe its the now life that we should focus.............focus on the looking.... out of the windshield instead out of the rear-view mirror.

Maybe the past needs to stay in the past and maybe it's the future that holds the secret.........the secret to the who I am!

And it's the Father who is the already knowing..........knowing my name and the who I really am.

One who is saved by grace.

all of grace,

Robbie

Thankful today for:

the used cups that are always in the teenagers rooms

spring cleaning

for flipped mattress

 cleaning out closets

piles of books everywhere

for teens that always slam the front door

for fresh cut green grass

for a husband who works the hard

for the fish that no-one ever feeds

for the crumbs in the kitchen