Father's Day- A look at the role of our father's compared to our Father

We all have a father. Some of you may not know who your father is, you may have never met him but you know he exists. Some of you have a great father who you live with and see everyday. Some may have a father you live with but he is, well not great. Thankfully I have grown up having an amazing father. But I am not writing to brag on my father (as much as I would like to). So we all share a common denominator here, we all have a father. A father is the leaders, they are the initiators. They are the man of the house who takes care of their wife and children. Father's discipline their children when they do wrong and they teach them to do right. Father's love their family's, even when they make a big mess of things. Father's work hard and provide food, shelter, and clothing for their family. The list of things they do is endless. They get their so called "job description" from the Ultimate Father. Our God is the most amazing Father anyone could ever have. Now matter how terrible or how great your physical father is, God the Father beats him out by a landslide.
Our Father has provided for us in ways we could not even imagine. He has loved us when we spit in His face and chose sin/death over love/life. He is eternally great. Knowing that our father's get such a weighty job title from God Himself should give us a little more respect for them. In the past I have not been the best at loving either of my parents. I was rebellious and mean. The way I treated them and the things I said to them were uncalled for and not deserving at all. My parents have loved me through thick and thin. Even today when I was going through a rough time dealing with somethings with some people in my life (very vague...I know). They were both loving and understanding. They love me unconditionally. They, however, cannot ever love me as much as my Father loves me. I cannot love them as much as He loves them. God is love (I John 4:8). God's love reaches to the ends of the earth and outside of time. He wove you in your mother's womb. He knew you before you were born. He knows more about you than you could ever know about you (Psalm 139).
Psalm 139 does a great job of explaining how much our Father loves each and every one of us. I like using this chapter in writing encouraging letters to friends and family. So I am going to write it to all of you the way I would write it to someone really close to me. Although I may not know all of you who read this (now and at a future date), I do hope for you to get the same effect and the same desire for God when I read and re-read and go through this chapter. I hope you can get as much from it as I do. This is how much our Father loves us and our earthly father's could never love us as much as God can.

1 O LORD, You have searched me and known me. (He knows everything about you. He has searched you inside and out)
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You understand my thought from afar. (Just like in the jingle many people sing about santa "He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake..." Only God is real :) )

3You scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. (He has seen your path and where you lie down. He knows you what you are going to do before you do it)

4Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O LORD, You know it all. (He knows what you are going to say before you say it. He knows it ALL)

5You have enclosed me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me. (He has given you a path and no one can change it. If you are His, you are His forever...and ever...and ever...and eternity)

6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is too high, I cannot attain to it. (We cannot, in this lifetime, ever understand how He has such knowledge and such wisdom and such power. We can say "He is God and has all power" but we will not fully comprehend His Awesomeness until we meet Him face-to-face in our final home)

7Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?

8If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

9If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,

10Even there Your hand will lead me,
And Your right hand will lay hold of me. (No matter where we go He is there. We cannot go deep into the ocean and lose Him or high into the sky and hide from Him. Even our hiding place He sees us. He has full access to us 24/7 and then some)

11If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,
And the light around me will be night,”

12Even the darkness is not dark to You,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You. (He is a light in the dark and nothing can shut Him down. When we are afraid of the night we know that He is still there with us shinning as bright as ever)

13For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb. (He wove you in! He made you to be. You were not just some cosmic accident. You are here for a purpose, a divine purpose from the most amazing God!)

14I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well. (We are told to praise Him because of all the great that He has done. We should praise Him everyday and not just once a week or once a month or once a year...everyday, every single day. He has given you every breath. He gave you eyes to read this. He gave you ears to hear and a nose to smell and tastebuds to taste... He is wonderful and magnificent in every way.)

15My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;

16Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them. (He has seen you before you were even a thought in your parents head. He has known you long before you knew you. He knows how many days you have to live. He knew this before you were woven in by Him)

17How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

18If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.
When I awake, I am still with You. (Your earthly father thinks about you quite a bit but I doubt he thinks about you as much as God. God thinks about you more times than there are grains of sand. He loves you so much!)

19O that You would slay the wicked, O God;
Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed.

20For they speak against You wickedly,
And Your enemies take Your name in vain.

21Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?

22I hate them with the utmost hatred;
They have become my enemies.

23Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

24And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way.


Basically we can sum all of that up with:

YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER LOVES YOU!


Do not forget to show your earthly father how much you love him but do not forget to praise you heavenly Father for all He has done for you and how much He loves you even when you forget He exists. Love on your father and you Father today.


God bless!

Ishmael and Isaac- Long Lasting Effects of Our Sin

When we think about sin we tend to categorize it in to punishable by death, worst, horrible, bad, not as bad, and so on and so forth. We look at things like sexual immorality, homosexuality, murder, incest, rape, drug addiction, and alcoholism and categorize them. We often forget about anger and malice and gossip, gluttony, greed, lying, speeding, and lusting (in what we consider small ways). We do not realize that our sin has a long lasting effect on future generations. When Eve took a bite out of the tree of knowledge of good and evil sin was generated from there until now and will continue until Christ returns. That sin flowed through them into further generations. But we are going to skip a huge chunk of that history and move to Ishmael and Isaac, for a particular reason.
Abraham and Sarah (formerly Abram and Sarai) were promised a son to be their heir. Abraham had also been promised descendants that were more numerous than the stars in the sky. When things did not happen within his timing, and even within Sarah's biological timing, they took matters into their own hands. Sarah suggested her servant Hagar to Abraham to bear them a child. Abraham, as several men might, took the opportunity and had sexual relations with Hagar. She bore him a son whom they called Ishmael. Later, Sarah bore a son and named him Isaac. When Abraham died Isaac received the inheritance, Ishmael did receive a blessing but not the one he thought he was entitled to. Because he was not the son God had promised Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac's sibling rivalry spun out of control. We now see it as Israel fighting against the Arab countries. (Talk about long lasting sibling rivalry)! Abraham sinned not only against his wife and his family and the poor servant girl, but he sinned against God. Not just any god but the Almighty God.
Our sin does not only effect us but it effects our children, our children's children, and our children's children's children...i think you get it. It goes so much deeper and spreads so much further than we could ever imagine! Our sin is disgusting to God! In Ezekiel 21 God tells Ezekiel to pass on a message to those sinning against Him (no doubt it was His baby, His son...Israel). He told Ezekiel to tell them "say to the land of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am against you and will draw My sword from its sheath and will cut off from you both righteous and wicked. Because I will cut off from you both righteous and wicked, therefore My sword shall be drawn from its sheath against all flesh from south to north. And all flesh shall know that I am the Lord. I have drawn My sword from its sheath; it shall not be sheathed again.'" 21:3-5. He was telling the Israelites that because of their sin He was going to not just punish them but cut off righteous and wicked. He was serious, He still is. Sin is no joke, not just because it may make people feel bad or it may make us feel bad. It is us slapping God in the face and saying "Your Son coming to die means nothing!" I do not want my life to show that. I want to live a life honoring and pleasing to God. My petty lies or lack of self-control are not at all worth sinning against the God who created heaven and earth. The bitterness and anger that builds up is not worth pushing others away from knowing just how great our God is. My sin is not worth effecting further generations. If one sin of faithlessness from Abraham can turn into one sin of sexual immorality. Then that sin "bears fruit" quite literally in the form of a child that eventually has led to a war over who gets to own the land which costs so many lives. Is our sin worth it? What are we doing each day in our personal walk with Christ to fight and kill sin so that we may become more like Him? Romans 6:23 says "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." Although we may be sinful and our sin is punishable by death, we have hope in our Father. God has given us hope to repent from our sins and run to Him with open arms begging for forgiveness. Our sin truly passes down from generation to generation. That is one thing I do not want my children, grandchildren, and so on to inherit.

God bless!

How Great is Our God?

There is nothing like knowing how big our Father is. Last night as I was coming back from running a few errands I noticed a quarter of the moon and a single star above it. Tonight when I was coming back from a friends’ apartment I again noticed the moon and a single star to the right of it. As I was driving I was thinking about how amazing God really is, it made me giddy and excited. Knowing that He has placed every star in its place and given every star a name. So if He can do something so miraculous as make a star. Not just the “twinkle twinkle” kind but the big blazing unimaginable group of stars that perfectly form a constellation. Our God is so much bigger than we chose to see. We so rarely chose to see that God created the very things before our eyes. He has created the simple things we see everyday like flowers and grass and trees and clouds. We take advantage of the fact that He has given each and everyone of those things a purpose. He has created the sea life in the depths of the seas that we still have no idea exists. Everything has been created for a purpose whether we acknowledge or even have knowledge of what that purpose is. So the great thing is that we can gather from the above blurb is that He must have a purpose for each and everyone of us. We may have no idea what He plans on using us for, but we know that if we are His He has a plan. “He has planned and who can frustrate it” (not quite sure of the reference on this one but you can google it and find it. –Jeremiah 29:11 is good too).
So if He has a plan for us and we are not sure what that is, what are we to do? This is something that I ask myself quite often. I am not sure where He wants me so I stay put doing the same thing until I am led by Him to do something further. Jeremiah 29:13 says “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” So I began to seek Him in different areas of my life. Everyone of them included leaving where I am now. I sought Him on culinary school, missions in one country, then in another, then for extended missions, and so on and so forth. Everytime a door was shut. But then I had to realize that His plans are not my plans and His thoughts are not my thoughts. In knowing we have a plan from the Almighty God of heaven and of earth our purpose in life has been set out for us in scripture as a guideline until He gives us further instruction. The instruction He has placed in His word should be the framework for what we think His leading is for our lives. If what we think is a leading from God is not scripturally accurate then we can discredit the leading. It is black and white, there are no blurred lines here. So in His intricately planned lives for each of us we should stop a bit more and not only smell the roses but thank God for the simple fact that He created them. We should thank Him for the very things we take for granted each day: sun light, moon light, stars, grass, flowers, His word, and the list goes on and on for days (oh and you can thank Him for each day He has given you because you never know how many more you will have).
Our passion for Him should not be hidden because we fear what others might think but we should openly confess Him and show others our belief in Him. This is not to show them that we are superior in any way, but so that they might know Him as well. Isaiah 59:1 says “The Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save and His ear not so dull that it cannot hear.” He can save anyone, anywhere, any way. He is God. He has allowed us the opportunity to confess or deny Him. He has made us in such a way that we are completely and totally different from every other living thing in this world. Remember the stars and the way they are placed. Remember He has placed you in a specific place at a specific time for a specific reason. Why should you not be thankful to Him for all He has done? How dare we live our lives as selfishly as we do! We should be on our knees every chance we get thanking Him and praising Him and laying glory down at His feet in worship as if it were the most expensive thing to be obtained. The Israelites, throughout the entire Old Testament , would live a rollercoaster lifestyle. They would be mindful of God and worship Him and then they would forget who their God was and make idols out of the blessings God would give them. We are so much like the Old Testament Israelites and have no idea at all. The God of the universe has created all things great and small. Are you going to chose to recognize those things and give Him thankful praises to glorify His name higher than the heavens?

The Heart of a Woman

Little girls, teenagers, and women of all ages love love. We love talking about it and dreaming about it and seeing it all around us. We go to weddings and wedding shows and look at wedding dresses and rings online. We talk about it in circles of other women our age. We encourage this idea of love and matrimony to the girls younger than ourselves. Our families encourage the very thoughts that drive us mad and make us desire to be madly in love. The women of our nation are doing anything and everything we can to attract the attention of the men. Every magazine we look at and tv channel we turn on even to the radio stations we flip through remind us of what we are “missing”. So what are we really missing?

Being a single Christian woman in our day is a very tough thing, especially around the months of February, May, and December. These are the times we are remembering that we are single. Between Valentines Day, wedding season, and the holidays (mostly referring to Christmas) we see so many couples and are reminded that we are single. However, we forget that there are so many others just like us. We all face this struggle at some point of our lives. Recently I have become very aware of my singleness, seeing as it is the season for love (May, wedding season). Every weekend this month there has been at least two or more weddings of people I have known getting married. This is a very tough thought and sight. I would love to be married and believe that God has placed that desire in my life for a reason. Over the past year I have been going through the Old Testament. It has reminded me in a few places that God is my Heavenly Husband. This is something I am quick to forget. He is not holding me physically. He does not call to make sure I am ok in the middle of the night after a really rough day. He … well He is not a physical man. Although, as I am reminded of my Heavenly Husband and begin to understand Him better I see how powerful His word is and how blessed I am to be able to sit and read it with out fear of being murdered or hated. I take for granted every last thing I am given. Singleness is by no means easy, but neither is marriage. As I said before I have many married friends. They tell me of the struggles they have had in living with someone else. The struggles of being a sinful woman led by a sinful man. Two people butting heads to get what they want. They have also told me of the many wonderful things that their marriages hold. I love hearing both sides because it is such a great reminder that it is not a slice of cake that I am not getting to partake in. It is hard and it is humbling and sanctifying. Many of the books and articles I have read on singleness shed light on the fact that God has His own timeline. It is not the one I think I should have, it is the perfect, holy, divine will of God. He has planned out our lives so perfectly. If we had access to the knowledge God has we would not ask for anything better, because we know His will is perfect. However, because we are sinful and we do not know the extent of His will we try to fill ourselves with what we think is best or what we want. This can lead to many things that we did not know we were asking for.

Women are so desperate for physical relationships that in the day to day flow we get all sorts of people involved in our desire. One thing I learned early on as a believer is we talk about the things we love most. In recent conversations with girls and women the topics of relationships and marriage are the first things that come up. I am just as guilty as any of these women. I have found myself in situations recently where I am realizing that most of my friends are getting married and I am left behind. I am missing out on this amazing journey called marriage. A friend invited me to spend some time with him while he was on leave from the military. Our friendship before (when I was a very young Christian and he was at the time not following God at all) was very flirtatious. I thought things about him that I knew were wrong. I also knew that if he never came to Christ I would and should not ever enter into any type of relationship with him outside of sharing the gospel with him. So when we went out with another couple and a friend I thought it would be all right. There seemed to be expectations on our friendship that were not there before. There was a constant sense of something physical. In my mind I was going crazy. He is a very attractive young man. He is currently serving in the military fighting for our country, which is also attractive to me. And recently he has surrendered his life to Christ. My mind was racing with how close do I sit to him, can we hug on each other like we used to, and so many other things. I was taken back to the Old Testament and reminded of Christ being my Heavenly Husband. So here I sat thinking “if my husband were to hear the thoughts in my head and see the actions I am even considering right now, how would he respond?” Our God is a jealous God. He wants us to seek Him and Him only. As women we are to follow God and seek Him with our whole heart and not worry about Mr. Right. A dear friend of mine was talking to me about all of this, she was telling me that a man needs to be so founded in God’s word that He will “stumble” upon me through scripture. We do not need to be out there searching for a husband. We need to love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul. We need to be doing anything and everything we can to live for His glory. Without complaining and without a selfish heart. All we do should be in pursuit of Him. So why are we spending thousands of dollars every year to make ourselves more appealing to men? If God is attracted to us from the inside out, then should we not be purifying ourselves with His word?

Paul Washer spoke on having Christianity worth exporting. He was trying to get a point across by asking questions about our devotional life and our church life. We are running the metaphorical marathon of life. To train for such a run we should have a workout plan. In following Christ we should have some form of daily devotion with God. So is our devotion life worth exporting to other lives or even other countries? Am I living in such a way that is pleasing to God? My initial question at the beginning of this article was “what are we really missing?” We as single women think we are missing so much because we are single. We are missing out on the joys of exploiting our singleness for Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Let us stop living to please men but to please God. Let us stand up and walk with God more so than ever. Keep Him in sight and never push Him aside. Love Him with all of your heart, soul, and mind and you will have the most rewarding relationship of your entire life on this side of eternity as well as on the other.

A Little Bit About the Blogger

Well hello friends old and new!

The purpose of this blog is to share with others the things that God has laid on my heart. That is where the name of the blog comes from "The Heart of This Woman." God has given me a passion for the nations and to see those from other countries come to know Him. He has provided me with a job at a school where I am in contact with people from over 65 countries and counting. He has blessed me tremendously and hope that the things He has laid on my heart will bless you as well. The Lord has also given me a passion for cooking, more specifically baking. I love to cook! I am baking Bailey to most of my friends and jump at the chance to help anyone cook for any occasion. I have sought the Lord on going to culinary school and that door was closed. However, I have learned far more from that experience than I ever would have imagined. There are many things I have sought Him about lately regarding leaving my current location to go on to do other things and all of those doors have been closed. Thankfully I am aware that He has planned something very specific for me. He has taught me how to seek Him through prayer and how to be in His word looking for what He wants me to do in life, other things you will see in this blog :).

I hope you enjoy this and are able to get something from it. I encourage you to comment, ask me questions, or even give me ideas of things to post about. I will try to post something at least once a week if not more. (Still getting used to the idea of blogging).

Have a great day and enjoy!!