Strength For Today

May our stomaches be easily filled,

May our hearts be eager to love,

May our bellies be quick to laugh,

May our hands be busy with God's work.

Lord, fill us with Your Word

Fill our hearts with Your love

Fill our bellies with Your laughter
Fill our days with Your purpose.

“The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever— do not abandon the works of your hands.”- Psalm 138:8 (today's daily bible verse, biblegateway.com)


His hands crafted me inside my mother's womb.
He has created a gift in me that I WILL use for His purpose.
I can't be held down by silly lies by the Father of Lies.
I refuse to believe when he tells me I'm not good enough.
So what if I'm not, God has given me the ability to learn, and He'll teach me the right way, and will love me through any snags along the way.

Lord, give me strength to continue in what I do not know, help me to move past the pain of learning about this world that so easily set you aside.  Stay close beside me as I walk through the darkness of selfish men and decisions.
Be the Light on my path.

Help these people reading this post know You love them with an everlasting love and will fight with them and for them.  You are not a god waiting for us to mess up, judging our faults and failures.
You are a God who is with us on the battlefield, standing beside us, in us, and for us.  You are the God who suffers with your children when they lose a parent, go through tragedy, or other hardships this broken world offers.  You are the One who is always praying for us...

"26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." Romans 8:26-27
(read the post on this verse HERE)

Remind us why we do what we do.
 

I love you, blogsphere friends.
Thank you SO much for the encouragement you've given me over the last few weeks.
I hope you receive a little of the encouragement you've shown to others and myself.
Have a GREAT day, family!
Much love!

Write What Hurts

Lately, I've been finding it hard to move past the simple daily tasks:
Brush teeth,
Get kids ready
Work for 10 hours
Get kids home
Softball?
Church?
Bed
Do it again the next day.

But, thank God I'm a Christian, I don't know how the other half of the population survives w/o Christ in their hearts.
I have to confess this:
One morning, I awoke to my dastardly alarm clock.  I shut if off, quite forcefully, and went back to bed.
That's not the bad part...that's the mild part.
I HEARD my Savior calling to me. I literally HEARD Him.
What happened?
I was already lost in sleep.
Yeah...ouch.
Can you imagine the special time we could have had?!


But what did He offer when I woke up alert at six, saddened by my mistake?
Joy.
Yes.  That Joy Unspeakable.
I love my Savior.  If you don't know Him, ask me, but what a JOY!
..."They will soar on wings like eagles"
I was happy to read that.
Despite the energy sapping days I have, I can STILL have joy.
Amazing.
Purely Amazing.

..."but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:30-31

As a runner, I GET the not grow weary part, walk and not faint...if you're in Florida, you'd better have a gallon o' wata waiting at the end of your run!

...but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength...
I just can't get over it.
Praise God He's so...Complete.
I've got joy again.
It's hard to hang on to it...but I just keep repeating those words over and over and over again.  I CAN hope.  I have all the tools I NEED to hope.  the LORD will renew my strength.  Not just sleep, not circumstances, not excitement for things on earth...only God can do it *write* :D

Now, on to the day's post...lol.  It's not long, I promise.  We done had church, so not much more can be said! lol

Not in a million years did I think I could write so passionately again.
I love it.
However, I've been afraid of my work in progress.
Why?
Becuase it's a scary subject.
One that has been battled for years.
In a nutshell, it's about abortion, and in some smaller light, government.

How do you find the courage to write what hurts?

Note:
Check these out.  They're great posts!

http://emergingnotemergency.blogspot.com/
http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/2010/06/risky-gift.html
http://seekerville.blogspot.com/2010/06/courage.html

My 5 Year Old

Hey again!
I can't believe this, but my baby is graduating from Pre-K!
It won't be but a blink, and he'll graduate kindergarten, aaaaand then high school!
(:o(
So, Question:
What's made you realize that life passes by WAAAY too fast?
Share your experiences :)


Thanks for reading.

Crossing Oceans by Gina Holmes (Review)

Crossing Oceans by Gina Holmes

was a heart-wrenching story of a mother with cancer.  In it, Genevive "Jenny" Lucas moves back to her hometown to get her affairs in order.

In the final stages of cancer, Jenny strives to reconcile with her father, set order to her daughter's future and come to grips with her fate.

She does, very gracefully.

Gina Holmes placed me into the worst of my fears.

As a mother of two boys, every line, every feeling, every thought process of this dying mother left me in tears.

She skillfully carried me along for this journey, and placed a holy fire under me to appreciate the life I have with my children and husband.

I've been showing this book to my friends and begging them to experience it. 

Even the cover suggests the mother is holding secrets, and it's heartbreaking to see her innocent child playing in the sand, her world about to crumble.  And that's exactly what happened.  Their world crumbled to pieces, and I watched helplessly through a book-shaped screen.

I felt so strongly for these characters, and went through each harrowing decision Jenny had to make, standing right by her side.

VERY well done, Gina Holmes!

I've recommended it highly!

(This review is done for my own growth and experience as an aspiring author.)

I, She, Which One?

I recently finished my first draft of my first acutal complete manuscript!
There are tons of kinks to work out still. 
But while I'm taking a breather, my new work in progress is...confusing.

I was looking at my new WIP, and was boggled at the long process that lies ahead.
I'm thinking of changing the point of view, and I'm not even past chapter 10! (short chapters)
I've heard that most romances are in 3rd person, which btw, I just read one in first, and LOVED it!

So anyway, it's in third POV, and I find myself having to edit when I pop back into first person POV.

What are your favorite points of view?
Do you have a standard?


Is this how we find our voice?  If so, what's yours?

Balking My Own System

Each morning at 5am, I'm up with the daunting, life-sucking, sleep-deprevating sound of my shrill alarm clock...ugh.
Most of the time, I'm up at the sound of it, trying to shut the annoying thing off before my family hears and yells at me.
But yesterday morning, my husband had to shake me awake.  I still got up to write, but the whole day, I was so d-r-a-i-n-e-d!
So this morning, I went against my own rule!
I changed the alarm time, and went back to bed for another hour.
I took a day off of writing, and I thought I'd feel terrible, but fortunately, I feel refreshed!
Today, I woke up a little sleepy still, but nothing like yesterday!
I feel great today!

Q4u:
What is your schedule?  Have you ever broken your system?  If so, how did you feel about it?

Character Emotion

A few weeks ago, I read a blog about the author getting emotiaonal over their character.

I have to say, I've felt sad at my character's situation, but not until today, my very first ever "nothing but writing" day (I'm on my lunch break lol), have I really experienced my character's emotions.

The first chapter (short backstory) made me cry like a baby!

I was so sad for my character, but thrilled to be feeling such emotion for her!
It was a strange range of emotions! 
But I was very thankful for them.
I've already conencted with my character, I hope it will continue throughout the story, and that she will connect with the readers.

What I did differently than before:
1. character worksheet. 
   -I completed an in depth evaluation sheet of the person: eye color, skills, etc.
2. I have been dwelling on this story for months in the background.
   -A friend of mine came up with the original idea, and we've been tweaking this for quite some time.

I had to share that good news!

What are some milestones you've accomplished in your writing, insignificant or significant?

My connection

I've always looked at writing as an outlet, or even as a connection to human lives everwhere; it's all interwoven, our lives and the written word.

I've seen how God can use the written word to get His message accross, and I'm thrilled when He chooses to use me.

Let me rewind.  Sunday, we had a get together of sorts at a sister church.  People performed songs from our church and from theirs.  I signed "Hold My Heart" by Tenth Avenue North.  WOW!  What an incredible song!  SOOO powerful!  (And really active, it's a fun one.)

Well, each time I sign that song, I am connected to God through it, and although I'm performing the signs in front of people, I mostly feel God speaking through me, but in the background of that, I can sense God and me communicating! (I can't help but think that Tenth Avenue North's prayers have come about as well, having touched people with that song.  God spoke through them, and now their song is speaking through others)

That's incredible to me!

Sure, I want Him to use me, I want people to hear what He wants to say through me, but I've completely been naive to the fact that God can BE WITH ME as He USES ME! 

In my writing, I've always felt as though I communicate through it, and God does the same. But, I've never really grasped the fact that God and ME can have moments together as I write. Just me, and God as He uses my fingers to punch the keys.

This can be another form of worship for me and God.  I'm so excited to write tomorrow morning :D

Can you imagine?!
God speaking through me, and to me with words to you!
Cool, eh?

Let's go on an adventure!  God, me, my characters and you!