I seem to be continually standing in amazement of how incredible our God is. He takes a person who is so imperfect and uses her to reach others...to be His hands and feet. It is so humbling, incredible, mind-bottling...

For what ever crazy reason He has, God has chosen to use sinful and incapable me in so many ways this year. It all began with simply saying, "Okay, I'll give it my best shot." This is all God asks of us...to do our best and allow Him to do the rest. My friend, when you tell God that you'll do your best at what He asks of you, be sure to grab on and hang on tight! Even the smallest obedience is guaranteed to leave you in amazement. And so the unbelievable ride of your life begins.

God continues to grow, stretch, and strengthen my faith, confidence, and talents. I am left in awe of our loving Father and His incredible ways.

How about you? Have you said "Yes, Lord" lately? If not...why not? Get a strong grip and brace yourself...God is waiting to hear you say, "Yes, I'll do my best"...then hold on tight as the ride of your life begins!

Need encouragement? Listen to this video. Natalie Grant's song "Perfect People" nails it!

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him. Philippians 2:13

The Lack of Desire and Power to Stop for His Glory

On the flip side of doing for God there is not doing for His glory. This was a whole new revelation that I was introduced to a couple of years ago when I stopped all outside activities so that I could focus on my family and myself. That year "off" sure did bless me in huge ways.

Once again God is advising me to cut back. I have been writing for a Christian women's e-zine, Take Root and Write (TRW). I created and penned the column "Marriage from a Distance". I felt strongly about reaching out to moms who are living the married-single mom life...still do. Through this column I was able to reach out and hug these women with my words, to give them encouragement to face another week, day, hour, and to minister to myself as well.

Writing for TRW was such an incredible experience that allowed me to grow and blossom in tremendous ways in a safe, non-competitive place. But a couple of months ago I began to loose the desire to write not only for TRW, but also for my blogs. It was like pulling teeth to get myself to sit down at the computer and felt dreadful to try writing. I didn't understand the lost desire to write, especially after God has brought me so far with it over the past year.

God made it obvious in ways that only He can that I was to end my writing stint with TRW. It wasn't an easy thing to do, but I was determined to be obedient to my Father. I have also felt the tug to let my other blog (Focus Findings) go. Yes, Lord. On May 31st I will officially shut down that blog.

I was concerned for what was to become of this blog. God told me to hold on to it. So I have. He has also told me that He is going to do wonderful things here! I don't know if the wonderful things are for the reader, myself, or both. At this point, it has been very therapeutic for me to be able to share my story over the past week. How glorious to remind myself of God's wonders working in my life.

 

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him. Philippians 2:13

The Desire and Power to Do for His Glory...yes, there is more.

Just because God gives you the desire and power to do His will does not mean that it will be easy or even openly welcomed by others. In fact, it can cause you to question if you are really doing God's will! I am learning that the only way to find if I'm in God's will when running into difficulties is to continue to push through until one of two things happens: the wall falls down and God's will is reached or I suddenly realize that I am not pushing for God's will, but my own appointed will. I'll continue pushing walls until one of these happens.

I am currently trying to get a new moms group started that God continues to lay heavily on my heart. This moms group is aimed at "married-single moms". A married-single mom is one whose husband is absent from home due to work, deployment, etc leaving the wife to man the homefront and family on her own for long periods of time. There are many, many married-single moms in our country, I am one of them. It seems rather taboo to discuss the difficulties that these moms struggle with. I want to change that. Want to know more about married-single moms? Check out Carla Anne Coroy's post.

I am running into some walls. Actually, at this point they are really hurdles and I'm told I will be able to jump over them with no problem. But nonetheless, a hurdle is a hurdle...something in the way. So I continue to push to get this new kind of moms group off the ground so that many women in my area will be able to find support, help, understanding, and encouragement.

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him. Philippians 2:13

The Desire and Power to Do for His Glory

If I have learned nothing else over the past couple of months it's that the smallest act of obedience can lead to huge blessings from our loving Father. Huge! Case in point to follow.

It all began with the book Curious George Makes Pancakes. A friend asked if we could support her on a mission trip to Haiti. We were inspired by Curious George and had a month long pancake fundraiser in our household. We raised $37.

A couple of months later another friend asked if we could support her on a mission trip to Romania. This time we chose to bake and sale cookies and cakes. My goal was to raise $100. I probably should tell you that I had absolutely no expectations of meeting that goal; it was a crazy number that came out of my mouth without passing through my brain first...or so I thought. My unspoken, human goal was $20. After all, who in the world would want to buy my baked goods except for overly kind and generous friends? Over $150 later...yeah, God blew that whole "goal" out of the water and left me completely dumb-founded. Completely!

If God's above miracle wasn't enough, He made sure to let me know that I had only just stepped foot on this path and had much further to go. Through my obedience to bake, God literally dropped a job in my lap! I am now the coordinator and baker of our church's coffee bar! Go figure! What a blessing this job has been in so many ways already. The pictures on this post are some of the pastries I bake: biscotti, oatmeal bars, muffins, scones (not pictured), and cookies (not pictured).

I am living proof of "what I can't, God can".  

I have to start off by saying that I am so grateful for my Father's unending love, guidance, and mysterious ways. He never ceases to amaze me! Over the next several posts I'll share what's been going over the past several months here. I'll start with the scripture that has been in the center of it all.

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what please Him. -Philippians 2:13

Through this scripture God has led me down two different paths:

• Desires and power to do for His glory
• The lack of desire and power to stop for His glory

You may have figured out with those clues that I've begun some new ventures due to the desire and power God has given to me. Ventures that I never saw coming until they were literally in my lap!

I have also withdrawn myself from some ventures that God had in the past made obvious was His will that I do. But just because God sets you on a certain path doesn't mean it is a life long venture. Sometimes those paths are just to get you to the next path.

Okay, here is a gob of pictures from the past month. I've put the pictures in slideshows, in no particular order, and am listing the events. The challenge it to see if you can match the pictures with the events. Have fun!

• Tom began a simple project of fixing our leaky water faucet in the tub...but it ended up being anything but simple. A pipe busted and water came flowing out of the ceiling! Needless to say, we now have a very nice and large whole over our dinner table.
• I walked in on the kids one day...they had turned our bathroom into a salon.
• Beautiful new growth and flowers have finally arrived!
• TJ suddenly decided one day that he was ready to ride his bike without training wheels. He's still working on this new skill, but is making slow progress.
• The kids have been able to get out in the backyard to play...and "cook".
• The girls had their year end piano recital. Their piano teacher retired after 30 something years of teaching piano.
• We had fun at our church's Easter party.

So there you have it...gobs of pictures.

Enjoy!

I know I've been MIA for a while, but needed the break. Tonight I blogged over at my other blog, Focus Findings. Jump over there when you find the time.

I'll be back with many photos and updates.

Being a mom is such hard work with tons of sacrifices and requiring an amount of patience that many of us run short on. But despite all of that I absolutely LOVE being a mom! The joys are priceless. Here are some reasons I love being a mom:

Moms get to be proud of their son's diligent work with their dad in creating a spiffy Pinewood Derby car. We also get to be extra proud of our son when his car, despite it's sharp looks, looses the race and yet he continues to be excited for the other boys and cheers them on.

Moms get to let their kiddos lick the beaters after making cake batter.