Break It

For those of you who do not know I have recently started working full time again and it just so happens to be on the weekends.

"But what about VTTN and praise and worship???"

My word I can't tell you how many times I have had to answer that question the past couple of weeks and the answer never comes easier.

But thankfully I attend a church where the Spirit is not just there on Sundays but every time His people are there. I get to love on Him just the same and get fed just as much if not more on Wednesday as I would on Sunday.

Tonight Bishop shared a word that struck me pretty deep and that I feel obligated to share. We are coming up on our church wide fast which has people asking quite a bit of questions.

"Why do we fast"

"What is the purpose of fasting"

"What can I expect to take from this experience"

Bishop about summed every one of those questions up with one verse:

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?"

Isaiah 58:6

Still not so sure what this whole fasting thing is about???

Neither was I until Bishop explained it this way.

A farmer uses two things to steer an oxen, a yoke, which is a large leather piece that is placed around the oxen's neck, and the chains or cords that attach to it. By holding on tight to the chains the farmer can control the direction he wants the oxen to go in.

It works the same in the spiritual realm. The enemy is the farmer and we are the oxen, bound by our yokes....addiction, pride, lust....and with those and the chains attached to them he controls the path that we are walking out. It may even seem as though we are going in the right direction but as long as we are bound by those things we are giving the devil full control.

Fasting does exactly what the above scripture says....if we see the whole thing through.

"To loose the chains of injustice..." As soon as we decide to fast and start on our journey the enemy realizes the direction we are heading in and drops the reigns. Our problem is that once we feel this slightest bit of freedom we decide that is all we need and stop there. What we don't realize is that we are still carrying our yokes and dragging the chains behind us and at any moment the devil can slip back in behind us and pick up the reigns again.

"To untie the cords of the yoke..." Our chains are gone and now we are free right??? Wrong. Although we don't bear the weight of the chains anymore we are still bound by our yokes and yet again all the enemy has to do is wait...wait for the moment when our minds start drifting in the wrong direction.... to simply retie those chords and regain control.

" To set the oppressed free..." There! It says it, our yokes have been removed and at last we have freedom! Wrong again. At this point it almost seems real....that we have regained control once and for all. We are dancing and shouting our hallelujahs and glory be to Gods not even realizing what the devil sees....that we have simply removed our yokes from our necks...not our lives. We also don't realize what a patient being the enemy is and that all he has to do is wait....wait for that moment that we let the gossip drip from our tongues....to ever so quietly sneak that weight we thought was gone for good back on to our shoulders.

"To break every yoke...." The moment we decide to let go of the very thing that is holding us back....the moment we refuse to let our heart or eyes wander in the wrong direction...the moment we choose to lift each other up with our words instead of murdering each other with our tongues....when we choose, with our hearts and minds, then and only then will our chains be torn and yokes be broken.

I am so sick of the enemy binding me with weight that I thought I had got rid of long ago. I am tired of finally feeling like I have regained control only for him to snatch the reigns from me yet again. And I am done watching my brothers and sisters fall victim to the same thing. We are suppose to be advancing His kingdom but how can we when our every move is being determined by satan???

 I refuse to allow any yoke, big or small, remain in my life and declare them broken! I will walk in freedom and live a life of purpose....purpose for His kingdom alone!

Will you???

Be Yourself

People ask me all the time, "what's the hardest part of having a girl?".

I could answer the attitude, because lets face it, every little girl comes equipped with one, but when I really think about it my answer is making her always feel beautiful when others may not approve of her way of expressing beauty.

The first time we really had to deal with this was in earlier this year when she got bit by a dog and had to have stitches on her lip. The day after her accident I put her in front of the mirror to show her and it broke my heart when her reaction was to shy away from her reflection.

That moment made me realize the emphasis that the world puts on outside appearances and beauty.

It made me realize that one day there might be someone who makes my little girl feel like she is not as breath taking as her momma tells her she is.

And it also put this lady's defense on alert.

For her to know at such a young age that there was something wrong with the way she looked, and hide her face from anyone who tried to see was a wake up call for me.

I now know that she is her own person, even if it is a little one, and there are already certain things that make her feel beautiful and things that don't. I then decided to let her have a say so in daily attire, with some supervision of course :).

We have gone from girly sandals to tennis shoes, fancy bows to none at all or even fancier in some cases, twirly dresses almost every day, and solid colors to rainbow toes.

Yes, I may get some disapproving looks when we walk through CVS and it looks like my child got dressed in the dark, but watching her walk around in confidence with a big smile makes it every bit worth it.

I'm not claiming that she will never have to deal with people making fun of the way she is or dresses but as long as her answer is always yes when I ask if she feels beautiful that's enough for me :)

First Day: June

Brought to you by Amy's android :)

Linking up with this lovely lady

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Why I shouldn't assume she is playing quietly with her barbies :/

First Day April

Our first day was a pretty busy one. It started with worship and word at my home away from home, continued on into an easter egg hunt at Nics, and finished up at the parents with some homemade gumbo...yummmm :)

Linking up with the sister :)

Mine All Mine

Today has been one of those days.

 You know the kind where you wake up and have a list of things to do and next thing you know it's one o'clock and you've accomplished nothing besides running in circles.

As most of you already know from facebook by time afternoon rolled around Matalie had already managed to spill three cups of juice, bathe herself in honey and butter from her toast AFTER I had already got her ready, made a royal mess in the playroom I had just cleaned up two minutes before, spilled chocolate pudding all over my tan carpet, and peed in her pants right as we were walking out the door.

Now this momma has a lot of patience but that last one did me in. I would be lying if I said I didn't pull a Nicole and lock myself in my bedroom for a minute.

 Or five.

 After that I decided errands could wait and proceeded to get back in my pajamas....my sanity depended on it.

But just when I was about ready to put a for sale sign on her and drop her on the side of the road (don't judge, we've all had those moments) I walk into the playroom to find this

It's then that I remember all those nights I spent praying for her. All the tears shed after each pregnancy that ended too soon. And the love that consumed my heart the first time I laid eyes on her sweet face.

 She may be a juice spiller, honey bather, trouble maker, slightly over eccentric little lady but she is mine.... and that is all that matters.

RAWR

This month started a new subject for science in our homeschooling adventure. I gave Luke the choice between space or dinosaurs. Being the boy that he is he went with the latter. So the past couple weeks have been consumed with all kinds of prehistoric creatures. Here's some of what we did....

We read lots of books on dinosaurs and made our own fossils

We did dino math and finger paint stegosauruses

A couple of other things we did that believe it or not I did not have my camera for were my job as an archaeologist were I buried certain things and he had to dig them up and tell me what they told him about the people and things that lived in that area and dino categories where he had to paste pictures of dinosaurs under the right column, herbivore or carnivore. We finished our dinosaur unit with a trip to our local museum, Fern Bank. Pictures from that soon :)