Grace, It Sets Us Free!

Hello Precious Friend!

The past few days I’ve not been thinking a lot about grace. Especially how showing grace helps the receiver, while judgment only proves to create shame and a stumbling block. 

Two stories have been playing out in my head: The story of the spilled coffee pot, and the Pastor who shared his struggle. One brings judgment, the other grace. 

Allow me to take you back a couple of decades.

 Years ago we had a woman at our church who loved to throw out the old spilled coffee pot analogy anytime she heard anyone curse. She would say, “Do you know what comes out of a spilled pot of coffee? Coffee! Because that’s what the coffee pot is full of, and that spilled out of their mouth because that’s what their heart is full of!” Sometimes she would literally spill her coffee on purpose to give herself the opportunity to chastise someone. Once at lunch the poor young waitress was the victim of this lesson. The poor young girl was overwhelmed and spilled some coffee while pouring and accidentally said a curse word, she immediately apologized profusely, but rather than graciously accepting the apology this woman used it as an opportunity to chastise the waitress using the analogy and sharing that she had cursed “because it’s what her heart was full of.” She always shared these stories with great pride! 

What no one knew is that I was struggling with cursing. I grew up in a household and around family friends who “cursed like sailors” as the saying goes. I no longer spoke like that on a daily basis but if I was very stressed, scared, angry or hurt, these words would fly out of my mouth! I hated it! I struggled with this because it made me feel ugly, dirty, unworthy. Surely God could not love someone with this mouth? I felt condemnation! I felt the scorn of the woman at church and other Christians. Every time she shared her spilled coffee pot story I would cringe and shrink a little. I struggled with the thought that my heart was “full of” all that cursing reflected to her. I loved the Lord so much! I read His Word, I prayed, I worshiped! Surely my heart was not filled with the old me. Yet no matter how much I tried to control my mouth, in those moments I failed. And every time I failed I was overcome with shame. 

A few years later we had changed churches and our Pastor was a wonderful man who loved the Lord and held a PhD in theology. One Sunday morning he shared his struggle with cursing!! What?! How could this man who loved the Lord, who was a Pastor, who was so learned that he held a PhD struggle with cursing?!?? I listened intently as he spoke about how he couldn’t relate to an addict’s struggle, or the struggle of pornography, because those weren’t his struggles. But he could understand their struggle in light of his own struggle to control his tongue. He preached about all of our need to give our struggles to God because He was the only one who could help us! His sermon was so full of grace that it set me free from condemnation! That’s the power of grace! And it’s the power of “confessing our sins one to another” James 5:16. 

Hearing that my Pastor shared my struggle took the burden off my shoulders and allowed me to let go of the struggle and give it to God. It allowed me to accept God’s grace towards me. 

Awhile later I realized that I no longer struggled with cursing! I had been set free! Not through my own doing, but through my surrender! In letting go of my struggle to control my tongue and just focusing on God, He had delivered me from my bondage. 

Reflecting back on the the first woman and the Pastor reminded me how grace allowed room for God to work, shame and judgment kept me hidden and trying to do it in my own strength. 

And I’ve learned a few things since then. 

To give grace to others. It sets people free! 

To give grace to myself. It sets me free! 

God can, and will, do for us what we cannot do for ourselves! 

May 2022 be a year filled with Grace for you, precious friend! 

And if you need prayer please leave a comment to let me know. 

♥️Colleen

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Let's Not Get Distracted

Since our move I've gone to work and have found it very difficult to make time for blogging. I have tried however to keep up somewhat through Facebookand Instagram. Here is the link to a post I wrote about the red cup distraction of late. As Christians let's not allow ourselves to be baited, used, distracted by the foolishness of.the world. Let's take a step back and ask Him to help us focus on the real work He has for us to do. Although I don't know a single Christian who was upset over the cups, my Facebook feed was full of people responding to it all, again, distracted from the real work He has for us. I hope you're blessed by this.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=926428247446337&substory_index=0&id=221258127963356

Taking Charge of My Health ~ What I'm Reading Today

This is what I'm reading today on my journey towards taking control of my health. 

Here is a link to a great article about 7 important foods for brain health 

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/01/12/top-7-brain-foods.aspx

Here is a great article on the price of sleep deprivation. 

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/01/17/sleep-deprivation-health-effects.aspx

And here is one about the importance of Vitamin B to our brains. There is more at the bottom of the article as well about taking care of our brain health.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/06/03/vitamin-b.aspx

Hope these are a blessing to you too. 

Have a great week. 

Blessings,

Colleen

Let it Snow With These Homemade Snowflakes

Here's a fun craft to do with the kids. Please note that the recipe gives you the amount of borax PER one cup of boiling water. It does not call for one cup of boiling water. The amount of boiling water you need will vary depending on the size of your jar, it's just important to get the ratio correct. It's also important to use a glass jar to help the crystals form, they will not form in plastic jars. Have fun making it snow wherever you are. 

Blessings, Colleen

Crystal Snowflakes

Learning To Live With Intent Towards Myself (aka: learning to love myself)

I plan to own my own life in 2015 and beyond, by learning to live with intent towards myself. Years ago I began to learn to live with intent towards others. Intentionally loving others, intentionally serving others, intentionally caring for others. But along the way I began to believe the lie that to live with intent towards others was enough. It was not. In the process, I forgot to love me, care for me, enjoy me. I neglected myself. I'm not talking about self-centered living. I'm talking about basic self care. Making sure I ate and ate healthy. Making sure I got enough sleep, exercise, took my medication, etc.... 

I have even come to realize that I have neglected myself by neglecting time with God. I felt guilty about ignoring Him, I didn't want to ignore Him, I love Him. But somehow it felt like self indulgance to take time for study and prayer that were not part of parenting. So in reality, neglecting Him, was also another way of neglecting myself. I denied myself the gift of spending time with my Heavenly Father. Of the peace, joy, strength, grace, patience, faith, that comes with having spent time in His presence.

I know I'm not alone. It's often a mom thing. We must learn to live with balance. My life has been out of balance and as I get older the effects of self neglect become more pronounced. So, I realize that I must begin to live with intent towards myself, the same way I live with intent towards those I love and care about.

Part of this journey towards living with intention towards myself is my journey to take control of my health as I wrote about recently. It's also actively pursuing God's call on my life, making time for me without guilt, resting when my body says rest, without guilt or condmnation, accepting my limitations, embracing my gifts, loving what is lovable about me and having grace as I change what isn't so lovable. Learn to be more objective about what isn't lovable.

It's not enough to do good things for myself because they are good for my family, I must also do them because they are important and good for me.

Blessings,
Colleen

The Importance of Saying No

In dealing with some life issues a lot of talk has been had recently between my friends and myself about people feeling taken advantage of. People getting upset when asked for a favor. Here's the real problem many of us have. The inability to say no.

When we try to people please, and let's face it, most of us women do, we end up feeling resentful of the people we are trying to please. But the fact is, it isn't their fault. It's actually our fault for not saying no.

If someone asks something of me I have to evaluate whether or not I can accomodate that request and then make a decision to say yes or no. But many times we just say yes automatically without counting the cost of that yes. Do we have the time, energy or resources to give what we've said we will? If we say yes, and then find that it's a burden to us, we often get upset with the person who asked us. However, the problem doesn't lie with them. The problem isn't the question, it's the answer. How can we be angry at them for simply asking for something they needed? That's why we end up feeling guilty, because we are now angry at them, but deep down we know we shouldn't be. So, now we're feeling angry and guilty. 

And then comes the second problem, we don't just fess up and tell the person that we are sorry but we can't do what we promised. We want to deliver, we want to be a person of our word, so we sacrifice what we shouldn't to accomodate a promise that should never have been made in the first place. Again, leading us to resent the person who made the request.

But let's look at that person. What did they do wrong? They asked if you could do something for them. A simple request. You had the option of saying, "I'm sorry, I can't do that." And guess what? You don't even have to give a reason! You can if you'd like, but it's not required. What is important is that you learn to count the cost of your yes!

Proverb 31:16 says, 

I have often thought of that verse when choosing what I will and won't do with my time and energy. I must first consider the venture before I decide to take part in it. But all too often I just jump in and say yes to every field that comes along. Whatever we spend our time doing, is us sowing. We are sowing our time, talents, and treasure into whatever we are doing. And we will reap our harvest from what we are sowing. So, when we spend our valuable time, energy, and resources we must consder the cost of our activities. We must consider the cost of our commitments. Otherwise, the harvest we will reap may be resentment, frustration, and chaos.

We women often have trouble saying no because we don't want to hurt our friendships. But in saying yes when we shouldn't, we end up doing the very thing we are trying not to do, hurting our friendship. We are afraid our friends will get upset with us if we say no, but we end up upset with them because we said yes when we really needed to say no.


And then we come across another problem with saying yes when we should say no. We then often complain and grumble about it. I know I do. Yet Philippians 2:14-15 has this to say about grumbling while we are doing something...

When we are grumbling and complaining we are not glorifying or pleasing God. In fact we are doing exactly what He has told us not to do. And we are tarnishing His reputation in the process. I have to confess, this is an area I struggle in. I have had victory before, but it is so easy to slip right back into the habit. 


So, let us be a people who let our yes be yes, and our no be no, so that we glorify our Father in heaven and shine as a light in this dark world. And in so doing, we protect the friendships we value. 

Be Blessed, 
Colleen

 

A Different Tale of Three Trees

My goal each year is to get our home decorated for Christmas during Thanksgiving weekend. Since we've been in the trailer the past four years, decorating is at a bare minimum as space is at a premium. Since we are in a season of transition yet again and since we had been sick, recovered and then got sick again, there has been no decorating. Rather than bemoan my lack of decor, I decided that it would be fun to share some old pictures of our old home and Christmas decorations over the years. So, in essence, it's a virtual, virtual tour. I hope you enjoy the pictures of some of our decorations. I know I have enjoyed looking back through them myself. 

I believe I have shared before about our artificial tree, but in case you haven't heard, I will share it again. When I was about 9 my grandmother got an artificial tree. It was huge! It was gorgeous! And I hated it! I loved the smell of a real tree. I loved the look and feel of a real tree. So when I got to my teens and began to work I would always bargain with her and pay for half the tree if she would agree to put up a real tree. Most years that's what we did. 

Here are a couple of pictures of my grandmother's beautiful tree. 

My sister and I opening gifts in 1974 and 1981 

These were the only two I could find on the computer. But you can see that it is a very large, full tree. 

When we had our own home we always bought a real tree. But as our family grew it got tougher and tougher to put out the money for a tree when we would rather spend that money on gifts for our loved ones. One year we had gone out for a super special Black Friday deal, (our first and last time!) And lo and behold, they had an artificial tree on sale for $5.00! A six foot tree for $5.00! My grandmother had passed away a few years earlier or I'm sure she would've had a grand laugh at our tree! As it turned out it stood 6 ft tall, but much of that was the stand and trunk, and it was not very big around. In fact, it was quite a scrawny tree compared to what we were used to. But it was a great buy and so we put it together and set about decorating it with our precious family ornaments. By the time we were done, I could not have loved that tree any more! It became a very special part of Christmas for me. A few years later a friend of my grandmother's gave me another tree, the exact same size and kind of tree, so now we had one for the living room and one for the family room! What a blessing those trees were to me. We would all decorate the family room tree with our country theme and then we would decorate the living room tree in a very elegant burgundy and gold. 

Here is the family room tree. 2003

You might be able to tell we had it set on a small box to give it a little more height, but even without the box you can see that there was a lot of "trunk" to that tree. 

Here is the living room tree with it's burgundy and gold decorations. 

I hope you've enjoyed our tale of three trees. It's funny how very much I have come to love our little trees. After all, it's really not about the tree at all, is it. It's really about the fact that we gather to celebrate the greatest gift of all, the birth of Jesus. And it's about who is gathered around that tree with me to celebrate Him. I often chuckle about how much I hated my grandmother's big, beautiful tree and how much I came to love our little scrawny trees. I know she would have laughed right along with me. And I'm sure she would have ribbed me every year about my lack of "pine tree smell". lol 

This year we will once again not be in our own home for Christmas so I will have to make do with memories of Christmases past. I will enjoy reminiscing here and I hope you will enjoy the trip down memory lane as well. This month I will write a little about some of our traditions as I share our virtual tour. 

Be Blessed,

Colleen