Devotions of a High Heeled Warrior

No, I didn't join a certain television show.  This weekend, my church had a huge Fall party on one of our church family's property.  We took a hayride out to a back pasture with rolling hills, a fishing pond, bonfire, and surrounded by woods.  One of the activities was a scavenger hunt.  The hosts planted objects throughout the woods, and we were taken into the woods and told to look closely.  Several of us left the smooth trail to search off the beaten path.   We found almost all of our hidden treasures except one- a hand sanitizer bottle.  We had wandered over the whole path finding a snake, but no bottle.   After maneuvering through brier bushes and rocks, we still couldn't find it.  We had a choice to make.  Do we go back, knowing we wouldn't win, or did we keep looking?  We chose to keep looking.  Some stumbled, but their team helped them up.  Finally, we found hidden bottle and ran for the finish line.  In Pr...

As you can see above, my church has created the Ozark Mountain Makeover.  We wanted to bless a local family with a house makeover for Christmas.   We invited people to complete applications and send them to us.  The house above was chosen for this outreach.  As I interviewed the mother, I was moved by her story.  Her husband broke his back working on an oil rig.  They bought the house hoping to repair it a little at a time.  However, he developed stress fractures further injuring his back.  This made it nearly impossible to complete the house.  The mother fought sepsis last year keeping her from being able to work.  With only disability income, home improvement seemed impossible.  They also had a son with Autism and another a senior in school.  We felt we could make a difference in this family, so the renovation began over the last week.  This weekend, we did a big push with a lot of people giving up their weekends to ...

This thought has probably gone through everyone's mind at some point in their lives.  As a worship leader in my church, the thought has come when I couldn't get people to worship.  Why am I doing this?   One Sunday, I tried to get the music to sound right.  One would say, "I don't like these old songs."  Another would say, "I don't like these new songs."  At this point of frustration, God reminded me of what real worship was.   Before the fall (the apple moment), Adam's high point of the day was walking in the cool of the day talking with God.  His worship was spending time in God's presence talking and listening to God and being completely vulnerable.   But after the fall, the first thing Adam and Eve did was hide from God .  They questioned God's forgiveness and goodness.  They needed the covering of clothes because they no longer could be vulnerable in God's presence.  It was too revealing.  Suddenly, fear took the pl...

Have you found yourself facing one hardship after another?  Does the phrase, "When it rains, it pours" hit too close to home?  If this is you, I have a word for you.   As it gets later in the season, we've been able to slow down on grass cutting.  Unfortunately, I couldn't put if off any longer.  Since my husband was pulling daddy duty hauling our children to school competitions, that left my oldest son and me to cut the grass.  I approached our shed with trepidation.  Three riding mowers were housed within.  I felt like Goldilocks.   The biggest mower wouldn't cut grass.  The medium mower wouldn't start.  The smallest mower was just right, but the battery needed to be charged.  I manhandled the mower out of the shed and pushed it around to my garage to charge.  This left weed-eating my grass.  The gas-powered weed-eater had a spring that didn't fit right.  The battery-powered had a battery that wouldn't take a...