It's All in the Name

        Do you know the meaning of your name?  Mine means “victorious one.”  When my son was born, we chose his middle name, Judah, specifically because it meant, “praise.”  In the Old Testament it was extremely important the meaning of one’s name.  Many places we see God changing the name of an individual to fit who they were to become or what role they were to play in His story. 

            Do you remember Sarah from the Bible, Abraham's wife? Well, Sarah’s name meant Princess.  This is significant because GOD CHOSE this name for her.  Why did he name her Princess?  To let us know that as His daughters, we are Princesses, no matter who we are.  Galatians 4:7 tells us, “So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir,” and 1 John 3:2 says, “now we are children of God.”  If we are children of God, the King of kings, then we too are royalty!

            In His book, Knowing God, J.I. Packer lays out what Sarah’s life demonstrates, “In this world, royal children have to undergo extra training and discipline which other children escape, in order to fit them for their high destiny.  It is the same with the children of the King of kings…It is no part of justifying faith to lose sight of the fact that God, the King, wants his royal children to live lives worthy of their paternity and position.” (222-223). 

            How often do you feel like your life is full of hardships and trials?  Or just the mundane, day after day routine?  Just remember, you are in training!  God is building in you the character that it takes to be a princess!  You need to see the world around you from God’s eyes.  You need to seize every opportunity given you to grow and learn, and to impact the lives of others.  You need to learn to live up to your “paternity and position.” 

            I love what William Wallace says to the princess in BRAVEHEART, “One day you will be a Queen and you must open your eyes.”  My dearest sister in Christ, one day YOU will be a Queen, the heiress of the kingdom of the King of kings, and YOU MUST OPEN YOUR EYES!  There is a world out there that does not want to see you succeed.  There is an enemy waiting to capture you in his evil schemes.  And there are lost children out there needing the touch of their healing Father that only YOU, His daughter, can bring them.  You MUST be aware of these things.  You are a princess, the daughter of a King, now live like one.

The Guilt of a Dreamer

My "dream list" includes spending time on every continent, gliding down the Amazon River to spend days lost in the treacherous jungles, translating the Bible for a people who have never held the Gospel in their hands before, packing up and leaving all of my troubles and struggles behind, growing old with my husband on a beach watching the sunset, and looking like Nicole Kidman when I am her age!

Those are just a few of the things I would love to do with my life. I find, however, that when I begin to dream these, or even less harmful dreams like a romantic get-away, a new outfit, or remodeling my bathroom, I begin to feel guilty.
As moms, I believe we become too accustomed to being the "nobody" of the house. Sure, we all encourage our obsessive behavior by telling each other that our homes cannot function without us...but in the process we lose who we are. It becomes a joke and laughing matter because we are lost as to what to do about it.  Our kids' and our husband's well-being come before our own. They get clothes before we do. School supplies come before our novel reading list. Their food tastes take precedence over our own. How they choose to spend free time becomes what we do. Their schedules become our schedules. We push ourselves out of fear of becoming that mom who neglects her children and puts herself and her selfish desires before that of the care of her family. We will not be that woman!

After time of living with this mind-set, we can lose sight of who we are - our passions, our dreams, our simple pleasures. When we begin to dream, our logic screams at us, "what about the kids!? How would that affect them?! That's selfish!" And then we feel guilty for ever dreaming at all.

I am writing this today because I think this is wrong. I think that God has created us with adventure and dreams in our hearts! I believe that we should be willing to take a look and see what else is out there, what more life can have in store for us! Give a little more room for yourself sometimes. You spend all of your time and extra money on your children - get yourself a gift sometimes! Plan a night out for yourself or you and your spouse! Don't be afraid to be a woman with her own dreams and desires. This doesn't necessarily mean packing up and heading out to some remote island (though it might!) but it may include breaking the unhealthy walls of the rooms we have built ourselves into. What we might find is that our marriages are strengthened because we return to being the woman our husbands married. We may make our children proud of our accomplishments and give them inspiration to reach their own goals and dreams. You may find fulfillment and pleasure in your life that you had given up hope of ever having.

Dream big!

After a Time of Absence...

I know that it has been a long time since I have written a blog post...there's good reason! This past summer our family was blessed with a new home. It is a gorgeous old home from 1901, which I love! It has come, however, with the additional package of needing lots of TLC! So, between moving a family with young children, trying to maintain a "semi-normal" lifestyle of work and play, and starting another school year (in a new place!), and being married to the youth pastor (speaks for itself, right?), I haven't had much time for the extras. Along the way, however, I have learned many heart lessons, overcome many frustrations, gotten in too deep into projects and have come out with lots that I would love to share with you. So I decided to pick up my technological pen and paper and begin to write once again...

 



a time to tear down and a time to build...(Ecclesiastes 3:3)

 

 

This old barn is on the property where we have moved. As cool as it is, it is completely unstable and the insurance companies have all but demanded that it come down.  So today we decided to begin the painstaking process of tearing it apart (saving wood and lumber for this and that). Included in this process however, was the task of building a temporary shelter for our sheep, who are due to lamb next week! Using the materials we were tearing off of the old barn, we were at the same time using them to build, and setting aside other pieces to build in the future!

As I began thinking about this process, I realized that this is exactly what God does with our lives. It certainly sums up what He has done with my life this past 6 months! We often come to a point in our lives when we know it is time to tear down. There are things that just gotta go. I find it difficult when I am at this point to determine which things need to be "torn down." It is a task of prioritizing and can also be painful when you finally figure out which things need to go.

Once we have made it through this time of tearing down, God then begins to use those pieces of our broken lives to build again. Whether it is leaving a home to start anew in another home, getting a new job, terminating unhealthy relationships and building new ones, tearing down walls and buildings to make new, sturdier ones, (the list goes on and on and on!)...we then begin to build again.

So what I have learned that I would like to pass on to you today is this, do not be afraid to "tear down" because it is only then that you can build again. And our God is notorious for rebuilding things much better than they were before!

 

 

 



Inspiration

As I sat down to write today, I wanted something to inspire me. If you are like me, your thoughts are like fast moving trains, and before I knew it, I found myself asking if I inspire others?

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. -John Quincy Adams

That is what I want to do - inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more in Christ!

My inspiration comes mainly from my quiet times with God. But more than that, I am inspired by His people, by their lives and stories. People such as Jim and Elizabeth Elliot, Queen Esther, Helen Keller, are sources of real inspiration to me.  More than what they accomplished, it is what they went through to get there. 

When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another. - Helen Keller

That is why I want to share my story. I hope it inspires!

Looking back at our lives to those 'hard times' and seeing how God provided, comforted, and brought us through to the next chapter of our lives is one of the best ways to find the inspiration to face today. We know we can trust Him to see us through, because we can look back and see that He has never let us down. We can look at how He worked in the lives of others and see that He has never let them down. And when we share our story, we can inspire.

I will let you in on something that, if you read my blog regularly may sound like a familiar tune. We can only inspire out of our overflow. If we are burnt-out and have a dry cup, then we will be as inspiring as a cockroach (which some may argue are quite inspiring, but not in my book - ick!). But if we go to the true source of inspiration - God - we will become beautiful fountains of inspiration! Dwell in His presence, meditate on His Word, remember what He has done.

We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. - 1 Thessalonians 1:3

Go out today, my dear sister, and love, serve, laugh, and inspire.

Dream a Little Dream

From the time I was eight years old, my dream was to go to Africa one day.  I wanted to see the beauty of the land, the people, the animals. I read books about it, watched movies about it, and even made a scrapbook of the animals I would find there. It was my "before I die..." request.
The summer I was nineteen, I stepped foot off of a plane into Kimberley, South Africa. The feeling I felt I can only assume is the feeling of one's dream coming true.  I spent six weeks in South Africa that summer with a missions team working with the people in different countries throughout the country.  Cape Point was forever written in my mind as the most beautiful place on earth.  I left a portion of my heart there (forever). I returned again three years later.

I feel extremely blessed to have attained my life dream when I was only nineteen years old. Many reach the end of their lives without ever having done so. What I have learned about attaining dreams, however, is that they don't stop once you've reached them; they grow. My dream then became a desire to serve in South Africa full time (one that I have not yet attained).
Often, as mothers especially, we feel that we must exchange our dreams for reality. In a sense, we do. Yet, I feel that it is more in pursuit of a bigger dream. "I will not pursue my dream of ____________, because I want to devote my time to raising up my children to follow Christ wholeheartedly, to be well-educated, and to have a strong family environment in which to live, and my dream would not attain that higher goal." Does that mean that we shouldn't dream, or that our dreams don't matter? No. It simply means, as Rudyard Kipling so eloquently put it in his poem If,

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

then you are able to reach for something much higher than where your dreams could have ever taken you! Dreaming allows us to realize the potential that we have in our lives. The key is to understand that our dreams are so limited and "small-scale" to the plans that God has for us.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

Don't allow the burdens of the everyday life cause you to lose your dreams. Take hold of those dreams as something that God has wired inside of you for some purpose, for some reason that is yet to be explained. I believe there are several ways in which He equips us for His service - by experiences, by knowledge, and by passions and dreams. So today, DREAM BIG! Just don't make dreams your master, for there is only one that belongs on that seat!

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4