Whole Heart Devotion

If you walk into a Bath and Body Works store, you will become quickly overwhelmed with what seems like an infinite number of scents.  Each scent is transmitted in various forms, like lotions, sprays, hand sanitizers, wall plug-ins, candles, body washes . . . the list goes on and on!   As the vast majority of the population has made the shift from bar soap to liquid body wash, that is one thing that has yet to change in my house.  I suppose that everyone has their "thing" that must remain constant. From Jif peanut butter, to Tide detergent, to Levi's blue jeans, some people are absolutely married to specific brand of household items.  One of my husband's undeniable affections is towards white Dove soap.  He remains completely faithful to his age-old friend, and I don't see this love affair changing anytime soon! I guess we all have our preference in soaps, and from Japanese Cherry Blossom to the white Dove beauty bar, there certainly are no shortag...

"Has God forgotten to be merciful?  Has he in anger witheld his compassion?"  Psalm 77:9 Have you ever laid the law down with God?  You know . . . tell God what He really shouldn't dare do or allow to happen.  Perhaps you are way more spiritual than I am, but in an effort to be transparent and honest, I have to admit that I have told God exactly what was fair game in my life and what was off limits. In 2012, when I thought we had faced the worst year imaginable after enduring two miscarriages -- one at 18 weeks gestation -- I reasoned with God that losing a child that I had never held in my arms was such a devastating experience, so certainly my two healthy, life-filled children were my reminder to be grateful for what He had already blessed me with.  Certainly we wouldn't be required to face anything worse than a broken bone or typical childhood illness with them.  Certainly God would see that our perseverance through such pain deserved...

Cheesecake Factory.  Those two words cause two things to happen inside my mind.  First, I unashamedly salivate for a giant slice of red velvet cheesecake that I will undoubtedly partake in at the end of a special meal there.  I never feel guilty when I eat that triangular slice of heaven!  Angels sing and forks clash like cymbals when it is delivered to the table.  I can hear them now! Second, I begin to break out in a sweat thinking about the massiveness of their dinner menu and wonder how many times I will change my mind before I settle on a selection.  Have you ever been there?  I have always compared their menu to a Bible because I think you would have to devise a pretty strict daily plan in order to read every word of it in a year's time, let alone the 3-5 minutes they give you to make your selection after placing your drink order.  Makes me a nervous wreck!  I mean, how do you choose just one thing?  It is completely overwhelm...

  I've added some additional titles to my name since my last blog.  In addition to wife, mom, aunt, friend, and Sunday School teacher, I am now a childhood cancer parent (will speak to this on a future blog), Christian school administrator, college student (again), and hold your horses...biker babe!  I say the "babe" part humorously, but the "biker" part is completely factual.  You can frequently find me perched on the back of my hubby's motorcycle, helmet-hair and all.  Here's a picture for proof: I've come a long way since my first ride.  Every time we would pull out of the driveway, I was overwrought with paranoia that my kids would never see their parents alive again.  I was trying to be a good wife and support my husband's new hobby, so I knew I had to overcome my fears, or I'd miss out on some great one-on-one time with him.  Well, not only did my fears subside, they did a complete 180.  I now love to ride and I'm the one w...

"I am the vine; you are the branches.  He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."  John 15:5 After a year or more of neglect, my gracious parents took pity on me and came to the rescue of my poor, pitiful flowerbeds.  While my family went on a camping trip, my parents came and put in numerous hours of hard labor on my attention-deprived landscaping around our house.  It was less of a makeover and more of an overhaul ! The beautiful transformation that took place didn't come without a cost.  Sweat, blisters, fire ant bites, poison ivy, 20 heavy bags of mulch, torrential downpours . . . you name it, they endured it!  And in spite of the fact that they bore the brunt of the hard work, it's my responsibility to maintain what they worked for, or else all of their hard work was done in vain. Aren't most transformations that way?  They require continual upkeep.  I get my hair styled at a salon call...

"Better yet, on the Day God heals his people of the wounds and bruises from the time of punishment, moonlight will flare into sunlight, and sunlight, like a whole week of sunshine at once, will flood the land."  Isaiah 30:26 (MSG) I've seen an unbelievable amount of people lately whose cell phone screens were cracked all to pieces.  I'll pass by them and they are reading or responding to text messages, scrolling through Facebook, or sending an email, without even skipping a beat.  It's as if they don't even realize that there is a shattered screen right beneath their fingertips! It astounded me that their broken screens didn't seem to slow them down or inhibit them from their tasks one bit.  Their phones continued to function, so what's an obliterated screen to them? It was "life as usual" in this day in time where cell phones seem to be added appendages to our fingertips. It made me stop and think of all of the people that I come in co...

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9 About a week ago my husband woke up with a horrible headache.  I quickly went and doled him out an ibuprofen and hoped that the combination of the pain killer and his morning beverage (Mountain Dew) would ease the pain.  It wasn't too long before he was asking for another ibuprofen.  An hour later, he asked for a third. I couldn't imagine how bad his head must have been throbbing after taking so many pain killers and still no relief.  After I dished out the third dose of medicine, it occurred to me that perhaps I needed to make sure the medicine was still good.  Come to find out, that half empty bottle of ibuprofen expired three and a half years ago!  No wonder they weren't doing him any good! I've met some Christians that appeared to have been left on the shelf past their expiration date! They had totally lost their effectiveness...