Retreatin....

I'm SOOOO excited! My man and I are fixin' to head to a marriage retreat hosted by our church! I can't wait!! My sweet sister Regina is coming down to keep my kids. Pray for our safe travel and pray the Lord will continue the work He's been doing in Jimmy and me as well as our entire church!!
Have a great weekend!!
I know I will!!

Empowered Church!!

LAND SAKES! I just don't know where to start this morning. We've just had one of the MOST powerful conferences at our church that I have EVER been to!! I mean, POWERFUL!!! The Holy Spirit not only showed up but He SHOWED OFF!!! (sorry for the yelling but I'm excited people!) It started first thing Sunday morning in the 8am service and my prayer is that it won't end! I don't even know how to put it all into words.
Sunday morning our counseling rooms were so full that they were sitting out in the halls with people. There were little boys and girls, teens, moms, dads, even a few grandparents!! It was AMAZING! Our pastoral staff were pulling people from the pews to come and counsel people because we didn't have enough decision counselors. Then Monday night the entire church came to the altar to pray together as a body. I mean there was hardly a person left in their seats and those who didn't come up knelt in their pews. The last night the Holy Spirit sparked a fire and people were on their feet shouting - yes I said SHOUTING at the Grove!!! WOOHOOOOOOOOO! lol
There's been a lot of 'talk' about our church and while I will admit that there are issues and we are not a perfect church I will also tell you this, I've been in church "all my life and 9 months before that" (to quote Dr. Roc Collins) and my dad was on staff in several of those churches. I've been in big churches. I've been in little churches. I've been in churches that were on FIRE and I've been in churches that you would've sworn you were the only one with a pulse. The bottom line is this. As long as we are on this earth, there will NEVER be a perfect church. Anywhere. You won't find it. The minute you think you've found the perfect church you'd better look out 'cause the enemy is on to you and he'll get busy! You won't find a perfect church because PEOPLE are in it and besides Christ Himself there's no perfect people. I say all that to say this. I love my church. I'm grateful for the blessings we have there and I'm grateful to be serving the Lord there and I'm grateful that He has answered my prayers for His Hand to move.
I'm claiming Hosea 6:1-3 for my church.
"Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us; that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth." (emp mine) Y'all our conference was THREE DAYS long and I'll tell you I feel restored as a body of Christ! I believe He will. I believe He's begun already.
BTW - Remember how I said the Lord has been faithful to give me little 'hugs' to know that I'm doin' ok with teaching my Sunday school class? Well He sent me a hug, a kiss and a bouquet of roses Sunday morning!!! One of my girls went forward to rededicate her life and to be baptized!!!! WOOOOHOOOOOOOO Thank you Jesus for Ashley and her Momma!! I love you Lord! I thank you for this time of restoration and I pray that you will continue to appear. Continue to come to us. Continue to bind up our wounds. Continue to use the Grove as a place of healing for the hurting and continue to bring lost souls in!! Thank you Lord! Thank you!!!

Jesus - The Suffering Servant

This is the title of my Sunday school lesson tomorrow. We're doing a study called "They Call Him Jesus" and so far it's been really good. Here's the thing though. 9th grade girls are hard. I mean, they really wanna know about Jesus and they really do know a lot more about Him than I thought, but they really want whatever I'm teaching them to apply TO THEM! That's where this study is....shall we say....lacking. The application part of the lesson doesn't go as deep as I/they would like. This is where my inexperience/insecurity/fear comes in. This is where the enemy likes to get me every Sat. evening as I'm finalizing things.

He likes to whisper in my ear that they're going to be giving me that face of "will you please just shut it". That face of "I see her mouth moving, but I don't understand a word coming out of it". Do you know that face? If you have a teenager I'm thinking you do. (lol) I've done what I can to prepare for these girls and just when I think I've wasted their time and mine, the Father is faithful to give me a little reassurance. Like a couple of weeks ago the pastor from our North Campus came down and preached and he was talking about carrying things and had a heavy backpack on his back. He dropped it dramatically on the floor to represent laying things down at Jesus feet and several of my girls turned and looked at me. I had done a similar illustration with a bag of rocks a few weeks earlier and they REMEMBERED! YAY God!

So tomorrow as we talk about how the world does it's best to tell us that we need to look a certain way, have certain things and do certain things to be loved and accepted but Jesus showed us in His life that to serve others was the way to greatness in His Kingdom I pray that something will stick with them. I pray that the Lord will honor His promise that His Word will not return void as I share it with these girls.

Father God, I know that you've promised me that I can do all things in Your strength so I pray now that You'll give me the right words as I lead class tomorrow. I ask You to start - even now tonight - to soften their hearts and open their minds to what it is You have to say to them. You are faithful Father, and I thank you for the joy of sharing with these amazing girls. Show yourself strong tomorrow and every day in their lives. In the precious name of the Ultimate Servant Your Son Jesus I ask it. Amen.

Blogging Funk

It seems that I've been in a bit of a blogging funk lately. I've just been really busy and then when I sit to catch up on a few of my fav bloggers any free time I had is gone! So, today I'm going to turn this train around. Time to shake the funk and get back at it.

I'm leading the Esther study at church and we're 1/2 way thru. Let me just say that it has been AMAZING! The Lord has spoken to me over and over and over. Not just thru His Word but thru the incredible women who are participating with me. We have a great group and a variety of ages are represented and I just love how the Lord uses the older ladies to encourage me and I hope I'm doing the same for them. We've prayed together, laughed and of course, cried - we are girls after all - but God has spoken!! Who knew that sweet little Hadassah - a Jewish orphan girl who would become Queen of Persia would have so much in common with a stay-at-home mom of 3! Who knew?! The Word is alive and active I tell ya!!

Today we watched a video session on fear. When I told my friend Lisa that I was leading a study on fear today she just started cracking up! You see, I'm a chicken! Total Queen of Chickendom (maybe that's what I have in common with Esther - we're both Queens! haha). In fact, I have seen it start to manifest into my kids too. My daughter is scared to death of bikes. My middle son the dark. My oldest of heights. Fear. Ugh. I know it's sad.

Here's a few of things I've been afraid of in my life. The dark, close quarters, locked doors, bugs, the woods, being alone. Do I really need to go on? I think you get the point. I mean, my man always knew that if we went somewhere and I went to the restroom and wasn't back within 5 minutes he was to come looking for me because I was likely locked in the stall. For real! The list could go on and on. Finally the Lord said "Girl, when are you gonna start trusting me?". He put a friend in my life who pointed out how irrational my fears were and not to mention how utter disobedient I was being. Then He put my feet into the fire and took away the one person in my life who I knew would ALWAYS keep me safe - my Daddy - so that I would be left with no choice but to find my security in Him. So today as we watched that video on fear I truly did have a testimony. Sure, there's time when the enemy does his best to get my mind going. Like, when the bus is 5 minutes late or my man hasn't called me all day, but thank you Jesus this is one lesson I can say that I've learned. Mark 5:36 "Don't be afraid, just believe." I believe God loves me. I believe His plans are for my good and not my harm. I believe He wants me to live life to the full. I believe. I believe that when something dreadful happens...and I've lived thru enough to know that it will...He will be faithful! He will sustain! He will be with me thru it!

What's the worst that can happen to me? I die? Then I unzip this cloak of flesh and step into my heavenly body (which will be a size 2 by the way) and be in the Presence of the Very One who will wipe away all my fears, all my tears and be at peace. I say, BRING IT!

FIRSTS......

Today is a day of firsts. My oldest has his first "dance" at school. (let me qualify by saying this means that the 5th grade class will walk "single file" from their class to the gym where all us mom's will be waiting with not one single slow dance in the mix! haha) My boy-man got up, picked out one of his best "church" shirts, got dressed, and then much to his Momma's delight brushed his teeth - TWICE! LOL!! Then came in and asked if I had any mints!! Do you love that? He won't be within 2 feet of this girl, but he's worried about his breath!!! LOL!!!

Anyway, I've got to get myself ready for this big day and I'm sure there'll be pictures to post later. I'm trying not to cry as my baby is growing up. sniff

Check this out!!!

Hey y'all! My friend Traci is FINALLY blogging! Cut her a little slack since she's been adjusting to a new baby boy in her house over the last year. Can NOT believe it's almost been a year since that precious gift rolled down the walkway at the airport!!! OH MY WORD!!! Anyway, go visit her!

AND THE WINNER IS........

Ok, first I have to say sorry for not having the drawing last night, but things got a little crazy around here so I did it this morning and congratulations to............
CYNDI ABERLY!!!!
Cyndi, go to the STMM site, pick the purse you want and let me know then we'll get it shipped to you!!!
Thanks to everyone who visited our site and please spread the word about STMM!!