Lately

I have been thinking a lot lately about modesty… It all started when I read this blog by my dear friend Robin. It made me think about things I never thought about before. God has always had this way of working in me, where He doesn’t always allow me to process what He is doing, before He informs me that we have arrived at our new destination, so less than a week later I was no longer wearing pants. I can’t really explain to you 100% right now why I’m not wearing pants...as I said, God doesn’t always wait for me to catch up to Him before implementing things in my life. But I can assure you that I will be posting a lot more about modesty in the near future.

Since I am not wearing jeans, I was thinking of turning my jeans into really cool denim skirts! An idea I also got from Robins blog. However, my sewing machine isn’t working… I’m hoping I just missed something last time I cleaned it (my mom’s suggestion)? So, I am hoping to look at that sometime soon!

I have also been working on ways to try to reduce our household budget. I am looking at making our own cleaning supplies, and also trying to formulate a meal plan that will allow me to make a shopping list that will cut costs when grocery shopping, but also make my life easier both at home and at the store. However, that will take a ton of work to get it to a finished, working point…

So there you have what’s been going on around my house and in my head. Hopefully I will be back to blogging on a regular basis soon!

Bananas!

My family LOVES bananas! I just can't keep them in the house! We can buy two big bundles at the store and they will be gone in just a few days. Well, that is normally the case. My two beautiful boys are visiting their grandparents in Iowa, to compensate for this I only bought one bundle of banana's. However, they still didn't get eaten. So I have this bundle of overly ripe banana's that no one will eat!

So today I decided to find a recipe for banana bread, and use them up!! The recipe I found was for Banana Peanut Butter Bread. It sounded delicious, and more importantly I had all of the necessary ingredients on hand!So I made some Banana Peanut Butter Bread, mind you I have never made home made bread before... the batter tasted great! It looked great in the oven, and even after coming out of the oven, but the center did fall eventually... :(

Anyway, my adventure with the banana's really made me think about a few things, far to many for this one post.I love it when God does that, when He can take something as simple as an overly ripe bunch of banana's and turn it into so much more. Imagine how wonderful life would be if we would let more things be learning opportunities instead of mood changers... Just a thought to ponder, I might write about some of my own thoughts later, but for now, I will just leave you with that.

And now, I'm going to go enjoy my Banana Peanut Butter Bread!

Spiritual Vitamins

One of my dear friends today said something in her facebook status about the importance of vitamins, so that got me to thinking. Why are vitamins important? What do they do for us? So I did an internet search. :)

Here is what I found: Vitamins affect every part of our body, the way we see things, our hearts, our muscles, our nervous system, the way we develop and grow. Taking pills in the morning doesn't insure that all those things are in working order, it is just meant to be extra to help out on what you might miss out on during the day.

So what about spiritual vitamins? Do we take that time during the morning with the Lord as a supplement to what is already going on in our day, is it all we are getting, or maybe do we need to think about starting to take that "spiritual vitamin" each day.

Much like those pills that we take each morning, spiritual vitamins (or devotions) affect the way we see things, they affect our hearts, our minds, our nervous systems. They affect the way that we (and often our children) develop and grow. They don't insure that our walk with God is in perfect working order, they are just meant to give us a little extra boost, and help out on something that we might need, or mess later in the day.

While I was researching the importance of vitamins I came across an article called Do I need vitamin supplements Most of it was about taking the physical vitamins, but the first paragraph really impacted me. Unless I have a balanced spiritual life, I need to take my spiritual vitamins, and honestly, at this point in my life... I'm not even sure I know what a balanced spiritual life would look like... Do you?

My flesh and my heart may fail,But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26

One of those mornings...

It was one of those mornings. I woke up, ironed my husbands work clothes and hung them in the bathroom for him, took my shower, and wanted nothing more than to go back to bed! The temptation to fulfill that fleshly desire was almost overwhelming, but I knew I had two choices, and each choice would yield different fruit.

Choice number one, give in to temptation, and go back to bed. Oh, how sweet the sound, of just a little extra sleep. That is, until my two year olds, cute as they may be, come in and wake me up. Then I would be cranky for the remainder of the day. I’m one of those people that does much better when I wake up on my own or with an alarm clock, but with a two year old throwing a sippy cup at me… not so much. That little extra sleep would also mean forfeiting my only quiet time with God, and that is a very important part of the day for me. It helps me see things differently, and deal with things differently. Going back to bed would probably also cost me my breakfast, and mean that the dishes wouldn’t get done until after lunch. So in the end, that little bit of extra sleep, would put a negative spin on my entire day, that I don’t always stop to think (or care) about in the mornings.

Choice number two, get a bowl of cereal, a cup (or pot) of coffee, and spend some time with my heavenly Father. While my flesh is craving the extra sleep that it desires, my soul is longing for the nourishment that it needs from my time with the LORD each morning. Plus once I have read the word, and eaten breakfast, I usually am not as tired as I was before. There is always the possibility, (though it doesn’t always become a reality) of a nap in the afternoon. But the reality of breakfast is only a possibility in the morning, and starting my day with God only has one time slot.

So I put aside the fleshly desire to go back to bed and began to pray. And I am so thankful I did. I don’t know what your mornings look like, or if your flesh craves sleep as much as mine, but if you don’t already, I urge you to start your days with God. It is so worth it!

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

Galatians 5:16

Reverence

My devotion today was about having a reverent attitude. I don’t know about you, but reverent isn’t a word that I use every day. So I had to take a moment to look it up. Reverence means to regard or treat with deep respect. I think that sometimes it's easy when we have been in a relationship for a while to become indifferent towards others. Like with our husbands, after we have been married for a while and the new wears off, we no longer look at them the same way as we did at first. I think the same thing happens with God. When we first came to know Him, we were in awe of Him, but now, years later, I think that we, or at least I, look at Him with indifference sometimes instead of with reverence.

I don't know about you, but I want to work on my reverent attitude toward God, knowing that when my relationship with God is in the right place, my attitude toward my husband will follow suit. I want to rekindle my love and reverence for God. I want to honor Him, obey His commands, I want to express my gratitude to Him, I desire to love God and revere Him. God deserves my deep respect, not my half-hearted mumbles.

My devotion was from the book God's Hand In Life's Little Moments

Worship the LORD with reverence and rejoice with trembling.
Psalm 2:11

I am a Martha...

Today I was thinking about Mary and Martha. Martha is so typical of most of us. We get so busy serving that we forget why we are serving and often times, our own relationships with God suffer. We can't seem to stop serving others long enough to slow down and spend time in God's Word or in prayer, but that wasn't Martha's only mistake. She let anger build up inside of her until she was not only angry with her sister, but also with Jesus. She yelled at Jesus! Can you imagine! But we do. Maybe not out right, but when things aren't going our way, do we ever just say, don't you care God? Just do this, so that it will go better? Martha is so much like us. We like to look at her as the ugly step sister, but in reality she is more like us than we will ever care to admit. She is the keeper of the home, the responsible one. We all know that it is hard to separate ourselves from our duties and relax when we know there are dishes in the sink. Mary was younger, she hadn't got to that point in her life yet. She still had that "child like" faith that Jesus wants us all to have, that He speaks of in Mark 10. Mary is not the one responsible for hosting Jesus, that ultimately fell on her sister, who was also presumably left to raise her. We don't have all of the back ground to their lives, but I think sometimes when we read the Bible we like to put ourselves in the shoes of the one we see in the favor of Jesus, when often times, the shoe is really on the other foot, we just don't want to see it. I would love to be a Mary, but I know that deep down I am a Martha.

Suggested reading: 12 Extraordinary Women by John MacArthur

Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord's feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me."

But the Lord answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:38-42