Scared of me.

Meet Rosey.

She is a product of going to a beauty supply store. I know what you are thinking how did you get a dog at a beauty supply store right?

Well my daughter Brailey is six now and can read (which has it's good points and not so good points). I was pulling into the parking lot of the beauty supply store and Brailey reads a sign out front "PET ADOPTION TODAY ONLY". Her being the animal lover that she is lets out the biggest squeel asking me to please go and look at the pets.

We call daddy to tell him about the dog we just met, and I know you know the end of this story....We now have Rosseitta (aka Rosey)

Rosey is a great dog.

She is loving.

She is obedient.

She loves our kids.

Rosey was born and raised in a shelter. She has never had a family.

Ever since we had her she has been loosing weight. We were starting to grow concerned as to why.

My husband's aunt came in town for a few days. While she was at our house she watched Rosey with her shiny metal dog bowls. She asked if we had realized that Rosey was afraid of her bowls. We laughed it off thinking what dog would be afraid of her bowls? Then his aunt began to explain it isn't the bowls she is afraid of it is what she sees when she goes to eat from the bowls.

We look and realize that the bowls cast a reflection....She was scared of herself.

His aunt then put down food for her to eat on the floor and immediately she ate it all up. Rosey is putting on weight now.

All this time she had the thing she needed, but fear of herself had kept her out of a place of receiving it.

Isn't this how we are as people. We aren't afraid of success so much as we are afraid of our self....

What if I fail? What if I am not good enough? What if everything "they" said all my life is right? What if I don't make it? What if I don't have what it takes....

I have always said if you want to find your greatest enemy go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. That person staring back at you will talk you out of your greatest blessings and will back you into a place of feeling isolated. We will disqualify our self before anyone else gets a chance.

What is holding you back today from what you desire....Is it you?

It's Wednesday night...Got to cook for the family, feed the kids, clean the kids from feeding the kids and then it is off to make the kitchen look like something that didn't get hit by a Texas tornado. In the midst of cleaning the kitchen, wiping little faces and hands what was on their faces and in the kitchen somehow got all over my outfit. So it is off to change clothes only to realize that the jeans are still in the washer, because I stopped laundry to cook dinner. So now it is a wet washcloth and quick "spot" clean instead. Load the kids in the car and drive with the air on high pointed at my pants so the spots will dry before I walk into church.

Pull into church spots still on pants. So I flip the mirror on my visor down to see if maybe I can fix my hair because I don't remember looking in the mirror since I brushed my teeth this morning....or did I even brush my teeth this morning....In contemplating my teeth I realize part of my sons dinner got on my shoulder when I lifted him out of his high chair....GREAT! Now I have spotty wet pants and spaghetti all over my shirt...and teeth that well....Let's just all pretend they got brushed ok!

Go into church frazled from the day. Walk in to find a handful of teens (ok not a handful there was two) hanging out in the lobby. As I walk in I am thinking "Lord really how am I supposed to be cool and relevant to these kids when I can't even keep any part of me clean!"

Bryan would preach his heart out to 2 teenagers in a room with 50 chairs. Bryan had decided to put the 50 chairs out in the room to stir up their faith. To me though it just made our two seem even smaller in the sea of chairs. I would try to connect with them but neither one of the two liked me to much. I felt like I spoke Spanish and they spoke a language that the world didn't know or even knew existed. We would turn out the lights in our then youth room and I would look at the 50 chairs and ask myself "Lord I know you have me here for a reason but why? These kids don't even like me! I am not cool enough. I am not smart enough."

The Lord spoke to me in those moments and said this in my heart: "I am not calling you to be cool enough and I am not calling you to be smart enough....I am calling you to mother a generation."

Something happened in my heart that night....I determined that anyone the Lord sent us I would be their mom.

What is a mother?
A mother is one who brings forth life. They are protectors and the responders to the children's cries in the night. Comforter of any and all injuries. She reminds them why they are great. She cleans, cooks, drives, directs, nurtures, protects and listens.


Ever since that moment I am mom. I am mom to any and all kids. Not to take the place of their natural mom, but to rather mother them in the spiritual. I love them, comfort them, believe in them, stand by them, stick up for them and most of all never give up on them.

All of this is leading me to this last Tuesday. Our interns and staff surprised us with an amazing gift and a wonderful card. The card was each intern's little one liner of what we meant to them. Tonight....The night before conference....I am being mom....my counters are lined with baked goods for my student babies...I am up praying for them thinking about them...reading their card at the kitchen counter and crying.....and remembering back to wet spotted jeans and spaghetti stained shirts.....

My heart full of gratitude that I didn't quit when it looked like we were not making progress. Hundreds have come to our student ministry since then....There has been a lot of hard times, but there has been a lot of happy times to....Moments that will forever be written on my heart.....

Some only have children born out of their womb...I thankfully get the honor and the privilege of birthing hundreds out of my heart....I am thankful to be...mom.

Delivery for me please!

I love the book of Colossians. It is for sure in my top three books in the Bible along with Genesis and John. The other day I was reading Colossians in chapter one verses 12, 13:

Giving thanks to the Father, Who has qualified and made us fit to share the portion which is the inheritance of the saints (God's holy people) in the Light. [The Father] has delivered and drawn us to Himself out of the control and the dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

What a powerful scripture this is right?!

What stood out to me in reading this the other day is simple the word delivered. How many of my girls out there after a long day at the office or the home love delivery pizza? Even better is delivery of an entire meal that gives an appearance that you made it yourself. When the truth is the delivery bag is in garage with loads of Styrofoam containers that are now emptied after contents were shoved onto elegant platters. Don't act like you have never done it!!

The thing I love about delivery is that I don't have to do anything. I call and then it comes ready to go. All I get to do now is enjoy what someone else had to work for.

Isaiah 30:18,19
The Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you......He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, He will answer you.

One of the greatest revelations we can have is that Jesus has done everything for us. There is no good works that we can ever do that will supersede the blood that was shed on the cross. We can spend all our life trying to make it on our own. However there is another way. Isaiah let's us know that this God that formed the Heavens and the Earth is waiting to do good to us. We are His hearts desire He is just waiting for us to call out to him.....

Think of this. I get in from the office from a long day. Guests are due to arrive anytime. I am breaking myself to go through the grocery store at 5p.m. while kids cry because they want to go home. I get home cook a dinner and quickly try to clean a kitchen to not look like a disaster zone. To now open the door and put on a smile to greet the people that just made me go through the last two hours of work.

Or you could just call for delivery as I described at the first of my blog.

So many times we are desperately trying to do it all on our own. So afraid to cry out to be delivered. So afraid to admit that in reality we can't do it on our own. While all this is happening in our life the truth still remains.....Christ has delivered us. All we have to do is accept what has been given.

Could it be that your joy, peace, prosperity, love, acceptance and dreams are all waiting for you? Jesus has paid for it...You have been delivered! You don't have to have one more day of measuring up and striving to keep your head above water! You just have to accept what He has already paid for.....

I was getting ready to speak at a conference a few years ago, and at this conference I would be speaking in front of some people that in my opinion were more talented then me. All of a sudden I was feeling insecure and not qualified. I know we all know what that feeling is like. In praying I was asking God for a super powerful message. Something that would drop their jaws and flood the alters.

In praying the Holy Spirit spoke to me: "If you go in there as a communicator then it can go two ways really good or really bad. If you go in there as my daughter then every time you get up to speak it will be good."

This is total reverse of how I have always thought. I always thought if you could be a better speaker, with amazing illustrations and powerful points then that makes you a good preacher. Developing your gift is always something we should do as we go thru life, but that should never be our focus. So many times as leaders we fall more in love with our gift then we do with our Father. In these moments we take God out of our central reliance and put our reliance on the gift.

God calls us sons and daughters, no longer slaves we have been adopted in to the family. That means our development of our gift does not determine our position in Christ. Our position in Christ determines the development of our gift.

If every leader got real honest it is really easy to enter into a business transaction with God instead of a ongoing relationship with Him. The most powerful messages preached come out of a place of intimacy first, not from books read, or study time spent.

So I am saying all this to say
The earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.--Romans 8:19

The Earth doesn't have expectation for a better business man, sales person, preacher or evangelist. The Earth is waiting for a people to rise up as sons and daughters and thru that become a vessel for the Father's heart beat to be shown. Could it be that you aren't waiting for your destiny to come to fruition but rather your destiny is waiting for you to take your position?

Daniel in the Bible understood this as he kept close to God then God put the spirit of excellence on him. The best fruit in life comes in a place of abiding. After all Jesus said it best that you will produce no fruit apart from Him(John 15:5). You can have fish bumper stickers, head usher at your church, know scripture by heart and still not be in a place of abiding. Abiding happens as we get away and spend time with the amazing Father.

In closing the definition of insanity is doing the same thing time and time again expecting a different result. If what you are doing isn't working why not just try a place of resting in Him? I promise with Jesus you will get places you never dreamed possible.

The power of a single question....

I was running the other morning on the treadmill. I began to think about things....When you are in minsitry you get the priviledcge of meeting people in all kinds of different walks in life. Some you walk with in good times others in hard times and few you walk with thru both. In all people in life I have noticed one constant theme. They refuse to challenge what they have always known.

It is as though thru life we begin to get a settledness in our mind of this is the way it has always been so this is the way it will always be. Why are we ok with life dictating to us who will be and what will become of us?

Words. Words in and of themself are nothing. As you read this they are just black font against a stark white background. Words have no power until they are released over someones life. That is when everything begins to radically change.

You know growing up I was always rejected by every coach that came my way. I was never given a second look as being an athlete. I was poked and ridiculed by peers for my obvious lack of ability to do anything athletic. I now get to go into schools all over east Texas and preach the Gospel to sports teams. Kind of funny when you think of it. For the last four years I have seen countless salvations and peoples lives radically transformed with the Gospel of Jesus on baseball fields, dugouts, and locker rooms. A coach looked at me at one of those schools recently and commented "Man I bet when you were in school you were a star athlete". He then began to list all the reasons why he thought so from my height, build etc. I couldn't help but laugh out loud and say no it was quiet the oposite I was always told all the reasons why wasn't good enough. He then said "Sounds like the problem was never your potential because the potential is still there today. The problem is you didn't have the right coach to see beyond where you were to what you could be."

WOW!! I stood there in awe as I listened to his words. So many times we take everything that has been said over all our life as the truth, and refuse to ever question its validity. I was running on the treadmill that morning and my mind became flooded with all of the people in life that I have watched with huge potential on their life yet they refused to question if the negative stuff that had been spoken over them was actually true.

You see words are powerful they have the ability to affect our entire being yet at the same time words when challenged can make a radical impact. So I have to ask you a question.....

What if everything that has been spoken over you all your life was a lie?

What if you really can do more with your life than where you are now?

What if it isn't too late to restart your life over?

What if this is the day that will change everything?

What if this is the moment you seize and decide to fully grab ahold of everything God is doing in and thru you?

What if you are valuable?

What if you are worthy of love and affection?

What if life is more than a mortgage a car payment and a job?

What if God sees you differently than you see yourself?

What if this is the first day of the rest of your life......

Where is the love?

John 13:34 This one new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you.

To understand Jesus' words let's look at what love is

1Corinthians 13:4-6 (amp)
Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (god's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful, it takes no account of the evil done to it (it pays no attention to a suffered wrong). It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.

In a society based on shows that glamorize love as sometimes you love them and sometimes you don't. With the divorce rate higher than it has ever been and broken homes more common than not. With shows that come on for children that portray manipulation and back stabbing as common place it is no wonder how we have lost what love really is.

My heart is saddened as I have watched lately how people will begin to tear others down?

Why is it that it is ok to push other people to a place below us in an attempt to make our self look better?

In the christian circle it looks no different than the world. One pastor blasting another pastor through public forums such as Twitter, Facebook or a blog. It grieves my heart to see this happening and it makes me wonder have we all forgotten what love is?

Are we so obsessed with being right that we will do anything it takes to prove our point even if that means defiling another man's name?

There needs to be a revelation in the body of Christ that we are all on the same team. Weather you are Baptist, Methodist, Assembly of God, Non-Denominational or fill in the blank. We are all on the same team. The minute we start mud-slinging at other believers in an attempt to prove our point we have lost what Jesus sent us to do. Jesus didn't send us to fight against one another He sent us to save a lost and dieing world.

Somewhere along the way we think it is our job as believers to go around and correct every one's doctrine and point out their sins. T.D. Jakes puts it best like this "We should be known for what we stand for not what we are against."

Romans 14:22 Says for YOU to follow your convictions and to keep them to yourself. Your personal convictions are not a platform to now try and wound your fellow believer......

You might be asking has someone spoken out against me that has me upset? The answer is no. In fact most of the people I have watched this happen to I personally don't know I just feel grieved in the spirit to watch this happening.

So in closing I will end with this quote by John Osteen "Make your words sweet because you never know when you might have to eat them." Let your words be full of encouragment not negativity. I hope this touched your heart as it has mine.

Empty Arms Real Promise

There are some stories in the Bible that capture my heart no matter how many times I read them. The story of Hannah is very much one of those kind of stories. In 1st Samuel chapter one we get to meet this amazing woman.

There are some people in the Bible it is so easy to see yourself in their shoes. Although the time which we live in is so varied and even the difficulties differ yet there is something that makes our hearts connect.

Hannah wanted a baby so bad while her sister had children with ease Hannah had none. She had a dream in her heart of a baby yet it says year after year she had none. All the while her sister uses this as an opportunity to belittle her sister.

We have created a society that is so unwilling to wait for anything. We want instant dinners along side our instant success. Unfortunately in life things are anything but instant. I think about how Hannah had a dream in her heart for a family and she was unwilling to budge no matter how things looked or how long it took. She knew that God was going to give her that which she had asked for...

How confident are you about the desires in your heart? Do you quit at the first sign it isn't going to happen? Would it be written that year after year you still believed?

I preached a message on this the other day. Take a moment and listen here hope you enjoy it!