There is no denying the power of scripture

I wanted to share with you the bible verses I found during my time of discovery. My favorite one is in Esther. I keep coming back to it. "and who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this". Esther 4:14 WOW! God is in control and I need to daily remind myself that. I am where I am because this is where God wants me to be. He has chosen me for this purpose and this life and this situation  and I am going to try my best to glorify him through it.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing". John 15:5 How true. I am the worst carer of plants. I kill them. I either water them too much or not enough. With God I don't need to worry if he is enough or not because he is everything I need. He is just enough, more than enough, to sustain me.

"I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength". Phil 4:13 I love this verse. Other than John 3:16, this was the first verse I memorized. This verse doesn't give me permission to do whatever I want but the confidence that I can do what God has asked of me.

"For we are Christ's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do". Ephes 2:10 I think of everything that has happened in my life and how so much of it prepared for where I am now. We may not always make the best choices because we have free will, but God has a bigger plan for us and he will fulfill it either way.

"For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose". Phil 2:13 Thankfully God is there to help me when I feel as though I can not do it anymore, like my batteries are on empty. When you feel as though you can't go on, God is there to push you on.

"For I know that plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future". Jeremiah 29:11 Although sometimes it feels as if nothing is as it should be, I know that God has my best interests at heart and knows the end results.

"Therefore, do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all" 2 Cor 4:16-17 It is not about me. This is not my permanent home. It is not about me. This is not my permanent home. How miniscule our time on Earth is compared to eternity in heaven. In the end, God is all that matters, and whether we received his son.

"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it out to completion until the day of Christ Jesus". Phil 1:6 God will finish what he started. He is in control of the outcomes. He sees the whole picture and knows the end result. Ultimately his will will be done.

"Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father". Col 3:17 I made a pocket rock with this verse on it to remind me to humble myself and remember that my life is not meant to please me or make me happy but to glorify God.

The mind is a dangerous thing......

After my last post, I have really spent some time focusing in on the lies I tell myself and analyzing how it is affecting me. As hard as it is for me to admit, most of them are spurred by my role as a step-mom. I honestly LOVE my boys its just that I never realized how hard it would be to be a step-mom. My husband has custody of his children so even though I am the step-parent, I am also the main caregiver. For me, it wasn't hard at all to fall madly in love with the boys and feel as if they were my own, the crushing part was knowing they weren't. It sounds prideful, and in a lot of ways it has became that, but it started out as just emotionally hard. The constant jabs from their biological mother that she gave birth to them and that they were not my children even though I did almost all of the motherly duties was crushing. Over time the heartache turned to bitterness as I started to resent the fact that as I was doing all of the responsible stuff, while she was getting to be the fun one. It seemed like I was doing all the work while she received the glory. That is where the pride came in and bitterness began to grow. As time went by and she had another baby, I began craving a baby too. I knew that I wanted more children from the beginning but I was content as we were. Eventually this new desire became an idol for me. It seemed that while we financially couldn't afford another child and with all that our children required of us we couldn't foresee the ability to care for another child either, yet she was able to have another even though she wasn't doing her part as a mother. It seemed she was stealing from me what I wanted. Its crazy how something I didn't desire to have at the time one minute, consumed me with jealousy the next.

Last week I realized that this bitterness was being fueled by thoughts that were popping in to my head all the time when I would get frustrated or tired or jealous. Honestly, most of the frustration and jealousy was due to the lies in and of themselves! So I sat myself down with a pen and paper and began writing all the thoughts that pop in and out of my head and before I knew it, I was writing down things I didn't even know I was thinking! I then took each thought and wrote a statement professing what was true, for example I would catch myself thinking "M can't tell me I am not the mom one minute and then ask me to do things the next", or "I do all the work and receive no recognition". In reality it doesn't matter what M labels me to the boys and that I am not here on Earth to receive recognition but to do God's will. It was so freeing. When I was done I felt like a new person. Now I am trying to study and memorize scripture that upholds this truth. I know that I am not cured of this destructive thinking but I am definitely on the right path.

True or Truth?

I've been thinking a lot about lies lately, not lies we tell other people but lies we tell ourselves, and it seems I listen to my mind a lot more than I realized. Until this study, No Other Gods by Kelly Minter, I didn't notice how much of my life was being consumed with bitterness, sadness, jealousy, and a need for approval. Almost all of these emotions are centered and fueled by lies I was believing without even knowing it. All lies come from Satan for he is the father of lies and by getting us to buy into them Satan is able to accomplish exactly what he wants, bondage and a  misconscrewed view of God. When I let those sink in from the study and Lies women believe by Nacy DeMoss, I couldn't believe what I was allowing Satan to do to my life.

These lies all started in the Garden of Eden. I believe that Eve was singled out by the serpent intentionally. As much as I do not like to admit it, the woman was the one that was deceived and through her the man then followed and I do not doubt that Satan knew exactly what he was doing. Satan knows our weaknesses and uses them against us to further push us from all that God desires for our lives. Studying Genesis 3, I discovered that the serpent didn't outright lie to Eve, what he said was true, yet it wasn't the TRUTH. He got Eve to question God, add her own thoughts on what God said, and create distrust in whether God had her best interests at heart. The apple was pleasing to the eye, it was good for food, and it would give her knowledge about good and evil. The problem is that she was never meant to have to carry the burden of what the fruit opened up to her and that by sinning she separated herself from God and death eventually came about. The truth is so much more than what was true in Satan's statements to Eve.

I tell myself when I am exhausted and overwhelmed that I cannot do this, that its all too much. Sometimes that is true, but the truth is that God is there to help. "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength". Phil 4:13 How many more times am I missing out on the the TRUTH? I allow my mind to wander and make up scenarios in my head of what's going on or what someone is thinking or why something happened and if I a begin listening to these thoughts they create bitterness, stress, and anxiety in me when the thoughts are honestly lies I am telling myself. My mind is a dangerous thing because once I begin thinking about something it slowly gets in to my heart and from their destruction begins. I guess that is why God told us to guard it. "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it". Prov 4:23 What we believe we eventually begin acting on without even realizing it!

Slowly my life has became blah and its seems the joy I used to have has just seeped out. I have been begging and crying to God to bring it back and to take the bitterness away and I never understood why He didn't. Well the truth is not that he couldn't or wouldn't take the bitterness away, the truth is that until I replace the lies in my life with God's truth I will continue feeling this way. I am still trying to figure out how to do this and its a daily struggle but I so strongly desire to feel the joy and peace that God desires for me that I am not going to give up! The only way to do this is to delve into God's word and start believing all the truths and promises. If I can believe in all God tells me then I don't need to worry about the lies that are out there floating around waiting for me. God intends to set me free but I have to do my part as well :)