Walking thru the valley

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me Psalms 23:4.

I have heard this scripture time and time again, but lately I have only been living part of it. The valley with the shadow of death. The rest just fell right out of my ear and my mouth. With so many things filling my life with stress, I just sat down in it. For those of you that know me, you know that's not me. I try to be positive, and seek the good, I am not a worriers(I know that worry is a sin).I won't bore you with the details of the things in my life that are causing the pain, but I will give you my testimony.

For the past several weeks, maybe more I have felt physically, mentally, and spiritually beat up, poured out, and running on empty. I am busy, but I like to be busy. I love to pray for others, encourage others, and be a servant. It always seems to build me up to be able to pray or encourage another soul.  But lately... I could pray for them, but not for myself, or my situation. The encourager needed encouragement. I felt like God had just lifted his hand from me, forgotten about me, or maybe even had more confidence in me than I did on how much I could handle. With me trying to fill the roll of encouragement for many, I am always a clam when it comes to my issues, and try not to let anyone know what I need, even prayer. I think I was ashamed that I had all these things going on, defiantly embarrassed. So I have suffered alone for this little bit of time that passed. Letting only a few tears out when emotions overflowed the dam I had created.  When they did, I felt like crawling in a hole, hoping that no one would see me or ask me what was going on. You see I felt like I would lose my testimony for the Lord if others saw me suffering, saw me broken down. But today...today I had revelation. I made a call this morning and was telling this person about how beat up I was. She said you know..I was just talking with a friend and he said the same thing. Until he happened to run across one of your post today, and he felt lifted up again. You are helping people.  I replied, sometimes the helper needs help too. Then it hit me. I have been looking frantically all over for answers to my problems.  All but the one place, where I send everyone else. The Word.  Oh I was still reading everyday, but it wasn't the same. I would find my mind drifting to all these other places, and during my prayer time, I was praying so hard for the needs of others. Skipping over the trials going on in my life so God wouldn't "see" them. I wanted to be pleasing to him, and with all this going on,  surely that wasn't possible. So today when I turned on the computer, I saw post after post from my wonderful facebook friends. They were a message from God straight to me.
 Here are some examples:
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your
God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my
righteous right hand,” (Isaiah 41:10).

‎'Cooperate with the work that I am doing in you to bring you into a spiritual place of greater unity with Me,' says the Lord. 'Make a covenant with your mouth to only speak the truth of My Word in faith. Refuse the temptation to speak from a heart of unbelief or despair. Do not allow bitterness to defile yourself and others, but rather rise up in hope. And, trust that regardless of how bleak your circumstances seem at any given moment they will work together for your ultimate good.'"
 Romans 8:28 ~ And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
 ♥ Small Straws in a Soft Wind, Marsha Burns

There is a second part of that old faithful scripture I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me Psalms 23:4.  God never lifted his hand.  That scripture doesn't say I walk through the meadow of flowers and know you are with me. It says walking through the valley of death I will fear no evil and feel your presence and comfort. God is working in my life even though I can not see it. Romans 8 promises all things will work out for good because I love him. So from now on I will speak the truth of the Word. I will not be ashamed of my trials and sorrow or my tears. I will share them, because I have true unshakable faith that God is going to pull me out of the valley and place me on the mountain top one of these days and I will be such a testimony of his grace that people will be in awe of his power.  These trials will bring me closer to HIM and build my faith. Even though I am still walking trough that valley, I know that I have a savior that loves me, protects me, and guides me. I only hope that you will find this same hope. If I can ever help you or pray for you please contact me. If you need a savior, I can share mine. He has plenty to go around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXOEZJyqdsg

Coming as a family!

Enjoying my excitement over Autumns prayer of salvation, it came to me that I had nothing to do with it. I mean I know the Holy Spirit does all the work, however, I thought to myself.... You haven't done to much to help the most important decision that our kids will ever make! They see me read my bible and pray, but did they know what I was reading.  I started in the past, with good intentions, reading to Autumn and Alex their little bibles separate to them before they went to bed. It was hit and miss. Most nights I just wanted them to go to bed for some peace and quite, it was hard to even make them brush their teeth cause it would take 5 more minutes. Brian was never their and I always read to the kids separate. So I prayed, the Lord spoke to me, and I listened this time. For the past 2 weeks, every night we put jammies on, brush our teeth and head to the couch. We sit as a family; Brian, myself, Autumn, and Alex(sometimes even a dog or two). I read from the bible and then we take turns praying as we hold hands. Brian begins as head of household and we all fall in line from there.  I am so amazed each and every night the things that my kids pray! They pray the most anointed powerful prayers. I am not saying there isnt' the occasional Dear Lord please bring me a horse, but for the most part they are strong enough to bring tears. For example, my little Alex that we think never pays attention said Thank you Lord for sending your Son to die and save us from our sins and coming alive again on the 3rd day.  Autumns that first night was dear Lord we just love you so much we can't get you out of our hearts, thank you for saving me!  It has been an amazing movement for our family!  The difference in how we love each other, tolerate each other, and move together as a family is so different, better, awesome, amazing. But of coarse isn't that just what God is. So every night we are coming as a family, to make a pleadings from our hearts to the Lord,growing our faith and worship to the one who created us.

Kids say the funniest things:

Autumn came to me and said "Daddy is SOOO much better at brushing hair than you." I replied "Daddy is good at everything" Autumn-"You're good at stuff to mom" Me-"oh yeah, like what?" Autumn "You are really good at checking the mail and taking out the trash"

While sitting at Applebees. I ordered Artichoke dip and Alex yells out for the entire place to hear. ARE YOU CHOKED YET?????

"... as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15
A pic from our amazing first 5k with Run for God group

First Blog

This is my first blog!  I have wanted to do something like this for a while now. After Tiffany opened my eyes up in the blogging world with Cake Runners, I knew that would be great! I hope to be very transparent in what and how I blog.  I hope to make you laugh, and maybe sometimes feel not so alone.

So here we go. My daughter Autumn is 5 years old, I have a son Alex that will be 4 in a few weeks. Which means that Autumn will be going to school this year. As I tooled into WalMart last week. I looked up and felt my stomach hit my feet. There were school supplies everywhere! I had never really noticed them till that day, even if they had been there year after year before. She was so excited and wanted to look, and honestly....I just couldn't do it.  I am SO not ready. So without much of an effort I just said not today, and tried to keep the tears from coming.  I know that this will be good for she and I, because we are just alike..and you know what they say about folks that are too alike. They don't often get along.  With that battle being downed, we were driving down the road listening to praise music, she lifted her hands in praise and asked Jesus to come live in her heart.  So raw and unauthored. It was beautiful. This time I couldn't fight the tears! God is so good to me.  It was an overwhelming feeling for me and her!!!! Even Alex was cheering even if he didn't understand what was happening.
Alex is so very different from her.  He is happy go lucky!!! We went to the beach this past week and my son that almost drowned last year at swimming lessons was body surfing. The wave would come, and he would belly flop right down on the water, ride that wave all the way up to the sand. His poor belly as all scraped up from the shells. But boy did he have fun.
I will have another milestone this week. Brian and I will be married 10 years. It has been an awesome journey this far! I love him more that I can say and looking forward to what the Lord has in store for our future.
That is a little insight into our family. Excited about writing the next blog :)  Enjoy the blessings that God is giving you!