Scripture:
I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand and say to you, "Do not fear, I will help you."
Isaiah 41:13
Wow, I have never fully read that verse before. I have just always known and read verses here and there about "do not fear." I like this one, because I like that He says He will take my right hand, and help me." Now that is a great feeling.
Did you know that the word "FEAR", shows up in the bible 365 times? God, really must not want us to fear, for he put it in the bible, one for every day of the year. Check it out
here.
Devotional:
It's okay with God for you to be scared to death. He recognizes our fears and our insecurities. I feel like the Spirit of God sometimes says to me, "You know Misty, I understand that you're not very happy about this. I understand that you may be crying over this. Cry, shake, whatever---but do My will, child. Do My will. I have victory for you."
Discussion:
Okay, so I truly opened my mouth wide, raise eye brows and lean head down on right palm as I read this. God is amazing. He knew exactly the words I needed to read today. I posted a post yesterday, and before I go further, I just want to first say THANK YOU. Thank you all so much for either emailing me or leaving a comment with prayers. It really means a lot to me. It actually feels nice to know that you have people out there really praying for you.
As I said in my post yesterday, I am broken. I have been broken for the last year of my life. No, actually I have been broken for the last 8 years of my life. My life hasn't been a easy road since the year I had my son. It has nothing to with my son, it has everything to do with my choices in life and God tightening up the rope and telling me, I have had enough slack, now it times to limit my own freedom. When I say freedom, I mean, freedom in choices. I don't seem to do a very good job sometimes with the choices I make in my own life.
Just when I thought I was finally getting through the 'storms' of my life, I meet my husband, I get married, have another beautiful baby and start living and planning my life. Notice how I said "my life." That's the problem right there. I got to a place where things were finally looking good for me, I was blessed through amazing people in my life who help me get back on my feet. I was getting stable in my beautiful home. I was working, and traveling. I was feeling so confident. Although, I was appreciative for all my blessings, I have lacked giving God my attention. Why do I always seem to do that? Haven't I learned yet that if I can't find a balance in my good times in life for God, that he is going to continue giving me the dark days because that is when he most gets my attention. Now, I also know that there will be dark days no matter what, and I am learning to say to God, "thank you for these days too, how can I learn from it." But, let me tell you the truth, I am not so brave sometimes or so sincere when I say "thank you for these hard times, how can I learn."
I am broken in my marriage. It has been a full year since Halloween of last year to be exact, that my marriage really started to struggle. We go up, we stay steady and then we fall. We have a very crazy cycle of this that we just can't seem to get ourselves out of. What's really getting scary, is that our make-ups are coming quicker and faster (a good thing), but our down times are getting darker and meaner (almost too painful). Without exposing my relationship too much, or going into too many details, I will just be "transparent" here and let my life sort of be an open book and tell you, that I AM AFRAID (uncertainty). I want to believe where my marriage will end up, but I struggle with my fears and doubts. This is where this devotional comes in and pulls at my heart strings in big ways.
Devotional:
So even though you may be afraid about many things, don't be afraid to allow God to do His work in you, looking into the deepest part of your heart and releasing freedom in your life, teach you how to live in victory.
Discussion:
I feel just by reading that right there, that I have had a years worth of counseling given to me in one paragraph. God knows where I am struggling, what I fear in my marriage and what I really need to work on. So, why do I keep trying to figure it all out on my own? I have many insecurities in my marriage, and I have never been one to be or feel insecure in anyway. So why now, and why in my marriage? I haven't figured that out yet.
Devotional:
God wants to remove all your doubts concerning who brings the victory in your life.
Discussion:
What? Let me go back and read that part again.
"God wants to remove all MY doubts concerning who brings the victory in MY life?"
I feel like a load just lifted off of my back and now I can go to sleep and make-up for all those endless nights of getting no sleep (especially these last 4 nights).
Devotional:
In the same way, no amount of determination will bring us freedom. We learn to be victorious by surrendering our lives completely to the Spirit of God, not by gritting our teeth and try harder.
Pride can lead to captivity. It becomes an obstacle every believer must face on the freedom trail. What will you learn from the down fall of others?
We fear making sacrifices. But the irony is that we also make a lot of sacrifices when we are not living the will of God. How many things have we placed on the altar to Satan's kingdom?
Without Christ, every women has intense insecurities. Unless we find our identity in Him, we Christian women can be just as prone to insecurities about our appearances as unbelievers. To Christ, the most beautiful person on earth is the one making preparation to meet the Groom.
Discussion:
Well, that is like walking into a brick wall and having a brick still fall down on top of your head to give you a double bang to make sure you really heard right and are paying full attention.
I am not really going to put in my thoughts of discussion here....I think this will be more beneficial (and private) if given this part of the discussion with God. (For All of Us!)
I made a joke to a friend last night in an email. I told her that I had slept with another man over the last two nights. Then I continued to explain---- I have been so down right broken, frighten, hurt, disappointed, sad, uncertain, angry, tired, shaky, hungry, lonely, bitter, frustrated, anxious, nervous, worried, stressed, confused, weak.... I crawled in bed with my bible. I clutched it right next to me, I kissed it, I laid my cheek on it and I shed tears on it (HIM). Asking for Him to take the wheel, take control, put His hand over me and give me the peace and the courage I need to get through another night by myself, and lean not on to my own understanding of things going on in my marriage, but to give myself totally and freely to HIM. ( FYI: My husband has not lived home in 5 months now, my daughter is 6 months and 3 weeks old).
Please keep me, my family and my husband in your prayers. I don't want to embarrass him by blogging too much about our personal stuff, but the bible says to not be ashamed. We could seriously use the prayers.
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I hope this devotional touched you in some way and that it had as much power in its words to you as it did for me. I feel like I can walk out of my house tomorrow a more free and confident women.
My friend that I made the joke to about 'sleeping with another man', she sent me some verses to read, and I can't keep them to myself. I want to share them with others that may need to read them tonight also.
Psalm 27:1 "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread?"
Psalm 56:3 "The Lord is for me; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
Psalm 57:1 “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by.
Jeremiah 29:11 “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”
Isaiah 41:10 “…do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.”
Romans 8:24-26 “In hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”
Last night I did exactly that, I didn't pray. I just said "Lord please hear my heart", and I let out a big sigh and fell asleep. And, I had a really good nights sleep.
By the way totally of the subject, but I forgot to post it yesterday. Morgan, my butterfly has not awakened in the middle of the night for her 2:00 AM feeding for an entire week now. I only had to deny her, the 2-AM feeding one time. How lucky am I? She is sleeping through the night, she is taking more regular naps now....AND....and my little Butterfly's bottom right tooth did break through the skin. It's so cute. Just the very tip of it is out, enough that you can see it and feel it's edges.
Yes, yes...I have taken many pictures of it. I will try to put them together and post them sometime tomorrow. Morgan goes to visit her daddy tomorrow, and I have a meeting, a hockey game to attend and some laundry to do. Not to mention my nails that I can't even look at right now. Want to talk about being ashamed, my nails are embarrassing.
Prayer:
Dear Father, I want to just take this time to say THANK YOU. Thank you for the many who have taken the time to actually pray for me, my family and my situation, Lord. What a great feeling that is, knowing that people really do care and the power of prayer is simply that, POWERFUL!
Thank you for this new day, a blessed day it was. Lord, I know you know my fears, my struggles and my insecurities. I pray to you about them, but sometimes I probably don't pray the way I ought to. Lord, I turn over to you all of those things. I don't want to live in fear, the bible demands that we not do that. Lord, I don't want to feel anxious, for you will provide my true needs. I know this, but I allow my heart and mind to take over sometimes, please help me to stay focused on "your plans" in all of this. Lord, only you know what the out come will be in my marriage and my future, no matter how hard I continue to manage it myself or the effort I put into it. YOU are in control. Remind me that I need to let go, and take the "uncertainty" of life and just go down the slide, the slide of Your will, Your plan.
Tonight, I want to give you all of me, the good the bad, and ask that you remove all of these negative emotions from me. Let me walk in confidence and in peace, because I am a women of GODS. You are my God, whom or what shall I fear? Right? I will let my light shine on and on and on..... I believe in You and I believe you can make anything happen. I witnessed I think my first real eye popping miracle when I got to read about little Stellan being born healed and perfectly healthy. A child that was sentenced to death before his birth by a man call a doctor. A Lord that can perform that miracle right before our eyes, is also the same God that loves me, loves my family, loves my husband and loves my marriage. And in return the same Lord, I trust and that I love.
Thank you for your unconditional love.
Amen.
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