Author: exquisitewordblog

Getting Through Your Season

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raeJob 17:9

9“But principled people hold tight, keep a firm grip on life,

sure that their clean, pure hands will get stronger and stronger!” (MSG)

 

9 “Nevertheless the righteous will hold to his way,

And he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.” (NASV)

 

As I’m sitting here waiting for my daughter to go back to sleep (its 3 am and she’s doing summersaults in bed), I began to think of how challenging it has been in the sleep department the past 6 months. We’ve tried literally everything to get this girl to sleep and after it all we still are challenged by her. There have been many nights of frustration which leads us to exhaustion. We then still get up day by day getting through. We stay motivated by love to care for this little lady. Some day she will grow up and change her world for the better. I’ve spent so many nights using the opportunity to pray as in the few times I’ve practiced anger those nights were longer and days were hard. When I choose to pray I’ve noticed a peaceful calm come over me and help me to provide the care to the little girl that God has blessed met with. Random people come to my mind and I say a prayer for them in the presence of the Lord leading me on what to pay for. I think of my situation and how blessed I am to have a little girl. Others so desire to have a little one and go to great lengths to have a baby. Yes, my lack of sleep and situation is very tough and the current moment I can only dream of getting more than 4 hours of sleep at a time. Some days I have to get off social media because people will post that their one month old slept through the night and blah blah blah. But you know what, EVERYONE is going through something. Everyone has something that is difficult for them. It may look different and it may be something that comes easy for you, so for me my difficulty right now is sleep for others it is something different. On Sunday our pastor talked about being a pitiful or powerful person. You can choose. So this morning I have a choice. I can get up with little sleep and go about my day complaining on how hard it was last night and how I got no sleep OR (there is always an “or” in our situations) I can go through work excited about my day and thanking Jesus for how blessed I am to have a cute little kiddo to snuggle at night. This is my season and I know it soon will pass into a different season. Do I choose to allow God to work in me for the greater good of his goal or do I allow my difficulties to get in the way of what God is doing in my life? I hope reading this allows you to determine how you can focus on a more God centered positive outlook. I encourage you when something gets difficult find the positive in it and pray that God will help you to focus on that. Pray in those moments on how great our God is. What he has blessed you with and how you soon will overcome this. We can be strong in our weak moments through God’s strength and that is where He wants us. He desires us to completely rely and trust in him. When we start to complain we allow our tempter to take a foothold. We allow sin and negative thoughts to creep in only creating a small seed to grow into an ugly tree.  I encourage you today to consider giving God praise for your current trial; know that everyone is going through something and your something is very important to God. It will only be for a season as change always comes so find what is good about where you are at and how you are fortunate with where you are. I’m thinking your life will change once you do.

 

Here’s to good nights sleep. If you are getting one…………enjoy it for me and know that I’m praying for you while I’m awake.  😊

Clean out that Closet

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closet.jpgPhoto cred: pexels.com

Have you ever looked at your closet and thought— It’s time to get rid of clothes! Especially if you are getting creative on finding new hangers or places to put your clothes. It’s packed too full! Plus, if you get rid of some clothes there might be an opportunity for a new dress to fill that spot. Yes, definitely sounds like a good time to clean out the closet.  The process of cleaning out the closet starts and you begin to look at each piece, try it on, and mull over getting rid of it.  You start to think, this looks cute with this skirt so I have to keep this top and before you know it you’ve only gotten rid of a few pieces. Yet those few pieces you got rid of allows you to feel that you are entitled to go and buy more. Then the cycle starts over again.

When will you ever be able to get rid of the clothes you don’t need even if you look really cute and have good intentions for wearing them? Sometimes cleaning the closet of our life can be just as hard. There are things in our life that we have good intentions for but they stay there without being used or get in the way of using our other talents to the fullest potential. It also prevents us from giving God the credit and relying on him.

This reminds me of a story in the bible. Gideon was a warrior and in charge of a large army. Gideon thought that he needed a large number of men in his army to go into battle but God’s number was a lot smaller; 300 in fact. Gideon’s army went from 32,000 to a mere 300 men. WOW. Gideon saw thousands of men leave that he thought he still needed. God had a different idea in mind and Gideon decided to trust in God (even when he was weary and tired). Low and behold, God showed up in a miraculous way and Gideon won the battle. The loss of men was hard but the victory outweighed the loss.

Instead of relying on the items we think we need maybe we should trust that God will give us “just enough” in order to fully rely on Him. It may be hard to get rid of those extra things that bring comfort, however, what God has in store for us can far outweigh the little comfort we can get from hanging on to unnecessary things that we think we might need.

Scripture: Judges 7:2

“The Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’ NASB

God said to Gideon, “You have too large an army with you. I can’t turn Midian over to them like this—they’ll take all the credit, saying, ‘I did it all myself,’ and forget about me.” The Message

Read: Judges 7

Do: If you haven’t worn it in 6 months and it was in season, get rid of it. Donate to a women in need. Go to a shelter at least one time and see the impact.

Pray that God will rid the extra unnecessary items that are holding you back from giving God credit and allowing him to show you his miracles.

We Warriors fight for Plunder!

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As my family was getting ready for church one morning the following happened: The rooster started crowing at 4:45 am, our daughter woke up at 5 am (got her back to sleep), she wakes up at 6 am, while daughter is eating breakfast she poops all over her highchair, while cleaning and changing her, the wipes run out; daughter gets put in the bath, walk back into kitchen to clean the mess and low and behold the dog ate all the poo. I’m not making this up! Then a heated discussion entails because the whole scenario mentioned above was all on my husband as I was in the shower. Let me remind you this is a SUNDAY! God’s day where none of this is supposed to happen. It is supposed to be song and dance and praise the Lord! I truly believe that all the problems happened that morning because I had a short message that I had prepared for our volunteers that morning. The devil was attacking and I straight up told him—He’s not going to take my JOY! I will fight this battle and win! The funny thing is that morning prepared me for my word. I was actually talking about Joy and fighting a battle.

JOY is mentioned in the bible 182 times (NASV). It’s mentioned more than forgive (61 times), Grace (131 times), and Pray (109 times)(LINK). Those word are pretty important in the bible as well, however, JOY is mentioned more than each of those. You think maybe God is trying to tell us something? I began to research several verses and the one that spoke to me was Isaiah 9:3- “You have enlarged the nation and increased their JOY; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder.” This verse was a prophecy about the spread of Christianity. The gospel will bring JOY during the dark times they had; a hopeful JOY that more people were going to be added to their nation of Christ. I thought about this verse that morning; this was a battle and I was to fight for my JOY. Think about the old days were men fought with their hands and all their might and when they were victorious they were able to split up all of their plunder that they had won. Think about the JOY in that! All the hard work, the fight, the battle, the tough stuff was worth it all for the animals, clothing, gold, etc. It was their reward! I thought of this in the way Jesus would see it through this verse. We are his warriors fighting for lost souls. We fight for those to meet Jesus and to accept them into a life with Christ (Mark 16:15). We rejoice in the “plunder” because we know their salvation has won them a place in eternity in heaven. We as Christians should reflect this JOY so that others feel welcome enough to explore what brings us this JOY. I began to wonder how we can present this to people entering our church. Then I found Romans 15:32 which says: “so that I may come to you in JOY by the will of God and find refreshing rest in your company.” This verse is about an apostle hoping to soon visit his friends. This is how I think we should be when we are welcoming new people into our church or basically anywhere we are! Allow them to find refreshing rest and JOY in the will of God. When we are out in our community we need to show the JOY of the Lord so that people want what we have. No matter what fight we may be fighting inside our life, there is a bigger fight that is bigger than the scenario we are in. So let’s put aside the things that can take away our JOY and focus on what is bigger than us!  Think of the time when we will be able to rejoice in heaven as we have fought the good fight and can celebrate the plunder!

Scripture Verse: Isaiah 9:3, Romans 15:32, Mark 16:15

Read: Isaiah 8 & 9: 1-7

Do: Are you volunteering in your local church? How can you show Christ’s JOY to others?chuch photo.jpegphoto cred: pexels

Fathom the Greatness

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The song keeps coming to my head, “how great is our God, sing with me how great is our God” a song by Chris Tomlin. Have you ever sat down and really thought how GREAT our God really is? It brings me to tears to think of how great He really is! Sometimes we get so consumed with a good worship song or the routine of church, devos, etc. and we forget how wonderful, magnificent our God really is.  God is great no matter the circumstance. Even if we do not feel his presence or maybe we actually are in a blessed situation, He is GREAT!  Have you ever reflected on God’s capabilities? Psalms 145 talks about the many amazing things about our God. In verse 3 it says that there are no boundaries to His greatness. NO BOUNDARIES! Let that sink in a minute. In the same verse it says that he can never be praised enough. Have you praised him today?

Recently a lady shared with me a trial she went through with her daughter. Death was a factor in this situation (can you imagine!?). God encouraged her not by assuring her that her daughter was to live, but saying that his love for her is greater than the love she has for her daughter (if you have kids this love is hard to fathom). Our God loves us so much and yet sometimes we forget to take time to just praise HIM. It’s how we show him love! I encourage you to take time every day to thank God for his greatness. He does so many things for us yet we expect more. What would happen if we just thanked him with no strings attached? I can tell you, your relationship will become deeper with Him. I don’t think you could complain about that.

Scripture: Psalms 145: 3

Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised,
And His greatness is unsearchable. NASB

God is magnificent; he can never be praised enough.
There are no boundaries to his greatness. Message

 Read: Psalms 145

Do: Remind yourself to Thank God everyday just because. NO strings attached.

 

greatnessimage: pexels.com

New Year…Get it together

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sprout-1147803_1280It’s already 24 days in to the new year and I refuse to say I’m a failure at my goals. If I look at reality I haven’t started it yet, which in some people’s eyes they say I’m already a failure. But guess what, I started this blog! So I’m not failing, even if I might be 24 days late, because day one or day twenty four I started and that’s all that matters.

Sometimes we set a notion in our minds that we have to do something at that moment or it will never get done. We may have a plan to work out, eat right, do our devotions, dedicate time to pray, etc. and the goal is set for it to be in a certain time frame. Then we forget a day or change it to weekly or maybe tomorrow it will get done and then it doesn’t happen. We get depressed and end up giving up on our goals. 73% of people give up on their goal before it was accomplished (STATS on NYGoals). CRAZY SAD! What’s the point of making a goal in the first place if we are set up to fail? We all will fail no matter what we do but what if we took a different approach? What if we started taking it a day at a time so our failure wasn’t so large and we could see us making it through to another day. What if we set ourselves up for success by forgetting yesterday and focusing on today? Imagine what we could accomplish!

In the bible Jesus talks about making things NEW; forgetting the past and working on the NOW as we have been forgiven 2 corinthians 5:17. We are a new creation in Christ. What we were in the past, even yesterday, can be made new with Jesus’ help. I encourage you to model what Christ has given us as an example. Treat yourself as a new beginning each day and focus on what can be accomplished that day instead of what you failed at the day before. It has been forgotten!

Maybe you are struggling this year and it’s only day 24. Be encouraged! No one is there to tally mark you on how late you are (and if they are then you probably don’t need them in your support group—article on friendship). Tomorrow is a new day! You are a new you. Be refreshed and focus on the goal at hand for that day. It’s just like when we rely on Christ’s plan for our life. If we truly knew the task at hand we would probably give up before we started because it would be a difficult road. Christ gives us a day at a time to make it through; building one day to the next. Why don’t we make a goal each day which builds us to tomorrow and one step closer to accomplishing our goals? Then maybe we can feel we’ve gotten it all together (and then God rocks our world–topic for another time ;)).

Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:17- “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

Read more: Isaiah 65:17-25, Bible verses on new creation

“One of the greatest problems people have with failure is that they are too quick to judge isolated situations in their lives and label them as failures. Instead, they need to keep the bigger picture in mind.” Failing Forward, John C. Maxwell.

 

 

 

 

Start the Journey

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I wanted to start a blog that I could use to express the many talents of a women and the refreshing love of Christ. As I walk through this journey of life, I enjoy many unique aspects anywhere from my husband being a coach and the lifestyle that brings, being a new mommy and the many joys/struggles our daughter bestows, as well as interest in eating clean, classic movies and life as a working mom.  Christ may be last on this list but He is first in my heart as I labor to see His love touch and change all who desire His grace.

I invite you to gather often at this blog site as I share my experiences that I feel God is leading me to discuss. Walk through this journey in life with me and share your experiences through links, resources, or stories which can be passed along as a tool to help us all grow in life and find a much deeper root in Christ whom loved us first.

Best,

Kelly

Psalms 73:26- “My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
but God remains the strength of my heart;
he is mine forever.”

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