In Chelsea's latest post "What's Got You In Chains?" after being inspired by this passage:
Acts 16:25-34 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he a was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
Go check it out for yourself, there is lots of prayer goin on over there, don't deny yourself of carrying another's burden!
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Usually the first thing that comes up, even if you don't want to write it down is the one you know is true. So immediately, I thought of my bitter heart. My heart that tends to judge, tends to hate, tends to be the ugliest part of me. Being a SAHM doesn't help matters. I spend most of my day cleaning up after my toddler with the internal dialog that reflects that of the utmost lost sheep. It shames me. A few months ago I started working on this, started digging into the dirt, even though I was afraid of the worms and bugs that were about to surface.
My friends, not only did I dig to the bottom of that well, but I found the water!! It was gritty, earthy, and alkaline at first, but after I crawled out, let the water fill up this hole that had trapped me for a lifetime, and let the sediment drift to the bottom...It tasted delicious.
But this well is one that I'll be tending to for a while, so even though the hardest of the work has been done, I still have a little ways to go. While looking for a verse to put on my chalkboard this week, I came across this.
It was a very gentle reminder that my work was still unfinished.
I, like Chelsea want to open up the comment section of this post for comments & prayer requests too. If you need prayer, I want to pray for you & so would the readers of this blog. Feel free to leave them anonymously if you want to get personal. Feel free to leave a comment of encouragement in response to a prayer request if you want to lift someone else up. Please share what God is teaching you or a way that he's answered a prayer lately. Also, feel free to just continue this on Chelsea's blog.
Now, I'm off to try and catch a nap before Lily wakes up ;] Hope your week has started off GREAT!
Mae
1 comment:
Gosh Mae. You give me chills. I can't tell you how many times I've wished we lived in the same city! I am glad that you've carried burdons for me and prayed for me during the last year and I'm glad that we've gotten to get to know each other through fb and skype even if we don't live in the same town. I pray that we continue growing closer and spurring one another on in Christ Jesus.
I was in worship last wednesday at my womans bible study and god was bringing this picture in my head of chains falling off and He kept saying, let them fall, watch them fall, there are more, search your heart! Le them go, watch them fall! And as I let go and continued to worship, i was thinking about my chains and my sin and was agreeing with God to not allow them to bind me anymore (my selfishness, holding onto the past-going back to the past and dwelling on it, being overly critical of my friends and family, being hateful, having gossip on my lips instead of edifying others, being resentful when people dont measure up...dwelling on how broke we are instead of handing it over to God and asking him for a miracle in our finances and being obedient to him with money. Doubting God. the list goes on.) Anyway. It was like a ton of bricks were lifted off of my shoulders and I got to experience a kind of worship and sweetness with Him that i hadn't in a long time. He is so good and faithful.
Bless you sister. Love you lots. Thank you for praying for me and others. It is an encouragement to me. Just getting this dialog out there to lift one another up is so vital.
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