Easter Prayer

Praying this prayer today.  

I hope  you will do the same.

Father I am so grateful. So grateful. That You love me so much that You would give Your Son for me. That He would willingly bear my shame so that I could live in eternal communion with You. There are no words that can ever adequately convey my thanks. I am humbled, Lord, to know that I could never pay my own way. I could never be good enough or worthy enough in my own right. I could never be holy enough to enter into Your courts on my own. That You gave Christ to be my sin-bearer. I humble myself right now before Your throne and I cry out praises to You, my King. Lord, You are great and greatly to be praised. You are great and greatly to be praised. Oh Father, YOU ARE GREAT, and greatly to be praised. Jesus... Thank you, Jesus. That You gave Your life for me so that I could live with You in eternity. That You became the greatest sacrifice man will ever know so that we would never have to live separate from Your love. Oh Jesus. Messiah. How I praise You. How I thank You. I adore You, Lord. You have loved me with a depth that my heart and mind cannot possibly fathom. I give my life to You. I give myself to You right now and I give You all authority, all power, all dominion. Be the head of my heart and the Lord of my life. May my life be a testimony of gratefulness to You for the greatest act of Love I will ever know. All this in Christ's sweet name. Amen.
— Rosheeda Lee

Have a blessed Easter my friends.

My peace I give you

Source

Just breathe.

Be still.

My friends,

It has been sort of a rough 8 weeks for me.  

It's like I've been an almost-single parent.

While I have actually handled this much better than I would have earlier in my life

 (thank you God) it is starting to wear on me.  

Even through the stress Hubsy and I have found little ways to keep connected 

and the general attitude in our home has been the best it's been in a while.  

However, this past week I've grown weary. 

Discontent is creeping it's way back into my heart and therefore out my mouth as well.  

I do NOT want to go back to the way things were.  

I've been praying hard that God gives me the strength to get through these next few weeks 

with sincere gratitude in my heart and a smile on my face.   

I need to have endurance in this new practice of serving my husband with a grateful heart.  

We need it for our marriage and my kids need to see me handle this in a loving and appreciative way.

So I'm trying to keep Christ's peace in my heart and praying John 14:27.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  I do not

give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be

troubled and do not be afraid.

May peace be with you as well my friends.

When fear is at your door - A call to prayer

I live in a picture perfect neighborhood.

(No...this is not my house)

Cookie cutter houses, mature trees, middle-class suburban heaven.  

Crime happens yes....but we don't often live in fear.  

That has changed a bit this week.

A possible serial rapist is attacking women in their homes a few miles from my house.  There have been 3 attacks in the past 4 days.  It is even closer for my mom and sister.  Not only geographically but they are also friends with the first victim of these attacks.

Needless to say we have all been taking precautions.  

Me Hubsy looked over my mom's house as well as ours to make sure all places that could have a lock actually do.  Little things like locking your car door immediately when you get in and trying to make sure we are extra observant of our surroundings are now heavily on our minds.  I even had a dream about being attacked.  We're just not used to living in fear but are now very aware of it.  

It has made me think of all the people 

who live this way all the time.  

In fear of this or that.  

It is a terrible way to live.  

So I just wanted to send out a prayer request to my readers.  Please pray for the victims of these attacks.  Pray that the police are able to apprehend this man.  Pray for all those in this country and others who live in fear on a daily basis.  And pray for those who commit acts violence.  I know this is often hard to do but I pray the Lord can open their minds and their hearts to realize that violence is not the answer.

May peace and safety follow all of you in your daily lives!

Pillow Talk

I cried last night....for 2 hours.

It was great.

A true release of all I've been holding inside.  

And my husband was right there holding me all the while.  

I was the one that was crying but both of us were letting it all out.

We so rarely get to have honest-to-goodness conversations.  That's just the way it is with kids, there's always interruptions.  "I need a drink", "he took my toy", "can you change the channel", "I have to go to the bathroom", "look at what I can do"....you moms know how it goes.  So most of the time the only time my husband and I have to actually talk is laying in bed at night. 

We've come to the realization that we need to make some major changes in our life.  

When we look at our life from an outside perspective, it really is pretty great, so why are we so stressed out all the time?  Why do we look at the negative side of things?  Why are we short with each other so often?  We really did some self examination and it was time to get honest with ourselves and each other.  We talked about what we truly need from a bare bones perspective...God and family.  

When you consider the stuff we let ourselves get worked up over, it's laughable really.  

And the extent to which we let it bother us...utterly ridiculous.  

The scary thing is we can see the negativity seeping into our kids too.  We've talked about it a bit in the past and things improved for a little bit but we're really committed to making a lasting change.  It will be hard and I hope we can catch ourselves before we get caught in the same cycle of behavior that we've been in but we've decided not to focus on the past, really work on moving forward, starting today.

Change is hard and uncomfortable but we know the rewards will be great.  

So our first step is to simplify our lives.  Really examine what we can cut out and what we really need.  Again, not an easy task but in a weird way I am looking forward to it.  I'm sure we will end up finding it quite freeing actually.

I've never really asked someone to pray for me before but I ask you today my friends to pray for my little family...that we may live our lives for the Lord...that we look at the world outside of ourselves...that we let go of the earthly junk we have cluttered up our lives with....that we have hearts and minds full of positivity and love....that we are a blessing to others and each other.

Have you ever made a fundamental change in your life?  Were you able to make it stick?

I would be inspired to hear about it!  Please leave me comment or send me an email and share.

Thanks for your prayers friends!

Taking the high road....

My sister bought my son a nightly devotional book this past Christmas and most of the time it seems like God is using it for me instead of my son.  I'm sure he is benefiting from it as well but it's crazy how many nights I'm reading it to him and the message seems made for me.  Last night was about how to love those that are hard to love.

"You have heard it said , "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy."  But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven."  Matthew 5:43-45 NIV

I recently had an experience with someone fairly close to me that was flat out rude and ridiculous given the circumstances.  But then again this person has always been like this, serving out backhanded compliments and just an overall attitude that nothing we do will ever be good enough.  It's getting harder and harder not to blow up at this person and just let it go.  I was even contemplating what I could say the nest time I saw them.  Thankfully though, I let off some steam to my Mom and then came this timely devotional.

Truth is we probably all have someone in our lives that's a little hard to love, and sometimes that may be an understatement!  God was gracious enough to remind me that the best way to deal with these people is to forgive them as fast as you can, move on, and pray for them.  Always pray for them.  This is a lot harder for me than it sounds but I will try Lord.  I will always try.

The Prayer

Heavenly Father, make me a kind person even to those who don't treat me kindly.  Let me forgive others, just as You have forgiven me. Amen.

So simple, but so badly needed.