Anybody else a planner?

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 29:11

I love this verse!  Did I get it at an earlier age?  Nope.  Wish I would have?  Yes!  Do I wish on days now that I would immediately claim this verse rather than think I know what's best? Yes!  Anybody with me?

It's spring and it's ball season for my nephews.  The oldest is Vaughn and he is in his senior year with so many decisions to be made and so many questions in his head that are unanswered for him and we all just want to help him.  You see it on his sweet face at times the beginning of worry lines about will this school call, is this school going to really be here, or am I going to have to go somewhere not even on my radar list?  All the questions and you just want to tell him it's okay, but you remember the feeling.  Think back to your senior year and all the questions.  All the uneasiness of leaving the familiar rooms, teachers, and friends and we haven't even gotten to leaving home.  (I didn't do the last one)  Anyway, a lot for anyone to take in, but in someways at 18 we think we knew it all...Remember, moms you did too!?  Now you know that you didn't and you want to tell your kids that, but they don't want to hear it anymore than you did!

I remember signing up to major in political science.  I loved politics and thought I wanted to be the first female president.  Now this is so funny to me, because I still believe strongly in what I believe, but I would never want to be a politician!  Nobody stands firm anymore and its all about if you don't believe the way I believe then I'm bringing you down!  Well, I know I would have become a crying woman with the constant attacks from the other side and even your own side and all to win!  Anyway, then I went into geology.  Still not me!  Then it was education and well I love kids, but not that much!  Finally, I settled into business.  I look at it now and do you know that my favorite classes and the ones I did the best in were religion?  Yes, God knew then He had a plan, but I didn't yet.  So I graduated with a business degree.  Okay, maybe some of you knew all along your calling on your life.  Good for you, but I don't think the majority of people know at 18 what they want to do for the rest of their life and it's okay to say so!  Admit it!

I look at Vaughn and want to say relax and remember God gave you a gift.  A gift that He is going to provide the right way for you to use your gift.  Vaughn is a gifted athlete and hopefully his dreams of Professional Baseball will come true, but if they don't God still has a plan!  A plan that I just want to tell Vaughn trust Him with all your heart.  Vaughn it will work out.  He knows your path!  Trust Him!  Ask yourself Vaughn, do you feel peace with your choices?  Do you see less obstacles along a certain path?  Trust God and follow Him!  We never go anywhere that God does not go before us and I just want at this particular time in Vaughn's life to help him grasp this scripture!  It is so much easier to be okay in life when we know that God leads us that He never sends us anywhere without going before us!  He gives us the strength we need, so we just must believe the Words He gives us!  

I love to hear Vaughn say DeDe and it's like I've gone back in time to that place when he was three, four, five and he knew his DeDe was someone that  without a doubt he could trust and I believe he still knows it!  I want to help Vaughn learn that as much as he knows his mom and dad, brothers, grandparents, and his DeDe love him God loves him more!  I want to say this goes for all my nephews and nieces believe all of this and trust!  I'm writing this more to Vaughn because he is at this place in his life, but you will all be here soon.  It gets here so quickly, so these words are for you too!

Life would have been so much easier, if I had known all of this for myself at the time I was a senior in high school.  Oh, we all have to learn it for ourselves and in God's timing, but it's okay to share these truths with our young people that we treasure so much!  Trust and believe God knows the way!  Truly He does give us a peace that we just don't understand when we finally truly believe He plans our paths and it is so much better than the one we try to plan.  DeDe didn't get this until her forties!  It's my prayer you all get it earlier, because I want only the best for all of you!

I love you Vaughn, Kyle, Blake, Samantha, Sara, Sadie, Holt simply beyond words, but God loves you all more than you can possibly imagine!  Trust Him with your moments, with your minutes, with your hours, and with your days and your life will be a joy!

Love,

DeDe 

Words of Love

Words, words, words...Do they help to tell them you love them?  Does it help to just hug and not offer anything, but a hug?  Do they know you are hugging them for Jesus?  

I know her heart is broken.  I know that she is struggling.  I know that she feels so alone.  I know because I know her.  I lift her in prayers and ask that you reading this will lift this unknown woman to the LORD.

My heart is breaking as well for her pain.  She only wanted to feel loved, so she allowed herself to believe it was love.  She believed the words, which in turn causes her not to believe words now.  Causing so much loneliness when she needs to know at this moment just how much she is loved.  She needs to know that God feels her pain and truly feels it right along with her.  She is mourning the loss of a child.  A child that she chose to abort, because the ones she desired to love her told her to and now the pain is so deep.  Pray for this little one that is now with the LORD.

No judgment from me.  I make mistakes moment to moment how can I judge, but my heart is breaking.  Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing going through the losses all over again that monthly I felt when I would realize that I wasn't going to have a little one and now God places me to work with young girls that I try to mother and help them realize that someone will love their little ones.  I try to be that face that they will realize someone will love their child so very much, because they so desperately want one.  Oh how I want to be the face to help them realize not to make that choice of abortion, please allow that special couple to take your baby and give it a life they deserve.  The couple that offers to give your baby so much love, encouragement, and a home will be complete.  No longer a hole in their hearts or their homes, because you give them a gift that is beyond words.

Lord, please give me the words of love that this special woman needs to hear now.  Healing words that will allow her to know that she is never alone.  Words that show love drawing her closer to the LORD and not further away and alone.  Lord, please give me wisdom to be your arms comforting and loving and showing only YOU and Lord help my aching heart.  A heart that is breaking, because I feel her pain. Lord, allow her to believe the words we share about You!  The words that she needs to hear right now!

We love you LORD!  Amen

Sweet blessings,

Debbie 

What do you feel towards others?

Leviticus 14, Mark 8: 1 -21

What feeling do you have toward situations that you just don't understand?  A person on the street homeless, what is the first thought that goes through your mind?  A young teenage girl that is going to have a baby?  A person that just looks differently than you do?  Is it a feeling of disdain?  A feeling of why?  Compassion? Fear?  If they wanted to do better they could?

Perhaps, you have felt all of these at one time or another for some of the situations mentioned above or none of them.  Reading from Mark 8 this morning the words that jumped off the page at me were Jesus felt compassion.  He wanted to help the feelings of hunger that they would have been feeling after 3 days with nothing to eat.  These people were so caught up in the things Jesus was saying and doing they had not realized that huge rumbling was their bellies, but I guess Jesus heard them and wanted to help the situation.  When we hear the rumblings around us do we want to help them?

Jesus knew if they left Him they would collapse on the way home.  Isn't this true of us?  Without Him our life falls to shambles all around us?  We need the nourishment that only He provides.  The story goes on to share that He fed that crowd of four thousand and that is only counting the men, so no telling how many women and children were also there!  He was quite the host!  Even providing a place to sit and eat and they were satisfied! Satisfied means content!  I imagine they were after all they had been fed by Jesus physically and spiritually for three days!  Jesus had shown them so much about how to help those suffering around them, to take care of them without judgment to feed off of Him!

Yet in just a few verses we read that the disciples were already worried about Jesus providing for them...How often do we forget just as quickly?  Jesus provides way more than we will ever need and just like the disciples not realizing how much leftovers there were - we don't either!  He gives us way more than we could possibly ever need and yet we allow worry, doubt, fear to creep in and steal our satisfaction!

Believe!  Believe!  Believe!  Jesus provides our contention and we do not need to look anywhere else or to anyone else...everything else will definitely disappoint us!

Sweet blessings,

Debbie

Sacrifice must cost us something...

Psalm 90, Leviticus 1, 2 and Mark 5: 1-20

God's timing never seizes to amaze me!  My prayer before reading this morning was Lord I so desperately need a word from you.  A word, a reminder that it is not for naught.

Don't get me wrong I love ministry, but I also have a long list of Debbie things that I personally want to do just like everybody else in this world.  Daily I must choose God's list or Debbie's list and lately Debbie's list has been pulling very strongly at my desires.  The pain of someone you are working with that makes a choice different from what you would make, a person you love moving along a different path because God calls them to a different spot, the list could go on and on because it is the list of things that hurt.  A list that makes it difficult to stay on God's list of things and not your own.

God hit me between the eyes this morning in the reading.  I love it when He does that even when He is telling me that I need to straighten up.  I must admit that I was having a morning of saying Lord how could this person do this and this person do this and it was like the LORD said, Debbie why do you do what you do?  I was hit right between the eyes with my own wrong choices or wrong paths!  It hit me the pain I feel is nothing compared to what God feels moment to moment with ALL OF HIS CHILDREN!  I only minister to a few and we all mess up. (me included)  But God never stops loving us and pursuing us!  Thank you LORD!

Psalm 90 was so powerful for me this morning starting around verse 12 with help me gain a heart of wisdom and have compassion on your servants.  Yes, the author was asking the LORD to have compassion, but He used it to tell me to have compassion that I was no different from anyone else I made poor choices just yesterday myself.  Yes, He pointed them out!  IT was NOT pretty!

He even went further with me about being satisfied with HIS LOVE and how He established a work for me to do and to be satisfied!  Do the work and quit your complaining!  I heard you LORD and thank you once again for the scolding!  Lord, use my scolding to help someone else!  

God is so good.  He then lead me to Leviticus and the first thing that struck me was that sacrifice that the LORD calls us to do will cost us.  It will hurt us at times, but we must give it to HIM. 

Then it was on to Mark with the man and the demons.  The man finally freed from the chains, the loneliness and the LORD telling him to go and share how much the LORD has done for you.  Have we shared lately how much the LORD has done?  Share today!  Tell someone about how amazing it is when He sees you even if it is discipline, especially then!  Also, the times that you need to know He loves you so much and He lets you know just how much He loves you by giving you that Word you so desperately need to hear.  Just this week I had a very special friend know exactly at  a moment she needed so desperately to know He was with her and loved her and He did!  He showed up!

Share about Our Amazing Savior today with someone that so desperately needs to feel compassion and love from another believer!

Sweet blessings,

Debbie