He Is My Strength When I Am Weak

After plodding through a "spiritual" desert for the past 12 months or so, I find myself in a much stranger place of actually hearing from the Lord, but I am hearing Him in times of great distress. Is it that the past 12 months have been really amazing, have I had not one thing to show me my own weakness, to make me cry out to my Father for help? Is that why I did not hear? I know that the desert is supposed to be a good thing. Thomas Merton, in "The Wisdom of the Desert," describes how the "desert fathers" deliberately went out into the physical desert in order that they would find their own true self in Christ. Some went to be ruled by Christ alone and no other governing figures of the day.

I guess the idea is to seclude yourself, to go without in order to not be distracted, to make yourself vulnerable so that you may be more attuned to the spirit, but in my case it was like going without hearing from God or feeling God instead of going without a bed or food...it seems like the Lord was building in me an even greater longing and desire for Him, to hear from Him, to know Him...It was agonizing at times, but I found my resolve, and determined not to give up, going day after day - even if it was just for 3 minutes - saying, "God, I know You are here, I know You can hear me, and though I do not hear You, I will stand here before You."

Now I find myself in a completely different situation, so distracted with the things that seem to be wrong with my life, that I forget to come before Him each day...but He is meeting me now to remind me He is here, He is carrying me. The most gentle reminder is that I do not have to struggle alone, that in my weakness He is made strong. I have experienced this so many times...and this time it is even sweeter than before...in my times of weakness, I can feel His strength, I can feel Him and hear Him like I have not for over a year. He shines through me when I can't do anything but cry out for Him, and in my state of utter helplessness, when I am completely spent and cannot go on another minute, He picks me up and carries me.

Respect Your Man!

A fellow Bluer ite, Patsy, sent me this in an email this morning...it's a quote from the book, For Women Only, by Shaunti Feldhahn. This was actually found on another blog - Descartes' Bar and Grill ......strangely enough, it's what I've been thinking about a lot lately - not this particular book, but specifically this line from it!:


"the most interesting thing: men would rather feel alone and unloved than inadequate and disrespected... just the opposite of what most women would choose..."

The Lord has been putting this on my heart a lot lately, for some reason...maybe it's the outta control hormones and the way I have been so unkind to my husband lately, but at every turn, He has sent me something via someone with this same message. Yesterday my aunt called me and wanted to talk about honoring your husband, and the lack of honor in our culture today. It was the last thing I wanted to talk about, probably because I have not been honoring my own husband.

A few years ago I did learn this lesson - I must have forgotten it already. I have this need to control (that I'm sure I inherited) that effects different parts of my life negatively. One of the things I unconsciously or consciously try to control is my marriage and my husband...I feel like my way is the only way, and if things are not done my way it's just not worth doing, and if it's not done when I want it done, I just have to do it myself. Sometimes I find myself so self-centered that I pity others who think that their way is better - and then I try to convince them why it's not. WHOA. Maybe I'm being a little bit too honest here...

I keep going back to one of the scriptures read at our wedding - and probably every other wedding - and this is where the Lord has really been gently allowing me to see how my actions can deeply wound my husband....

I Corinthians 13:5 & 7
Love - God's love in us - does not insist on it's own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it, it pays no attention to a suffered wrong. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes; it is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances.


In my efforts to control, I have taken away the honor due my husband, the respect he deserves and needs from me. What God has been showing me is the amazing privelege of a woman to be the SILENT support of her husband, and how humility is when I am happy because my husband is happy - whether it be because of something I've helped him to do or not, I do not need to point this out, throw it in his face or tell everyone else. I have found that I can actually find joy in bringing honor to my husband, in respecting him, wanting his advice, listening to him, giving him the credit he deserves instead of trying to convince him that he's done it all wrong, or complaining to my girlfriends about all of the things that annoy me. These are things that DIS-honor him, and lead him to think I do not respect him, or that I think he is inadequate.

The amazing thing is that I have also found that when I do treat my husband with respect and when I honor him, he is really deeply touched by it. In this way of honoring him, he desires to honor me in return, he desires to make me happy, and he allows me to see into the depths of his soul because he feels safe, feels adequate, and necessary. This is love as I've always imagined it.

This really goes against everything our society would tell us is acceptable or sane, but then again, humility and honor have all but disappeared in the world as we know it today.

God has put on my heart this need that men have for women to be a pillar of silent strength, to be steady, unchanging support. When I tout my abilities over my husband or gripe about everything I think he does wrong just because it's not my way, I no longer exist as a support, but I become a symbol of his "supposed" failure...I am tearing him to shreds and then expecting that to be motivating enough to get him to do what I want him to...yikes.

I find I am most happy when I am singing songs of praise to Jesus.

Thanks Mom(s)

I have been down lately, really feeling like I'm not getting my fair share because my mom is not here to share in my pregnancy (I'm sure she was "out of control hormonal" with her pregnancies also, wouldn't she have some great advice if I could talk to her today?) I have spent most of my life without my mother. It's been scary, lonely at times, and sometimes just not fair...

Yesteray, I was so touched by the women of Bluer, who ministered to me and prayed for me that I began to see again how incredibly the Lord has placed women in my life - at each stage - who have been a mother to me.

The lessons my mother taught me before she died are more important to me than almost anything else. I remember learning how to cook and clean at such a young age, how to treat others, how to read music, how to give of myself, how to spend time with God, which books were the really good ones, how to laugh and be silly, how to journal...I could not have asked for a better mom.

And yet...in the years that she's been gone, I have had so many different mothers - mothers who have helped me with going through puberty, dating, applying to college, my first times away from home at school. I have had mothers who have taught me responsibility, who have nurtured my spirituality, taken a genuine interest in my life and in helping me out, planning weddings, moving, cleaning a new house I'm about to move into, planting a garden...

I have been blessed with women I have been able to share my deepest fears with, women who have prayed for me and with me, women who have told me when I needed to get a grip. A lot of people can say this about their friends, but God has constantly placed in my life women who are older than me, about the age my mom would have been today, who seem to have a tender spot in their heart for me...little, broken, unworthy me...

It's just another way God is revealing my redemption, my worth, the love He has for me. The One who will not let me go has given me the gift of a mother in every way I could have possibly needed her.

Whining/What NOT To Do On An Airplane!

It seems like pregnancy has brought out the complaining in me....everything has been getting on my nerves! I was going to pray/journal, and this is what came out. When I went back and read it, it was too funny!!! I started writing this as the plane was descending into Dallas, TX.

It seems like all I can do lately is complain - I don't know if it's the hormones, well - yes, I'd have to say I know that's what it is. I am about to let loose on this couple sitting behind me. Before the plane even took off, they did not know where their seats were - they sat in every other person's spot, and each person had to ask them to move. Somehow they ended up behind us. The woman is definitely a Dallas native with the big fake blond hair, fake tan, face lift, fake nails, etc... and obviously anorexic. She decided to lay down in her boyfriend's lap. He was sitting right behind me, and every 5 seconds he would jam his knee or foot into the back of the seat and send me jolting forward. This went on during the takeoff and about 1/2 hour in the air. I am already queasy as is typical with NWA - and this is a whole other topic requires an entirely different blog about why I'll NEVER FLY NWA AGAIN. So, the guy who is jamming his knees in the back of my seat very loudly and obviously "makes wind," and he and his girlfriend laugh and laugh and laugh. Gross. Then, he got up and started walking up and down the aisle asking people at random if they have any reading material he can borrow (I'm thinking he's on his way to the can after the gas episode). I see him heading back our way with a Glamour magazine!
I decided to switch seats with Luke so I won't turn around and let my hormonal rage out on this man. As soon as I switch, the the girlfriend wakes up, and she's sitting directly behind me. She's got this foot-long plastic water bottle with about 30 rungs that she pulls out of the seatback pocket - it sounded like a machine gun and felt like someone was doing karate on my back. In and out. In and out. Just keep it out!!! Needless to say, her next move was a potty break, which required her to manouver over her boyfriend - he did not get up to let her out - she climbed over, grabbing my hair and the back of the seat, pulling it back and letting it go like a slingshot. Were they drunk? Then, as we desend, we are going through a storm, and the plane is bouncing up and down, left and right, and the girlfriend is looking out the window practically yelling, "Look sweety, up and down! Up and down! Isn't it fun?" They've got to be drunk. To top it off, she decides to spray a whole botttle of perfume before getting off of the plane. The guy across the aisle from me was almost having an asthma attack and could not stop sneezing. My clothes smelled like her perfume when we got off of the plane.
The strangest part of all of this was that the couple got off of the plane and went in complete opposite directions without even saying goodbye - no hug, no kiss - nothing. From the minute they left the plane, they did not know each other.