John 3:30

"He must become greater, and I must become less important."

As I read this, I began to pray,
"God, Daddy, show me how to do this. Please show me how to make you more important than myself."

And then he reminded me of a scripture from the sermon this morning:

John 6:29 -- "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

  I have always been "do" oriented. And now, as the rain hits the top of the tin roof and my siblings watch a Western with Robert Duvall in the glass porch, God is teaching me to be "be" oriented. He is teaching me that when I do do something for Him, it is not because He is going to be displeased with me if I don't. I am doing whatever it is because of who HE is and the love that HE has for me and those around. HE wants me to believe. HE wants my belief to compel to do things in His name for others, for His glory. And not out of fear of disappointing Him, or anyone else for that matter.

  When I do do something for someone else, it will be with the Kingdom in mind. It will be with the mindset of how it will impact eternity. That is how HE will become greater and I will become less important.

That is how I will become a wonder-struck daughter who loves her Father-King because of who HE is and not because of what HE can do for her.

A Letter to Mommies

In God's eyes, you are beautiful.

You are Hope.

You are Joy.

You are Faith.

You are Grace.

You are Mercy.

You are Strength.

You are Laughter.

You are Gentleness.

You are Kindness.

You are Giving.

You lack in nothing because your Heavenly Father is at work within you. You are full. Full of what He has given you,  of what He has made you to be. You are radiant.

As a daughter of the King, never doubt yourself. Our King puts his princesses where they ought to be to do what He has blessed them with.

Our King, our God, and LORD, will be your perfect Father forever. What He has asked you to do,  He is not going to leave you alone to fail.

Cry out "LORD! Help!" when you can't feel His presence. As a Mommy, you would never leave a child when they call out to you for help. God will answer you just the same. Talk to Him.

God knows everything. He knows what you don't know full well. Close your eyes. Curl up in His lap. And ask your Daddy the questions that have been haunting you. There is no question that He does not have an answer to. Because He knows EVERYTHING, we can trust Him and rest in Him.

He loves you. And He holds you. Wether you realize it or not.

As a daughter to an amazing mother, my prayer for her, and every mother (with or without children of her own) who is living in God's will, is that you will know that you are freakin-stinkin-amazing women. Know that. Accept that. Y'all are awesome. And don't let the devil beat you over the head and tell you other wise! Because, as the father of lies, that is all the devil knows how to do. So know that that is not the truth. And that this is what is the truth:

You are a Saint in blue jeans.
You are a Beauty Queen with waist length gray hair.
You are a Model with a burp clothe on your shoulder.
You are a Race Car Driver in a Mommy car.
And you are a Princess in the Kingdom of God!

Hallelujah!

Mommies, please remember, I love you.

God loves you.

And I pray that I can be you when I grow up.

Thank you for being you.
Because that is just who God created you to be.
YOU.
And no one else.

because DADDY said i could

I backed my truck up to a trailer for the first time this afternoon. I was nervous when I first learned that I would need to for my daddy. I asked him, "I have to back the truck up to the trailer?" And he replied, "Yeah, but you can do it." I backed the truck through our dirt yard down to the little blue barn today and got it lined up with the trailer on the first try. I knew I could do it because Daddy had said that I could.

God does the same thing with all of us that are His children. I was able to back that truck up to the trailer because before I started driving FORWARD, Daddy taught me how to back with my mirrors. And he said every now and then, it's okay to turn around and look through the back window. But only when you are backing a trailer or backing up to a trailer. I was able to do what Daddy needed me to do because he has prepared me, taught me, shown me, and encouraged me. God does the exact same thing! He teaches us how to do something and has something awesome up His sleeve for later! We don't know why He wants us to do some things right now, but later on we will find out! He is preparing us constantly. He is always teaching us and showing us how to do what He wants us to do.  My Daddy was patient in teaching me how to back with my mirrors at 14 and 15 years old. He was determined that his girls would know how to back....with their mirrors....in our 15 passengers van. And so we did. God is determined to give us what is best. And sometimes that can take a while. Some lessons are hard to learn, but they are worth it. Always.

Right now, it may feel like God is trying to teach you to swing dance backwards with rain coming down and the floods coming up. Maybe He is. But you can get through those waters because God is your dance partner and you have to let Him lead. When you back, it helps a whole lot when someone is standing at the back f your vehicle directing you. Let God do that. Let Him lead you. Let Him direct you.  Talk to Him. Feel His Holy Spirit holding you. You are His child. He wants you to sit in His lap and rest in Him.

Jeremiah 6:16

This is what the Lord says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;
    ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
    and you will find rest for your souls."

A Piece of Summer in a Paragraph - Mission:Rome

This summer has probably been the busiest of my life. And I am not saying that to be dramatic. I am being serious. But everything that occupied my days were good things. Everything that I did, babysitting, going camp and on a mission trip, VBS, were wonderful. In all of that God has really been working on me. He has been teaching me a lot.

This piece of my summer was just five days. But it was five days of hard work, laughter, food, sweat, bug bites, and Jesus.

    I have made new friends and God has grown the old ones. I "went" on my first all college mission trip. A mission trip in your home town may not sound that glamorous, and it wasn't. But it was full of Jesus. We raked yards and smacked mosquitoes off each other's backsides. We pulled weeds and each swallowed our fair share of bug spray. We all made sure the other one drank enough water and took a sigh of sweet relief when someone showed up at the work site with Happy Hour! From Sonic, that is! (this was a Baptist mission trip) ;) We jammed and packed and pushed and squeezed and shoved Andy's truck bed until it was about to pop for the bags of leaves and brush in it. Then we unloaded it all into the dumpster while it was raining Cats and Dogs. And Birds and Bees. And Giraffes and Zebras. And lightning like Thomas Edison was in town or something! I was like, "Seriously?! Now?" But, like anything, we all laughed and kept working. On this same mission trip, God blessed me with time with a friend. Before this she was my friend. She was someone I knew I could pour my heart out to, and had. She was someone I could call and she would drop everything and come running. But now she is a friend who I can giggle with. She payed for my ice cream and then I payed for her supper. I had to wrestle with her in order to keep the ticket away from her  at Steak 'n Shake. The day I felt bad on the mission trip I wasn't embarrassed to tell her and then ask her to drive home. She holds and carries herself like a woman. And yet, deep in her heart I can see this little blonde haired girl playing in a sundress. Smassey is a beautiful woman, inside and out, that knows how to be a little girl. She knows when to get excited and giggle. She knows when to be serious and get down to business. She is, I think without realizing it, teaching me these things. With her actions, she has shown me how to be deliberate in my conversations with others. Smassey is a gift. And that is what God has given me a lot of this summer: gifts from Him.

He often gives us gifts. We just don't realize that they are gifts. Or maybe we do and we just don't realize they're from Him. Looking back over this summer I can see gifts that He has given me. I am s thankful that He chose to give them to me. Some of them hurt when He gave them to me. I didn't want them. I was like, "Uh, that's okay God. You can take that back." But He didn't. And I am so glad that He didn't. He just kept working on me. He kept being patient with me. He kept giving time. And Scripture. And sermons.

If God is trying to give you a gift that you know you need but you know is going to hurt, take it. Take it and let it change you. Let it heal you. Let Him move you and hold you.

When Love Is Heard

There is a first time for everything. This past semester God taught me a lot about listening. Listening for Him. Hearing Him. And then obeying Him. He taught what His voice sounds like. It is the most solid sound that has ever entered my mind.
It is also the sweetest sound.
The best sound.
It is comforting.
It is challenging, often times asking me to do what I would rather not.

My flesh begins to fight. My gut says no.
My mind says, "This what God wants. DO IT."
My heart is willing because there with the Holy Spirit, it knows what is right.

He has taught to pray. Really pray.
At camp with our youth, I was privileged, and I mean really privileged, to witness over 100 students worshipping their Creator. They would raise their hands. Or bow their heads. Lie on the floor in reverence, or be on their knees in awe of their Savior.
As I stood in the back of the auditorium and looked and really saw what was happening in front of me, I couldn't help but praise God for what He was doing in the hearts and minds of these teenagers. Of the next generation.

As I stood and watched, I prayed.
I prayed that God would talk to them. That they would talk to God.
I prayed that they would listen.
And that they would hear from God Almighty.
And praise God, they did!

The last day of camp, as we sat half awake eating Cheerio's and pancakes in the dining hall, a staffer asked the students sitting at our table to share something God had taught them during the week. Every night I had prayed that they would listen and hear from God. I had prayed that their earbuds would be stuck in His Word and that it would play through their mind. Two of the boys sitting with us said that while at camp they listened, and heard from God. They were learning what His voice sounded like. You talk about wanting to shout! God had told me what to pray for and He let me see it answered while I was eating my cereal at 8:00 in the morning with sleepy boogers in my eyes!

Y'all, God is good. And He is so stinkin real. And He is solid. He is not made of the wind that the turbulence of the world creates. He is what we stand on. HE is our solid rock that CANNOT be destroyed.
King Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, glory, domain, and everything else that was his on the face of the earth was knocked out from under his feet.

Daniel 2:31-35
 “Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. 32 The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. 34 While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.

The statue, what was built by man, crumbled. Fell and shattered. But the rock, the Kingdom of God grew. A statue will fall. And it can only be so big. But what the heck can you do with a mountain? A mountain isn't about to fall and shatter to pieces. That is how solid and real God is. All the world has to offer us is chaff, the leftover part of the wheat that has no use, function, or purpose that is going to be blown away.

But God is full of light! He has a desire burning inside of Him to talk to us. We just have to listen and we will hear Him. He created us on purpose for a purpose. A beautiful one! He wants to use us. With Him, we function at our full ability. Being with God, trusting Him, resting with Him, giving Him the thoughts that don't glorify Him, is how we hear Him. 

He is listening.

Are you?

When Jesus talks to me in the sky

"Woop! The driveway's right here, hun," I thought to myself
as I drove down the familiar stretch of rode leading to my home.
Bumpy as ever, the wide, rock-paved piece of land welcomed me home at 11:30 pm.
Pulling through the gate and passing the rose bushes, I did something I do quite often.
I stopped.
With Carrie Underwood streaming the windows, I stuck my head out to look at the stars.
The sky was clear and like a lollipop does for a 4 year-old, the stars popped and shone with their brilliance.
They were showing off tonight.
I looked and looked.
Searched and searched the sky.
Where is it?!
The constellation I always like to find was nowhere to be found.
I saw the big dipper, the little dipper and lots of other gatherings of stars that I couldn't identify.
But I couldn't find it.
I couldn't find him. 

Any time I ever look at the stars, I always look for Orion.
I tell myself it is okay to search the skies because it is teaching me to "look up to God."
But, when I actually do find Orion in the sky, I don't pray for my future special someone, or use it as a reminder to look to God and trust Him completely.

In my heart what's really happening is, "Ain't nobody got no time for that!

Get on the move, girlfriend."

My heart is fearful.
I am a daughter of God.
I am GOD's daughter. And He loves me as His daughter.
So why am I fearful?

 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 
1 John 4:18

If He is my Daddy and He loves me more  than my mind, body, and soul can even conjure up, why am I so stinkin afraid?
It stinks to be afraid. That is why He doesn't want us to be.


Tonight, God said, "He is not here. He will come when I want him to. Just like Orion appears in the night sky when it is his season, so will your man. Not when you want him to, but when I want him to. He will come during the season that I see fit. 

No one else can make you what I want.

I am the artist who is designing you, and at the end of the day, I say what you will be because I. am. your. CREATOR."


 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1 Peter 2:8-10

I need to be satisfied with Him!
Geez, He has chosen me, made me a royal priestess, part of a holy nation, His possession, called into the light.
I am of His people. 
I have been given His mercy.
 And so have you.

How He Loves

The crickets have returned.

The sky was navy blue and Orion appeared to say hello.

The sun was gone and it was 8:53pm.

I walked down the driveway. I could only see it because I knew where it was at.

Crickets, an occasional horse-cough and my flip-flops were the only noises heard.

The only lights were those of the stars and the blinking tower across the road.

As I stood in the curve of the driveway and listened to whooper-wills and looked at the stars, everything was saying the same thing:

God has brought about spring once again!

The air smelled like grass and freshly plowed dirt ready for corn. My arms welcomed the 70 degree breeze that floated by. My feet were happy to show off their pink toes in my flip-flops.

Spring is coming!

Winter is ending!

God's voice is drifting through the woods saying, 
"Wake up. It is time to dance and sing...for me!"

Thank you, Lord, that spring is coming! Thank you for the hope it gives us! Thank you for your faithfulness to us and the beautiful gift of spring!    

And the little boy was answered...

Once upon a time a brown eyed  baby was born in an Army hospital in Kentucky. Shortly thereafter she moved to Florida. She lived there until she was twelve years old. She spent summers at Grandpa and Grandma's house in Georgia. They lived on a dirt road and went to a small Baptist church. Back in Florida she watched her dad build dragsters and paint flames onto hot rods.

She wanted run a service station and pump all the gas.

Then her dad, wanting to take his family to a safer place, moved the family to Georgia. She lived next door to Grandpa and Grandma when dad was through with their house. She had left everything she knew and that was all she wanted. Yes, the mountains are beautiful, but the beach and salt wind were her stomping grounds. She worked hard in school. She worked hard on everything she took part in.

She loved Biology. So she decided to become a doctor and live on the beach.

And then she met a young man with green eyes and calloused hands. He supported her and loved. He took her seriously. He loved her and she loved him, and his crazy family, in return. In this, she gave up her dream of living by the beach; falling asleep to the sound of the waves. She fell in love with a mountain man. It was cold December day and it was the evening of the 20th that they promised to love each other until they died.

She was in college learning how to become a teacher.

But she wanted to quite. She wanted to get a job at the bakery she drove past everyday. She wanted to have a baby. He didn't want her to quite and he wouldn't let her. He wanted a family too, but he knew it would come in due time. She didn't quite. And didn't have a baby, either.

And then she graduated and a year later fell in love with a swaddled-pacifier-sucking Christmas present.

She began teaching and taking her babe to the sweet little lady babysitter. Doesn't sound to hard, right? Three years later, right before the firecrackers started in July God gave her own firecracker right on the due date. She didn't want to leave another baby. She wanted to be with her babies. And her green-eyed hero granted her her wishes.

A little boy once asked a small girl what she wanted to be when she grew up.
The small girl answered, "Well, I want to be a nurse, a cook, a race car driver, a teacher, a hostess."
"There is no way you can do all that stuff!" was the little boy's response.
"A mommy is all of those things," is all the small girl had to reply to suffice the little boy. 

My Mommy is all of those things and more, and my Daddy knows it. My Daddy loves her and she loves him.

I love you, Mommy and Daddy!
Love,
Leah-Joy.

Today I Am Grateful

I am not grateful everyday, but I should be.

Today I am very grateful.

Only thirty minutes away from my house in a valley, a tornado gave a party.

It danced and sang.

And it left a mess of destruction as a party favor.

Homes are gone.

The place where laughter, food, and goodnight-kisses were given,
are a heap of sadness and suffering now.

Work places are gone.

Where men and women provided for their families,
ate sandwiches with their friends, and stayed till after 5:00 when they didn't have to.

Nothing was taken from me.
My home is still here, my daddy is still working.

I thank God that we are safe. That our brown couch is still our brown couch.
The Avenger cups are still in the cabinet and my tooth paste is where it belongs.

If you were not touched by the tornado I hope that you praise God for that.
And ask Him what you can for those that were forced to host the party that it threw.

If you were touched, torn, or bruised and battered, I want you to know that I am praying for you and so are others.

I pray that God gives you strength, endurance to the end, hope, peace, and rest when you need it. 

Nine Strawberry Cookies

Friendship can't be explained on the rim of a picture frame with a few fluffy words.

Friendship isn't a couple movie nights and dress up parties.

Friendship isn't just texting and smiley faces. 

Friendship isn't picking up the tab because you can.

Friendship isn't gifts and smooth-sailing.

Friendship is baking salted caramel oat bars and seeing the being joy in the midst of it.

Friendship is saying, "Lets eat at home and watch a Redbox. I'm broke."

Friendship is holding hands during Les Miserables and putting your heads together in the sad parts.

Friendship is bits of encouragement fused together by God to give you hope in the next chapter of your life!

Friendship is touching toes and being OK with it.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”  -- C.S. Lewis

Friendship is nine strawberry cookies.

My friends, dear sweet ladies,

I praise God that you are my friends. I praise Him for giving me true friendship in you! I pray that God gives you the strength to face whatever this year may bring! Be it a trial you did not expect or a blessing you do not understand! Just like Paul told the people of Philipi, "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you."

Love,

Your Friend.