Facebook Fast

I am fasting from Facebook this week. I know that I spend too much time on there and am using this week to show myself how many other things can be done with that time. Today is the first day and I already found myself pacing the living room wondering what to do to unwind after work....well I found something to do....I just did the dishes. So, here's to hoping this week teaches me to get my priorities right, teaches me to be more conscious of daily household chores, teaches me to spend more time with God. Also this week will be a Gratitude Week, the most recent chapter I read in my book challenged readers to a week with NO COMPLAINING!!! Each day you are to journal the blessings of the day. This week should be fun and challenging!! :)

Calm My Anxious Heart Chapter 4

"Content with My Role"


Just the other day I told Matt that I thought God wanted to teach me contentment with where I am in life. I can't believe how this chapter totally hit home for me. It seems that no matter where I am in my course of life, I am always focusing on the future step. First I was discontent in being a girlfriend, I wanted to be a fiancee. Then I was REALLY discontent with being a fiancee, I REALLY wanted to be a wife. Then I enjoyed being a wife for a bit...Now, I'm discontent with just being a wife, I want to be a mother too. When Matt and I were talking about this about a month ago, I told him that I felt like I was wishing my life away...just looking for the next best thing. This chapter was such an encouragement that most women are just like me. There were a series of emails included in this chapter that seemed so personal and relatable for me. Each woman talked about the stresses of their job, their husband, or their kids and each email said something like, "at least you have ______________________." The women were telling about their lives but doing so in a complaining manner. Not only did they "update" the friend about family affairs, they did so by alluding to the fact that the other person's life was somehow better..."at least you have _______________________." Interesting. I wonder how many facebook statuses I have posted that have been complaints masked as "status updates." I bet many of them suggest frustration or discontentment with my present God-given role. Just like an actress receives a role in a movie, we are assigned our life roles by the all-knowing God. Also, our roles can change just like roles change for actresses with each new film. We can either accept our current role and do our best, or we simply gripe and complain, jealous of another woman's role.

"If we want to be women of contentment, we must choose to accept our portion, our assigned roles from God. We must make the choice to dwell on the positive aspects of our role in life. If we don't we'll be discontent, always wanting something different from what we've been given."

Jesus was given a role that he took on even though he knew it would lead him to a painful death. Instead of complaining and telling God that it was not fair, he humbled himself and took on the role of a servant (Matthew 20:28). May I always seek to follow Jesus' example as I take on the various roles my Director gives me, content with my purpose and my role for that time being.

Calm My Anxious Heart Ch. 1

"I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation." Phil 4:12

Throughout my entire college career at BBC I had this verse written on a 3X5 card on my memo board. I read it all the time. I knew that I had been blessed in so many ways and simply needed to pause and be thankful for my situations. I needed to be content in all that God had given to me. It wasn't until the other night when I read this chapter that I actually focused on the verb in this verse. In the past I focused on the direct object being the secret of contentment. I completely missed out on the notion that this is a learned thing. Paul wasn't always content!!! He had learned through his life experiences that he could BE content with whatever was brought his way. Wow! I too can learn this contentment!!! There are so many times I look ahead and worry or anticipate the future. I enjoy my life but always look to the next step. It isn't that I am an overwhelmingly discontent person, but I focus on what will come or what I want to come rather than what is happening at the moment. I feel like this is a great time in my life to learn some contentment. We are at a crossroad. We are almost debt-free, married for 2.5 years, wondering if PA will be our forever home or if we should look around before "officially" settling down. I'd love to just get settled, to buy a house and start a family. Some days I focus on that so much that I forget to be thankful for this stage of life. We have our needs met, wonderful jobs, and friends and family that deeply care for us. I am learning that while I'd love to be in a different stage of life, I will miss this stage when I get to the next.

I don't need to be overwhelmed and anxious about the future but I need to be content where we are and prayerfully seek His face for future direction. I love how the previous passage in Philippians reads, "Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Wherever I am in my journey of life, I can seek his face and He will supply peace.

Peace and contentment, that is what I long for. For whatever comes my way, if my heart is wrapped in those two principles, my natural instinct will be to praise and seek Him, trusting that He will supply the strength for any given circumstance.

Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World

I have just finished reading the book, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanne Weaver. The entire premisis comes from the story from the book of Luke.

Luke 10:38-42
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Naturally I have a Martha heart. I have a heart that is driven by tasks, a list of what should be completed in each day. There is no greater satisfaction than climbing into bed knowing that all the housework is complete, I can wake up to a clean home! Now, there are countless days that I don't go to bed feeling like that and those are the days I feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and feel like I am not good enough. Yes, I have a Martha heart and yes I live in a Martha-mentality driven world. There are things to be done, places to be, friends to help, children to teach. (Honestly as I wrote that last sentence I remembered that I promised to make a new bookmark for my autistic student. That I CAN'T forget...see I tell you, I have to-do lists EVERYWHERE...I even text myself reminders!) Anyway, it is not natural for me to take time to have a MARY HEART, a heart devoted and dedicated to God. A heart that sits peacefully and reverantly at His feet ready to soak in His every word. Now, my personality tells me that if I can't do something well, to not try and do it at all. This is an easy cop-out for me in my devotional life. I don't put devotions on my personal or mental check list because I feel like I will fail at doing them. So, I sit back content and happy when I do get to them since then it is like a bonus! Wow, I did something extra that wasn't on my to-do list!!!! What an awful mentality! I hate to fail. Recently I have been doing a better job with devotions and my prayer life, yet I still seem to fall short in my eyes. I don't do it everyday, or I don't spend enough time. I seem to struggle with competition against myself. Can I do better? Why don't I feel like I'm growing? Does praying occasionally throughout the day count as a prayer life or do I need to actually sit down and have a prayer journal and a systematic way of praying? Does it count if I don't seem like I have time to pray for everyone so I just say one big prayer and hope it covers them all? See, I don't want to fail so I just try to get it all in somehow yet in doing so, I do it half-heartedly. Yet, at least I do something, so I feel accomplished...yet not...still somehow empty. I need to just forsake my personality and seek HIM AND WHAT HE HAS FOR ME TO LEARN. A quote from the book reads, "In this story, we should find not our personality type, but the kind of heart that Christ longs for us to have. A heart centered on Him alone." It is not my personality that should drive me. It should be my heart that drives me to be completely surrendered to Him. A heart that may feel weak and dry that seeks to be filled and quenched only by Him. I am so quick to look elsewhere and try to fill that void. I fill it with "Christian things." I talk about prayer. I help others with problems and seek to feel used. When I feel used, then I feel good...for a while....then I feel empty and tired. I put Christian "work" before "worship." It is like putting the cart before the horse. I need to first seek to be strengthened by Him before my work gets the better of me. My work...which quickly becomes my worry...which quickly becomes my overwhelming distraction. "When we're distracted, discouragement is just around the corner. Weariness creeps in as life overpowers us. It causes us to say and do things we would never consider saying or doing otherwise. Discouragement breaks down our perspective and our defenses." Thus the vicious cycle continues...Frustration, self-pity, worry, self-reliance...a heart that has let the Martha world dominate her world. I may live in this Martha world, but I want to have a Mary heart....not a Martha heart. I will glance around, but gaze toward Him. I may not always succeed, but that is OKAY. When life gets crazy, I need to pause my brain that focuses on my to-do list, and push play on my interaction and relationship with God. "The rougher the day, the more I need to spend time with my Savior."

"I've learned my strength is not found in how intensely I struggle...but in how completely I surrender." - Ken Gire