Devotions of a High Heeled Warrior

  My oldest son is getting married soon, and it has me thinking of weddings. I can remember snippits of mine, but after twenty-five years a lot of the particulars are a blur. I remember starting the planning process six months before the wedding and thinking six months wouldn't be enough time to plan everything. Some women plan for years, so six months seemed like the blink of an eye and then, voila, it was there. I remember the slightest hiccup bringing stress and panic. Would my special day be ruined? I remember realizing we didn't have communion wafers for communion. First there was panic, then we substituted Ritz crackers from the reception. When it came time to take the cup, my husband gargled the juice to get the gummy crackers out of his mouth. Did it ruin the wedding? No. We spend so much money and time preparing for one simple moment. Do we spend more time preparing for the rest of the marriage? Most time, the answer is no. This is like our spiritual lives. We spend ye...

  Sometimes we need to just hear from God. Is this the job I should take? Should I marry or date this person? Where should I live? We always want to hear from God when it comes to big decisions, but sometimes there's those moments of anxiety, depression, or heartbreak when you need to know you are not alone, and God still cares. This morning at worship practice, I had a young lady ask if I could play the song that basically says, " I speak the name of Jesus over you. " She said she felt God in the song. I told her I would play it sometime in the future. She had been going through a lot lately. During worship service, the Holy Spirit really impressed upon us a question. Whose report will you believe- the lies of the enemy or God? Many responded to God. At the end of worship, one of the ladies in the church felt God leading her to pray. She pointed straight to the young woman going through hard times and said, "I speak the name of Jesus over you." Of course, t...

 The past few weeks have been very busy. Because of this, I jumped on the chance to stay home this weekend and catch up on laundry, cleaning dishes, and paperwork for my job. I was putting away silverware when I noticed that even though I had 12 knives the last time I did dishes, I now had four knives. It's magic! Where in the world does all of my silverware and cups go? I somehow think it may be a little less magic and a little more related to my family! My frustration continued as I filled my dishwasher. My dishwasher is one of those dishwashers that require you to wash the dishes before it washes the dishes. Sounds like my children sometimes! So basically, it is a large drying rack for my dishes. However, I've noticed lately that my dishes are still wet after it dries my dishes. This requires us to not only prewash the dishes, but also dry the dishes after it "dries" the dishes. It is basically useless. This makes me think about us as Christians. God has a purpose ...

  Last night, our church joined with the local Spanish church to celebrate their one year anniversary. It was beautiful watching a packed house celebrate by worshipping God together in multiple languages. After the bilingual service, we enjoyed tamales cooked by a lovely woman from the Berryville Spanish church that also joined us. Now, I grew up on tamales, but I hadn't realized my children hadn't until my daughter asked me why they were so hard to cut. She was trying to cut through the husks! She then informed me that at least she didn't try to eat the tamales husks and all like her brother! I realized that maybe I needed to expose my kids to more food diversity. Isn't this how we are spiritually sometimes? We get accustomed to a certain way of doing things, so when God asks us to step out into something different, we balk. What if we embarrass ourselves? What if the unfamiliar doesn't work? What if I fail? The key is remembering when God calls us to try something...

  My husband and I love to dress up in costume. We also love history, so it's no surprise that we jumped at the chance to attend a Renaissance fair. We travelled the night before the event and chose to stay at a hotel that night so that we could kick off the fair early the next day. Kyle and I threw on our costumes and left our hotel room for breakfast downstairs. A little Indian woman with a cleaning cart saw that we were preparing to load our car with luggage and said, "You're checking out?" We told her we were loading some luggage and would be back to which she replied she would check us out and call us if we left anything. Kyle and I looked at each other and said that we were committed now to wearing our costumes in the hotel lobby for a long time since the others that came with us were not ready yet and the option to return to our room was now gone. As we entered the breakfast room, all background noise stopped as everyone's eyes followed us. A lady asked i...