Personal inventory......

I love that song by Michael W. Smith "I'm coming back to the heart of worship". What I like the most about that song is when he sings...

You're looking into my heart......looking into my heart.......

Wow think about it for a minute.....Jesus......Looking into your heart....

If we all got real for a minute and really meditated on that line & took time to think about what is in our heart. What is in there when no one is around no one is looking what are those things that are deep within us?

Around this time of the year I always think about goals I had coming into that year. Was I successful after those or not? Did I make the best use of my year or is there room to do better in the next year....if yes then how....

Every good business takes inventory of their merchandise so they know what they have. Shouldn't we do the same thing in our life?

Questions to think about

God: Am I......

Actively choosing God and His ways at every decision, word, moment, thought and step each day?

Consistent in my quiet time?

Daily spending time with God in prayer and Bible reading?

Husband: Am I.......

Praying for him DAILY?

Being a help meet to him?

Preparing for my husband daily?

Spending time with him?

Positively responding to him?

Noticing, regarding, honoring, preferring, esteeming, praising, admiring and loving him?

Bending or bucking with submission?

Being predictably happy?

Giving away to others what I haven't given first away at home?

Children: Am I.....

Spending quality time with them?

Praying with them daily?

Teaching them to follow God by my words and actions?

Home: Am I managing my home effectively. ....

with finances and budgeting?

with housecleaning?

(Managing it instead of it managing me?)

with planning meals and shopping wisely?

by taking care of needs at home?

Others: Am I......

Loving others correctly?

Serving others?

Preferring others?

Self: Am I......

Growing in my walk with God?

Eating properly and exercising?

Making sure I am healthy and give myself rest when needed so I can be what my family needs?

You see I don't think that I am perfect. I wish I could say I could put a big check mark by all of these questions as though I have done them all. But you know what I am just like you a normal person with real issues and real life comes along the way and distracts us. That is why it is so important that we look inward to our self and see what we can do better. Being a good mom and wife is a process not an overnight thing. It is a daily journey with lots of mistakes along the way!

An empty journal

Whenever I pass them in the store I have to pick them up and look through them. I always flip the pages looking at the blank pages. I can never pass a journal without having my heart race a little.

I love to journal it is one of those things that just is a release for me. To put on paper what God is doing in my heart is something so amazing. What is even more amazing is to write things and then look back years later and see how God worked things out. There are so many miracles that happen in our life that at the moment we weep and thank God & even vow that we will never forget that moment. Time goes on and so does life…..and somehow we forget.

A journal empty pages. Empty pages just waiting for someone to write down the wonderful things that are happening in their life. Waiting for someone to write down dreams, prayers, and answered prayers. Waiting for someone to pick it up and read about all the good things that have happened in life.

You see journals are a lot like our life. We start out blank with nothing really. Just a cover and a whole lot of blank space that begins to get filled with time. Some pages are sad, some funny, some happy and some uplifting. They all come together and tell a beautiful story of your life. The beautiful wonderful person that you are.

I think of how I can’t help but stop and look at a journal and see all the potential. I see myself carrying it. I see myself putting wonderful things that are happening in it. I see my children reading it and they are inspired because the same God that did it for me will do it for them.

I think God is a lot like I am when He is looking through people in the Earth. He sees beautiful perfect people with a whole lot of unwritten greatness. He sees unlimited potential. He can’t help but see Himself carrying them through life and performing miracles that blow their mind. He sees them setting up landmarks for their children. That their life will touch so many with what will happen on those blank pages. He sees the funny times, happy, the sad, the wonderful, and the miraculous.

You see the great thing about God is He never puts us back on the shelf. He always wants to take us and use us. Fill our life with such wonderful things.

“Your life is telling a story make it one worth reading”-April Simons

You see we are all journals that are being read everyday. What kind of a story is your life telling? Is it good? Weather you like it or not people are constantly reading it. They are browsing the pages and seeing what is inside.

Big Steps in New places

I remember the night Bryan and I went out on our first date...We were sitting in his old white Ford pickup truck (sounds like something out of a country song huh?). We began to talk about where we were heading in life and what were our goals. Bryan at that time told me that all he ever wanted was to be in full time ministry. Months later after we got to know each other more and more I realized that this wasn't just a dream of his, but a passion.

Time went on and bills came. We decided that while waiting for that dream to happen he needed a different career then at the lumber yard. So he went to fire school just a few short months after we got married. Then there were the multiple applications to get on at a fire department. Lots of time passes and we still aren't able to be full time at the church. Inside him though the dream was very much alive.


As far as I can remember all I have known is shift work, fire uniforms, smells of smoke after a long night, Bryan missing Christmas, birthdays etc. This has been my life for I don't know how long.

Our church has grown so much in these last few years. We knew that he would go full time at the church soon....Bryan came to me and told me by October 1st he would leave the fire department. Not long after Pastor came to us just a few months ago and said it is time!

WOW! Here we were on the verge of everything we had prayed for the last 9 years. So many emotions came upon me as Bryan worked his last shift last Thursday. Happiness, joy, sadness, and a little fear of the unknown. I felt like we were taking one huge leap off of a cliff not knowing what was below, but knowing that God was going to take care of us.

Sunday morning at church it was a normal service. Our anniversary was last Tuesday. I love love love love the song "Then" by Brad Paisley after Bryan showed it to me a few months ago. In fact it is the ringer on my cell phone when he calls :)

Right there before everyone he begins singing this song to me. You want to talk about cry! I was in a heap! How faithful God is! So many people go through life never finding happiness and here I am with joy over flowing in mine! Not only have I seen God's faith fullness in every area of our life, but I also have an amazing husband that after all these years is still head over heels for me!

How blessed I am! How thankful I am to be going on this wonderful journey of life with the most amazing guy in the world! I love him more today than ever!

Why am I blogging this? To brag on me? NO! To inspire you! God is no respecter of persons what He has done for me He can do for you too!! Just get a purpose and a dream in your heart and go for it! Don't worry about the details God will take care of those a long the way!

Jesus the healer

Mark 5: 24-34

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

I can't even begin to count how many times I have heard this message preached in my lifetime. The Lord really showed me somethings in this passage that I haven't ever seen before.

Everyone always talks about "The woman with the issue of blood". She had not only been bleeding for 12 years but the word says that she had suffered a great deal under physicians care and that she spent all that she had. I think about this and think about how bad people can take advantage of people that are desperate. This lady had been so taken advantage of for so long. In those days if you were bleeding you couldn't go around people because you were "unclean". So I see her not being able to go to the grocery store, have coffee with her girlfriends, take her kids to school. Her whole life became isolated to just her home and doctor's offices. Can you imagine the despair in her heart? The depression that would set in?

The great thing is she heard of Jesus. Faith sparked in her heart. You see when you have lost everything you have nothing to loose. So she put it all on the line to go just try and touch this Jesus. I see her on the street desperately looking for Him. Knowing if someone sees her in the public that she would surely be punished. Her heart must have been racing....but the chance of hope that stood before her was greater than the risk that she was taking.

In my mind I see her eyes finally spotting him, and with all the people around that she could have mistaken for Jesus I believe her heart immediately knew that, that man was her saviour. "That is the very person that will heal me to the uttermost."

I love that in this text it says immediately her blood flow stopped and she knew that she was healed from her suffering. This is the thing about Jesus I just love. He felt the power leave Him. He knew that someone was just healed. See that wasn't enough for Him. He didn't want this woman to just receive her miracle with out seeing the face of God. He wanted her to see the love and compassion in His eyes. I believe He wanted her to leave there knowing that He wasn't like everyone else that had judged her and taken advantage of her. He was a loving compassionate God. Then he tells her be freed of your suffering.

You see it isn't enough for God to just give you what you have been praying for. He wants you to live a full wonderful life. He doesn't want to fall short at just your miracle. Jesus wants you live a full wonderful life. Life to the fullest!

Come to Jesus with this in your heart

1. That He will answer your prayer

2. That He doesn't just want to fix the problem you are in, but He wants to fix your heart and all of the things that have held you back in life.

Blessings on you all! I pray that this has helped you! Please if you need someone to stand with you to get your miracle leave a comment and let me know! I would love to get in contact with you and help you stand for your answer to not just your problem, but for the life that Jesus wants you to live!!

Crystal Sparks