Red Shoes

A friend of mine was in a 4 car wreck on Goodman Road last weekend. A truck with 6 passengers hit a car, which hit my friend, who hit the car in front of her. The driver of the truck jumped out and started making excuses and complaining about the damage to his truck. Everyone in the other vehicles was fine. A woman passenger in the truck got out and had on beautiful red heels. She was complaining along with the driver and they were both yelling at the kids in the back seat to be quiet and stop crying. After a few minutes, they realized the kids had hit their heads and were crying from pain. The demeanor of the driver and the woman changed completely. The woman also realized she didn’t feel well. When everything was over, 2 passengers from the truck were taken away in ambulances – one being the woman in red heels. The man was left standing in the street dazed, confused, and holding the red shoes. My friend gave him a hug and he held on to her for dear life. This may have been the first time he had ever really realized what is important in life. So many times we get caught up in time, money, and stuff that we forget to stop and look around at what we do have. Instead of getting upset the next time your children are crying, say a quiet prayer to God thanking him for those children! Don’t wait until you are left holding red shoes to be thankful for what you have!



“Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with THANKSGIVING let your requests be made known unto God.” Philippians 4:6

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Self esteem comes from God. A negative self image comes from straight from Satan. Satan loves when young girls starve themselves to look like the pictures in a magazine or an adult drinks themselves into a coma because they don’t have what the Jones’s have. God says we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” and we are “made in His image”. We are his creation that he loves unconditionally. He also says the hairs on our head are numbered. With so many examples in the Bible of his love for us, we should never doubt our self worth! Don’t let the world get you down or make you feel like you don’t matter. God says he “knows the plans he has for us”. The next time you are putting yourself down, sing a hymn or recite a Bible verse and give praise to Him. This will change you whole outlook on your day!

Strength

How strong are you? I heard a story about one woman that is possibly the strongest person I have ever heard of. A coworker of mine is from a communist ruled country near Thailand. When she was 11 her family made the choice to escape. Her father got out first and her mother was in charge of taking 4 girls ages 2-11 out of the country. They had to travel at night and cross the Bangkok River in a leaking boat. They were imprisoned in Thailand, but eventually met up with her father in a refugee camp and later traveled to the US. What would you have done if you were faced with the same situation? I would like to think I could do it, but I don’t like having to take both of my kids to Kroger much less across a dangerous river! I wanted to tell everyone this story to encourage you to continue being strong no matter what you are going through. Seek out others that have been through it and most of all look to Christ and the Bible. If you ask God to help you and give you answers to questions you have, He will. Our problems may seem like mountains to us, but are no more than grains of sand to our Almighty God!
Love,
Carrie
“He will send down help from Heaven to save me because of His love.” Psalm 57:3

Seeds

One of my coworkers plants seeds in little trays and brings them to work to watch them grow. We all love watching the tiny seeds sprout into little plants as well as watching her take care of them. She waters, checks the heat and sunlight, and even talks to the little plants! This reminds me so much of our spiritual life. We have to feed and nurture our walk with Christ in order for us to grow into what He wants us to be – Mature Christians. Not only do we need to nurture our own spiritual walk through daily prayer and Bible reading, we need to nurture our families’ as well. We can encourage our spouses during difficult times, teach our children to pray, and help everyone learn Bible verses. Once we start nurturing ourselves and our families, we will begin to see the “sprouts” coming through the soil! God has a plan for each of us and wants to see us all grow into strong servants for Him, but we all start as small seeds! I encourage each of you to start as a family worshipping and learning about God.

“The sower went forth to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden under foot, and the birds of the heaven devoured it. And other fell on the rock; and as soon as it grew, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And other fell amidst the thorns; and the thorns grew with it, and choked it. And other fell into the good ground, and grew, and brought forth fruit a hundredfold. As he said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Luke 8:5-8

“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. And those by the way side are those that have heard ;the cometh the devil, and taketh away the word from their heart, that they may not believe and be saved. And those on the rock are they who, when they have heard, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among the thorns, these are they that have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. And that in the good ground, these are such as in an ahonest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it fast, and bring forth fruit with patience.” Luke 8:11-15

Cloudy Day

While driving into work this morning, I noticed a one break in the clouds in a mostly cloudy sky. The sun was shining through this one break in the clouds. Even though I couldn’t see the sun at first, I knew it was still there shining just as bright. This made me think about Christ and his love for us. He is always there; whether we see Him or not is our choice. Sometimes during difficult situations we get so caught up in what is going on we “cloud” our view of our Savior. If during these difficult times we look up and through the clouds we will see His over powering love shining through!

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

God's Love

What is God’s love to you? To me it is like a solid steady oak tree. It is always there covering us with its shade and offering us peaceful music as the wind blows through the leaves. Since everyone has their own description of God’s love how do we show this to others? Jesus says the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all of your heart, all of your mind, all of your soul, and all of your strength. He also says the next greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:30-31). The only way to love your neighbor as yourself is to be a servant to them. If we are hungry, we get something to eat. Why wouldn’t we also fix food for the sick and needy? If we need clothes, we go shopping. Why wouldn’t we shop for others too? A servants attitude does not come over night (I really hoped it would). We have to practice and pray every day. It is not natural for us to put our own needs to the side, so serving will feel very odd at first. This is a life long journey to become more like Christ.

Christ is Perfect

Christ was perfect, we are not.
What does this mean to you? Once we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, we know this means he was a perfect sacrifice for our sins. He was perfect, but still paid the price for our sins. This means we do not have to do anything other than accept His grace and we will be saved. But what happens after we are saved. Do we continue to act the same or do the same things as before? No. We are to model ourselves after Christ. How do we do this? I struggle with this every day! I have heard for years that we are to die to ourselves every day, but don’t think I truly understood this until a few days ago. Even though I am saved and know that grace alone is what saved me, I thought I could work hard and become this perfect example of a Christian. So many times we try to model ourselves after someone we think is a good Christian, but they are still human and will never be perfect. “Suzie the Sunday school teacher” battles with sin just like everyone else. Our society is so caught up in being perfect and achieving goals that we often find someone that we think is a great example and try to imitate their life. There is only one life we should imitate – Christ. How can we imitate Him? We have to spend time listening to Him and spend time reading about His life. He ate, drank, and slept just like us. He walked on this earth! How awesome is it that our God actually knows exactly what it feels like to be us! The first step to becoming like Christ is realizing we can’t do anything on our own. Our best is still rubbish to God unless we allow Him to use us. We have to give Him all of our sins and failures and ask Him to make us whole and use us every day. We also have to ask Him to show us areas we need to submit to Him. This is a truly never ending process. Once we submit one area to Him, He will reveal more and more areas of our lives that we still try to control. If we ever start to think, “Wow, I did a great job,” (I am guilty of this), God will show us we really haven’t accomplished anything because pride has taken over and we need to start over by submitting our pride to Him. We are works in process until the day we finally see Christ face to face!

"So get rid of your old self, which amde you live as you used to; the old self that was being destroyed by its deceitful desires. Your hearts and minds must be made completely new, and you must put on the new self, which is created in God's likeness and reveals itself in the true life that is upright and holy." Ephesians 4:22-24

“Without the spirit of God, we can do nothing. We are ships without wind. We are useless.” Charles Spurgeon