Focused Beyond What's Here

Five Minute Friday 

Beyond

We had the joy of attending a Bible study this week on 1Peter1.  In this chapter, Peter is encouraging Christians who are suffering to keep their focus on the big picture beyond what they are going through.  This can be a difficult task when one is in the midst of troubled circumstances that seem to be pressing in.  As a Christian though, keeping our eyes fixed upon our hope and our God can get us through the most trying of events.  

I have to remind myself that my response to trials is part of my mission as I am called to die to self and live to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit in me.  When I am struggling, I yearn for the peace of God, so I spend more time with Him, and His Spirit stirs me to keep my focus beyond my present condition.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow, who is our hope and our provision, within and beyond, omni-present.

He is my delight!

Goals and Reality

For my blog, my goal is to write twice a week, one regular entry and one for Five minute Friday, both with the intent of helping others to find some delight in a trying world.  However, I am the newsletter editor for our local Christian homeschool group here in Prince William County, VA.  During my crunch time it may be difficult for me to get to my weekly blog article as I realized this week.  


Since I have found so many wonderful inspirational, uplifting blogs on the web, no doubt my meager attempt at encouragement will not be missed.  However, I would like to recommend ICR’s Days of Praise as an excellent source of godly devotional readings.

Be blessed,  Maria

Enough yet Never Enough

We have just finished a week on a short term mission project with our church.  It was a wonderfully enriching experience for us all as we worked to build a deck and paint a house for a family in need.  Unfortunately we did not quite completely finish the building project.  We did get to the point where all the important parts to avoid leakage and have access and for safety were complete, but the finishing work had to be left for someone else.

As our carload was returning to our campsite from the worksite, I commented that many of the projects reach this point and never go much farther around my house.  My husband chuckled, “That’s right; Maria has had to get used to being married to a good-enough kind of guy when it comes to projects like that.”

In reality, I wasn’t talking about my husband but about my own tendency to reach the ‘good enough’ point and then to get involved with other things so that I never quite get back to finishing up.  It works and it seems like good enough is often what I am left with, though I’d like to get to the completion point.

Our God is not a good enough God; He is rather enough to make us complete and yet someone we can never get enough of.  Enough is a funny word when it comes to God because He is enough for us, and we can not ever get enough of Him.  He is always a complete provision, and yet we will always need more.  He is our all in all.  

Stop.

Persevering in Our Calling

Deuteronomy 6: 5-7 “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when thou sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.”

I am a bit eccentric.  I like being left-handed, thought my most attractive feature growing up was my feet - alas, no longer the case, - and am glad that I am part of the 5% of the population who doesn’t have wisdom teeth, not because I don’t have wisdom teeth, although that is great, but because I am part of the 5%.  So it may not be a stretch to say I was initially drawn to home-schooling simply to be different.  It also shows I am a bit dull to just now be realizing this.  Eccentricity and denseness is not what got me to actually begin home-schooling or what kept me going, however.  It was clearly a gift from God.

Before we even had children, we attended a small church in Tennessee which had one home-schooling family.  I had never heard of home-schooling, but I was intrigued and wanted to know more.  This kind, godly family invited me into their home to spend the day watching how they home-schooled.  It was delightful chaos as this mom nurtured the growing minds and hearts of her children.  I was in awe.  Now attracted to this concept, I attended a home-schooling conference with my new friend, bought books on the topic, and examined different views on education, all before my first child was even conceived.

Vertigo, Natural Remedies, and Prayer

No Five Minute Friday Prompt this week since Lisa-Jo is on vacation.  So I thought I would just take my five minutes to write about anything and figure out the prompt in reverse.  Here goes:

This morning when I woke up, I wasn’t quite right.  I thought perhaps I needed a bit more sleep, but when I got back into bed I just wasn’t tired.  I got up and still something wasn’t right.  I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I just wasn’t right.  As I moved around, I kept bumping into walls.  I was a little dizzy.  An hour or so later I realized I had mild vertigo.

 

I have had vertigo a few times before more severe than this occurrence which is why I did not initially recognize it.  But after leaning to the left and leaning to the right several times as I rose from a chair or headed down the hall, it dawned on me.  Vertigo is a bit disconcerting and makes one almost feel a little tipsy.

What vertigo helps me realize is the important of balance in my life.  Without balance, I can swerve into things unexpectantly; I can go adrift; I can fall.  

Five Minute Stop            ---------------------------------------------

Charcoal to Diamonds

Our church has been going through a number of trials.  As we do, the Lord is growing our family and teaching us so much about grace, forgiveness, commitment, and relationship.  How amazing is the way our God takes the challenging charcoal of life to refine us into the polished diamonds He desires us to be.  Why then be anything but thankful for the charcoal?

Image Source

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”  James 1:2-4

The Power of Story

Five Minute Friday 

1. Write for 5 minutes flat on the prompt of the day with no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

OK, are you ready? Please give me your best five minutes on:::

What a great story!”  

I am blessed to be married to a man who loves the story and understands its power.  As a professional communicator, he uses stories all the time in his work and aims to teach and train others how to more effectively get their message across using story.  Together, we share a wealth of story which binds us together providing glue and joy for today and tomorrow as well as lots of laughter.

God shares His love for us by way of a story, the Bible and keeps reaching out to us in His-story.  Jesus used the power of story by speaking in parables to get His message across to those who could not hear His message or see their state by simply telling it straight out.  When we listen to a person’s personal story, they feel loved.  When we are vulnerable and share our own personal stories, we gain trust.  And an appropriate story for a particular person or people can change a life.

So what’s your story?  What’s my story?  I am a homeschool mom of 5, married for 26 years, and that’s all I have time to tell.  Delight yourself in sharing and listening to stories.

Touch-Talk-Walk

“Would you like to join me on my walk this morning?” I asked him as I put my shoes on.

I sure would.  Let me grab the dog and we’ll go.”  My husband, Colin,  jumped up from his seat and grabbed the leash and the pooper-scooper bag.

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It is my goal to walk at least one to two miles a day for health.  For our relationship, it is my husband’s goal to touch-talk-walk daily as often as we can.