How Sweet it is to be Loved by You

Time with my sister-in-law has been amazing. She is a beautiful soul chasing after God’s heart so differently than when I first met her. But time does that. If you’re passionate about life, you won’t stay the same. You will be looking to be the next great version of yourself, of who God created you to be.

When you’re open to change, God uses that to pour into you the next great lesson. And last night’s aha moment? Nicknames, Pet names and all the things you call your husband. (Great title for a book right?)

We were talking and then she brought up how some names she calls her husband in jest, aren’t the greatest. And I then thought of all the names I call my husband in jest when he may not make the greatest decision, but we laugh about it right after “Poop face” is one, and some probably aren’t as PG as I’d like this blog to be. She stated she and I have never done that, except for maybe once I called her that B word completely joking, we paused, looked at each other, and I think I apologized. My best friend, Robin, I’ve never called her any names beside her own. My other bestie, Whitney, she’s never been called any name but her own. God, I’ve never called Him anything but his own.

Then God used me to give a message to the both of us: “If you love and respect God, and these best friends of yours, and to show that you don’t call them names, why would you call your husbands these names? Do you not love and respect them that much more?”

Whoa.

Then, in a split second, God brought to mind another topic recently covered in a women’s get together I go to, to talk Jesus and learn what else He’s go for us. [Y’know that split second that it all makes sense in your head and you quickly roll with it, but when you explain it to people, it seems to take far longer than forever? Yeah that.]

So my other sister-in-law (my husband is one of eight, so seven siblings, add their spouses…) was talking about how she was counseling a woman who was bad mouthing her husband in this session, and I believe talking about how ‘I can’t believe our marriage is crap, why is my husband terrible?’. My sister-in-law realized that this woman had been tearing down her husband for their entire 30-ish years of marriage. Rather than adding bricks to her husband, encouraging him, complimenting him, she was eradicating the bricks that laid the foundation for her safe place, her comfortzone, Her. Best. Friend.

Picture from a Google search

 

My bit from that? Was a bit exactly.

When we call our husbands “Pooper” “Stupid Peacock” “Bad Llama” we’re pulling pebbles. We’re not yanking out bricks: “You’re lazy and just sit and play games all day”. We’re not damaging their ego with these playful pet names. We’re jesting. But the enemy has been pulling these names back to mind when my husband and I get into the small marital tiffs newlyweds face and have to hash out. And I caught myself this last time, “My husband is not a pooper. He’s a great patient man. Why can I only think of him as a poop face right now?” Because I had spoken him as poopy into existence. I pulled a pebble out of the foundation.

After I said this, I stopped, and she and I both exhaled, “Whoa”. Then I raved about how cool God was for him to say that to us because there was no way that that was from my mortal mind.

So once I got home, I recounted to my husband what I had learned. I apologized for pulling pebbles when I should be looking to add bricks. Lo and behold, he apologized too for all the pebbles he pulled that I hadn’t thought of.

So I’m starting today thinking on how to find those odd shaped pebbles to fill the nooks and crannies to fully secure our firm foundation of marriage. I’m conscious of the names I call my husband, this morning I replied to him calling me “Sexy” by calling him “Stud”, rather than not accepting his compliment and telling him he was still just waking up and his eyes weren’t focused. I want to build him up to be a great husband, as Jesus was for the church.

Amen and Amen <3

Well Watered Women

Recently I've been a huge fan of LifeLivedBeautifully. It's an amazing ministry for God's Glory. One of their mottos is to be Well Watered Women.
 
That's rad. We're gonna be watered by the word. Like flowers. Without the water we die. I got it.
Until today.
 
I was listening to Christy Nockels' podcast, Glorious in the Mundane. She and her guest Rebekah Lyons in Episode 12 were talking about wells, to go deep, be deeply rooted.  (Side note, this podcast is AMAZING and I'm sure I'll be blogging about it more)
 
Suddenly "well watered women" took on a new meaning for me. We are to be watered not just by the word but by a well. Wells aren't shallow. They're deep in the ground. They're full of delicious pure water. If they get tainted, you need to find a new well. (Maybe, I'm not quite sure how well water works)  Well water is free, it's not owned by the city. Well water is your own. You must go to the well to get your water. It's not just gonna appear.
 
Whoa.
 
So I'm just gonna soak in that today.
 
I'm going to the well and converse with Jesus, like the woman in the bible whom Jesus describes her lifestyle and just fyi, that's the longest recorded conversation in the bible. How amazing and poignant must that story be? How significant is a well then?
 
Amen and amen indeed
 
- - - -
 
Sorry for the long-ish absence. Life has been relatively busy the last few weeks. Inspiration hasn't hit as heavily as this well did today. So enjoy :)

I can see clearly now, the veil is lifted

 So this week, I couldn’t think of anything to write about for yesterday. I was struggling to think, “What is worth the time to compose a post that people would enjoy reading?”

 

And then I got my windshield replaced yesterday. Then, inspiration hit.

 

A few years ago, I was driving in the slow lane after merging from one freeway to another. I wanted to make my way to the fast lane. I moved to the middle lane behind this big semi truck. I checked my mirror, checked my blind spot, and then 2 things happened at the exact same time. The first, some Speedy Gonzales came flying up in the fast lane, blocking me in the middle lane. More slow cars had filled in the slow lane. The second, a huge gust of head wind blew, informing me that the construction style semi truck in front of me, was a gravel truck, without a cover over the gravel. My windshield got splattered with gravel. Ok, so maybe this was more than a few years ago, I think it was a year or 2 after I got my car, which was 2009, so perhaps since 2011 I’ve been driving around with a windshield missing minute chips.

 

The crack. You can see the curved part and then where it begins to straighten out across the windshield.

So after this crack appeared, I’m assuming one of those gravel chips evolved into the nearly halfway across the windshield mark, I was ecstatic to get a new windshield. I was thrilled to be able to start fresh. Last night I picked up my car and got in and looked out at a fresh windshield for the first time in years.

This was taken this morning. No crack. No chips. No dent. Just frost.

 

I didn’t realize how distorted my windshield was. I didn’t realize how “fuzzy” I had been seeing. For those of you who wear glasses, you know that moment where you clean your glasses after looking through dirty ones and all of a sudden everything is bright and clear as day? For those of you who don’t, you know when your phone camera gets dirty and you realize in your camera preview things are fuzzy, then you wipe it clean and all of a sudden everything is bright and crisp?

 

It’s also like, that moment when your life is chaotic, messy, perhaps dangerous and life threatening. It’s that moment when you realize that you’re spinning and lost and dizzy and you don’t know which way is up. It’s that really dark scary moment where you’re ready to give up and let go. And. Then. God. Then God comes into the picture. Then He saves you. Then He shows you what a good life looks like, what true unconditional no strings attached love is. Then He shows you that all He wants is you to love Him and follow Him. Then He tells you that you need to do NOTHING but believe.

 

It’s THAT moment, when you feel free. It’s THAT moment, when you can finally see clearly. When all of a sudden, your vision is bright, clear, crisp, focused.

 

I was reminded of that yesterday. I was reminded that we have THAT moment, every morning when we wake up, a chance to start fresh with God.

 

Oh yesterday was such a good day.

 

Amen and Amen.

Just Breathe

Day 2 of 40. Day 2 of going through the Psalms. Day 2 of spiritual attack. Day 2 of clinging close to my Heavenly Father. Day 2 of an expectant heart excited to see how God is going to be God and move greatly in this study.

 

I’m spending 40 days in the Psalms, thanks to Life Lived Beautifully (LLB). (That’s a link, go check out their blog post about the study!) I’ve done a few studies now. The first 4ish or so I did were through She Reads Truth (SRT). They were pretty good, the first few were Philippians and Colossians and they were pretty basic. The Lent study was a revamped format and the book is beautiful! Though I wasn’t able to finish it, so I can’t speak to how much I learned (or didn’t) from it. The most recent study I did was through Proverbs31 ministries: Finding I Am (FIA), where it went through the book of John and the 7 “I am…” statements Jesus made about himself. This study was pretty good, and I liked it. A common factor between both of these ministries was they allowed the weekend as a “catch up” time for you to do what you can.

 

So now, going through a 3^rd ministry for a study, Oh I’m so excited to learn and grow.

 

The previous studies had verse cards and I didn’t know what to do with them. The SRT ones never got used. The FIA  ones I hole punched and put them in my planner, but I never referenced them. Then, Gretchen Saffles of LLB in one of her instagram stories had a great idea for using them and seeing them on the daily. She hung them by the kitchen sink, so as she did dishes she would see them. That is so brilliant. So I did that. My window that I hung them off of isn’t super big, so I only put 5 of the 10 cards up.

 

 

Halfway through the study, I will switch them out for the other half. My husband really likes the idea too. He says its great and decorative and it’s furthering our House to Home endeavor.


Verdict so far? This first week is a slow week, slowly getting into the study, taking the study book a page at a time. Yesterday and Today are Heart Checks. And I really like that. It's really having me focus (and anyone else doing the study) on where I am and where I need to be. Today's was all about moving forward on your knees: aka Humility. Oh this is so good for my soul. I'm loving this already.

So, here's their post about Lent and resources and awesomeness. Will you join me for a Lent study? Do you want to Breathe and pray through the Psalms? Comment down below what you'll be doing for the 40 days of Lent, I'd love to hear about it and be on my knees praying for you.

Amen & Amen.