A Visual Prayer Experience!

Greetings My Friends:

This past weekend I attended a women’s retreat where I was filled up with the Holy Spirit. Getting time away from the normal day-to-day to be with God and other believers is something I hope all of you have a chance to do this year.

At our retreat I facilitated a workshop on prayer. In this workshop I shared a visual about the throne room of God. I am a visual learner. What I want to share with you now, profoundly impacted my prayer life and how I approach the throne.

I hope you can see what I see. I pray it will forever change your life of prayer: Be blessed, Lynn

Imagine Jesus taking you by the hand. Gently he leads you forward to a door. He opens the door. You peek around Him and realize it is a side entrance at the very foot of the throne. The throne is massive, white marble. Twelve marble steps form a half circle around the base.

Jesus gently leads you to the base of the steps. As you approach the Father’s throne, Jesus is there with you saying something like this: “Father, Lynn is here to speak with You. She isn’t coming on her own merits or righteousness; she is here based on Mine. She is here in my name. I’m sure You remember that I’ve gone between You and Lynn and provided her with access to You. She has a few things to ask you.”

Can’t you just hear the Father say in response, “Of course, I remember her, Son. You’ve made her one of Ours. Because she came through You, Lynn is always welcome here.” He then looks at me and says, “Come boldly to My throne of grace, daughter, and make your requests known.”

Adapted from Getting In God’s Face by Dutch Sheets

Oh, let Jesus bring you boldly before the throne of God. Let God hear your requests. Pray with all of your heart. Our God hears. Our God loves. Our God moves in mighty ways!

Stay tuned for our upcoming series: I am married so why do I feel so alone?

How Do I Cope With the Loneliness?

Next up at Spiritually Unequal Marriage: After some email conversations with a few of you, I feel compelled to run a series of articles about loneliness.

It is hard to believe but unequally yoked spouses feel terribly lonely. I know many of you know of exactly what I speak. I am preparing a series to focus on loneliness issue in marriage and how our Lord will meet us in our loneliness and be our company, our companion, our friend, and our confidant.

I will be attending a retreat this weekend. I hope to start early next week with my resources and prayers at hand to venture down the “lonely road.” It is my genuine and fervent prayer that at the end our journey, you will find you are not alone. You will never feel alone again and you will be empowered to help others on the road behind you.

Be blessed my friends. This week would you pray for this series? Ask God to bless our efforts and our words. Ask the King to bring forth His wisdom and His words of comfort. If you have any suggestions, needs or questions about this subject, please email me. Thank you, Lynn

Thankful Thursday

When our heart is broken. When our spouse does not share your faith. When our world seems locked in endless conflict, can we be thankful? We can, by God's supernatural power, we can!

Lord in spite of my struggles in my mismatched marriage, I can be thankful. You have given me a husband who is a good father, who loves me, who is trying to do the right thing. Thank you Lord, Thank you.

Psalm 118:29
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

Be blessed, Lynn

Jupiter!

I am over at Christian Women Online today. I hope please join me for: Don't Go To Jupiter Without Me!...........“Mom!” my eleven-year-old, daughter drew out the word with heavy pronunciation. It sounded more like Maw-u-m. I looked up at her. She was standing in the kitchen a few feet away, staring straight at me, arms akimbo. “Don’t go to Jupiter without me,” she stated with annoyance in her voice.
Tune in to see what I have to say.......

Be blessed, Lynn

Contributor at:

Kindness

Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Can you think of a time when you were delighted or surprised by another person’s unusual kindness (someone other than your spouse). What did that person do that made the kindness so unusual?

Father, Help me be unusually kind to everyone I see today. Then tomorrow, help be unusually kind, and the day after too. Help me to put on kindness so that it becomes a part of my nature. In Jesus name, Amen

What is Your Number Today?

Today is day 5,514 for me.

At Soul Reflections it was day 13,140 (close estimate). What is your number? Can you see God working in the midst of your number?

Pop over and read Debrand’s post. Then let me know what your number is and how God has answered your prayers though the numbers. Blessings, my friends. Lynn

What Happened to Sunday? The Kids Want to Know.

As a follow up to my last post….

What priorities are your children picking up from the way you are spending your Sundays? Do sports seem more important than relationship? Does the yard appear to be more worthy of attention than they are? Is the day filled with chores? Arguing? All fun and no worship? More is caught than taught – what are your kids catching as the priority on the Sabbath?..... --- Men Are Like Waffles Women Are Like Spaghetti

This is extremely challenging when living in a spiritually mismatched home. I can tell you I spent many a Sunday mornings in tears because of the stress of church. To attend or not to attend? Secretly hoping my husband would join me then crushed when the slug stayed in bed.

Pressuring my daughter to attend or coaxing her or demanding her attendance also accompanied the morning. I would arrive home after a wonderful worship experience and be as mean as a bear.

How do you navigate Sunday? Share your ideas. Be blessed, Lynn

What Happened to Sunday?

Sunday’s sure have changed over the years. What was a complete day of rest for a family is no longer the case. It used to be businesses closed on Sundays. It was a day for family gatherings, big after-church meals, and naps. What traditions did our family have for Sundays when you were growing up? What traditions of activities, or non-activities would you like to incorporate into your Sunday? How would it effect your marriage and your kids?

Lord, help us look at the Sabbath from your point of view, not ours. How do you want us to spend our Sundays? Our desire is to honor you. Amen.

A lesson from the Potter and an email

Yesterday I told you we will spend some time talking about our successes and failures. Today I have a story to tell you. You see, although I have arrived at a wonderful place in my mismatched marriage, I don’t always get it right. I make mistakes. Even mistakes I have written about.

Specifically, I want to share a recent story with you. I am currently the facilitator at 1Peter3Living. This Yahoo group is reading the book Men are Like Waffles and Women are Like Spaghetti. On Wednesday, April 4th I send out this message to our group. Many of you will remember this as follows:

I finished the first chapter of Waffles and Spaghetti and about wet my
pants laughing as I read the questions at the end.

Example: #23 The phrase most often heard when the two of you are alone
in a quiet setting is:
a. "I love you."
b. "I need you."
C. zzzzzzzzzzz

Hysterical

This one is the best!

#22 TURE OR FALSE: The husband often lets his wife answer the
telephone because its usually for her anyway. FALSE: The husband often
lets his wife answer the telephone because, if he doesn't, he may end
up talking to her mother. (I cracked up at this one)

Okay but then I went on to read the first part of chapter two and was
hit smack in the head with a bad habit I didn't know I had. Chapter
two is all about communicating and how we do it all wrong sometimes,
how we must take turns and become (husband and wife) focused listeners.

Page 36: Your husband may say, "I'm intimidated by my boss." Try not
to respond with, "There's no reason for you to be intimidated. You are
bright, intelligent, and talented. Your boss is just threatened by how
good you are. Be brave, honey. It will be all right!" In doing so you
shut him down. Your husband is probably trying to get a conversation
started with you that is bigger than work. It probably has to do with
his lack of confidence or lack of understanding of how competition
works in an adult world. Or he may be contemplating a job change and
is checking to see how accepting you may be of having that
conversation. Or he may be intimidated by you and he is trying to lead
into the conversation by blaming his boss first! Whatever the case may
be, you will never know if you attempt to fix him rather than let him
work the process with your listening help.

Okay, am I alone here? I feel like a complete idiot. I am sure I have
cut my husband off on almost exactly this same conversation. Yikes. I
think I will send him this email and let him know I am sorry and will
not jump in to "save" him from his boss again.

Your thoughts?

Okay, with this message in mind, you should know I emailed this to my husband. I said in my email I am an idiot and interfere with his business decisional all the time and I don’t listen. Sharing and confessing this truth with my husband won me a lot of love points. *smile*

Yesterday, however, my husband began to explain a hiccup in his current assignment. Here is where I jumped in with both feet, mouth flapping and I DID IT AGAIN.

My husband stopped me and said. “I am going to print out that email and waive it in your face.”

I looked at him and started laughing. I felt like an idiot. I said to him, “Man, I even write about this stuff. I know I shouldn’t jump in all over you. I know you can handle every single one of your work problems, but I still can’t stop myself. I will work on it. Keep reminding me. Print that email out to wave it in my face the next time.”

We both laughed. I ran into his arms and we hugged. The story behind this is I learned from reading this book and we both grew from it. Share with your spouse gently and in small doses. Don’t push but share when opportunity is presented. It is amazing how it will change your navigation through marriage difficulties.

I also admit. I am certainly far from perfect. Just clay in the Potters hand. Amen!

Stories of God in our Midst!

Hi my friends. It is so amazing to me God continually supplies me with so many stories to write about. (I must need a lot of work under the Potter's hand.) Just this week two crazy and I mean whacky things happened. The stories are about real people and how God moves in the midst of our lives for His glory! Amen!

Please join me at Christian Women Online for Shake, Shake, Shake. You will not believe this one but it absolutely happened.

Please pop over to Laced With Grace. This story is about a whacky yellow sponge and a mean mom (that’s me).

Blessings my friends. Next up at Spiritually Unequal Marriage I want to talk about what we do right in our unequal marriages and the flip side, it’s okay when we fail. We are human after all. Stay tuned. Lynn