Croley’s Corner @ Chicklit Power

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6

Good Morning Coffee Hour friends and thanks for taking a few minutes to join me. Grab a hot cup of your favorite beverage, your journal and let’s see what journey He takes us on today.

There was a song I sang as a child and I’m sure many of you are very familiar with it and it goes like this “oh Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he, he climbed up in a Sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see; and as the Savior passed his way He looked up in that tree, and said Zacchaeus you come down for I’m going to your house today.”

Wow, can you imagine? My heart would be thumping out of my chest! Which brings me to my point; many times in life we hear of something great that’s about to happen, whether it be at church or a Men or Women’s Conference or a retreat. Instead of making plans to go we view from a distance. Oh, yes, our spiritual appetite might want to inquire; we may even be inquisitive but our hearts may not be in a position to fully get involved; but yet we still remain at a distance. Why is that?

We often stand back or even in the shadows and then kick ourselves for not following through because we’ve learned that lives were changed. Sometimes the Lord speaks to us in many ways by venues and avenues. As that ole’ saying goes, you can lead a horse to water and you may even put him or her in the trough, but you can’t make them drink. And we can miss out on such valuable lessons all because we choose to stay in what we call the comfortable zone.

The Bible says in Luke 19:5-7 He spoke to Zacchaeus to come down out of that tree for He was heading to his home for some revival!

Wow! My first thought might be; “Jesus coming to my house! Oh my, I’ve gotta go clean and tidy up a bit. I surely wouldn’t want Him to see how I really live! Yet if Zacchaeus had stayed in the tree as Jesus passed by, Zacchaeus would have lost the greatest opportunity to follow and be a part of something exciting.

Do you sometimes feel you’ve been up in a tree just viewing and not participating, needing and desiring for Him to create in you a new heart or even to restore what you feel is broken or think can’t be fixed?  Has He been calling to you?  Remember, God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscience and unless we respond to Him, we may remain up in that tree always looking but never experiencing the awesome benefits that await us.  When we finally realize we can climb down out of our tree and follow Jesus, we will gain new knowledge of His Word for our lives; the joy, the peace, the fruitfulness of walking in the spirit all for the healing of our hearts and minds.

My prayer is that your heart will be likened as of Zacchaeus: the willingness and the hunger to see Jesus not at a distance but up close and personal and when He walks by, make a move towards Him for He’s more than willing to create a clean heart and renew a right spirit within you.  Psalm 51:10

Until next week, allow Him to surround you with His presence to bring you to a place of peace and remember, keep Him close to your heart.

Love Deb

Paws for Coffee Hour

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Oh, it’s a great day to join us for a lesson to learn in the classroom of life from our four-legged friends…one with spiritual significance. Jennifer is so good at tying it all together, which is really what we’re supposed to do as we learn in this life, to remember we are made of mind, body and soul, physically, emotionally and spiritually! This one is incredibly profound! Please, grab your coffee and join us!

I saw something quite disgusting this week and it reminded me of a verse in proverbs.

“As a dog returns to its own vomit so a fool repeats his foolishness” Proverbs 26:11

Did you know that dogs will actually do that?  I have always wondered why.  Is it because it was a part of them?  Does it remind them of their last meal?  Who knows!  I know it sounds gross, but stay with me here! :-)

As I was cleaning up the mess I thought “I am sure glad humans don’t do this.” But then the Lord reminded me of the second half of the verse.  He nudged me and said, “Yes, they do.”  Let me share with you how:

We do this, not in a literal sense, but with other things:  Emotional things, temptation-type things, old habits that are negative in nature, self-destructive even.

How do we purge ourselves of these things we don’t want in our life, whether it is pain, suffering, hurt inflicted, any of the things we struggle with?

For me, it’s depression.

The weight of the world and my past grabs hold and I feel myself sinking…returning to its foolishness.

I push it off, pray it away and offer it up to the Lord.  I get freedom from it.  Then something happens.  A trigger, a memory or a new pain and I find myself sniffing around for what I had just let go of.

What I have recently grabbed a hold of is that these things in our past, present or future are opportunities for victory or to nose around in our muck.  It may not feel like it but we have a choice to make.  Do I seek victory or vomit? 

To seek victory I dwell on these scriptures:

“For the Lord your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and he will give you victory!”  Deuteronomy 20:4

“You have given me your shield of victory; your help has made me great.” 2 Samuel 22:36

“I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him.” Psalm 62:1

“I thank you for answering my prayer and giving me victory!”  Psalm 118:21

Speak the truth until you feel it…He will give you victory!

Jennifer and Logan

Jenn’s Journey

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Welcome to Monday's blog! This will be a busy week getting ready for Thanksgiving. Wishing you safe travels, happy times with family or friends...and lots of pie! :)

I've had a lot of fun spending time in my daughter's 1st grade class. Today we made turkeys out of cookies, chocolate frosting and various candies. Kids have such creativity. Their joy and enthusiasm is contagious!

It's quite interesting to observe behaviors.  It can't help but make me think. My daughter was involved in a squabble today over some crayons. One of the girls in her group picked up two crayons from the floor and said they were hers…however they did not match the brand she had on her desk. Then she insisted that they belonged to the boy at the other desk. My daughter claimed they were her crayons and that the other girl had borrowed them. This went back and forth for several minutes. Long story short, the teacher came to solve the issue and decided to take away the crayons. My daughter insisted that the other girl had borrowed them and they were hers. Again, the other girl was questioned and finally owned up that yes, she had indeed borrowed the crayons.

A couple of us talked afterwards with the teacher about this little spat. How easily the entire thing could have been solved if the girl had just admitted that she borrowed the crayons in the first place. Yet, it seemed that being right meant more at the moment. Oh, how I resemble this! Sad to say! How many times has being right meant more to me than backing down on an issue or argument? Too many!

I've decided that I need to strike the word 'but' from my vocabulary. At least when it comes to something I've done wrong. "But she made me mad so I had to say something.” “But he cut me off on the freeway so I had to flip him the bird!”  “But he said,” “but she said,” but, but, NO MORE buts!

Why is it so difficult to just admit a mistake? And why do I want to point out others' mistakes?  I think it boils down to pride. I don't want to be the only one with flaws. Or maybe I want to deflect the attention from mine to the other person's. Either way, it's a way of seeming in the right.

"Don't think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us." Romans 12:3

Until next week, be blessed,

Jenn

The tongue can be a tool or a weapon

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Welcome to Coffee Hour and thanks for stopping by! Oh, how important it is to make the time to take the time to get a bit of encouragement throughout the day. It’s like a mini recess, or a power nap…well, actually, no closing your eyes right nowJ Grab your coffee, and your SOF (strand of faith) and join me as I share from my heart to yours.

We’ve all heard and even been known to say that the tongue can be a tool or a weapon. There are so many scriptures on the subject of speaking…evil versus nice, uplifting versus demeaning, encouraging versus discouraging. It’s almost like I can hear myself saying yada, yada, yada, in other words, yeah, yeah, I know.  But have you ever thought you knew something only to find out you really didn’t know in depth about that something? Oh, my goodness, what a piece of sweet humble pie! And just FYI, the Bible mentions “tongue” as it relates to the words we speak 129 times! I’m thinking we need to understand all we can about it so we can use it the tongue as a tool and not a weapon! Let me share with you what I mean and how I came upon a deeper understanding of this principle.

My husband and I were working in our Battlefield of the Mind Devotional and workbook, Chapter 5 to be exact, and she cited a verse that truly caught my attention and pulled on the strings of my heart: 1^st Peter 3:10 “For he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.” Oh, if only it were that easy, right?

I pondered that verse and it wouldn’t leave my head! Something was pushing the curiosity button within me: why is it the tongue is mentioned first before the lips? Couldn’t they just say lips because that’s where words come out, right? Well, that may seem like a sort of silly or philosophical question to you, but let me tell you, I chewed on that, and tasted it, no pun intended, for several days. In fact, I added this verse to my stack of verses that I am committing to memory. This scripture has followed me into many difficult conversations I’ve had this past week, and continues to follow me, but somewhere along the trip, I’ve received a revelation, a deeper meaning.

Have you ever been so mad at someone you could spit? Or you could literally taste the anger coursing through you, almost feel it on your tongue? I have! And actually recently! :-( See, emotions, negative or positive, travel up through your heart, which is the seat of your mind, into your mouth, onto your tongue and then out of your lips!

The tongue is where the words are formed…as we taste them! And then I had this thought: It’s almost as if God created the tongue as a stop sign but often we blow right through it and cause an infraction!

Oh, Abba, whenever I taste negative emotions on my tongue, please help me swallow them instead of letting them roll right off my tongue and out through my lips. And thank you for the promise of loving life and seeing good days!

Evinda

Tuesday’s Trench Lesson

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

It’s so good to be in the trenches of life, learning and applying as much as we can as we wend our way toward heaven! Grab your coffee and your Strand of Faith and let’s go talk about some powerful truths of despair!

This was such an interesting and exciting root to write in the curriculum of Transform. There were so many revelations that exploded with truth from years past in my own life. That’s not to say that I don’t ever have moments where I am low on hope, but it’s different for me now, much more so after realizing that even though I was a “Christian” for many years before truly beginning this transformation process, I slipped into the slippery slope of despair for a few reasons. 

What is despair? Well, the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines it in this way: “To no longer have hope or belief that a situation will get better.” But here’s where it gets a bit tricky: See, many of our Transformers have a faith system, a belief in God, so they all begin this root declaring they don’t struggle with any of the symptoms within the root…until they go through the information process!

The word “despair” is in the God’s love letters to us only three times; however, the word that is linked with despair is in the Bible hundreds of times and that’s its antonym, hope. One of the Hebrew translations for despair defines it in this way: “To be of no hope.”

I can remember, even though I had accepted God into my heart and had my fire insurance, my entrance ticket to heaven, so to speak, having those dark, desperate times where I had no hope for the situation to get better – i.e., divorce, others’ addictions that ripped me off, death of a loved one, losing my career and what I thought to be my identity. We’ve all had those times where we wondered if He was listening, why we even bothered to pray…because that’s what despair does: despair can lead to blame-shifting.

But then there was that moment in time where I jumped…emotionally and spiritually into the Father’s arms, into His will for my life and I began to grasp this truth: that whom/what I put my hope in determines my stability…and my safe landing!

Those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength…

Hope to you, my friends

Evinda

Jenn’s Journey

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Good morning! Welcome to Monday, and my blog for Chicklit Power!  Grab something hot to drink and take a few minutes to join me on my journey.

We've all been subjected to the feeling we somehow don't measure up when we look at the posts on social media.  It's easy to envy people's supposedly perfect lives. Recently, I was told that I look like a Christian woman who has it all together because of the things I share on my page. This comment has haunted me for weeks. I am so far from that! Quotes, Bible verses, thoughts and even pictures that you might find on my page, are all shared because I personally needed the inspiration. Perhaps I was struggling that moment and something spoke to my heart.

I've shared a lot recently about my failed marriage and what I've come to understand about abuse. Sharing in this way was to bring awareness to the ugly truth of abuse…while bringing it out in the open proved to be cathartic for me. It's a little harder to share my own bad habits. But here goes...

Today I was sitting on my bed journaling when all of a sudden my cat pounced on me, digging her claws into my leg. My reaction to the instant pain was anger. It took a minute to calm down, and then it hit me. This is the very same reaction I have to emotional pain, to criticism (constructive or otherwise), when things don't go as planned, and it's a defense mechanism. I've only recently been able to realize that what I am underneath that anger is just plain hurt. Yet, somehow it's easier to lash out than to name the feeling and be vulnerable.

This is something I long to change about myself. I know I've hurt people with angry responses, and I've thrown up walls where they don't need to be.  I've felt guilty and convicted when I read verses concerning the 'quiet and gentle spirit' (1 Peter 3:4) The truth is, I might be a Christian woman, but I am one who regularly recognizes my need for Jesus.

It helps to remember that I can be completely vulnerable to God. When He convicts me of something, it is not with condemnation. He will love me through the process of change!  He says so in Jeremiah 31:3: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness." That is what I am thankful for this week!!!

Until next week, be blessed,

Jenn

Paws for Coffee Hour

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Oh, it’s a great day to join us for a lesson to learn in the classroom of life from our four-legged friends…one with spiritual significance. Jennifer is so good at tying it all together, which is really what we’re supposed to do as we learn in this life, to remember we are made of mind, body and soul, physically, emotionally and spiritually! This one is incredibly profound! Please, grab your coffee and join us!

I saw something quite disgusting this week and it reminded me of a verse in proverbs.

“As a dog returns to its own vomit so a fool repeats his foolishness” Proverbs 26:11

Did you know that dogs will actually do that?  I have always wondered why.  Is it because it was a part of them?  Does it remind them of their last meal?  Who knows!  I know it sounds gross, but stay with me here! :-)

As I was cleaning up the mess I thought “I am sure glad humans don’t do this.” But then the Lord reminded me of the second half of the verse.  He nudged me and said, “Yes, they do.”  Let me share with you how:

We do this, not in a literal sense, but with other things:  Emotional things, temptation-type things, old habits that are negative in nature, self-destructive even.

How do we purge ourselves of these things we don’t want in our life, whether it is pain, suffering, hurt inflicted, any of the things we struggle with?

For me, it’s depression.

The weight of the world and my past grabs hold and I feel myself sinking…returning to its foolishness.

I push it off, pray it away and offer it up to the Lord.  I get freedom from it.  Then something happens.  A trigger, a memory or a new pain and I find myself sniffing around for what I had just let go of.

What I have recently grabbed a hold of is that these things in our past, present or future are opportunities for victory or to nose around in our muck.  It may not feel like it but we have a choice to make.  Do I seek victory or vomit? 

To seek victory I dwell on these scriptures:

“For the Lord your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and he will give you victory!”  Deuteronomy 20:4

“You have given me your shield of victory; your help has made me great.” 2 Samuel 22:36

“I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him.” Psalm 62:1

“I thank you for answering my prayer and giving me victory!”  Psalm 118:21

Speak the truth until you feel it…He will give you victory!

Jennifer and Logan