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Don’t worry, this isn’t a post on saving trees or holding your breath lest you add to the greenhouse effect.  I’m talking about your more  immediate environment.  Our physical, emotional, and spiritual environments affect us more than we realize.  For example, I used to keep my desk in our living room. Having so many small children it just made sense.  I could use my “command center” without leaving the main living area because we all know what happens when mom steps out of the room for a moment!

When I decided to start writing however, I knew I would never be able to concentrate while in the midst of boisterous family life.  My walk-in closet is finished doing double duty as a nursery, so I moved my desk in there.  I was surprised how great my “writing studio” felt and I am encouraged and comfortable when I sit down at my computer.

Just like our physical environment, our internal emotional environment can affect us.  If we are allowing our negative emotions to rule us, our environment will lack peace.  I want my home to be a place of encouragement and laughter.  I want to smile at my children and give out lots of hugs.  I find when I focus on being grateful for the gifts God has given me it is so much easier to do these things.

Our spiritual environment, our hearts and souls, are the most important environments to change.  When I allow my heart to soften towards God and His best for me, I am transformed.  I am a control freak by nature so for a long time I tried to change my heart and soul on my own.  It never worked.  When I finally surrendered to God’s grace and amazing love, my internal spiritual environment changed.  In some areas it changed so much that I no longer recognized myself!  In other areas it is an ongoing process.  I have to remember to let God refashion my heart after His every day.  I am encouraged to do this when I think of David in the Bible, who even though he is called a man after God’s own heart  spends pages in the Psalms writing of the journey of his own continuing heart transformation.

As we move into the new year I pray that you will feel empowered to change your own environment!

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”  David in Psalm 51:10

For a link on how to create a clutter-free workspace click here!

I know, I know, you’re probably thinking, “New Year’s goals?  I haven’t even cleaned up the last of the wrapping paper from Christmas!”  But bear with me, I’ll be kind.

I have been thinking a lot about goals lately and how people succeed or fail in reaching their goals.  Having a goal is a great thing, however I recently read a quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry that says, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

So how do we go from having a great vision or goal to actually accomplishing it?  I am a huge fan of the one step in front of the other approach.  I recently called this “bridge building” in a conversation I was having.  I was not thinking of a huge bridge like the Golden Gate, but more like a rock path across a waterway that is just a little too deep to wade.  I pictured each step as a rock you place one at a time in front of you, as you move toward your goal on the other side.

The really great thing about doing things a step at a time is the momentum effect.  You may only be making one step at a time, but those steps have a way of adding up until all of a sudden you are much farther along than you even realized.  Take the example of saving up for something you want to purchase.  It may not seem like a lot at first to put one dollar in an envelope, but before you know it, if you keep taking a step at a time, suddenly it is time to go shopping!

I would encourage you in these last few days of the year to allow yourself to dream a little.  What are some goals you would like to achieve this next year?  After you figure out where you want to go, just take the first step.  Congratulations!  You are one step closer to your goal.  Remember, bridges aren’t built in a day, but by continuing to put down one “rock” at a time you can achieve amazing things this year.

I can’t wait to hear about some of your goals and how you plan to reach them this year!

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this.”  Psalm 37:4-5

The day after Thanksgiving.  We are stuffed full of turkey with all the trimmings and pie.  I hope we are filled to the brim with thankfulness as well.  I know I can get so caught up in all the preparations and cooking that I leave little time to actually think about the blessings I am supposed to be celebrating on this holiday.

But today, when all we have to do is warm up some leftovers, I am contemplating what it means to be truly grateful.  This has been a very difficult Fall for a lot of us, so the thought of trying to be thankful can be somewhat hard.  What does it mean when the Bible says to give thanks in all circumstances?  (I Thessalonians 5:18)  When so many of us have lost so much recently, how can we do this?

There’s a little hint in verse 17, it simply says pray continually.  Pour out your heart to God, all the hurts, anger, sadness and disappointments.  As you are honest with God, (and yourself) you make space in your soul by giving your heavy burdens to God.  When you do this, you just might be surprised to find room in your heart for thankfulness.  As you see your loving Heavenly Father gently carrying you, thank Him for it!

Even on the very hardest days, we can usually find at least one thing to be grateful for.  For me sometimes it is something as small as noticing the beautiful Fall colors and saying a simple, “thank you.”  When we give thanks to God, He will give us victory in our lives.  “But thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  I Corinthians 15:57

“Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name.”  I Chronicles 16:8

Check out my post, ‘Best Day Ever’ for more on this topic.

Every now and then we all have pie.  My family think it should go more like, all the time we have every pie.  Our family loves pie and that might be the understatement of the year.  We even have rules about pie.  On Thanksgiving there are to be no fewer than one pie per person.  This includes babies that can’t even eat pie yet.

Thanksgiving morning we start the day off the right way with pumpkin pie for breakfast.  The main pie rule of the house though, is if there is pie sitting on the counter it is fair game, no “saving” pie for later.

I am not humble about my pie baking abilities either.  I make really good pie.  My secret weapon is my great-great-grandmother’s piecrust recipe.  There is no delicate blending of ingredients, you can use this stuff like play-doh and it still comes out amazingly light and flaky.

I know how the piecrust feels.  In the Bible we are compared to clay that the potter uses to make jars and such with, but I think this pie crust example works too.  God uses circumstances in our lives to squish us, mold us, and roll us into perfect shapes to hold all His delicious truths.  I don’t like the shaping part though, it can be uncomfortable and painful!  But when God fills me with His truth and grace it is all worth it.

The best part about pie is eating it of course, but pie always tastes better when we are sharing it with people we care about.  That is God’s goal in shaping and filling us with grace too, for us to share it with other people.  This Thanksgiving my prayer for you dear reader, is that you will allow God to form you into the shape He has designed for you to be, and that the grace He pours into you would overflow to those around you.

“Yet, O Lord, you are our Father.  We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”  Isaiah 64:8

And now for my great-great-grandmother’s piecrust recipe:

Piecrust
4 cups all-purpose flour

1 3/4 cup vegetable shortening

1 Tbs. sugar

2 tsp. salt (I never add the salt, but you might like it with the salt better)

1 Tbs. vinegar

1 egg

1/2 cup water

With a fork, mix together flour, shortening, sugar and salt, (if using.)  In a separate bowl, beat the remaining ingredients.  Combine the two mixtures, stirring with fork, (or squishing with your hands!) until thoroughly combined.  Then mold into four balls.  Chill at least 15 minutes before rolling in desired shape.  Dough can be wrapped in plastic wrap and left in refrigerator up to three days or can be frozen until ready to use.

This was going to be it, this would finally be the week we got on schedule.  All school year it had felt like an uphill climb to stay on track, with one thing or another always happening to derail us.  But not this week.  Sunday evening I set out my clothes for the next day and set my alarm, ready for Monday.  Three hours later I was throwing up.

The stomach flu.  I guess there is never a good time for the flu to show up.  All the same, I was very frustrated, after all I have a schedule to keep!  Yes, you can go ahead and laugh at me now.  Some day I suppose I will cease to be surprised by these “interruptions” life brings, but for now they just serve to emphasize my control-freak nature.

So, instead of getting back on track with homeschooling, piano lessons and the million other things I do every week, I drank tea.  Lots and lots of tea.

But you know what?  The world kept spinning, even without me.  Amazingly my kids kept up on their schoolwork and classes.  My husband made sure the house didn’t fall down, and everyone even got fed.  And me?  Well, after a huge battle with myself I eventually let myself get enough rest to get better.

Every time God allows something like the flu in my life, I learn a little more about His grace for me.  I am not the one holding the world in my hands, I don’t even have to hold it all together.  In his book entitled, Prayer, Forty Days of Practice, my friend Justin McRoberts says, “May the urgency with which I approach my work never become anxiety.  The world is not mine to save.”  Profound truth.

I hope I can get to a place some day where I can truly let go and rest in God’s grace no matter what comes my way.  “Mommmmy!”  Well, I guess my rest, (and this blog) are over!

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”  Luke 12:25

Last week I was talking about getting filled so we can pour back out.  I had been thinking of myself more like a pitcher that gets filled with water, emptied and then filled back up.  Then I was reading one of my favorite devotional books, Oswald Chambers’, “My Utmost For His Highest,” and he had a slightly different take on the idea.  He was describing us more as having rivers flowing out of us coming from our belief in God.  Quoting John 7:38 he said, “He that believes in Me out of him shall flow rivers of living water.”

I love this picture, because it speaks of a continual filling and a continual pouring out.  The river also sounds refreshing, especially this time of year when the hot weather seems to drag on.  Another thing that Oswald Chambers points out is that we cannot spiritually measure the success of this kind of pouring out.  The river that flows from our belief or service may impact someone much farther down, that we never even learn about.  In fact he goes so far as to say, “hundreds of other lives will be continually  refreshed.”  What an exciting way to live!

Sometimes we can get bogged down in the day to day of our lives and think we are not making much of a difference to anyone, but if we are believing God and being faithful to the thing He has put in front of us to do, we could be impacting untold numbers of people.  That is so encouraging.

So the next time I am doing a mundane chore, for the millionth time, I am going to try to believe this truth and receive the sweet spiritual filling that God offers.

“On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive.” John 7:37-39