Joyful Home

I have been running with the Lord and it has been going super well and challenging. There are times where I think it is okay to involve someone else in the run (i.e. phone calls) but then I'm taught a lesson because I've put someone else before God. I learn, repent and then the pain is gone. You're probably wondering what I am talking about? Well, allow me to explain. When the Lord laid on my heart to start running but only with Him, I was excited but didn't know what that looked like or felt like. I started to do it with Him on the treadmill where there were no interruptions. I found myself getting a little distracted with thoughts and asked God if I could watch YouTube instead while I ran. Now, I understand why God is a jealous God! I ended up with back problems. When I realized that I was involving something else and not just God and I, I repented and allowed Him to change me again and again and again! The pain went away! It was going fairly well, obviously things ar...

I keep hearing in the Spirit, "My grace is sufficient enough." I didn't understand until a couple days later, that it meant that I have grace in being a mom. A mom isn't just a woman that makes sure your kids are fed, bathed and put to sleep. It involves tasks that are daunting: cleaning up the messes, discipling, and making sure you still have enough energy by the end of the day to pour out to your husband. Mom is a tough calling by God! I know!  I was so empty this week. I had a chance to be by myself for a few hours because I needed a break. I felt distant on everything. I needed to draw near to the Lord I just didn't know how since all my time was absorbed by helping the girls, the home, and my husband. Because I am home all the time, I am with the girls all the time which is amazing, but just felt burnout.  Matthew 11:28-30 " Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gent...

  Good evening folks. It has been a while and I'm not exactly sure why... I've been doing the year bible with Pastor Jasmine from Regeneration Nashville and it has brought up some old Born Again feelings that I'm falling in love with again - reading the word all over the place.  What do I mean by that? One of the bibles that I own has footnotes and sometimes it gives a detailed description of what you're reading and other times it lists other verses that is similar to meaning or subject. I would jump all over the word of God and then feel such closeness with Him. He is bubbling this back up in me. I'm not sure why I stopped!  I've been reading Esther for the last month or so and asked my dad to come along with me and read it, too. We have been reading a chapter a day! Chapter 1 we concluded that King Xerxes is pompous, capricious, and prideful. He led his kingdom with such pride by showing off all his wealth and such. But what grabbed my attention was the fact t...

I am sure you know the verse, "Your Word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path," Psalm 119:105. Well today the Lord shed some light on it! (No pun-intended, laughing at myself).  Since I stopped the Hal Higdon training, I was off a few days from running because my family needed some help getting some wood split. That right there is a workout in itself, so I decided to take it a little easy on my body and quite frankly, I wasn't hearing from the Lord or a nudge to run. So I laid low.  This morning I was feeling a nudge from the Lord to run and to my excitement I felt like I needed to run to Hadley (4 miles)! I was excited and was careful to not block myself from this success by self-talking myself down. So I made sure that I was super close to the Father before the run, during the run, and after by praising Him. Sometimes He will place a song on my heart and I'll sing it the whole time and other times He will have me praying for people. This time, He was r...

There I was minding my own business when I started to get this excitement to get back into marathon training. It has been a desire of mine for some time now, but it wasn't the right timing. I could tell. Recently I have been trying 1 mile here and 1 mile there, then I tried 2.5 miles and I thought, "okay, I can do this." Although it is at a slow pace, but who cares, it is me and Jesus! I ended up running a 3.2 mile and I was so elated that when I came in from the run, I was smiling so big and said to Caleb, "I DID IT! I RAN 3 MILE WITH NOT STOPPING!" And I had absolutely no issues with my body and the breathing was easy! I asked the Lord if He could still be a part of this... then I brought it up to some friends that I was going to train for a marathon! I took myself off guard, not them! I was like, "Whoa, God are we doing this!?"  I went for an afternoon run later that week and saw a stick and two leaves that were smiling at me as I ran past it and th...

I just finished the Attributes of God study from The Daily Grace Co. and it was an incredible study of getting to know the Lord. Afterall, He knows me, right? I knew some of the attributes but not all of them. It was fun to get into a deeper dive on omnipresence. What a beautiful opportunity He has given me to be able to sit in His presence. I am in a relationship with the Lord and I need to get to know Him so that I can understand what it is He likes, desires, and expects from me. It's been a beautiful journey. My dreams have been indicating that I am scaling rocks and jumping from one cliff to another with skill. At first I was scared, but my inner-man (Ephesians 3:16) had confidence and told my mind that I can do it with ease. So the second dream, I was scaling smoothly. In my awake life, I did a little research and found that I am under the shelter of Christ. I'm in hiding and the perfect example of this is from my favorite passage of scripture - Moses and God in the crevic...