Try­ing to give him space…so he can fig­ure out stuff, but also don’t want to give too much space so he thinks I don’t need him at all. But it is a bit awk­ward to have loved some­one for close to 19 years…and feel like you may/may not talk to them. All I know is that it is in God’s hands and I can’t worry about it. I do not need any health issues at this point and pent up hurt and aggres­sion only hurts me. I just pray that God heals our bro­ken fam­ily, because it is a long road of unknown. How can you not end a CLOSE friendship…but you have no trou­ble end­ing a mar­riage? A friend­ship almost 2 decades. Just so confused?!?!?!?!?

I need to feel loved, impor­tant and appre­ci­ated. I have been want­ing to go to Chase BBQ with my hus­band for a long time now…but just never quite made it there…and today I saw a coupon for $10 off your meal…I am so excited. Why do I need oth­ers to go out of their way for me. The place was there all along, I could have very eas­ily just gone by myself, but guess it was some­thing that I wanted to try for the first time with my hus­band. Times are real tough right now. It is really hard to stay focused at work and not think of things that bring me down…but i don’t have time to cry all day, so I bet­ter suck up and live with my con­se­quences of not mak­ing quicker deci­sions to seek help way long ago. I pray that if you ever need some words of encour­age­ment that I can be there for you and help you along your jour­ney of this VERY tough life. I just pray for my chil­dren that they do not have extra burdens…my old­est is ten and we have quickly thrown him into an adult world. Alright bet­ter dry up my tears…the more I write the more I CRY.

I see an apol­ogy in the future…Wow how can peo­ple be so insensitive?

• So excited to see what God has in plan for my life.

Unlike Mat­tel Transformers…we are not mass produced…and we shouldn’t con­form.  “Be not con­formed to the world, but be ye trans­formed by the renew­ing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and accept­able, and per­fect will of God.”  I miss going to bible study on Thursdays…and since I am no longer wel­come at the one I was attend­ing, I have been in search for another one…and think I found it.  Trans­form­ers.  I look for­ward to gain­ing a bet­ter knowl­edge of God.

Life is never just going to be easy! There are spir­i­tual bat­tles that we can’t even see some­times, but we have to be ready to bat­tle. We have to be ready to stand guard. We need to be filled with knowl­edge and under­stand­ing and be able to use it at any­time. Eph­esians 6:10–12 10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our strug­gle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the author­i­ties, against the pow­ers of this dark world and against the spir­i­tual forces of evil in the heav­enly realms.

Endure hard­ships like a soldier…Christians are sup­posed to be at war with evil…
Chris­tians are sup­posed to be sol­diers in the war…not just stand idly by.

Be STRONG! But be strong in the LORD, not your­self. Be Made STRONG…this is not some­thing that you do your­self. God empow­ers us and makes us strong. We are not to be left to our own Strength…we need Jesus on our side. Be Strong in HIS might! If there are sins are in your life that you have been bat­tling against…are you try­ing to fight it with your own strength? I WANT to be made Strong…how do I do that? Put on the full armor of God! Are you going to go into a bat­tle with bermuda shorts and flip flops.

• First thing — you have to be fit. Read the Bible! Pray! Prayer Changes Things! We have direct access to Jesus, be involved with Dis­ci­ple­ship. Be famil­iar to the weapons…take apart the armor and put it back together. Fig­ure it out. Train.…Empower…
• Sec­ond — Be dis­ci­plined! Have self con­trol. When we lack discipline…people get hurt.
  1 Peter 5:8 — Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roar­ing lion look­ing for some­one to devour.
  The devil doesn’t catch and release…he catches for keeps. He looks for peo­ple to devour.
• Third — Go to War! Take a STAND… not take new ground. Jesus takes new ground, we hold the line. The devil attacks with fear. When you get off the couch…grab your bible…stand up to and get into the war, you become a threat and he tries to attack you. If you are just sit­ting on the sidelines…why does he need to go after you? It is usu­ally when you take a stand and get deeper in his word where you will expe­ri­ence new lev­els of battling…and you will have a GIANT on your side.

God is BIGGER…depend on him for strength.

Mov­ing on to the next chap­ter in the book of life…do you ever feel as though some of the pages are just torn out? Maybe for a reason…or maybe just out of neglect —

I stum­bled across this poem…that pretty much sums up hurt feel­ings and the ene­mies attack at what is sup­posed to be won­der­ful! I am read­ing The Power of A pray­ing Wife…and know that the sim­ple tech­niques to fix a book is not going to work in this instance!
1.Wallpaper adhe­sive (small quan­tity)
2.A small pal­let knife
3.Two tea tow­els
4.Damp soapy cloth
Torn pages in a book can make the words com­pletely unread­able. Even if a tear does not change the leg­i­bil­ity of a page, it does destroy the book’s value. While apply­ing clear tape to the rip is accept­able for a quick fix, it can leave a reader look­ing for a per­ma­nent repair unsat­is­fied. Repair meth­ods using archival repair tape and adhe­sive paste are both options for read­ers hop­ing to make their books
While I would always advise some­one to seek the help of pro­fes­sion­als for those books of value, home repairs to pages in these books can be achieved, either using the wall­pa­per method above, for easy tears, or if you want a more pro­fes­sional fin­ish by buy­ing archive repair tape. It doesn’t always stick all that well, although here, using blot­ting paper and an iron, you really can make an effi­cient repair.

It is Going to take Fer­vent Prayer…Powerful prayer and miracles…but in God’s plan

God is speaking…this is what our pas­tor talked about on Sun­day. Matthew 5:20–22 Sys­tem of rules to ful­fill for other to fol­low to be right with God. You have to exceed what qual­ity the way life is lived. Right­eous­ness goes far­ther than keep­ing rules. Goes to the heart… We will always default to the min­i­mum require­ment of what we should do or take it to the extreme. That is how we are wired…when we abide by rules…what can we get away with? When you dance around the edge you will fall over. Then you try and sac­ri­fice something…change some­thing to make it right. More church…read more…pray! Anger-go and make peace with them! For­give the sins they com­mit espe­cially when it is against us! Jesus pushes fur­ther and says YOU are the one that has to make it right! Be the first to reconcile…go! But we don’t! We carry around enor­mous blind spots, jus­ti­fy­ing, and Jesus takes this and tells us to wor­ship. If you sense some­one has a prob­lem with you leave your gift/sacrifice and go make it right. Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion — go and make peace! Don’t paint your own picture…relationships Gods will,Gods heart, Gods char­ac­ter is about rec­on­cil­ing. All about mak­ing peace!! We need to be peacemakers…that shows the world what we are about. Can’t have peace with god if we cant for­give oth­ers. Set­tle mat­ters quickly! Make peace quickly! Court equal­izes the amount of pain… Rela­tion­ship goes worse…reconcile…make peace! Don’t kill your rela­tion­ships. You can’t be the judge and not give them the wall of sep­a­ra­tion! High expec­ta­tions but that is what God calls us to do! What if I do this and rec­on­cile and they don’t respond? Don’t put up a wall of separation…you always leave the door WIDE open, you can’t be the one to close it.If you can’t make it right… Your wor­ship to god is meaningless.2 Corinthi­ans 5:18-19God died on the cross to rec­on­cile to us…how dare we not do this in our own relationships!!!

Torn Pages
Torn Pages by Kenny Davis

The pages of this love let­ter
I hereby rip in half
Because in the face of my love’s con­fes­sion
You saw fit to laugh

Instead of you, these love sick pages
Feels the scorn­ful rages
As my heart moves through the stages
Of its own venge­ful, tor­tur­ous wrath

With every screech­ing rip and tear
My love for you dis­ap­pears
Don’t say, “You want me near.”
Because it’s falling on deaf ears

With the tear­ing of each shred
My love for you is dead
Cher­ish the moments I was there for you
As I erase you from my head

With the rip of each page, I find
I must break the ties that bind
I must dis­pel you from my heart
Even fur­ther from my mind

Want­ing to erase the words that I wrote
Take back all of the feel­ings I said, and the “I love you” I spoke
“What was I think­ing? ”
As I tear apart these heart­felt notes

No longer, on these pages, will my heart be the pen
Know­ing that its ink, its blood, will pour out in the end
Never shall a heart deserve to feel such pain again
The love lost on you and these pages, in the abyss it remains

Not much love was read between the lines
A once enchanted love story being ripped at the spine
A love so blessed, I believed to be divine
But clearly you are no enchanted love of mine

With every bro­ken sen­tence that’s torn apart
A breath of relief, remov­ing the scars from my heart
I thought ever lov­ing some­one again was hard
But learn­ing to let go is more dif­fi­cult, by far

Sit­ting here enjoy­ing the agony of every piece
Like ther­apy, pro­vid­ing a much needed release
Feel­ing free of “love” and the shack­les of grief
At the end of my destruc­tion, await­ing my peace

My feel­ings for you, drip­ping from every word
Regret­ting every one that I said, every one that you’ve heard
Time after time, “When will I learn? ”
Love is bet­ter left unsaid, shielded from the hurt

As all of this pas­sion and love is dis­pensed
I never thought I could ever feel a rage so intense
Smil­ing wide, immersed in this paper rid­den mess
As I rip apart the words that bled from my pen

Through all of the abuse, through all of the scorn
My spirit is dam­aged, my body is worn
Through the destruc­tion of these pages, my heart is reborn
My love for you is gone; the pages that pos­sessed it are torn.

What does it mean to be thank­ful? I’m not talk­ing about being polite after someone’s opened the door for you. I’m talk­ing about feel­ing thank­ful for the true bless­ings in your life. True Bless­ings” mean the things in your life that res­onate impor­tance in your life — the things that touch your core. How does being thank­ful affect your life? Let’s look at it in terms of some­one you may know. Imag­ine the per­son who is usu­ally in a bad mood. They are always com­plain­ing about some­thing, there is always some­one who’s done some­thing to them and they’re always get­ting the bum deal. This per­son is hard to be around and it takes a lot of energy to main­tain a rela­tion­ship with them. By the end of a visit, you’re exhausted! Do you think this per­son is a thank­ful one? Prob­a­bly not. In fact, if you asked them what they’re thank­ful for, they may have a hard time telling you. On the other hand, think of some­one else you know. This per­son is ener­getic, and has a cer­tain spark to them. They laugh a lot and have a “can-do” atti­tude. They may be afraid, but they are will­ing to try new things. If you ask them what they’re thank­ful for, they will be able to list off many. And when you visit with this per­son, you feel ener­gized, inspired and thank­ful to know them. It’s safe to say that this per­son is more ful­filled in their life than the unthank­ful one. Of course our lives are never per­fect but we still strive for per­fec­tion. But you know how it is. You reach the top of one moun­tain and lo and behold! there’s another moun­tain to climb! Don’t feel dis­cour­aged by this. Be sure to look back at all the moun­tains you’ve climbed and acknowl­edge the growth and progress you’ve made. Be thank­ful for the expe­ri­ences because with­out them, you wouldn’t be where you are today.And what if where you are today is not where you want to be? Again, be thank­ful that you are where you are — because now you have a very clear idea of what you don’t want. You can now work towards what you do want. If you are won­der­ing how to get started on this, begin with a list. Write down every lit­tle thing you’re thank­ful for. Noth­ing is too small to put on this list. Include the mun­dane things like the first cup of cof­fee in the morn­ing or the birds that were singing. Tell your­self that you’re going to add to it all day as ideas pop into your head. Keep this idea in your mind all day. You don’t have to be totally focussed on it, just be open and know that at the end of the day when you read over your list, you’re going to see that there are so many won­der­ful things in your life that you have to be thank­ful for. You can even add things that you don’t have, but want. This is impor­tant in man­i­fest­ing our dreams. The Lord has revealed to me how a thank­ful heart can change the whole way you see life! It is a flood-gate opener to bless­ings, joy peace and all sorts of good­ness. With thank­ful hearts, we can even touch the very heart of God, and King David even told us that when we approach God, enter into His gates with thank­ful hearts!
I will be start­ing a fam­ily jour­nal and encour­age my fam­ily to join with me and learn what it is to be thankful…join me.

So this week I have been called unhappy, bit­ter, unkind, spite­ful, a com­plainer, angry, pas­sive aggres­sive, ugly, a bully, nag…amongst a lot of other things. Most of you who know me would not use these words to describe me, or maybe I hide this side from all of you. In any case words are hurt­ful and peo­ple who really love you do not keep a record of wrongs. Can you recall the last time when you dealt with a dif­fi­cult per­son or peo­ple say­ing things with the inten­tion of hurt­ing you. These words are hurt­ful and no amount of say­ing them will change a person…encouragement is a much bet­ter avenue! What do you do to get through these sit­u­a­tions with peace and grace and most of all for­give­ness!
No mat­ter where we go, we will face peo­ple who oppose our ideas, the way we par­ent, the way we run our every­day lives. The fact isn’t the cause of con­flict, but it is the trig­ger to our emo­tions and our emo­tions are what drive us back to our most basic sur­vival instinct: react and attack back to defend our­selves. In these moments we may lose track of our­selves and become the human ani­mal with an urge to pro­tect our­selves when attacked. This is nat­ural. A stingray when feels threat­ened will attack, or a momma bear pro­tect­ing her cubs. How­ever, we are the only ani­mal blessed with intel­li­gence and the abil­ity to con­trol our responses…So how do we do that? It may take some time to over­come the nat­ural urgency to pro­tect our­selves and attack back.
Why should we bother con­trol­ling our human instincts? For one we do more harm to our­selves. “Hold­ing a grudge against some­one is like drink­ing poi­son and expect­ing the other per­son to die.” The only per­son we hurt is our­selves. I real­ize that now after three years of hold­ing a grudge…it is hurt­ing me and my fam­ily way more than it should have ever. I looked to other peo­ple to fill my void…to get away from my anger and resent­ment and it has seri­ously torn me apart! I am always feel­ing as though I am threat­ened and feel as though I have some­one count­ing every­thing I do wrong and are adding them to this lit­tle book to once and for all destroy my well being. When we react, we are dis­turb­ing our inner peace and men­tally cre­at­ing pain within our­selves.
Usu­ally when peo­ple ini­ti­ate neg­a­tiv­ity, it is a reflec­tion of their inner state expressed exter­nally and you hap­pen to be in front of that expres­sion. When you respond neg­a­tively it become a unpro­duc­tive bat­tle of who is right. Anger feeds anger, Neg­a­tiv­ity feeds Neg­a­tiv­ity. Rarely can any good come out of react­ing against some­one who is in a neg­a­tive state. It will only trig­ger anger and addi­tional reac­tive response from that per­son. The angrier our thoughts become, the angrier we become. It’s a neg­a­tive down­ward spi­ral. It becomes a waste of energy. Where atten­tion goes, energy flows. Since we only can focus on one thing at a time we should spend our energy on our per­sonal well being and not con­sume it with angry thoughts. Neg­a­tiv­ity spreads like wild fires…Once I have let neg­a­tiv­ity come into one area of my life it starts to sub­tly bleed into other areas as well. When we are hold­ing a grudge against some­one, we don’t feel good, we lose sight of the clar­ity and even end up get­ting sick. I can say with­out a doubt that it also affects my health! My blood pres­sure has been perfect…so per­fect that I have had many doc­tors com­ment on how great it was pre­vi­ously for years and years now…and now I am hav­ing to take med­i­cine. I have not been able to focus, I haven’t been able to sleep….yes the grudge has con­trolled my inner being. The more I think about it the more my life becomes more chaotic.
Peo­ple are enti­tled to their opin­ions, I should let them express how they feel and let it be. Some peo­ple may have a less than elo­quent way of express­ing them­selves, they may even be offen­sive, but they are still enti­tled to do so.
I need for this to be resolved…I need to be able to for­give. Wait it out…while I may feel com­pelled to instantly send a text or an email defend­ing myself. I have learned that emo­tion­ally charged emails never get us the result we want and only add oil to the fire. Does it really mat­ter if I am right? Should I just not respond…we we react we are giv­ing them what they want. Stop the cycle of neg­a­tive snow­balling. Stop talk­ing about it — When you have a prob­lem or a con­flict in your life, we just love talk­ing about it? We end up repeat­ing the story to any­one who’ll lis­ten. We express how much we hate the sit­u­a­tion or per­son. What we fail to rec­og­nize in these moments is that the more we talk about some­thing, the more we talk about how much we dis­like a per­son, the more hate we will feel towards them and the more we’ll notice things about them that we dis­like. Stop giv­ing it energy, stop think­ing about it, and stop talk­ing about it. Do your best to not repeat the story to oth­ers. Try putting your­self in their shoes. This under­stand­ing will give you a new per­spec­tive on becom­ing ratio­nal again, and may help you develop com­pas­sion for the other per­son. Find the lesson…in all of this there has to be some­thing that God is try­ing to teach me. If an agree­ment can­not come out of this limit the time I inter­act or spend energy on. Remem­ber that you have the choice to com­mit to being sur­rounded by peo­ple who have the qual­i­ties you admire: opti­mistic, pos­i­tive, peace­ful and encour­ag­ing peo­ple. Don’t just be the change you want to see in this world be around those who will help you.

After a cou­ple years of my hus­band hav­ing a blog, I have just stum­bled upon it. I love the way he writes! God has def­i­nitely blessed him with a tal­ent of being able to turn thoughts, feel­ings into words. Not every­one has that gift, I for sure don’t! I tend to think too much into every­thing. Here is the link to it…guess I don’t need a tab here for him. :) Just don’t know why I am just find­ing out about it now — mixed feel­ings. I told you I am not good at express­ing my feel­ings. :) txaggies.wordpress.com