Check This Link Out! http://www.wildolivetees.com/

My good friend, Andrea, is heading to China to adopt her son next month. This is her second trip to China. The first one was to get her daughter,Mary. We are so excited for them. Andrea has 4 biological children and will have 2 adopted...so far...lol...we expect more in the future!!
Anyhow, I love adoption! I think it speaks to the very core of our faith and what God has done for us. He adopted us to make us heirs with Christ! He loves us as His own and calls us sons and daughters. He has set His love on us, not because we earned it or deserved it. I want to encourage and help anyone who feels led to adopt. There is a website: http://www.wildolivetees.com




They sell fabulous, unique tees. My friend gave one to me and my teen daughter. We LOVE them. They are comfortable, stylish and the verses and graphics are just great. The proceeds also go to charities: this is from their website:


Give It!

The current Give It! charity is Shaohannah’s Hope, an organization focused on caring for orphans by providing need-based grants to families seeking to adopt. Adoption is a divine calling for the owners of Wild Olive and Shaohannah’s Hope has been uniting children with “forever families” for nearly a decade.

At Wild Olive, we are passionate about spreading God’s word and building His kingdom on earth through generous giving and effective stewardship of the resources that He entrusts to us. To this end, Wild Olive donates 10% of the profits from sales of its products to Christian-based charities and non-profit organizations.


Support this website! It is for a great cause. You will benefit as well. you won't find these tees in stores!!!

A woman's heart should be so hidden in Christ that a man should have to seek Him first to find her.
When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not shouting 'I'm clean livin,' I'm whispering 'I was lost, Now I'm found and forgiven.'
'When I say... 'I am a Christian' I don't speak of this with pride. I'm confessing that I stumble and need Christ to be my guide.
When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not trying to be strong. I'm professing that I'm weak and need His strength to carry on.
When I say.. 'I am a Christian 'I'm not bragging of success. I'm admitting I have failed and need God to clean my mess.
When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not claiming to be perfect, My flaws are far too visible, but God believes I am worth it.
When I say.. . 'I am a Christian' I still feel the sting of pain... I have my share of heartaches, so I call upon His name.
When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not holier than thou, I'm just a simple sinner Who received God's good grace, somehow!

by Maya Angelou

Lighten the Load

Most days my daughter comes home from school with a 50 pound back pack on her shoulders. As she walks into the house, she positions herself just right to let the heavy bag slide down her arm and onto the floor. I can hear her let out a sigh of relief and see her body relax from finally getting out from under the burden of carrying that bag around all day. Guilt is like that backpack. I tend to carry around the weight of sin and not confess it so quickly, usually only until it gets to be so heavy that I just can't go on any longer. I wonder why I skirt around certain sins and not confess them so quickly, relieving the weight of those from my "bag". The Bible says in 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." and in Isaiah 43:24-25 it states, "You haven't been stingy with your sins. You've been plenty generous with them-I'm fed up...." This is where I usually stop in my mind. I tend to concentrate on the thought, "Oh, I have really done it now!" and just like a child, I avoid the confession of wrong doing. It just doesn't feel good to admit that perhaps I have done something wrong and have not lived up to a standard. Oh, and what about the punishment? Maybe in the back of my mind I think that once I admit my wrong doing, God is going to make me pay for it. But fortunately, God doesn't stop there, He goes on to say, "But, I, yes I , am the one who takes care of your sins-that's what I do. I don't keep a list of your sins." What? You don't keep a list???

When I try to wrap my mind around the fact that God does not keep a running list of my sins, it blows my mind. It's another one of those things about God that makes me fascinated with Him. It is a trait He has that makes me scratch my head and say, "How does He do that?" It is also very humbling because, guess what.... I DO keep a running list of my sins and usually everybody elses sins as well. This is another one of those times that reminds me that He is God and I am not!

When I know that God will remember my sins no more and that he is not keeping a running tab on them, how free am I to confess to him and have my slate wiped clean, the burdened lifted? Why would I run and hide from that? God does allow us to suffer the natural consequences for our actions, but we do not have to PAY for our sins. It has already been done through Christ's death on the cross. When one experiences that type of relief and freedom and grasps that concept of who God is, the soul naturally breaks out into a worshipful and joyful mode and can't help but want to share the remedy for the weighted bag with others.

footnote:

can you see how easily I can slide down a slippery slope of thoughts in the wrong direction if I am not applying God's truth to my thought life daily and even moment by moment.

Security

Security. That's a word that is being thought of alot lately. Is your money secure? Is your home secure? What about secure relationships? Do you have someone in your life that you know you can count on to be there for you when it counts? I have to admit that more than being secure, I have lived most of my life under a blanket of insecurity. I may not have used the word daily, but it dominates many of my daily thoughts and decisions. I didn't realize just how much until I looked up the definition of the word. "Insecure- liable to break, fail, or collapse. Not gaurded." Even before the stock market crashed,before my husbands cancer,my daughters numerous health issues,a mountain of medical bills......there was insecurity. I have always been very insecure with decision making, scared to fail, scared of other people's thoughts toward me. If a decision was to be made, I would think and think and think, turning every possible scenario around in my mind, what if-ing it to death, looking at it from other people's perspective's (what would "so & so" do), never really secure in what I wanted, always scared that I would make the "wrong decision". Always trying to predict the outcome of a decision. As much thought as I would put into thinking about something, I would default to making no decision, then life just happens. I took what came my way at the time. There is no joy in that. I think that when we hit middle age, we start to really dissect our history and retrace how we have gotten to where we are. That is what I have been doing and I have discovered something. We get our security in knowing who we are, by knowing our real value. God says in Isaiah 43 "Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you. I've called you by name. you are mine....I paid a huge price for you....that's how much I love you! I'd sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you." WOW! That is hard for me to get my mind around. How can one not be secure when you know that the God of the universe, the creator of all that is, would trade it ALL for YOU?....for YOU? When you have that kind of love, you can be secure with who he created you to be and walk YOUR path securely knowing that He said "When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead end- " He is always directing our path, even when we think things are falling apart or percieve that we are failing, there He is. See, fear follows insecurity, but faith follows security. My foundation needs to be right. My thinking needs to be renewed daily, moment by moment, or I will slip into my default insecurity. Knowing that I am secure in Him, I can put my trust in Him, rest in Him, and HE will put the desire in my heart regarding decision making. Best of all, I can leave the outcome to Him, after all He knows what is best for me. Oh, and I will sleep alot better at night too!



Secure-safe and free from doubt or fear, not likely to fail. To ensure. To protect.

Diamonds- Perfection and Flaws

I observed many years ago that when you hold a diamond up to the light, you will find many facets,prisms,and yes sometimes flaws. I was told that you could view the flaws as either good or bad, depending on how you "looked" at it and that flaws in the diamonds are what identifies that diamond from the rest. I can look at my past, present, and future from many perspectives and see the different prisms and the beauty in them, many times I tend to fixate on the flaws to the point that I can't see the "forest for the trees" and lose my bearings. On many of those occasions God has brought this verse to me as a source of comfort and compass to direct my thoughts back on the right path. It is from Isaiah 43:12 "But you are my witness. You're my "handpicked" servant so that you will come to know that I AM and who I am." Ah! Could it be that God created me with my flaws so that,not only will my journey be unique than others to Him,but those flaws would be the thing that would actually draw me to identify who He is and what He is about? As I think about this,I am taught that He handpicked me to serve in areas of my life so that in those experiences , be it joyful or challenging, a state of ease or between a rock and a hard place, these are the places that I will come to know that God "IS" and discover "WHO" He is. I am committing to digging deeper and journaling my thoughts and life experiences through an Isaiah 43 perspective. Feel free to share with me as well.