A Precious Jewel To Me

The ladies of our local congregation just had a tea party to celebrate and share about the lives of some amazing women in history.  Some of the ladies of interest were: Sarah Edwards, Fanny Crosby, Corrie Ten Boom, Amy Carmichael and Priscilla Mullins.  These are all well known women in Christian history and worthy to be remembered and honored, yet there are some women that will never be famous as these are. Women like my Granny.  

My great-grandmother, Granny, recently went home to be with our Lord, and has been on all of our minds a great deal lately.  She, as well, is a woman worthy to be honored and remembered. She served the Lord diligently from the time of her conversion at age 16, to the time of her death at age 98.  And over the course of her 82 years of Christian service touched and ministered to countless lives. Hers was a life of self-sacrifice. At her funeral there was a great deal of rejoicing, and there was a great deal of remembering. Most of the memories had a common theme: "Granny loved me. Granny prayed for me. Granny showed me how to live for Christ". 

Granny and me in 2009. She was 95.

Granny was always reaching out to people. You could not come into her home without her trying to feed you physically and feed you spiritually. If you sat down to her table, you were going to enjoy some delicious food and hear about the one true God who provided it. Whenever Granny would share her personal testimonies of what the Lord had done for her--that was my favorite way to learn about the Lord from her.  Sitting at the kitchen table, twisting a napkin all the while, she would tell me and everyone else stories of how the Lord had performed miracles in her life, given her peace or dropped a verse on her heart for her to meditate upon.

And if you needed prayer, she was the first one you went to. She would pray for you immediately, wherever she was. Many times friends would call her and have her pray with them right then over the phone. She never doubted that the Lord was listening to her, and she never doubted that He would answer. She was the kind of prayer warrior that I want to become.  

Granny loved the Lord. She loved hearing praises sung to Him. She loved being with His people. She loved telling other people about His goodness. She loved quoting His word to you.  She loved talking to Him. She loved the life that He had given her and she loved that one day she would be with Him forever.  

We loved her, and she caused us to love Him more.  

I want to be like my Granny. I want to be someone who is hospitable, caring, always sharing the love of Christ, always seeking His face in prayer, always telling of His goodness, never living a day without thanking Him. I want my life to be a life lived for Christ.

Do you?

Granny's verses: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7

"For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God". Colossians 3:3

He Cares About Our Health

My family has been health conscious for as long as I can remember. Every month when I was a little kid, I remember co-op day. Several mothers would get together to distribute bulk organic items they had ordered as a group. I remember our incredible delight, when my siblings and I opened the boxes to find that Mum had ordered organic sodas, cheese puffs or chocolate sandwich cookies on occasion. We were pretty "healthy" back then. Mum really limited the amount of sugar we were taking in, made baked goods from whole wheat that we had ground ourselves, and made sure we drank plenty of water. But, as the years went by, the co-op group dispersed and we fell into a pattern of buying groceries with an attitude geared more towards convenience than health. It was just easier to buy everything at Wal-Mart for a good price. But easier is seldom better. Anything worth having is usually worth working hard for. And keeping the temple that the Lord has made us stewards of nourished and strengthened is definitely something worth working hard for. I have been very convicted about this lately. I want to be healthy, truly healthy, and not just for the physical benefits, but to please my Lord. He is the One who created my body, and the food that will nourish it. He has given me a mind, and He wants me to use it to discover the best ways to please Him through my eating. I want to hunger for good, wholesome food as much as I have for the artificial junk in the past. But, more than anything else, I want to hunger more and more every day for Him.

Here are some guidelines I am going to try to go by (and hopefully get the family to implement as well):

1) No dairy products with added hormones or chemicals

2) Organic produce as much as possible

3) No refined sugar

4) No bleached/enriched flour

5) Grow/Make as much of my own food as possible

6) Support my local Farmer's Market

7) Eat way more vegetables

8) Drink water

I recently went on an eight week fast from refined sugar and wheat products. It was amazing. I had more energy, and had more peace of mind over what I was putting in my body that ever before. I broke my fast for my birthday, and completely blew it. I was half afraid that I wouldn't like sugar anymore, and half hoping that that would be the case. It wasn't. I still love the taste of sugar, but I don't love the feeling it now causes me. I was sick to my stomach and felt depleted after eating it. So, it was kind of nice while it lasted, but I am getting back to my honey/maple syrup sweetened life now. I'm not going to avoid wheat as much as I was before, but I do want to cut back on it. I'm still going to make my cauliflower crust pizza and spaghetti squash, but I will have a whole wheat muffin every now and then.

Have any of you been convicted about your health lately?

What This Is Really About

I haven't blogged in seven months.  I have thought about it often, but have not made the commitment to sit down and write a post of worth. I don't want this blog to be what I did originally. I am ashamed of the goal stated in my very first post:

 "I hope that this blog will be, at the least, entertaining. Maybe even uplifting every now and then".

Entertaining is a word closely tied to amusing. Amuse means, "No think". The last thing I want to cause you to do is to intentionally "not think".  As followers of Christ we are to keep our minds actively engaged in advancing His Kingdom. 

 That being said, I want this blog to be an outlet for me to share what the Lord is doing in my life. How He is teaching me, growing me and ever showing Himself faithful to me, an unworthy wretch whom He has gloriously transformed into a child of the King through His son, Jesus Christ.

I don't want to exalt myself, but the Lord who is the very reason for my existence.  

The name of this blog is "Damsel in Delight", and that is what I want you to leave this blog doing, delighting in the Lord.

I have been terribly unfaithful in the area of consistent posting. I want to change that, but I am not going to set a highly unrealistic goal.  I will try to post monthly (probably towards the end of the month).  

I hope that you will keep an eye out for each post and I pray that each post will be pleasing to God. 

So, Lord willing, I will post later this month on the subject of health. 

"Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ."

Loving Our Parents

I put this together for a girl's Bible study last year.  I just discussed this with some great friends yesterday and we had such a wonderful time sharing ways to serve our parents.  I pray that it encourages you to honor your parents all the days of your life. 

Becoming a Good Daughter

The sole purpose of everything we do should be to glorify God (John 15:8-10). If this is true (and it is), then our relationships should also bring glory to God. With this in mind, let’s talk about being a good daughter.

Before we can be a good daughter to our earthly parents, we must first be a good daughter to our heavenly Father. We are commanded to serve the Lord with every gift, talent and ability that He has given us with the intent of loving Him with our whole hearts, serving the brethren and advancing the Gospel to unbelievers. This must be our focus if we are to be a good daughter. 

Our fathers are our protectors. This means that everything we do should be under their oversight and guidance. We must submit to them by including them in our everyday decisions. I know personally, my father loves it when I come and ask him for permission to go somewhere rather than telling him I’m leaving. It solidifies his masculinity and builds him up rather than tearing him down by assuming that he will let me do as I please regardless of his opinion. We must also protect our fathers’ reputations by being competent and therefore giving proof for our Godly raising. If we are asked something about our faith and can only reply, “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask my dad about that,” then we are not exemplifying Godly daughters. We must dig into the Word ourselves and learn from our fathers how to articulate our beliefs with Biblical back-up.  Here are some practical ways to be a help to your father: know his vision, be available to him, don’t wait to be told everything you need to do and don’t shy away from what he asks you to do if it’s unappealing to you. Talk to your father about the things of the Lord, pray for him, always be looking for ways to help him and you will be a daughter worth praising.

Each of our mother’s should be our “Titus 2 woman“. She should be the one that we spend the majority of our time with. She is the person that will have a great impact on the woman that we will become. Keep in mind when helping your father that your mother is his primary helpmeet.  Before doing something for your father, make sure that you are not usurping your mother’s role. Remember that your parents’ marriage is the most important relationship and the foundation of your home. Show your mom that you appreciate her. Get to know her. Honor her. Show her respect. She is just as important as your dad. Cultivate a relationship with her by sharing your heart and knowing hers, by blessing her through acts of service and obedience, by working with her to keep the house running smoothly, and by thanking God every single day for a mother who diligently leads you in his ways.

One of our goals should be to help the whole home run smoothly, not just focus in on one parent.  They are both so important. Remember God gave you the parents you have for a reason. He knew who you would need to help you grow. Whenever you start to think about how something your parents do drives you crazy, think about how God could be using that very thing to make you a more mature follower of Christ. You’ll come to find that God uses the strangest things to teach us the greatest truths. Ephesians 6:1-3

It all comes back to bringing glory to God. Glorify God by respecting your parents. Honor Him by honoring them (Exodus 20:12). Bless them as the Scripture directs and He will bless you (Deuteronomy 28:1-2). 

Concluding Scriptures: Mark 12:29-31, Ecclesiastes 12:13

I Agree

This is an amazing quote that I ran across in my reading last night:

‎"The modern challenge to mortherhood is the eternal challenge--that of being a godly woman. The very phrase sounds strange in our ears. We never hear it now. We hear about every other kind of women--beautiful women, smart women, sophisticated women, career women, talented women, divorced women, but seldom do we hear of a godly woman--or a godly man either, for that matter.
I believe women come nearer fulfilling their God-given function in the home than anywhere else. It is a much nobler thing to be a good wife than to be Miss America. It is a greater achievement to establish a Christian home than it is to produce a second-rate novel filled with filth. It is a far, far better thing in the realm of morals to be old-fashioned than to be ultramodern. The world has enough women who know how to hold their cocktails, who have lost all their illusions and their faith. The world has enough women who know how to be smart. It needs women who are willing to be simple. The world has enough women who know how to be brilliant. It needs some who will be brave. The world has enough women who are popular. It needs more who are pure. We need women, and men, too, who would rather be morally right than socially correct." -Peter Marshall

Because It's Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

With Christmas being only two days away I thought I would share a few of my thoughts on the subject.

What a blessing for Christmas to fall upon a Sunday this year.  What better way to thank the Lord for coming to earth than to spend the day resting and meditating solely on Him?  I know it's easy to get caught up in the traditions of the season rather than focusing on the One who made this season even possible, but the Lord has provided a way of escape from this predicament by having it on the Sabbath.  I cannot wait to spend Christmas day celebrating and remembering the birth of Christ Jesus.  But, let's also remember the reason that Christ came in the first place.

 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS:

 for he shall save his people from their sins.

 Matthew 1:21 

Worldly or Godly? You decide.

August for me was a month of purging myself from worldly entertainment.  I was trying to focus solely on the things of God for just one month.  Sounds easy enough, right? It's not like I was going to do this forever.  At least that's what I thought at the time.  I'm not so sure anymore though.

If I claim that Christ has saved my soul and is living inside of me, shouldn't I always be about the will of the Father, just as He was when He walked on this earth?  We are commanded in Colossians 3:1-3 to, "Seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.  For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."  Do we then have an excuse to turn our minds off to God, and on to the world by watching, reading and listening to things that are completely contrary to God's holy standards?  I don't believe so.  If I am truly bought by the blood of Jesus then I am going to constantly be, "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (II Corinthians 10:5), not saturating myself in them.  I need to remember to invest my time in what truly matters, serving the Lord.  "Be not deceived, God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.  For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting" (Galations 6:7-8).  

I don't have this thought studied out completely yet, but I am studying it.  Not just glorifying God in movies, music and books, but in my speech, health, relationships, etc.  Submitting every area of life to the One who gave me that life to use for His pleasure and His glory.

What Are You Thinking When You're Talking To a Guy?

I've had a mini-revelation lately that I think might help some of you too, so I'm going to share it.

I was thinking about how we relate to guys and how we are supposed to treat them as brothers in Christ. That's always confused me a little. I'm definitely not going to treat them as close as I treat my brothers, so how exactly do you treat a brother in Christ!?!? I do not have the answer. BUT! I have an idea. Or rather a question and then an answer.

Q: What are you thinking when you are talking to a guy?

A: You should be thinking about how to glorify God the most in your conversation.

Now, let me try to clarify my jumbled thoughts just a bit.

I've realized that most of the time when I'm talking to a guy I worry about what he thinks of me. I want him to think I'm intelligent, kind, funny and all around great, right?

For example: I have a bad habit of replaying conversations I have with people over and over again (not just guys, but everybody) and thinking about what made me look kinda goofy and immature, and wishing I could take it back. The root of this is pride. I am more worried with what people think of me than what God thinks of me. Harsh, but true.

Do I ever replay conversations and think, "I wonder if what I said was as pleasing to God as it possibly could've been"? NO! But, that is my goal from now on.

I want my motive behind every conversation I have to be: I want to please and bring glory to God in the fullest way possible. And not: I want to make me look really good.

I hope that this helped you gain a fresh perspective on pleasing God with your words.

The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom, but the froward tongue shall be cut out. Prov. 10:31

Photo credit: 123rf.com

Everything Changes.......

Growing up is so strange. I can't get used to everything I used to dream about happening (you know.......wayyyyyy in the future) actually happening.

For example: 2 of my brothers are married.

Ben and Brittney are having a baby in May.

I graduated a year ago.

My parents 25th wedding anniversary is in June.

Sarah is in high school.

Next year will be 10 years since 9/11

See what I mean??? This stuff isn't supposed to be happening now. I'm supposed to still be a little girl whose favorite toys are her siblings, who loves playing blind man's buff, making huge tents in the house, eating sugar ants, writing on walls with feathers for pens and berries for ink, climbing trees, trying out roller blades for the first time, thinking I was a big kid if I stayed up till 10 o'clock...................*sigh*

Those were the days.........................and I do kinda miss them.

Those were my childhood memories, now will be my niece and nephews memories, then will be my children's memories.

Is this post too melancholy? I don't want it to be. I'm just in a reminiscing mood today.

My childhood days are over, so for now I'll remember the past, take joy in the present and look forward to the future. Knowing that my God is in control of everything and, no matter what changes, HE is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Mirage

I wish I were as nice as people think I am.

You know how when you first meet someone they don't know any of your bad quirks, moods or habits yet? Wouldn't it be great IF there was nothing for them to find out?! IF your family and closest friends said that you were as sweet as your acquaintances say you are? IF you were only nice, accommodating, selfless, helpful and loving all the time? If, if, if, if, if. Yes. Indeed, it would be wonderful, but perfection is not exactly feasible since we are fallen creatures. What is our goal then? It should be to try to prevent those mess-ups that will happen, and to repent quickly when they do happen.

Sometimes I do get depressed with how plain awful I am though. Do you? I think about all the mean things I've said, all the time I've wasted, all the laziness, all the sin, and think I'll never get it right. But! I know that there is still hope. Here's some inspiration for you and me:

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Philippians 4:13

For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly. Psalm 84:11

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Prov. 3:5-6

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Gal. 6:9

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matt. 6:33

So, just for a little recap. We will make mistakes, but it is not hopeless. When we do fail we should look to the Lord for guidance and try to learn from our mistakes. Learn why we made that mistake, so we can keep from making the same one twice. Like they say, "If you fail the test, you'll have to take it again." Let's try to pass the test the first time, so we don't have to keep taking it over and over again.

P.S. Sorry that I haven't done a real post in a while. Forgive me?

Pure Hearts

Today's post is about..............................BOYS!

Now you're interested, aren't you?

Actually, today I'll be writing about keeping our hearts and

minds pure in our relationships with guys.

I have three main thoughts on how to keep your focus off

of idle daydreams about boys and on the Lord.

1) First of all, we should be making the most of our single years by serving God and our families (1 Corinthians 7:34). If we keep our focus on the Lord and serving others, we will be far too busy and content to sit around daydreaming. So, how do we do this? Start with reading God's Word and praying daily (if you're already doing this, good for you!). It's a lot harder to get distracted or tempted by worldly things when you are constantly seeking God. Next, apply yourself to serving your family. Help your mom out in the house more, encourage your dad as the head of the household and ask him if you can do anything for him, spend time with your siblings doing what they want to do. These things can all be difficult at first, but will grow easier with time and practice.

2) Secondly, we need to give our hearts to our fathers. We need to tell him that he has our heart and then prove it by: telling him our thoughts and dreams, sharing whatever is on our minds, asking him to pray for us in whatever area we are struggling in, telling him that you trust him and that he's the most important man in your life right now.

3) Lastly, pray for the young men in your life, and their future wives. Pray that they would become mighty men of God and do wonderful things for the Lord. And of course, pray for YOUR future husband!

One thing that always hits me pretty hard is that only one man will be my husband, and every other man is going to be someone else's husband. That means that every time I talk to a young man, I am talking to someone else's future husband. Am I thinking about those young men like I want other girls to be thinking about my husband? If that doesn't help you guard your thoughts, words, and actions concerning young men, I don't know what will.

I have thoroughly convicted myself now.

I've got work to do, but thank the Lord, He will help me every step of the way.

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Philippians 4:8