Category: Faith

Dear Senior Me -Day 17

Posted on by Mary
Senior

Dear Senior Me landed on my blog post idea list back around 2013-2014. It came to me after I wrote a blog post called “A Letter to my Adolescent Self”

It was a brief letter I wanted to write to tell the past me to avoid certain pitfalls. What to focus on and not be afraid of. I was afraid of a lotto stuff back in my teenage years too. And then I had this fabulous idea. Write to myself about all the things I didn’t want to forget as I got older! At that point I was 33 years old. Today I am 41. 8 years- almost to the day that I hit publish on that letter to me. I read it for the first time in 8 years today and I nearly made myself cry.

Why Dear Senior Me wasn’t written until now

There’s only one answer FEAR. I only know that the things I want to say to myself could potentially sting others and so I chose to ignore it …There were other easier things to write.

There was a verse that started it all too. I posted it this morning on facebook as I was preparing for this post!

Deuteronomy 4:9

The reality is this isn’t about anybody else than the things I want to remember as a senior adult. If it stings I’m sorry. This isn’t about anyone but me and who I want to be at 60-70-80 years old. But if it stings I urge you to take those stings to God .

So without any more procrastination (8 years was long enough don’t you think)…..

Dear Senior Me

Dear Senior Mary,

Wow what a life you have had! It has been a rollercoaster for sure. There have been ups and downs and hairpin turns. AND so much laughter and joy even in the midst of the hardest days. Don’t forget the laughter and don’t forget the hard days.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that you aren’t perfect and that you don’t have all the answers. The Younger generation doesn’t need you to fix them and all their “wrong ideas”. They need to know that you genuinely care about what matters to them. They need to hear your war stories if you will but they also need you to listen- to really hear their hearts struggles. They need to know that you don’t just like to hear yourself talk.

Remember that there is world outside of Hetlerville and a world beyond your comfy home.

Listen to your grandkids music and dance with them. Take the time to learn about them the way that you did with your children. Teach them that it’s ok to play video games every once in awhile but that people are way more important.

Play games and have inside jokes. Keep their favorite movies and snacks on hand so they want to just come and hangout.

Embrace change that fits within the parameters of the gospel. Remember it’s ok to have fun in church.

Don’t focus on all your ailments. Don’t be rude to people about their looks. It’s not your job to commentate about weight or anything else that is different about a person. Mary’s really remember how much you taught your children to be kind…..You ALWAYS need to be living breathing example because you never know who is watching you.

Remember all the struggles you had at being a new parent, about finding out your sweet little boy had autism and all the negativity that came with it Remember those who came along side you and put their arms around you and said I will walk though this storm with you.

Remember to walk up to a teenager and ask them how their week went. Take them out for ice cream and invite them into your home and when you do that remember not to complain about how awful 2050’s are and how great the 1990’s and early 2000’s were.

Remember Titus 2 is about you seeking out the younger women and not that the younger women seeking you out.

Oh Dear Senior Mary remember to love full of grace and mercy. It is what has gotten you this far in life and it is what will get you through these next years. You have made it through so much and God has never left your side- He has even carried you when it was too difficult to make it on your own. You have had many trials and sad moments but remember that joy comes in the morning and you are nearing the greatest joy of all.

Share that joy with everyone. Be grateful for the amazing adventures you had and don’t harbor bitterness and jealousy. What someone else has is meant for them not you. YOU have your own journey that has been so full of blessings.

What? You don’t remember them? You have countless journals stowed away in boxes that are chock full of blessings that you took the time t name one by one. You did that for a reason- to remember! Dig them out! Read Them! Praises Jesus for the work he did in your life.

Oh and one last thing- You aren’t dead yet! No I’m not kidding so still go on adventures. AND take someone with you! One of your kids, grandkids, your HUBBY! or maybe a friend or two. Don’t forget to share your testimony and all that God has given you on your great adventure.

Love always,

Middle-aged Me

For more Choosing Courage posts click here.

Choosing Courage.: You Never Knew Me

Posted on by Mary
Choosing

Good evening everyone! Welcome to post #12 in the Choosing Courage project. I hope you have had a great week! I have a very interesting question for you tonight! Have you ever invested time into someone- given them all of your heart (I’m not talking about a spouse necessarily), just to be all of a sudden accused of being a horrible person in some shape or form.? You are left standing there with the pieces of your shattered relationship laying at your feet and the overwhelming sense of “You never really knew me”?

If we are honest we all have (especially if you were a girl in middle school. We also have the tendency to either take offense far too easily or project our own problems on other people (more on this in a future blog post).

Grace upon Grace, Mercy upon Mercy

No matter which side you are on it’s important to remember that our ultimate goal as believers in Jesus is to be Christ emulators. And Jesus was full of GRACE and MERCY. I know some people aren’t naturally bent towards these traits. We need to work very hard to be like Christ. It takes practice and sometimes blowing it and then being able to learn from those mistakes.

It also takes a great measure of humility to admit that we don’t know everything. The only person who really knows our Hearts is God himself. Even we ourselves don’t know our own hearts because emotions can be severely deceptive. We can convince ourselves of lies both about ourselves and our closest of friends and when we let those lies and emotions take over and we lose sight of who Jesus really is and how we are supposed to love! UNCONDITIONALLY!

FORGIVE

This is the ultimate act of Christ like behavior , especially if you forgive before you are asked to forgive. Jesus provided the ultimate gift of forgiveness before anyone ever knew they needed forgiving..

Forgiveness is HARD. Especially when we have been hurt whether intentionally and unintentionally! But it is a choice we must make.

STOP PLAYING GOD

When we assume that we know someone’s heart , we are playing God. I know that’s hard to hear. But we all do it. And it’s so important to admit that flaw and move forward to understanding. That’s what we need to strive for understanding and love rather that assumptions and gossip. It’s our job to extend Grace and mercy so we can become the picture of true Christ-like love.

But how ado we do that? It Comes to to CHOOSING…..

It starts with some Courageous choices that goes against the world’s perspective.

  1. Choose to acknowledge that you don’t have all the understanding of peoples motives. When we assume we know their motives we are saying we know them better than God. And in doing that we show that we don’t really know them,
  2. Choose to Die to self. Put others before yourself and realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you. Value other people and their insights I had a history teacher who had a phrase he used to say “There is a world outside of Hetlerville. Yes that’s a real place. But the point is we get so stuck with seeing what is in our immediate location that we lose sight that the world is a much bigger place. The same is true fore us as individuals. When we get so wrapped up in our own little worlds and all the drama in our lives we fail to see what other people are going through. and even sometimes we take the struggles we are having and project them onto those around us.
  3. Choose Grace and mercy. It doesn’t matter of you are good at these things or not. we need to actively choose these! When we do so we will grow and we get better and better. But remember you can’t give what you don’t have.

These three choices are just the beginning! There is a part two of this coming soon…..So what will you be choosing to do? For me it’s forgiveness but more on that in the next post.

But while you wait you can check out the other CHOOSING COURAGE posts here

What I Know -Choosing Courage -Day 10

Posted on by Mary
Know

Good evening sweet friends! Welcome to Day 10 of my Choosing Courage Project. Today we are going to talk about “What I know”. the great thing is what I know is what you can know too.

But First the back story

I know I have shared what my December looked like but what I haven’t shared was how much of a mental struggle it was.

As a family we grew leaps and bounds throughout the whole season of lockdown.. We made it as much fun as we possibly could and did a lot of really awesome stuff together. We did long distance daily lego challenges with an uncle and a cousin. During the summer we had friends over to play on our slip n slide. and Christmas was shaping up to be a fun one too. I had made a fun advent calendar. Each day held a fun family activity and a reverse advent calendar where we put an item of food in a box and then donated it to a family.

Everything was going great until December 8th. That was the first of three trips to the ER and for the next three days we lived in complete uncertainty as to why my body had quit doing a very simple task that we all do every single day (sorry for now that’s all the details you get). The did a quick fix and sent me home. 2 days later I found myself right back there and this time I got some answers…and I knew what it meant…or at least I thought I did. I can’t tell you how many times I heard the phrase “you are a very special case”. and I would continue to prove them right all through the month of December.

A week later I had a special procedure and I was told that I would be in the worst pain I have ever experienced and they weren’t wrong. I made it through Christmas and the pain was finally subsiding. I knew surgery was coming and then the pain started- different pain on the 27th.

Back to the ER on the 28th

Up until this point I was exhausted and in pain but my focus had been where it should be on Jesus. But when I found myself in what felt like labor. I can’t tell you how many times that day that I was a very special case and hat “we have never seen anything quite like this” and off to the ER I went again.

And at this point I was at my breaking point. I felt like I was losing my mind. Have you ever been in such excruciating pain that wouldn’t stop. You seriously feel like you are going crazy….or at least I did. and then I reached out to my friends in tears I wrote “I feel like I am making life difficult for everyone right now I’m struggling to see the purpose in this for sure.” I was laying a lone In the ER for the third time, I was mentally, physically and emotionally spent. I felt like I had completely ruined Christmas for everyone. I had spent weeks a lone on the apartment. We had a kid in quarantine and hubby was trying to keep me healthy because we knew I had to have surgery but not sure when. On December 28th God took surgery off the table.

After that post one of my friends sent me a devotional she had read the same morning. Are you ready for the title?

When you Don’t Understand God’s Timing ……REALLY?? I can’t make this stuff up! The author, Alicia Bruxvoort.

Here’s the excerpt of that devotional.

But I’m learning that when God’s timing doesn’t match my pining, I need to focus on what I know rather than what I feel. So, I turn to Ecclesiastes 3:11 and read the words of King Solomon:

“God has given [us] a desire to know the future. He does everything just right and on time, but people can never completely understand what he is doing.”

This verse helps me filter my frustration through God’s unchanging truth. It reminds me that my delays aren’t a sign of God’s indifference, but an expression of His wisdom. 

I’ll never fully understand the complexities of God’s eternal plan while I’m bound to the dust of earth. But I can place my hope in God’s integrity even when I can’t comprehend His itinerary.

When my hope is tied to God’s trustworthiness instead of His timing, it changes my attitude in the waiting.

I am prone to recall His faithfulness instead of questioning His fairness. (Psalm 77:11)

I am able to respect His wisdom instead of disputing His ways.

I am inclined to celebrate His majesty instead of second-guessing His motives.

But, best of all, when I place the crux of my faith on the trustworthiness of God’s character, I discover an unexpected gift in the grit of delay.

It’s that first line that really hit me….”ut I’m learning that when God’s timing doesn’t match my pining, I need to focus on what I know rather than what I feel.”

I was having a whole lot of really raw and scary feelings (The was compounded by some anxiety induced by low iron levels that couldn’t even be registered in my blood work.

Where “What I know ” was born.

That sentence changed everything and gave bye a change of perspective. Right then and there I started going over and over in my head all the truth I knew about God and you know what I learned? When you are in intense pain AND have morphine coursing through your system your memory is NOT GOOD AT ALL! and so I purposed in my heart togo on a learning adventure when I got home. I would write down all of my “learning is a set of spiral bound set of index cards.

Know

I wrote these items don- all scripture based and when I have struggled I turn to that little tool . It is amazing just how many promises and characteristics of God cam during that time. They were everywhere (They still are).

I think so often that we are going through something we look for a quick fix. I could have jumped to a tool that had all of these things already done fore me but for this time and circumstance, I needed to go on this journey by myself. Reading and searching God’s word for these gems.

So What Now?

I’m still adding to this notebook. These note cards have helped many a night when the anxiety sky- rockets as my iron level dropped. It slipped easily into my purse when going to a doctor’s appointment that triggered fear and anxiety.

I continue this journey with what I know because feelings are deceitful and can mislead us.

How about you? Do you have a plan in place for when you are facing fear and anxiety? How do you keep your mind focused on what you know rather than our misleading feelings? Let me know in the comments below !

For more of the Choosing Courage posts click here.

When the Bible Becomes a Textbook- Day 7

Posted on by Mary
Bible

The Bible A Textbook?

It’s a problem that seems to be growing more and more within the church. It’s more prevalent in college’s and seminaries where the Bible really is on the textbook list. I think a Bible was on every class syllabus I had throughout college except for Math class and maybe the two English classes I had.

When the Bible is taught on an academic level we need to be careful to make sure the Bible stays personal. We need to be sure that we realize that the Bible never returns void and that we can learn something each and every time we read it. But it’s not just in college and seminary, this happens in churches too. It happens when believers take in too much spiritual information. We do it in the name of learning but we forget that there is another piece….

Spiritual Gluttony

Are you a “FAT” Christian? There are so many spiritually obese Christians within the church. They sit in their homes and in Bible studies and they talk about how much they have learned and how much time they spend praying or studying God’s word. They can quote and re-quote God’s word . Yes we are commanded to learn and hide God’s word in our hearts.

That’s not the problem. the problem is when we as believers don’t use the knowledge God has given us through his word. And it’s not just what we do with it it is HOW we use it.

3 Areas That point to spiritual obesity

  1. Holding one’s quiet time/ spiritual disciplines over another person. When we think that our spirituality is greater than someone else’s we are elevating ourselves over others. We aren’t to think ourselves better than other people, no matter how much time we spend in God’s Word.
  2. Using scripture to beat people up. Misuse of scripture and hurting others also shows a lack of maturity in faith. I’m not saying we shouldn’t speak truth but oftentimes we forget the second part of that verse. We need to speak the truth IN LOVE. Not with the proverbial biblical baseball bat.
  3. A lack of spiritual growth. I once heard someone say “I’m not a very merciful person.” It was this person’s excuse to behave poorly and mistreat people. We shouldn’t wear our sins and faults as a badge of honor (more on this in an upcoming blog post). When we know but are not putting the knowledge into practice we show a lack of growth.

Right now our church is doing a study of the book Respectable Sins. And today in church the message was on harshness. And each Sunday, the pastor speaking answers a respectable sin with a Fruit of the spirit. Today the pastor said that fruit is there for us to pick and use as we need and sometimes we just ignore the fruit entirely. Wow!

4 Steps to keep us from Making the Bible. textbook

  1. Remember that the Bible is for us to grow. We need to take the beam out of our own eye before we can take the speck out of another. It’s called humility. Remember that scripture never returns void. We are to learn to become closer to Jesus and grow in his heart and character.
  2. Humility, humility, humility. Have a teachable spirit. Don’t forget that we need to not only take in the information, we also need to apply it to our own lives.
  3. Remember we cannot give what we do not have. You cannot tell someone else how to live if you yourself do not have Joy, Peace, Forbearance, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-Control.
  4. Practice the idea of a personal prayer closet. It doesn’t matter how much time you spend in God’s word just as long as you are devoted to him and have a teachable spirit. If you are reading God’s word for the sake of attacking someone, that isn’t a teachable spirit. Depending on the specific season of our lives we may not have the ability to spend longer in God’s word. Case in point: In December I couldn’t spend as much time in God’s word however, I grew by leaps and bounds because my faith was being stretched in far different ways. My prayer life was different, I learned to rely on God for the most basic of needs. And it taught me a whole new level of reliance on God.

A word about forbearance

Forbearance is a funny word- I have studied it before but I always forget what it means and then I look it up and I say “OHHHHHH”. It also happens to be what I have seen as one of the BIGGEST struggles within the church- patience and tolerance.

Tolerance is more than “you need to be tolerant of me and my ________”

Remember the “we can’t give what we don’t have”. If you cannot be tolerant of the music, or the children in church than you cannot expect to receive tolerance for whatever your preferences are. Did you notice I said preference? Sin should never be tolerated in church.

Confession time

I have struggled with this from time to time. If we are honest with ourselves we all struggle with this. And it’s that honesty that will make the biggest impact in our walk with God. Repent of our sin of mistreating others, misusing God’s word and give over that critical spirit to God and allow Him to change our hearts.

It’s time we realize that being obese Christians fattened up by all of our knowledge is useless. It’s only when we apply God’s word to our lives that it is at it’s most useful state.

How about you? Have you ever struggled with falling into the ‘Bible as a textbook as a trap”? Let me know how you have overcome it in the comments below.

Hello Fears -Day 2

Posted on by Mary
Fears

Good evening everyone,

So today we are going to chat about the book Hello Fears by Michelle Poler. Right now life is busy as we are gearing up for our second year of homeschooling so reading time is cut downs I won’t be progressing very fast.

Fears

Over the last two days I have read through page 26. And a brief detour to chapter 10 (per Michelle’s instructions). to get a better understanding of Michelle’s family history and the root of her fears. I think if we are all honest we all have deep roots that cause our fears.

A couple of my fears-

  • heights and the fear of falling
  • disappointing people
  • people’s criticism
  • making mistakes
  • hurting people
  • being misjudged/ misunderstood

Those are the top ones. Now as I Mentioned yesterday I am focusing on my writing because that is some of the greatest fears I am struggling with and keeping me from living life to the fullest. These fears are keeping me from doing something that I love.

Categories of fear

Michelle talks about how our fears fit into seven Categories. Those Categories are:

  1. pain
  2. danger
  3. embarrassment
  4. Rejection
  5. loneliness
  6. lack of control
  7. disgust

For our assignment we were suppose to rank them from 1- being “sure I can handle it” to 7- “I would rather be dead! See Ya”

SO here’s my list.:

  1. Disgust- hello I have four kids (3 of which are boys) and I have been to another country where I ate silkworm, pigs ear, chicken hearts, a whole squid and jellyfish.
  2. loneliness- I am an introvert and I need that time alone to refill my people tank. It gets number 2 spot because unlike Michelle I don’t need people around me all the time. As a kid and teenager and even into my young adult years I feared being alone and needed people around to feel safe
  3. Conrol- I like to feel in control of situations but the reality is I am not and I am *Mostly* ok with that. If you talked to me back in December I was pretty upset about December being ruined. And over the last 8 months I have struggled with anxiety and fear with my health being out of control. One of the speakers at the Global Leadership Summit said “The only constant thing in this life is change”, everything constantly changes and it’s how we handle those changes that matters.
  4. Pain- I do not like pain. physical pain or mental/ emotional pain. though I think the latter is a bigger struggle for me. I don’t like getting hurt by people. And I am very afraid of inflicting that kind of pain on people as well.
  5. Danger- Who likes being in danger? Not me…No sir.
  6. Embarrassment- I have friends who have definitely pushed me past my limits in this area. My entire life this has been a huge fear. I am guessing rooted in some major bullying that happened as a kid/ teen.
  7. Rejection- and this is why we are here. This fear has many facets for me and I am VERY sure we will be diving deeper into this in the coming chapters.

So How about you? How would you rank your categories of fears?

See you tomorrow! Goodnight!

You can check out Michell’s book Here

You can check out yesterday’s post here