Thy Hands Thy Fingers

Father God , grant me to feel Thee in trials, situations, good times and bad as well as in every providence. And to see that Thy many gifts, acts of mercy and grace are but Thy hands and fingers taking hold of me. Revised from a Puritans prayer.

As I sit by my mothers side as she lays restfully in her hospital bed I couldn't help but think of this Puritans prayer I once read. A prayer spoken from the heart of someone in the 16th or 17th century for my heart centuries later.

Apparently both of us share the same quest to feel Gods presence in our trials and all we experience. Seeking that which we already know that Gods hands and fingers are in our every situation.

Oh that our focus will forever remain the same that we will see Gods many gifts, acts of grace and mercy are His hands and fingers taking hold of us.

What an awesome thought to visual it is God's hands and fingers that stroke moms forehead telling her everything will be ok. Who comforts my heart to know He is there. Who fills the room with a sense of peace and reassurance.

"Father God, what a praise it is to know dear Lord that Thy hands and fingers have never been too small but are large enough to care for us all. Unlike the disobedient child who has been grabbed by the arm by their parent and sent to their room You oh Holy One handle us with a gentleness we often don't deserve.

May we always remember in our hearts that You are taking a hold of us, not letting us go to fall on our own. Your presence is real, Your love is Devine and Your mercy is magnificent.

May we always take hold of You as You have taken hold if us. With Thy gentle hands and fingers keep a firm grip on my parents as I know You are not finished with them yet nor myself."

I Love You, Lord. Thanks for loving me.



Sent from my iPhone

Fighting Stress with Scriptures~~~Flawless Ways, Perfect Choices

2 Samuel 22:33 God is my strength and power, makes my way perfect

This scripture from 2 Samuel was extremely helpful to me when I had epilepsy and was fighting my stress seizures. It reminded me that God was my strength and power. I didn’t need my own to see me through. I had God. I was like a battery operated toy that when the batteries ran low I was no longer able to function. Thanks to God I didn’t need to get to that point as I so often did.

The way God was making my way perfect was the fact that He was there for me. I was still having seizures, I was still disabled. What was so perfect about that? Nothing! Except the fact that through my epilepsy I was learning to lean on God for my day to day ability to function as I made Him my perfect choice.

Sounds wimpy, doesn’t it? That’s our problem today we have it in our heads that if we have to rely on God to be our crutch, backbone, strength, or power then we must be some kind of wimpy weak weirdo. From the beginning of time starting with Adam and Eve in the garden we think we can do it on our own. There is pride in showing the world that we can make it on our own. We don’t need God. I’m not some kind of windup battery operated toy that needs power from a different source!

Can you hear it? More important is the fact you can see it. You can see what that kind of attitude does for us in the behavior of our society today. We have moved away from our true source of strength and power and it hasn’t proven a thing. When I did it I had more stress seizures, when others do it their “stress seizures” are the anger they display, the bad choices they are making, and their destructive attitude they carry with them that hurts rather than heals.

Perfect ways? What’s that! In reality there is no perfect way. Our idea of a perfect way is one that is pain free, loaded with free money to spend, everything we ever asked for or wanted without doing anything to get it. Indeed a life free of stress, worries and other people sticking their nose in our business. Nice try but have you ever seen such a thing? No.

The perfect way God has to offer is one paved with not only His power and strength leading to eternal life with Him but His love, mercy and grace as well. Yes there will be pain and suffering along the way, stressful times and hard lessons to be learned but that’s okay when you’re traveling with Jesus. The flawless way, the perfect choice.

© 2013 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Catchy Saying #2 in the fight against stress

Catchy Saying #2 Self makes a good servant but a horrible master

As much as we would like to believe the lie that we make wonderful masters of ourselves it just isn’t true. We act like a young teenage who just graduated from High School. We think the world is ours. We are our own masters now and suddenly reality hits. We learn there are just as many open and closed doors out in the real world as there were at home and we aren’t the ones who are ultimately in control. There are still bosses to answer to, landlords to please, laws to be obedient to, and God to obey.

It doesn’t matter how good we have it down at being our own boss there is still other outside elements affecting us. Being a good servant or steward of our-selves is a task we all need to master with the awareness that God is our ultimate master. He is the one with the final say, the one in vital control. When I was fighting stress seizures this catchy saying helped to remind me that I wasn’t in ultimate control. I made a lousy master and because of poor choices I wasn’t doing well in being a good steward of myself either and I had the stress seizures to prove it. I needed to remember it’s God who is in ultimate control and it was His lead I was to follow not the other way around.

The task of being a good steward of our selves still falls on our shoulders to do and do well. However, if you think about it we were designed to be good servants to others. Where would we be if we had all masters running around and no servants? Who would donate money to charity, feed the poor, help the crippled get out of their chair, and come to the rescue of someone’s dog or cat and so much more. There is no shame in being a servant or having a servant’s heart. With God as our master, the one in control He doesn’t look down upon us as His servants.

To Him we are not people who are in a low life position to give Him what He wants at the snap of His fingers. He is a loving Master who cares about those who are willing to be a part of His family. A family we enter by choice not by force. As a young child is comforted knowing mom and dad are there to watch over them it’s comforting to know God is in the same position. He is the one in charge and knowing that reduced a lot of the affects stress was having on me. Praise the Lord.

Fight Stress with Scriptures Closing the Cracks

Due 6:5  Love God with ALL your heart, soul, mind, strength

 

How in the world does loving the Lord your God with ALL your heart, soul, mind, and strength help us to fight stress? It helps because it gets our mind where it needs to be. Any time we hold back a piece for ourselves that leaves a crack for things to come along that we don’t want or need brought in by stress.

 

The important thing to know is that “stress” happens. We can’t do a thing in life where we will never be struck by stress again. The issue is what we do it. How long we linger in it and allow it to run our lives. Do we add to it or take away from its desire to sting us.

 

When I stopped having stress seizures it wasn’t because I was at last living in a stress-free environment and it never came around again. Yeah right! And if you believe that I have oceanfront property in Arizona I want to sell you. Just teasing but that is how crazy of a thought that is to think we can live in a stress-free environment. Some get pretty close and others couldn’t be surrounded more by it. The issue is dealing with it and not allowing it to affect our lives.

 

A good start to that is remembering the fact that we need to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Don’t leave room for stress to have its affects on us. Yeah, I know you “have the right to get mad at someone for doing something to you” but is it really worth it holding back that chunk of your heart, soul, mind and strength to be mad at someone.

 

When I found out about my stress seizures the first thing that had to go was my anger towards the girl who initially caused my head injury that would lead up to my seizures. I chose to hold back that part of me and it showed in the amount of stress seizures I was having. If I truly loved God with all that was in me then it was time to show it by not worrying or getting upset over things, or being pre-occupied with things that were eventually going to lead to a stress seizure.

 

As I told a couple the other day, during the time of battling with my stress seizures I couldn’t even worry about what I was going to fix for dinner. If I did, I wound up having a stress seizure. It’s one thing to “think about” what you are going to fix for dinner and another to “worry” about it to the excess of having a stress seizure.

 

Looking to the “all” in loving God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength was a good focus point to measure the distance between what I was doing and where I needed to be and the stress seizure I just had in between the two points. Sometimes it was clear I loved God with my all and had a seizure anyway but there were times that evidence proved otherwise. It was then up to me to figure out what I wanted to do with the data I just collected from the last seizure. It was because I chose to learn from each seizure that future stress seizure eventually would be eliminated and victory was just around the corner.

 

Stress seizures or not it is a command from God for us to follow. An act not set up for God himself to profit from. However, it’s for the benefit of us for the by-product that comes from it.  It’s how God loves us and it does us well to do the same back to Him as we close the cracks to the things that don’t need to be.

Emotional Fitness ~~~~~~ Fighting Against Stress

  As one of the speakers at Women's Retreat this year Bev Campbell and I both spoke about emotional fitness. Bev talked about many things including the scripture that says that physical fitness may have a little benefit, emotional or spiritual fitness is what has lasting values for all eternity. In my talk with the lady I talked about stress and the tricks we can use to fight against it. I gave the ladies ways to stay focused when stress is in the midst that we may stay healthy emotionally.

 

Unable to finish covering my handouts with the ladies I will cover on this blog what I didn't get to finish at the retreat. At the retreat it may have been "TMI" too much information to absorb all at once but here we have as long as we want to finish what we started. Let the learning begin:

 

We will cover the list of "catchy sayings" that were handed out and how we can use them to help us in our fight against stress. After going thru that list we will cover the scriptures I used to fight my stress seizures that have lasting value for any fight we are in.

 

Last but not least we will cover the list of Stress Fighting tips that were given. To get a head start on those you can look at the first six listed on JenningsWire where I blogged about these already.

 

Catchy Saying #1   It's a fight worth fighting with a coach worth listening to

Any struggle we are in, any fight we are fighting is worth it when we have God as our coach. What a blessing it is to have on our side someone who really cares and is willing to be there through all our struggles. God is not there to prevent us from going through hard times but He is there to help walk us through these moments in our lives. Just like a football coach can’t play for the players, prevent them from being hurt when tackled, or fight their battles for them when tempers fly on the field God is the same way. He is there to give us the advice needed to win, cheer us on, encourage us when we need it the most, and strengthen us both emotionally and spiritually as we do our part. We are the ones who have to be willing to fight the fight with the right attitude. The attitude to not merely survive life but to win in a manner that would make our coach, our Lord God himself proud He has us on His team.

 No fight, struggle, or hard time is pleasant at the moment but with God as our coach He makes it worth fighting to stay upright in our Christian walk one success at a time.

 

 

Fun at Women's Retreat 2013

Women's retreat this year was once again a big success. We learned about physical, emotional, and spiritual fitness. We got to sing songs around a cozy campfire, hike around the lake, and catch up with old friends as we made new ones.

 

It was a blessing for the first time at the retreat to enjoy witnessing a baptism in the lake. It may have been a cold journey into the water for Kathy and Bonnie but Kathy came out with a warm smile that never went away the rest of the retreat.

 

Here are more pictures of our fun time together:

 Joan did a great job leading us in songs of praise. Thanks also Joan for your role in the planning of the retreat.

 "Hum, what should I do next?"

Ladies gathered to watch the baptism

Lisa, one of the speakers, challenging us to look at what we are using our time for, spiritual growth or other stuff? Visit Lisa at her blog lisadetres.wordpress.com

 

Newly baptized Kathy comes out of the waters of the lake ready to start a new life in the Lord. May we all do our part in helping Kathy in her new beginning.

Our cooks worked hard at feeding us well. Thank you!

 Round Lake Wilderness camp, may your flag forever wave as lives are touched by what you have to offer.

 

God as Our Anchor

Our anchor in life, Jesus Christ, is not found in the depths of the sea below but in the Heaven's above. The rope attached to our Anchor is there for us to tug on to get our boat closer to the Anchor itself. It's not there to get the anchor to come to us.

 

Praise the Lord, Jesus is a firm and steady anchor all of us can rely on to keep us where we need to be. One who remains where He is even when we drift away. Forever waiting for us as we find our way back.

 

Thank you Lord for being our anchor and for being the same today as You were yesterday and will be tomorrow.

 

We love you!

Women's Retreat

Women's Retreat for 2013 is September 13 & 14th at Round Lake

The theme for this year is "Fitness." There will be three women speaking. One on the topic of physical fitness, another will cover the subject of spiritual fitness, and then the third will be addressing the issue of emotional fitness.

I am the speaker who will be talking about the subject of emotional fitness. We will be sharing stress fighting tips that work as we laugh our way to better emotional health.

Come and join us and have some fun. You can come on Friday and Saturday or just one of the two days it doesn't matter you will always get something to bring home with you to enhance your spiritual growth.

If you want to get a registration before the retreat come by the Redmond Christian Church in Redmond Oregon. The cost of the retreat is $20.00 per day. There are sleeping areas if you want to spend the night and don't worry its not under the stars and there is running water in the bathrooms with flushing toilets. Ha Ha......

Newest Writing Adventure

On this blog I have been doing a series of writings devoted to "I think I'm having stress" and "Funny Dees." Recently I was blessed to be accepted into a bloggers group and the theme of my blog at AnnieJennings.com is about stress and cancer.

These are the two topics I have had to deal with in my adult life through the diseases I have, and in some cases, continue to face. Fresh out of college the first was my epilepsy that had me disabled for 12 years and the challenge I was given to get rid of the stress seizures that prevented me from being totally cured.

Twenty years after the Lord blessed me with a healing from my epilepsy I was diagnosed with breast and bone cancer. This is one disease that .will not be "cured" but just the same it can be conquered in my attitude, actions, and ability to stay strong in Jesus.

Therefore, because I'm writing about stress on AnnieJennings.com I probably won't continue with the series here that I named "I think I'm having stress." I might be able to come up with something for both spots, we'll have to see.

If you don't see any more "I think I'm having stress" posts here that is the reason why. I'll find something to replace it with. I told Annie Jennings when I spoke with her that I will not copy and paste from this site on to hers. After all I told her the more I write the more I have, so be on the lookout and visit me at:

http://anniejenningspr.com/jenningswire/author/karen-gillett/

In love W.I.T.H. Jesus,

Karen J. Gillett

Think I'm Having Stress~~~~~~~Let go and Let God

Life was getting rough, several times I heard people tell me to just let go and let God. I had heard it so much that I vowed if I heard it again I was going to scream. Let go and let God! It was like they thought I loved holding on to the pain I was experiencing and unwilling to let it go and trust in God. I trusted God or so I thought.

 

One day as I was reading my Bible and praying God stopped me in my tracks long enough to show me the handprints on the situations I was holding on to were mine. Displayed in front of me were my knuckles shining in white from clenching on so tightly. “God, did I really not trust you to take care of things? Lord, was I that afraid to let go thinking it would be the final move in my life that sent me drowning in a bottomless pit of despair, pain and anguish?”

 

All He needed to say was, “Karen…” and I knew instantly the answers to my questions. My fear was greater than my faith. My friends who told me to “let go and let God” were trying to keep me from drowning by my own actions not cause to me to be submerged.

 

The next person telling me to “let go and let God” was I and indeed I wanted to scream. Not because someone was aggravating me but because I had taken so long to wake up to the fact that I was doing the opposite of what I needed to do.

 

Truly we hold too tightly on to things and not tight enough to Jesus. We get into bad situations, have horrible experiences and we hold on to these times as if they were some kind of life preserver instead of the thing that tends to drown us. How crazy is that? We need to let go of that and hang on to Jesus. It is Him we need to lean on instead of clutching tightly to the bad times. We need to have a yard sale or heart sale and get rid of all the old things we think we can’t let go of.

 

When you prepare for a yard sale you gather all that needs to go, the things that have no value, and things that are just cluttering up your life. Believe it or not I’ve never had a yard sale but labeled by my family a “pack rat” my daughter thinks we’d be rich if I did. That was just counting the things I had stored in our attic!

Our spiritual life is no different. If we would just get rid of the things that need to go, the things of no value to us that are just cluttering up our lives we’d be rich. Eternally rich in God, rich in His love, mercy, grace, and blessings that never end.

 

Don’t scream but instead, let go and let God. Let Him do all He is able to do by giving up our right to hold on to the junk that needs to go. Letting go doesn’t mean abandoning people or some things it means allowing God the control needed to operate without us slowing down the process of trying to hold on and do it ourselves.

 

© 2013 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing for COCWF

 

DEES funny~~~~~~~There's a Train Coming!

One day as my husband and I were on our way home I was feeling a little tired from our journey. Sitting there quietly in my seat giving up my position as the “back seat driver” I drifted in and out of sleep. Once when I was half awake I noticed my husband acting like a train was coming that he failed to see before starting across the multiple tracks crisscrossing the road. At the sign of his nervousness I began to be a little fearful myself out of fear of being hurt. Next thing I knew I heard the sound of the tracks below us rattle. Sure enough we weren’t the only ones on the tracks and we were about to be hit. However, the impact didn’t happen. Instead what happened was a car full of impatient teenagers passing us on the tracks using the shoulder of the road. I was relieved it wasn’t a train but wow did that scare me!

 

 LESSON: Often in life’s journey we feel like the light at the end of the tunnel just has to be a train. Fearful of what we anticipate happening we feel like at any time we expect to be hit and sent flying into orbit. We become scared as our imagination soars. However, what we think is a train coming could be just someone else crossing the tracks we are on in the journey of life. Something that causes a chain reaction that rattles the tracks below us momentarily. We need to remember that we are not the only ones on the road and we need to rely on God and His driving to see us through our journeys. Later after our railroad incident I found out my husband wasn’t acting “nervous” as he knew there wasn’t a train coming. No, what he was doing was paying attention to the herd of deer in the nearby field. I needed to trust his driving skills and go back to sleep and get some rest.

 

Same thing in our spiritual life, we need sit back and get some rest as we put our trust in God’s driving skills. No matter the length of the journey, the rattling of the tracks, the delays we encounter we can have confidence in our chauffeur, Jesus Christ. Our part is to make sure we allow Him to be the one in charge of driving us to where we need to be. He sees the trains, He’s not afraid of the tracks, and He knows where He’s going. You can’t get any better than that.

 

Suddenly it’s no longer “There’s a train coming!” but its “Jesus is driving, I am safe.”

 

© 2013 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing         Funny DEES

Think I'm Having Stress~~~~~Breaking out in Praise

Instead of breaking out in a sweat over situations we need to break out in praise to the Lord. “Praise? You expect me to praise God at a time like this, I don’t feel like it!” We are not to do it simply because we “feel” like it but because it’s the right thing to do.

 

Praise moves us from the clouds to sunshine from doubt to faith. Once when I was feeling down an elder at our church saw me and told me, “Chin up Karen and praise the Lord.” Praise the Lord? What in the world was he talking about he must not understand my current situation and what I’m dealing with. I knew better, I knew he was well aware of what I was dealing with in life. And most importantly I knew in my heart he was right about praising God.

 

Years ago I had already learned the lesson that it’s not for the situation itself we are praising the Lord but praising God for who He is and what He can help us with and for the little things in life. In every situation we find ourselves in if we take the time to look we can find something there we can praise the Lord for. If all we can do is praise the Lord for toilet paper, colorful paint, door handles, crawling ants or anything it gets our mind going in the right direction.

 

When sucked into depression it’s very difficult to find things to praise God for and that’s when we need to start looking at all we see and think about and praise God. It’s a process that un-sticks our praise searcher button that is temporarily blocked from working properly. It’s a way of getting it going again and to beat the stress that has moved in on us.

 

To help out any whose praise searcher button is currently stuck, I will start by praising God naming the things I current see around me, things directly in front of my face. As I go around the room I will leave out on purpose the things that remind me of the bad in life like my cancer, issues with other people, headaches, and worries about my parents wellbeing.

 

Here we go: Praise the Lord for electricity, for lamps it lights up, the computer it keeps running, the TV it makes come alive. Praise you Lord for our black lab sleeping at my feet, the sound of the rooster crowing outside, and the cow bawling for her breakfast to be served. Praise you Lord for warm socks on my feet, pictures of love ones to remind me of the good times in life. Praise you for calendars and the pictures they display. Praise you Lord for the carpet that is soft on my feet and the hardwood floor that still have the skid marks on it from my grandson making a game out of sliding on it. Praise you Lord for the artwork you created just outside my window for me to see as the wind blows the branches on the trees. Praise you for comfortable furniture to sit upon and curtains draping from the windows. Praise you for the sound of a clock chiming, the coffee pot brewing, and the heater running. Praise you Lord that in spite of what I have to deal with in life I have blessings to count and the number one blessing on the list is You, Lord God. Praise you Lord for today and the use of it. Praise you Lord I’m alive to live it, it didn’t have to be me. Praise you that I can live my life to Your glory no matter what. Praise you for loving me.

 

There you go, I went first now it’s your turn to get your praise searcher button unstuck. Bypass the bad and start to praise the Lord anyway no matter what. As you can see there are plenty of things we can praise the Lord for whether we “feel” like it or not. Making the choice to wait until we feel like it is bad for us and good for our enemy so start today for tomorrow will be too late.

 

© 2013 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing for COCWF

Funny DEES

My spirit was struggling, I had a hunch what it may be but what I was going to do about it was a whole different problem. My self-esteem was on the low side and it needed some kind of boost. The only thing I could think of was to go to the local Christian book store looking for a book on the subject. Intimidated by my task I was reluctant to be so bold as to let the store clerk know I was searching for a book on low self-worth. Truth of the matter is I probably didn’t need to ask, for it had to have been written all over my face.
 

As I sat out in the car gaining what strength I could to go humiliate myself I finally went into the store. It felt like every eye was on me and every ear was tuned in to what I asked the lady at the front counter. Try as I might to say it in the lowest voice I could finally she understood what I was trying to say. Boldly and loudly the clerk answered me in what seemed like a shout as she told me the aisle where I could find all the books on low self-esteem.

 

 

As I went back to the area every once in a while I looked over my shoulder to see who may be watching me. It was like that feeling a teenage girl gets when she buys feminine products for the first time and they sneak out hoping no one saw what they just purchased.

 

 

LESSON: It’s a surprise they can even sell low self-esteem books because how in the whole can people suffering from this disease be able to ask for them and purchase them. If you think about what we have in God, because of God, through God we don’t need to have a low self-worth. Too often where the low view we take comes from is listening to the lies of Satan and his workers around us.

 

 

Someone tells us we are worthless or ugly or no good we instantly listen and take it to heart. We cling to the lies of Satan and ignore the encouragement of our King, Jesus Christ. What does it take to get us to realize just how valuable we are to God?

 

 

It takes having faith in ourselves as well as God to know that He does love us and we are worthy of that love. No matter what we do, how much we mess up the Lord is there for us ready to take us into His arms once again. Our worth comes from His love and confidence in us. Worth that comes from accomplishing something like a State championship, a published book, a million dollar bank account are temporary and will never get us where we need to be.

 

 

The biggest thing is that we find a balance in the area of self-worth between being too proud of ourselves and beating ourselves down into the ground with a destructive attitude toward us. God is the answer; His book is the best place to find our worth. Our job is to read it, believe it and better yet live it out in our lives. Our worth comes from Him not what others think of us or what we may think of ourselves.

© 2013 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing         Funny DEES