Fight Oppression with Scripture!

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It was the strangest thing...

One moment I was waking up, rubbing my eyes and taking in the day.

Quickly realizing i had a KILLER headache.

Things went downhill from there.

Fast.

A distressing text from a precious friend.

A step on the scale.

A realization that my birthday is days away.

All of a sudden a great HEAVY oppression hit me between the eyes.

All I could see were the messes around the house and every sound was magnified 10,000x and echoing in my hollow, tired head.

Kids were hollering at each other.

Toby was crying.

(did i mention I only slept 5 hours?!)

I was suddenly in tears feeling like the entire world was smothering me.

How did I get here!??!

Wasn't I just a few moments ago sleeping peacefully, just right there??

Graciously, my older girls took the reigns and cared for the others downstairs.

I reheated a day old cup of coffee. (I really cannot believe I forgot to drink my coffee yesterday!)

I opened my Bible to where I had left off yesterday...Isaiah 50.

Verse 4 jumped out like a cat on a hot tin roof:

"Morning by morning He wakens me
and opens my understanding to His will."

And lo and behold, my journal had the verses from I Thessalonians 5:16-18 printed on the bottom page:

"Always be joyful.  Pray continually. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."

Wow.

That's pretty stinkin' clear.

So I started by thanking God for what good was surrounding me. (You don't have to be told to be thankful when times are good, so that verse is WRITTEN for challenging moments!)

I spoke aloud all I was thankful for...

...and literally in a matter of moments, all that feeling of dark oppression had left.

In a matter of minutes my head cleared, I saw through the darkness and realized it was sunshining outside. "Hey, I have a life to go live!"

Peace had returned downstairs too.

I sit here now typing on the keypad realizing even my headache is gone.

What was that, anyway???

Spiritual attack.

I truly believe our whole family/house got smothered with it this morning. There was a moment when all my kids were screaming and one came up throwing my bedroom door open wide, "Mom! You've GOT to DO SOMETHING! Things are NOT GOING WELL!!!" I was currently in tears from my own attack.

Thing is, when you are under attack, you rarely recognize it. It's not like Satan comes to you and says, "prepare to be ATTACKED!"

(but gosh wouldn't that be nice?!)

Habits of being in the Word are good for so many, many reasons. I hope that today if you find yourself grumpy, overwhelmed, exhausted, hurting that you too will do a little I Thessalonians 5:16-18!

The Grateful Project

I have an idea.

Being that we JUST talked in our 5th/6th grade Sunday School class about traditions that we do outwardly but do not truly do on the heart level. We talked about celebrating Thanksgiving and how easy it is to be more about the football, playing with cousins and eating pie than on truly being thankful.

So I decided to do a personal grateful challenge.

I am going to post on Facebook each day something I am truly, heart-level grateful for. I may or may not post a picture. (I am not going to hem myself into that...life is simply TOO overwhelming for that!)

But for today, there are pictures.

I am starting off November begin grateful for a tree. It is a particular tree. It is also the ONLY tree left in our entire yard at this moment!! But it is outside my kitchen window so when I prepare food, clean up or make my Shakeology, I see it.


And this year it is exceedingly beautiful! Red-tipped leaves at the ends of some of the branches that have otherwise all turned yellow. Now I'm sure that my scientific husband could give me the reasons it has done that, but I don't care really. I just so deeply delight in its beauty each day!

And then with the sunlight, OH!

The glory of the Lord is being shown all around us!  I am making an intentional effort to be grateful for the abundance of love and goodness God has placed in my life.

And look at these other beautiful sights I took in while I went outside to photograph my tree!

Awesome aren't they?

I have also decided to help my children in being grateful this month. What is this? This is the trunk of THEIR grateful tree! Each night at dinner I am going to have them trace their hands, cut them out (yes, I will of course help the littles!) and write out one thing each day they are thankful for. Imagine this tree in 30 days x 5 hands! It will be ABUNDANT with praise! Awesome!



How will you show you are grateful this month?