Tag Archive | home

Roller Coaster Riding

Jun30

Well, today I am going to be a bit transparent. As I live my life (turning 77 soon!) I’m discovering that life doesn’t, necessarily, improve with age. You might think that the gray hair, wrinkles, and/or physical decline would present the greatest challenges. But for me, that is not the case. I’m learning to accept that as the realities of growing old. Not much fun but it’s reality. I’m learning, with God’s grace, to accept the inevitable. Besides, it’s what’s on the inside that really matters.

However, my greatest struggle occurs when I ponder the future. My husband and I have four children and children in laws, plus ten grandchildren. Yet, they all live in other cities, states, and even continents. Thus, most of our days are spent facing the challenges of maintaining our house and property on our own. In addition, all of which is complicated by our dwindling physical capabilities. While I love my country home and the serenity of its setting, the future is colored with darkened shades.

On the other hand, there are days when my faith surges strong. When I look into the future during such times, hope shines bright, and the darkness is dispelled. But then the fiery darts strike and doubt and fear do their dirty work. It’s like a roller coaster of emotions. My self-centered sinful nature fighting with my God-centered Christlike nature.

Here’s what I have recently determined. I am always going to ride this roller coaster. But on those days when my faith surges, it’s typically because a promise from Scripture sharpened my focus. I had spent time with God in prayer and His word. While He held my attention He reminded me of something I had let slip my mind. For example:

In reading Matthew 6:26, God reminds me He is faithful to sustain the birds of the air. So if He does that for the birds, He will more than do that for me. How can I believe this? Because I am much more valuable to God than the birds.

Additionally, there’s this word in Philippines 4:19, where God reminds me that He will provide all my needs according to His riches. And I can trust Him to keep His promises.

It’s only when I loose my focus of the above truth thoughts, can the fiery darts get past the threshold of my mind. As I am reminded from my book, “Above all, we must be especially alert against the beginnings of temptation, for the enemy is more easily conquered if he is refused admittance to the mind and is met beyond the threshold when he knocks.” FD’s 3rd edition, page 34

In conclusion, I have determined I must do two things: 1) be consistent in spending time with God daily in prayer and His word 2)Take to heart when God’s Spirit points out a truth to me. And by the way, live in the present. Allow God to take care of my future. Don’t allow worry to cloud up my days.

Focusing on Our Blessings!

Nov23

Watching tv!

Our family experienced a unique Thanksgiving this year.  Since my husband and I plan to visit our missionary son soon, our daughters decided to celebrate Christmas and our family fall festival, plus Thanksgiving all in three days!  Therefore our schedule looked something like the following:

Day One – Hayride and Cookout

Day Two – Christmas

Day Three – Thanksgiving

We crammed a bunch of memories in those 3 too short days but the effort was well worth making.  God blessed us with comfortably cool days so, when we didn’t have them otherwise occupied, our young grandchildren were laughing, exploring, imagining; just cramming as much memory making as they could in the short time they were together.

Oh, it was a lovely, chaotic, noisy, busy, draining, and all together wonderful way to celebrate the holidays.  Two of my daughters even came up with two creative titles for the week: 1) Thankmas or 2) Christgiving!  A blend of Thanksgiving and Christmas!

And even our missionary son got to be a part of the celebration b/c today we video chatted with him so ALL the family got to share Thanksgiving together.  Now this is a pretty big deal, b/c one of our daughters traveled about 16 hours to get here, and our daughter-in-law had just given birth to our little grandson!  So there we were, all our daughters, their husbands, their children, my mom, my husband’s mom, our son, daughter-in-law, and newborn grandson, sharing the day together!  So-o-o much to be thankful for!

But now the house is quiet (stone cold quiet), and I have sat down to watch a little tv (trying not to focus on how quiet it is). And here come the fiery darts! ugh!  The sole purpose of these trouble making thoughts is to influence me to focus on my loses instead of my blessings so that I will become lonely and depressed!  And you know what?  That’s exactly what would happen if I gave in to such thinking!

BUT THAT WON’T HAPPEN!

Know how?

I WILL FOCUS ON MY BLESSINGS!

God showered His blessings on our family this week.  I mean He abundantly showered us! (He does that a lot for His kids).  Sure it’s hard for my family to do what it does that’s just the plain truth of it.  BUT our blessings far outnumber (above and beyond) any of the hard things!

So, if after your celebration, you get blasted by fiery darts–remember:

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS–AND LET THAT BE YOUR FOCUS!

That my friends will cause those fiery darts of loneliness and depression to fizzle in no time flat.  They won’t have enough force to rule your thoughts and thereby define your actions.  You’ll be free of their negative influence and peace will guard your heart and mind.  After all, that’s just what God promised in Philippians 4:67:

Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.