Still Growing Home

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  • Depression lurks

    LIES

    Depression lurks in the darkness, silent and still.  I try reading the scriptures.  “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”  Ephesians 3:20.  Trying to fill up on who I am and what I have in Christ.  Depression is patient and quiet.  I read:  “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

    I have let cares overtake my faith.  Inch-by-inch they worm into my heart and my emotions and all I can see is that my life doesn’t line up with what God says about me.  God says, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them:  because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”  I John 4:4.  I should be an overcomer,  But all I can see is inadequacy and failure.

    TRUTH

    What is the truth?  Depression joins me as I muddle between cares I often can’t control and truths I’ve let slip, foolishly.  Meditating on the word, I remember God’s truth is the highest truth.  There is no higher truth!  When my life, whether it be health, finances, time, or emotions run amok, does not line up with Gods word, it’s time to reexamine God’s truth and acknowledge that I’ve believed a lie!

    Reading the word out loud and praising God for who He sees I am, allows the Holy Spirit to bring peace.  It brings clarity and vision.  It is very important to get in the word.  Every time I have realized what was happening and begin to praise God I leave depression in the dust.

    Settling in with His word I read, “Thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus” Philemon 6.  What better way to see provision for myself than by soaking in the scripture.  He has provided a complete plan, covering every circumstance.  Praise God!  I confess:  “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:7.

    Depression readily leaves as I take time to align with God, instead of my own thoughts and emotions.

  • The Power of Your Words

    The Power of Your Words, a small book, is full of scripture.  Two authors, Don Gossett and E.W. Kenyon, take turns presenting chapters from the scripture on our words.  Written to encourage Christians to pay attention to the words coming out of their mouths, it has been a huge blessing to me.  These men have both written many other books, which I recommend you read.  You may order The Power of Your Words through your local bookstore or find it on Amazon.

    I had this book passed on to me by my daughter Hannah, over two years ago.  I began reading it and though I have a long way to go, I am beginning to see a difference in the way we’re living.  When we speak God’s heart He is free to work.  When we speak satan’s heart he is free to work.  (Can’t capitalize satan, just can’t!)   Am I grumbling, complaining, and railing?  Why, where does that come from?  Where does praise, a joyful heart, and positive affirmation come from?

    The book opens with Kenyon giving the introduction.  “For a long time I was confused over the fact that in my own life and the lives of others there was a continual sense of defeat and failure.  I prayed for the sick.  I knew that the Bible was true, and I searched diligently to find the leakage.  One day I saw Hebrews 4:14, that we are to hold fast to our confession.”  In the third chapter of Hebrews, I discovered that Christianity is called ‘The Great Confession’.  I asked myself, ‘What confession am I to hold fast?’  I am to hold fast to my confession of the absolute integrity of the Bible.  I am to hold fast to the confession of the redemptive work of Christ.  I am to hold fast to my confession of the New Creation, of receiving the Life and Nature of God.  I am to hold fast to the confession that God is the strength of my life.”  He goes onto say, “Hold fast to the confession that ‘Surely He hath borne my sicknesses and carried my diseases, and that by His stripes I am healed’ (Isaiah 53:4-5).
    He says “I found it very difficult to hold fast to the confession of perfect healing when I had pain in my body.”

    So this small book began my journey.  Of not saying all words that crossed my mind, and of trying to listen and hear what God might have me say.  I would never have believed, training myself to shut-up! could take so lonnnng…  It is slow!  and more often that not I am repenting, and starting over.  Or, believe it or not, asking someone to please forgive me for what I’ve just said. : /  Dear reader, if you are not a talker then you will not have to deal with shutting up, begin to memorize the word, and speak it out.  Say what God says!!

    Proverbs 18:20,21 says, “A man’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.”  “Death and life are in the power of the tongue:  and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”  How powerful our tongue is.  And it is powerful both ways.  You will get what you say!  Here is another in Proverbs 13:2  “A man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth:  but the soul of the transgressors shall eat violence.  He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life:  but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.” God is pretty clear on language, isn’t He?
    We can only make our confession as we know what the word says.  Kenyon makes an interesting observation: Faith holds fast to the confession of the Word.  Sense Knowledge holds fast to the confession of physical evidences.  If God, during creation, had held fast to sense knowledge creation would never have happened.  He would have seen darkness and that would have been the end of it.  In the New Testament Lazarus would have still been in the grave as Christ would have heard the report from Martha and thought about the stink and quit! The snake bite was fatal was Paul to lay down and die.  Instead God spoke what he wanted created, Christ called Lazarus forth.  Paul knew he was healed. (Isaiah 53:5) The scripture is full of people creating destiny.  In Exodus 14:12, the people ask Moses if he has taken them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  They did die in the wilderness, except for Joshua and Caleb, two who knew the power of the tongue.  Caleb’s report, when he looked at the promised land was:  Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.  All of the Israelites had seen God’s miracles and provision.  Only these two understood God.  David told Saul in I Samuel 17:37 that God had delivered him out of the paw of the lion and the bear and He will deliver me out of the hand of this Phillistine.  In verse 46 David says to Goliath, “This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of Phillistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all may know that there is a God in Israel….. for the battle is the Lord’s.”  These men of God envisioned what God wanted and spoke it.  They had a heart for God, and faith in God.  They knew God!

    This isn’t an easy road.  Changing our thinking is hard work.  Ask God to help you hear what your saying.  And to zip your lips. : )  It amazed me when I would start to say words and get a check.  Learn to listen to the still small voice!  Speak what God speaks and do what God does.  And we’ll be on the road to a powerful Christian walk!

  • Painful Patience

    I want to talk about the fruit of the spirit listed in I Timothy 6:11.  Particularly the word PATIENCE.  I believe Paul may have misstepped.  It ought to read practicing patience, partial patience, painful patience, or panicky patience.  I think there were two P’s and Paul only saw one.  It is hard because we go on believing that God is big enough to build this fruit in us, as we year after year grit our teeth, trying to be patient.  OK, I am done with tongue in cheek!  So here’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

    were building patience cleaning the refrigerator.
    Our layered fridge

    My 11 year old son and I are in the kitchen, in training.  Melvin has been trained by older siblings, over the last few years and I realized I want him trained by me.  Don’t say DUH!  Because I get it.  : /  So we are doing all the meals, and all the clean-up.  We are also decluttering the kitchen, replacing broken appliances and tools, and doing weekly and monthly jobs that need done regularly.   We finished the end of the 2nd week, and he had survived.

    At this point I realized I might not survive.  Melvin and I are quite similar, we both forget things, wander, get side-tracked and are sometimes quite scattered.  During the second weak ( yes it’s deliberate) I am weak with exhaustion from trying to be calm and train!  Trying not to go ballistic, trying to slow down, speak clearly, and BE PATIENT!!!  Ah I could see clearly what I had thought of as training up a child, was actually going to be training up Lori.  This did not look like such a great idea after all.  I began to wonder about patience and the lack I had experienced over the years.  Strictly from a physical point-of-view I tried to cram too much in my day and I rushed projects.  From a spiritual point-of-view  I was impatient with foolishness, and childish behaviour, just generally unpleasant, and I had no clue what God wanted in a day, without spending time asking!   I certainly was not going to change this on my own.   I work hard on tongue control, this will serve Melvin.  Though I still had issues in grumbling and complaining, I had begun to be more thoughtful about what came out of my mouth. I did not tell Melvin exactly what I thought when he was chopping vegetables at the edge of the counter and not noticing them falling on the floor : / or not screaming when things fell out of the refrigerator, because they had been piled on top of one another to the greatest of heights.  Now this is not to say I was always calm. One day when a quart of milk came out of the refrigerator in all it’s glory.  I unloaded.   Many days I failed.  Many moments of days, I failed.  I pray Melvin is forgiving of his mother’s temper. : (

    According to an older sibling, there is less rewashing of dishes.  Sometimes he would wash pots and pans better and sometimes he would wash the dishes better, so generally we were moving toward greater cleanliness.  Well Praise God, I will take whatever I can. : )  I saw a cheese log wrapped properly in the refrigerator, smaller containers used for storage of leftovers, that didn’t take up a large footprint, and a cooler cleaned out well.  : ))

    The next problem I came across was harder yet.  Another character work.   Melvin is the youngest.  His work load is light.  There is a propensity to not be quite honest.  I have disciplined each time I have caught dishonesty.  And several times God has nudged me to go check something.  This is sad and hard. It gives me good practice forgiving and not breaking relations.  I don’t take well to dishonesty. : /  I hope we pass through this season quickly.  I pray regularly for this young man, who is mighty in spirit.

    In training Melvin to excel, in not giving up in utter frustration, God has shown me that I can excel, that I can build good character also.  Small bits of patience are becoming second nature, and I do say small bits.   There are many days where I tell Melvin, “keep working I’ll be back”, and I go spend time with the One who can change me, re-surrendering, asking for forgiveness.  Many meltdowns with great frustration.  Isn’t God good?  God covers so much more ground than we ever could or would.  He has begun a good work in me and He will continue it.  He has begun a good work in Melvin and He will continue it.  I’m excited for the future, Melvin’s and mine as we walk with God.  He’s a good and kind trainer.  And He doesn’t get impatient.

    If you have this issue, you also can learn patience.  Spend time in His presence, the presence of a patient King and he will make you fruitful in patience.

    Some names are changed to protect the not so innocent.

  • Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches

     Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches is a book for all young mothers.  Living in the trenches with littles is hard work!  Rachel Jankovic, mothering with humour, shows us how to live in Christ.  With 5 children under 5 she speaks from rock hard experience.  Her antidotes will have you laughing, while you rethink your parental training.  This little book is a nuts and bolts story of mothering.  Read these short chapters, while doing your ablutions. : ))

    In Chapter 4 she is talking to parents:  About us getting a fruit of the spirit speed quiz.  Little tests for patience, for our peace, for our kindness.  They are easy Christian living challenges brought to us daily by our children, and the allotted time is our waking hours.   Sometimes sporadically through the night.  Day after day…. and we begin to get it, we get new problems, harder ones.  So what’s our attitude.  And what is our children’s attitude? They may have gained a victory over one thing only to find us upset about the next!  “It is not as though our children are going to emerge from their current problems into perfect holiness if only we give them enough swats.  They are going to emerge from one set of problems into the next, and that is good.”

    In Chapter 5 she talks about little girls and training them to deal with their emotions.  “We tell our girls that their feelings are like horses.  Beautiful, spirited horses.  But they are the riders.  We tell them that God gave them this horse when they were born and they will ride it their whole life.  God also sets us on a path on the top of a mountain together and told us to follow it.  We can see for a long way–there are beautiful flowers, lakes, trees and rainbows. (we are little girls after all!)  This is how we  “walk in the light as He is in the light, and have fellowship with one another.”  (1 Jn 1:7)   Our emotions act up and the horse begins to bolt we rein them in and get back on the path.”  If we see one of our siblings off the path we help get them back on.  this is beautiful, training small children to deal with sin issues that overwhelm us in adulthood, because we aren’t taught to rein our horses in.

    I couldn’t resist Chapter 6 because it again speaks directly to parents : ))  The chapter is on fruit bearing.  As a young person Rachel laid in bed at night and heard the apples dropping to the ground.  Not a few, but continually dropping, during the night. “God does not tell us to necessarily be strategic with our fruit.  We do not need to know what will happen to the fruit.  Will someone check on it every day?  Harvest the best to make a pie?  Or will there be a junior high kid sweating around among the yellow jackets trying to pick it all up–wishing that we were not quite so bountiful?”  She asks if we hold ourselves back from doing things afraid to fail or afraid that it won’t measure up to our standards?  All we need do is be fruitful, we don’t need to assess the outcome.  Mothering is giving all and then some!

    A snippet from chapter 9:  When there are 4 children with individual issues, and you discipline an individual for a collective situation, you are alienating that child, without dealing with your own issues or the issues of the others.  Such good stuff!

    I wish I had seen Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches when I was young, when I was mothering littles, and later when I was extremely overwhelmed. Such a treasure of wisdom and discernment. Truly a book about heart issues in our children and ourselves. This small book is not a complete parenting guide.  I don’t agree with everything written, but this book is well worth the cost and your time to read. Chapter 20 mentions a scripture in Ecclesiastes 5:19:   “Everyone to whom God has given wealth, and possessions, and the power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil–this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart” Let our hearts be filled with joy as we toil in the day to day, oft times menial labor of our children.  We will not remember most of the labor of planting, when the harvest comes.

    Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches

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  • Does a Mother Graduate?


    I am a mother.  My son, James, is graduating  and I am bawling. :/  How hard being a mother seems to me this day.  Did I believe he would stay little? What, in me, kept the days stationary while the years have sped by?    For a short while I had time to mold character, to turn a small heart to Jesus.  And then it’s done….I’m not finished being a mother.  I’m done training.

    “Father you are big enough to take up where I leave off.  Furthermore, Father, you bring healing, where I have wounded.  Heal his soul where I have damaged.  Harsh words spoken in his ears.  Fill the gaps Father,   where I have failed to teach from lack of knowledge and pressures of life.   Shore up the good work begun.   Please forgive me for my sins, duplicated in his life, forgive me for the damages I’ve created.  I choose to   forgive myself and let go of failures.  Bless him as he changes direction and begins a more independent life.   Give him wisdom and discernment.  Fill him with your Holy Spirit.  Make him mighty in spirit.  Thank you   Father for your forgiveness.  Your strength to guide him and train him.”

     James, as a mother I see how smart you are.   You think, full of ideas and plans.  With strength to see your plans through to the finish.  Your discernment with people amazes me.  To see more than they show and understand their pain.  Your ability to zero in on real issues in lives.   I love your sense of humour.  Thank you for making me laugh.  My endorphins are seriously excercised with you around.  You bless others because of your tender heart toward them.  Your wisdom and strength to see the pain in people and be willing to make a difference in their lives.

     “Father I know there are gaps, character unfinished, sin unresolved.  I know, in your hands, he will grow        faster and healthier than I could ever grow him. : )  As a baby I gave him to you.  I want him to be yours.          Thank you so much for the blessings you have given us with him.”