A woman of Excellence... well I am in training!
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Posted:Sep 25, 2008 1:02 am
Last Updated:Sep 25, 2008 11:21 am 1631 Views
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You know about 15 years ago the Lord put it on my heart that we are to strive for excellence. Not is a proud or boastful way, but to do everything to the Glory of God, and do it the best we can, or striving for His excellence. One of the things the Lord showed me personally was that a woman was to seek excellence in her duties as a wife and mother etc. My whole world changed from what I knew it. I gave up a promising career, became a stay at home mum, took the out of day care/pre school, homeschooled my babes, learned to sew, grow vegies and learned to be a godly wife. I am still learning each day, and most of those years I have been a single mum. He knew when to teach me His ways as I surely needed it for my journey as a single mum. All my learning & revelations will soon be put into practice as I am going to be a godly wife to my future husband.
The last couple of years have been a journey of learning to be excellent as a single lady putting the principals of what you have read here into practice. It is much easier to say, "Oh sure I can do that, ah yeah that be easy, no problems". But when the rubber hits the road, and you have to then make a choice. Do you follow through with the committment, or throw it to the wind? It is easy to say, nope I won't kiss a man/woman until I marry them when you are not attached, but when the Lord gives you him/her and you fall deeply in love, it is harder to then follow through. I am not talking about anything else here, only kissing, but as you have just read, it is the pre-curser to the act of love making, which is only intended for marriage.
So now I am speaking from experience. Is it hard? Yes, but not really. We made the committment before we met, so we both knew what the boundaries were. Neither of us will stray from that, and I am sure that if one weakens for a moment the other will automatically go into protection mode. In fact one time my Beloved almost kissed me on the lips, by total accident, and I turned my face and he kissed my cheek. We laughed and laughed! Sometimes it feels 'unnatural' not to go there. He was appologetic and thanked me for guarding him. He would do it for me if my mind slipped. Yes we do allow a peck on the cheek when we greet each other etc, but thats as far as it goes.
When does doing the right thing ever come easy? Being a godly man or woman isn't easy is it? It sure takes committment, discipline and faith. Standing up for truth and justice isn't always easy either, but it is the right thing to do. Just like making the committment of protecting each others purity, it isn't easy, but it is the right thing to do! We are somewhat settled now with it all, and we enjoy each other far more on a deeper level than if we had of gone down that path. We have a pure relationship based on great communication skills, prayer and committing everything to God first. Thats when it seems like it is easy, cause the more you surrender and submitt to the Lord's will, the more He can handle it and take the 'struggle' out of it.
We have even decided that 'kissing the bride' is too personal to share our 'first kiss'in front of others, so we will be reserved somewhat, and wait until later when we are alone to share our very 'first kiss', only this time it won't be a 'peck on the cheek' lol! How wonderfully exciting it is going to be then to give to each other without reservation the passion that the Lord has stored up and put there in the first place, honouring each other as husband and wife before our Lord and Saviour!
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You are
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Posted:Sep 23, 2008 6:56 am
Last Updated:Oct 3, 2008 3:51 pm 1829 Views
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My Beloved sent this to me this evening, and with his permission I am posting it. Ahhhh it is soo beautiful, as he is to me!!
You are ever so precious to me
You are always on my mind
You are the love of my life
You are very beautiful
You are very special
You are very close to me
You are my future
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Jeremiah 29:11
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Posted:Sep 23, 2008 3:17 am
Last Updated:May 4, 2024 9:24 pm 1535 Views
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I don't know what the future holds,
but I know who holds my future!
I have this quote on my desk in the office, and it has been there for some time now. The scripture I mentioned in my previous post, Jer 29:11 tells us the He knows His future plans for us, and no one else.
This quote and scripture has kept me going through some pretty tough times, always with the promise that God will see me through and not for me to be harmed any more. Amen
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Men, are you this committed?
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Posted:Sep 23, 2008 3:03 am
Last Updated:Oct 3, 2008 3:54 pm 1685 Views
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Memories make us who we are.
Dreams make us who we will become.
I saw this quote a little while ago, and wanted to share what has transpired with me lately.
I got off the phone about an hour ago from talking to my Beloved. Often I feel like I have been 'beaten up' as I am drained from the emotion and tears. Tears are no stranger to our sometimes lengthy phone calls. But those tears are tears of healing. Beth (quietwalker) referred to her Jim as her healing balm, and Beth if I may, I can honestly say that my Beloved is my healing balm too!
It has been a difficult time for me recently. God has been bringing me through many days of flash backs and haunted memories that have caused me great pain, both physically and emotionally. My Beloved says to me " ring me, text me, any time you need me, I am there for you". There have been times that I felt that I needed him, but I also felt his rest was more of a priority. Sometimes because of my past, I don't always believe what he says cause of my abused mind. "Maybe this time I will see him slip up" I think to myself! But as usual God has other plans and He needs to show me constantly that He is in control of both of us, and that He has given me this gift in my Beloved, and for good reason, so He shows me doesn't He?
Sometimes during the wee hours one of us will send a text if we are woken up and we let each other know we are thinking about each other etc. Last night was no exception, except I was still awake at 2.30am and sent him a text, to which he imediately responded. He could tell by only a few words that something was not right, and he suprised me by calling on the house phone, as he knew that I wouldn't!
My Beloved sat there with me listening to some horrible memories that the Lord had brought to the surface and loved me through it, reiterating his deep love for me. It was exhusting to say the least, but you know what? It was 6.30am in the morning when it was all dealt with, and that is the time my Beloved has to get up and go to work!! Not once, no not at all did he mutter,or complain, or even put me off, in fact he told me that he was there for me and the Lord put us together so we can grow and heal together. He prayed and told me how much he loved me and blessed me. I prayed that the Lord refresh him this day.
When my beloved got home, I rang him to see if he was ok. His voice on the other end of the phone? Just as cheerful and excited to hear from his Beloved as any other time! I know that he must be tired, but he doesn't allow the work of the Lord to bring him down as he hands it all over to Him. In fact he will be waiting for me to call him soon so we can fill each other in on our day and share scripture with each other etc.
My past is the memories that made me become who I was, and through my Beloved, God is changing me and healing me and giving me dreams of my future with him. Reminds me of this scripture that the Lord gave me many years ago:
For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11
Thankyou Lord for your undying love and favour in my life. I praise you daily for the gift of my Beloved each day and how you use him to bring You glory and honour. Thankyou Lord for sending me a man with such gentleness that calms my soul like a healing balm, and such strength that he carries me to You without even blinking and eye! Thankyou babe for making me your treasure and loving me the way you do. I love you, with all my heart, TMD xx
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"I will bless them"
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Posted:Sep 21, 2008 9:38 pm
Last Updated:Sep 25, 2008 1:05 am 1945 Views
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Numbers 6:22-27
The LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron and his sons, 'This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:
" ' "The LORD bless you
and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace." '
"So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them."
We don’t usually go around blessing people unless they happen to sneeze. Or unless we are a religious leader who does it as part of a religious duty. But it is a very God like thing to do. God loves to bless people, that is, to show his favour to them, to bestow what is good on them. When we bless others, that is what we are desiring for them: some favour, some goodness to come their way. It may be we invite God to bless them, or we might seek to bless them in some way. Blessing is more than just a nice word: it has to have practical content to do any good.
This blessing was the one the Old Testament priests were to bestow on the people of God. It is one we can bestow on those who belong to God now. We pray the Lord actively show favour and in a more negative sense, protect or keep them from harm. We pray God will gleam with delight as he looks at us, and pray in fact that he will look at us. We don’t want a God who frowns with sour disapproval on us or turns away from us in disgust. Of course God has no “face” but we sense what this blessing is about. God showing delight in us, gazing on us with rosy cheeked shining gladness.
We might argue this is all a bit sentimental given our all too obvious shortcomings. But this is only so if we leave Jesus out of the picture. God can only bless us if the stains of our failures are blotted out. Jesus did that (the Old Testament recipients of this blessing weren’t to know about Jesus but did rely on God showing mercy to them to receive such blessing). What Jesus did for us allows God to turn his face towards us and positively glow as he sees us. We might splutter and mutter about our sins and weaknesses but God just stays there glowing and smiling. He remembers, as we sometimes forget, that Jesus’ death covers all the ugliness.
We are invited to live as blessed people not burdened people. We are under the blessing, not the curse. If God is delighted to spend his days looking at us and looking after us, who are we to refuse it all out of self pitying misery? And if we are blessed people, is it not natural to bless others, to conclude we are blessed to be a blessing?
By David Reay
As I read this today, it blessed me sooo much! Each night when my go to bed I pray this scripture over them as I kiss them ALL goodnight. The Lord gave me this passage about 3 or so years ago and I have prayed it over them ever since. I can't explain why other than being led to pray it over them.
As I read this devotion this morning it became clear to me why. The wonderful thing about it after all this time is that I was praying this over their lives in obedience without fully understanding why.
God calls us to do things sometimes that we don't understand or have a reason for. But if we follow His leading, He will bless our obedience.
Blessings (what else!!)
Louise
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Pray without ceasing
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Posted:Sep 19, 2008 9:50 pm
Last Updated:Sep 25, 2008 1:06 am 1556 Views
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Read 1 Thessalonians 5:17
Pray without ceasing
Not getting our money's worth this time are we? Three little words, just one verse. And yet a verse which sounds so right and at the same time seems to have lost touch with the real world.
How realistic is it to pray all the time? It is reminiscent of the story of the goalkeeper in a soccer team. He was a devout Christian who prayed before each and every game. One particular game his pregame prayers went on a bit longer than usual,and as he was on his knees beseeching God for help in keeping a clean sheet the opposing team kicked off and booted the ball into the net past the praying keeper. Praying all the time is just not on. There is a time to be on our knees and a time to be on our feet.
Then again, ceaseless praying is what we are called to do. And for this to be realistic, we need to review our understanding of just what prayer is. It is much more than a formal time on our knees at the beginning of the day, much more than the ritual prayers in church services. Prayer is ongoing communication with God and as such occurs beneath the articulate, verbal level. Most of my own prayers are silent and break all sorts of grammatical rules! So we can be driving a car, doing the shopping, watching TV, or weeding the garden and at the same time be praying. Our prayers at such times may be silent expressions of barely conscious thoughts. Or they can be silent or verbalized fragments that intrude into our other activities from time to time.
Seeing prayer in this way allows us to have prayer in the centre of our life, not as some separate compartment. We turn our ceaseless thoughts into ceaseless prayer. All those fear flooded concerns can be converted to prayers. All that glad remembrance can become prayer. All our restless preoccupation can be transformed into prayer. We do this by bringing God into the picture. Rather than just thinking, we think and invite God to hear our thoughts and to shape and reshape them. We turn our interior monologue of thinking into the dialogue of prayer.
This has the benefit of bringing God into the essential threads of our life. It has the benefit of our being able to simply give our thoughts to God and not allow them to become a repetitive cycle of fearful or confused thinking which wearies us. We don't have to spend most of the day anxiously thinking through things and then at some fixed point giving them over to God in prayer. We can invite God in and so break the negative circuit then and there. Unceasing thinking becomes unceasing prayer.
By David Reay
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Blessed outta my sox!
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Posted:Sep 18, 2008 10:57 pm
Last Updated:Oct 3, 2008 3:55 pm 1929 Views
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Last night I shared with my Beloved the post I wrote about him and his Gentleness being his strength.
He was really moved and touched by what the Lord had shown me and then he shared how much he had stuggled over the years about his gentle nature and how others have abused it or that he had been so missunderstood. He shared with me that he cried out to the Lord " Why am I like this"? Then the Lord picked him up and whispered into his ear and gave him this scripture about 15 years ago:
In Quietness and confidence will be your strength. Isaiah 30:15
What a confirmation for him, and for it to come from his Beloved was even more special for him. As he shared this with me, I felt my spirit connecting on an even deeper level to his spirit.
When the Lord brings two people together, in His perfect will and plan, He doesn't make any mistakes. I am really getting a foretaste of what a godly marriage is going to be like.
In Gen 2:24-26 It says that a man shall leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh.
We have all heard this scripture over and over, but I have not had the revelation of it's depth until recently. I used to think that it meant the 'sexual' side of marriage, the consumation of their love. Now I know that it is far more deeper than we can ever comprehend. In it's proper sense, it is the joining of two complete individuals, spirits first, souls next and then their bodies. Woa isn't God just so awesome and His creation of marriage and how it is meant to bring Him Glory? It sure is! But it will only Glorify Him if He has bought those two people together and has knitted them and intwined their whole beings to become one. They Glorify Him by giving the Lord first place in their lives, and then they worship and Glorify Him as 'one flesh', spirit, soul and body.
If I may be so bold as to reveal here, that I believe that the process of becoming one flesh starts even before you are married. I have not felt this 'connected' with anyone outside of my relationship with the Lord, ever! I know that my spirit and my Beloved's spirits are molding together in a deep way, and daily. I feel so close to him that I almost feel like we are husband and wife already. Now before you get carried away in your thinking, I am not talking about the physical side of our relationship at all. How can I know what I am saying is true for sure?
Well contrary to what most christians believe and feel, and I know that it is or can be missunderstood, but my Beloved and I made a decision not to 'enter in' any form of kissing or physical contact. We made that committment before we met in person. We had known each other for several months and we knew something deep was happening before it was confirmed that first meeting.
I thank God for that decision each day, as the temptation after we met would have been harder than we had of realised.
I know for the first time in my life that dying to the flesh and putting the other person's purity before my own needs is one of the Holliest things a man or woman can do for another. I don't mean that we are proud or in judgement of others by any means, I just mean that it is the most special thing that I have experienced, and I know that my Beloved feels the same.
It means that we focus on the Lord first, and be led by Him to enrich each other and bless each other with our love for each other in it's purest form. When kissing isn't present in a realtionship this side of marriage so is the 'temptation' of being lured into thinking or even acting out things that are only meant for inside of marriage. Joshua Harris says that kissing is stepping over the boundaries as is it the 'pre-curser' to the act of love making. By not giving into this widely accepted form of contact truely means that you are reserving ALL for your future spouse and giving God the Glory even before you are married.
Two people cannot be deeply in love and decide to do this in their own strength. It is only through the leading of the Holy Spirit. First you must have the revelation of what Godly purity really means and then BOTH partners to be agreed to protect each other's purity until their wedding day.
My love for my Beloved isn't based on any thoughts of physical desire and how he makes me feel when he kisses me etc etc etc. It is based on putting his needs higher than my own and to be led by the Lord to minister His love to him and allow him to flourish as a man yearning to grow stronger in the Lord.
My prayer is that you wonderful people here seek the Lord for this revelation and experience love with God's chosen 'one' for you in it's purest form, and be blessed outta your sox, as we have been!
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Gentleness. It's a strength not a weakness
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Posted:Sep 18, 2008 5:43 am
Last Updated:Sep 25, 2008 10:59 am 1571 Views
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I read somewhere recently a quote, but I am not sure who wrote it nor the exact words, but here is what I remember:
There is gentleness in strength and strength in gentleness.
I have reflected on this quote over and over, and for days. I knew that the Lord was speaking to my heart, and early this morning I had this wonderful revelation that I will share with you.
My beloved is a gentleman! He is kind and thoughful but the thing that makes him so special to me is that he is gentle! He talks with gentleness, he touches me with gentleness, he prays with a gentleness, yet with such strength!
In the past I would have been intimidated by 'gentle' men as I would have percieved them as passive and weak. That kind of thinking has come about from some bad experiences, and had my thought pattern had been altered somewhat. Yet when the Lord put me and my Beloved together He really knew what He was doing! I see my Beloved as a pillar of strength but it's not in an arrogant or proud way like what I have been used to in the past. His gentleness really is his strength, woa mmmm!!
Let your gentleness be evident to all men. Phillipians 4:5
Recently I came across this scripture above and it spoke deep to my heart, and the Lord confirmed in my spirit that my Beloved is a beautiful creation, made in God's image, strong yet gentle at the same time, but never forceful. He was handpicked with his nature as a gift to me from our Lord because He knew that I needed someone who was gentle and the Lord could use him to bring more healing into my life and continue the renewing of my mind.
I think it takes more courage for a man to remain gentle and calm than it does for him to rise up and get worked up over things.
How the Lord has changed me in this area. Thankyou Lord for changing my heart and preparing me to love this man you have blessed me with, and with all my heart. Thankyou Beloved for being 'you' and loving me the way you do. Don't ever change! I love you Babe just the way God made you!
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Create in me a clean heart
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Posted:Sep 18, 2008 5:05 am
Last Updated:Sep 25, 2008 1:09 am 1589 Views
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Psalm 51:10-11
Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
This scripture was given to me today by my Aaron, yup Aaron the Prodigal ! He was given this scripture recently and it ministered to him, and he shared it with me earlier. It really blessed me, so I thought I would share it with you also.
God's Mercies are new each morning, and I praise Him for that. Most nights before I go to sleep I thank the Lord for the day and ask Him to forgive me of sins I committed that day, and I often pray as David did, and ask the Lord to renew a right spirit within me.
Blessings to you all as you serve our Lord today.
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We reap what we sow
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Posted:Sep 18, 2008 4:54 am
Last Updated:Sep 25, 2008 10:47 am 1597 Views
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All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.
Anon.
In Galations 6 says "Do not be decieved, God is not mocked, for what a man sows, that he will also reap".
When I look back in years gone by, I can see to this present day the seeds I have sown, be it good seed or bad seed have taken root and matured.
I am more aware these days the impact of this scripture and what it means. I have over the years been a little slack with different things and boy oh boy do I regret them now. Not that I am beating myself up at all, but you all know what I mean, especially when it's your mimicking you and your past behaviours etc. These days it can be a bit of a battle trying to reverse their train of thought when they have been accustomed to my 'old' ways.
I have to remind myself daily of the consequences of reaping and sowing, and in all areas of my life.
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