Overwhelmed with Emotion

If there is one thing I know about being a woman, its that I get easily overwhelmed with emotion! Somedays I feel like I am falling apart on the inside and my skin is all that is holding my body together. I want to cry, laugh, scream and smile all at the same time. If I had it my way today I would melt into a pool of tears on the floor. Somedays I somehow manage to hold myself together long enough for my husband to walk through the door and then I melt. After many tears are shed and I gather my composure I begin to explain the events of the day and what has led up to this melttdown. As I continue on something inside of me feels somewhat embarassed that I was upset at all. I begin to look at my day and realize it actually wasnt that bad, yet the strong emotions that I felt caused everything to be augmented 100 fold. I again realize the power of my emotion. It can literally dictate my day if I allow it to. Today is one of those days except I have begun to catch the overwhelming feelings before they get the better of me. The Lord showed me this amazing verse and I am certain that it will be one that carries me many days through, it goes like this; “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love.” Psalm 103:8 Somehow when I read that my God is full of grace and compassion, that He isnt easily angered and that He is full of love…I feel peace and I can take a deep breath knowing that He is not up in heaven completely disappointed in me. I feel like I disappoint myself enough and the feeling of having GOD upset with me as well is completely overwhelming. As a mom I need a cheering sqad, I wish I had my own cheerleaders in my corner shouting “you’re gonna make it”, “you can do it”, hang in there”. As I woman and especially as a mother I know that emotion is my middle name. I feel like I can experience 10 different heightened emotions within a 30 minute span. Life is so full of drama when you involve children and it can be really difficult. Add on the sleep deprivation lack of adult interaction and WOW its not always pretty! I am sure that many of you can relate. So let me point you in the direction of the one who gave you emotion and allow him to help you through.

In closing today I want to speak over you what the Lord said to me today, I believe it is for us all; “My child, I AM gracious and compassionate, I am slow to anger, I AM love and I long to satify your desires with good things so that your strength is renewed. Do not allow your emotions and feelings to get the better of you, know that I am your biggest fan and in my books you are a success, no matter how you feel. You are an amazing woman, wife and mother, I am so proud of you and no emotion that you feel can ever change that.

Sweet Potato Salad with Avacado, Apple and Corn

 
2 or 3 Sweet Potatoes
1 cup frozen corn
1 large apple
1 ripe avacado
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/4 cup lime juice
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
pinch of sea salt
1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds

Cut up  sweet potatoes into cubes. Bring to a boil and cook for 3 mins or just until tender, add the corn and let boil 2 minutes longer drain and let cool. During the cooling time toast the pumpkin seeds until they “pop” in the skillet. Add cubes apple, lime juice, cilantro, olive oil, and salt. Mix together and sprinkle on the pumpkin seeds just before serving. This is an easy and filling reciepe, you can make it in the morning and store in the fridge until supper! You can also serve this over spinach leaves. This reciepe is full of flavor and nutrients, there is protein from the avacado and pumpkin seeds as well as essential fatty acids. It is one of our family’s favorite!

Healthy Oatmeal Pancakes

In a bowl mix 1 cup of oats (quick or whole) with approximately 1 1/2 cups of rick milk, let sit for 5 minutes. In a seperate bowl mix 1tbsp of extra virgin olive oil with egg replacer, equivalent of 2 eggs (it equates to 2tsp of egg replacer + 4tbsp of water. Beat until frothy. Mix in 1/2 cup of whole wheat all purpose baking flour, 1tsp of baking poweder, 1tbsp granulated maple sugar, and 1/4 tsp of sea salt. Once this is all mixed together mix in the oatmeal and rick milk mixture. Spray the pan with extra virgin olive oil and begin to make the pancake, usually take about 2 minutes to cook on either side. Serve immediately with pure maple syrup or fresh fruit. These are also amazing as leftovers, simply pop them in the toaster and eat!!

The days are long…but the years are short!

Today will mark the third year of my son Judah’s life. I still cannot believe that it has been three years since he made his way into this world. It was an extravagent birth, I can remember it like it was yesturday. The emotions flood my mind and I can physically feel the intensity, pain, joy and anxiety of the labour. Judah was a 12 hour labour and 2 hours of that was pushing his head out. It was a drug free, very natural birth. As I think back to that day and then look at him tonight as he sleeps my heart cannot define the emotions that well up inside of me. He has lived for 1095 days which have been incredible and joyous for our family and while 1095 days seems long, 3 years seems so short. I am in awe of how he has grown and turned into a little man who wants to be like his father, loves his mommym and protects his baby sister. How did this little life emerge? Was it not just yesturday that he was sleeping in my arms and completely dependent on me for everything? Who put his little personality inside of him? My heart is overwhelmed and I begin to tear up as I think of all the fond memories that he 3 years hold. Things that I will never forget. I can only imagine what it will be like one day when he is turning 20 and I think back to this saying; the days are long…but the years are short. How much more will that mean to us, how is that possible that the days are long but years are short. I feel completely out of touch with time. The one thing I am sure of is that God is in control of time. He is the author of our days and our years. I am thankful for my son. The motherly love that I have towards him can never be expressed in words and I will live my entire life trying to demonstrate that love to him!  Happy Birthday Judah, I am so proud of you and I am so glad that God gave you to me!

All mixed up!

Today I feel as though my thoughts, emotions, and life plans resemble a rubiks cube, that is incomplete! I stand back and examine all of the current events in my life and realize that everything is out of place. My to-do-list continues to grow no matter how many tasks I accomplish, the housework piles up, my personal goals fade away. It seems as though everything that should be organized is not and I cant help but think about how much more is to come in the near future. I am choosing today to solve what I can and be ok with what I cannot complete. There are only 24 hours in a day and there is no point in me trying to do so many things that I loose the joy and contentment that each day has to offer. Because I am slightly OCD when it comes to  having my household in order this is quite difficult for me. I want things to be efficient and organized. I want to maximize my time and energy. However in doing these things often I loose sight of what is most important…people!

Mango Salsa

This is such a yummy and healthy snack, it tastes great with pita chips or any kind of tortilla. Combine one Mango diced and cubed, 1 large tomato seeded and diced, 1/4 cup cilantro minced, 3 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp jalapinos minced (optional) or 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, and 1/4 tsp salt. Let it chill in the fridge for about 15-20 minutes then serve!

Unspeakable Joy

Have you ever had a time in your life when you laughed until you cried. When ever cell in you body was exploding with joy, so much to the point that you could not even move…or breathe…or talk? I hope that all of us have encountered at one time or another these beautiful moments. They are like air in our lungs, or food that we eat, a necessity for life. It is in these times that I am reminded of this concept of unspeakable joy. What does that mean? I heard this song once that talks about God giving us “unspeakable joy” and to be quite honest I never really knew what it meant. So I have set out on a mission to find out the meaning of this phrase. I am not an expert researcher or a theologian. I find it suffice to look into a single book to find the answer to this question…that book is the Bible. To me the best place to find the meaning of joy is from the One who created joy and created us with the ability to experience this emotion. According to the Bible joy is an amazing and powerful emotion. Joy has the ability to make us strong, it lifts us up, makes us laugh, is a demonstration of God himself, is available to all people, anytime, anywhere, and finally can leave us speechless. Interesting? Joy that is unspeakable cannot be fully explained only experienced. And to this I ask if anyone wants some of this joy? I do, I mean in this world that we live in today depression seems to be a staple word in our society. I am a counselor and poeple often come into my office, flop down in the chair like a pile of dirty laundry and tell me how depressed they are. How this world has nothing for them, how people have hurt them and then they ask how I can help them. I often ask when was the last time they had a good laugh? Most cannot even remember, so at the end of the session I send them off and tell them that their homework for next week is to have an encounter with joy, I mean a really good laugh, one that makes their eyes water, their mouth get dry, their belly hurt and that leaves them speechless. The results are life changing! So when was the last time you experienced this unspeakable joy in your life? When was the last time it hurt to breathe because you were laughing to hard? Joy is something that is experienced it bubbles up inside of us and it can be a lifestyle that we choose to live on a daily basis. It isn’t something that happens to us we happen onto it, we choose to have joy even in the midst of our culture that is like a vacuum and literally sucks the life and joy out of us on a moment by moment basis. So today I encourage you choose joy, although it is unspeakable it is absolutely attainable!

From the Inside Looking Out…

Hello…is there any body out there?? Do you ever feel like this…like a fish in a bowl, starring out into the world and wondering if anyone is starring back in? Sometimes I look out and see the business of the world and feel like it would just be easier to live my life here in my own bubble. But then there are times that loneliness overwhelmes me and all I want is to get out of my bowl. While I feel as though it is very comforting to stay in my comfortable and familiar fish bowl it can be very limiting at times and I know that in the grand scheme of life this is NOT what I am meant to do. I need to be out there experiencing life, meeting people, making friends and enjoying the gift of giving and service that are part of my DNA. So what is it that causes us to want to stay in our little bowl all alone? I suppose that fear could play a big part in that, our past experiences that have rendered us hurt and broken. Our identity crisis that inhibits us to venture out into the world and help humanity.

What do you see in the mirror?

When you look in a mirror what do you see? All of us see something. We all stand in front of the mirror and stare into that reflective smooth surface and see something…or someone, don’t we?I was reminded the other day of the importance of how I see myself. My 9 month old daughter Mercy was in the bathroom with me and without my noticing she was starring at me as I applied a soft coat of mascara to my eyelashes. As I watched myself she watched me. I felt like her little eyes were piercing my heart and exposing some of the lies within. I realized that as she watches me she will discover what I believe about myself,by how I interact wit the woman in the mirror. This will give her a framework from which to operate in one day, when she growns up. Like a mime she will study me and slowly and carefully mirror her identity on on mine. I sensed weighty cloak of conviction on my shoulders, it was like a warning, like the feeling you get when a there is a fire drill in school and although you shrug it off the sense that this could be very important one day remains.  So my eyes met with the woman in the mirror and I smiled, mostly so my daughter would see my interaction but deep inside of me I was confronting me fears. I would guess that many of us are cruel than kind to the person we see in the mirror. Each morning we wake up, step into their presence and begin our daily verbal abuse session. We say things like, we are not good enough, tall enough, thin enough, beautiful enough, we discredit our eyes, our hair, our height, our skin, our clothes…we tell ourselves that we are ugly, stupid, fake, annoying, worthless. Does any of that sound familiar to anyone out there? Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? I mean don’t we get enough abuse in a day as it is? Like the world we live in is not cruel enough, we need to add more hurtful words, like the icing on the top of the cake. I am reminded of a book my Sandra Wilson called Hurt People Hurt People. I remember when I was first introduced to this concept of why people hurt others and on the contrary why people love others. We give away what we have recieved. If we have been loved much we love, if we have been hurt we hurt others. So then with that knowledge lets go back and re examine the person in the mirror.  Are you hurting them or loving them? Because, although they may seem like nobody special to you, they are someone, someone that God created, in his very image, and they are valuable in His eyes. We all need to remember that there are little eyes watching us, whether we realize it or not.  There is a generation that is watching, looking with hungry eyes to find those who are true to their identity, who see themselves in the light of eternity. This generation needs our affirmation and love, but how can we give it if we have not recieved it. So here is my challenge. Walk into the bathroom, stare into the mirror, allow your eyes to lock with theirs, smile at that person and say; “the Father says you are beautuiful, and I am choosing to believe that His words are true!”

Fresh out of the Oven…

Have you ever walked into a room and noticed the mouth watering aroma of freshly baked bread?  The smell seems to hang in the air. It is heavenly. When bread comes right out of the oven you can taste the difference. It has unique freshness about it that is not matched by the store bought bread or even the bread that was baked yesturday.  Here’s a thought. What would the bread taste like if it were fresh out of someone elses mouth? Can you picture it? Gross isn’t it? Previously chewed, mixed with saliva and God knows what else, layed out on a platter for you to enjoy. Nasty. Sometimes I feel like this is the case in our lives, in the christian culture. Rather than eating fresh bread out of the oven to choose to chew on regergitated manna. We CHOOSE this each day, when we decide to live our lives based on christian hype or theology rather than fresh bread from the Word of God. We use others ideas of spiritual experiences to satisfy the hunger in our own lives. I do this and now that I am aware of it, I kinda feel sick when I think of it. How many times have you read something in a book that really resonates in your Spirit and as a result you read it over and over. And the next day you read it again, you talk about the idea with a friend and formulate in depth prophetic words and meanings. You do with for weeks and even months until finally it begins to loose its flavour. You begin to question God, wondering why he is taking you into the wilderness, why you cannot feel his presence or his power? And if you are like me, you whine. Feverently seeking God to answer these deep questions of his existance, when all the while  you have been ignoring his Spirit and his FRESH bread which he makes available on demand. I am not saying that it is bad to talk to people about spiritual experiences or prophetic revelation, my concern comes when that is all we are doing. It is exciting and fun when God begins to move and we look ahead to the potential of what he is doing, but we neglect to follow him every step of the way. We take advantage of the outcome and miss out on the best part – THE JOURNEY! I once had a vision where God showed me a woman in labour and I was in the room along with a few other people, watching and experiencing this birth. It was hard and laboursome, I remember feeling like I believed in this baby and I was going to stick it out no matter what. In the end she had the baby, when I held the baby in my arms I heard the Lord speak to me and say that it will be a celebration for many people to see this child but for you and those who laboured with the mother, you joy with be even greater. Do you get it? Can you see the parallel in our walks with God? The joy and even greater satisfaction comes when we larbour with him and go through the journey together. It is not just all about the child or the end result, everyone will enjoy that, but there is a sacredness and an intimacy reserved for relationship that is built during the time this child is coming forth. It is about the journey. The relationships that are cultivated, between God and US. So what will you choose today? Regergitated manna or fresh bread? The choice is ours. The journey is His. The joy is guarenteed. I believe when we begin to consume fresh bread we will exude an aroma so irrisitable, that it will draw all people, regardless of background. We all need to be fed. We are all hungry. And we all know the fresh bread when we smell it!