Buff my Heart

Do you know what I love and hate at the same time? A pedicure. Seriously – I love walking in, knowing that I’m about to get pampered…making the difficult choice between cherry red or pretty purple…settling into the comfy chair, just moments away from a back massage. Then what I despise comes into play: my feet being touched. I know it’s the most ironic situation but I can’t help it! I do not respond well to fingers connecting with my feet. BUT for the sake of sandals, I persevere. The worst part of the experience (but most necessary after a winter of socks and boots) is getting the gross callouses of my heels buffed. As agonizing as having someone rub a rough sponge on my heels while gripping my feet is, I do it because I like to slip my feet between my husbands for warmth at night, and let me tell you, they better be as soft as a baby’s bottom.

Anyway… moving on…

“And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart” (Ezekiel 36:26 NLT)

The Bible talks about our heart as being the source of our entire life (Proverbs 4:23) and especially as women we know this is true. When we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, He took out the heart of stone (the heart that was hard and bitter towards the things of God) and He replaced it with a heart of flesh (a heart that is soft and responsive to Him and the voice of the Holy Spirit).

Our goal is to guard this soft heart so that nothing can harden it.

This is a tough thing. Especially as women, because we are so much softer when it comes to hurts, pains and rejections. When others hurt, we hurt. When other hurt us, we hurt even more.

So let’s bring this back to the joy of pedicures. Just like our feet, I am learning that we have to buff our hearts. See things happen; some that we can control and some that we can’t, some come out of nowhere and some are disappointments due to unfulfilled expectations. Regardless of the situation, we have to work extra hard to keep our hearts soft, because over time they can become full of hard, rigid and stubborn callouses.

So what do we do? We grab our hearts and we buff away immediately when something threatens to harden it. Our sponge is the truth of God’s Word and the sweet ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Really, we need to be more focused on the callouses of our hearts then the callouses of our heels. Just like scary looking feet ruin the cutest pair of summer shoes – a hurt and offended heart ruins the sweet, nurturing character of a woman.

We can do it, we can guard our hearts by taking everything to God in prayer, bringing it into line with the Word and honestly, crying out and asking the Holy Spirit desperately for His help – which never fails to arrive. We need only to listen.

“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” (Proverbs 4:23 NLT)

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Worry about YOU

[You are hearing from my hubby today – yay! One of my favorite things about him is his teachable & humble spirit – so I was really excited when I found this post waiting on my desktop. Plus, he’s a great writer… so ENJOY!]

It’s not me.. it’s her!

Let me know if I am the only one that goes through this, but I have a feeling we may have some common ground. I am freshly married as of December 4^th, 2015. Many of you know when you first are married you find yourself in some funny situations. I’ll share an example to enlighten you to what I am speaking about:

Jade and I are both VERY strong willed people (I’m sure you see where this is going). Today we were in the house we are temporarily staying in, which is right next to Jade’s parent’s house. She had forgotten her contact lenses across the street and asked me to go and get them for her. As the loving, caring, awesome husband I am, I said no problem while I half listened to the instructions on where they were located. When I say half listened.. I actually only heard her say they were in the bathroom and that’s about it.

So, I heroically run to her parent’s house and browse through her bathroom finding 2 packs of contact lenses and grabbed one of them thinking the 2^nd pair were extras. I get back from what I think is a successful trip (hoping that it would get me brownie points for later) to an extremely frustrated wife. She expressed her frustration to me and told me I don’t listen and a few other statements, which really just made me irritated. Now, myself being so “obedient” I walked back to her parent’s house, but I carried something with me while I walked. I was thinking about how rude she was to me and how ungrateful I thought she was in that moment. I started thinking about all of the mistakes she made during our little “episode” and when I returned… I was mad! When I got back to her, she made a comment that was in a joking fashion and I REACTED. I told her exactly what she did wrong and all of those previous thoughts became words, words that hurt.

I went from being innocently mistaken to guilty.

The Bible says in Romans 12:17 “Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable.” Not saying that my wife is evil in the least bit (she’s actually the most loving and caring person I’ve met), but often times we have an eye for an eye method! We need to not live our lives comparing ourselves to what others do and say, but we need to focus on ourselves. Jade and I always joke around saying, “hurt people, hurt people!”- it’s an inside joke for us, but it is so true. As a follower of Jesus Christ we need to align ourselves with what Jesus tell us to do. He tells us to love our neighbor and in my case He tells us to love our wives as Christ loves the church. There is certainly a standard set and it is our goal to rise to that standard and live an honorable life.

I will leave you with this. I pray the next time we find ourselves in a situation where we have every reason to respond with evil or bitterness we do not. We will allow the Word of God to renew our mind so we have the character of God. Also, that we will be obedient to the Holy Spirit and respond with the love of Christ. We will be judged on our actions not the other persons…

SO WORRY ABOUT YOU!

[Amen. Well let me just add that he actually tossed my contacts right past me and onto our bed…just saying LOL 😉 ) But I love the man & I love what he is saying. The most important part is that it applies to all relationships we have – from our spouse, to our friends, to even the random person serving us at a counter in the mall. How people treat us is up to them – but how we respond (or quickly react) is up to us. Whether in thought, word or action, we can go from the innocent receiver, to the guilty party. It’s so hard to only worry bout yourself when others have such a great effect on you…but at the end of the day, Jesus is going to be looking at me.]

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The Power-Struggle

When Chad & I began our relationship – everything was new and exciting, we were getting to know each other and enjoying every moment of it. But when Chad moved to South Africa, a major element of our relationship became a struggle – a power-struggle to be exact.

He was in my territory – with my family, at my home church…I had the “power.”

This however, would not have been such an issue if I wasn’t harboring a fear on the inside of me – the fear of losing power.

See, I really didn’t know how I felt about marrying a man in the ministry – I mean, I knew I wanted to and it was God’s plan – but I still didn’t know how I really felt about it. Would that make me “just” a Pastors wife? Would I lose my voice? Would I just be expected to cook, clean, smile and wave??

All these fears

I knew God had given me a voice, a conviction and a message. I knew I had attended Bible School for such a time as this – to bring change to my generation.

I was not prepared to let a man take this away from me.

What a MESSED UP mindset! But can you really blame me? After all, society has a knack for teaching young women today to stand up strong, to fight for their rights and to desire independent accomplishments.

But here’s the problem (and I thank God for His Holy Spirit on the inside of me):

WE ARE FIGHTING FOR A POWER THAT WE NEVER LOST.

“Wives, be subject [d]to your own husbands, as [a service] to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as Christ is head of the church, Himself being the Savior of the body. 24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives should be subject to their husbands in everything [respecting both their position as protector and their responsibility to God as head of the house].25 Husbands, love your wives [seek the highest good for her and surround her with a caring, unselfish love], just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify the church, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word [of God], 27 so that [in turn] He might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy [set apart for God] and blameless. 28 Even so husbands should and are morally obligated to love their own wives as [being in a sense] their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own body, but [instead] he nourishes and protects and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members (parts) of His body. 31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined [and be faithfully devoted] to his wife, and the two shall become [e]one flesh. 32 This mystery [of two becoming one] is great; but I am speaking with reference to [the relationship of] Christ and the church. 33 However, each man among you [without exception] is to love his wife as his very own self [with behavior worthy of respect and esteem, always seeking the best for her with an attitude of lovingkindness], and the wife [must see to it] that she respects and delights in her husband [that she notices him and prefers him and treats him with loving concern, treasuring him, honoring him, and holding him dear].” (Ephesians 5:22-33 AMP)

We find our power in:

1 – Our submission to God’s Word first

2 – To our husbands authority second

“Now the Lord God said, “It is not good (beneficial) for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper [one who balances him—a counterpart who is] [a]suitable and complementary for him.” (Genesis 2:18 AMP)

Do you see that precious woman? They need us! We are vital to their life. God is a God of order, He created the husband to be the head for our benefit and our protection.

The world tells us that we don’t “need” a man, but the TRUTH says that it is “GOOD” for us to be together. We need to shift our beliefs from being society-focused to being Kingdom-focused.

Society has also taken submission and made it to look like slavery. But God – who is in fact the very Author of the word – created submission to look like the Church with respect to Christ.

We are made for partnership and this partnership was created by God in order for us to fulfill His original mandate of mankind found in Genesis 1:28 of:

• Have dominion
• Be fruitful
• Multiply

It doesn’t have to be a power-struggle when it was made to be a partnership. I am learning even though we are 3 weeks away from being married, that when I choose to be obedient to God’s Word by beginning to submit to Chad, I will be exalted – there will always be opportunities for God to use me & for me to do what I love!

You are powerful, and you don’t have to be alone to prove it!

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Quit stepping on my Toes

Recently Chad and I have started attending ballroom dance lessons. The reason is simply that my mom made the following very clear, “I will not be paying for a wedding where everyone comes and watches you sway.” – so, hello ballroom dance lessons.

Needless to say, Chad despises dancing so for him to be sent to learn how to do the “two-step” was like asking for him to have teeth pulled – painful. BUT, the man loves me (and values his life) so we had our first lesson.

It was a disaster. It felt rigid, awkward and nothing like I had fantasized it would be like in my head. The part that got me was the fact that the giant big-foot otherwise known as my fiancé, kept stepping on my toes! I got so frustrated and instead of having grace and accepting the fact that this was our first time – I got more and more angry and eventually told Chad to “go sit in the car” – sadly, this is real life people. But God, with the major sense of humor He has – used this as an opportunity to teach me a valuable lesson and gave me an opportunity to change my perspective.

The fact of the matter is – Chad was not stepping on my toes on purpose. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, upset me or even stop me from dancing. Yet my reaction gave the idea that he was “out to get me.” Isn’t this so true in life? We often tend to be so touchy that the smallest action of an individual towards us, whether intentional or not, can set us off onto a war-path. We can be so sensitive that people feel like they need to tiptoe around us. This isn’t right nor is it what God requires of us.

James 3:16 – “For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.” (NKJV)

Self-seeking can also be translated from its Greek word to mean: rivalry or a feud. Also very commonly known as strife, which is arguing, quarrelling or fighting.When we let these things take up root in our hearts – they become who we are and our first reaction to a situation. But the Bible also says in this passage of Scripture – that the above are not from heavenly wisdom, but from earthy, sensual and devilish wisdom.

People are people, they are going to frustrate us, disappoint us and even make us mad – but how we respond to them determines who we are and what is on the inside of us. Strife happens when we respond to a situation negatively. We have to make the decision to not be a contributor of strife – and instead, work on being patient as love is, and forgive. People are going to step on our toes – its inevitable, but I am sure that there are many times we have unintentionally stepped on someone else’s toes – may we have the grace to forgive them just as they forgave us.

“A person who cannot forgive is a person who has forgotten what He has been forgiven of.” – John Bevere