Grace Given Grace Applied

Lord, I  DON'T want to do the hard thing "The heap of stone will help you to remember what happened today. In future years, your children will ask you "what do those stones mean?" ‭‭Joshua 4:6(Easy)‬‬ As I sat talking with my husband about the options of purchasing a new car or sticking with one for a short time to save enough money for the one we wanted; I lamented “Lord I don’t want to do the hard thing.” I said that after the option of taking him back and forth to work during the week came up. See, we’d already done this when we lived in North Carolina. At the time I was strapped with 2 boys under three and totally pregnant with baby boy number 3 At the time, we needed a new car just like we do now. It was an utter faith walk then just like it is now. At the time my husband worked 45mins (on a good day) away from home… going one way! When we were contemplating getting the new car then we knew we needed more room to hold baby boy two and so reluctantly we moved in

"But if we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins. We can trust God, and he does what is right. He will make us clean from all the wrongs we have done." ‭‭1 John‬ ‭1:9‬ ‭ICB‬‬ My Aunt told me she was coming to visit. That loaded sentence had me running around like a crazed maniac, cleaning and trying to make my first impression of our home to her perfect. Not much out of place, but enough to know we lived here… with 4 children. Making sure it smelled extra clean. Especially the bathrooms. Well, the boy's bathroom because it's a bathroom for three little boys seven and under, not a truck stop. I was knee-deep in day two of cleaning, about to vacuum the stairs, when the Holy Spirit said, "It needs to be clean, not perfect." I paused with the broom in one hand and the vacuum in the other and said, "Okay, Lord, I hear you." I wish this was the only time I'd been frantic before someone told me they were coming to visit, but it's not. I have

"...I'll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I am doing, and I have it all planned out-plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.  Jeremiah 29:10-11 (MSG) I sat in front of a blank screen, trying to decide what to write. The cursor kept flashing, but the words felt like they wouldn't readily come to mind to cause my fingers to actually type something. I'd asked my family to give me some quiet time to write, but that was like placing a toddler on skates for the first time. Everything is moving forward wildly, only to crash at some point.   I was unsure what I was to write; I just knew the Holy Spirit was prompting me again to just sit down and type out something. I had stories circling in my mind for the last two weeks. I could hear them in my head, but I was stuck when I sat down to do the work. So, I did what I had been doing the last couple of months when I found myself coping wit

“Jesus answered, “The Scriptures say: ‘No one can live only on food. People need every word that God has spoken.’ ”” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭4:4‬ ‭CEV ‬‬ During the holidays we tend to “snack” or sampling as I like to think of it. You know how we do; “ I’ll try a little of this and some of that and a tiny piece of this dessert and a small slice of that pie, oh just a spoonful of that dip too because so and so made it and they make it so well. You’ve been waiting all year for them to bring their one small crockpot full of it. Oh, maybe that’s just me; I’m willing to bet all the pennies at the bottom of my purse that the above scenario isn’t applicable to just me. We have all done it and later regret it. Sometimes we snack in an effort to” portion control” but still end up overeating because snacking or sampling doesn’t equate to being full... no matter how much you eat.  Meriam Webster’s dictionary defines snack as a light meal: food eaten between meals. The Urban dictionary

“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4:6-7‬ ‭MSG‬‬ There are so many acronyms out that we use while writing, texting or basic conversation. We spell out things to keep our younger children from knowing what we are talking about, especially when it pertains to them. We say L.O.L instead of actually "laughing out loud". Most of the time we are pretty familiar with what shortcode or acronym is being used and then there are times when someone will use something that leaves you googling and asking " what in the world does that mean"? This happened to me a few weeks ago as I was reading an article and the writer said that they had F.O.M.O and how they

“Just make sure you ask empowered by confident faith without doubting that you will receive. For the ambivalent person believes one minute and doubts the next. Being undecided makes you become like the rough seas driven and tossed by the wind. You’re up one minute and tossed down the next.” ‭‭James (Jacob)‬ ‭1:6‬ ‭TPT ‬‬ Here recently during many conversations, with myself or otherwise I’ve found myself remembering and repeating aloud what my former pastor said one Sunday morning as I sat in the choir stand listening. He was teaching about why we as Christians are all over the place allowing our thoughts and circumstances to carry us to and fro. My pastor basically told us we’d taken off our shoes of peace and traded them for skates. He said “ Stop trading your peace for skates. Every time you look you’re easily carried off, pushed off, or you skate off to another direction that’s void of peace”.  s I’ve been bought back to that sermon from five years ago I asked God “what are Yo