By douglasleemiller on Flickr

It’s the end of the year, and time to think about New Year’s resolutions. I haven’t been one to make a lot of resolutions; some year I don’t even bother to make any at all. But this week I read a couple of blogs that made me think about setting goals for next year. Caroline at The Modest Mom blog talked about several goals she has for the new year. Sarah at Sarah’s Hearts Home reviewed the goals she made last year and shared how she had had succeeded–or not. So I have been inspired to make a list of things I would like to accomplish this next year, and I want to share it with you. (Note about the picture: I wanted a picture, and I just couldn’t resist this one! You should click on it and read the caption under it!)

First Month’s Goals

These are things I would like to focus on during the first month of the year–my top priorities:

Work on obedience with the kids. This will mean keeping them with me more and following through when I issue commands to be sure that they are executed. Gislaine specifically needs to learn to deal with disappointments and to willingly obey the first time, quickly and cheerfully. To accomplish this, I plan on helping her by practicing proper responses to problematic situations, to help her learn how to react instead of just letting her react however she wants.

Make and keep the home more organized. I have gotten a good start on it–I promise to update the office decluttering project soon, but so far it’s coming along.

Go to the gym or walk at least 4 days a week. Just basically more exercise, and that’s how I plan to make it happen.

Spend more time in personal devotions. The next goal is the key to this one; when I can’t get up early, I want to learn how to take time during the day to connect to God.

Go to bed before 10:00 every night.

Have more consistent morning worship. I guess I always thought of this as the husband’s job, and it is so hard to stop my day once it is started… But my husband leaves home just as the kids are waking up most days, so having him lead out in morning worship most days is not practical. I’m not exactly sure how I am going to do this, but I am going to pray about it and then just do something–even if it’s just a song, a prayer, and reading a Bible story. This is very important.

Not get online until the important housework is done

Watch the Goallpower.com seminar. This looks interesting. If I really like it, I may blog about it later.

Wow! That seems like a lot of things to do in January. But some of them are not too involves (like bedtime) and some I have already started (like being more organized), so we wlll see how it goes. I’ll have to post an update at the end of January to let you know how I’m doing–and to help myself see where I need to focus more.

Second Month’s Goals

Come February I would like to add the following items to my 2011 goals:

Structure the kids’ days more so I can keep them with me more. This means that instead of saying, “Go play,” I will try to come up with an activity they can do near me. This will require some creativity and probably some sacrifice on my part, but I know it can be done.

Spend more time playing with the kids. This is one way of binding their hearts to mine. I haven’t done it enough lately.

Get my monthly and semi-annual cleaning on track. This means all the lists of things that need to be done on a not-so-regular basis will get incorporated into my iPod’s to-do list program. That way things will come up on my daily to-do list so I can remember to do them. This will include things like washing windows, dusting baseboards, cleaning the light diffusing bowls, etc. I have lists already made up, but I need to get them where I will actually see them.

Blog more consistently, at the same time limiting my time online. I want to post 3-4 times a week at least, but I need to focus on what I am doing online and avoid surfing and wasting time. I need to plan my posts, too, so that I can be more efficient with my time online.

Eat more vegetables. I like veggies, but they get expensive and sometimes I just forget to eat them. So I’m making it a goal to try to get more of them in my diet–to just be more consistent about making sure they are on the table to eat every day.

Goals for the Rest of the Year

The rest of my list is more of a want-to-do, or else a seasonal activity that isn’t something I could start in the winter. So once I get the above under control, or when summer comes, I want to keep these things in mind:

Try at least 2 new recipes every month. I have gotten into a rut of just fixing the same ol’ stuff all the time. I need to put in some variety once in a while. But I’m not going to stress about it in January; my monthly menu is already made up.

Plant and maintain a small garden. I got gardened out as a kid (my mom once had a 1,000 square foot garden!), but I really want to have some home-grown delights. And hubby has spent so much time and effort on getting rid of the blackberries that overran the garden area…

Spend more time outside on nice days. The previous goal should help this one. And now that I have an iPod, I could go out and sit under a tree and write blogs while the children play nearby. But that won’t be happening for a few months yet!

Knit Gislaine a sweater and everyone some socks. I learned to knit before learning any other related craft. But now it seems so slow compared to crocheting or sewing. But I love homemade wool socks and found some expensive wool at the Goodwill for cheap, so I really should do it. I even found good free patterns online, and my mom gave me a whole set of needles, so I have no legitimate excuses.

Do the bulk of my sewing in the winter when it’s too cold to be outside. Last summer I spent too much time sewing and got burned out by winter, when it’s too cold to be outside. I don’t want that to be the start of a trend. Which means I need to start figuring out what I need to make for next summer soon.

So there is my list. I will review the first two items over the next two months, and then the whole thing at the end if the year.

So what are your resolutions/goals for the new year? I’d love to hear them. If you have blogged about them, be sure to post the link in your comment.

I have a friend (Hi if you are reading this) who has a dream of learning to make good bread by hand. I admire her. But I do not share her dream. I love my bread machine! I mean, I have two little kids. That explains everything, right? To save time, I decided to make an audio post–a blogcast?–about it. I recorded it on my iPod, so you will need Quicktime to listen.

Here is the recipe I use:

1 c water (I use a scant cup)
2 1/2 c fleshly ground whole wheat flour*
2 tsp yeast
1 Tbsp soy flour
1 Tbsp gluten flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp light Smart Balance spread
2 Tbsp molasses (or honey, or mix of both)

I put these into the machine roughly in this order. Of course, now I mix it first, so that there is no water to leak out of the pan. I set it to the fast rise wheat setting, which I have tweaked to allow a little more kneading time and a little extra rise time. Then when it beats it down after the 1st rise, I take the paddle and dough out, shape the dough, and put it back in, minus the paddle. Voila! Delicious bread with very little effort! Works for me!

* I actually use 2 cups of flour as finely ground as I can get it in my Champion Juicer grain grinder, and 1/2 cup of more coarsely ground flour–my husband likes it better that way. If you like lighter bread, use 1/2 cup white instead. When I make dinner rolls, I use 1 cup white and 1 1/2 cups wheat. I also find that I need to use a little extra because of the flour I use; maybe my wheat is more moist than store-bought flour would be.

After that motivating article I just finished, and the good feeling I got from decluttering the too-small clothes from the kids’ room, I am motivated to do something about the office. Here are some “before” pictures to give you an idea of what needs to be done. I’ll post some “after” pictures when it’s done–not necessarily today, but as soon as I can after I finish. Please say a prayer that I can actually do this!

Some of the shelves are not so bad, but some really need to be organized. The desk is a minor disaster (major would be that the the surface of the desk itself would be invisible–at least you can see parts of it!). That black file cabinet (you can’t see the file drawer in the picture, but it’s the black thing with shelves behind the kitchen chair) needs to be at least organized–stuff off the top, papers sorted inside. The box on the chair has things I’m going to list on eBay during the next couple of days, so it’s not a permanent thing. The blue box below has stuff I listed last night and so it needs to go.

That table is utter chaos. Sure, parts of it are still showing, but still! Also, I need to declutter top of the dresser (at least inside it is okay), and organize those stacks of boxes on top of the other cabinet (which is mostly empty right now. Between the dresser and the white cabinet in the corner is a small bookcase full of stuff that seriously needs to be organized as well. And the box in the window must go!

So check back in a couple of days to see if I’ve finished and posted “after” pictures. If I haven’t, bug me about it, please. And if you’re motivated to declutter your office (assuming it needs it–maybe I’m the only one with a cluttered office right after the holidays), then let me know how it’s going. Especially if you have a blog, then post a link back here. Let’s bring some order into the world!

Hi, my name is Lisa, and I have an aversion to work.

They say admitting that you have a problem is the first step to solving it. And that confession is good for the soul. So there it is. I don’t like to work.

It started when I was young. I would do the minimum to get the job done so that I could go do the things I wanted to do–read a book, write a letter to one of my 30 or 40 penpals, sew, or even go to work (because a job that pays money is always more motivating than a job that doesn’t). Well, that mindset became a habit that grew with my growth and strengthened with my strength. Now, at almost 30, I am coming face to face with the realization that this habit must change. It’s affecting every aspect of my life–and I’m afraid it’s starting to rub off on my children. But how do I go about changing a lifelong habit?????

I wish I had learned to like work years ago. Sometimes I would make a feeble attempt at it, and sometimes I would make significant progress. But sooner or later one of the devil’s traps would trip me up, and I would be back off worse than before.

Part of the problem, which I alluded to before, is that I would rather do something else. For instance, give me a good, interesting book, and I will get almost nothing done until the book is finished. I say “almost” because hunger pangs do eventually get strong enough to motivate me to make a meal–or my kids remind me that they are hungry… But getting anything beyond meals and dishes done? Forget it. It’s like I can’t help myself.

Now, I know that is not true. I make a choice to keep reading, and I can choose to get things done before I read. But there seems to be an underlying fear that I won’t have time to read if I do all the things that need to be done. That might be true some days, but certainly that would not be true every day!

Plus I am a person that likes variety. I cannot get into quilting, for instance, because it is so much of the same over and over. But I like sewing clothes. They have lots of different parts and each one is different from the one before it. Being a mom is great because I have so much variety and do so many different things every day. But some things like dishes and cleaning and laundry get monotonous. They never change. They are not a challenge. I can never permanently mark them off as done, because they just show up the next day or week or month. I wish I could hire someone to do them, but there’s no money for luxuries like a maid! So I have no choice. I must do it.

So how can I change? I need to take hold of God’s power. I need to ask for His help every morning, then by faith claim it and go out into my day with the consciousness that God is with me and will give me strength to do what I must–to help me make the right choices. Because after all, the Christian life is a bundle of choices. God will not choose for me; He will not force my will. But He can empower my choices. He says, “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.” It’s a daily, moment-by-moment choice.

Then there is the counsel in Proverbs 6:6-11:

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy slumber? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.”

I recently watched a video on YouTube about the Amish, and it really made me realize how easy we have it. As one Amish man put it, being Amish means following a set of rules and being willing to work like crazy. It made me ashamed of myself. I think it helped motivate me to think differently about work.

Work is a blessing, after all. Having too much free time was one of the downfalls of Sodom–did you know that? “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.” Ezekiel 16:49. I’ve meditated on that text many times. Abundance of idleness is a sin. Meaning that if we have free time, we need to find something profitable to do with it. If the house is really spotless, then maybe it’s time to go help the poor and needy, or something like that! Not using all our free time for selfish purposes. Not that we would never have time to read a good book or take a bubble bath, but the point is that we need to learn to use our time profitably. As it, I need to learn to use my time profitably! And my house is anything but spotless, not to mention I have two little kids, so it’s not like I can’t find something to do!

So after asking God for help in the morning, taking hold of His power, I need to make a determined effort to change. God will not do for me what I can do for myself, and my part is to choose. Just as I can choose to read all day, or choose to neglect something on my to-do list, postponing it for the next day or week or month, in the same way I can choose to postpone my pleasures and do the needed thing. And as surely as I do the latter, I find my pleasures sweeter.

Having a plan is helpful. I have a program on my iPod called “Errands.” It is basically a fancy to-do list. I have been using it for a couple of months, and am fine-tuning it to meet my needs. It helps me remember the things I need to do that are easy to forget (like giving Manny his B12 shot–yes, I’m giving him shots now! Ugh!) to regular things that need to be done, like the dishes. I can check the “done” box when the job is done, and that is kind of motivating in itself.

By using these steps–asking for God’s help, making the choice to do things, and having a plan, a to-do list to remind me of what I need to do and help me prioritize–I believe that I can learn to change my tastes and learn to enjoy work. In fact, I got a head start yesterday! Let me tell you briefly about that.

My kids have been growing. Who would have thought?! Manny was just transitioning from 12 months to 18 months when we moved here. Now he’s transitioning into 24 months/2T! As I would decide that something didn’t fit him, I would put it in a pile on the dresser. My husband half-jokingly said he wondered how long it would take to get to the ceiling. That, and I was digging through a 24-month box of clothes, pulling out winter items, but leaving the box open. Manny had several times emptied the contents of that box, and I would just dump everything back in again. Not to mention that Gislaine has been growing out of things too, and they were added to the pile.

Well, several weeks ago, I put it on my to-do list to sort all those clothes and put them away. The problem was, there were bits of clothes from smaller sizes that had not gotten stored away in with others of their size before our move that also needed to be sorted. I was overwhelmed with the size of the project, and so I put it off. Until yesterday. I had started writing this post the night before, and I decided it was time to “just do it.” So while my husband worked on the computer and the kids napped, I started. I had thought earlier that I would just work for half an hour and then put it away to finish later. Well, I forgot to set a timer, so I just decided to finish it.

I finished 3 hours later.

But now it’s done! I even took out some items to sell (I mean, when I have like 20 short sleeved shirts in a given size, that’s too many! Seriously! Unless I had 20 of everything else–because baby would run out of socks or pants or something and I’d need to do laundry long before all those shirts were gone!). So now I feel motivated to try something else. But I’ll tell you about that in a separate post.

One if the books that has made a big impact on me lately is The Gift, subtitled “God gave you more than you’ll ever know” by Kim Allan Johnson. I don’t think I can come up with a better way of summarizing the content of the book than to quote the back cover:

When was the last time you lay awake at night, too captivated by Christ’s love to sleep? When was the last time you wrestled with the astonishing risks involved in Jesus sacrifice? When was the last time your mind stretched to grasp the many layers of suffering He endured?

This book does just that. It starts with painting a picture of Jesus before His incarnation, then delves into the different aspects of His life that show what becoming a human actually cost Him. The author highlights key events in Christ’s life that trace the evidence of the gathering storm that broke with unbridled fury on the evening of His arrest in Gethsemane. Then instead of diving directly into a discussion of Christ’s physical sufferings, as so many writers and speakers do, he starts out with amplifying the internal pain that Jesus would have experienced every day: the pain of being misunderstood. He spends one chapter looking at The physical torture He endured, then in the next he tries to imagine what it must have been like for those that witnessed His sufferings and death. He spends a whole a whole chapter trying to grasp what kind of pain Jesus must have endured from the verbal abuse He suffered.

Up to this point, he has looked at the very human side of Jesus; He endured pain and misunderstanding much like any human would. But this book goes deeper, exploring what the depths of Christ’s internal sufferings.

If you are familiar with Ellen White, then you are probably familiar with statements like this one:

How few have any conception of the anguish that rent the heart of the Son of God during His thirty years of life upon the earth. The path from the manger to Calvary was shadowed by sorrow and grief. He was the man of sorrows, and endured such heartache as no human language can portray.

Human language may not be able to portray it, but Johnson comes pretty close as he looks at the various aspects if this world that caused Jesus pain–things like brutality in nature, human disease, the evils in human nature, and especially His pain over the lost of the world. Then he goes deeper into the sufferings that nearly crushed out His life in Gethsemane and broke His heart on the cross–being forsaken by God and feeling so helpless and alone, crushed by the weight of our sins. Finally, he sums up some of the lessons that Christ’s sufferings have to teach us.

This book is like none I have ever read on this topic. Some books use a narrative style that just talks about the subject, leaving the reader with the responsibility of trying to imagine everything. Other books use stories and word pictures the help the reader visualize the scene, kind of like watching a movie. This book has a good balance of both. Let me give you an example of each style. First, the narrative:

It was only because of His connection with God that Christ survived the relentless torrent of hate, criticism, and abuse that beat against Him from His earliest days. Intimate communion with God was as natural and necessary to Him as breathing. Ellen White reveals, “Jesus sought earnestly for strength from His Father. He regarded communication with God aside essential than His daily food.”

Here is a portion of one of the scenes he paints in graphic detail:

As Jesus hung on the cross, bleeding and gasping for air, the mob and the Jewish leaders had a field day mocking and ridiculing Him.

One of the many onlookers pointed at Christ and yelled, “What happened to all Your boasting, Mr. Carpenter? How can you destroy our great temple and build it again from up there? Can I get you a hammer so you can take out those nasty nails?” Hearty laughter ripples through the crowd.

Someone else cupped their hands over their mouth and shouted, “For a wretch like you to claim to be Israel’s holy Messiah makes me sick. Son of God? You’re the son of passion, the son of Mary’s lust!”

This mixture of narrative and story appeals to both the intellectual and emotional levels of our being. That mixture makes it a very powerful book. More powerful than any movie, because you can get a peek behind the scenes, as it were, to catch a glimpse of Jesus heart. But then it allows you to feel with your heart as well.

I haven’t even finished it yet, but I must say I highly recommend this book. It has given me a deeper appreciation for of Jesus love for me, and awakened in my heart a deeper love for Him. And that, I think, is the purpose of the book.

You can buy the book here:

Okay, so I promised a book review today. Well, I haven’t had time to write it yet. Watch for it in the next day or two.

In the mean time, I wanted to share something that happened to me yesterday. It is an experience that illustrates how we can have victory in everyday trials. You see, I have a tendency to frustration–as all moms do at some point! And I was very encouraged by the outcome, even if it didn’t seem so great at the time!

My son drinks a lot of hemp milk, so I buy it buy the case. He had just finished one case and it was time to open another one. Now, try to imagine how the box looked. It is one of those boxes that opens with pull-tabs on the sides. The two ends are open in the middle, so you can see inside. There is a tab that says “pull here” on each side of the opening. Underneath the cardboard is a plastic strip that allows one to pull from that tab all down the side of the box around to the other end. Doing this on each side will separate the top of the box from the bottom, making a convenient way to store the containers still in the open half of the cardboard, kind of like they would on display in a store. I hope you have the picture in your mind, because it is crucial to understanding what happened.

The box was on a low shelf in my pantry, about mid-shin level. I decided not to pull the whole (probably 30 pound) box out and put it on the counter; I would just twist the box a little and get the top off right there. So I knelt down and pulled on the right tab with my right hand. It broke off at the corner.

Now, on a bad day, I would get frustrated right there. But this day I had been communing with God, and I immediately sensed His call to my heart to let it go. The other end was still intact, so no big deal. So I just smiled and tried the tab on the left side (same end of the box). It broke at the corner. I smiled and turned the box around and proceeded to pull on a tab from the other end. It, too, broke at the corner.

Again I felt self trying to well up, but I said, “Lord, please help me not to get frustrated at this!” After all, the cardboard wasn’t very thick. I could tear it with my hands if I wanted to. But I hoped I could at least get one side open, so that I could access the containers of hemp milk. So I pulled the last tab.

It broke at the corner.

I laughed and thought, “I should have asked the Lord to not let the tab break!” I laughed because He had answered my prayer exactly, and had not done what I had not asked for. “Ye have not because ye ask not.” So I decided I would have to just tear the box. I dug my right thumb into the right side of the box and began to pull to the right to tear open the box.

Then my hand slipped.

Now, try to imagine the scene in your mind. I am at a pantry door, which is just like any bedroom or bathroom door. It is open to my right. When my hand slipped, it went straight for the corner of the door, and slammed into the corner at full momentum. Instantly I was in pain. I grabbed my hand and opened my mouth in a silent scream (I didn’t want to startle the children playing nearby). Gislaine noticed and asked what was wrong. I told her I had gotten an owie. She came over to see. When I looked, there was a blueish dent on the side of my hand about 3/8″ wide. Within seconds it began to swell around the dent, and it was painful to the touch. Manny, of course, wanted to touch it, saying “boo boo”.

Through it all, I was amazed that I had not become frustrated. As I poured Manny his milk, I pondered how Jesus had never given in to frustration. I’m sure He must have felt like doing it over and over–especially in the last few hours of His life. But He never did. And He is our Example. He has provided all the power we need to overcome even frustration when things don’t go our way.

I can’t say that I always have victories like this. But I had one yesterday. And I want to have more. I want this to become a pattern. I want to choose to control my thoughts and feelings. And as I make that choice, God will provide the grace.

Yesterday I shared some of the things I did to fortify myself against failure in the Christian walk. Besides making the obvious commitment to daily Bible study and prayer, I chose a prayer/accountability partner to encourage and pray for me, and to help keep me accountable in certain areas. I feel this is important because, as I shared, sin thrives in darkness and concealment, but loses much of it’s power in the light (See John 3:19, 20).

Today I want to share how the Lord took me deeper. You see, it was good that I stopped resisting Him. But just saying “Lord, take my life” is not enough. There must be a continual surrender to God’s will. Here is where my past failures came from. I would say, “Lord, take my heart.” But then when He would ask me to give up some cherished idol, I would resist. And that resistance would sooner or later separate me from God.

So within a day of my initial surrender, I began to sense the Lord asking me to lay some things on the altar. Things like how much time I spend on the internet. (Yes, with it in the house, and especially with the iPod, it is a very real and powerful temptation again.)

So I asked my prayer partner to help keep me accountable and pray for me in this area.

Next I realized that I had let my eBay business take over my life. I needed to spend less time on it and more time working with my children. So I laid that on the altar as well.

Now don’t get me wrong. I still struggle with my time online and to an extent with eBay (some days it is more of a challenge than others); but I am trying to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s call to my heart, telling me when I’ve done enough or need to do something else. It’s nice to be able to make some spending money, but I cannot let the love of money (or even the need for it) control me.

Another area, related to the one, is the issue of how I use my spare time. I am beginning to realize that how we use our spare moments says a lot about who we are.

There is this blog that I was reading. It was funny and mostly harmless, but I had become somewhat obsessed with it. I wanted to read all the archives (over 2 years’ worth of almost daily posts), and had only a few months’ worth to go when the Lord brought it up to me. He pointed out that not only was I not learning anything of eternal value there, but it occasionally had content that was not really appropriate for a Christian to view–content that I would be embarrassed to be caught viewing if Jesus were to walk into the room. Since I had so few posts left (relatively speaking) to finish it, at first I thought I would just look at a post here and there in my spare time. But I began to see the negative effect of even moderate viewing (as opposed to sitting down for an hour to read a couple months’ worth, like I had done), and the Lord called to my heart again.

This time He asked me to surrender the whole blog, to be willing never to go there again. And at the same time, He also asked me not to check my email every time I had a spare moment–or my texting program, or whatever other little innocent thing that I might do with my iPod when I had a few moments to myself. Not that I could never use a spare moment to check my email, but I realized that I needed to try to use the majority of them for something of more eternal value. Like read a Bible promise, or take a moment to pray for someone or something, or read a couple of paragraphs from an inspirational book. So I surrendered the blog and the use of my spare time. And I have found that doing this has led me to love the things of the Lord more. It also is helpful to keep my mind focused on the Lord, and to make up for a not-as-long-as-I-would-have-liked quiet time in the morning. And I don’t miss that blog. Not one bit. I don’t think I’ll ever go back.

One side benefit (if you could call it that) of guarding my spare moments has been an increased sensitivity to the Spirit’s voice speaking to my conscience. As I open my heart up to God, inviting Him into more and more of my day, I begin to hear Him speaking to me in a very personal way. For instance, the other night I was typing this very post on my iPod, and when the time came to turn it off and go to bed, there was a temptation to just keep going with it under the covers, where it wouldn’t bother my husband. After all, I was doing something spiritual, not just reading stories like I had done in the past (yes, under the covers, late into the night, I am ashamed to say). But the Lord called to my conscience. He reminded me that even a good thing late at night was a bad thing. And He asked me to surrender and leave the iPod on the nightstand. I surrendered. And even though I didn’t get to sleep for at least an hour, I stayed firm to my resolve, and I didn’t regret it. I knew I would be able to pick up my train of thought and finish the post without any problem. And I did. I doubt you can tell where exactly I stopped. (Hint: It was in this paragraph.)

As I continue to spend time in God’s Word, and to listen to God’s voice directing me, I will be come more sensitive to His leading in my life. But if I choose to go against what I know to be right, then I will let go of God’s hand and be right back where I was before. Or worse. I don’t want that to happen again!

There is so much more I could write in this series, but I think this is a good place to stop. Thank you for reading. I pray you have been challenged.

Tomorrow I will share about another book that has made a big impact on me spiritually. So watch for that post.

By Michael Cory on Flickr

Yesterday I shared how I found myself resisting God’s love, and how my heart had become hardened as a result. But then I made the choice to read a book that revealed His love in a way that had a very powerful drawing effect on my heart, and finally I chose to surrender. But my fear of failure was still there. How could I be sure that I would not turn back as I had countless times before?

As I looked at my life, I realized that I had somehow kept myself back from close friendships with other women. I had moved a lot, and with two small children to care for, I had not taken time to find a close friend–not even one. There was no one to ask me, “So, how are you really doing”–no one I was that close to. I thought of things I had heard on a woman’s radio program about having an accountability partner, and I realized that if I had had one, I would have had someone to call and get encouragement from. I had thought of doing it many times in the past, but I shrank from being vulnerable, from letting anyone see inside my heart.

You see, sin thrives in darkness. Concealed sin is very powerful and really impossible to break away from. But bring it out into the light, and it loses much of its power. I knew this, but for years I had hesitated to take this step.

But somehow this time it was different. Oh, I still shrank, but somehow my fear of failure became greater than my loathing to be vulnerable. So I wrote one of my friends from a few moves back, and asked her if she would be my prayer/accountability partner. It turned out that she was looking for one too, and so it was settled. I gave her permission to ask me searching questions as she felt impressed. There is nothing like knowing that such a question could come at any time to motivate one to do what is right! And it also gave me someone to call when I needed encouragement, or just to text, “I’m having a hard time now. Please pray for me” when I needed it. And of course it works both ways. I can be there for her when she needs it, too. We can hold up each other in prayer. This gives me a ministry and a way to reach out right at the outset.

The other thing I have committed to doing is to take time every day for devotions. Now, this may sound basic and obvious, but it is an area that I have struggled with lately. I know part of the problem is that I have been going to bed late, making it hard to get up early and be alert enough to focus. It is hard, because my husband is gone almost all day, so evenings are our only real time together. He is gone 12-13 hours every day–sometimes more. So I have to get his breakfast, lunch, and supper together before he leaves between 7:00 and 7:30. Once that is done, the kids are up and my day is in full swing. Stopping for an hour of Bible study and prayer is out of the question. And it doesn’t help that everyone tells me it’s the season of life I’m in, that it will be easier as my kids get older (especially because I’m not sure I’m done having kids!). If I don’t get up at before 5:30, I won’t have time to sit down and have any kind of devotional time at all before I have to start breakfast by 6:00 (especially because I often take a shower to wake up so I can focus!).

I will be honest. I haven’t figured this out yet. I’m working on it. Just not sure how it’s going to work out. But I have found that 10 minutes with my Bible and prayer is better than nothing at all, so I am focusing on taking whatever time I possibly can, regardless of when I got up. I have also found that deliberately getting up early even when I was tired often resulted in special blessings that gave me extra strength during the day–as incredible as that may sound.

Tomorrow I will share how the Lord took me deeper in my surrender. So stay tuned!

In the last two days I have painted a picture of how I felt during the time that I was, essentially, trying to hide from God. I knew I was lost; I doubted that I could ever make it; I feared that any attempt at surrender was doomed to failure sooner or later. Of course this was denying the power of God, and I knew it. But I had no evidence that this time would be any different. I wasn’t able or even willing to walk by faith.

During this time of struggle, I opened up to one lady from my church, and she encouraged me to read the book Seeing With New Eyes, and loaned me her copy. This book takes a look at Jesus and His love in a way that grips the heart. It presents Christ’s love in a most attractive way. Most of the information was not exactly new to me, but it was still it began to soften my heart.

You see, I had become almost desensitized to the sacrifice of Christ. I had heard the story so many times that it didn’t move me like it had at first. This worried me greatly. I would read things like the following, and I would almost become depressed:

They [referring to the self-centered] forget the Man of Sorrows, who was acquainted with grief. The sufferings of Jesus in Gethsemane, His sweating as it were great drops of blood in the garden, the platted crown of thorns that pierces His holy brow, do not move them. They have become benumbed. Their sensibilities are blunted, and they have lost all sense of the great sacrifice made for them. They can sit and listen to the story of the cross, hear how the cruel nails were driven through the hands and feet of the Son of God, and it does not stir the depths of the soul.” 1T 155.

That statement could not have described me better if it had been written by someone who could read my heart. I knew it, and it terrified me.

But gradually I realized what was the problem. This passage gives a clue:

The sinner may resist this love, may refuse to be drawn to Christ; but if he does not resist he will be drawn to Jesus; a knowledge of the plan of salvation will lead him to the foot of the cross in repentance for his sins, which have caused the sufferings of God’s dear Son. SC 27.

Looking back, I can see that I was resisting. I thought I had a good excuse: I was afraid of failing again. But praise God, Jesus’ love was stronger than my fear. As I read that book Seeing With New Eyes, I began to see something of the beauty of God’s character, the awesomeness of His love, the depth of His sacrifice; and as I made the choice to behold, my heart began to soften.

As I felt my heart softening, I began more and more to feel the drawing of God upon my heart. And little by little I began to yield. One morning I woke up with the sense that God was calling me to come spend time with Him. It was almost an audible voice, speaking to my heart, saying, “Lisa, please come spend some time with Me. I long to spend time with you. Won’t you please get out of bed, get your Bible, and find the blessings I have prepared specially for you?” I was tired, but I couldn’t resist such tender pleadings. So I got up. And I found myself surrendering to the Lord.

I was still afraid of failure, but I simply couldn’t resist any longer. So I took the first step and said that I would let God be in charge of my life.

Tomorrow I will share two of the things that I did to fortify against the failure I so much feared–besides continuing to behold Jesus, of course! I want to continue doing that for the rest of my life!

By SamHastings on Flickr

Yesterday, I shared in part 1 how my life has been a series of spiritual ups and downs, characterized by trying to build walls to make others think I was good, while inside I was a mess.

Well, a few weeks ago I just sort of hit bottom. I had been trying to escape reality with compulsive kinds of actions, like reading for hours on end, playing computer games, etc., while my family deteriorated around me. I didn’t know what to do, and I hated myself for the way I was and the way I had allowed things to become. The bad habits of my youth were now maturing into very nasty character flaws that I could see being mirrored in my children, and I began to realize that I had to make a choice.

But I was loath to do it. Make the choice, I mean. Because I basically had two alternatives. Either surrender to God and let Him change me, or reject God and give up on everything I believed. I just couldn’t stand staying the way I was. The problem was, the latter option was just too horrendous to contemplate. And besides, being a Christian was so ingrained into my identity that I would find myself turning to God automatically when in difficult situations–like when I turned into my driveway too early and almost went over edge of the road into a tree!

But surrender scared me.

Why did it scare me? It wasn’t because I was afraid of surrender itself. I had experienced full surrender in the past–at least, as full as I knew at the time. I remember almost having an accident, and actually not getting an adrenalin rush because I had such peace with God. I longed to have that kind of relationship again. But I was afraid of failure. I had tried so many times, and just as many times I had failed. Turned my back on God. Let go of His hand and basically said, “I’m going to do it my way.”

Then I would read verses like Hebrews 6:4-6 and wonder if maybe I was a hopeless case.  But then I knew that any yearnings in my soul for God meant that I had definitely not committed the unpardonable sin, and that meant there definitely was hope for me. (I have stored up a lot of head knowledge over the years, and in times like this it was both a comfort and a torment.)

But I still feared failure. I didn’t want to turn my life over to God and then take it back once again. I wanted to break the cycle of up and down. After talking to my friend from church that I mentioned yesterday, I got in touch with one of my old friends from several years ago and began to pour out my heart to her. In an email, I wrote this:

I realize that to surrender to the extent that I did as a youth isn’t enough anymore. In proportion to the light that I have I must yield, and I have more light now than I did then. So my surrender now must be deeper than it has ever been.

As you can see, I knew what I needed to do. I needed to surrender. But I was afraid. What if I failed again? I didn’t think I could bear it. All my head knowledge told me that God would accept me just as I was, that He would forgive me and take me back with rejoicing. All the promises of His keeping power that I had memorized kept surfacing into my consciousness; evidence of His love was everywhere I looked if I just chose to see it. I began to sense things coming to a climax. I realized that it was only a matter of time before I did make a surrender. But still I hesitated.

Looking back honestly, I think that it was deeper than just my fear of failure, even though that was a very big issue. I was also unwilling to surrender certain things. It’s a lie of the devil, the idea that if you surrender to God, He will take away the things that make you happy. I know by experience that He only takes away the things that make us miserable. But I didn’t want to let go of some of those things. And some things I wondered if He would make me give them up, when in reality He wasn’t so much interested in my things as just in having me. And as I began to take that reality to heart, I began to soften.

I realize that I may not be communicating my thoughts very well. There were so many levels to my situation that I don’t know how to explain it with words. Maybe if you try to feel with your heart what I am trying to  convey, you will understand. I’m sure if you’ve ever been where I am, you can understand. I hope by the time I finish this series, those of my readers who are in the same situation I was will have some answers. That’s my goal, my reason for opening my heart to you. Not that I have all the answers yet. But I have a few. And maybe one or two of them will help.

Tomorrow I will share some of the steps that helped get me out of this dark hole I was in. So stay tuned.