Day 3 of my Journey Through Ephesians!

S.O.A.P.

Scripture

7In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
8Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
9Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
10That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

Observation

Here's that word grace again. And wow, the "riches" of His grace. I wish I had just a penny worth of God's grace! I like the ESV bible, its says that grace is "lavished upon us in all insight and wisdom" "Lavished: Characterized by or produced with extravagance and profusion" Yup I really do NEED that much grace.... probably more! He definitely is insightful and wise!

Application

To always be seeking God's will because it is His pleasure for me to know it!

Prayer

Lord, show me your will for my life today.

Journey through Ephesians - Day 2

Scripture

Ephesians 1 : 5-6
5Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
6To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.


Observation

God wants us to be His children. So I would surmise that we are not born the children of God, we must be adopted into His family. We can only become His child through Jesus. Grace, thats an interesting word. It seems to have a lot of meanings. The one that struck me as being a simple definition of God's grace was "Favor; mercy; pardon" God is doing me a favor to allow me into His family. I do not deserve to be here and He is merciful to me, a sinner, to pardon my transgressions and love me as a daughter!

Application

I gets the idea that strikes me is that if God can show me this much love and forgiveness then shouldn't I as a Christian (Christ-like) be able to show at least some measure of love and forgiveness to others? I think that today I will practice that on my children (only people around me regularly! haha!) I will try to remind myself that messes can be cleaned, broken things replaced and that they are only just learning! If I am their teacher, what lesson am I teaching today?? Am I showing them God's grace?? Love??

Prayer

Thank you Lord for giving me what I don't deserve! Salvation, my husband, my children, our material possessions....it's all from God!!! My prayer for today is that God will remind me to treat my own flesh and blood with at least some small measure of grace today. That I will show them favor, mercy and pardon today.

I joined an online bible study!

Ok, So today marks the beginning of a 12 week bible study of Ephesians. I'm doing this with Good Morning Girls.

Today, I'm reading Ephesians 1:1-4. They follow the S.O.A.P. method of bible study.

S. scripture
O. observation
A. application
P. pray

S (scripture)

The KJV says...
"1Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

2Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

4According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: "

O (observation)

• Paul considered those at Ephasus to be faithful in Christ Jesus.
  


• Spirtual blessing are what is noteworthy, it doesn't say "who has blessed us with big houses, fancy cars and lots of money"
  


• God wants us to be holy and without blame.

A (application)

• Am I faithful in Christ Jesus? I sure hope so! I doubt I'm as faithful as I should be. I find that in my current situation I'm always doubting if my faith is real because of the standards that I'm not interested in upholding. This is a tough place to be. Belonging to a church that I'm not 100% sure I want to be a part of. I love God and I desperately want to serve Him by raising these children He's given me in a way that displays His love so that maybe one day my children will choose to follow the Lord! I also want to serve Him by following my husband's leading (even if that means attending this church).
  


• I need to stop worrying about the things of this world and remember that my blessings are in heaven. I see that to mean my children. I need to focus on making sure that these sweet little people come to know the Lord so that I will be able to enjoy the blessings of God throughout eternity!


• What does being holy mean? I always go to the webster's 1828 dictionary to define words used in the KJV because it seems to provide a more accurate definition of the word. It says that holy means "Properly, whole, entire or perfect, in a moral sense. Hence, pure in heart, temper or dispositions; free from sin and sinful affections. Applied to the Supreme Being, holy signifies perfectly pure, immaculate and complete in moral character; and man is more or less holy, as his heart is more or less sanctified, or purified from evil dispositions. We call a man holy,when his heart is conformed in some degree to the image of God, and his life is regulated by the divine precepts. Hence, holy is used as nearly synonymous with good, pious, godly" That is intense! I really need to work on lots of that! I really want to try to focus on what God considers sinful. Instead of what church or man thinks. I think sometimes it is so easy to follow man's rules/standards rather than letting God lead us. The things I want to work on in life to make myself holy my temper, I'm not exibiting God's full love towards my children when I'm yelling at them. Blameless is a little more simple "Without fault; innocent; guiltless; not meriting censure" Again, if I want to be blameless before others then I open myself up to a whole gammet of what some people consider to be sinful. I want to focus on being blameless before God. This also applies to how I raise my children and keep my home. I need to focus on teaching the children about God's love for us and caring for the things God has given us. Sometimes I ask my kids to get dressed or help me clean up and I hear them ask "is someone coming over?" Wow, that gets me thinking! Are we doing the things we do to be seen of man?? Shouldn't we put the same effort in for no other reason but that God would have us to take good care of ourselves and our home?

P (pray)

My prayer for this bible study is that God would help me remember that those at Ephesus were faithful. I can learn about how to be faithful by reading this book.

My prayer for today is that God would show me the things in my life that are sinful so that I can repent of my sins. I want to truly know God's will and focus on hearing God's voice speak to me through His word and focus my day on seeking to glorify God in my home and in how I raise my children.

And as always, I'm praying that God will give me peace with our church if this is where I'm meant to be. If its not, I pray that He will guide my husband to lead our family where we should go.

Soul-searching... again

I think I do this every few years. I'm searching. Things that have been happening, have left me with questions about what I believe. I'm questioning everything again. I'm so confused. I can find well-written, expertly researched articles with scriptural evidence to support almost any claim !??? Eek! What DO I belive? I recently read about universalism. They believe that everyone is going to heaven and that there is no such thing as a literal hell. This one has really floored me. Check it out for yourself! I just don't have the time to read everything there is to read but I'm just a little shaken.

My salvation. I think I wrote my testimony on here once. I should read it again. Here's the gist of it as I remember it.

As a child, I attended an evangelical summer bible camp. I was 2 months from my 8th birthday. My counsellor explained that Jesus had died for my sins and that if I said I was sorry for my sins and asked Him to come live in my heart then He would and I would get to go to heaven. Seemed like a good deal, so I did it! I buried my head into my brown sleeping bag, prayed and asked Jesus if He would live in my heart! After that I continued to attend church with my parents and thought of myself as a Christian. It was shortly after this experience that a dark family secret was revealed and my family life was turned upside down. In my teens, influenced by peer pressure I started to participate in worldly pleasures. I think I enjoyed the attention I got from "being bad". I spent more and more time with my school chums, less and less time with my church friends. I still attended church, worked at the bible camp in the summers and felt so close to the Lord during those summers! I prayed and read my bible everyday! Journalled all my devotions and really wanted to serve the Lord. But, I felt like I lived a double life at the time because upon returning to my school friends I returned to my sinful life. When I was 16 I decided that I should get baptized, a class was starting up and I remember thinking that maybe if I made a public declaration of my commitment to God that I would have an easier time resisting temptation. I was wrong. After high school, I moved to the big city and dove headlong into a world of sinful pleasures. I smoked, drank, did drugs and was promiscuous. I felt that I was unlovable because of my wickedness and did not believe that God could love or forgive me for any of the awful things I was doing. I did some things that are so wicked that I rarely speak of them. I felt like scum.

After 5 years of living in the depts of the world and having nothing left, I do mean nothing... spiritually, physically, monetarily, I was a bag of raw emotions. I begged my parents if I could move home. They relunctantly agreed. I met my hubby 3 months later. We became friends very quickly and I thought that maybe he would be a good influence on me because he went to a very conservative church. I was wrong... I was a BAD influence :( We got married 2 years later. Pregnant with our first baby I felt that we needed to find a church. It was the right thing to do. We attended several churches and in the end Aaron was very insistent that we attend his church. I did not want to go. I tried to make the best of things and after going there off and on for 2 years I felt like I needed to be there. I questioned my salvation experience as a child because of the sinful life I led for 5 years as an adult. I actually liked the idea that I was lost when I did all those awful things. Finally, after many times of ignoring the conviction of the Holy Spirit working on me to commit my life to God... I went forward, fell on my knees at the alter and with tears pouring off my face I begged God to save me!

I did not feel an instant relief... I needed time to process. I was invited into the office to talk privately with the Pastor's son. He did not realize what I had just asked God. He slapped his bible open and shut a couple times, announced, "you know what the bible says, you know what you need to do!" I turned to Aaron sitting by my said and asked him "what do you want me to do" he started to cry and said "I want you to get saved" I prayed and told my Lord that I felt tired and I just want him to take the lead in my life. Afterwards I was met with lots of people hugging me and congratulating me. It felt awkward. I wanted to be baptized because I felt that it was the logical next step. Joining the church was part of that step. I loved hearing the preaching and participating in the singing at church whether it was congregational or singing specials, the music and the bible really touched my heart. I slowly over time grew to be comfortable in my church.

In that last year, things have been changing.

This post is getting long. I'll continue tomorrow... or whenever I pull this thingy out again!

To be a baptist, or not to be....

I don't believe...

1. wearing pants is sinful
2. drinking in moderation is prohibited
3. church discipline is necessary or beneficial
4. that God expects me to beat my children with a stick
5. music other than hymns is of the devil

I do believe...
1. I shouldn't dress to "show off"
2. people shouldn't drink to excess
3. we should show forgiveness and let people leave quietly if that is their desire.
4. God wants me to use my position of authority to teach my children
5. music is a form of entertainment, as long as its not DIShonoring God.

I've been studying out some of these topics and I'm obvisouly feeling very conflicted about my current choice of denomination. I will be continuing to pray and seek God's guidance. Ultimately, the church our family attends is my husband's decision.

Conflict

For the record, this "conflict" I speak of was NOT with any member of my family.

Fight or Flight. I'm a little of both I suppose. I try to fight for what I believe in and when I'm left to compromise my values I feel an overwhelming urge to just walk away. My hubby says that I "just want my own way" and I'm sure he's right to some extend. But, I feel like in most things I can easily compromise. I'm fairly easy going and like to think of myself as a people pleaser for the most part but some things matter to me enough to put my foot down and be unmoved.

I may seem ridiculous I suppose. I'm apparantly an odd person for having this conviction. I think that it is only natural to feel this way and a person has to teach themselves to feel otherwise. I have forced myself to see it their way time and time again and finally I just feel like I'm sick of having my beliefs discredited and disrespected without biblical backing. If someone could just show me that I'm actually "wrong" and that the other option is "right" I would happily go along with it... or would I? It seems I just keep finding reasons that prove I'm just a square peg trying to wriggle my way into a round hole?

God knows my heart. He knows I'm true. The things that He's shown me in my life, the things that have happened. Is the place I'm at just a stepping stone in my walk with You Lord??

Lacey Rose

Lacey Rose ~ October 5, 2011 ~ 7:25 am ~ 8 lbs 1 oz ~ solo unassisted homebirth

People always say that every labour and birth is different and I always agreed. There were definite variations between my other 3 births but Lacey’s birth was weird….but still oh so very beautiful and incredibly empowering and faith affirming! It wasn’t really that bad of a birth but I get my head wrapped around ideas and then I can’t think my way out! A wonderful trusted friend and midwife recommended a herbal tincture called “gentle birth” to me. It was a concoction of herbs meant to be taken in the last 5 weeks of pregnancy to help produce and quick and easy labour with less pain. Of course, I tried to tell myself repeatedly that this may not happen but my mind is a powerfully treacherous place! I took the tincture and as promised had an increased amount of Braxton hicks style contractions throughout the 5 weeks leading up to my due date. That date came and went leaving my confidence about my due date (set by me, in accordance to my charting dates) shaken as I went on to be 8 days late. This day I took some more drastic measures and employed some labour promoting activities. The next day I began to see some “show” and got incredibly hopeful. Still more “show” coming on Tuesday (10 days past my EDD) but no contractions yet. Discouraged, I decided to distract myself. I took my 3 children (aged 5.5yrs, 4yrs, and 22 months) to town. My confidence as a mother was restored and I had a fun day as we went to Wal-Mart, Dollarama, McDonald’s and Superstore! All without any major meltdowns, fighting or temper tantrums! (from kids OR mom!) At home while cooking supper I noticed that those cramps I’d been having were a little more intense and coming every 5 mins! This was around 4pm Tuesday. My hubby came home and we ate supper, then went to go vote in our local elections. By 7pm, they were definitely contractions and I was super excited!!! Aaron put the kids to bed around 8 while I jumped into our nice deep jetted bathtub. I stayed there for a couple hours with the pains progressing nicely in intensity and strength coping beautifully mostly by just breathing and enjoying the water. I THOUGHT this was going to go quickly! I was praying and thanking God for His blessings and for helping me cope so well.

Fast forward a few more hours and you will see a much less confident woman with a lot less thankfulness and a lot more pleading in her prayers! I was feeling very exhausted and starting to question myself incredibly! It was around 2am and I was wondering what the hold up was. As far as I could figure, I’d been in active labour for at least 7 hrs and my other kids had all been born after about 8 hrs of active labour! This meant that the tincture was useless and what was worse, it didn’t seem that her arrival was imminent! I had asked Aaron to check me (again, I hated being checked by my midwives, but I really don’t find my husband’s checking uncomfortable in any way) and he felt that I was making progress but couldn’t really judge in centimetres because the bag of water was bulging through my cervix. I begged him to break it! Thinking to other people’s birth stories where this would “speed things along”. Knowing full well that I normally wouldn’t be comfortable intervening in the birth process at all, my sweetie talked me out of my foolish thought. Then I began begging to go to the hospital for an epidural so that I could sleep and heck, while we’re there lets just have a c-section and get her out!!! Aaron sweetly suggested that maybe I was in transition? I laughed at him for his ridiculous thought as it did not feel as though this child was anywhere near exiting my body! Then, my next paranoia hit as I felt for her head… what if she’s transverse?? That’s it! She’s sideways lying across my womb and will NEVER come out! Once again, give Aaron a trophy for somehow convincing me to stay home… yet again. What would I have done without him?

3 am now and suddenly it was like everything just slowed down. I could’ve cried. I thought, my labour has STALLED! Now what do I do? I prayed and prayed through all of this begging God to help me and to deliver this baby. Expressing my great inability to continue on with this labour. My wise and humble husband suggested, “honey, why don’t you try to sleep between the contractions?” So I tried, although I wouldn‘t call it sleep exactly I did stay in bed and rest between contractions. This was when my sweetie fell asleep next to me while rubbing my back. 6am, and I HAD to get up! The contractions were finally full force again and barely a break between them! I felt like squatting. I came to my living room couch to use for support and realized that my body was bearing down a bit. I kept squatting by my couch until my legs were shaking and my body was weak and tingling. It was around 7am, I decided I needed the support of my toilet to continue on with this! As soon as I got on there, I decided to bear down with one of these contractions and my water broke!!! I felt for her head, and sure enough it was just a few inches away! I prayed to God to help me breath between the contractions so as not to injure my abs like I had done with lil Wesley’s birth. But I pushed with all my might during each and every contraction!
Finally, after about half an hour of pushing I delivered my sweet baby girl! She started to make noise right away and was a beautiful shade of pink almost immediately! My bathtub was still warm from my last soak and I jumped in to rinse us both off, yelling for Aaron to wake up (he’s a pretty sound sleeper to have not heard me growling through all that pushing!) Finally, Lacey let out a really solid cry rather than her cute little squawks and he came running in! Excitedly saying “oh good, she’s finally here!” I asked him the time, 7:25am. He quickly sprang into action passing me a receiving blanket and getting me a towel to help me out of the tub. Danielle woke up and started following me around excitedly holding her new sister’s hand! I plunked down on a couple chux pads on the couch and tried to nurse Lacey, her cord was a little short to get her into a comfortable position so I just kept her skin to skin and sent Danielle to find a baby hat. After delivering the placenta, answering all of Jack’s questions about blood and umbilical cords, I cut the cord, dressed her and finally was able to nurse her about 8:30am. Wow, what a labour and what a beautiful girl God gave me!

I must say that I don’t really think this labour would have been that terribly difficult if not for having had my mind thinking “quick and easy labour and delivery” I imagine that herbal tinctures to aid labour may work well for other women but I think the psychological damage of such a promise was absolutely hideous for me! Over all, I was able to continually recommit myself to trusting God throughout this process and delivered a healthy baby girl! Thanks be to God for His many blessings!