Extension

I got a mini-extension on my writing project. (HUGE sigh of relief!!) Thank you God for creating some wiggle-room for me and for allowing me to work with such amazing and gracious people. WHEW!

I've got until Friday to submit this project. Good news is, I actually do have a little bit written at this point. 40% complete to be exact. I have today and tomorrow to finish, considering I will be spending all of Thursday at the state fair. (Woo hoo!)

Again thank you God. You are SO good to me.

Anxiousness

I am unable to find the words needed to write. I am at a loss for something to write here and it is even worse for my latest writing project. It is due on Wednesday and I don't have a single word written. My life and my brain have been filled with other responsibilities and happenings, both wonderful and not-so-wonderful.

My head feels clogged. My brain feels encumbered with so many other things than this project. I pray God helps me pull it all together. It is a challenging project coupled with an already over-full schedule and a mind that is overloaded right now. I trust Him and know that He's always helped me before when I find myself in a crunch. I pray He is right there with me over the next few days and that the words will flood my mind and fill the pages with what He wants to say...

But for now there are no words and I am feeling anxious about it. Pray that I release my anxious heart to Him, KNOWING He will provide.

(Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. - Philippians 4:6)

Clothes that Heal? Or...

Mark 5:28 "If I may but touch the hem of His garment, I shall be made whole."

This woman understood. This woman believed. She knew that if only she could get low enough, reach in far enough, and merely even brush against the hem of His garment with her hand that she would be healed. PROFOUND illustration! Crowds were pressing in on Jesus. Some called it a mob of people. Yet this woman touched the very hem of His clothes and was immediately healed and He immediately KNEW He had been touched. Imagine being in a crowded place, people pressing in on you from all sides, bumping into you, knocking you off center. For you to notice at all that someone in particular touched your clothing is amusing. They are all touching you, they are all bumping into you and into each other. It is a crowd, a mob of people. But Jesus knew immediately that this woman had reached out in faith and received healing. He FELT it.

It is a pattern with Jesus--telling people that it is their FAITH that has healed them. He didn't go to her. He didn't take the initiative to place His hands on her in a purposeful act to heal her. She came to Him. She believed. She was CERTAIN. If only she could touch just the HEM of just what He was wearing, she just KNEW she could be healed (or made whole). THAT is faith, illustrated in crystal clarity. It was what SHE did, what SHE believed, the effort SHE made to get to Him that PROVED her faith in who and what He was and the POWER He had even in the mere hem of His garment to change her life FOREVER. She had been battling with an ailment for 12 long years! She was desperate. She knew NOTHING else had worked and she sought Him out. She wasn't proud. She didn't care what on earth she had to do. She just knew she had to touch Him or even just something He was wearing to receive FULL healing and to be made WHOLE. With a mob of people around Him, what she needed to do was not an easy task. In fact, to get to the hem where did she have to be? LOW. On the ground. On her knees in the dirt, a dangerous place to be in a mob. She was probably getting stepped on and certainly bumped around. Her arms had to be searching, stretching, straining, reaching hard in toward Him. This was someone who didn't care how lowly, how "in the way", or dirty and dusty she had to become to get to Him. She knew she needed Him and nothing else mattered. That is FAITH. It couldn't be more clear. It couldn't be illustrated any better.

What are you battling with? How long have you been battling with it? What all else have you tried? Your own strength, your own will-power? Prayer, even? Reading scripture? More prayer? Books? Counseling? Sermons? Tried "everything"? How about getting low? How about about reaching out your arms so hard and so far that it hurts? How about knowing in your heart that nothing you can do on your own will work? How about getting your knees filthy? How about subjecting yourself to the lowest place, just to barely skim the hem of His garment with your hands? How about knowing that He is the only one who can heal what is hurting you? How about believing that He will? How about real FAITH? What if you took it all to Him? What if you surrendered all control? If you have EVER reached out to Him in true faith, faith like the woman in this story, and if you've ever touched even just His hem, you will NEVER be the same. There is earth shaking, unfathomable power in just His hem! But belief and faith is required, otherwise it is just fabric (or just empty words in a prayer). He knows when He has encountered great faith. It changes everything. If your heart, if your struggles, if your battles haven't changed GREATLY--look to this woman for your lead. She is the illustration of what FAITH really looks like. It is not just her outward actions, it is what she knew in her heart about His power.

Today, we cannot physically touch His garment. But when He ascended back into heaven, leaving this earth, He did not leave us alone. We have the Holy Spirit. Equal. One third of the trinity. Not the red-headed step child of the trinity. An equal. Equal in all ways with God and Christ. Yet, we don't truly call upon the Spirit and utilize that power through our faith and belief as we could...and SHOULD. The Spirit's whole purpose here is to help us, guide us, guard us, etc.... It is just as powerful as having Christ Himself here with His garment within our reach. But our trust, belief and FAITH have to be real. Like the woman above. We have the same LIFE CHANGING, ETERNITY-SHAKING POWER available to us, as she did.

What are you doing to touch it?

WHOA!

Woo hoo! I got another writing assignment. Whew! I was so hoping to get to do this again. It was AWESOME the first time. I absolutely loved it.

This one should prove to be even more challenging than the first. A section of material I have been assigned hits very close to home for me (divorce). That is part of the reason that it is being assigned to me, or so I am told. It is road that I traveled (painfully and unwisely) and yet learned SO much from and grew closer to God because of. Sometimes things that are that personal and that close to home are even more challenging to relate to an unknown audience. I can see that not only will I be sharing with others, but I know I will gain a lot too from the preparation, as always. God deals with me in such ways. ;)

There are other difficult topics to deal with in this assignment beyond just divorce. Anger, lust, etc... Eeeek. MAN! Who doled out this project and assigned who got what section to write? Sigh, I bet God had a big hand in that, and I am desperately going to need Him to help me deal with these subjects biblically and insightfully based on the scriptures covered therein. I am excited but truly nervous to tackle some of these topics. Am I the right person for this??

Take a deep breath Carlotta, let God lead you where He wants you to go with this. He has a plan here.

(Please pray for me.)

Jealous?

MY God jealous? Uh, yeah, He is. Seemingly with good cause. "I thought jealousy was a sin." God cannot sin. Being jealous of what others have/coveting others things is a sin. God is not jealous of anything we have. He does not want our things. Pretty obvious, huh? But what He is jealous of are the things (or people) in our lives that mean more to us than He does. Don't think we fool Him by our pledges of love and devotion to Him. The things (or people) we are enamored with above Him are displayed to Him by our actions, not our words. They are evidenced by our thought-life. He created us for a relationship with Him first and foremost. Do you have things in your life that He might be jealous of? A hobby, a job, a romance, a spouse, a child? Pursuit of marriage? A better body? Intense pursuit of anything we want more than Him is glaringly obvious to Him (and to others), sometimes when we don't even see it ourselves. We can say He is MOST important in our lives, but many times our thoughts and actions PROVE otherwise. What or who are you pursuing more than Him? Where is your mind most often directed? Many times we don't see it if we don't take time to be honest and evaluate. Surely I am not the only one who can clearly see the things He'd be jealous of in my life.

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who had that one thing (or more than one thing) that you felt received more of that person than you did? More of their time, more of their thoughts, more of their attention??? At some point or another, we've all felt that way. I know how deeply it hurts and I do not want God to feel that way. I have a laundry list of what I have pursued more passionately than Him. I am ashamed to admit that, but honest enough to state it as fact. Those pursuits have failed. On occasion He allowed me to have the things that I recklessly pursued, but they eventually consumed me. They did not fill me up the way I envisioned, many times they hurt me deeply because they consumed me then left me empty. Other times, the pursued things or people were simply removed from my life one way or another so that I was no longer ABLE to place that thing above Him. That's been heartbreaking too, and yet, it brings me back to Him, my true focus.

Until we place God in the proper place--above ALL else, our other pursuits will never yield the harvests we chase so feverishly. They will be hollow or leave us hollow over time, or they will be removed from our lives altogether. He will not accept second place. And He shouldn't. I am learning everyday to chase after Him first and foremost. All of the other things I desire will be added to me if He chooses, not if I pursue them at His expense. He alone blesses me with things that I desire, once we truly understand that, how can we keep from pursuing Him with more passion and desire than all other things? He is the creator and generator of all those other things. He will bless us as we need and as He sees is best for us. I am learning to trust in Him and to pursue Him above all else. I am finding that there is great peace in that. I love others deeply, some so deeply I can barely contain it or understand it. However, those people and things: whether they are a professional pursuit, my kiddo, or the "love of my life", whatever/whoever it is--takes second place to God.

Life is always a series of new pursuits, challenges, experiences, and people, but GOD is the one thing that never changes. He is the foundation on which all others are balanced. Without Him first, providing the essential foundation, the rest is a crazy, shaky balancing act that eventually will crash to the ground in a million pieces. Yet many of us have been there: completely shattered by life. But by placing God as the primary passion and primary pursuit in our lives, we can then begin to experience the rock-solid foundation we all desire and the ability to balance all of our secondary passions and pursuits because of His proper placement in our lives. It really is a pretty cool thing.

Thank you God for always finding a way to pull me back to You. Thank you for the people in my life that I love so deeply that I can barely contain it, and yet have on occasion given You reason to be jealous of them. May I never place them above You again. In submission I place them under Your care and control in my life and I am thankful for them as they are treasured blessings in my life. Thank you for the passions in my life professionally and personally. May I never place one of them above You either. They are blessings, but they have their place too. May I never treat You as a backup to any other passion or pursuit, may You always be my most sought after treasure! It is so easy in this life to get caught up in things other than You, even in things related to You: ministry etc. Guard my heart and my mind and help me to keep focused on You while still being a part of this temporary life and the people in it with me. It is a delicate balance that I cannot keep without You. Hold me steady as I do my best to balance it all well. I hope to honor You with all that I do.

The Power of Prayer

Pain --> Change

We change when the pain of not changing is greater than the fear of actually changing.

Have you ever been an enabler? I bet you have. I certainly have. Sometimes we don't recognize that we are enabling others. Sometimes we don't recognize that others are enabling us. But it happens all the time to all kinds of people. When we see a need for change within ourselves or others, usually that change will not take place until it becomes too painful for us or for them to live unchanged. Yet, sometimes we insulate others (or others insulate us) so much so, that change doesn't occur because the pain is being suppressed and is not experienced in full. This is what enabling means. And it is WRONG. But boy how we justify it. We don't want the other person to feel pain. We want to protect the other person from discomfort. We go overboard by sugar-coating everything. There are so many "good" reasons we have for enabling others. But if we truly care about someone, we have to let them experience the pain and/or discomfort that is needed to create the much needed change. If that which remains unchanged is damaging to that person or to others, change is needed.

I have used this line and have heard it used many times by others, "This is just the way I am." I have even had people blame the way they are on God saying, "God made me the way I am," I suppose that implies no need for change. I don't buy that anymore than the lines I have used. I will reiterate my thought, if something about us causes damage to ourselves or others, change is needed. Excuses are abundant when we need them. But change is healthy and it is necessary for all of us.

I am reading a couple of books focusing on similar topics of truth, change, boundaries, healthy confrontation, and the like... And in one of them I saw that quote above and it made me laugh because of how many times I've used it on others, yet in the same breath, I was enabling them to NOT change. Dealing with others in truth with love, often times means withdrawing the insulation of enabling them. Initially, this can mean some pain and discomfort for all involved, but that is the pain that promotes growth and change. The times I have grown significantly typically followed at period of discomfort and pain. Many times these things occurred when others stopped enabling me and my actions/behaviors.

Communicating with grace and love is key. One without the other can be problematic. Communicating with all grace and no truth, enables. Communicating with all truth and no grace is very damaging. I am reading about learning very key concepts on how to do both. I tend to lean more to one of these concepts than the other and need to find the balance. I am working through that. My goal is to be able to have deep, honest, healthy relationships in all aspects of my life: as a parent, a friend, a daughter, a sister, a coworker etc... I am learning to implement wise boundaries that are biblically based. All of these themes co-mingle and in studying them I am learning so much. I can't wait to see how these principles improve my parenting, friendships, work life, and more!

I love learning. I am ready for some change!

I'm Back.

We are back up and running normally here at My Place!

Thanks BLOGGER folks.