My Thoughts...

Ephesians 6: 10-13 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.  Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.  Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

     It is truly amazing to me how quickly it happens.  You would think I would know by now after being a Christian for 30 years.  You would think it wouldn't surprise me.  You would think I would be prepared.  What am I talking about? Spiritual attacks. 
     On Monday night when I wrote my post about obedience, when I invited my friends to become prayer partners with me, I should have known.  But I didn't.  I woke up Tuesday and I felt like a weight had been taken off my shoulders.  That weight of knowing that I wasn't being obedient.  I felt great! I got up at 6 and went for a jog/walk.  I ran errands with my daughter, had a playdate after school with another daughters friend, cooked dinner, went to soccer, hubby actually made it to soccer practice and was home for dinner.  Sounds like an awesome day right? It was, it truly was. 
     Until bedtime.  I don't know what it is about bedtime/bathtime that so completely stresses me out.  It is like I get to a point in my day where I just need it to be over.  I need to have time to regroup before bed.  So the kids were not getting ready for bed, then I got in a fight with my hubby that didn't get resolved and carried over into today along with some other stressful things and it was such a complete opposite feeling of what I felt yesterday. 
     And then I remembered: Satan hates it when we obey God!  He doesn't want to see us praying for each other, he doesn't want us to have that sort of power, that complete and utter trust in God, the feeling of grace and peace.  He abhors that! He will do anything to make it harder, to give discouragement, to give us trials.   
     But don't be discouraged.  There is power in knowing that.  We can put on our armour of God.  We can shore ourselves up.  We can keep praying.  It will be hard.  I know that.  I have seen it.  I have felt the words he whispers in my ears to make me question what I am doing.  To put doubts in my head.  To actually question friendships.  He makes it hard for us to be Christians.  But God is stronger, more powerful, more full of mercy and love.   And those feelings can carry us through.  If we stick with it, it will make us stronger for the times that we are attacked.  Because even though I didn't feel like it today, I kept praying.  I prayed on my way to work.  I prayed while at work.  I prayed on my break.  I kept praying.  And now, even though I don't feel like I did tuesday, I don't feel like I did this morning.  God's comfort is so good.  I am so happy to have the hope I have in Jesus.  I am so happy when my kids talk to me about what Jesus can do (even if there is a Star Wars reference- more on that later), I am so happy that when I am feeling lousy and misunderstood that I have a God who understands it all and is always there with me.
     Being attacked by Satan is a gift.  When we are attacked, we can know we are doing right by God.  And with the whole armour of God, we can stand, we can fight, and we will win.  And don't forget about the prize.  Because as my 3 year old puts it "I don't want to be where Satan is, he puts fire on you."

Prayer Requests 9/28

Feel free to put any prayer requests you have in the comments section.  Feel free to put as many as you want and big requests or things that you might feel are small things.  Sometimes it's the small things that we really need prayer for.

My Prayer Blog

Welcome to my prayer blog.  As I shared here and here and here, I have been on a prayer journey for probably almost 2 years.  This is a desire God has placed on my heart over the last few months.  And I have learned a lot just in the short time I have been trying to pray more regularly.  What I have found is having a prayer partner is key, praying without ceasing can change your life, obeying God puts my heart at ease.  So with those three things in mind, I am launching a new part of my blog.  I will figure it out as I go along.  But here is the basic premise: I want to be your prayer partner.  I want to dive into the Word to discover the richness of prayer.  I want to make my walk with God closer than ever by having a running conversation with Him.  I want to learn how to pray first, then try to sort things out instead of trying to sort things out and using prayer as a last resort.
My week will run Tuesday through Monday.  Tuesday is first day of the week that I really get focus on this blog so come back here on Tuesdays to find out what is going on for the week. 
But I am going to start simple (because trying to make it complicated is giving me an excuse to delay): I will have different categories that you can leave a comment on.  Feel free to come back to my Tuesday posts during the week to add more requests. I will check regularly.  If that is all you want to do, that is great.  Know that I am praying for you throughout the week.  If you feel the calling to pray for people who have left requests, then please do.  We can all use extra prayer.  If you want to add notes of encouragement, that is even better.  If you feel this is helpful and that you know someone who could benefit from being prayed over, pass the link on to them. 
Each week I will have a post for:
     Prayer Requests
     Praises - can be prayers answered or just a general praise for something that happened that blessed you that week
     My thoughts - this will be me working my way through scripture or other things, giving what I feel I have learned about prayer.  Don't take this as gold, it is just my opinion on what God is working on my heart
     Special Prayer Topic - I am not sure I will do this every week but I will try to have a topic to focus some prayer on throughout the week that I will also be focusing my prayer on. 
God can do amazing things when we pray.  Not only to the people we are praying for, but our own lives will be transformed. 
I really hope you will take this journey with me.  I am excited to see where God is leading me with this.

Disobedience

Do you ever have those moments where you know you have been disobedient to God.  He puts something on your heart and whether you have good intentions to obey or outright decide to ignore those whispers, it is disobedience.  Something I have been trying to instill in my own children since they were born and something that is a constant struggle as a parent. 
As a child of God, I fall under this category more times than I would like to admit. 
But, when I put something out there in cyberspace for the world to see (okay only a few people really) and then don't follow through, I have to be openly accountable as to why.
So I have had lots of excuses all summer for why I haven't changed my blog: too much going on this summer, too much work and not enough time to fine tune it, haven't totally visualized my concept...all valid reasons but still excuses.  But the real reason?  I think being vulnerable to the public.  Putting myself out there.  It is super duper hard for me.  This is something I have been praying in earnest for my Princess.  She wavered all summer on whether to play soccer for the first time this fall.  She decided on the last day to do it.  I was fine either way but she knew that if she decided to do it, she would have to follow through and it has been a very  emotional 4 weeks for her.  You see, my daughter is a mini-me.  I was so painfully shy when I was little, I wouldn't try anything.  When I look back at my life and think about the things I didn't do because I was too scared, it makes me sad.  I don't want that life for her.  I want her to find courage in God, to feel His strength pouring through her.  But just as I was writing this introduction, I realized I am still falling into those habits.  God has done some amazing things in my life when I have taken the plunge relying only on Him.
So,  do I really need to make this harder than it should be?  No.  Can I fine tune it as I go along?  Can I change the format once I figure out what I want? Yes.
So for those of you who actually read this and know I was up to something, it is coming.  And for those who are knew, I hope you are able to get something out of this.
I know I will rest easier once I obey His urgings.

It's been a while...

This summer has been crazy and really hard to coupon with three kids.  My little one is soooo easy to take shopping when I don't have the 2 older ones to contend with.  This is the first week of school and I already have done a lot of shopping.  Here is my score today.  I spent $11.18 which seems like a lot actually but I had to get some essentials like milk and yogurt.  If you take the milk (1.99) and yogurt (6.75 all together) that leaves $2.44 for three bags of tortilla chips and three boxes of toothpaste.  The chips were $1.49 and I had (3) .55c/1 coupons and the toothpaste was $1.49 as well if you buy 3 and I had (3) .75c/1 coupons plus doublers.  So the toothpaste was .24c each and the chips were roughly .57c each.
I could have made money on the toothpaste if my Safeway doubled internet coupons b/c I have (3) $1/1 coupons that could be doubled.  I may still go to another one and see if I can do it again.  Even though I honestly have more toothpaste now than I know what to do with, I could always give it away to shelters or for our Operation Christmas Child boxes that we do every year.
Now that the kids are back in school, I am hoping to be back here more often!

This and That

Well, obviously I didn't make my goal of my new blog by the end of July.  I have lots of reasons.  Most of them just being summer stuff getting in the way.  But I haven't forgotten and I will get there.  Hopefully soon.
Right now, I am exhausted.  Trying to coupon with 3 kids in tow literally makes me want to pull my hair out.  It is torture.  It never fails that someone gets hurt, someone has to go potty, all of them get yelled at, and someone whines b/c I am not buying them something they think they are entitled to. 
But, I managed to accomplish a lot before buying myself a frappucino (with gift card money) to make up for my misery. 
Deals include:
     Albertson's: 2 bottles of prego, package of tortilla, fritos and bean dip for $2.19.  That was my best. 
     Target: 20 pens free, box of crayons free, travel band aids/2 travel first aid kits free, Charmin flushable wipes free, GreenWorks laundry soap for $6 (.10c/load), plus a bunch of school supplies on sale. 
I love getting free stuff!  I have been signing up for free stuff online that they ship to you.  It is like Christmas when I get random boxes in the mail and never know what it is them.  The last one I got was a free dog toy for Zoe.  Fun stuff!
Anyway, in case I haven't sold my case for couponing, let me spell out some of why I am doing this.  My original grocery budget was $600/month.  This was after careful consideration of how much we were spending each month and includes toiletries, groceries, dog food, stamps, etc... When I started getting into couponing I decided to go to $400/month.  But I am still taking out the $600 b/c that is what we budgeted for.  I have been putting that money aside for special things.  With that money we have bought a kennel for the puppy, numerous puppy supplies, paid for all our extra summer activities like swimming, movies, eating out extra, etc..., used if for spending money on our family reunion, paid for our dog sitter while on our family reunion.  Plus there is more than I am forgetting. 
Here is my challenge for next year: pay for Disneyland.  Yes, hubby has decided the kids are old enough to go and he wants Bud to go before he loses that childlike wonder (he's 7). 
But as you can see, I am not enjoying couponing this summer.  Too hard with kids in tow, so starting in September, I am going to work extra hard to drop my budget even more.  I haven't figured out exactly how much money we might need and hopefully I will get a work bonus at Christmas to help fund this but this is my goal.  Pay for it in cash!  I probably have 9 months to do this. I am getting excited just thinking about it!  I love Disneyland and haven't been there in years and have never been there for more than 1 day trying to cram everything in.  Looking forward to the thought of spending a couple of days there and not going crazy with it!

Sunday thoughts

I love our church.  I know I have said it a hundred times here probably but after going to huge churches or even not going at all, it is refreshing to me every Sunday the time I spend there.  It usually just flies by.  Now I have 2 of my kids in Sunday school, so with only one to entertain during the sermon, I actually get to hear more and hopefully soak up more. 
Today a couple of things struck me.  Our pastor talked about the dry periods in our life.  The periods where we don't hear from God regularly or feel very close to God.   We probably have all been in those periods of life, but I guess what struck me is that it is normal.  I always feel when I am in that season, that something is wrong with me.  That I am not doing all that I should be doing to remain on fire for Jesus.  It just made me feel better knowing that we all go through it.
The next thing was about contentment.  Now I don't think these 2 things were the pastors' main points but they are the snippets I gleaned.  The verse was Hebrews 13:5 "Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have.  For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you'."
I guess I have been having the "wants" lately.  You know...I want a new mattress (mine is 15 years old), I want a screen door, I want a newer/faster computer.  It is really easy sometimes to get caught up in it.  You see people buying the newest/latest things and your flesh wants to as well.  At least this is one of my struggles and something I am convicted of often.  This verse is a good reminder for me.  But not only for the contentedness part but that He will never leave me nor forsake me.  That is a pretty powerful statement and one that is good to remember in the seasons we are dry and in the seasons we feel close to God.