OVERWHELMED?

Do you ever feel like "Yes the world is spinning, and Yes I know this, but my world is spinning around, forwards, backwards, and upside down!" This is the way mine gets sometimes.  Between homeschooling my kids, crafts, group, church, and just daily chores and activities I think OK it needs to slow down just a second.  I start to notice so many changes in myself when I give way to these things and loose my focus on God.  Once the enemy has us in his web of business we loose that still calmness that God gives us and the next thing I know I'm crying to my husband saying, "I can't get it all done, or how did I get so out of wack?" (poor guy) Cause believe me I can be a nut case A LOT!

So every time I get like this, somehow, someway, God will whisper to me, Hayley, its time to slow down.  Step Back just a second.  I was so blessed last week with being able to go to Charleston, SC for my 15 year anniversary.

It was such a awesome trip! For the first time in 15 years we were able to go and spend time together, more than 24hrs!! YAY! It was a much needed trip to help me restore myself.  It was expensive which I wasn't exactly happy about, but I will never forget it and we made wonderful memories.  Sometimes we need time like this to restore, but during the daily walk of life you can't just take off and go to another state.  

God wants us to know that we need to come to him for our quiet, rest, and restoration.  

Let me tell you about how when you are toned into our Fabulous Lord and how he works things out! 

On the way to Charleston it poured down rain! I mean it gushed all the way there... 

By the time we got there my husband was exhausted from the drive. We had pulled over at least 3 times because it was coming down so hard we couldn't see to drive.  This makes me nervous because 2 things was running through my mind.

  1. I don't like it when I can't take the wheel myself and he was driving and I had to trust he was gonna drive the best he could.

 2. I haven't made any plans for my kids if something happens to me and him at the same time!! So like where would they go? Who would raise them?  AH!!!!! 

So instead of being a Co-Captain and driving him crazy, I just opened my bible to Psalm and come across this scripture.  

Talking about Good! Our God IS that large, that AWESOME.  At the time I didn't know why I was doing this particular one.  That's how God does, I will study it, draw it and then sometimes a week to 2 weeks later all that you have fed yourself in God's word comes back!!! This is why it says Put on the Full Armor of God.  Fill up your barns with his food so that when the drought comes you have something in your Food Bank!!!

Anyways, back to my scripture, it is from Psalm 56:8-11

Your have kept count of my tossings,

put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your book?

Then my enemies will turn back

in the day when I call.

This I know, that God is for me.

In God, whose word I praise,

in the Lord whose word I praise, 

in God I trust, I shall not be afraid.

What can man do to me?

Isn't this Awesome!!!! I read this and then I do what I always do I google pictures of eyes and tears and then just start sketching to see how it's gonna turn out.  Other than the fact that I was uptight and God knew at that moment I needed to have something else on my mind so that I could relax and know he had everything under control..  But then once I got home and the week started back up and things start to get crazy, I realized that its not just for a stressful ride to the coast, its for daily walking. 

 He knows our tossings, he puts our TEARS in his bottle... Do you hear this???? He knows how many hairs we have, he catches our tears!!!! How can you not love our creator? How can people believe there is no GOD??? He loves us so so much! So back to my 2 things I was worried about. 

1. I wanted to take the wheel in the van!  

Well God says let me take the wheel its to heavy, and strong and you need to let me drive.

2. I don't know who will take care of (the kids) basically my family? 

God says if I can catch your tears in my bottle I think "I've Got This!" 

This morning when it occurred to me how Magnificent he is and how he has worked out all these things in my head just since the drive down to S.C. the song came on by Meredith Andrews. 

The main part of the song is this. 

AFTER ALL,

1. your are Constant

2. you are always Good

3. you are Sovereign 

and Not for A Moment did you forsake me!

There really isn't much more to say after that.  I urge you, if you are reading this and haven't made a decision to follow our Lord Jesus Christ, please get with someone knowledgeable that can help guide you and make that decision! It's the most important thing you can do in this life.  He can give you Restoration that a trip, vacation, money, none of these things can do.  He will give you Peace unlike any other. 

He will catch all your Tears!

WE ARE HEALED!

There isn't much that needs to be said about this post.  I think the verse in Isaiah 53:5 says it all.  I absolutely love bible journaling and I think this is one of my favorites.  Thank goodness for the cross, thank goodness for his grace that he gives us every day as we rise!  The Lord is so good to us with what he blesses us with every single day.  He heals us every day because we are all sinners asking for his mercy on a daily basis if you walk with him!

JOURNALING FROM THE HEART......ESPECIALLY WHEN BEING ATTACKED BY THE ENEMY

When I come onto my blog sometimes I just sit here holding my hands on the keys wandering how to start.  I ponder and think, I don't want to start another one with "Well, this happened" or "So this was next," you get my drift.  But sometimes I think where do I begin? Where do I start?
But then there are those other times when I'm just doing something simple like standing in the shower and it comes to me and I can't wait to rush to get done with my nightly chores so I can get something down.

I love bible journaling it has been such a enjoyment for me to use art or pictures to help me retain scripture.  Its really really hard for me to remember verses and where they are located in the bible and the artwork helps me to retain it, I have talked about that in a previous post.  There are ones that touch my heart so deeply or mean a lot and I want them to be added to my "armor" of scripture that I'm learning so I will have them in my heart when the enemy attacks.

Today, I'm writing about Isaiah 1:18, though our sins make us scarlet, you makes us white as snow!
This is an amazing thing for me.  To know that no matter how far I have strayed or things I've done, God sent Jesus his only son to pay the ultimate sacrifice for me.... crabby, frustrated, complaining about this and that, me!

I've learned at the ripe ol age of 38 that time waits for no one.  Things, people, come and go.  Seasons of life change and you must change with it.  You don't have a choice.  People especially don't stay the same, friends, family all the above, we can't help it.  We have situations and circumstances in our lives that make us change.
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Two of the biggest lessons I have learned!! That I will take with me always. 

 Did you know that its easier to be mad at someone than to forgive them?
 Did you also know that its easier to be mean to someone than treat them with kindness when they have hurt or wronged you?


These two things I have experience from both sides.  I have been on the giving and the receiving end of both of these 2 lessons.  But fact is, its really hard to love a mean person, and its hard to forgive when you don't feel like you are in the wrong.

 I was listening to a pastor once that said we as a human tend to tell other people when we are comforting them that, "Hey you have the right to feel this way!"  Or you have the right to feel angry!  Because as humans we want to decide what is right and what is wrong in a situation.

 Something I have also learned is that it is possible for 2 people to see a "right" in the way they are thinking about something and for them to disagree on a subject.   All in all is that, "Is there anyone on this Earth, that you can think of, that had more of a reason to Exert his right, than Jesus?" Did he sin? NO   Did he do anything wrong to deserve what he got?  NO

He out of anyone, that had the right, to Exert his RIGHTS! But he Didn't, did he?  He went to the cross for us all.  I have had to tell myself this over, over, and over again.  When I get angry with anything, the kids, my husband,  or my family, I have to say, I don't have the right to stay angry, mad or frustrated because we are all sinners trying to do our best.

So I say all this to say, forgive often, love often, don't hold grudges, try your best to live as peaceful and humbly as you can.  This is very hard, cause the Enemy wants us squirming and stranded.  But I can promise you, holding on to anger, bitterness, malice, its way heavier than humbly handing it over to God and saying this is to big for me.  Please take this God, because I can't carry this heavy load of frustration anymore.  Thank you God for not exerting your right and carrying all our sins to the cross, so we could fly away like a bird and be washed white as snow!

XOXOXO

TROUBLE REMEMBERING SCRIPTURE? TRY BIBLE JOURNALING

So, I'm really getting into this whole bible journaling thing.  I'm no where near what you see on pinterest or even close to any of those websites out there that promote it.  But I share it because it really does help me to put these scriptures to memory.  I have a really hard time putting things to memory because I am raising and teaching 4 children, and I promise, promise that with each child, each subject that I teach them I honestly do believe for them to get smarter I have to loose a little bit of knowledge.  I think that's where bad minds come from... I think by the time you hit around 60 or higher if you have children then your brain is possibly half the size it once was because they have robbed you of your own to make theirs bigger... it just has to be!  I have to tell myself this because what other reason would it be for my craziness... So anyway, since I don't have as much space in there to retain the scripture to memory when I put a picture in there and I say it over and over again as I sketch some how I can remember it once I'm finished!

So anyway, I have put pictures of some of my previous journal entries on here, but I'm gonna just display them on this particular entry to show some of them and different ways you can do it.  Some are not the greatest looking, but at the time when I was reading and found something that really struck my heart as I was studying, the picture may have come to mind and then I just started sketching it out... Well sometimes something looks so beautiful in your mind but it never looks the same on paper cause I'm not one of those fancy, nancy awesome art sketchers.  So here are couple that I've done, I hope that with seeing just how simple you can make them that it will encourage you to make a go at it if you are considering journaling.
love xoxoxo

This is my newest one. 

Job 14:1-2

 Genesis 1:5

 Isaiah 43:1

The Psalms

 Deuteronomy