Friendship and New Blog!

Dear Friends,

Today is the last day we will post on this blog. Our new blog: http://prayingthroughlife.com

is up and running! We are excited for our new journey and grateful for you who read. It truly is our great joy to write. Please hop over to our new spot and join us as we continue to share what we feel God lays on our heart. 

Thanks for walking through the journey with us!

With Gratitude,

Jill and Leeanne

http://prayingthroughlife.com

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1 Samuel 18:1-3 As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father’s house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.

Today is going to be another glorious Carolina day!  I love to get up early and spend time reading and now that Spring is here I love hearing the birds first thing in the morning. The past few weeks I have been thinking about friendship. One of the great things about Facebook is that I have had the joy to reconnect with some old friends. I had 4 roommates my freshman and sophomore year in college - one true roommate and two suite mates. We formed a close bond and were like sisters. All our birthdays were 7 days apart. We were inseparable. Then life begins to unfold our stories and we go in different directions. We have connected again through the marriages, pains of divorce, children, careers, states that separate, and then, initially, uncertain of whether the bond was still intact.

Gratefully, the bond is there and I would say after 23 years, it is stronger. This summer we are having a "reunion" at our friends home in Florida. I cannot wait to hug them all and share the stories of lives together since we walked across that stage.

Then, over Easter, I got to see two sweet friends I literally grew up at my parent's church. These are girls I went to kindergarten with. We embraced and chatted and I ended both conversations with them with an "I love you". Real bonds are there. Even after 25 years. When you have truly walked through life with people - the good and bad - there is a bond. It cannot be removed by human hands. I left church Sunday happy for many reasons. But, it brought back so many amazing memories of people who truly have shaped my life. David and Jonathan in scripture had a bond that could not be broken. It was such a deep affection for each other that only could be given by God himself.

Monday, I was working out at the Y and a friend I don't see often, but have recently reconnected with, came over and we were chatting. We got into a deep conversation about a few things going on in our lives and her words and attentiveness to me blessed me so much. I felt the Lord personally sent her over to talk to me and give me the words I need for that day.

So many different scenarios of friendship- college friendships, friends from birth, a friend walking over giving an encouraging word- all equally extravagant.

I am also in awe of how God brings people into your life that are new friends but exactly what you need for "such a time as this". Whether 30 year friendships or 3 month friendships, they are special. They are beautiful. Sometimes, they get messy. Sometimes they disappoint. Sometimes expectations get out of sorts. Sometimes they must end. But, today, I stand in great awe and wonder of those friends in my life that pour into me. That know me and want to be a part of my life. I am grateful for those friends that check in on me, pray for me, care for me, and don't judge me. They spur me on and build me up and make me laugh. Those are the friendships I cherish today. And in all of them, a thread of grace is woven deeply into the roots of our lives. We all need grace. We all need friends.

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Today we are linking up at: http://holleygerth.com/coffee-for-your-heart-love/

Go check out the site! It is beautiful and encouraging! 

With JOY,

Leeanne

A Different Easter

Deuteronomy 6:7

(NASB)

You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.

This past weekend was so wonderful for our family. We got to spend Easter at my parents home and enjoy some down time. I watched a great "Easter" movie from the 1950's with Rachel and ran around my parents 9 acres with the kids. We picked up sticks, did Easter egg hunts, made mud pies, looked at ants, and just enjoyed one another for a couple of days.

Leading up to Easter (I fully admit) I didn't do a lot of "Easter" things with them. We didn't dye eggs this year or have our Easter egg hunt with neighbors. We didn't color pictures of the tomb, or do fun crafts from Oriental Trading. I saw a beautiful picture on a friends FB post of a stunning stain-glass cross they made and I thought, "how beautiful". I pinned tons from Pinterest but this year it was different. I wasn't too busy to do the crafts, or lack the desire or creativity to do it. I didn't feel envious of others crafts or what they did to celebrate the resurrection. We didn't really do anything but this:  we talked about Easter. We talked about it when we brushed our teeth. We talked about when we ate breakfast. We talked about during devotionals. We talked about on the way to the Y. We talked about on the way home from the Y. We talked about when we ate lunch, dinner, played outside, and when we went to bed. This year, we really, really dove in to what Easter is just by talking about it.

My daughter is a verbal learner and she asked some of the most amazing questions. I was intentional, yes, but I also just shared to joy for Christ with my children because I love Him. I love Christ. I felt it overflowing from my heart to their ears and it brought me great comfort to know they were listening.

So, fellow Moms, take heart!  Some years will look very different from what you think or anticipate it to be. But, sometimes, we just need to listen to that quiet whisper that tells you to do it a little different this time.

Yes, yes, yes, it was the most glorious Easter. Simply, because I thought continuously about Christ.

With JOY,
Leeanne

Easter

Yesterday, I was actually folding laundry (shocker to me too) and thinking about Good Friday. It was around 3pm which is close to the biblical account for when Jesus actually submitted His spirit over and died. I thought to myself how insignificant of a task I am doing right now in comparison to Christ's death on the cross. I wasn't feeling convicted or thought I should run out and proclaim Christ to someone at that very moment but it was a quiet reminder to me how magnificient the cross is. How 2000 years later I can fold laundry and feel this deep sense of gratitude and grief all mixed in one thought. Grief for my sin and grateful for a sin bearer. 

I cannot and will never be able to pay for the penalty of my sin. But Christ did. Once - covered.  Today, I plan to think about what the disciples and those who loved Jesus must have felt like the day after His death. Were they completely drained of all hope?  What about Mary, his Mother? Where would they look for joy?  It is good to think about these things. The sin and shame of the cross is real and I don't want to not think about it this weekend. 

The question I want to ask myself personally today is this - Am I fighting sin in my own life?
Grateful for the cross,
Leeanne

The Crucifixion       33And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means Place of a Skull, 34they gave Him wine to drink mixed with gall; and after tasting it, He was unwilling to drink.       35And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots. 36And sitting down, they began to keep watch over Him there. 37And above His head they put up the charge against Him which read, “THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”       38At that time two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and one on the left. 39And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads 40and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” 41In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him and saying, 42“He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him. 43“HE TRUSTS IN GOD; LET GOD RESCUE Him now, IF HEDELIGHTS IN HIM; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44The robbers who had been crucified with Him were also insulting Him with the same words.       45Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. 46About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” that is, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?” 47And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, “This man is calling for Elijah.” 48Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. 49But the rest of them said, “Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.” 50And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. 51And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. 52The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. 54Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”       55Many women were there looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee while ministering to Him.56Among them was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

The Triumphant Entry

This past Sunday we celebrated Palm Sunday. The irony of Palm Sunday and then Good Friday have always puzzled me. Ironic because one day we celebrate the arrival of the fulfillment of the Messiah and days later we murder Him. It is weighty to grasp the change of the human heart in just a matter of days but in reality my heart is just like that. 

One minute I can praise Him with hands raised and a spirit consumed with joy and then days later completely sin against His holy name. Sometimes it isn't' conscious. Sometimes it is purposeful. 

Our pastor said something on Sunday that has consumed my thoughts this week. He said one day we will stand before God and He will say, "Why did you live in rebellion against my Holy Name"? 

Wow. 

What will I say?  I told my husband that I don't think at that moment, being face to face with the Creator of the Universe, I will be able to formulate all the "good things" I have done.  Lord, "I served at church, I rocked babies in the nursery, I took meals to friends when they were sick, I love my husband and children well.... Lord, I did a lot of great things in your name".

No... I won't be saying that. I don't think I'll even be able to hold my head up and view His holiness. I think I will be bowed on my face before Him and say, "Lord, I'm a sinner covered with the blood of Jesus. That is all I bring you is the blood of Christ". 

I believe that is what will happen. And because of the perfect work of Christ on the cross, I can confidently say that God will look at me and say, "well done".

He will not look at my heart, my sins, my good deeds. He will overlook all of that because I am washed in the blood of Jesus.

That is why I smile this week. It is a weighty week for those who love Jesus. But it is a beautiful story of an unrelenting Savior after His people. 

Washed in the blood.. Cross.. Redeemed... Forgiven... Christ...  Risen... 

That is Easter. Do you know Jesus?  

"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31)

With Great Hope in Him,
Leeanne

 Matthew 21:1-11:

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

“Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”

The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

God's Action or Inaction

This devotional resonated with me today. There are so many things I am praying and waiting on an answer for. The Lord is faithful whether He is silent or speaking. As I was writing in my journal this month, my prayers started with "Dear Lord, please allow this, this, and this, to happen. Please grant us favor with this or this or this"...  After weeks of pouring it out and feeling frustrated I realized my heart needed to change. This week I wrote, "Lord, grant us any and every request if it is for our good. If your plans are different then they are better and we receive them with joy".  This week, my heart has been light and joyful. Not because the answers have come but I know He is faithful to provide exactly what we need.

With joy,
Leeanne


Praying and Waiting
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Habakkuk 2:1

Additional Scripture Readings: Psalm 130:5–7; Lamentations 3:24–26

There are so many ways in which God’s actions or inactions make little sense
to us. We ask him for help, and he is silent. We trust in him to provide, and
he withholds. But is God inconsistent, or is he simply running according to
another time schedule, another set of priorities?

Habakkuk questions God’s plan to use the pagan nation of Babylon to discipline
wayward Israel. He then settles in to wait for God’s answer: “I will stand at
my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will
say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint” (Habakkuk 2:1).
Like a guard who waits through his watch with eyes peeled for a sign of
movement, Habakkuk waited for God.

So must we. We must pray with a willingness to wait and wait with a
willingness to pray. Waiting and praying go together. Like two shoes of a pair
or two halves of a whole, they work as a team. 

NIV Devotions for Moms
Bible Gateway

Joy

James 1:2-4  Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Perspective is everything.  Did you ever stop in the middle of a bad situation and re-frame it to look totally different?  James says to, "Consider it pure joy, " in the midst of a trial.  I can assure you this does not come natural to thank The Lord as some has just stolen your purse and wallet, when the stomach flu is making it's round in your family, when your best friend has just been diagnosed with cancer.  You name the trial.  What are you dealing with today?

This past weekend a lovely virus decided to pay a visit to our home.  And this is a week that my husband is traveling.  Here are two thought patterns:

Thought Pattern #1

- Why does this always happen to me?

- Now I'm not going to be able to get a good night sleep.

- I will have to call in sick to work and make sub plans, which is not fun.

Thought Pattern #2

- Thank you Lord for everyone not having this illness all at the same time.

- Thank you for allowing me to have a day off to spend with my child alone.

- Thank you Lord for choosing me to nurse my children back to health.

Considering any trial pure joy does not come naturally in the flesh.  Notice that all of my thoughts from the first one are all about me.  The second one is about God and others.  A simple acronym that I learned years ago was, If your want pure JOY, put J-esus first, O-thers second and then Y-ourself.  It has proven to be a good motto in my own life.  God has a plan and purpose in all of our trials.

With Joy, Jill

Testimony Part 2

 Part Two of Kim Braddy's testimony! God is faithful!
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 I immediately knew that this was not a healthy pregnancy due to the symptoms that brought me to the Dr in the first place.  A series of tests showed that the pregnancy was no longer viable.  A few days later, I went to the hospital for surgery.  When I woke up, the OB told me that I had been pregnant with twins in one of my fallopian tubes. While I was saddened that they had stopped growing around 6 weeks, had the Lord allowed them to continue to grow, my fallopian tube would have soon ruptured and I could have died.  He told me that they removed my fallopian tube and this would significantly reduce my fertility. 

 A month later, I conceived our last baby.  So much for reduced fertility!! About 10 weeks into this pregnancy I had a lot of bleeding that continued for several weeks and made for a complicated pregnancy where my life and the life of the baby growing inside of me were at risk.  This time, instead of freaking out, I was able to look back at the faithfulness of God in my life and say, "OK God, I am weary of this, but you are good and your plans are good so lets do this, whatever your will may be."  I'm thankful to say she is healthy and happy and our family is doing great.  So how does this story have anything to do with blessings?  I used to sing the song, "Blessed be the name of the Lord" and there is a line in this song that says, "you give and take away, but blessed be your name".

  When life is good, this is so easy to sing.  The question is, can you sing it and mean it in the midst of the storm?  It is by God's grace that I can say yes!!  God was so faithful to walk with me every step of the way.  I was so often comforted by the verse. in Isaiah 43 - "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior."

 God does not ever promise in His Word that I will have it easy in this life but He does promise to walk with me when it isn't!  And what a blessing that is!!!  My hope is in a God who does not change even when my circumstances do. Hebrews 13:8"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever."  That is a blessing!!  I always think about how that probably isn't the worst thing I will go through in my life and how I can look at an uncertain future with joy, hope, and confidence instead of fear.  Because the God of the Bible is faithful!!  This is a blessing to know.  When I look back on this child birthing season of my life, I miss the intimacy I felt to the Lord during those trying times but through these times, He has taught me that total dependence on Him is for my good. 

 It is by God's grace that I am not angry and bitter, but hopeful.  And God continues to use this in my life...

2 Cor 1:3-4 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God."  The Lord continues to allow me to shed tears and share hope with friends who have gone through this same thing and that is a blessing!  So now, when I think of blessings...I don't just think of the obvious things that the Lord has graciously given me but I think about what a blessing it is to know and walk with a faithful, compassionate, loving, unchanging  God who uses all circumstances of this life to shape us and make us more like His Son.  I look forward with great anticipation to the day when I will be with Him for eternity and He introduces me to those 4 sweet babies that we did not get to hold this side of Heaven. 

Testimony Tuesday

We are so blessed to have our friend Kim Braddy share her testimony with us!  You will be blessed by God's faithfulness in her life!

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Blessings

So often when I think of blessings, I think about all the amazing things God has blessed me with:  air to breathe, sunshine, my home, dinner, my sweet kids or my awesome husband.  That's what I use to think about when I thought of blessings.  That was before the sad loss of 4 babies during 3 pregnancies.  After my first daughter was born, I found out I was expecting again less than a year after her birth.  We were so excited to be having another baby and expanding our family and felt so thankful that the Lord allowed us to get pregnant so easily.  I went to my 10 week appointment at the OB and heard the sweet sound of my baby's beating heart!  

I went back a month later for an ultrasound and knew the moment the screen popped up that something was wrong.  There was just no movement at all. The Dr. just stared at me and said they were sorry and asked if I needed a minute.  I was left in the room sobbing with my one year old in the stroller.  All I wanted to do was hold her and cry!  I remember calling my mom and my husband and telling them that our baby had died.  I had so many questions.  The baby was healthy with a strong heart beat just a few weeks earlier.  How could something like this happen?  I am a healthy person and my first pregnancy was perfect.  What could have gone wrong?  Did I do something that caused this to happen?

 As any woman who has dealt with this knows, there are no answers to these questions.  The Dr. explained that with all the things that have to come together just right in a pregnancy, that there is a surprisingly high percentage of the time that something doesn't happen just right and your body's way of dealing with that is for the pregnancy to stop growing.  Of course, this answer is not helpful because it is really not an answer at all.  

They are basically saying they have no idea why this happens but it sometimes just does.  Isaiah 55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts or my ways your ways, declares the Lord.  As the Heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts".  I cried for days and wondered if I would ever again open my eyes in the morning and this not be the first thing I think about. Lamentations 3:22-23 "The Lord's loving kindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness."  Would I ever be able to get pregnant again?  Would this happen again if I did?  

Well, both questions were quickly answered.  I got pregnant just a few months later, only to miscarry once again.  The first time this happened I was so full of sorrow; but this time I was angry.  I had been walking with the Lord for about 5 years at this point in my life and didn't understand how He could let this happen.  It almost felt mean.  Why not just keep me from getting pregnant in the first place?  I was angry and I told God all about it, even though He already knew my heart.  After continuing to wrestle with God about this, I had 2 more healthy, beautiful children a few years later.  However, when my son was almost 3, I once again found myself in the Dr.'s office for some weird symptoms that I was concerned about.  I thought the Dr. was going to tell me that I had an infection, but to my surprise, the Dr. told me I was pregnant.  This was a complete shock!  My husband and I thought we were "done" having kids. 

   Part two tomorrow....