I am not exactly a prophet like Isaiah was, but he told the people of Judah that God’s judgment was near if they did not stop what they were doing. He even predicted that the people of Judah would blame God for the problems that they were facing. Wouldn’t it be absolutely ridiculous if my child who was hurt after I told them to be careful were to blame me for their pain after they were careless? It sounds silly, but how often do we do that with God?

The thing about children, no matter how frustrated we get, even though we tell them not to do something, if they are hurt we are still going to love them through the pain. In my mind, and even it may slip out of my mouth, “I told you so,” I am still going to bandage their wounds and sit there with them while they are wailing. God is the same way, He still loves His people and even though He may be angry He will still provide hope and love when we have turned away from Him.

Isaiah 12: 1-2
I will praise you, LORD.
Although you were angry with me,
your anger has turned away
and you have comforted me.
2 Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.”

Are there things in your life that God has warned you to steer clear from and you made excuses or allowed them in anyway? Know that pain is coming your way, but God still loves you and He is going to ride out the pain with you. He is sitting right next to you, cling to him and let Him know that you need Him more than anything or anyone right now. He is your Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace.

Recently, my life has had a running theme of “Catch and Release.” A few years back, my husband and I took our kids fishing in a place that promised us glorious trout to no end. My logical husband said that we needed to let the fish go after catching them though because he knew that my daughter and I would not eat them because we detest fish. Knowing full well that I had no intention on eating these trout, I refused to let them go. I wanted to keep them, because I caught them. They were mine! I spent precious hours of my time luring these boogers in and I am not about to put them back into that lake.

The poor fish went home with us, only to see the inside of a freezer bag for all eternity.

Meanwhile, my extremely insightful nine-year-old daughter and I were talking this morning. We were reminded of this fishing crisis because she has a friend who had to give her dog to someone else who had a more fitting piece of land. This piece of land was one where the dog could roam freely, swim in ponds and overall have a happier life instead of being caged up. My daughter said that she would cry every day if she had to do this with one of her animals.

It was then that I realized she is indeed my daughter.

I reminded her of the fishing adventure that we went on and how the fish ended up in our freezer and were pretty much wasted because we would not release them. She then told me that someday I would have to release her when she goes to college. I immediately ducked my head in the sand.

“Catch and Release” is something that each of must do to continue moving on in life. Particularly, I have a hard time letting go of people, but my letting go extends past that onto releasing thoughts, thought patterns and even my past. I love people so deeply that I cannot seem to pass them off to others that might have more help to offer. My thoughts are so apart of me that I cannot see any other way to do things. If I think I have to go to “this restaurant” that is where we are going. If you have a psychology background, please call me in a prescription right now.

We see that our amazing God gives us an example that we can follow with His own precious son. He releases Him for our greater good. God the Father gives to us His son, Jesus, so that we can live. This life that He offers is one of freedom. We can roam freely. We do not have to be caged up or put in a freezer bag for all eternity. We can have life abundantly.

John 3:15-17 (New International Version, ©2011)

15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”[a]

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

God, I am begging you to help me release all of the people in my life that I am holding on to (my kids, my husband, my friends and those who I bring under my wing for a time). Help me to release them from the death grip and help me to want what you want for these people. Help me to love them deeply, but then in the end allow them to move onto other people that will help them, hold them and encourage their faith. Even when my kids get to high school and some young hip girl wants to disciple my daughter and tell her things that I have been telling her for years and my daughter finally listens, help me to release her to be taught by another person. (no matter how difficult it is)

I need your help, Lord because this is not my natural bent to love like this. I trust you to do this for me. I need you.

Right now, I am writing this post from my balcony overlooking the beautiful beaches of Destin, Florida. The stage is set with umbrellas still folded neatly, the waves crashing in and out, and the sounds of children playing in the distance. It’s still morning, too early to endure the harsh reality of having to read on the beach all day, right?

While everything is neat and picturesque around me, I am not. My heart has been turned inside out this entire trip. I have cried more on this beach trip than the already overflowing coastline deserves.

I have forced myself to turn off the intoxicating media all around me. I have forced myself to allow everyone else space to make their own choices and to go about their own lives without me structuring the details for them back home. No one has called for advice or with any pressing needs and the world has gone on quite nicely without me. It sounds a little depressing, but really it is quite freeing. Although I like to control my world, my world does not need me to control it. It spins just fine without me ordering it’s steps.

Psalm 119:59 I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes.

The only one who needs me to control them is me. By controlling everything around me, I have lost control of myself and ordering my own life. And really, if we are purely being psychological about it, me having to control everything is controlling me. Ouch!

I have stopped exercising, stopped writing for my self, and have even stopped making jewelry which is my single most favorite thing to do in the world. Somewhere, some way, I seem to have lost myself.

Surely as the waves crash onto the shore, life goes on whether I do things that nurture my soul or not. Now it’s up to me…

Will I take care of the life that God has given me to live to the fullest?

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

When I travel back to my world away from the beach and the plates start spinning all around me, will I remember who is in the middle of all of those spinning plates and that I have to take care of her first?

Won’t you join me in praying…

Lord, I commit my ways to you. I relinquish control this day and pray that for as many days as it takes me that I will give up my will for Yours. Your mercy is new each day. When I reach out my hand to control the situation, please place my hands in yours and take control. I need you Lord.

We need You Lord.

Although I know that I wrote how important winter is in our lives a month or so back, I sure look forward to the springtime emerging.

I see glimmers of hope in the green grass that has recently sprung out of the ground in Arkansas. I know this post is relative to where you live, and some of you are still experiencing the tundra like-conditions of the winter, but please know that green grass and daffodils are on their way!

While I usually just find the closest cave and hibernate in the winter, this winter has been very different. I think I finally realized that I can survive winters and that I am not an animal. I do not have to sleep during the winter, both literally and metaphorically. Instead, as in the song, “Hosanna” that Hillsong sings, God has broken my heart for the things that break His. I see all around me devastation in the land. His people, who have been called by His name, are hurting and broken. As Beth Moore talk abouts in her book, Get out of that Pit, some of the hurting has come from people who have been thrown into the pit (ie.. abuse), some have slid in the pit, and some have jumped in themselves.

I want to find the longest rope that I can possibly find and make sure that everyone gets out, no matter how incredibly far they have fallen. I am not sure why I care so much… probably because I not only recognize the pit, I am not too far from where they are.

As the song goes, “Break my heart for what breaks yours,” I have learned, and am continuing to learn, that the next line should go, “but help me to know that I am not YOU, and cannot restore what is broken! Only You can as Joel 2:25 states,

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust have eaten.”

and again in Psalm 68: 7-10 He provided and promises to be there for the needy.

When you, God, went out before your people,
when you marched through the wilderness,
the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain,
before God, the One of Sinai,
before God, the God of Israel.
You gave abundant showers, O God;
you refreshed your weary inheritance.
Your people settled in it,
and from your bounty, God, you provided for the poor.

I have spent much time worrying and being plagued by the sadness around me. Yet, while I have not turned a cold shoulder to the hurting, I realize that there is only so much I can do. I have to continually remind myself that I do not look anything like God. I am not powerful, I am not holy, and I surely do not have all of the answers that the people around me need.

While it is awesome to have a broken heart for the things, ideas, and people that God cares so deeply about, ultimately it is in God’s hands to restore those things, ideas and people. He wants us to love deeply and honor Him, but to place in His hands the burdens of this world.

Hosanna, send us Your Holy rope and pull us all up from where we are! Restore us! And Lord please “bring on” the springtime!

I have been stumbling through the book of Job lately. Job has really been difficult for me to glean much from because I just keep going back to the fact that Job’s friends are just jerks dishing out a bunch of twisted truth. But this morning, as I was anxious to wrap up my time with Job and his little warped friends, I fell upon a set of verses that wrenched my heart.

13 “The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully,
though they cannot compare
with the wings and feathers of the stork.
14 She lays her eggs on the ground
and lets them warm in the sand,
15 unmindful that a foot may crush them,
that some wild animal may trample them.
16 She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers;
she cares not that her labor was in vain,
17 for God did not endow her with wisdom
or give her a share of good sense.

It took me awhile to catch on to what God was saying and why He brought these two animals to the conversation. God had been telling Job that he had no business telling the one who was not around to help Him measure how large He wanted the earth. Also, Job has not been in the storehouse where God keeps the snow. Job had no understanding of what was really going on in God’s world.

Now, I don’t want you to sink down into a Beth Moore “pit” when I offer up this advice, and I hope that I am not being one of Job’s misguided friends. I get really sad and I am sure you do too when you hear of any kind of child abuse. In recent years, it seems that I hear of some of the worst cases of children being abused by their moms. I will not give any examples because I don’t even want to think about it, but I am sure you can think of a recent example. What convicted me is where it said the ostrich lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand, unmindful that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them.

How many times have I been unmindful of my children? My precious kids are out in the world everyday and the enemy (aka a wild animal) is looking to trample them. What kind of mom have I been to them? I am not saying that to myself in an accusing, self-deprecating way. I am saying, “Wake-up Desiree, your kids could get thrown into a pit before your very eyes.”

Obviously, I cannot control what happens with my kids when they are out from under my hopefully stork-like wings and feathers. But when they are right here under my wings and feathers, I need to be a mom who is careful and every moment of the day yielded to my God’s wisdom and guided by the Holy Spirit who He has so generously lavished on us. I don’t want to be an ostrich who flaps her wings joyously but is totally oblivious to what is going on around me. I don’t want to “have my head stuck in the sand” while my kids are hurting with something that is going on in their lives.

Do what Job did just four chapters after the story of the stork and ostrich. See God, don’t just hear of the great things that He does. Repent if you have had your head stuck in the sand. Ask God for wisdom and that you will be a mom who has good sense. Spread your wings and allow your children to hide under your loving feathers. Then ask God, your Father, to spread His wings and hide you under His amazingly soft, beautiful and loving feathers. Many blessings to you!

27 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Evil-Merodach [a] became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin from prison on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month. 28 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 29 So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king’s table. 30 Day by day the king gave Jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived.

A few weeks back, as I was reading through my 90 Day turned to 365 day plan of reading through the whole Bible I stumbled across this verse. When I say stumbled, I mean stumbled. I have never read or heard a sermon preached on this verse before, but for me it became my new life verse. I tried to keep going, thinking it probably did not have any special meaning. I try not to read too much into text because I don’t want to take it out of context, but the Lord has been drawing me back to this verse since I read it. I honestly think it is my life summed up. Please excuse my new version: So Desiree put aside her prison clothes and for the rest of her life ate regularly at the king’s table.

I am just overwhelmed at the depth of this. This Jehoiachin guy was once king of Judah. Nebuchanezzar took him into exile and captivity in Babylon. Johoiachin was a prisoner in Babylon for thirty seven long years. I don’t know about you, but I am quite familiar with prison clothes. No, I have never been in the penitentiary, but I have been in chains to sin. For me, there are two ways of looking at this. When I became a new creation, I left those prison clothes and was adopted by the King into His royal courts. But as you and I both know, just because the King adopted me into His royal courts does not mean I live like it or even feel like a child of the King.

For me, even though the Lord Jesus has saved me from my sins once and for all and I am going to live with Him forever, I am still on a journey of living and walking as a free woman. There have been so many things that have contributed to my chains. Beth Moore has a book, Get Out of That Pit, where she says that there are three pits that we can be in; those that we are put in, those pits that we slide into without realizing it, and those we jump in.

You name it, I have been in all of those pits, just as Beth Moore talks about. I don’t want to be in that pit any longer, and however I got in it, I want to be released from those chains that are keeping me from living freely. I feel like my chains have grown weaker over the years, but they are still there. Where once my chains were 2,000 pounds and I could barely breathe for the weight of them, now I think they are more like construction paper chains that you make at Christmas and string on your tree. I think they are just barely hanging on, but I still feel the ever so slight weight of them around me.

I can only imagine how Jehoiachin felt. Having been a prisoner for thirty seven years and to take off those filthy, raggedy old prison clothes and trade them in for clothes that were fit to wear to the King’s table. What a feeling of leaving the cell, taking a shower, and going to eat dinner with the king. I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to put aside my prison clothes and leave that nasty cell doing whatever it takes.

We are no longer captives. We do not have to be bound by chains to sin any longer. No matter how heavy those chains are, whether you hitched yourself up to one or someone else hung that chain on you for you to carry, ask Christ to free you from it. The King is waiting for you at His banqueting table.

One of the things that struck me this year is that we all were sitting there in that room because of their choices. There were about 15 of us gathered there, all because of the choices that Grandma and Grandpa made throughout their life.

They made the choice not only to get married despite a few obstacles, the choice to have children, the choice to stay together despite thick and thin, and even the choice to save their money so that we could enjoy family reunions together. As I watched them, I realized I wanted what they have. I want the ability to sit in the middle of a room with my extended family gathered around me, hearing the good choices we made, and passing it along to their kids and grand kids. I want this!

I realized that we have no idea of the larger purpose that we are fulfilling. Each of our small daily choices and decisions impact our future and our childrens’ futures for generations to come.

We see this example in the Bible with Ruth’s life. Her choice to follow her mother-in-law from Moab to Bethlehem affected her lineage for hundreds of generations. When she made it to Bethlehem, she met Boaz, and ended up marrying him. He was what is called a “kinsman-redeemer”, someone who was a relative who volunteered to take responsibility for extended family. They had kids and grandkids, one being David, and all of these people were in the lineage of Jesus Christ, our ultimate Kinsman-Redeemer. He is the one who saved us from our sins and who we have eternal life through. Wow. What a good choice for Ruth to go to Bethlehem!

10 “The LORD bless you, my daughter,” he replied. “This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. 11 And now, my daughter, don’t be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character.

Each day we make choices . . . choices to save or to spend, choices to be discontent with our spouse so much that it ends in destruction of our marriage, choices even to honor our mother-in-law. In forty years I want to be sitting around a room with my offspring and my childrens’ offspring celebrating the wise choices that my husband and I have made. I am not perfect, but my kinsman-redeemer is and He will guide me if I am willing to learn and to trust Him with my daily choices.

One of the things that the leadership of the direct sales company I worked for told me (being experts in the word no) is that when you see and hear the word no, it is really a step closer to a yes. They even passed out a sheet that had 100 no’s on it. Every time you got a no when making a cold call you were supposed to cross off a no . . . yes you are now one step closer to a yes. It was kind of funny to make those calls after that because anytime I got a “yes, I will have a party,” I got kind of irritated because I could not mark off one of my no’s. Reverse psychology, I know, but it worked for me.

Most of the time, trying to convince someone to say yes to a party didn’t yield a good return. It worked better when the people wanted to have a party and were excited about it. As a result, they would have a fantastic party that was successful, which would lead to even better ones.

In 2 Samuel 7, David gets a no from God. David wanted to build a house for God to dwell in instead of having God reside in the ark. He wanted God to have a fancy house like his! But, God had other plans for David and the way he wanted David to spend his time. He wanted David’s son, Solomon, to build the temple and wanted David to continue being the warrior that he was.

This is a huge challenge to me, as it probably was to David–to accept God’s no and to embrace the yes that He has instead.

Just because God said no did not mean that He was mad at David or that He did not value what David wanted to do for Him. In fact, God said yes to David in that he wanted to establish David’s house for years to come. He wanted to give David a son who could carry on his reign. Now wouldn’t it be foolish for David to keep on begging God to allow him build a temple when God simply had another great plan for him? God simply had a bigger plan for David’s life, as He does for mine.

I want to see my no’s as God’s protection and blessing on my family.

God is good, kind and loving.

He doesn’t say no just to be a fun-killer. Sometimes His no means there is a better yes around the corner. He might be saying no because He loves me and desires to see His name revered in a different way…

2 Samuel 7: 27-29 O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you.’ So your servant has found courage to offer you this prayer. O Sovereign LORD, you are God! Your words are trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant. Now be pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever in your sight; for you, O Sovereign LORD, have spoken, and with your blessing the house of your servant will be blessed forever.

The movie title, you ask? . . .

4 Days in Genesis.

Huh?

When is the last time you took a couple of days and read through a whole book of the Bible–especially Genesis? I promise I am not trying to make you feel guilty because the Lord knows that this is the first time in a loooonnnng time that I have done anything like this.

One of my co-workers emailed everyone this week and wanted to know if we wanted to be her accountability partners in a 90 day Read-through-the-Bible challenge. I am always up for a challenge and so I said, “Sure, I’m game.”

Little did I know how much time it would take (who has that?) and how amazing it would be. I feel like I have been reading my Bible all day. The thing that I love the most about this challenge is the depth of the stories that I have been reading. I mean really. . . forgiving your brothers after they sold you into slavery!

Then he (Joseph) threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin embraced him, weeping. And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterwards his brothers talked with him. Genesis 45: 14-15

When is the last time you had to forgive someone for selling you into slavery? Reading it all at one time has really helped me to see the big picture of Genesis too. I don’t have time to dissect all of the verses so I just keep moving.

The other thing that is fascinating about this challenge is that I did not grow up in church so I have been having to play catch-up since I became a Christian (17 years ago). It has been difficult to figure out where all of these people in the Bible came from. I have always been scared to look at the so-and-so begat so-and-so, but now I find that I am really interested because the begats mean so much more to me.

It has been a fantastic way to start my summer. I feel very close to the Lord and I feel like I am getting to know Him better than I ever have. Would you consider taking on this summertime challenge with me? I promise you that you will be blessed by it. It’s better than any Box office Summertime Sell-out. It’s God establishing the beginning of the world. It cannot get much better than that.

The part that is true in that statement is that God never changes.

Malachi 3:6 says
“I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.”

All of the circumstances and people around us change . . . our jobs, our kids, our world and even our spiritual walk at times. Just yesterday I found out that my job of four years is not the direction that I need to be heading. God has redirected my path to a new career and honestly I am scared to death.

The Lord is definitely not in the business of leaving us comfortable and independent. He wants us to be totally dependent on Him and why wouldn’t we want to be? His will is perfect. He and His will really are the only things in life that are perfect and unchanging. He is the only one that we can truly count on. But God and His purpose remains the same. God never changes. His mood does not change with the wind (like mine). We never have to wonder what He thinks about things or people. He is always loving and compassionate!

So, since we serve an unchanging God, guess who has to change? Yes, we have to be the ones to change. Jesus speaks in Matthew 18:3

I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The reason we have to change is so that we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven, as well as, become conformed to His perfect image. He has to use our circumstances to make us more like Him. (Romans 8:29)

So the next time I am frustrated with my husband, I am going to try to remember, there’s hope, the only one who can stay the same is God. May our unchanging God, whom we serve, bless your life today.