Guest Post on Come Have a Peace

Have there been times in your marriage when you and your husband just don’t seem to click? When no matter what you do there are misunderstandings, tempers flair, feelings get hurt and walls go up.

Join me today as I guest post on my friend, Julie Sanders' blog Come Have a Peace. 

In His Calm,

Mary

God will wait until I return...

This morning I found myself pacing the house. 

I have a dizzying amount of things on my to do list – laundry, cleaning, getting dinner for tonight started, writing a blog post, running countless errands…& on it goes…

I actually made myself dizzy while talking to someone on the phone. I couldn’t stop long enough to have a very important conversation because I knew that would put me further behind. When I hung up the phone I needed to sit down to collect my thoughts about what to do next.

It was then, as I sat still long enough to take a deep breath, that God tapped on my heart & said “Come sit with me for a little bit. Let me interrupt your going in circles so that I may calm your spirit & speak to your soul.”

I walked to my bedroom, grabbed my bible, pen & Sunday School book and sat down to have my quiet time. I opened to Day One of Jonah Navigating a Life Interrupted by Priscilla Shirer.

“A life interrupted by a holy God is a privilege.”

Priscilla Shirer

Wouldn’t you know it; God had just interrupted me!

He wanted to meet with me, one on one…in the quiet of my house. He wanted to speak peace into my very being!

I had begun my day focused on my to do list which left me reeling in the rush of it all.

As I read how the Lord interrupted Gideon in Judges 6:11-27 verses 17 & 18 jumped out at me.

“Gideon replied, ‘If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.’ And the Lord said, ‘I will wait until you return.’”

Judges 6:17-18

Did you catch that? “The Lord said, ‘I will wait until you return.’”

And that is what He did for me. He quietly tapped on my heart & said, “come sit with me, I will wait for you to return.”

Instead of being focused on all that I needed to do today I needed to focus on the One who brings peace to my spirit the One who will ordain & lay out my day before me.

Do you need to stop frantically running around and sit quietly with God? He is waiting for you to stop and sit at His feet.

In His Calm,

Mary

Thankful Thursday ~

It's Thursday, the middle of November, just a week before Thanksgiving & I haven't posted a Thankful Thursday yet this month. It's not that I haven't been thanking God for all He has done for me, it's just that we have been doing so much I haven't been on the computer much.

My "One Word" for this year is Intentional. And that is just what I have been doing.

I have been intentional with time spent with my family on a wonderful, much needed trip away. 

I have been intentional with my Bible Study and God has proved Himself faithful in speaking to my heart through His Word.

I have been intentional with spending time here at home trying to set the calm, loving atmosphere I so want for my family. 

I still have a long way to go but progress is being made. Thanks to Courtney at Women Living Well I have been reminded what lighting a candle each morning and playing soft music will do to set a stage of calm and relaxation in the house.  


Each morning before I get out of bed I ask God to help me have a calm, loving heart that extends grace to my family.

In this world of constant commotion & chaos I want my home to be a place where my family feels protected, loved & peaceful. 

That feeling of protection, love and peace starts with me.  

My prayer over the last couple of weeks has been that of Psalm 19:14.

"May the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be pleasing in your sight,

O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer." Psalm 19:14

When I find myself getting frustrated, anxious and in a hurry I asked God to help my words be loving & kind and my thoughts be pure and holy in His sight. That prayer helps bring a peace over my heart and my house.

As we enter the week leading up to Thanksgiving I want my heart and my lips to praise God for the Amazing God that He is! My prayer is that my kids will see a Mom who loves God and praises Him and that they will in turn, speak more words of love and encouragement to each other and praise God for all that He is to them.

Continuing the Joy Dare #925- #950:

• listening to my daughter sing as she colors
• kids running around trick or treating with friends
• having the faith of a mustard seed that God will move a mountain
• impromptu visit to see WWII airplanes
• thankful that there are men & women who will risk their lives to fight for our freedom
• relaxing family trip to reconnect & decompress
• bright orange leaves
• laughter & dinner with special friends
• safe travel
• loving welcome
• kids learning through fun without realizing it
• reading of the Declaration of Independence at the Capital of Colonial Williamsburg on our Nations election day
• God's perspective in the world today
• the gift of wisdom, prayer warriors & friendship from a Godly group of Women
• the gift of down time for my husband to completely heal
• pampering time just for me
• lightly scented candles
• open windows
• soft music filling the home
• God reminding me I have a family & a home to minister to
• lunch with a mentor
• waking up after sleeping through an alarm
• thunder in the night
• rain to refresh the earth
• bare trees
• cold, crisp wind

Taking the Joy Dare of counting 1000 gifts with Ann at A Holy Experience 

In His Calm,

Mary

God's Grace when I come Unlgued with Him

This week we finished Lysa Terkuerst's Unglued Online Bible Study with Melissa Taylor. As I read the Chapter where Lysa discussed how coming Unglued wasn't necessarily all bad my heart breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Relief because there are times when I come Unglued with God. And when I say I come unglued with God I mean full blown sobbing, fist pounding, voice raising unglued moments. Its not pretty and definitely a time when its just me and God because if there were any witnesses I'd have some explaining to do.

I don't come unglued with God often. There have only been a few times in my life but one thing I have learned from those moments is they are filled with God's Loving Grace.

One such Grace-moment happened about 6 years ago.

It was a quiet night... nearly midnight as I sat in the middle of my bed...alone. I was 26 weeks pregnant with my daughter, my 18 month old son slept soundly in his bed and my husband sat at the bedside of his Mom, in another city, as she fought for her life while his father fought for his life in a hospital in another city.

Life had absolutely blown apart in the matter of a week.

We went from celebrating our anniversary with a weekend alone & my in-laws watching our son to my father-in-law, who had dementia, having a massive heart attack and the night before his open heart surgery my mother-in-law having a massive brain aneurysm rupture. To say our world had been turned upside down was an understatement.

We didn't know from one day to the next if one or both of them would live or die. The stress of traveling between 3 different cities throughout the state, trying to make some since of their household affairs, and taking care of our kids and home was exhausting. I was in the deepest despair I had ever experienced. 

In the dark, quiet, lonely hours of the night I came unglued with God. I sobbed. I questioned. I banged my fists. I begged God to take this pain and stress from us. 

And God, in His Infinite Grace let me come unglued with Him. He let me release my pain, sorrow, fear & doubt to Him.

As I was gut wrenchingly honest with Him He slowly calmed me down. While I lay on the bed in the dark of the night with only the sound of the fan whirring above me I felt His Calming Peace wash over me like the peace of a river. I felt His arms wrap around me holding me close to Him. And I felt Him whisper to my soul "Be Still & Know I AM God".

Oh how grateful I am for that unglued moment! For in that Grace-filled moment I found a calming peace with God I had never felt before. 

When we allow ourselves to breakdown and become totally, gut wrenchingly honest with God we allow Him to take our pain, our sorrow, our fear & our doubts and turn them into a beautiful tapestry of life.

Thank you Lysa and thank you Melissa & your team for leading us through Unglued. It has been a journey of Imperfect Progress and it has been good!

I'm linking today with Melissa Taylor's Online Bible Study of Unglued by Lysa TerKuerst. 
 

In His Calm,

Mary

Thankful Thursday - The grace to try again...

"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, 

so that Christ's power may rest on me."

2 Corinthians 12:9

I have a confession...

I suffer from Raw Emotions. My friends would be shocked to hear me say that, but its true. I get hurt easily. I love fully and I am fiercely loyal.

My pattern has been to stuff my hurt feelings and emotions to the outside world but with my husband and children I let it go. It's a pattern I learned as a child. I am not proud of it. It's one I lived in growing up and never did I want my children to grow up living the life of fear that I knew.

Knowing how much I didn't want that life for my children, I made a promise to myself and God, before they were born that I would do whatever I had to not to raise them in those conditions. Although I may not come "Unglued" with my kids & husband the way my father came unglued with us, I am still very aware of my tendencies.

I have tried over and over again to break the cycle. But, time after time I would fail.

When I failed I blamed myself, I beat myself up and I told myself I was a horrible mother & wife.

BUT GOD!!!

He loves me enough to forgive me! He loves me enough to heal me! He loves me enough to change me!

Over the last several years He has taken me through a journey of finding His Calming Presence. Each step of the way has provided a joy like no other.

The most recent journey has been through Lysa TerKeurst's book "Unglued: Making Wise Choices in the Midst of Raw Emotions". I read this book several months ago as part of a focus group prior to its release. Can I just say Thank You God! Unglued has given me the next steps to take in breaking free from my raw emotions.

Over the last several months I have seen a big change. In the past I would do well for a while - fail - and then go back to my same old habits, frustrated that I could never change. But then I read in Chapter One about "The Hope of Imperfect Progress."

Lysa shared this from her journal: 

"Progress. Just make progress. It's okay to have setbacks and the need for do-overs. It's okay to draw a line in the sand and start over again - and again. Just make sure you're moving the line forward. Move forward. Take baby steps, but at least take steps that keep you from being stuck. Then change will come. And it will be good."

And you know what...Change has come! And it has been good!

Whenever I do mess up I remind myself of what she shared:

"Imperfect changes are slow steps of progress wrapped in grace...imperfect progress."

God gives me the grace to try again - and now, I can stop beating myself up - and give myself the grace to try again. Thank you God for your Calming Grace!

If you would like to find out more about Unglued you can visit Lysa's website or the Unglued book site.

Continuing the Joy Dare #824 - #838:

• great first 2 days in Kindergarten
• holding my tongue & being reminded of Proverbs 10:19 "When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise."
• keeping my calm in the heat of the moment
• showing my daughter the better way to deal with her emotions
• looking forward to our yearly apple orchard day with great friends
• beginning our Christmas presentation music in choir
• shiny kitchen sink
• school morning devotions
• praying with my children & their friends on the way to school
• staying caught up with laundry for almost 2 weeks!
• no tv in the mornings
• pumpkin lattes, apple cinnamon donuts & the first hints of fall
• exchanging whispers with God before exchanging shouts with the world
• devotions that follow along with what I am trying to teach the kids
• "Train a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6

Taking the Joy Dare of counting 1000 gifts with Ann at A Holy Experience 

In His Calm,

Mary