Answered Prayer

 I get distracted  when I pray.  Maybe because I have not done my part before coming to the Lord in prayer. And maybe there's unconfessed sin.  Or disobedience.  

We sometimes forget that there are conditions God puts on his hearing our prayers.  And maybe, just maybe we lose a desire to pray when we are not meeting those conditions.  I had forgotten these requirements/didn't fully understand them but he has reminded me of them.  

I'm NOT saying that you are sick/hurting/needy/ because you are sinful although, in some cases, and I believe quite possibly in my case, sin and disobedience can play a part in my/our physical, emotional, marital, family health.  What I do know is that when the Lord led me back into fellowship with him and he restored me spiritually,  he answered an 18yr old prayer, He healed me!  

 For prayers to be answered:

1. We must not have unconfessed sin in our lives.  Jn 9:31
    a. Which I think means first each person needs to have accepted God's gift of salvation for themselves. Personally. Confessing that they are a sinner.  Realize that the payment for their sin is death and that Jesus died in their place.  They need to accept Christ's sacrifice for them self, Believing that He died on the Cross for them, not for 'everyone' in only the broad sense of the word.  I have done this, have you?  Or is your belief a head knowledge that Jesus died on the cross.  1 John 1:9  
    b.  As Christians, we still sin.  We aren't saved from sinning, just saved from the consequences of sin.  But even so we need to continue to confess our sins.  James 5:16 
2. We must pray believing.  Matt 21:22. "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."   
3. Obedience.  Deuteronomy 28
    To name a few that the Lord brought to my attention:
    a. Making church a priority was the first step of obedience He asked of me.  I had allowed because of my illness to let church be optional.  It is NOT optional.  Not if you believe that God is the Creator, Savior. Hebrews 10:25
    b. Seeking the Lord and his Kingdom through prayer, scripture reading, church  Matt 6:33
    c. Fasting. Mark 2:18-20
    b. James 5:13-16 "Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. "

I'm still on this journey of learning to confess, obey and pray.  And sadly, even tho I have seen what God can do, I fail.  
I've seen others miss out on blessing because I was not obedient.  I've denied God being glorified due to disobedience and even delayed disobedience.
But I'm also reminded that God can and does work through us when we aren't being obedient to him.  We do not 'tie his hands' but we miss out on blessings.  We miss out on answered prayer.

Helping Others

Helping others while they are in need! 

This weekend, I traveled to Lancaster with Darryl.  He was going to a men's conference and his parents live in the area.  So I traveled along with him and was given the great blessing of helping them out for a few hours.  Nothing major.  Just things they know they need help with at their place.  They have learned the valuable lesson in their many years and one that I had to learn while I had RSD.  I wasn't that good at it and think I need to be reminded of this lesson.
While I had RSD, I was the one needing help and now I can help others.  The lesson learned is...someone needs to be God's people in need!

Romans 12:13a

Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. 

Some of us believers are more than willing to help those of God's people and those who aren't even God's people when they are hurting.  

And usually, we are always more than willing to help out!  

However, if God is commanding us to help HIS people who are hurting, we see that he knows that some of His beloved are going to be hurting and need help. 

The problem lies in God's people in need.  Our pride says...I can take care of myself.  Our Creator says...sometimes MY people need help!  

Who of us ever wants to step up and say...I need help?  Not many.  Its definitely a point of pride.  

What if you know someone needs help?  There is a fine line between being pushy and helpful.  I'm sure I cross that line sometimes.  The least effective thing to say to someone whom you know needs help is to say: 
If you need anything, please call me.  They won't call you, I can almost guarantee! I know. I've not called.  
But, if you stop by for a visit and say...can I vacuum, wash these dishes up, fold laundry. You will get a better response from someone if you are there and ready to help.  Making a meal is huge so make sure you get on the meals ministry list at your church.

Also, don't forget the person who is caretaker for the one in need.  Their life is now much harder because they are trying to juggle their responsibilities with the responsibilities of the one in need.   And sometimes, going to the one in need first and saying, can I do something for your spouse? They will often see a need for their spouse than for themselves.  We have received those kinds of blessings also.  A mowed lawn.  Weeding.  Raking leaves.   

There has to be a balance of course.  We need to do what we can for ourselves and not always will we need help.  But, we need to learn to put our pride aside and say...I need help.  Otherwise, we can be denying someone else the rich blessing like I received the other day when I was able to help mom and dad Haag.  And as I worked, I was reminded often of all the help they have been to me over the years and I realize that my husbands parents and others were blessed by helping me too!  Its such a two way street, this living life together, isn't it? 

Internal Thermostat

I'm pretty sure I wrote the following 11/22/10.  However, as I'm reviewing old posts, I found this was never published.  I think it's interesting to see where I was just a few years ago as compared to now. So, I'm gonna go ahead and publish this out of order.

It's that time of the year. Autumn. Fall.  Harvest.

I love Autumn! The beautiful colors, the leaves falling, the deer population moving around.  But I realized today just how bad they can be for me.  Its the cold and wind that are so hard on my body in Autumn.   I lay in bed this afternoon hoping for a nap.  Somehow as I lay there using this notebook pc I didn't realize that my legs were getting increasingly colder.  I don't know how they coulda gotten so cold!  So cold they were stinging!!! You know how it is when you go out in cold weather and your face stings?  That's what I feel sometimes all up and down my legs, or my arms. etc. And it's 69 degrees in the house! 

Do you have winters that are worse than others?  I afraid this one might be a bad one for me!  Sometimes, this is just during the changes of the seasons, sometimes it's for the whole season.  I remember in the early days of RSD, I would have my children, 10, 13 and 14 lay blanket upon blanket on me until I would finally start to warm up.  Then, they would have to start taking them off one by one till I only had one or two on me.  Because, if I left ALL 5 or 6 blankets on, I would overheat and then, the profuse sweating would begin! 

My opinion on this is that my internal thermostat is messed up.  If I get cold or chilled, it takes a whole pile of blankets to warm me up.  If I get overheated, I get profuse sweating, head to toes!  There's not much to do to cool off but sometimes drinking ice water will help.

Anyone else have these issues?

Christmas Traditions

Please read this blog post from Leslie Vernick.  My comment for her post got too long and I decided to make my own blog post. http://myfaithradio.com/2013/tired-of-keeping-all-those-christmas-traditions/

Great post Leslie!  I remember those days!  We were in the same church back then.   I was so afraid of not measuring up that anything someone else would do, I had to do. 

  So I:

1.  Decorated every inch of the first floor of our house.  

2.  Baked millions of cookies. 

3.  Baked tea breads. 

4.  Made all the teachers at school and church a gift. 

5.  Made ornaments for our tree coming up with a new theme most years.  

6.  Fretted over the perfect tree and making family memories to get said tree. 

7.  Made popcorn and cranberry strands for the tree.  (Till we got a dog that NEVER got into anything she shouldn't have EXCEPT to eat each piece of popcorn on said string.  Never touching the cranberries and leaving the string on the tree.)

8. Many years I made my daughter's Christmas dress.  

None of these things seem important anymore.   

I was in pain and drugged up to kill that pain for 18 years.  I was not able to 'do' Christmas the way I had thought it needed to be done.   

I have had years when we:

1. Didn't decorate the tree.  Yes we had one but didn't get it decorated.  Actually , this happened more than I care to count.  

2. Barely got gifts bought. Well maybe not that.  I always seem able to buy more than I plan. 

3.  Had no cookies.  Hmm.  That's not true either because we can always help those who do bake millions of cookies keep theirs from going in the trash.  

4.  Had no tea bread.  Again.  There's always tea bread to be eaten.  

5.  Didn't make ornaments.  

6.  Didn't give a homemade gift to all those people who invest in our lives.  

I remember a couple of years when I first was unable to do it all.  I asked our kids what traditions they remember and would not want me to stop doing.  They couldn't come up with a single one! So I asked them all what cookie they would miss.   Hmm.  None!  

I think I effectually made Christmas so much about doing Christmas, that I, like Leslie was such a frazzled mess by Christmas Day that I was not a sane mom.   Not so sure I really ever was a sane mom but I surely was not the weeks leading up to Christmas.  

With being sick for 18 years and moving last year this is my first Christmas 'doing' Christmas since the Lord healed me.

So as I prepare this year for Christmas I want to remind myself that Christmas is not at all about 'doing' Christmas but about celebrating Christ's birth and his wonderful love for this world that he came to save us and bring us home with him someday. 

I want to figure out what traditions I want to return to (maybe a decorated tree every year would be nice) and what is just not necessary or maybe doable each year.  

I do think one thing my family liked was the year(s) I decided to have our big meal on Christmas Eve and only had a simple meal or even leftovers on Christmas Day. I remember my dad complaining that mom spent the whole day in the kitchen instead of with the family relaxing and playing in the LR. I think I might try making this a tradition.  Oh and I do know there is at least one in my family who liked the Christmas brunch of egg casserole.  That might have to stay.  

If you have not personally accepted this greatest gift of all, the gift of salvation through faith in Jesus please do so today.  Knowing and believing that Jesus was born into this world, was crucified and rose 3 days later does not save one from eternal separation from God.  You must accept this free gift for yourself by believing IN Jesus and that he did this for you personally.   Repent of your sin which means turning from your sin and turning towards God.  Ask His forgiveness for your sin and for Him to be YOUR Savior.  

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!  

And may your traditions not interfere with your ability to show God's love this season to others.  

1yr + 2mo+ 2wk

I LOVE SPRING!  I always have but this year, its just even sweeter I think because when I'm outside I'm not aching to get back to bed!  I can sit and enjoy the birds singing, bunnies and squirrels etc.  Now my biggest problem is sitting still for long, there's so much to do!  I need to learn to sit still.  Reminds me of the struggle we had teaching our youngest to SIT STILL!  Hmm, was she more like her momma than I ever realized! :)  

When we moved here 7 years ago this month, I loved seeing the plants coming into bloom.  When you move in winter there is this blessing that comes with Spring and Summer that you don't think about before the move.   If you chose a house in the winter, you really have no idea what beauty lies just under the surface of the dirt!  But as the weather warms up, the flowers start blooming and its like a gift!

Yes, we've lived here before but it's been six years since I've experienced a spring in this house and I was a miserable bitter sick old woman at that point in my life.  I enjoyed the flowers etc but I was not enjoying my creator that made the flowers also.

Things have changed so much since those days!

As I'm sitting here typing this I'm reminded how much my life has been like a garden.  I had grown cold and barren like the winter.  But our Creator knew that with a little sunshine (worship and prayer), water as in spring rain (scripture) and my soul could sing once again and produce fruit.

My life when we last lived in North Wales was one of bitterness, anger, hurt, taking everything personally.  The Lord moved us to Pittsburgh to do a work in our life.  He wanted to move me out of the winter in my soul to spring!  THANK YOU JESUS!

My latest discoveries on the physical front are:

My hands have grown accustomed to clapping again.  So I'm able to clap along in church if I want!  It's taken a year for me to finally be able to join in clapping for a whole song.  Well, at least for most of it because half the time one hand seems to be in the air reaching for my Savior!

I've just realized that maybe just maybe my husband can now take me to Italy.  Or Hawaii (although we don't have much desire to go there).

I can miniature golf again!  Can't wait!  Amusement park anyone?  That was one thing that hubby wasn't too sad that I couldn't do while having RSD.

And then there's swimming with hubby in the ocean again!  Did get to do that once last summer!  Looking fwd to it again!  What blessings the Lord is bestowing on me!

To God be the Glory, great things HE HAS DONE!

1 yr + 2 mo - 2 days

I learned something very valuable during my 18 years of pain! It doesn't matter if everything is done perfectly.

There. I said it. I used to be a frustrated perfectionist! I wanted everything perfect but never was satisfied that it was perfect.

I'm not saying that I don't care what things look like around here.

I do. I really do.

But, For all those years I couldn't have everything just the way I wanted it I found I could enjoy our company just as much as if I had done everything I thought needed to be done. And sometimes I think even better because I used to be a frazzled mess worrying that I had to have it just so and when it wasn't I'd be so upset.

And as much as I still think of lots I want and need to do I now can say, oh well. Its ok.

Although. Yes. I still think of stuff I want to do and maybe waste time trying to get it done. But I more easily let it roll off my back.

Just saying this because I've got a houseful of company coming. One working bathroom. Scaffolding up the side of the house. A contractors "tent" in my driveway. A huge pile of materials for bathroom on my patio. Demo refuse on porch and trash like you wouldn't believe! Nothing decorated. Leaves in the yard.

And I'm not a bit upset by all that cause we moved back home to be with family. And they WANT to come to our house for EASTER dinner!

This is exactly what I love, being with family.

Having family near enough to stop by and to come for dinner is such a sweet sweet blessing! So what if we're not ready!

But could you all pray that our sewer line doesn't decide to back up again tomorrow? I'm still working on finding a plumber.

1 y+ 4 wks

When we left pgh I was sad about leaving 'MY' parks behind. You see, I hadn't been able to enjoy a park for so long and in pgh with a dog DH and I took walks at a park as often as we could. When The Lord healed me we enjoyed them even more! Then we left. It's been cold,busy or rain and so today is my first venture out to a park. In my own twp! We often rode past but never had we discovered how nice it is in here! Thank you Lord for a new park to enjoy! Thank you for the ability to walk!