Dead Sea, Dead Me?

The teacher in me just can't help but to give a little history lesson before today's blog, so bear with me ;)

The Dead Sea is located in the Jordan Valley and it is the lowest spot on earth.  In fact it is 1300 feet below sea level, and it is full to overflowing with salt and other minerals.  Actually, that is why it is called the Dead Sea, the minerals that fill it up do not allow the sea to sustain any life.

Do you know why it is so full of salt?  Well, it is the only body of water on the earth that has no outlet.  As you can see on the map above, it is fed by the Jordan River, which empties into it, but there is no outlet for the sea except evaporation.  And if you paid attention in Junior High science class, you will remember that evaporation leaves the minerals behind. 

You cannot, however, tell any of this by just looking at it.  This is a picture of what looks like any other sea or ocean, welcoming and beautiful!

Okay, okay, I am done!  But, I promise God has taught me something in all of this.

Maybe you know someone who reminds you of the Dead Sea.  Someone who is full of minerals (Bible knowledge)but has stopped contributing to the body of Christ long ago.  Someone who has become nothing more than a saturated body of saltiness, who cannot sustain life.  Often times, they look fine from on the outside because it is what is inside them that is bringing death.  It is not until they "spill out" that we realize there is something amiss.  Sadly, I would venture to say that there is at least one or two of this Salty Christians in every church.  May we never be that person! 

Or maybe, someone you know has allowed themselves to become a dumping ground for other people's minerals without finding an outlet?  I think Moms are often guilty of this.  We let our kids, or other people, evaporate all the good from us without refilling or we allow them to dump their junk without finding a healthy release for it?  Can you relate, or is it just me?

If you find yourself in either of these categories, let me remind you (and me) that Jesus came to bring life, not death.  John 10:10 says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."  Let's not allow satan the victory here, lets chose today whom we will serve (Joshua 24:15), but as for me and my house?  We will serve the Lord!

Gotta go, need to dig a trench for that Dead Sea of mine...blessings friend! PS- I have an extra shovel if you need to borrow one! 

I Haven't Had My Jesus Today...

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love my coffee.  People often ask me how I handle all the challenges of being a momma to 7 kids and I always answer, "Coffee!"  I have even considered asking my doctor if there was a way we could start an IV drip of the delicious energy giving drink sometime around 4 am daily.  The only thing that has stopped me from asking is that I could not taste the coffee if it was given intravenously. 

A few summers ago my family and I spent a week camping.  Yes, it was the hottest week of the entire summer. Yes we were TENT camping, and yes we had tornado like winds that nearly carried all of our belongs away.  It was, after all, a Graham vacation!  

When we first arrived it was just the girls and I. We set up camp in the last twinkling minutes of daylight and just did the minimum.  The next morning came, way too early, and we ate a quick breakfast and set out enjoying all the nature around us.  Shortly before lunch time, one of my children looked at me and said, "Mom, you haven't had your coffee yet today have you?" 

Now I am not sure what made him think this, (I was my normal jovial self I am sure) but it must have been bad because he offered to go buy me a cup from the camp store with his own money!  

            I was thinking about this memory lately and it struck me, my kids, and probably others can tell when I haven't had my coffee, but can they tell when I haven't had my Jesus?  I have recently taken up the challenge by my friend and Speaker, Rhea Briscoe.  Her challenge comes out of the passage in Isaiah 50:4-5,

"The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.  He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.  The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away."  

 

After sharing that passage she challenged me to ask the Lord to wake me up every morning to spend time with him.  As a momma of 7, pastor’s wife, ministry leader, and now radio co-host, I really struggle with finding time for my quiet time with Jesus.  So I took Rhea up on her challenge, and do you know what the Lord did?  He woke me up?  No kidding, but me and my stubborn heart needed a bit more convincing.  You see, the first morning He woke me up at 5 am….I said out loud, “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” and then I put the pillow over my head and went back to bed. 

            Morning 2 was not much more successful, again at 5 am the Lord woke me, and this time I tried bargaining with Him, “Lord, do you remember all those kids you gave me?  Well they suck the life out of me and I am too tired to get up this early.”  You know what HE said?  “Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest…” (Matthew 11:28) Just like Him to use scripture!  It is at this point that I would like to say that I got right up but shamefully I did not.  I am so glad that God does not give up on us, even though we are so stubborn. 

Morning 3, I at least managed to get out of bed, but promptly laid on the couch, offered up a few meager prayers and went back to sleep.  But hey by Morning 4, I was starting to realize that God was going to keep waking me up, so maybe He had a plan.  I got up, sat at the kitchen table this time, and had one of the best quiet times I have had in a long, long time.  And you know what?  Not one of my kids woke up until I was finished, or should I say until God was finished? 
            You know what else?  I am certain people saw Jesus in me that day and have in the days that have followed as I walked in obedience to my wake up call.  2 Corinthians 3:17-18 makes this promise,

“¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”  

But, we cannot be transformed into His glory unless we spend time with Him.  I can always tell when my kids have been around certain people, because they begin to talk, and act just like them.  In fact, I have a friend who spent her early years in the south, down in Louisiana.  She came back here to Illinois when she was in grade school, and if you talked to her you might still be able to pick up a bit of her southern speech.  However, when she spends any amount of time down south, she comes back sounding like she never left!  We are a reflection of the people we spend time with.  I want to be a reflection of Christ, so I best be spending time with Him! Beth Moore puts it like this in her Bible study, Breaking Free, “We glorify God to the degree that we externalize the internal presence of the living Christ. A life that glorified God is not something we suddenly attain.”   We cannot show Christ on the outside if we do not have Christ on the inside!  So, as my friend Rhea says, “I hope I look more like Jesus today than I did the last time you saw me."
            As I wrap up, I want to challenge you to spend time with God, get in His word.  I promise He will show up if you do!  Hey, maybe you can even ask Him to wake you up?  Just be careful, because He is a God of His word, so if you ask, He will answer!  And the next time someone asks me how I handle being the momma of all these kids, I am going to say Jesus  instead of coffee!  But hey, maybe they won’t even ask because they will just see Jesus oozing out of me and know that He is the reason!?  Here’s hoping!

Lessons Learned from the Easter Bunny

            Several years ago, God used a real Easter Bunny to teach me a few things.  

            It was the day before Easter and the warm weather allowed us the enjoyment of eating outside(nothing like this year!)  We were doing just that when my oldest spotted the next door neighbor cat carrying something in his mouth.  At first we thought that there were new kittens in the neighborhood, but soon we discovered that it was a wild baby bunny. 

            After chasing the cat away the kids begged my husband to come with them and check on the bunny.  It was badly wounded but still alive and so my husband (the softie) gently bathed the bunny and applied antibiotic medication to its severe wounds.  Later he bottle fed the bunny with a syringe and by evening the bunny was up and moving around a bit.  Throughout the whole ordeal my four children watched with eager expectation and offered several prayers to God for the bunny they now called, “Fighter.”  As we went to bed my husband and I talked about what a great picture of the true meaning of Easter Fighter represented and what a miracle it would be if he survived. 

            Easter morning dawned bright and we rushed through the house getting ready for the Sunrise service at our church.  Suddenly my oldest remember Fighter and rushed to check on him.  With great sadness it was reported to the rest of the family that Fighter had not made it.

            Being persuaded by our children we held a memorial service for Fighter, complete with a song and prayers from all.  Then my husband spoke to the kids and his message was so profound.  He reminded the kids of how much they cared for this bunny the instant they saw him; of how the bunny was lost and alone with no hope for survival until we took mercy on him and chased away his enemy.  He reminisced with them about how concerned they all were for Fighter and how diligent they were in caring for him.  Then he asked them to think of the friends that they each had.  He told them to think specifically about the friends that did not know Jesus. Then he compared those friends to the bunny and asked our kids if they were as concerned for their friends as they had been for the bunny. 

            It sure got me to thinking about how callously I approach the relationships in my life, often with little regard to whether or not the people who cross my path even know Jesus.  In fact if I were to be totally honest, and peel off the pastor's wife mask, I may even have to admit that it is often easier for me to care about, and to pour my heart and soul into a helpless little bunny than it is to deal with some of the people God has put into my life.  I am not saying that the bunny was not significant to God, Luke 12:24 tells us, "Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!"  Luke was telling us that birds (and bunnies) are part of God's creation and He cares for them, but that human beings, you and I, we are much more valuable!
So as you celebrate the sacrifice of Jesus this Easter, I encourage you to view the people God has put in your path as valuable.  Many of them are lost and alone, with no hope for survival.  Lets have mercy on them, love them like Jesus and help them chase the enemy away.  Will you join me? 

Whoa momma, where did these thighs come from?

Several years ago, I had the privilege to teach PE to Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders.  One day while leading my 2nd graders in their morning jumping jacks, a sweet little boy, who happened to be standing right in front of me, said with great innocence, "Mrs. Graham, you sure have a lot of things on you that wiggle." 

Oh my!  You have to love the honesty of youth!  And I promise that from that day forward I did my exercise leading from the sidelines rather than right out front!

I can remember back in high school thinking that I was fat, because I did not look like the girls in the magazines, nor did I look like some of the girls in my school.  My thighs have always been...well way bigger than I would like them to be, but goodness gracious what I would give to go back to my 130 pound high school body!  And now as I am creeping toward 50, it seems to be harder and harder to shed the pounds.  And I am going to bet that when I reach 50, I will look back and wish I was the weight I had been in my 20's and 30's.

Isn't that just like us?  When we have something we are unhappy with it, but when we no longer have it, we are wishing for it.  Always wanting what we cannot have!  The trouble is that often we sit around wishing, rather than taking action.  I want to lose 20 pounds but ask me when I exercised last?  Unless you count chasing toddlers, I would have to tell you it has been 3 weeks.  And let's not even talk about what I ate yesterday!  Right?  So often we spend time hoping for change, and yet we are unwilling to do what is needed to bring about that change.  

I spent some time today on the phone with a friend who is going through a season of change.  She had called because she was lonely and was thinking about not going to church anymore because it is too hard for her to go each week and sit by herself.  Now from the outside looking in, you may be able to see how counterproductive it would be to stop attending church, but she wasn't able to see it.  So I asked some tough questions, "Have you talked to the pastor about how you are feeling?'  "Have you tried to get involved in any groups at the church?"  "Do you go up and talk to people there or do you just go and leave without trying to connect with anyone?"  The questions were tough because it required her to take action rather than just wishing and hoping that someone else would do it.  The hard truth is this, if you want to see change in your life, you have to be willing to MAKE changes in your life.  I once heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  I think that is so true.

So what area of your life would you like to see change in? What are you going to do today to change it?  Here are some action tips that I have found to be helpful:

1. Stop comparing!  You are you, you are not anyone else, so do not expect yourself to be.  When you stand before God, He is only going to ask you about you...not Suzy Skinny down the street, not Holly Homemaker from your church, not Popular Polly...you are you!  
2. Start with just one area at a time, if there are 4 or 5 areas of your life you would like to see changes, prioritize and start making changes in 1 area, otherwise you will be overwhelmed and end up giving up.
3. Set reasonable goals.  I do think we often set ourselves up for failure by setting the goal so high we could never reach it and then giving up because we are discouraged.  So for example, if you want to lose 20 pounds, setting a smaller goal, maybe 2 pounds a week would be reasonable, remember you did not put on the extra weight over a 2 week period so you are not going to lose it in 2 weeks either.  This is why New Year's Resolutions often fail.
4. Find someone to keep you accountable, Ecclesiates 4:12 talks about how a chord of three is not easily broken.  There is strength in numbers!  
5. Make sure the change is really necessary, are your expectations reasonable?  Pray and seek God's face for the areas that He wants to be changed in your life.  For example, we are suppose to take care of our "temple" but God is not honored if we are beautiful on the outside and our insides are as ugly as can be.  
6.  Give your self some grace, change is hard.  Stay in prayer and get your strength from God, surround yourself with encouragers who will cheer you along your journey, and love yourself enough to accept the times you stumble!  

So whether it is your physical body, or your spiritual self that needs some changes...stop wishing and get moving!

Paid In Full

I've got to tell you, sometimes our bills can be really challenging, especially lately because I have exhausted my unemployment benefits.  Now sometimes this causes more than a little stress in our house!  (We are probably the only ones who get stressed about this, right?)  I have often said, "My father owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and I just need a few of them!"  Maybe that is what I will tell the next creditor who calls?  Wouldn't that be fun?!

You know what would be even more awesome than that?  If the next time I ran out to that beat up old mailbox of ours, it was full of bills.....wait, that isn't the fun part, hold on....and then when I got inside and I tore open every envelope and looked at the bill, and on that line that reads, "Amount Due" someone had stamped in big read block letters, PAID IN FULL!  Now that would be totally worth a  happy dance or two!

I just read a story in Parent magazine where a little girl was playing with her mom's smart phone and unbeknownst to her mom, the daughter reserved a family vacation, to the tune of $5000.  Wouldn't it be awesome if the company not only refunded the money to the mom, but also let the family come ahead on the vacation.  If only, if only!  Has anything like that ever happen to you? When you got a bill in the mail that there was no way you could pay?  Or even worse, a bill you weren't even expecting?

It happen to me once.  Well sort of, here is how it played out.  I was going about my everyday business just living life, and all along I was racking up charges that I couldn't pay.  At first I really had no idea, you know like when you go to the hotel and there are these nice bottles of water sitting there and you think, "Oh how nice, they left us bottled water," except when you go to check out, they charge you $4 each for those nice bottles.

Well, it was kind of like that.   I was just doing my thing, basically I was a good person, you know, "Don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, and don't run with boys who do." Well then out of the blue, I am confronted with this huge bill, a bill so gigantic that I could never, ever pay it.  I was certainly in a pickle!

Maybe you have guessed by now that I am not talking about a typical bill, but instead I am talking about sin.  Well once I realized the enormity of this bill, I tried to pay it back little by little, a kind deed here, a helpful hand there, faithful church attendance, but no matter how hard I tried, it was never enough. I would like to argue that it doesn't seem quite fair that I was sinning before I even knew it was wrong, and had I known, I may have made a few different choices along the way, but the reality is, even after I knew the truth, I kept right on racking up those charges.

Lucky for me, and you if you are interested, this story has a happy ending!  One day, I stumbled on Romans 6 verse 23, it starts out like this, "For the wages of sin is death..."  Well that got my attention right quick!  Talk about creditors coming...can you imagine what the repo team would look like here?  I guess that is why death is referred to as the "Grim Reaper!"  Anyway, thankfully, the verse does not end there!  It finishes by making this promise, "BUT the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord!"  Now that is the best news ever!  Not only is my debt cancelled out, but it is PAID IN FULL, and I still get the vacation deal, aka, eternal life!  Gotta go, heading outside to do the happy dance in my front yard, want to join me?!

P.S.~If you haven't already consolidated your debts and you want to know how, please email me or comment below! I can't wait to tell you all about it!
shinewomensministry@yahoo.com

Pity Party, Party of One...

I think we have all been there, drug down by the disappointments of life and discouraged with the way things have turned out.  That is how I was feeling all of last week.  Overwhelmed with responsibilities, discouraged by many failures (namely potty training), and frustrated with the ever slow wheels of justice as we battle for these precious kids that have been placed with us.

I moped around most of Monday, barely accomplishing the minimum that was required.  Tuesday was not much better and by Wednesday it was a full out Pity Party.  If life would have let me, I would have stayed in bed.  But woe is me, these kids demanded my time and attention!  By Wednesday night, when the rest of my family was heading out to church, and I was staying home with tired little ones, I was well on my way to becoming Eeyore.  You know from Winnie the Pooh?  The sad little donkey who is always so glum.  "Oh bother!"

I have always loved Eeyore, my heart just melts at his sad little outlook on life. But, you know what I noticed about Eeyore?  No one lives with him, he lives all alone in his damp house in the Hundred Acre Woods.  Ok, ok...all of the characters in the story except Kanga and Roo live alone, but when you read the books or watch the cartoon, they are always at each others houses, except at Eeyore's.  It seems that everyone loves Eeyore, but no one is in a grand hurry to spend time with him.  Hmmmm....

I suppose that was much like me last week, who wants to hang out with a glummy gus, a girl sitting around feeling sorry for herself.  As I was thinking through things and muddling about my week, this phrase came into my head, "Pity party, party of one."  Over and over I heard that and it made me giggle.  You know when you go out to eat at a busy restaurant and they take your name and ask how many people are in your party, then when your table is ready they call out, "Graham, party of 9?"  Well that is what I was envisioning, and you know what?  No one wanted to join my pity party.

Why would they?  There were no balloons and streamers, geesh there were no decorations at all.  Cake and ice cream?  I don't think so....there was nothing to celebrate here.  Reminds me of Eeyore's words to Pooh, "Good morning, Pooh Bear...if it is a good morning.  Which I doubt!"

Now something is wrong with this picture, parties are for celebrations, for embracing life and praising God for whatever blessing is being celebrated.  Sometimes as believers we live under this false idea that everything is going to be easy, that once we accept Christ as our Savior we will have smooth sailing.  I have read my Bible from cover to cover, and you know what?  Nowhere in those pages does it say that this life is going to be easy.  In fact 1 Peter 4:12-13 says just the opposite, "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed."  So why on earth are we wasting time feeling sorry for ourselves?  Time for a little perspective adjustment I guess...think I will go sit down and make a list of all my blessings instead of all my problems, then I can have a blessings party...party of many, want to join me?  I hope you will!

Here's where I am starting:
1. I am redeemed by a Savior who gave his life for me.
2. I am blessed with 7, soon to be 8, beautiful, healthy babies.
3. I have a husband who loves me.
4.  I have a warm place to sleep and warm food to eat.



  

No More Perfect Family

As you all know, I have been reading through Jill Savages, No More Perfect Moms, and as bold as it may seem, I want to add my own chapter entitled, No More Perfect Family.

As a child I loved to watch shows like The Brady Bunch and The Cosby Show, and as I watched I longed to have a family like those.  Sure they had their share of troubles but by the end of the show they had figured it all out and managed to still love each other.  Still love each other, that is the part that strikes me.  I have shared before about the struggles in my family, especially in the last few years, but the problems go so much deeper.

I can honestly remember the first time an adult in my life said a kind word to me.  I was in 5th grade and my teacher, Mr. Bubnick, complimented me for being, "The most polite student he has ever had."  That was thirty years ago but I can still hear his words in my head.  Up to that point I was a struggling student, barely passing from year to year.  I was a known "cry baby" by my peers and school and church were the safest environments I had.  I ended 5th grade with A's and B's and ended up graduating high school in the top 10% of my class.  All because Mr. Bubnick took the time to say something nice to me.  The power of positive words can be life changing, but I guess that is a topic for a different day!  Today's blog is about perfect families!

If I had to chose one word that describes my childhood, I think it would be, "Unlovable."  It is a struggle I have carried into my adult life.  It has shaped me into a recovering people pleaser who struggles to say no to anyone for fear of rejection.  Every time someone is disappointed in me, it comes to the forefront and screams, "No one will ever be able to love you."

I have to admit that when I see families out and about, Grandpas loving on their grand babies, adult daughter and mother sharing a coffee, aunts and uncles at the local school program, jealous rears its ugly head.  Thoughts like,  "I wish I had a mom like that," or "I wish my kids could have that kind of relationship with my dad," fill my head and heart.  But you know what happens when I allow my brain to go that direction?  I miss out on the blessings right in front of me.

My family has been so blessed with friends who love on us, love my kids, and share life with us.  It is the family God has given me for the here and now.  I need to learn to embrace that!  Another thing I need to remember is that those television shows were just that....a show, not reality!  Also, those families I see out in public have their own set of troubles.  I am comparing my insides, a broken messy family, to their outsides.  In reality, I have no idea what trials they are facing or have faced.  I do not know the journey they have been on that has brought them to this place.  I only know what I can see.

One last thought, I am so glad that God will never disappoint us, aren't you?  Though our earthly families may not be all that we would like, God promises that He will never leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6). He also promises that ALL things, good and bad, work together for the good of those who love the Lord and who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).  That means that He takes all the broken pieces of our everyday life's and makes them glorious!  Even better than that, He loves us just as we are.  I love the JJ Heller song entitled, "What Love Really Means," because it echos my heart cry, "Who will love me for me, not for what I have done or what I will become" and God's answers these questions loud and clear by saying, "I will love you for you, not for what you have done or what you will become...I will give you the love that you never knew."  In fact He loved us so much that he sent His son to pay the debt for our sins, a payment we could never have made (John 3:16).  

Not sure if anyone out there can relate, but just in case, I hope you were encouraged!   As always, I would love to hear your thoughts!