Catchy Saying #3 Come Accepting Not Demanding

"Come Accepting Not Demanding"

For the longest time when I was fighting my seizures it seemed like all I did was come to God demanding healing, demanding answers, demanding relief from all my stress. For some reason I thought I could come to Him in a demanding sort of way and get my way like some little kid. After all if I came accepting of my circumstances then that meant I was okay with everything therefore God was going to freeze me in the position I was so content with.

Boy did I have it wrong! It was this simple little “catchy saying” that showed me the error of my thinking. I had God all wrong. He doesn’t tell us to be content so He can freeze frame our life so He doesn’t have to deal with us anymore by convincing us to be content where we are. That’s ridiculous. Being accepting and content with our circumstances is a way to endure what we are going through until such a time in which it may change. It’s our strength in a weak situation, our rock to stand upon when the sand of time is giving away under us.

None of us are in the position where we can go to God demanding anything. We can ask for answers, ask for guidance, ask for our needs but to demand them is a totally different thing. It’s a matter of a good attitude verses a bad attitude. To demand anything from God is like behaving as some spoiled child who always expects to get their way.

To accept what God has for us is to be humble and thankful for at least the things we do have. The less we fight our circumstances and allow for acceptance the more likely they may change for us.

I could still be fighting my stress seizures to this day 24 years later by not accepting the fact I had them and I’d still be disabled. Same goes with the elderly man with dementia. He can both accept the fact he has dementia and try to deal with it on a regular basis or fight it and refuse to accept the fact and be miserable for the rest of his life.

God’s not in the business of freeze framing. What He wants is for us to have the right attitude towards life and the circumstances we face and piece by peace our stress becomes less of a battle. Therefore freeing us up to fight the real battles in life and win. Exchange demanding for acceptance today, you’ll love the results. You’ll be surprised at the peace.

© 2014 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing for COCWF

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.

 

 

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