I boarded a plane today and flew away from my kids and grandkids. 

I hate leaving my loved ones! 

I do not know about you, but separation from those I love makes me feel like my heart is literally being ripped in two!

It’s not like, “practice makes perfect,” the more you do it the easier it gets.

Not for me! I tell myself all of the right things, you know, all of the things everyone says to you when you say how sad you are that you are separated from the ones you love the most:

“You just had a week together, you should be happy about that.”

“You are going to see them again in a little while.”

“You should just be happy that you have a family.”

“Weren’t you just together last month?”

“Just count your blessings and be glad for the time you have.”

I repeat all of these phrases and thank God for the gift that He has given me!

Yet, my heart remains heavy, the sorrow comes in waves and at times the tears flow and my heart aches.

When you love so deeply separation hurts.

As a little girl two of the most significant people in my life, my grandpa and grandma Switter, my mom’s parents, lived in another state. We always got to see them for Christmas and during the Summer time.

I remember the anticipation of waiting for them to arrive! I would sit by the big plate glass window in our front living room and dance around for hours staring intently out waiting for their car to pull into our driveway!

They would emerge from that car with the biggest smiles on their faces and open up their trunk full of presents and the biggest Tupperware container that has ever been made, full of my grandma‘s homemade Christmas cookies! I can still taste them all these years later! She made her cut out cookies with a butter recipe that made them so soft and delicious in your mouth, not crunchy like the sugar cookie ones! She had Santa faces that had white fluffy beards and the perfect red Santa cap with a big fluffy white snowball on the end of it perfectly drawn, long before the ‘Christmas Cookie Challenge,’ ever appeared on a network (She would have won by the way!)

We would play games, we would make meals together, we would laugh and sing Christmas carols till we could hardly speak. We would go to church together on Christmas Eve and come home and open up the Christmas jammies that they had waiting for us under the Christmas tree. We would go to bed and hardly sleep that night so anxious to get up the next morning.

Christmas day would start bright and early with presents unwrapped and paper strewn everywhere, followed by a delicious Christmas breakfast. We would clean up and then wait for more family to arrive as my grandma and mom in their aprons would work so hard to prepare the perfect Christmas dinner! The evening always ended with a special Christmas movie. 

I could not have felt more warm, secure and loved than I did every year at Christmas time!

My home life was good but not great! There was hurt and pain and anger and strife and unfaithfulness. But when my grandparents were there it was like a piece of heaven came down to earth! It was all put on pause for the whole Christmas season… and then they left! I stood by that same plate glass window and watched their car pull out of my driveway. And the separation felt so strong that I thought my heart would literally rip in two.

I stood by that window long after they had pulled away and tears streamed down my face as my broken heart poured out it’s sadness of them leaving. 

Separation by definition causes pain.

One thing is literally being pulled away from another! While sometimes this may be a positive separation, the majority of the time it is a painful one.

As I sat on that plane early this morning being separated from those I love the most, I did thank God for his incredible, undeserved blessings to me! And as I was thanking Him it struck me, He willingly separated Himself from His One and Only Son, because He loved me so much!

“And the angel answered her, “ The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of The Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy-The Son of God.”

Luke 1:35

Christmas isn’t Christmas without separation! The sweetest Christmas songs we sing, ‘Away in a Manger, ‘Silent Night,’ ‘Hark The Herald Angels Sing,’ and on and on and on, all proclaim the separation of God’s Son from Himself!

TRUTH BOMB

GOD’S LOVE IS PERFECTED IN SEPARATING HIMSELF FROM HIS SON FOR US!

Love is perfected in the act of giving! That giving causes separation. God selflessly separated Himself from His Son for a time so that one day we could all be together forever!

I want to be prepared this season to receive this selfless gift, don’t you? Join me back here through the month of December as we “Make Way for “The Way!”

Speak Truth Love

At times, giving thanks is obvious and as easy to do as breathing in and out.

For example, TODAY, November 21st is a permanent date on my calendar to celebrate, be joyful and give thanks to God for the incredible gift of my son James Tyler! I do not have to think about it, put any extra effort in to it, be reminded of it or set any alarms on my phone to remind me to do it! I simply wake up on November 21st every year and give enormous thanks to my God for giving me my wonderful son, Tyler!

But as easy as it is to give thanks to God for my son, there are other situations, relationships and occurrences where the last thing on my mind is giving thanks!

Yet, I am asked by my Heavenly Father to give thanks for both the good and the bad, the easy and the hard, the obvious and the discrete, and the lovely and the unlovely!

“Give THANKS in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  

I Thessalonians 5:18

This verse may not be one of the most quoted or most popular verses around the Thanksgiving table or during the Thanksgiving season, but it is nonetheless a request from God himself!

So why would God, who knows us best and loves us most, ask us to do something seemingly unnatural and very difficult? 

I believe the answer is two fold.

Number one, God knows that we need Him to accomplish it. And, number two, God knows that when we practice what makes it possible, we end up focusing on Him and His power and not our own!

As I see it, the only way to give thanks in all circumstances, even the hard ones, is to first give thanks for all of our blessings and good things!

For example, when I woke up this morning and gave thanks to God for another birthday for my son Tyler, it was easier for me to then give Him thanks for another person in my life that is more difficult to get along with.

It then reminded me that I could even give God thanks for the extra patience and endurance that loving that person requires of me.

TRUTH BOMB

WE ACCOMPLISH GOD’S WILL FOR US WHEN WE GIVE THANKS NO MATTER WHAT!

Friends, when we develop a spiritual muscle of giving thanks to God when it’s obvious and easy, that same muscle will help us practice giving thanks in all circumstances even when it’s difficult so that we can accomplish God‘s will for us in Christ Jesus!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FRIENDS!

I am giving thanks to God for all of you!

And it’s EASY!

Speak Truth Love

It’s a celebration!

Giving thanks to God can be a “Holy Party!”

I don’t know about you, but every time that I hear there’s a party coming I get excited!

This month not only holds one of my favorite days of the year, Thanksgiving, but it also is the month of two of my favorite birthday parties, my son’s and my grandson’s! I love these two boys more than I can say! The opportunity to celebrate them and have a party is at the very top of my list! We have so much fun and it is anything but quiet and still! They are loved and our family loves to celebrate them and have a great time in the process.

I love them both so much that I love celebrating them BIG! I love making sure that I get them exactly what they want! I love planning out the food so that it is their favorite. I love making or buying the dessert that is exactly what they want it to be! I do not care if people tell me I overdo it, spend too much money or talk too much about them! I love them and I love celebrating them and making sure they know how loved they are. I love showing them that I am crazy about them and in a state of GRATITUDE for them!

Why would I not want to show this same state of gratitude to my great God who has done so much for me?

In the same way I believe that GIVING THANKS to God can be like having a

‘Holy Party!’

Have you ever considered that giving thanks to God may be a bit undignified at times? It may be a crazy celebration that cannot be contained because our hearts are so full of gratitude to Him!

GRATITUDE is defined as, “The state of being grateful and being full of thankfulness!

Having gratitude is a state of being! It may be a state of quiet reflection and thankfulness at times. But it just might also be a ‘Holy Party’ with singing, shouting, music, song and so much joy that it simply cannot be contained!

“Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;

Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with Thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song.”  Psalm 95:1-2

So, if you find yourself in this season of giving thanks jumping to your feet and singing, dancing and shouting your gratitude to God with joy, PARTY ON, 

you are in good company and our God is worthy!

TRUTH BOMB

GIVING THANKS TO GOD CAN SOMETIMES BE A HOLY PARTY!

Speak Truth Love

It’s November!

I LOVE when the calendar flips from October to November!

November 1st is one of my very favorite days of the year! I wake up with an enormous amount of natural gratitude in my heart, I put my feet on the floor and with the biggest smile on my face I say with a truly thankful heart,

“This is the day The Lord has made,

I will rejoice and be glad in it!”

Psalm 118:24

On November 1st no one has to remind me to be thankful! If I slept at all the night before, then I slept with prayers and pleas on my heart and mind to my God to protect me, and all those I love, and all those that God loves, and bring His Light into the Dark places that are all around us! I do not like Halloween and I dread October 31st.

I know this opens me up to all kinds of judgment and debate and even ridicule! But I have made a commitment to God to write this blog for Him with authenticity, and to be authentic with you the reader.

This feeling in my spirit is nothing new to me, and nothing that came to me as an adult, I have felt this way since I was young! It is also not a judgment on my part of those who can dress up and enjoy time to have fun and embrace the good parts of Halloween. It is simply reality for me! I have fought it all my life and yet it remains. My spirit is troubled on October 31st, and my spirit sores naturally with thanks to my great God on November 1st!

November 1st not only ends my least favorite season, it ushers in a month focused on thanks and gratitude and prepares our heart for the most excellent season of all! 

If we are focused on giving thanks and gratitude to God then our hearts are prepared to receive the greatest gift of His Son during the Christmas season! Giving thanks is vital to prepare our hearts and spirits to receive. I believe we can never take for granted the significance that a month of THANKSGIVING provides! 

So, I want to focus on not making THANKSGIVING a blip on the screen between two months of Halloween followed by two months of Christmas!

I want to dedicate this whole month of November to giving thanks to God in and out of all seasons and circumstances! 

Will you join me?

Let’s get started!

Psalm 107:1

“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His faithful love endures forever!”

TRUTH BOMB

GIVING THANKS TO GOD PREPARES OUR HEARTS TO RECEIVE HIS GIFTS!

Speak Truth Love