To be enough…
I want everyone to understand and receive this because we all know that everyone falls short of the glory of God, and in recent years I have seen a dramatic decline in the attempt to even try to be pleasing in His sight! I had a dream 4 nights ago that I died. I wasn’t sad that I would never see my family again. I can’t even remember being sad that I was dead. The feeling I remember was regret… and dread. Regret, because I remember crying out, “I didn’t do enough!” and dread, because I knew I would have to face my God knowing that I hadn’t done or been enough. It was a horrifying thought.
That being said, I think we all should adopt the motto, “I WILL BE ENOUGH.” I say ‘enough’ because MY ‘good’ or MY ‘better’ or MY ‘more’ may not be GOD’S idea of ‘enough’ and I am trying to achieve HIS ‘enough!’ Are you following that? 2007 is going to bring about a great deal of supernatural blessings within myself and within the body of Christ as a whole, but we have to be ready when we are called. Once we get to that point, once we pass on from this life- whether it be 6 hours from now or 6 years from now- our time is up. We have no other opportunities to do ‘enough’… we have no more time to be ‘enough’… all we have is what we are, and it is time to ask… right now, AM I ENOUGH??
People, we need to spend less time trying to impress the world and more time working to improve and grow in the Spirit. We exaggerate our incomes, our belongings, our CHRISTIANITY, our knowledge, our relationships, etc… all to impress those around us. We want everyone to think we are holier than thou… we want everyone to think that we have the nicest car, the nicest house, the nicest outfits, the most money… we want everyone to think we are the best at what we do and that we are the best that they can get. WHAT DOES GOD THINK??
God knows exactly how much money you have down to the penny… and He also knows how long it will be until you lose it because of your material worship. God knows exactly who designed/tailored your clothes… and he also knows whether or not a thief will break in and steal them, or whether they will get burned up in a fire, or whether stains or moths will set in them. God knows what we drive… and He also knows how much we STRUGGLE to pay our notes just so we can floss around town in front of the world… AND he also knows when the last time we tithed was, which we rarely find the importance in struggling to do. God knows exactly how raggedy your spirit is, and He also knows what put you on that path. God knows exactly how much time and effort are put into our ministries… and He also knows just exactly how much time and effort are put into our relationship with Him. WORK is no good without FAITH and conversely FAITH without WORK is dead.
My point in all of this is that GOD KNOWS ALL AND SEES ALL… He knows us down to the tiniest fiber of our being. But how hard to we try to impress Him? We lie on a constant basis, but we call ourselves members of the Body of Christ. When is the last time you made up an excuse as to why you were late for work? When was the last time you fibbed to a friend to get out of doing something you didn’t want to do? When is the last time you stretched the truth just a little to make things seem ‘not so bad’ or to make yourself seem ‘just a little better’? We cheat on a constant basis. When is the last time you overstated your income to get a loan? When is the last time you left out some income to pay less taxes? When is the last time you took credit for something that wasn’t wholly yours? When is the last time you splurged for a pair of shoes then put little or nothing into the offering plate? We judge and gossip on a constant basis. When is the last time you said, “I mean I can’t judge anyone, but…”? When is the last time you spread a ‘harmless’ rumor? When is the last time you told your best friend information about someone else that neither of you had any business knowing? When is the last time you compared your life to someone else’s to make a point that you have room to talk about their situation because it’s different or more corrupt than your own? NEWSFLASH: Sin is sin… just because you are ‘not that bad’ in your own eyes doesn’t mean that GOD sees you as being any better than the person you see as ‘horrible.’ We have lost touch with the idea that God sees everything and that HE is the ultimate judge… or worse, some of us have decided simply not to care.
Question: In 2007, WILL YOU BE ENOUGH?
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
The kids woke us up this morning to inform us that someone stole our tree! lol Actually I moved it from my office to the living room and put the gifts under it. They had so much fun opening their presents and now they are in there playing with their stuff. Here are links to the pictures…
Monday, December 25, 2006
Have a blessed holiday :)
OK I have a few minutes, so here goes…
First of all, I have missed everyone soooooooooo much!!! I haven’t had time for anything or anyone lately and it’s so crazy… I am working full time – 45 hours per week – doing accounting at a local Monument company (can’t even begin to explain how hectic, crazy, and stressful that job is but oddly enough, I actually do love my job…) and I am also going to school full time – 12 hours per semester – at Regent University via their online campus, majoring in Biblical and Religious Studies… that’s right, y’all – I am so ready to move forward in my ministry!! In addition to those things of course I am still maintaining the ministry (www.StepInFaith.org) but I have some help now – THANKS TO TOLERANCE AND BROOKS, YOU TWO ARE WONDERFUL!!! – and I have actually had a pretty good amount of business for my web design company lately (also mostly thanks to BROOKS!) lol
I finished Contemporary Problems for Religious Leaders with an A- and I finished Theological Writing and Research with a B. I will be finished with Biblical Background and Interpretation next week as well as my Worldviews class. I had to write a 3000 word essay for Bib. Bg/Interp. on the interpretation and application of 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 which was difficult to say the least but I got it turned in Tuesday and then had to complete a 2000 word essay on Christian Theism and if/how it relates to the Shamanistic society that is becoming the Western world… that was even more difficult but got it turned in yesterday and I am so relieved to have those two papers BEHIND ME!!! My classes are hard and very ‘involved’… meaning that they take a lot of time and a lot of discussion, but they are VERY rewarding and I have learned a great deal since I started back to school in August!
OK enough about me… Barry had a pretty bad experience – he was told ON GRADUATION DAY, standing in the auditorium in his cap and gown that he was missing a class he needed to graduate. OK, can we say DEVIL GET BEHIND ME?! Back up just about 2 days… the Thursday before graduation, God gave Barry a vision in which he was able to actually SEE a demon attacking him (or trying to) but Barry said that the demon seemed to be extremely confused and even somewhat intimidated by the fact that God had opened his eyes to be able to see what was happening and when Barry called on God to help him, the demon too flight (in other words, was scared to the point that he was quick to flee!) So for some reason, Satan has been trying to break Barry’s faith/trust in God by presenting several bad deals in a very short time… the day of graduation, a pipe burst on the car we just got a couple of months ago and the ATM machine actually debited our account $280 but gave us NO MONEY… very very strange series of events, especially considering all of this was in the span of two days. So back to graduation, Barry’s whole family was up here to see him walk and he was basically told, “Sorry.” and sent home… He is now enrolled in the ONLY class he has left though so he WILL be a college graduate in February :) Awww… my baby is growing up LOL (GOD WILL GET THE GLORY, BEST BELIEVE IT!)
Briyana is getting so biggggg… oh man, she is gorgeous- so smart and so sassy! Yeah, all my girls are just like me … (Heaven help the world – there are FOUR of me LOL) She makes straight A’s in school and is a HUGE help at home… she loves her baby sister and she always plays with her and keeps her out of my hair so I can finish my work. She can be BAD as she wants to be at times but overall Briyana is a very sweet, sensitive, and GIRLY child… all in all, a very good kid! She is very compassionate and always prays for children who don’t have food to eat when she is blessing her food… she is so much like me in that respect- always worried about what others don’t have, even though we don’t really have much ourselves but I think she realizes that we have enough.
Tre is oh my GOSH… I don’t know what to say about Tre… that child is something else. He is extremely active and drives me nuts most of the time, honestly. But he is a very sweet boy. I think he just gets bored very quickly because the child cannot sit still even in his sleep! He gets mostly A’s and B’s in school… he is a very smart kid but his teacher says that he is just basically lazy LOL He doesn’t want to apply himself- he would rather play (go figure) so he misses a lot of the lesson because he doesn’t listen while she is instructing the class. Hopefully he gets better with that because as he gets older, I am sure you can definitely see where this would cause a major problem LOL
Talia is my angel child… and as paradoxial as it may be, she is also as mean as she could be LOL She is always running up and kissing and hugging me and tells me several times throughout the day that she loves me and is always promising to be nice to everyone. Then, in the same breath, she is throwing a fit about everything LOL She can recite Scriptures left and right and every time she says anything about nature (the sky, the grass, etc…) she always makes it a point to let everyone know that GOD made all of that! She proclaims her love for Jesus and God DAILY so they have no question as to how Talia feels about them LOL She really is a sweetheart…
Avalyn is getting so big. I look at her sometimes and I am like WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY BABY??? She is 15 months old now and is pretty as a picture! She is so funny and FULL of personality- she is a lot like Talia (Lord help us all!) but she is more playful than I remember any of her older siblings being at her age! She is so smart too… for at least the past 3 months, you can tell her to put something in the garbage can and she will take it and throw it away. It is so cute… you can tell her to go help the other kids clean up and she will go start picking up paper and taking it to the trash can! She still sleeps with me and Barry even though she has her own bed. I put her to sleep in her room but when she wakes up during the night, she comes and climbs in bed with us LOL Actually, for the past week, ALL of the kids have been coming and climbing in our bed during the night… LMBO Our kids are silly. Anyway, that is pretty much all I can think of right now and plus I have some work to do and then I am off to bed after I finish the laundry so GOODNIGHT TO EVERYONE!!!
Be blessed.
Sorry it’s been so long…
I have not had time to do any updates lately… and SOOOO much has happened since my last post. I just wanted to drop a little line and let everyone know that all is WELL but I really don’t have time to update right now either… I will try to post an update and a few pics within the next few days.
I pray everyone is blessed…
Wow… I didn’t realize it had been this long!
It has been quite a while since I posted anything here… where in the world do I begin??? lol The kids are getting SO big. Ava has got T’Aliyah’s personality… very headstrong and very playful :) She is the sweetest thing in the world (sometimes) but she can be mean too LMBO Ava is definitely spoiled beyond belief. She is what they call “something else.” Tre started Kindergarten in August and is doing well… he has some key areas he needs to improve on (penmanship, mainly) but he is VERY smart and makes A’s & B’s. Briyana of course is in 1st grade and is an ALL A student as usual… she loves to help Tre with his homework and ‘teach’ him what she is learning in 1st grade! *Lucky for Tre* T’Aliyah is going to be four years old in a couple of weeks!!! She is excited about her birthday :) She is in preschool at South Parkway Baptist Church where she and Ava are in daycare… she learns Bible verses and can recite them at the drop of a hat! I have sooooo many new photos of them… Here are just a few:
Briyana’s school picture (1st grade):
Tre’s school picture (Kindergarten):
The kids goofing off and having fun:
Tre and T’Aliyah with Daddy :)
T’Aliyah showing some affection to her baby sister:
Not very happy with Lincoln Parish Public Schools right now!
I was cleaning up before going to bed and I started going through some of the kids’ papers from school to make sure that there was nothing important before I threw them away. I find a coloring page from Tre’s kindergarten class that says HALLOWEEN: TRICK OR TREAT with a witch and ghosts and pumpkins on it. Not to knock those who celebrate Halloween but we don’t. And not to start drama over a coloring page, but my thing is this: Doesn’t it seem bias that we cannot PRAY in school because it infringes on other people’s religious beliefs (sidenote: please notice all the things that have happened in schools across the country since the day we took GOD out of them, but anyway back to my point…) but they can teach my kids about Halloween and pass it off as some fun holiday when it is COMPLETELY against what we believe religiously?Â
I am at a loss for understanding how that is fair or unbias??? True enough, the schools celebrate Christmas but ya know, honestly I would be willing to say DON’T celebrate ANYTHING so that I can rest assured that they aren’t teaching my kids the OPPOSITE of what I am instilling in them at home. I mean, after all, we celebrate holidays here at home so I don’t see the real point in them doing it at school anyway and I DEFINITELY am not happy that my kids are learning that Halloween is fun. Sorry for those of you who do celebrate the holiday but we do not and I am somewhat offended for my son to be bringing home mess with goblins and crap on it. I don’t appreciate it at all…
OK, thoughts?
Heyyyyyyyyy…
God has been hard at work over here in Robertson Land :) Briyana is making straight A’s and isn’t getting in trouble much anymore at school for talking LOL Tre is making all A’s and B’s and has only gotten in trouble once this year (yeah we gotta be proud about that!) T’Aliyah is doing great in pre-school and loves to sing Bible songs and recite her verses! Ava is growing up so fast- she is full of personality and is so cute!! Barry has just about 3 weeks until he GRADUATES! My baby is going to have a DEGREE y’all… wow, I promise 5 years ago, I never would have seen this day coming!! The Lord is full of surprises…
I have been so busy!!! Work, school, kids, husband, house, ministry, etc… my world is getting so hectic, but it’s balancing out slowly :) StepInFaith is growing moderately and I just finished my first session of classes as a Religious Studies major! I got a $6,000 per year raise at work which put me making a GRIP – such a blessing!! Now we are trying to get caught up on all our debt and pay off our bad accounts, rebuild our horrid credit so we can finance a new vehicle within the next year and then try to purchase a house within the next 3-4 years.
We are making small plans and kinda playing the rest by ear. One day at a time…
Now on to some serious stuff LOL Have any of you ever felt like no matter how hard you try to be pleasing to God in every way, you seem to have more and more things creep up around you that test your patience and hinder your ability to think justly and rationally? I know somebody can relate… you know there’s always that one person who can get your feathers ruffled and make you think so ill that you have to catch yourself, be reminded to react out of love, and then repent because you know you already did the wrong thing? Well, honestly I have two people in my life that always seem to amaze me to the point that I have to sit on my hands and bite my tongue whenever they are involved in anything that even remotely concerns me.
Y’all, I need some serious prayer for my ability to handle these things properly and in a Christian manner!Â
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