The Proverbs 31 Woman

Ladies, you know that woman, right?  She’s the one who rises before dawn, takes care of her family, runs a business, has a spotless house, takes care of everyone else?  I let someone else advise me about her.  Solomon was writing about his mother-in-law.  Consequently, I have been thinking, “That’s not the wife.  That’s the mother-in-law.”

THEN God spoke to me, “You ARE a mother-in-law, too, my child.”  I have two precious daughters, given to me by my two amazing sons.

Am I teaching them?  Could they write anything like this about me?

God means for us to be women of excellence, women of virtue, women who strive for the best.

 

Thank you, Lord, for Megan and Regan.

Kaylee Elizabeth

On May 15, I received a gift from the Lord.  I became a grandmother, Nona, to this precious baby girl.  What am I teaching her by having a cluttered house, dishes in the sink ALL the time, unmade beds?  I want to teach her to be a “virtuous woman.”

My prayer for Kaylee?

That she love the Lord, her God, with all her heart.  That she see in her Nona and her Grouch their love for Jesus and for her.

I want to lead by example.

Therefore, my sisters, be aware of those around you.  Are you showing Jesus, to the littlest of all?  Is there clutter in your life which needs to be pruned?  Is Jesus first?  Can your “in-laws” say, “Our mother-in-law is a virtuous woman?”

Lord, help me.  Prune me.  Mold me to be the woman you want me to be.

Deb

Wisdom from the Great Nephew

Continually, God amazes me with how He uses everyday life to get my attention.  Lately, my attention has been riveted to an almost 3 year old who now lives in my house.  (His birthday month is “Tember” as he told me last night.)

Eric takes pleasure in almost everything.  I have learned he is also soaking up everything around him.  Casual phrases have to be watched.  Dangerous items have to be moved.  He will open every bottle he can find.  (Yesterday morning it was a bottle of purple folk art paint left on the coffee table.  Fortunately, there was only paint on Eric.)

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.”  Light is a lot like Eric.  It penetrates every part it reaches.  My heart already has expanded with love for this little guy.  I am still working on adjusting the demands of my day for him.  I seem to get NOTHING accomplished!  I have to be very quiet when I awake in the a.m. or Eric is also up with the chickens.

Our television watching habits have changed.  We watch very little, having no converter box nor satellite.  We mostly watch crime shows and movies.  (Hulu.com and Netflix are great tools.)  I can almost quote Monsters, Inc.  I have also learned how absorbed a child gets with a television on.  Without the television on, he will play and play and play.  Put in a movie and he becomes a zombie.

I am reminded of Philippians 4:8,  “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (NIV)

Conversations are changed.  Adult discussions occur when Eric is asleep or in the bedroom with his mommy, my precious niece Noelle.

And so I began thinking, why are the changes necessary?  Does this mean I can’t watch television anymore unless it is appropriate for children?  (Much of what is “appropriate for children” is still garbage!)  My standard should be Philippians 4:8.  If what I watch, read, listen to, say, is not right, I should not watch, read, listen to, or say it.

What has become interesting about this entire process of studying God’s Word and applying the lessons to my life is that I do not miss what I formerly thought I could not miss!  Oscar and I still enjoy some crime shows.  We still enjoy going to movies on a Saturday morning (when tickets are much cheaper).  We still enjoy reading and listening to books.  However, we both have found we avoid filling our minds and ears and eyes with garbage.

As for my niece Noelle?  She is a wonderful, Christian mother.  She shows concern about what her son watches and to what he listens.  She admonishes adults about conversations (in a gentle, loving way).  She teaches Eric to behave and teaches manners.  She is in church and he happily goes to “Train School” each Sunday.

My life may have been turned upside down this summer with Eric’s arrival (and his mommy’s).  God is using this little boy to show his Aunt Dabbie how He wants His light to penetrate every corner of my life.

Therefore, my sisters, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Debbie

God’s Timetable

Waiting…..Waiting…..Waiting……

For what do we wait?

• School to start (or end)
• Special date (anniversary, birthday, Christmas)
• Birth of a child
• Marriage
• Job

Right now I’m in the “job waiting” period of life.  I have tried to hasten God’s timetable by emailing and calling to find out status of job.  This morning, as I continued the Sweeter Than Chocolate Bible study of Hebrews 11, God got my attention!!

Notice verses 13-16 (NIV)

¹³All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. ¹⁴People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. ¹⁵If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

God’s timetable?  Hah!  I’ve been trying to rush Him.  My Lord will not be rushed.  I need to learn from the story of Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham.  I am pausing, I am waiting, I trust God’s timetable.

My sisters, are you anxious?  Are you waiting on God?  Are you rushing the timetable?  What immediate peace I feel when I say to my Lord, “God, according to your good, pleasing, and perfect will, I trust that YOUR timetable is perfect and I submit to YOU.”

Therefore, my sisters, place your day, week, month, and years in the Lord’s hands.  He is able and willing to reveal His plans for you, according to HIS schedule.

Debbie

Gillaspie, Pam. “Sweeter than Chocolate – Hebrews 11.” Bible Study/Bible Study Tools.   Precept Ministries, 2009. Web. 1 July 2010.

Klein, Zach. Weekly Schedule. N.d. Flickr. N.p., 31 Oct. 2006. Web. 1 July 2010.  <http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachklein/284926479/>.

As Marcie Would Say

Going through old letters, I came upon this treasure.  You could call this a guest posting, written by my beloved Grandma, Nell Aileen Nichols, fall, 1980.  Included with the letter were newspaper clippings and coupons she accidentally included in the envelope.  She loved to clip her papers!

Debbie Doll,

That’s what I say when I pass and notice one of your portraits.  “Hi!  Debbie, Doll.”  Nothing new since we had such an enjoyable talk with you last week.

To church yesterday and heard one more of John’s good, good sermons, on John 12:17-26.  He is really phenomenal in his ability to show over and over that there is no end to what one can see and hear in any passage of Scripture – no matter how familiar it is to us.  Sometimes just by the inflection of John’s voice or the emphasis given to a phrase in a verse will bring me to started attention and almost aloud sometimes I’ll say, “I never saw that before!”  Twice yesterday.

Makes me think of a pastor’s wife we had back in the 40′s.  One time rather peevishly, she said, “Why do you and Mrs. Ingman always seem to want to teach out of the Old Testament?  I know all there is to know in the New Testament, but I don’t get a bit of sense out of the Old.”

Can you believe that?  A pastor’s wife and admitting the O.T. part and bragging about the N.T. part?  They were not new in the ministry either — they were grandparents.

Sometime in the 50′s her health failed and she was in bed for a long time. Once I was able to visit her and she had dozens of books stacked around where she could reach them — mostly devotional type ones and when I commented on some and asked about others she said, “Nell, I never look at my books and think of what I’ve learned in the last 10 years without thinking of you and being ashamed.”

Well, that was news to me so I waited and she went on, “I hope you’ve forgotten, but I haven’t, that awful self-righteous, ignorant remark I made to you one time years ago in Douglas about teaching in the O.T. and how I didn’t need that, because I know all about the New T.”

Well, she said a lot more — evidently the Lord did a job on her while she was down and it took, but it also taught me that no one dares to even think, let alone say, that their capacity for learning has been filled.

The question in my mind then was what made her remember that old remark and for so many years.  They left us shortly after that.

Now why did I write all that above?  Oh!  Well! as Marcie would say.

Nice letter from your dad Sat.  Written earlier in the week.  Cozette wrote much more than usual.  Sounded happy.

Windy & coolish to-day.  Very sunny, blue skies.

Hope Enterprise is the same.

Love,

Grandmother

Social Networking

Family

My grandfather loved to take pictures.  My cousin, Bruce, has begun uploading these treasures to his Facebook page.

Social networking has been both a good and a bad tool for me.  The good?

• I am reconnecting with cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews.
• I am reconnecting with classmates and friends from Enterprise.
• I am interacting with sisters and my mama and Nanny who are all hundreds of miles away.
• I am meeting new “friends” and forming virtual relationships.

The bad?  Facebook becomes a priority.

• I interact more with virtual “friends” than I do face-to-face.
• I log on to FB before I get out of bed (or stay logged on).
• I check updates to my status throughout the day.

God tells me, “My daughter, you have created a false idol. “

Yes, the tool can be used for good.  I know that.

However, when my first desire upon waking is to harvest my crops, feed my animals, clear more land, dig for treasure, visit zoos, farms, homesteads, aquariums, islands, cafes, cities, and on and on and on, I am placing Facebook before God.  That is unacceptable.

Eugene H. Peterson translates this way,

“How well God must like you— you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon, you don’t slink along Dead-End Road, you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.

Instead you thrill to God’s Word, you chew on Scripture day and night.   You’re a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month,  Never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.”  (Psalm 1:1-3, The Message)

My goal is to declare:

“How well God must love me — I don’t spend all day on the Internet; you won’t find me at my school working all the time; nothing comes before God.”

I’m not there yet.

Thank you, Father, for convicting me in the small things that consume me.

Debbie

Cleaning the Garden, Part 1

My Lord is so good.  I am thoroughly enjoying playing in my gardens this summer.  Usually by this time of year I’ve let them become overgrown.  Some have been overgrown for several years.

I am a Texas country gardener.  If I like the plant it goes in.  There is little rhyme or reason to my gardening and sometimes that gets me in trouble.  Hmmmmm, that sounds a little like an uplanned quiet time.  Does yours sound something like this?

“Lord, I’ll just pick a book or pick a verse.  I’ll know it’s from You and I can then read until You tell me to quit.”

What happens when we do that?  We miss the verse by verse teaching from the Lord.  I never realized how important that was until I began sitting under the teaching of our pastor, Barry Cameron.  He preaches the Word, verse by verse.  I love our book studies (Bible books) that he does.  Sometimes the Word cuts to the quick.

Sometimes the Word nourishes.  ALWAYS the Word strengthens.

A few years ago I decided we needed garden beds all along our fence, 60 feet long and 8 feet wide on one side and 60 feet long and 2 feet wide on the other.  Oscar patiently cut lawn timbers for MY project and helped to build the beds.  My job was to do the rest.

Instead of digging out the grass I covered it with black plastic.  Several years later……

God gently nudges me.  “Debbie, this is how it is when you neglect your time with Me.”

I cleaned a spot.  I bought Bible studies and devotional guides a new Bible.  The spot, my kitchen table gets covered with non-essentials.  My Bible studies become piled on the bookshelves.  The new Bible still smells new.  Other priorities begin to fill that space and the grass grows.  Sometimes that grass grows so much that I can no longer see the garden I laid out.

Jesus knows this will happen with our walk with Him.  That’s why He says, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23, NIV)

Debbie

Holy is the Lord

This morning, I was reading Isaiah 6:3:

“And they were calling to one another:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’” (NIV)

I thought to myself, “That would make a good song.”  Oscar and I say that to each other whenever we come across a Scripture passage which has been set to music.  Already I had been singing to myself, “Holy is the Lord, God Almighty.  The earth is filled with His glory.” (Chris Tomlin)

God was preparing my heart for my study this morning.  Because I am part of a local body where this song is used in worship, because I attend regularly, because I fully participate in the worship, God was able to impress upon my heart Isaiah 6:3.

The question now becomes, “How is God revealing His glory to me daily?”  As David writes, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1, NIV)  I think of David, out in the country looking at the starry sky.  I think how much more we see the glory of God today through the lens of the Hubble telescope.

Source: Hubblesite.org

I think of how we can see under the ocean so much more clearly than the ancients.

Mattk1979. Troppo Reef Coral. N.d. flickr. N.p., 8 Nov. 2009. Web. 19 May 2010.   <http://www.flickr.com>.

Chanyinkeen. Fish on a reef. N.d. flickr. N.p., 27 Feb. 2010. Web. 19 May 2010.  <http://www.flickr.com>.

I think of how we can see God’s glory in the same way as the ancients.

My baby sister, Valerie, and her granddaughter Allie Marie.

Therefore, my sisters, consider the following:

How are you revealing God’s glory?  Do you see the glory of God around you?

Debbie