For the knuckleheads like me...

This post is for the knuckleheads like me that have a hard time applying what we should have learned so many other times to whatever situation in front of you TODAY. Ok so This post is for me, not just those like me....

I'm not going to act like I am some kind of Bible scholar. I don't live a perfect life (though by now if you read the blog, I would think that'd be clear). I don't have all of theology understood. I make mistakes, I don't study God's word as often as I should, and am no where close to the 'perfect Christian wife/mother/daughter/friend/etc' If you think I am, I'm sorry we aren't better friends. Shoot me an email and we can talk about how God has used my many failures for His glory, because it still amazes me. This post is not going to sugar coat my life by any means.

To God be the Glory

"There's honor in that. God gets glory from that."

That's what I told a friend this week at our weekly Bible study, speaking of motherhood. She spoke of how she'd wanted to get a medical degree and go overseas and help kids in Africa. But due to her lack of ability in Chemistry, it was clear that God had not called her that direction. Instead, she finds herself now expecting a baby girl in about 4 months. It's the same situation I found myself in 9 years ago. Motherhood. It is a calling many of us find ourselves thrown into before we have any idea what we are doing. In fact, 9 years later I still don't feel like I have this "Mom thing" figured out. My house stays a mess. Lived in, my mom-in-law calls it. My kids yell, and sometimes I am too quick to anger and I yell back. But I'm trying. I'm trying to do what God has called me to. Even though I fail frequently, I'll never give up. I'll keep trying and struggling to live in a way that honors God. Because to know Him, and to make Him known is the whole point of living our time out on earth. I'll never begin to understand why He thought me worthy of mothering these three children. These 3 "little sinners" as my friend Amy calls them (with utmost love!). Last month she spoke on motherhood being our ministry. That was such a profound thought that had never occurred to me, in all my 9 years of being a wife and mother. That is my calling, and whether I chose it or God chose it, it's where I am. But if I do my best to honor God in how I parent my children, whether I screw up here and there is kinda irrelevant. I think He knows we're human, and we're incapable of perfection, just like the kids. I think for me, sometimes it's hard not to sit back and take stock, looking at all the areas where things are flawed and feel like you are not even making a difference.

I spoke the other day about the extraordinary amount of messes my youngest makes. My middle child is extremely sensitive and takes everything to heart. My oldest, 8 year old drama queen is an expert at making mountains of molehills. She constantly forgets what I've told her a million times, and then feels awful about it. She loses her temper constantly over stupid things. Well, she comes by the last one honestly.


But I have the fantastic responsibility of molding these children before the world gets a hold of them.  It's one of those tasks that I get lost in, and most days when I'm in the thick of it, it does feel mundane. But I'm being reminded there is glory (for God ) in that. Certainly not glory for me. But we should not be glory seeking. Our goal, our main goal should be to live and love in a way that brings God honor and glory. Motherhood does that. It's one of those behind the scenes jobs that never gets recognized most of the time. All the things that get done through the day, most never even get seen by anyone else. When I'm sweeping the floor or washing what feels like the hundredth dish, the kids don't see that. But God sees it. I'm learning to praise God  with a sincere heart even when the task is the most monotonous or stressful. Because God sees it. And because for the big picture, the kids see it. They might not know or understand everything mom does, but they see my attitude. I am trying to find that balance of praising God even when I feel unappreciated (by the kids) because that they do see. Hopefully when my kids are grown, they will have a strong and grounded relationship with Christ in their own lives. I pray that they will have rich, strong marriages and godly parenting strategies. Not because I was a great mother, but because somehow, despite myself, God shined through me.

But I think the decision and calling to be not only a stay at home mom while my kids are little, but also a homeschool mom is sometimes a belittled one. My husband gets it. We have chosen to take charge of our children's education and spiritual guidance, because we only have them for so long. We want them to learn to be a light to others. That means that I get to be the one who helps them discover new things for the first time, all the while playing a huge part in their spiritual guidance. Who am I that God would choose me for this? I'm a broken, messed up person. But He did. He choose me. He chose me to mother them. 24/7. That's humbling to me. He obviously sees something in me I could never see. But that makes me want to honor Him and please Him that much more.

Beauty in the Everyday

I have said it before, and I'll say it again now: I don't remotely have this whole "Christ-follower" thing figured out. Not even close. If you think I do, then we must get to be better friends! If you do know me, you will know how hard-headed I am. This past year has been a time of being hit over the head with the same lessons over and over, much like the disciples, because I was too immature to figure it out the first time.

I am a work in progress. Hopefully, God is always changing me, always chipping away at the parts He doesn't like. Sometimes it hurts. Actually, most of the time it hurts. Much of the time I eager to be changed until God starts to chip off pieces of my self I am rather fond of, or am resistant to let go of-like my possessions, my security in worldly things, my temper, my lack of patience. All of this is good that God knows to remove it, even when I don't see it myself.

Right now, the lesson God seems to be hammering into me is this: There is beauty in the day to day stuff.

Life lessons on prayer

Okay so I just want to share something. I've said this before and I'll say it again now. Prayer works. God can definitely handle the biggest things-nothing is TOO big for God. He already knows what you are going through, what weight you are carrying, what seems impossible to you is no surprise to God. He made you, of course, so naturally He knows your innermost struggles and desires. He knows your deepest, darkest secrets and loves you more than you could ever comprehend. I am feeling overwhelmed by His presence and goodness this morning.

If you are a Christ follower, this is something you've experienced. The true feeling of being overwhelmed by His attributes-His Grace (giving you something good you didn't earn), Mercy (sparing you from punishment what you earned), Love, comfort, peace of knowing even when things seem insurmountable that He's got this! If not, I get that you don't get it. The Bible says the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing-and that is what will happen. It's hard to wrap your brain around, but it is one of those things that you just don't get till you get it. LIGHT BULB!!

Happy Easter! He is risen!

Check out Under the Radar's Easter episode. Click the link for some great indie music.


Hope everyone had a great Easter holiday, and I hope today you don't go back to normal and loving complacency. How's that for putting it bluntly!? Because He's risen, we have this hope so that we shouldn't to live like He's still dead. We don't have to live like we're dead! I really believe, based on all that's happening today in the world, that He's coming back soon. If you have chosen, at any point in your life, to become a Christ follower and accept His forgiveness of your sins, He took care of that for all time. There's so much freedom in that, knowing He came just for you, and you alone were worth it. He knew every wrong thing you'd ever do and thought you worth saving anyways, so why do we hang on to our past like we are still in bondage to it?

Vision of Love

Matthew 22:36-40

 Jesus replied, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind.' This is the first and most important commandment. And the second is like it. 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.' Everything that is written in the Law and the Prophets is based on these two commandments."

The Big Thaw

As I walked outside today to check the mail (we are still waiting on Jacob's passport (Mine arrived way early on Sat!) I hear popping and cracking from every direction. It would have been alarming if I didn't also see the icicles and chunks falling from trees. See, this week, for those that don't know, the Midsouth among other areas, was hit with an ice storm. Thankfully, it was nothing like the ice storm of 1994, which anyone who lived here then can remember losing power for days or weeks for some. But I know for my family, this time, we specifically prayed it would not be as bad as forecast. It was icy, and in some parts so many trees were down that you couldn't leave your home. Some lost power for a few days, but for the most part, it seemed like we were able to survive largely unharmed. Praise the Lord. But the crackling and popping of the thawing ice reminded me of yet another lesson from Narnia.

Just a thing or two I've been learning...

God is awesome! Y'all I just have to say this, and some of you will chalk it up to "luck" (of which there is no such thing) or mere coincidence (also doesn't exist), and that's fine... but that will be on you. I believe that God reveals himself through works even still today giving us the opportunity to accept Him and His love, but we have become so jaded and cynical that we REFUSE to acknowledge his hand in them. He never stops trying, He never gives up on you, but always is working and moving in the big and small things. 

So, I would like to take this opportunity to give credit where credit is due. 

Since my husband and I started being obedient in our finances and giving from our first fruits (fancy way of saying that we give God back 10% of the money He gives to us in the first place. We acknowledge that every thing we have comes from Him, and because He asks for us to give of our money to keep the lights on in His house, we do. We didn't always obey him in this, but that is a story for another day. (Just ask me some time!) In Malachi 3:8-10, God's word challenges us to give in obedience 1/10 of what we have. It may not seem like much (or it might seem like a lot, depending on where you are financially) but that's what He asks for. His house has people who serve US and the community for a living, electric and water bills to pay just like we do, a building to pay for, and yet many of us are guilty of turning to the church for all it provides to US, without ever giving back. I would even go as far to say we need to stop being greedy with our money AND our time-actually, our whole selves should belong to God. This verse even calls us out-those of who aren't giving-and says that we have robbed God and therefore are cursed. Wow! That's harsh!!

So my husband and I took a hard look at our lives and the things in it that were keeping us from being obedient to Christ. Tithing was a big one. So we give. And it hurts sometimes, because honestly, we are very close to that line and were paycheck to paycheck even before we started tithing! It occurred to us, that we had been greedy with what God himself had given to us, and perhaps He was now withholding his financial blessings from us because of our disobedience. That is not easy for me to say. I'm actually a very private person, a very shy person, (again, that's a story for another day because I have learned I let that cause me to be disobedient too!) and sharing my private life is hard. 

But if you read that whole section, there's a promise in there too. It is something we are only beginning to understand, but God promises that if we give Him what is owed Him, He in turn will pour out blessings "beyond our wildest dreams." Another translation says: "if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it".    

A modern day Gideon (or two)

http://www.gofundme.com/Harrisons2Haiti

God has been working in my life, and in Jacob's life all these years, gently, lovingly, patiently pushing us to do more and go deeper. For whatever reason, we found ourselves in a position similar to Gideon where he wanted to both worship the one true God and "have it our way" worshiping the idols of the day right alongside Him. But God chose Gideon anyways. Flawed. Human. To break that cycle. To be the one to help lead his

people to receive the blessings of God's glorious promised land in it's full glory. And even when God called him loud and clear, Gideon doubted that God could use him, that it was possible. So God, in his wisdom, stripped down Gideon's army of 32,000 soldiers to a measly 300-to go up against 135,000 Midianites. Again he doubted that it was possible, but all through those times, God used those circumstances to prove his mightiness. If Gideon had a huge army, it would be easy for them to take credit for their own victory. Instead, God stripped his resources down to rightfully claim the victory himself. He wanted his people to be without excuse, to know without a doubt, that their help and victory came from the Lord, not from their own strength. We are learning that God will often give us the most difficult of circumstances, not only to show out  himself, but also to require our complete and total faith and trust in him. When he breaks us down to our weakest moments, the circumstances where we are FORCED to acknowledge that we cannot do it on our own, that is when everyone who knows about it can bear witness to the fact that he is a provider, a healer, a warrior... A Savior. He can use our circumstances to make himself known to others, as well as to grow us in our own relationship to others. It is truly a complex thing, the way God works. He's been teaching us, like Gideon, to trust him all this time. He's been using everything and every one in our path to confirm to us that we are acting in obedience with him.

 Just over a month ago, Jacob and I went to a marriage conference, thinking our marriage was "fine", but were rocked to our very core. The things I learned that weekend, thank God, will leave me forever changed, and I know Jacob feels the same. Our marriage was fine before. Just fine. But it turns out that we were missing out on so much, and now that we have tasted the sweetest blessings of an even closer marriage than we ever though possible, we really won't ever be able to go back to what I now know was mediocrity. We pray together, read God's word together, we're dreaming Big dreams, even parenting our children differently! One of the things the conference spurred was some deep discussions about our dreams and then, the Sunday of that weekend, Pastor Shannon O'dell rocked the whole church (I hear, quite literally, as they played guitar hero together as a church). Jacob and I served in the nursery, but as soon as we could, we watched the uploaded sermon on the CHC smartphone app. Yes, our church has an app. (So does Shannon's. It's "Brand New Church") They're both awesome, and if you have an xbox and a super smart phone, you can even link your devices and watch it on the Tv, but moving on... When we watched the sermon the following day, it was about none other than Dreaming big dreams. He challenged us to discover and pursue our dreams.

Lessons from Narnia

I have always heard that C.S. Lewis was a great author, but I can't say I've read his works until recently... and although I loved the first "Narnia" movie, and I never got around to reading any of the fiction books either. Until this year. I always meant to, wanted to. It was on that "to do" list of bucket list type things that you thought should be important, but most likely you'd never actually make time for. You just felt good thinking that you wanted to do said things. On my spiritual bucket list was just that-Read C.S. Lewis.

A 6000 year war

It's always been something lurking in the back burner of my mind. I have never doubted its existence, nor its effect on my life. However, it was never as fully realized until these last two weeks. Spiritual Warfare. I believe very strongly that not only is there a very real battle being fought for us on another level, but that we are in the last days of the battle. I believe very strongly that we are living in the end times. Just look around us. Look at the amount of murders every day that occur so often now that we are barely affected by them. In fact, I will go ahead and assume you are like me, and in America, the only murders and killings that are particular emotional are that of little children and mass murders. What has happened to us? We see so much of it we've become desensitized to it. What once seemed shocking is now not only not shocking, but it's just the day to day norm I get to see living in the Memphis area. We've got a government that thinks they can and should make the decisions that for all time parents and families have been able to decide for themselves. We've got a volatile situation internationally that could cause World War III at any moment. Syria. Iran. Iraq. Afghanistan. Russia....Need I go on? What about China and their one child policy and the government censorship. America's heading in that direction. America's abortion numbers are astronomical. These days its advocates have gotten so bold as to even promote it as birth control (back in line with Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger) for an "already too big and growing population" and justify abortion as the most humane loving thing a parent can do. What? Really? Really????