prayer

Note To Self

Amanda Graham Joyful Home, Spiritual , , , , , Leave a comment

Ugh!  Another day gone by I have seemingly accomplished nothing.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me these days but I just can’t seem to pull it together.  I’m not on top of things, I just can’t get caught up, and I’ve been having a hard time remembering.  The more I think that I’m going to get everything organized and put purpose to my actions, the more I find myself spinning my wheels.  But enough is enough!  It’s time to shift gears and get some traction.  So here are some thoughts, reminders of what I already know, but will hopefully get me refocused.

1.  Go to bed on time.  I can’t function without enough sleep – PERIOD.

2.  Start my day with prayer.  There is no other way.

3.  Prioritize my tasks.  At the end of the day what has to be accomplished, and what can wait?

4.  Reevaluate my goals and reorganize my schedule.  Am I spending my time working towards the right things?

5.  Stop and pray.  Never let too much time pass without prayer.

6.  Remember that people are more important that things.  The kids should always come before the laundry.

7.  Am I having fun?  Seems childish, but it’s always a relevant need for everyone.

8.  Pray again.  Gotta stay on track.

9.  Let my motivation be love, and only love.

10.  Pray, pray, and pray some more.

And now I believe it is time for me to pray.

On the way to a better me

Amanda Graham Joyful Heart, Spiritual , , , Leave a comment

Sometimes it’s easy to forget why we have chosen the path that we’re walking down, especially when we hear of other’s success and we consider what we could be doing, or when life’s frustrations seem to usurp our daily activities.  And how easy it is to compare what we have with what our friends have, even when circumstances are totally different.  Why is it so easy to do, and without us even realizing we’re doing it?  At Morning Watch this past week, I felt the Lord reminding me that our thoughts are not His thoughts; His thoughts are higher than ours.  And when we compare our lives, and our children, and our husbands and wives to something else, we are seeing things distorted, and with an unGodly perspective.  We have to learn to see things the way God does, without looking through the scope of envy and discontentment.  He has a unique and perfect plan for each of us individually, and to let our hearts be lured by anything else is unsafe and unwise.

God, thank you for the family you’ve blessed me with.  Thank you for the joy and the companionship they bring me.  Help me not to get bogged down with all the little frustrations that come along with raising 3 small children.  Help me to see my children as you see them, in the way that you created them uniquely and individually glorious.  Help me to see them as wonderful even when they aren’t getting along, and when they aren’t obeying, and even when they just can’t seem to be potty-trained.  Help me to not be distracted by what I see in other children.  Keep me focused on the children you have given me, and the plan for their lives.  And use every frustration that rises up in me to create a more patient and compassionate mommy.  And God, help me to never take for granted the husband you have given me…my companion, my support, my best friend.  Help me, even in the midst of those nerve-racking habbits, to see him as the one you have designed for me.  Take every expectation that has been built up in my mind that is not from You and cast it down.  Take every annoyance and use it to make me into a more patient and supportive wife.  And Father, when I start to feel overwhelmed with everything, remind me that these “momentary light afflictions” are working something bigger in me, and I am on my way to a better me.

Morning Watch

Amanda Graham Joyful Heart, Spiritual , , Leave a comment

I want to share about Morning Watch and the joy it is to me.  Morning Watch is prophetic worship and prayer every Wednesday morning from 7-8 at our church.  Yes…prayer that early in the morning.  And it’s at the perfect time – right in the middle of the week, the perfect pick-me-up time.  I have attended Morning Watch in the past, occasionally, but was never able to make a regular practice of it.  However, at the beginning of the year, the Lord began to grace me with a renewed fervor for the first things (Revelation 2:5, Matthew 22:37-38), and early one Wednesday morning, after getting Justice settled back in his bed, I decided not to go back to bed, but to go to prayer instead.

I started that Wednesday morning praying for some things that were on my mind, but right in the middle of all my asking and seeking and knocking, I felt compelled to just stop, and kneel before the Lord.  And as I bowed down and laid my face on the floor, I heard Jesus say, “There you are.”  I was immediately taken back to the time we had our first ultrasound of our first baby.  I was staring at that little monitor, straining to make something out the images and, all of a sudden, he moved and peeked his little face out at us.  My breath caught in my chest as I said, “There you are!”  Jesus responded to me the same way I responded  to seeing my baby for the first time, reminding me of the way He feels when we turn our face to Him.  It had been such a long time since I had just placed myself at Jesus’s feet that I had forgotten.  But there, laying on the floor of our church, I remembered how it feels to hear Him call my name, how good it feels to just sit and cry in His presence.  As I left the church that morning and headed back home I thought, “This is going to be good.”   

I can’t express how much I look forward to Wednesday mornings now.  It is not a duty or a burden, but a joy.  It is such a sweet time when I feel the Lord so near.  “The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.”  ~Psalm 145:18  The Lord has begun to stir my affections for Him again, and I have returned to the things I use to do.