Devotions of a High Heeled Warrior

We have faced all four seasons in one month in Arkansas.  One day, the weather is balmy, and then two days later, we have snow or freezing winds.  This last Monday, I was able to help with a bake sale to benefit a homeless woman for Christmas.  I started out the bake sale at 9am thinking that it was cool but manageable.  After a couple of hours, I realized that manageable was a little generous.  The wind chill was 32 degrees.   I bundled up as best I could and quickly sent my husband for hats and blankets.  By 4pm, I couldn't feel my toes and started begging God to send people to buy the baked goods that were left on the table.   I had already decided that by 5 pm, I would give up and go home.  Within 10 minutes of making that decision, a man came up to buy a couple of bags of Rice Krispie treats.  He told me he had also suffered through the cold selling mistletoe in the past and wished me luck.  A few minutes later, as his wife f...

How many of you remember Thanksgiving as a child? You spent weeks in school making paper fringed vests and Pilgrim buckle hats. You would load up in your car and visit family you may not have seen for a while. Now we tend to skip right over Thanksgiving to move straight to Christmas and gifts. But lets's look at the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims were starving in America. They were resigned to the fact they would die when God sent help. In that help an entire civilization was saved. The Pilgrims forgot differences and joined with the Native Americans because they were thankful for second chances. When struggle comes, we forget differences. In Arkansas, the leaves are changing colors in an amazing array of colors.  The reason for this is rain. Because of the storms and rain, the leaves stayed hydrated instead of turning brown and dying before color change.  Instead of complaining about rain, we can be thankful for beauty because of rain. So when you face hard times, focus ...

First, I want to say that God is sooo amazing! It has been a little over four and a half months since Megan had a section of her brain removed. When you hear the word "lobotomy," good things do not come to mind. Once the surgery was over, we thought recovery would be a long, slow road. This has NOT been the case. Her follow-up with the neurosurgeon was this last week. He took out the last of the stitches and cleared her for normal activity. There have been no seizures since the surgery. Her neurologist told us something we never thought was possible. They are weaning her off ALL of her seizure meds by summer. Megan's last report card was A's and B's. She is active as a basketball manager and will be taking the ACT in December. She wants to go to college. We thought her short-term memory might be affected since that part of the brain was removed, but she is remembering more and more each day as the other part of the brain takes over. Keep her in prayer that sh...

I'm going to be honest with you.  I was a very bad sport.  During my honeymoon, I threw my golf club on the ground during miniature golf.  My first year of marriage, I threw my tennis racket at my husband while playing tennis.  I avoided cards and hated Monopoly because of my bad attitude during games.  Friday, my family and I went to visit my oldest son at college.  We decided to hang out at a donut shop and play Uno.  I lost and won.  I was okay, but my children got angry when they lost.  I gave them the parent lecture about being good sports. I know.  Pot- kettle- black.  This caused me to question why I would lose my temper so easily when playing sports or games.  I think it had to do with insecurity.  Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you try, you just don't measure up?   We strive for the one thing we will never be- perfect.  "If I make a mistake, people will think less of me."  Instead of ...

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...