The Humble Peace Maker

One day, I watched two brothers in a heated argument. The first one was very angry and struggling to hear what his brother had to say. The second brother humbly went to his knees to plead with his brother to calm down and think through his actions.

A year later, the first brother is facing assault charges for a separate situation.

This story is short and it is sad, but it is a reminder to me of God's heart for us as believers. The second brother knew his brother. He knew that it wasn't wise to keep fighting with him when it wasn't making a difference. Instead he knew that he should be a peacemaker. He should try to help his brother to put away his anger.

Romans 14:9 says, "So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another."

As I read this verse, I thought how simple it should be for the peacemaker. The peacemaker should always stay calm and be loving. However, it really isn't that simple. As shown in my story, families that love each other can still have trouble. Maybe you have a relative with alcohol or drug dependency or a family member with a mental illness. These issues are not fun. More issues like violence or stealing can be results of those initial problems. So what would God have for us to do in these situations and relationships?

Here are 3 goals for the peacemaker:

1. Try to be at peace with everyone. Sometimes this means saying sorry to someone you have offended. Other times this means not saying what is on your mind....ask yourself, does it really need to be said? Will it bless our relationship? For some, you might need to stop avoiding a person and show them love through actions or words. God desires for us to always try to have peace with everyone, especially those who really need relationship with us like family and friends.
Romans 12:18 says, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men."

2. God wants to bless our lives. He wants us to live with joy, happiness, peace, and love. We can't make the world a perfect place. Peace on earth doesn't happen when there is free will. Free will allows people to make their own decisions. They might decide to steal from you or lie. But God knew this, so he wanted us as believers to still know that their would be benefit for us as we work towards whatever peace is possible.

Matthew 5:9 says "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 

Proverbs 12:20 says, "Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, But counselors of peace have joy." 

These verses are a good reminder that if we keep our hearts focused on peace that we will have joy and give God joy. We can't change everything and maybe we don't see that we made a difference, but we can still live in that peace and joy if we have done our part to keep peace!

3. Prayer might be the only course of action that God has for you. There is a time when it is unwise to be around those that might hurt you or your family. Maybe they are always causing stress by lying or trying to cause division in your home. We do need to guard our hearts and minds, but also to keep our children and families strong and safe.

 Romans 16:17-18 says, " I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. 

For some of us this is verse and these reminders are enough for us to step back from a relationship and just pray. For those who truly love to be peacemakers, this will probably be a hard goal. We have to be reminded that prayer works and that if we really keep our hearts focused on God then we can walk through this goal. God loves those people even more than us and sometimes, we need to really put our faith in that and pray without stopping.

This is my prayer that I leave with you, 

Ephesians 4:31-32 "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."

And may you be blessed with peace in your heart and God willing peace with all that you come in contact with!

It is the little things

I think outlook is everything. Sometimes our day is so busy that we don't notice all of the little things!

Yesterday, I was on my way to a bbq near my parent's house. The night before I had realized that I had forgotten to buy a side dish to take. I thought that it was inconvenient to have to stop for something as we drove the hour and a half there, but there was nothing I could do. That is when it is easy to forget that God cares about the little things. He cares about me and wants to make my life easier!

Before we made the drive, we went to our own church. After service a friend of mine yelled at me to come over to the One Heart Ministry area. She said, "we have so much food that got donated and it needs to go out today because of the experation date. Do you want some?" Wow! This never happens and was exactly the right food items for me to take to the bbq! Thank you God for thinking of me and the little details of my life!

I made sure to share with my kids how much God loves us and the little things! It is important to share what God is doing! Even when others might think it is not a big deal!

So then later that day, I was admiring the cake the my friend made on her facebook page. I even thought, that would have been perfect for Daphne's party, but my friend had entered it in a contest at her church and she had too busy of a week to make one for us. No big deal, I was just going to make cupcakes for Daphne's party! Then an hour or so later I got a call from my friend and she said that she won the contest and that she got to take the cake back home with her. AND WOULD I LIKE THE CAKE FOR DAPHNE'S PARTY!!!!! Another little thing, but God knew that I love fun cakes and that I would love a cake from my friend!!!

So the main thing, God cares about the little things! Don't ever forget that!!!! He wants to bless us each and every day! Don't forget to notice those little things and to feel blessed and to share what God is doing!

Second, a good friend is one of the greatest blessings that God gives! I am so blessed to have so many amazing friendships! Thank you God for putting these friends in my life!

Gossip and friendship

For the past two weeks, I have been doing a devotional on friendship. It is one of those topics that I don't think we ever feel that we really need to study. However, I am really getting some great perspective on several topics. The first one is gossip. I don't think one ever really things that much of the biblical study on gossip. Obviously, we all know that gossip is a sin and can be damaging. “A fool's mouth is his undoing, and his lips are a snare to his soul. The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man's inmost parts” (Proverbs 18:7-8).

So very simply don't gossip! Right, no more study needed!!

However, I read more in the scripture and found that gossip tends to be an issue for widows and young women. 1 Timothy 5:12-13 states,  "Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not." This leads to the knowledge that women need to be cautious to keep themselves busy in the right things and not to just get together for idle talk! 

This next part I really love! We should in all things use Jesus as an example! In Matthew 13:34-36, I read, "All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them,  that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: “ I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world. Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” In this passage, Jesus went more in depth for His disciples. I looked through more verses and found that this occurred several times. Jesus gave most of His time and attention to the 12 disciples. Jesus knew that He could reach the most people by teaching a few to go out and do His work rather than if He tried to do it all. Sometimes we take on too many relationships. Even out of His 12, I think there may have been ones who He was especially close to. Luke 9:28-36 and Mark 14:32-34, show Jesus having an especially close relationship with Peter, John, and James. Both times they went together to pray. In the first passage, they were able to see a glimpse of Jesus' glory. From this example, I see that we should have a group of people that we have enough time to really pour into and to get encouragement from. However, we should only have a few people who we really are in close friendship with. 

The danger of too many friends becomes the simple fact that nobody can juggle it all and give their full attention and support when there are too many friends. For myself, I tend to reach out a lot to probably too many people. Sometimes that means that I can't give them enough strong support and they are probably left discouraged. However, back to gossip. How does this affect gossiping. Well, so often I have a friend who might be hurting and then I get text messages from other friends asking what is going on? Most likely, they mean it with good intentions. The problem is that if they were a close friend to that person then they wouldn't be coming to me and they would be going straight to that person. It leaves the person with the knowledge in an awkward position. Should they fill in their well meaning friend or should they tell them to talk to that friend them self? I think that answer is simple, but women still struggle with it. 

You also have the tricky situation when a friend tells you that you do have permission to tell what is going on with their personal life. You would think that would make it easy. You now have permission to share. The bad thing is that by sharing, you now give the person that you shared it with the permission to continue to share this. What does that make happen? A friendly or not so friendly game of "telephone". You remember the game of telephone, right? One person whispers into the next friends ear and that friend whispers it into the next persons ear. At the end, you have some similarities to the original story, but some details have definitely been changed! I hate to see this happen in real life, but it definitely does!

So how do we stop gossip in it's tracks? The Bible tells us that “a perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends” (Proverbs 16:28). So there are three things that you or I can do. 

1. Don't repeat it! Isn't that easy?! You might thing that you are helping by telling the person....especially if it involves them. However, your gossip just might cause division which is not of God. An example: Suzie says, "Did you know that Laurie isn't coming to the party because she doesn't like Rachel anymore?" You could take this information and run to to Rachel to tell her what you heard. You are helping right? Now Rachel is wondering why Laurie is mad at her and never told her. So her and Laurie are not at odds. Did this really help anyone? What if you had just not repeated the gossip? Did you really know that Laurie was mad at Rachel? This might have been an untruth. There really is never a reason to speak something that is untrue and since you don't know, you shouldn't repeat it! 

2. You can tell a person that you think that what they are saying might be untrue and that you would rather them not gossip. Our job as christians is to encourage and build each other up. If you see a friend struggling with this sin issue, lovingly remind her. 

3. This is a last resort, but if the gossiping issues don't get better than you probably need to have a little distance from these friends. “A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid a man [or woman] who talks too much” (Proverbs 20:19).

My last lesson learned is how to handle a sticky situation that was caused by gossip! 

1. The bible says that we are to overlook an insult. That is hard to do, but will teach us humility! We are called to not be easily offended!

2. Don't justify yourself! Richard J. Foster put it this way, "One of the fruits of silence is the freedom to let God be our justifier. We don't need to straighten out others!" When we can allow God to justify and set things right, that brings us to believe that God can care for us, reputation and all. 

3. Don't retaliate by slandering the person!

4. Do try to make amends with the person you have a disagreement with. (This is by far the hardest one and I admit, I am not great at this one. I always worry that I will get rejection or that it will only get further fighting going on!)

A New Year!

There are years when I don't think that I really thought much of New Years Resolutions. The truth is that when we have a great year, we reflect positively on it and don't see the need to change much. We might say something like let's lose a few pounds or something trivial. However, when you look back at the last year and you didn't really get out of it what you hoped for, you have a lot more to think of at this time of the year. This last year was a season of change for me. I see the blessing that the changes are, but I still feel the sting and the pain that change so often causes.

In 2011, we had blessings. We went on two wonderful vacations: one to California (a dream vacation for me) and the other to Minnesota(such a special time with my sister and with all my relatives. I have watched my girls grow so much. Lily at age 6 is becoming an awesome "little lady" of God. She is studying the word and singing praise songs all the time. She had been a challenging little girl and I am in aww of how God has been maturing her and making her more like Him. She is so generous and talks about serving God. I know that we did several service projects this year and it really did have an impact on her. Valerie at age 3 has always been my easy child, but right now is trying to show her independence and self-reliance. What a stage that can be! Daphne is my runt. She is little, but mighty and always into something. I have loved watching her go from a little 6 month old to a crazy 18 month old this year! Jason also got a new boss this year (the company got sold to new owners). They have been such wonderful people.

So after saying all of that, why was this year so hard? Hmmm. That would be something to answer wouldn't it! I guess the only simple answer is that I feel God moving and in that moving, I think my priorities needed to change. I don't think I wanted them to change. In my own selfishness, I would just stay the same. However, I know that God has a greater calling for my life and I need to get my priorites all straight!

So to start this year out, Jason, Lily, and I all completed New Years Goal sheets. I had a friend post this on facebook.

http://thirtyhandmadedays.com/2011/12/new_years_resolution/

I printed them out and we each filled them out. I intend to post them somewhere that we can look at them often and encourage each other in our goals. I really intend to not let these things escape us. These are really the things that we want for this year. I thought about sharing them on here, but really, I think they are personal so maybe they can be shared when they are fulfilled!

I will end this by saying that my one word is "Hope"! This year may I never lose hope in what God has for me! :)

Meeting the Duggars!!

A few weeks ago, I was able to go to a women's conference and the highlight was meeting the Duggars! What an awesome family of God! The most valuable thing that I took from them was probably the most simple thing. "Children are a blessing!" They said this over and over again and I realized how much our society does not see kids that way. Yes, parents love their kids, but do they truely see them as a blessing. I hear parents all the time complaining about their kids instead of rejoicing in the journey that their kids are going through. When our children are going through the terrible twos, do we stop and feel thankful for the ability to be disciplining them into amazing people of God? Do we feel like we have given up things for our kids or do we feel blessed that God changed our focus from ourselves and onto others? Do we send our kids to school so that we can get a break or do we rejoice in the time together? I just found their deep commitment to children to be refreshing!

My wonderful friend, Mandy blessed me by taking me with her into the small group Duggar time. That was really awesome! I even got to stand up and ask them a question.

Their kids were amazing. Even the little ones sat while their parents talked. When they did start to get restless, one of the older siblings quietly took them out! Later they played the violin and sang. One of the older girls was asked if she liked being homeschooled or if she wished that she had gone to public school. She started by saying, "I have only been homeschooled so it is all I know." Then she continued by saying, "We get to travel and do stuff that other kids don't. I love it!"

The funniest part was when someone asked her what her perspective on fertility treatment is. She started by explaining her belief on birth control until she realized that wasn't what they were talking about. Then she got all tongue tied and said, "I really don't have any experience with this so I don't have an answer right now!" It was sweet and funny! She is a very kind and joyful woman!

The kids loved signing books. They said that they have done 4-5 hour signings before.

Last, I got to speak with Kathy Troccoli. I met her years before when my Pastor's wife introduced me at another women's conference. Kathy is such a fun lady! Love her attitude and love her music!

Slow down this season of life!

With Halloween now over, I am excited for the Thanksgiving and Christmas season.

I really want to enjoy this time of the year with the girls. When I was young, it seemed like it took forever for Christmas to finally arrive. That is not the case now that I am an adult. It comes way too quickly. I struggle to fit all of the acitivities in that I want to share with them.

I also don't want to spend time stressing so I am trying to get everything organized on the calendar and getting shopping done early so that I can look forward to seeing everyone's happy faces when they get their gifts! I love giving gifts. I must say that is probably my strongest love language. I just love watching people open a gift! :)

Last week, we fell behind on homeschooling. So this week, we are getting caught up and spending more time at home to do that! We are also starting to enjoy the Christmas cartoons that I just got out of the attic!

This weekend, I am going to see Michelle Duggar speak. I am so excited. I think she runs her home so smoothly and has children with great character and love for family. I definitely strive to be just like that.

Suppose that is my main ramblings for today!

Our schedule

I had a friend ask me yesterday about my schedule and how I fit everything in. I really think that I am no expert on scheduling, but I have read several books on the subject and I feel pretty content with my schedule so I will share.

7-7:30: Jason starts Lily on math while I get ready for the day
7:30-8: Lily's reading and Valerie's alphabet work
8-8:30: Get girls dressed and we clean house
8:30-9:15: Bible time (JBQ questions and worship or odyssey)
9:15-9:30: Silent reading time
9:30-12:30: Mon.-playgroup, Tues.-homeschool co-op, Wednes-Stay home and get stuff done or run errands, Thurs.-Volunteer or playgroup, Friday-Mops

*No watching t.v. before noon...even if I do like Good Morning America! :)

12:30-1: Lunch
1-3: Daphne's nap and Lily finishes school work (writing, social studies and special classes such as p.e., music, art, etc.)

3-7: Family time- cooking, playing games, dancing, neighbor kids over, dinner, movie(but no t.v. on when we are doing other activities) etc. We also have Jason coaching JBQ on Wednesday nights and lifegroup on Sundays. Once or twice a week, I go out with girlfriends.

7:00: Bedtime for the kids and time for Jason and I to connect.

*Also I believe in the quote at the top of this blog. A schedule is great for organization and living a balanced life, but I am always flexible so that I can be there for others. "Only a life lived for others is worth living." Albert Einstein

*When I look back on my life, I want there to be no way that I can count the number of times that I danced around the house with my girls! Those are the best moments! Looking at their smiling faces never gets old! :)