Praying for the heart of the heartless

This has been a very sad and heart breaking weekend.

Friday started off as an adventure.  My three biologicals prepared to fly into Tampa for their Dad and their "new Mom's" wedding.  They arrived at the airport hours prior to their departure time.  Within minutes of arriving my son received a very disturbing text from one of his best friends.  This text would change Christian's heart forever.  One of his best friends tragically died minutes prior to that very same text message.  He was broken.  Why would a God of love take not one but two of his best friends in less than a year? First, the man he admired most, his Grandpop.  And now, his sister-in-Christ, a sweet friend. He spent the next few hour being comforted by his sisters and his sister's boyfriend.  I felt my heart break for this sweet girls family, her friends, and of course my son.

I arrived in Florida, accompanied by my mom, the next morning.  It felt like an eternity.  I needed to wrap my arms around my kid.  I needed to see his eyes.  And when I did I felt his heart and saw his brokenness.  He and I spent time together by the pool at the hotel.  He said that he wanted to put on a smile and be happy for his dad and soon to be inherited mom.  He truly is on of the most selfless teens I know.  I expressed that it was important for him to not suppress his emotions.  And encouraged him to speak.  But still he remained silent.  He continued texting and viewing Facebook. Facebook was blowing up with posts from his friends and other well wishers.  And then there was the Facebook post about a very vile and disgusting man and his heartless and unfounded blog.  His words where evil. Christian and I read it together.  I was beyond angry.  And Christian too.  He was quiet for a bit.  Then I watched his fingers rapidly type away on his phone.  He was attempting to respond to this sick individual.  He shared his words, that he had  typed, with me and my eyes filled with tears.  He wanted this guy to know, that even though he had the audacity to write such horrible stuff about this tragic event, that he was praying that the same God who chose to call his sweet friend home would give him grace.

So here I sit.  I am praying for the heart of this heartless man.  This individual wants nothing more than to hurt the brokenhearted.  He spends his spare time seeking  tragic events in the media and twisting them into something terrible.  So, I pray that the same God that heals the sick, gives sight to the blind,  and forgives each one of us for our wrongs, gives this man grace.  I pray that Mr. Crook finds the love of Christ in his heart of stone.  And that one day his blog will glorify the name of God.  And that he will become a servant of the Lord.  And, that he will no longer make Satan smile at his pitiful perception of the human race.  

"I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.'  Ezekiel 11:19

The funeral for this beautiful princess of God is in a few days.  There will be a time of sadness and moments of celebrating this precious girls life.  It was short, too short.  But she touch so many lives in that period off time.  And I pray that friends,her brothers and sisters-in Christ, will use this heartbreaking tragedy to draw the saved and unsaved closer to God.

There is a time for everything, 
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

You are what you eat.....

I am a sinner. Yes, a sinner saved by God's grace. I am not perfect. I am probably the biggest sinner I know. Wait, I am the biggest sinner I know. And He loves me anyway. He promises that He has already paid in full for the portion that will be served to me at any given time. It's like I have been handed a prepaid, all inclusive, ticket to one of the greatest feasts known to mankind. Every delicious treat and tasty morsel I could imagine is laid out before me. I know that my stomach is only so big. But I certainly don't want to let any of these treats go untasted. After all they were prepared especially for this occasion. I just seem to forget that I don't have to consume it all or let it consume me. God provides what I need. I am the one who chooses to devour more than necessary. I find myself overwhelmed with what is at the other end of the table or better yet what is on the menu for tomorrow. There is this urge to keep going until I have tasted it all. I lack the ability to wait. And I think that if I know in advance I might be able to stretch my stomach to devour it all. If only I could have that crystal ball to look ahead and see what is brewing for tomorrow. How crazy is that mentality of thinking? I can't even handle all the stuff I piled on today's plate. So, I get sick and overwhelmed. My inability to digest the excess stuff just causes discomfort and pain.

God said He would never gives us more than we could handle. I am gluttonous. I make the decision to over do it. No one forces me into it. But the beauty in God's grace is this, He will be there help me digest. He stretches out His mighty hand to lead me to a place that is healthy. He allows me to sit humbly, with a stomach ache, at His feet. And He feeds me a portion of His healing word.

You know the saying, "You are what you eat." Those five words are packed with truth. Physically speaking I need food for energy. It is my fuel. I sometimes choose to pick through the "bad for you" foods and eat the "healthy" stuff. "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Yep, I am what I eat! So, it is becoming more and more evident to me that I need to partake in God's word, His daily bread. This world will crush me with all the fast food and garbage that is promoted as "delicious and nutritious". It isn't just what I consume by mouth. It is also what I allow to penetrate my thoughts. Mind, Body and Spirit. I watch t.v. shows that I think are ridiculous. There is absolutely no substance to that 30-60 minute time frame. The hard cold reality is that those are wasted minutes that I will never get back. I should have spent that time seeking to be filled with the good stuff. There are plenty of mind building and edifying things I could have chosen watch and/or read. I just have to make the effort to do the right thing. With the Spirit indwelling in me, every thought, and every deed is in His view. The Holy Spirit knows me. He knows my strengths and my weaknesses. That fact of the matter is that He knows me better than I know me. So how much greater my "diet" would be if I could just keep my focus on His daily provision.

Tomorrow will be here soon enough. And I know that God will give me a fresh fill of His amazing grace. I am not always sure what I am going to do with this grace. But I do know that, today, I will attempted to do my very best with the portion He has handed me.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

You make me feel................

It amazes me that I can wake up in a really fantastic mood and in an instant my mood is changed by the behavior of one of my beloved family members.

This morning I woke up ready to start the day in quiet prayer.  Praising God for all that I have.  And thanking Him for the quiet time He and I were sharing.  I got up showered and came down stairs.  Straightened up the mess that was left behind from last night.  And got side tracked when I picked up my new netbook computer I opened it up and started to blog about a completely different topic.  When all of the sudden.......tension in the form of a silent man seeking a telephone that wasn't in it's place stung me like a bee.  I really wasn't expecting it at all.  If I had stopped at picking up the computer, and putting it away, I would have had that phone in its proper place.  But, no I got side tracked by the temptation of my new gadget.  I have to say I tried to make up the excuse...."Lord, I was doing it to glorify you."  But that was just a tall tale.  I was doing it because I was excited about blogging on my new toy.

Like I said earlier, I watched my mood change from quiet and feeling blessed to frantic and full of tension.  That duo, frantic and tension, seemed to go with me for a little while.  But God is so faithful and His word is planted in my heart.  I just had to go a pick thru the weeds to find the beauty that was growing.  I could hear my Dad's voice telling me, "Kathleen, take every thought captive."  Wise man!  He used that phrase a lot with me. So, I found myself attempting to take each thought and emotion and tie it all together with a lasso.  It isn't easy.  Those thoughts sure can get away from you.  And emotion is just as evil. But at the end of the day I know that if I do take every thought captive and seek God throught my day that things will be okay.  It's when I forget about who I am and where God has me that I allow others to alter my mood.  And I forget that I am supposed to count it all as JOY!

So, now it is time for me to drop frantic and tension off.  And pick up quiet and blessed.  And I think I am going to carry them with me throughout today.  And no matter how the people around me are feeling Iam going to sit back and remember that...... no one can make me feel anyway. Don't get me wrong.  It still hurts when I say goodbye and I love you and the person on the other end doesn't say it back.  It feels like my heart dropped.  And I can often hear Satan whisper in my ear during those vunerable moments, "This person really doesn't care one bit about you.  They think so little of you.  They don't love you at all.  As a matter of fact they are mad at something you did or said and they blah blah blah blah blah............"  I can choose to listen to this or hold on to the truth.   I am in control of how I feel and I am blessed and honored to be a part of something spectacular. 

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.  2 Corinthians 10:5