For the Love of God

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might."  This is the first and greatest commandment.

How do YOU love the Lord? Is it obedience?  Is it doing something? 

Do you feel the overwhelming sense of love, like you do when you watch your baby sleeping, or see your husband clean up the kitchen?


I am usually stuck on the "how" because I like to have things spelled out for me.  What can I DO to show that I love Him?

But that's not what He's asking for.  "You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would have given" (Ps 51)


When I just TRY harder, it becomes something that I am trying to earn.  It is of myself.  It is not acceptable.  And it has no faith in it.  It's based on my own strength, performance, and motives.  It is wearying.  It is hopeless.  It has no true humility or self-sacrifice.  It only has obligation.

It is not as hard to know how to "do" things to show love (or at least the appearance of love) for others.  They are all around us, they can receive our attempts to love them.  God, on the other hand, is not as easy to love, if you want a list of ways you can love Him.  Maybe it is easier to love Him if you have a list.  I guess it worked out pretty well for the Pharisees, since they liked lists of things to do.  They could check their lists every day.  But Jesus didn't like their lists.  So that creates a problem if Jesus' (God's) opinion matters.

How do I love Him?  If I am asking myself, my truly honest answer is:  Poorly.

When I examine my heart, I realize I don't love well, because I just don't have that self-giving, self-sacrificing love automatically in there.  In order for me to love, I have to understand and accept and embrace the reality that I am well-loved.  "We love because He first loved us." (1 John 4)

So my prayer is, 'Lord, help me to know that You love me, so that I can respond to your love, in kind."

How do you love God?  What does it look like in your life?  What does it feel like?

More deep thoughts and encouraging words at Finding Heaven. :)

my commitment to you

I love to write, I love to share, I love to engage in conversation, I love to hear from others.

The time off last week was good for me; I rested a lot, read a good bit, and reflected on what I want to focus on for this little virtual room I've invited you into.

Here is my commitment to you:

I will write with these criteria in mind:  Does it encourage?  Does it help or benefit?  Does it provoke thought or growth?  Does it glorify God?  Is it honest?

I will ask myself:  Does it fit with my purpose to Keep a graceful home, Live a shared life, and Grow a loving family?  If so, up it goes.  If not, then I'll pass.  (Keep in mind, that my 'shared life' does make for a broad category.)
I will write only when I actually have something to say.  I will not wait for inspiration to strike, but I will not write for the sake of putting one more blog post out there.

I will not write only to fit in with a particular meme or blog carnival.  If something I want to write does happen to fit, I will do my best to schedule and link as appropriate, but I have decided not to try too hard.

I will not spam your subscription or insult your friendship by assuming that just because it entered my mind, you desire to read it. 

If you have read my ramblings for any length of time, what has brought you back?  Related, is there something you'd enjoy seeing more often?

Whataya Know? The World Kept Turning Without Me

It's been over a week since I posted anything.  I guess it was an unofficial break?

Well, in case you think I've been doing very exciting things that have been preventing me from sharing my ever-intriguing life, let me assure you, I have not.

Rather, the couch and I have become excellent friends.

The bathroom, too.  In a sick and twisted kind of way.

Not the kitchen so much.  And my cleaning supplies?  They are all but abandoned.

I'll tell you what; the laundry has not been missed.  I don't think it missed me, either.

My computer, which used to be a laptop, before the screen died and had to be replaced by an old fashioned monitor, chaining it indefinitely to the desk, has been visited only frequently.  I have well over 100 unread followed blog posts calling to me with their happy titles, like eager and shining faces, which I believe will remain unread.  It's just how life goes.

Poor Sam; he's had to pick up an awful lot of slack while I've been sick these last several days.  He's really great.  Sometimes I complain about him (mostly in my head--still not healthy, I know), often I complain to him.  He gets a lot of ugly from me.  But I don't ever really mean it, because he's truthfully wonderful and caring.

And he just asked me to identify whether the smell in his closet is cat pee or not.  I'll catch you later.  Have a happy weekend.

Nap Times? Ha!

Maybe I can blame it on the time change.  Naps have been a wash this week.  I don't know what to tell you; this week hasn't gone quite like normal.  One thing I can tell you is that I got to take a nap once or twice during the kiddo's nap time.  On those days, it was life-changing, truly.

So while I had dreamed of trying new recipes, recording memories, and composing gorgeous prose to share with the world, it just didn't happen.  However, I have enjoyed fellowship with dear friends, I have put together the same 2 wooden puzzles more times than I can count, fed and clothed the family, and paid all our bills. 

I now have something new to fill my nap times:  This week I have gotten to start working on an office project for my mom, who is very close to being moderately famous and will need an underling to handle paperwork odds and ends while she does the creative business of writing.  That will be a new adventure, working a few hours a week, more or less, while balancing housekeeping and entertaining a highly social toddler.

I leave you with this, my best quote of the day:  "Lizzie, take the electrical plug out of your ear."

Maybe your nap times were productive, exceedingly abundantly beyond what I was able to accomplish.  Would you like to tell about it?  Link up below!

Ponderable - workout clothes

Can you explain this to me?

Workout clothes are fitted.  

Workout clothes are moisture-wicking. 

Workout clothes are comfortable (or should be).

Workout clothes should minimize chafing, riding up, and being unsupportive.

Shouldn't there be comfortable, fitted, moisture wicking, non-chafing, non-riding up, non-panty-line-showing panties to wear with these fitted workout pants?

10 Ways to Keep Sane While Waiting at a Government Office

Being unemployed and relying upon various forms of government assistance allows countless hours of waiting in plastic chairs with others in similar, or worse, situations.

Here are ways to keep entertained while waiting.

1.  Keep your toddler off the floor.  And out of the waste basket.  And away from the door.  And coloring only on the paper.  And from dropping every other Cheerio.  And from eating the dropped Cheerios.

2.  People watch.  Imagine their stories.  Engage someone and find out her story.

3.  Make lists.  Grocery lists.  To do lists.  Top 10 lists. 

4.  Work on the Sudoku puzzle from Sunday that's really hard and is probably halfway wrong.

5.  Practice your [insert commonly spoken foreign language in your area] with the woman sitting next to you.

6.  Brainstorm ideas for blog posts.  Add to the lists you're writing.

7.  Watch tiny newborn babies sleep, and listen to their hoarse but gentle cries when they wake up, and get all mushy thinking about having another one.

8.  Watch overtired and bored siblings push each other off plastic chairs and be reminded of the benefits of birth control.

9.  Mentally map out every drive-thru between the office and home, and imagine what you would eat at each one.

10.  Pray.  In the Spirit.  For the mom you overhear telling her story to the worker at the counter.  For the other worker at the counter dealing with an irate person.  For a job to call back.  For your name to be called so you can get home and eat something.

11. And for good measure:  Text.

Cindy vs. Pride

Linking up with Finding Heaven's Soli Deo Gloria Sisters today!

Pride and I, we're BFF's.   And it makes me sick.

Psalm 36
"An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked:
There is no fear of God before his eyes.
For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin." (vv. 1-2)

I remember having a conversation with my mentor several years ago, and he was talking about how essential it is to hate sin when it's found within my heart.  To not tolerate it at all.

This summer I read through Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.  It is a life-changing book.  If I will let it be that to me.  You see, the idea is that in every task, in every moment, in every thought, the mind and the heart can be focused on the precious Person of Jesus.   I found myself battling to do so.  So much so that I gave up.  No, I would rather think about whatever stupid thing is in my mind right now.  I want to be right this time.  I'll try again tomorrow, but not right now.  Every time I stubbornly refused to submit my heart to look to Jesus, I was essentially saying, My thoughts are more entertaining or important than anything else.  Even You.

What that boils down to, in Psalm-speak, is that I am too often the one who has no fear of God.  I am the one flattering myself, justifying my selfishness, laziness, cowardice.  Not calling my sin what it is.  Definitely not hating it.  No, more like coddling it.

⁴ ...they commit themselves to a sinful course
   and do not reject what is wrong.

Lord, I am this way too often.  I am best friends with my pride.  Much closer to pride than to You.

I don't want it to be that way.

Tell me, what does Pride have, that Jesus doesn't?

Well, Pride lets me have my way.  Doesn't ask me to bow my will.  Or to be gentle and meek.  Doesn't require self-discipline or honesty.  Pride lets me go my own way. 

And yet, what do You have, Jesus, that I and my self-absorbed ways cannot offer?

⁵ Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens,
   your faithfulness to the skies.
⁶ Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,

But Your love, O LORD, is high, rich, mighty.  
Your faithfulness to me is strong and unsearchable.  

   your justice like the great deep.
   You, LORD, preserve both people and animals.

Your justice is worth fearing, powerful, and beneficial when yielded to.

⁷ How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
   People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Your greatness is comforting, and your abundance is always available.

⁸ They feast on the abundance of your house;
   you give them drink from your river of delights.

You give me the eternal food and drink that refreshes and delights my heart.  As well as everything I need for life.

⁹ For with you is the fountain of life;
   in your light we see light.

Thank You for the Word, giving light to my heart to see what is in me.