Sickness

I'm a mom of three little ones. When one gets sick, then the other, THEN the other, THEN the cycle starts all over AGAIN!  For example, my baby, who was the first to get sick four days ago, was better until 3am this morning, when she woke me crying and wanting something to drink. She was hot as fire, and was just plain pitiful! After some much needed drink and ibuprofen she settled down about 430, but of course, I was wide awake and up for the day. I am SOOO not a morning person! UGH!  She took two naps today which is WAY off her normal routine since its hard to get her to take even one these days. After picking the other two up from school, settled in, I came in here to check my blog. Once again, she climbs up next to me in the bed just now and coughed so hard that she threw up all over the bed, and ME!  EEWW!
Anyway, for some strange reason I started to think about this from a biblical perspective. I know, I know, How in the world could there be a message in this?? You're weird! Well, it made me think about how we are all, from time to time, spiritually sick and how Jesus sees us when we are in that state. When I see my babies hurting, so sick they just can't seem to move, and just don't know how to help themselves- it makes my heart hurt! I can't stand to see those weak little eyes looking at me, wanting to cuddle up next to mommy and wanting to be held. I imagine when we have strayed away, involved heavily in sin that makes our spirit sick, Jesus looks down on us, as we look up at Him with our sad, weak eyes, and I bet he wants more than ANYTHING for us to want to curl up next to him on that Heavenly Comfy Couch up in the sky and feed us Chicken Noodle Soup until we are better. I imagine He hurts when He seesour hurt- and wants nothing more than to make us better. God is not just a distant God up in the sky that keeps the earth moving. He is compassionate. He is merciful. He wants nothing more than to be close to us and heal our bodies and our souls when we are sick. So, next time you're sick-whether you are physically sick or spiritually sick or weak- Turn that illness over to Jesus and embrace yourself in the medicines He has to offer such as prayer, the Bible, and fellow believers who can also pray for you and help keep you accountable for your life decisions.
Now, let me go wash my sheets so I can actually go to bed tonight. Again, I say....EWW!

Prayer Request

At the conference I recently went to the youth group leaders and pastors were asked to help Council students who were making a decision for salvation or any other decisions. The first girl who came forward could not tell me why she came forward, nor could she tell me what Salvation was or why she was seeking it. I am afraid that no real decision was made that day. Mainly, because I do believe that there was something mentally wrong with this girl. Who Am I to say that she did not ask Jesus into her heart that night, but I do not believe she truly understood what was going on. If everyone around the world could pray for this girl then that would be wonderful. Please pray that God speaks to her heart and helps her to  understand what it means to become a Christian if she does not already. I believe in the power of prayer and if people all over the world are praying for her I believe that, if not already, she will come to salvation. If you are praying for her please comment PRAYING so we can see how many out there are supporting her in prayer! :)

Where Is Jesus NOW?

The holidays are over. Its now January 23rd, and yes I am just now taking down my Christmas tree. Yes, I AM that neighbor! Haha! While I was taking down my tree and decorations, a sadness came over me because the feelings of closure of something I looked forward to all year long was over. No more lights, no more fancy parties, family get-to-gathers, or sweet carols on the radio that warm your heart every time you hear them. What do we do now? The birth of Jesus seems to be something we only celebrate one time a year. Even at that, we fill that celebration with our own selfish rituals of gift giving and receiving, christmas programs at school and church, and the after Christmas rush to the stores to get the mark downs of all the stuff left over. When Christmastime is over, very rarely do we tend to think of the one and only special gift of Jesus again. As Christians, we need to celebrate the birth of Jesus EVERY day. Don't get caught up in the worlds way of celebrating Jesus. Jesus celebrates you, treasures you, desires to be with you EVERY day, EVERY minute, EVERY second, EVERY breath He allows you to take! Don't we owe Him,( the one who stepped down out of Heaven, to come to this nasty place to save us from this black whole) the same love and devotion? Where is YOUR Jesus now? Is He packed up with all your decorations, or is He front and center in your "living room" for all to see?

A Little Joke for Today :)

A Baptist pastor was presenting a children's sermon. During the sermon, he asked the children if they knew what the resurrection was. Now, asking questions during children's sermons is crucial, but at the same time, asking children questions in front of a congregation can also be very dangerous.
Having asked the children if they knew the meaning of the resurrection, a little boy raised his hand. The pastor called on him and the little boy said, "I know that if you have a resurrection that lasts more than four hours you are supposed to call the doctor."
It took the congregation over 10 minutes for laughter to finally stop before The pastor could continue on with the children's sermon.
OH MY! Now that's about the funniest "church" joke I've ever heard!  HAHAHAHA!

TALK TO ME!

If any of you have questions or comments you would like to share, Please write me! I cannot get comments to work on this page, so I created an email address where I can be contacted. You can contact me at  BlogOfAPreachersWife@gmail.com!

LYPO SUCTION

Have you ever considered Lypo Suction? Lypo involves shoving tubes into your body that is connected to a vacuum that sucks out all the unwanted fat in your body. Its quick, but takes day to recover because your body is in absolute shock at how invasive the abuse to your body is. Many people consider Lypo because all the fat they have on their bodies slows them down, gets in the way of the things they would like to do, and makes them feel like less of a person when they look in the mirror, their self image is severely damaged every time they pass by the mirror, seeing all about themselves they may want to change.
I have been trying to do Lypo suction myself, but not the kind of Lypo you may be thinking. I'm ready for all the toxins and fat that are in my LIFE holding me back. For example, Ive been very sick for a long time. First they told me I had Fibromyalgia. They just couldn't figure out anything else because of how awful I felt all the time, and the body pain I was experiencing. They figured I also had some sort of autoimmune disease because of my blood tests always pointed in that direction. However, with my wide range of symptoms they just couldn't hone in on which one it might be. One day I woke up with my eye completely swollen shut, with a rash all over my face and neck. I immediately went to the hospital because I just simply looked like something out of a Scooby Doo episode. They told me that they thought I had shingles. However, two days later I woke up and the rash had spread to the opposite side of my body, and down my back. Now, the common person knows that Shingles only affects one side of the body because it runs thru a nerve pattern. Nerves are positioned in your body only following one side of your body, no nerve pattern is on both sides of your body. The doctor tells me that I most probably have something autoimmune, and most probably Lupus with this rash on my face, called a Butterfly rash. I'm still undergoing preliminary treatment for Lupus. I say all this because this kind of physical attack has been on my body for years. It is very rare that I wake up and feel "ok". I'm ALWAYS sore, ALWAYS hurting somewhere, I'm ALWAYS tired. This illness has been running my life and how I plan my day and activities. But, Lupus or not, I'm ready to just take that Lupus, that hurt, that exhaustion and say "LEAVE ME, JESUS TAKE THIS PAIN FROM ME, GOD CLEANSE MY BODY AND MAKE ME WHOLE AGAIN! I KNOW ONLY YOU CAN TAKE THIS SICKNESS AND MAKE ME WHITE AS SNOW AGAIN!
Through the many hurts I've had in my life, there is ONE thing that always makes me feel better...and EVERY girl can relate to....SHOPPING!! This is where I move on to the next thing I need Jesus to take control of. To LYPO from my life. I've taken one toxin and only transferred it to another toxic thing that has become and addiction in my life I've used to try to cover up another. Now, over the years I have learned to control my shopping addiction. With the help of my husband, and his father counseling us on how to spend our money, I've been able to live within my means. But, it was only 3 years ago that I was spending a thousand dollars over what our monthly allowance was. We were in such a bad place that we turned over all of our finances to Benjamin's father. He received our debit cards, and we were given cash to spend each week. We were in no shape to handle our down finances anymore, because I obviously could not control my spending habits. Through discipline and example I have learned how to budget my spending. That is not to say that I do not still have those cravings for spending, that I do not think about the things I would like to have, but by turning over the toxic thing I was letting control me, I learned what healthy spending was.
Just like I turned over my addiction, my craving, the thing that I let define who I was to Benjamin's father, we need to turn over those same things to our HEAVENLY father. We've got to come to a point where we hit that brick wall of needing help that we just cry to Jesus "TAKE THIS FROM ME. TAKE AWAY MY OBSESSIONS AND MAKE YOU MY ONLY OBSESSION!"
It takes so much more than ourselves to purge the things on our lives that control us, we MUST turn those things over the our God that is so much bigger than our sins, our problems, our obsessions. We have to WANT them gone. We have to MAKE them gone. And only HE can make that happen.
Like Lypo, it only takes a moment to ask God to take things thing's from us, but it takes a LONG time to recover and to make the lifestyle change to KEEP those things away from us that control us. We may fail, but we gotta pick ourselves up and just try again. He's always there making us new, IF we truly want it in our heart.
Psalm 51:10 Says :  "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."

And A song I think helps sum all this up:
http://www.shazam.com/discover/track/53885683      Turn Around

TAKE UP THY CROSS

When Jesus told the disciples to take up their cross and follow Him, I'm sure they were quite confused. Possibly thinking He was a bit off his rocker. Why? Because to them, a cross represented the worse of thieves and other criminals. When they saw a cross, it was because someone had done something very, very bad. They never saw little gold chains with shiny dangling crosses handing from around anyone's neck, nor tattoos with crosses on anyone's arm, or decorative crosses hanging on anyone's wall.  No, when they saw a cross, they knew that someone awful had happened and it most certainly was no accessory they were ever going to have!
But Jesus, I believe, I was telling them something much deeper. I think He was trying to explain to them that they are supposed to leave all that they do, all that they know, all the defines them, all that confines them, all that traps them, all that distracts them from the one true purpose of life, and make HIM all that they do, make HIM all that they know, make HIM all the defines them, make HIM all that confines them, make HIM all that SETS US FREE, make HIM all that distracts us from the WORLD. HE should be our one and only purpose for everything we do.
Can you take up YOUR cross? Or is that task still just too heavy to lift?

There Are No Victims!

People like to blame their bad decisions they've made on their circumstances. They like to play the Victims card. Just like Eve blamed the snake, Adam blamed God for the woman. But! But! Its not my fault! She made me do it! Some preachers claim Jesus was a victim so he could reach the victims. Theologically thats false. Jesus was NEVER a victim! Jesus told us ahead of time He would lay down His life, and He would also be the one to make it rise! Own your sin! Take responsibility! Stop playing the victim. Jesus didnt claim to be one, so neither do we have that card to play. The Redeemed are never helpless!

The Passion

I work with youth currently at our church. I love it. Aside from the fun I have with them, I think I mainly enjoy it because I want so much for them to learn from my mistakes. They are all at the age I was when I began making some pretty big life mistakes that I still deal with and regret today. I dont want that for them. I want to catch them now and pound it in their heads that its just not worth it! I want to distill in them that the fun they are having now will not last. There are always consequences that will catch up with you eventually. I dont want them to go thru the pain, regret, and guilt I went thru by my poor choices. But, they aren't going to learn without experiencing life. Our decisions we make are what makes us who we are, molds us for who we will become, and hopefully learn from those experiences. I love them as my own children, so I dont want them to hurt. Why cant they just learn from ME so that they know better. You can tell a child a hundred times the stove is hot. You'll get burned. But they don't truly understand what that means until they touch it for themselves and feel that pain from their bad decision.

Dont Eat The Donuts On Sunday!

As parents of 3 small children, Benjamin and I have great difficulties being clean by the time we arrive to church. Ive always got something on me by the time we arrive such as syrup, orange juice, make-up from my 7yr old thinking shes old enough for it, and I have to take it all off or else she'll show up looking like Tammy Faye, or unfortunately poop from the baby on my hand I somehow missed after an epic diaper change before we left the house! Eeeww!!! Benjamin very often has something on him, although Im not sure why. But he does. There have been many sundays Im sitting in the congregation listening to him preach, however I just cant seem to concentrate because I cant take my eyes off the huge stain on his suit jacket. Hopefully Ill stare at it enough for the whole congregation no one else will notice! Haha Remember, no powdered donuts on Sundays! Cause that stuff just cant be covered up!

Have You Seen My Mother?

When I was eight years old my mother dropped a huge bomb on me! And I mean HUGE! We were driving down the road talking about me wanting a brother or sister and she mentions a boy named Shane. She asks me if I remember him. Well, no. She informs me I actually have 3 brothers Ive never met. WHAT!!? Then, just when I think thats the news she giving me, she informs me I was adopted. She tells me my real mother was a party hound and couldnt take care of any of us kids and while she would leave for months at a time to party, would leave us kids at different peoples houses, including theirs, with no notice of her return. She suspected I was being molested as a two year old by the many men that she would bring home, and thats why she and my father decided to adopt me. WHOA! WHAT!!? My heart was broken. I just didnt understand all that I was being told. I was only 8!! I went into a severe depression, why would my real mother be that way? Why didnt she fight for me? Didnt she love me? I never talked about this with my father. He was one of those people where it was very difficult to communicate such delicate situations. He just was never comfortable being all mushy and open with sharing feelings. I do know that he knew that I knew about the situation because a friend I had told in the 6th grade mentioned it in front of him. " Is this your dad" "Yes! Who else would it be?" "Well you told me you were adopted. I didnt know if this was your real dad" My father did not speak to me for two whole days. When he did finally speak he told me he was very hurt I told people that he wasnt my real father. First of all, thats not what I said. But for some reason he felt hurt by the fact that I knew. I assured him it did not matter who made me, but that HE was my dad no matter where I came from. I remember thinking he was about to cry. At that, the subject was never mentioned again. Years later, at the age of 28, already married with 2 kids, I get a Facebook message that reads. "I dont know if this is really you, but I think you're my sister" I nearly fainted! This was Shane! The boy my mother asked me about. To be continued......

Im just...ME

This is how I feel. Ive spent most of my life with others treating me like Im trying to be better than them. When, in reality, Im just being me, and aiming to be a BETTER me. I dont care if its better than you, as long as Im being better than I was yesterday.

SAVED

Well, its been a while since I last posted on my blog. And so here comes the 4th blog since I opened this account. I promise I will do a much better job of posting from now on since Ive got a new computer.

I lot has happened since my last post, my son got saved, my father got very ill, and eventually passed, the TV show is still running, slowly but surely. I hear that Snoop Dog's mother has footage from our show...how WEIRD and yet COOL is that?

This past summer I did a children's camp at our associational campgrounds/cabins. We actually had 3 individuals come forward to be saved, one of them...was my son.
 Ive felt for quite some time that God was working on his heart. His understanding of the bible and God in general just seemed to be on more of a personal level of understanding that the abstract version most children see God.

Most children believe in God, and just believe because...well, just because they do. They don't necessarily know why, they just do because they want to, or they've been raised in the church and know thats just what they are supposed to believe. Kinda like Santa and the Tooth Fairy. They know they have never seen the one and only Santa (other than Santa's helper in the mall), or the Tooth Fairy...yet...they truly believe they exist. I think that's probably how young children see God. This invisible "being"  thats just out there somewhere who does things for them from time to time.

Will, on the other hand has had a deeper understanding since he was very young. He's always clung to bibles like they were his most prized possessions. He would ride around in his little battery powered car, with bible in the seat beside him. He would stop, pick up his bible and say...

"The Bible says we go THAT way", and off he would go in that direction.

I asked him once, when he would say this... "Why do you think that, Will?". and his
response would always be...

 "Because the bible tells us the way to go"...let me remind you that this child was only three and four years old when he started this. 

So, obviously this baby knew in his heart who his God was and who and where to go when he needed direction. Out of the mouths of babes.....

My point of sharing this is to say this....Will told us for quite some time that he had Jesus in his heart and was ready for baptism. But, we wanted to make sure he was ready. Well, thats not our place. Even as his parents, we have no right to keep any child from embracing his God until WE think he's ready...thats between God and that child. If your child says they are ready...TAKE THEM.

Bama Wives Dixie Divas

I grew up doing theater, dance, and voice training. I was a member of some pretty reputable companies even at a young age. Growing up in the Atlanta area gave me that luxury. So being in the spotlight has always been a part of my life. Several years after moving to Alabama I was judging a beauty pageant where I met the owner of a talent agency and she signed me on as a talent and she became my agent and friend. Her agency came up with a great idea for a reality TV show named bama wives Dixie divas. I went for interviews and made it onto the show. So far we have shot several scenes and I have had a blast meeting these other women. We have a facebook page if you would like to go and follow us during this filming process. I am not sure if a network will ever pick up on the show but it is exciting to think that I may end up on TV one day. I am also very nervous about how the world is going to perceive me. I am not your typical preacher's wife. While I may be fairly conservative, I am still human. I make mistakes. I don't always say the right thing, or come off the way I mean to. I have a very wild past and sometimes that past bleeds into my present, but I try my best to be the woman I want to be, and not the woman I used to be. People expect a preacher's wife to be perfect, and if they find anything short of that then you become the subject of ridicule and judgements. I just hope the show sees me for who I am, human.

When to NOT be honest...

Two weeks into being at our new church, we were practicing for the christmas program that the volunteer music leader had come up with. It was my opinion that there were too many songs...especially since we were gonna have to stand up in the audience the entire time to help lead the rest of the congregation. I mean, HOW many different songs do we have to sing about angels after the angels come out? After singing "Angels we have heard on high", "The First Noel", and many others I was very tired.
The leader asked me afterwards if I had any suggestions about how to make the production better..... THEN those stupid words came out of my mouth.... "Well, If you want me to be honest....". WHY oh WHY did I say that? I stated that there might be too many songs for each different scene in the production. She just stared at me for a moment...it was then I realized that she probably didnt actually mean she wanted suggestions....
Note to self: If anyone asks for suggestions for something THEY wrote and are directing, DO NOT give suggestions.
I tried to clarify what I meant, and that I simply am just picky because I'm an actor, have written many church plays myself....but I think that just made it worse. I said "You have to understand, Ive done so much of this, and I'm an artist in my own right and I will always think something could be better" digging myself into an even DEEPER hole.
"Should it be changed"? She asked..... "NO NO NO" I said. "Its great! Dont change a THING"!

She simply stood there stunned at my complete turn around and really didnt know what to say. We both ended up just walking out not really sure what to say or what just happened.

I tried to find a quiet, private room to go and kick myself in the mouth!

My first post...

As my first post Id just like to say thank you for reading...I hope I can make you laugh, make you cry, help you understand what its like in this crazy world I live in...but most of all learn from my failures, sucesses, and silly crazy things Ive done in my life!