Brooke Elizabeth

Your smile lights up the room

Contagious is your laugh

Thirteen years ago you were born

You're growing up so fast

 

I pray for God's hand on you

To stay in His will

May all that He has for you

In this life - be fulfilled

 

May your heart be at peace

God's greater than all fear

Find rest in His comfort

Feel His love always near

 

You make me very proud

I thank God He gave you to me

Happy Birthday, my sweet Brooke

I pray your day's filled with happy :)

 

Father, I am so grateful for Your entrusting me with Brooke's life. Help me to nurture her sweet spirit to become all that You have called her to be. I pray for Your peace that surpasses all understanding to surround her each and every day of her life.  I pray for her to be kept safe, healthy, and to have a full life filled with joy! May she walk in confidence down Your path and grow up to be a woman after Your heart.  In Jesus' Name.

 

Happy 13th Birthday, Brooke!

Alyssa Grace

Lord, I thank You for entrusting Alyssa into my hands - to care for her, to raise her to know You, to learn to hear Your voice, to one day return back to You.  I ask for Your help, Your guidance, Your wisdom. I want to present You with a daughter one day that has made You proud with her life.  I pray for protection and long life for Alyssa. May Your hand of blessing and favor follow her everywhere she goes.  I commit her once again to You - that she would live a life unashamed of You - a life recklessly abandoned to Your will...

 

 

I loved you the moment

I knew you were on your way

Such anticipation I had

For your arrival day

 

Great plans for your life

I held deep in my heart

Never thought for a moment

You’d have such a rough start

 

You were such a fighter

So little - yet so strong

I watched my baby endure

Five months way too long

 

Now it’s 16 years later

I’m so proud of you

You’ve faced so much

But God carried you through

 

I look at you now

Your smiling, happy face

I’m so blessed to have you

My sweet, Alyssa Grace

 

Happy 16th birthday, Alyssa!   You are such a beautiful, fun, and loving daughter. Thank you for always giving me a reason to smile. I'm so proud of you and I love you deeply.
 

 

Heaven's Will and Earth Collide

What is it that stopped Jesus in His tracks to tend to Bartimaeus' need in Luke 18:35-43? 

Here's a man who thought money or goods were his greatest need as he sat on the road begging that day.  That is until he overhears that Jesus is passing by.   Something stirs within him.  His spirit leaps when he hears that the Man of Compassion is in his midst.   Faith arises.  Bartimaeus becomes desperate to receive more than what a fallen world had dealt him.   He becomes bold.   He pushes past the fear of men; men, who had sight, yet were blind to what his soul was reaching for.   He refuses to keep silent.   He no longer accepts “the bad report,” but to trust in the Name above all names. 

 

Heaven’s will and earth collided that day.  Bartimaeus walked away with far more than eyes that could see, but a life changing encounter with Love Himself.  

 

 

Begging for what I thought

To be life’s greatest need

Until Love’s presence passed me by

And my soul cried to be freed

 

Refusing to keep quiet

A heart in desperate plea

To reach the ears of Messiah

Simple words - that I believe

 

Unashamed persistence

Abandoned fear of man

Confident pursuit in the One

Who holds my need in His hands

Relentless in pursuit

Crying out all the more

The King of Glory turns to me

“What is it your soul longs for?”

 

Simple faith and confidence

Stopped Mercy in His tracks

Healing my sight to fully see

True Love move on my behalf

 

-etb

Spills

 

"I need ALL of you," the Lord spoke. 

 

The good.  The bad.  The ugly.  The pain.  The struggles.  The frustrations.  The questions.

 

 ALL. 

 

Notice He didn't say He "wants."  Though He does want us, in order to work in us, He NEEDS us.  He needs our cooperation.

 

Sweeping things under the rug has to stop.  It's impossible to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, body, and strength, if we don't give Him all of it.   Secrets in any relationship destroy intimacy.  Even with God.  We need to expose to Him the things He already sees.  This will open our ears to hear Him more clearly to what He is saying to us.   This grants Him permission to begin to heal and adjust our mindsets that don’t align with His.  He won't pull His love from us.  He won’t ignore us.  He won’t mistreat us when we become vulnerable to Him.  We can trust Him.

 

What remains hidden can’t be fixed.  When a spill is not dealt with or is carelessly spot cleaned, damage is done.  In order to fix the "spills" in our lives, we have to confront them head on by allowing God to shine His healing presence on our condition.  When our "free will" chooses to let God in, He then has something to work with.  

 

We need to trust that whatever He tells us is for our benefit and the benefit of others.  Trust Him that even if what He tells us is painful at the moment, it is always for our greater good.  He may require you to rip out the flooring to get to the damage.  You will be working alongside the Carpenter of your soul to tear out and restore a messy foundation.  Not an easy task.  It will be uncomfortable.  It will be ugly.   It will hurt.   It may cause every fiber of your being to want to give up and start sweeping again.   NO MORE SWEEPING! 

 

I challenge myself - I challenge you - to surrender your ALL.  Work with God as He works in you.  Expect Him to do some rearranging because He will.   He won't always do what we are comfortable with because His ways are different, but they are right.   His purpose is always to get you to the side of His will for you.  The process isn't always a quick work, but anything rushed is rarely done well.

 

Quiet yourself.  Wait on Him.  His voice is calling out, "I need ALL of you."

 

 

 

(Matthew 22:37, Isaiah 55:9, Psalm 16:11, Psalm 139:23, Psalm 51:10-12, Isaiah 53:4-5, Psalm 30:11, Jeremiah 29:11, Jeremiah 18:4)

It's Time

 

Prisoners function, but they're not free. We often learn to function in dysfunction - emotional, mental, physical, spiritual - becoming so accustomed to bondage that we settle with the condition. 

We learn to live with it. 


It becomes comfortable.   


It becomes familiar.


It becomes normal.    

Functioning through life but never free!

You are meant for so much more. Going through the motions of life isn't living.  It's time to quit settling!  It's time to stop seeing yourself through the lens of your past.  It's time to stop defaulting back to the familiar because it's what your mind has been conditioned to. It's time to aspire beyond limits others have led you to believe that you have. It's time to make a decision.


Quit hiding the chains. Quit bringing color to them through excuses as to why it's okay to remain bound. A finely decorated prison cell is still a prison cell. 

 It's time to kick off the shackles and reposition.  Your environment, your choice of entertainment, or the people you surround yourself with may have to change in order for you to blossom into all you were created you to be. You may want what's best for others, but not everyone wants what is best for you. Our choices deeply matter.  Life is too short to remain indecisive. Don't let not making a decision become your decision. Lost time can't be purchased back.
 
 Jesus came to set us free!  It's time...


^"The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity]." Luke 4:18

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pD2zIuiC2g 

Worth It

As I walked one afternoon, I began meditating on a couple of scriptures that may be quite familiar to some of you:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

 

God loved us smack dab in the middle of our sin.  He demonstrated His love while we rejected Him.  He poured His life out as an offering with the chance we may never love Him back.  Why would He lay Himself down for us in the midst of our wickedness? Why would He provide a way of escape for us when we lived a life that mocked His ways?  Why?  In that moment of question, I felt Him gently speak, “Not because you're worthy of it, but because you're WORTH IT.”

 

Immediately I was reminded:

 

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12

It is not a suggestion, but a commandment to love as He loved.  We are called to love those who do not deserve it.  It's far more than voicing the words "I love you."  Love is a verb and demands action.  It is demonstrated in our choices, in our attitudes, in our words spoken towards EVERYONE… yes, even the unlovely.  Yes, even the one who disrespects you, the one who speaks evil of you, the one who has smeared your name, the one who has broken your heart, corrupt leaders, misguided politicians, the harsh boss that takes you for granted…

We have become so accustomed to the thought that we need to only respect and love those who are deserving of it and those who have earned it.  God’s ways are much higher than our human logic:

“You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy; But I tell you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you to show that you are the children of your Father Who is in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and makes the rain fall upon the upright and the wrongdoers alike. For if you love those who love you, what reward can you have? Do not even the tax collectors do that?  And if you greet only your brethren, what more than others are you doing? Do not even the heathen do that?  You, therefore, must be perfect [growing into complete maturity of godliness in mind and character, having reached the proper height of virtue and integrity], as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:42-48

Each one of us was once lost in our sin and living a life separated from God… and yet - Jesus found us WORTH IT.  When we are tempted to pull our judgmental swords and  withhold “the love of God that has been shed abroad in our hearts” let’s remember where we came from and love those who have not yet found The Way. 

"And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?"  Romans 2:3-4

The goodness of God.  The goodness of God in what Jesus already did, the goodness of God in our everyday lives, and could it also be the goodness of God THROUGH US to others that will lead them to true repentance?  

 

May our love walk demonstrate the God who loved “while we were yet sinners.” May God's love in action - in us - be the very tool that gains us access to speak the Truth into those people’s lives who Jesus found WORTH IT! J

 

Memorial Day

 

Father, thank You for Jesus - the One who willingly laid His life down for our eternal freedom.

Thank You for the men and women who have served and are currently serving our country. Like Jesus, they have committed themselves and their time for the sake of freedom. They have unselfishly laid down their lives for us and even a future generation yet unborn.

Thank You for the Holy Spirit, our Comforter. Comfort the families who have lost their loved ones while battling for our country's freedom. We are so thankful for the price they've paid. Comfort the families whose loved ones are away. Give them strength and courage to face each day.

We lift up those who are on the battle lines now and those who could be called at any time. We pray for their protection and safe return. We pray that their purpose in fighting for our peace not be in vain.

We pray for the servicemen and women who do not know You. Send laborers into their path. May the blinders be removed and their eyes be opened to the Gospel message. We pray Jesus would become their hope and comfort; that they would then unashamedly share their experience with Him to others. We pray for a domino effect - that the saving message and love of Jesus would spread like wild fire!

We pray that the United States would fall in love with You. We pray that revival would be sparked in the hearts of all - that a great awakening would strike the land and Jesus would be glorified in America. Bless our country, Father. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arSiv9PRo04


https://thewarriorsjourney.org/