‘On the Road Again!’
These may be the lyrics to a well known country western song, but they also perfectly fit my “on again,”  “off again,” relationship with CONTENTMENT!

Do you feel me?  I’m flying high one day, feeling successful and confident. The next day I feel bucked off the horse and thrown into prickly berry bushes!

Anyone else? Or is it just me?

This journey we are on to live a life Christ-centered and Christ-driven needs a road map and a travel journal.

Good News, we have the road map, God’s Word, The Bible!  God lovingly wrote a love letter to each and every one of us and in it are all the directions we need to live a Christ-centered life.

The not bad, but not so good news is, we have to write our own Travel Journal to navigate our part in the journey. When we do, we can live Christ-driven lives with clear direction. This is the surest way for us to find CONTENTMENT!

Week 1 of my Travel Journal is: 

#1 GOD WILL BE FAITHFUL TO  COMPLETE IT!

I started my week out determined to do my part and put the effort into finding contentment. I woke up earlier and began each morning with physical exercise and Bible reading.

As day 2 arrived I felt my body a bit more tired than the day before, and my legs slightly heavier to pick up as I ran, but my spirit was determined!

By day 3 I felt that old message of discouragement ring in my ears…

You start out strong but eventually you will fail!

I sensed that pang inside me that wanted to quit! Sure, it would be easier. I could start again next week. Truth is, next week never seems to come. The same pattern of beginning well, “flying high,” and eventually getting “bucked off the horse” and quitting seemed to take over and win the day!

I had made a commitment to find contentment and I knew I had to do my part even when it hurt!

I finished exercising and ran to God’s Word! “Help,” I cried! “I need you to show me you don’t give up on me, so I won’t give up on you!”

In the same book of Philippians, only at the beginning of the book, there it was!

“Being confident of this, that HE who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it(or to carry it on to the day of completion), until the day of Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 1:6

It was right there in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, God is in this with me!  I do my part and HE is ALWAYS FAITHFUL to do HIS!

Day 4 arrived and I got up and asked God to help me do my part because I knew HE would do HIS!  My feet hit the pavement with a greater determination that morning.

I knew then that I already had the ROAD MAP, God’s Word, I had used it!  But what I needed was a TRAVEL JOURNAL, a place to record my direction, purpose, and to do my part to live a life Christ-driven and CONTENTED!

So, I began writing my ‘TRAVEL JOURNAL TO CONTENTMENT.’ 

Week One directs me to keep doing my part knowing God will complete what I begin in His name!

TRUTH BOMB

GOD WILL BE FAITHFUL TO COMPLETE THE PLANS THAT HONOR HIS NAME!

If you feel encouraged to take this journey with me or start your own, I hope you will use both God’s Road Map for you, and a Travel Journal!

HAPPY TRAVELS MY FRIEND, UNTIL NEXT WEEK!

Speak Truth Love

Friends, God has asked me to write something today that is difficult, painful, embarrassing and humbling. For a myriad of reasons, far too many to write, I have used excuse after excuse, reason upon reason and rationalization on top of rationalization to explain this issue in my life away!

We all have our own issues, and that’s not a slam on anyone. That is called human nature! My issues are not your issues and your issues are not my issues. That is why I hesitate to even write about this. But truth is, God is telling me to! It would be so much easier for me to continue to keep it to myself! True, it won’t come as a total shock to those of you who know me or those of you that have read my blog posts. It is not some thing uncommon to most human beings! It may not be an issue you wrestle with like I do, but it still stands as an irritant to most everybody.

The difference is, the many times I’ve talked about it and shared about it, I have communicated it as a desire, and God has shown me it’s more than that!

I wrote last week about contentment. I shared that I see it as something practically unattainable for me! But after that post, God took me to the mats! That’s right, you heard me, the wrestling mats! The place where God calls my name and gets my attention in anyway He can! The place where I have to wrestle with Him over an issue that is not getting through to my heart! Oh, my head understands it perfectly fine! I know that God says I am fearfully and wonderfully made and I know it’s true! I know that through Jesus Christ I have eternal life and I will be forever with God, and that’s true! I know that I’m a daughter of the King and that makes me a princess. I am cherished, adored, protected and loved! And because I know that and live that out, God wants me to be the best I can be for Him! In taking me to the mats He was telling me that there’s an issue that is in my head but has not gotten to my heart! And it’s the issue of contentment with my health, weight, age and physical appearance!

OUCH, that hurt to say!

I have read, spoke on and taught Philippians 4:11-12, more times then I can count! If you have ever received an email from me, or visited my home , you know that Philippians 4:13 is my favorite verse!

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” Philippians 4:13

I do my very best to live by it and frustrate many people along the way! But as I was on the mats with God this week He wouldn’t let me get to my favorite verse until I dealt with the two verses that come before it!

“For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether living in plenty or in want.”

Philippians 4:11-12

I know this passage well! I graduated from Bible college! I’ve studied the apostle Paul! He’s one of my heroes of the Faith after all!

I know he was in prison when he wrote these words! I know that he was bound in chains and didn’t know if he would wake up to see another day on this earth! I get it, I told God! No matter what my circumstances are, I am to be “CONTENT” in where you have me!

It got worse! I started to plead my case! God, I said, I have lived in plenty and in poverty. I have felt love and abandonment! I have moved far from home and left everything familiar to me. I have raised babies on the mission field and felt supported and alone! I have experienced friendships that are faithful and those that are disloyal. I have experienced the indescribable joy of giving birth to two babies and the pain of losing one to miscarriage.  

I have trusted You when you told me to go even though I didn’t know where I would end up and I have been blessed by You providing a home for me and having my family near. I have been healed by You and trusted You to bring me out of a coma and I have known good health most of my life. I have given You my life and declared it is not my own! Yet still I struggle with contentment.

I found myself exhausted and sweating after wrestling on the mats and pleading my case.

I fell to my knees and then to my face in silence.

Then, in the quiet and with a still small voice God whispered,

“Yes, but true contentment my daughter, you do not know. Stop looking for it with your head and find it with your heart!“

I discovered that contentment is not just dealing with our circumstances well and trusting them to God’s care. True contentment asks us to put effort in as well!

TRUTH BOMB

Contentment calls for me to do my part as well as depend on God to do His!

Paul found himself in prison but instead of sitting there and praying quietly to God trusting that his circumstances would turn out…he shared the gospel! I can’t even imagine the physical pain he must’ve been in, but instead of sitting quietly and enduring it, he chose to share the truth and the good news of Jesus Christ with anyone and everyone who would listen!

We may not like where we are, but we do know that God’s in control! And trusting Him in that and enduring whatever circumstance we find ourselves in is demonstrating faith!

CONTENTMENT is taking that circumstance and doing something with it! Paul sat in a prison cell, chained to a wall and not only trusted in his God and had faith, but he found true contentment by sharing his faith with others!

Back to my issue…

This is my heart’s cry to God…

I know it’s going to take a drastic change for me to do some things for my mental and physical health!

Ultimately, mostly for my spiritual health! I know You have been working on me about contentment… And I’m ridiculously discontent! I know it’s me and not my circumstances.

My life could not be more blessed with my marriage, my children and their spouses and my grandchildren-I have truly the greatest blessings in the whole wide world! I need to fix myself! I have many excuses and valid reasons for not, but the bottom line is I am self-indulging! True, it fills my loneliness and my insecurities that I face being in ministry and being in the “spotlight.” These words are really hard for me to say, and I feel like they’re pouring out as a full confession as I’m writing them to you! But I want to be honest and I don’t want to shy away from it anymore! It’s going to take some hard work. I know what the Scriptures say is that it takes hard work to accomplish Gods purposes! I’m going to stop making excuses and I’m going to stop being so sad about the way I look and about getting old. I can do something about it to be the very best I can be, even at 60! And beyond for that matter! I’m going to ask for your prayers and I’m going to gut it out with you God!

Now, I can say my favorite verse…

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” Philippians 4:13

I know You will be faithful to me, you always are! I just need to be faithful to You and put the work in!

I give all the glory to You, God for what I know You can and will accomplish in and through me! On my own I am too weak and I can’t do it!But with Your power, there is nothing I can’t do!

So here goes! The results are not what’s important, the effort and work God’s calling me to put in to being truly content in Him, is!

Speak Truth Love

Contentment has never been one of my favorite words.

By definition, contentment means ‘satisfaction and ease of mind.’ In actuality, it is a state of being. I don’t believe there has ever been a time that I have been described as “easy going.” I love purpose, vision, achievement, and all around productivity! To arrive at a state of contentment, where your mind feels at ease is something I can only accomplish through God’s divine intervention.

I have found nothing better to bring contentment in my life, then giving thanks! And nothing better to give me a heart of thankfulness then reading God’s Word! God tells us in the book of Isaiah that we will find His perfect peace when we focus our minds on Him.

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.”  Isaiah 26:3

Trusting in God is the answer to contentment! When we find ourselves in such difficult seasons, as the one we’re in right now during the COVID pandemic, our only hope for contentment is to trust in Him!

God does not leave us hanging in His call for us to trust Him. He has sent us a love letter, His Word! In God’s love letter to us, we are told to give thanks to Him…why? For He is good!

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever.”   Psalm 107:1

I don’t know about you, but when I want to make a point, or emphasize something, I repeat it over and over again. I am trusting that giving thanks to God because He is good, is what He desires from me because He repeats it over and over again in His love letter to me. 1 Chronicles 16:34, Psalm 118:1, Psalm 118:29, Psalm 136:1, Psalm 106:1, Psalm 92:1, and on, and on, and on through both the Old and New Testaments more times than I can record here for us, that we are to give thanks to the Lord because He is good to us forever and always!

So in a time where discontentment too easily replaces contentment, and our mind tends to go to all of the things that are wrong, let’s practice giving thanks!

We just had Mother’s Day, and I was reminded of many reasons to be thankful for being a woman. Today I am thankful that because I am a woman, I can be a Wife, a Mom, a Grandma and a Girlfriend.

Now you go!

Name some things that you are thankful for along with me, as we keep our minds focused on God because He is good, and watch Him keep us in perfect peace and contentment in the midst of COVID!

TRUTH BOMB

Contentment becomes contagious when we give thanks!

Speak Truth Love

LOIS, EUNICE AND LELA

Lela was my…Grandmother!

Everyone deserves to have a grandmother like mine! It was not that she took me to Disneyland every day, or took me shopping whenever we were together, or took me on extravagant vacations, or bought me anything and everything my heart desired.

IT WAS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT!

She gave me what money can’t buy…THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST-LIKE LIVING!  

She spent as much time with me as she physically could. She lived in Arizona and I lived in Northern California. She visited every Christmas and brought me to her house each Summer. I grew up going to Summer Bible Camp and Vacation Bible School at her house each year. I sat beside her as she taught Sunday School with a flannel graph board and poster sized pictures of all the Bible heroes. I stood on a stool next to her as she taught me to bake cookies and cakes. I propped myself up on a dining room chair and watched her make breakfast, lunch and dinner. I attended church with her on Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night, when I was with her. I helped prepare the jello salad or dessert we placed into the Tupperware dish with her last name printed on the bottom, written over scotch tape, SWITTER!

I went to the grocery store with her as she greeted every worker from the outside to the inside and they greeted her back. I drove to the post office with her as she walked each letter to be mailed inside. Every employee greeted her by name. She brightened the whole place with her smile! I accompanied her to her Women’s Bible Study and listened as she read from her Bible. I walked into the drug store around the corner with her as person after person yelled out her name. I sat close by as she and my grandfather would finish dinner on Saturday night, clean up the dishes and then fill out their offering envelope and place their giving check inside. I witnessed her dress beautifully for church and wear her black patent leather high heels from September through March, and her white patent leather high heels from April through August. I listened as she answered phone calls and spoke words of encouragement and prayers of blessing over the caller. I watched as she served ‘Meals on Wheels’ to shut-ins, and followed her into nursing homes as she visited those inside. I ate the dozens of Christmas cookies she baked and brought to her family each Christmas. I opened the presents she wrapped in festive wrapping paper and wore the dresses she made me each and every year. 

She led me in prayers, taught me to read, and trust the word of God, told me to shine my light for Jesus and know that I was beautiful because He created me!

My grandmother, by the life she lived, gave me the most valuable gift available on this earth,

to live my life every single day that I have breath, for JESUS!

She taught me life giving lessons when she told me to begin each and every day saying,

“This is the day The Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.“  Psalm 118:24

She would also tell me,

“Always forgive, even if the person is not deserving, because Jesus forgave you!”

She loved bigger than any person I have ever known, because she loved JESUS first and others next!

No book, sermon or lecture has taught me half as much as the life my grandmother lived has taught me. She did not tell me how to love Jesus, she showed me how to love Jesus!

To this day, she was my angel on earth, who now is my angel in heaven who waits for me.

I live my life for Jesus because she showed me how!

In the Bible we read about a young man who began his ministry early at the young age of 18 because of the godly influence of his mother and grandmother.

Timothy was filled with the same strong faith as his grandmother, Lois, and his mother, Eunice.

“I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother, Lois and your mother, Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you.”                                                          2 Timothy 1:5

Women, Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunts, Cousins, Friends…we have a life-altering opportunity to set a Christ-like example for all those around us to follow.

As Mother’s Day approaches, their is no greater legacy that we can celebrate or set, than a legacy of following Jesus and loving His people!

My grandmother set the greatest example of all for me at her funeral.

I did not want to go to the funeral home because I wanted to keep my memories of her “alive and vibrant.” But God knew I needed to be at that funeral home.

I sat outside the viewing area in the lobby.  I was alone, and I watched the postman come in and walk into the viewing room, followed by the drugstore worker, and the lad at the grocery store. The streams and streams of children poured in that she taught in Sunday school and countless others from her community. She had touched all of their lives and they wanted to pay her respect!

Truth was, she had shown them JESUS, and their lives were impacted!

Lela, Lois and Eunice lived their lives full of Faith pointing other’s to Jesus. We can do the same!

On this Mother’s Day as we honor special women in our lives, LET’S HONOR THEM WELL, THANK THEM FOR THE IMPACT THEY HAVE MADE ON US AND OTHERS and challenge ourselves to be the women who will impact the next Lisa or Timothy!

TRUTH BOMB

Grandmothers leave a legacy their grandchildren never outgrow!

Happy Mother’s Day to you friend, whether you are one biologically or have been a Mother to ones who have needed you! We honor and celebrate you, and the Mothers who have gone before us!

Speak Truth Love