Heb 13:17 obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you. There is a lot of talk about submission, and honestly it isn’t a popular subject, especially among women, but it is so important it needs to be talked about more and in depth too. Submission is a hard thing to do, but I saw something the other day, we can be submitted in our actions and in our bodies, but not in our hearts! That was definitely one of those moments for me, I began looking at my life, am I submitted to God, to my husband, to my pastor, with my whole heart? Submission means having a submissive attitude and conduct, and yielding your power to another. It does not mean you are a door mat, weak, or a no body, it means you are a servant, meek, and someone! God will make you into what He wants when you submit your heart. Submission as a whole is a hard process, and when there are trust issues it will make it even more difficult! When there are problems between a husband and wife, submission will usually not be present. My husband & I had a bad situation happen to us over 7 years ago, and it caused trust issues for me, so I really wasn’t submitting to him like I needed too, oh I was submitted in my body and actions, but my heart really wasn’t. Recently we had an evangelist come and he told us; something happened between us 7 years ago, but God was healing my heart and restoring the trust! I can honestly say submitting my heart to him has been so much easier since then! God is in the restoring business, He was us to be restored, and He wants us to trust, so we can truly submit. I recently read something, it said; you want to make God laugh? Then tell Him your plans! That is so true, God has laid out a path for each of His children, and honestly many times it does not involve anything we want to do! That is the point though, it is God’s will, not ours! I don’t think Jesus’ flesh wanted to die, but being God He knew it was the only way, so He submitted His flesh to death….we have to submit our lives to His will, it is His life anyway, and the things God will do in a life submitted to His path will amaze you! My husband and I are experiencing this right now, He is building a ministry in us and for us that goes far beyond what we would have believed for ourselves! He is no respecter of persons, so that means He will do that in any life and heart truly submitted to Him! If you or I were in a bank and a person came in to rob it and told everyone to put up their hands, I know not many of us would think about it twice! Robbers do harm to us they may even kill you, but yet we would willingly put up our hands in surrender to them, but the sad thing is God, our husband, and pastor would not purposely hurt us, yet we won’t surrender to them! Yes, we do have to give up our will and our dreams, but God’s dreams and plans are so much bigger that will forget the dreams and plans we once had. Another problem we have when not in submission is taking authority. We don’t have the right to that authority! God gave our husband and pastor the authority, so it needs to stay with them. We can have and should share our opinions, but they have the authority to make the right decisions, again we must trust that they will! I just want to challenge you, try it, submit your all, your heart to those who have the rule over you, and see what God will do in you, and through you!

Lately God has really been talking to me about my thank you’s. Looking back there is so many of them, both good and bad ones, I think we think thank you’s are only for good things. But God has shown me the thank you’s for the not so great things are sometimes the most important! To say thank you is expressing gratitude, well I do want to express gratitude for the not so great times, because I can look back and see that they are what God used to make me who I am, and who I am becoming in God! For instance I cannot imagine my life without writing, it helps me express myself, and it was birthed out of a very bad situation that occurred in my family, but I am so thankful, because without it I wouldn’t know how much I love to write! Trials give us the ability to relate to people, if you have experienced the loss of a loved one or been mistreated we can feel what they are feeling, you can reach out and minister when you have felt that pain. I am starting to see that these thank you’s are the most important. I have often wondered why my brother was taken at such a young age, and why my parents divorced, but now I see, these things caused me to feel very lonely, and it was that loneliness that helped me see my need for God in my life! Until a person sees their need for God they won’t feel that hunger in life for Him. There are many things we face t in this life, because God wants us to grow. The fruits of the spirit cannot grow in us until we face hardship. Love becomes strong in us when we see how much He loves us, when we feel Him holding us in His arms during the tough times. Peace comes when He calms our storms, and although we are facing the mighty winds we know all will be well, because we know Him. Joy comes when the fiercest of trials are smacking us left and right, that joy resides deep within us, and gives us His strength when we are weak. Patience comes when we learn to wait on God for the answer whether it takes two weeks or twenty years, it is in just knowing He will answer, in His time! Goodness is knowing there is no good in us, but in Him we have goodness, doing your best, and He will do the rest. Faithfulness, no one is faithful like God, it comes when we just keep doing what He has called us to even when no one notices, but Him! I could go on and on, but my point is God places these thanks you’s in us to show us to be thankful in all things. The seeds of these fruits are placed in us at the time we are filled with the Holy Ghost, but these good and bad thank you’s cause them to grow until we are what God wants us to be I have gotten to the point in my life where I am so happy, and grateful for every single thank you, the good, the bad and the ugly! The love, the teaching and even the loss has made me, who I am and who God wants me to be. Thank you God and thank you to those who have given me my thank you’s!

Mar 2:4 When they could not come near to Him because of the crowd, they unroofed the roof where He was. And digging through, they let down the cot on which the paralytic was lying. We have heard this story many times; these people really wanted their friend to be healed, so bad that they broke up the roof of the house Jesus was in…talk about determination! I couldn’t help but wonder how the people that owned the home felt, the roofs in that day were mostly made of stone and cement, so when they broke it up these people really caused some damage that would take some time to fix, I wonder were they mad at the people that broke up the roof? Or were they rejoicing with the man who was now walking around? This man was not able to walk since birth…now he was using his legs, because of this man named Jesus! When the Holy Ghost begins working in our hearts, it seems like there is a lot of “damage” being done, but in actuality the only thing that is being damaged are the sinful ways of the flesh, and it takes time for everything to be fixed back up, like the sick of the palsy we are then able to use our legs, our spiritual legs that we have never been able to use! I think sometimes we sit back and look at all the stuff we “have” to give up, or give to Jesus and we fail to notice the miracles that have taken place all around us and in our own lives. I had someone tell me once that some of the things I did were not required, or too extreme, and I asked him this question, what if we get to the judgment and you miss it just because you didn’t have the attitude that said you were willing to give it all to Him? I want the right heart and attitude…we never have to give up anything, we get to give our all to Him!! It is said,” Our attitude determines our altitude.” We will reach great heights in God when we have the right attitude! Next time there is work being done in you, focus on the end result not on the broken “roof” you are going to have to fix!! I love y’all…

And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to a yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Matthew 17:20 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: But when it is sown, it growth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it. Mark 4:31-32 Faith has always been something that I have wondered about it really is one of the major building blocks of our Christian walk. It is so important, but really these days you don’t hear it preached as much as even a few years back, oh you hear it a lot in regards to monetary gain, but what about having complete faith in God to meet our every need? Many people think we have to be poor to be in this position, but I believe it takes more faith to trust completely in God when you are blessed with these resources, because it is easier to just do things yourself when you have the tools at your disposal. In Hebrews 11:1 the Bible says: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We need to replace our glasses of doubt with those of faith. We need to see our cities crying out to God…we need to see our lost loved ones, or backslidden family and friends hitting their knees in submission to His will in their lives! When I was younger I taught Sunday school for the beginner’s class, and one week the lesson was on faith, so I decided to take some mustard seeds to show my class, well when I got them out of the cupboard the container opened up, and the seeds fell all over the floor, it was then that I realized how small they really were! It was almost impossible to find all of them. Jesus said the mustard seed is the smallest seed that is planted, but when it grows to its’ potential it is a great tree, it serves as a resting place, and shade to many birds. Over recent days I have read many comments people have made about the parable of the mustard seed, there were all different opinions about it, but while I was praying and asking God about it, this was the response I received, there have been people who said this parable wasn’t based on facts, because a mustard seed grows into an herb, it is a small plant, but what I was really trying to say was if you have faith as of a mustard seed it will take you to places that seem impossible to others! Faith will take you into the unseen realm, and it is there that things will take place that are impossible to natural man!!!! I was wowed by this, I mean He knew what He meant, and He is God right? God doesn’t want us to settle for the “seed” of faith when we can have a “tree” of faith…He will do the impossible, but He wants us to see it happen before it actually does. I want to encourage you to let your faith grow into that great tree God has meant it to be, and rest in Him knowing the things that aren’t seen soon will be!!!

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. Joel 2: 25-26 I absolutely love these verses! Restoration is something that is so needed in our world today there are so many influences out there that affect the minds of people causing them to need the true restoration of God. As I looked closer at these verses I saw something I have never seen before, these verses talk about four stages of a group of locusts. The word locust here means swarm, the word swarm means to overrun or overtake! The enemy of our souls will “swarm” us until he can overtake us, we need to be sure we are walking with God daily to ward off his “swarming.” The cankerworm is the crawling stage, the locust crawls around looking for a place to eat and reside, the enemy “crawls” around looking for a place to reside in you, he wants the things of this world to fill your heart and mind, so it’ll be harder to see clearly God’s will for you! The next stage is the caterpillar stage, caterpillars are often called eating machines because they eat leaves so voraciously. For instance there is a caterpillar called the tobacco horn worm, it eats so much it can increase its weight ten thousand times in less than 20 days!!! Now, think what this “spiritual caterpillar” can do in your life!! If the enemy had his way he would “devour” everything in your soul that has anything to do with the things of God, and take away your joy and victory! The first thing to go would be your conscience, because without that we would do anything! There is a trend nowadays that sadly is touching the church and that is a giving up of things that we once held dear, it is a very dangerous thing, because God never changes, so those things should still be held to no matter the age we live in!! The final stage is the palmerworm, the chewing locust. Locusts are very bad news for farmers, they destroy crops very quickly, in fact they can grow into a swarm that is 460 square miles, and it can contain anywhere from 40-80 million locusts per ½ square mile! Locusts eat their weight in plants each day, so a swarm which is that size will consume 423 million pounds of plants daily! They are a big cause of famines that plague the continent of Africa, and it is said that locusts may affect as much as one tenth of the economic livelihood of humans on earth…what a force to be reckoned with! I guess that’s why God calls it His great army. The devil and this world will take, take, take from you until there is nothing left good in you, and the aftermath will be more than you are able to pay! The devil will cause you to feel bad about yourself and to be ashamed of things you have done or for things done to you, we have all participated in things we aren’t proud of before we knew God and maybe even now, but if we put our lives in His hands, God will restore those years back to us and in verse 26 He said we will eat in plenty, and be satisfied, praise the name the Lord our God, and we will never be ashamed, or shamed. Don’t be fooled by this world, don’t become a “victim” of the locusts of sin, it will just bring you destruction and cause you to suffer a great famine in your spirit!

And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou has rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being King. I Samuel 15:22-23 I know, I know, in our world obedience is an “old fashioned” way of thinking! We are the “we can do it ourselves” generation! We don’t need anyone to help us we can pull ourselves up by our own boot straps… You can give all your time, money, effort and talents, but according to these verses it will not do you any good if you are not obedient to God and His word. I looked up the word obedience in the dictionary, and this is what I found, it means, 1. the act of obeying; dutiful or submissive behavior with respect to another person 2. the trait of being willing to obey Sometimes, well, many times obedience takes work, it is very hard to obey, especially when it goes against our way of thinking, but we just need to keep practicing it until it becomes your nature, until it becomes a trait, a trait is something that is built into your character, it distinguishes you from others! We must also obey our pastor and those that have the rule over you, but if they are leading you astray by not teaching the Word you must search it out yourself! Them not teaching the Word doesn’t give us the right to not obey God, we still have His word to read and study ourselves! In the Christian walk there is much sacrifice to be made, and when it is coupled with obedience that is where the power comes from! We were given power when we received the Holy Ghost, but we must obey God and His word to use this power. When a road is being built through the mountains dynamite must be used. A man lights the fuse and that dynamite has the power to blow through that hard rock of that mountain, the same goes in the spirit, the Holy Ghost is our dynamite, but the fuse cannot be lit without obedience! Think about this, in Matthew 17:20 Jesus talked about our faith, if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can tell the mountain in our way to move out of the way! I’m going to take it a step further; with obedience as our “fuse” we have the power through the “dynamite” of the Holy Ghost to move any obstacle out of our way…wow! Another thing that struck me concerning obedience, in Matthew 7: 21-23 Jesus talked about how many people will come to Him in the last day telling Him they did many wonderful works in His name, but Jesus sent them away, because He never knew them…you know why? It was because of disobedience, they wanted the power, but weren’t willing to obey His word. A marriage cannot survive if we never listen to each other, and yes we even have to obey what our husbands say too, ladies! (I know pretty “old fashioned” but oh so needful in the world we live in!) We can never survive as Christians either without listening to and obeying His voice, His word! In verse 23 of I Samuel 15, it talked about the sin of rebellion, to rebel is to show defiance against something, to try to gain control over your authority….that stunned me when I saw that, there have been times in my life when I was in a state of rebellion, and after seeing what that word really means I will daily pray for my heart and mind never to be in that state again! When we are rebellious against our authority we are actually trying to be in control of it! The meaning of stubbornness was even more stinging to me, it means to be hard, tough or stiff as stone or wood; difficult to work or shape! We should strive to never be this way in God’s hands! We must be pliable; we must be daily changed by His spirit and word. The sins of rebellion, stubbornness and disobedience will cost this generation more than they will be able to pay, please my dear brothers and sisters don’t let yourselves be counted in those that want the power, but not the obedience, because obedience truly is better than sacrifice every time!

Last night I had the privilege of seeing one of my beautiful daughters speak in tongues as she was filled with the Holy Ghost…my heart just melted, to see a hungry soul filled with what they have been looking for is wonderful, but when it is your child…wow! As I stood there bursting with emotion I couldn’t help but think what her father, Jesus was thinking… He has given each one of us a unique tongue to communicate with Him by, it reminds me of children. you know when your kids are just learning to talk you are usually the only one who can understand what they are trying to say, and you can get some puzzled looks from well meaning people trying to “get” what they are saying! God longs to hear from us everyday, all day! Our tongue is what He longs for, He wants to have a relationship with us that will result in change in us…He wants to fight our battles and heal our hearts, but if we never put it before Him, how can He? Sometimes people fight against speaking in tongues, but the Bible clearly states many purposes for it…to edify, to be a sign to the unbeliever, to keep private things private…He always understands what we are trying to say, He wants to take us to a different level, just as that sweet child will grow and change and soon speak so that everyone can understand them. If we never worked with them or paid any attention to their speech those skills would not develop like they should. We must put effort and time into our relationship with God. Think about this, in the Bible it talks about people coming to Jesus saying they did all these wonderful works in His name, but He sends them away after telling them, I never knew you! How can Jesus honestly tell us He knows us if we never talk to Him? When a married couple stops communicating the relationship that was once present will die, because they no longer "know" each other! The signs are clear, He is coming soon, so work daily on developing your language, be changed and be ready to hear well done! I love y’all…

Yesterday in church a testimony was shared that I think everyone should hear! It was given by a Texas Bible college student to our pastor. During a ladies retreat in Tennessee a lady told the congregation that she was driving on her way to ladies retreat by herself when suddenly a figure appeared in her back seat...of course she was freaking out, the figure told her that "Gabriel has the trumpet to his lips ready to blow it at the Lord's request, then the figure told her He is coming soon! After this experience she was shaking and started swerving around the road and she ended up gettng pulled over by a policeman, she then told him what had happened, then he told she was the 8th person that night that had said that very same thing had happened to them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tell everyone about this...HE IS COMING SOON!

I received an e-mail the other day, it was a cartoon that was composed of several stick figures and they were all carrying crosses of different sizes, this one figure kept knocking pieces of its' cross off. He then came to a valley at the end of the e-mail, all the figures were lying their crosses down to cross over this valley, but because he had broken parts of his cross off he could not cross over....the cross was too small! Galatians 6: 5 tells us we will all carry our own cross, and Matthew 11:28-30 promises us that when we stay in God He will help us carry those burdens, and in turn they become lighter for us! Many of us want to at every opportunity “break” pieces off our crosses...to lighten the load, but think about this..we were living in Alaska, Kassidy was just a baby, she was 1, so she still really needed her milk, and one morning we ran out, and because Brad wasn't working consistently we had no money to buy any either, so I prayed for God to make a way. That afternoon there was a knock at the door, the person standing there said, this is to buy milk for your baby! Tell me, what would have happened if that person would have said no to God, no to their cross? When we do for others our cross also becomes lighter... There is a trend that we are seeing, churches are turning away from the “old” ways.but those things are necessary, in fact once you see the need for a holy lifestyle it is as important as anything else, because it truly shows your obedience and attitude! When we get to heaven will our cross be big enough to enter in? I was had a conversation with someone who had decided to walk away from the apostolic faith, they asked me what if you get to heaven and Jesus tells you a lot of the things you did were not necessary? I told them I bet I'll still get to go in, but I would hate to miss it just because I didn't have the give it all to God attitude! Life is but a vapor, we need to be willing to be used by Him all we can..we could NEVER give Him enough! We all have a cross that must be carried we walk with burdens and problems, but anything put on us is allowed by God, think of Job...wow! It just amazes me how much trust that was displayed there! Could we honestly endure what he did? Yes, he didn't have the Holy ghost like we do! We do have all the power we need to pick up our cross and carry it daily! The Bible tells us in I John 5:3 that keeping His commandments are not grievous, we can do it! We should do it for the others that we will touch through that cross! I love y'all...

Nearly everyday something really cute happens at my house, one or both my boys come in from the backyard with their little hands behind their back hiding something from me, and when I ask them what they have they pull out a little flower for me, then they shyly turn their cheek in my direction just because they know a kiss from mommy is on the way! I love those times, it may sound dumb to everyone, but of course the other mothers out there, but that little scene makes me all warm inside! Today I was working at the computer when in came my littlest man holding a block tower he had for me, when God spoke to me about gifts, so the result of that talk is this writing. When I think about the sweetness of those flowers and block towers they bring me I can’t help but think about the little woman that is spoken of in the Bible that brought her two mites and gave them away, that was all she had, therefore she gave more than anyone else there, my boys give me their all daily when they bring me their gifts, they give from the heart, to think they see a flower in the yard, and it moves them so much they pick it and bring it to me…oh it melts my heart, just as we melt Gods heart when we come before Him with our best. Many of us give Him some of us, but keep something back “just in case!” God shows me daily if I only could be like my kids my life would be so much better, they know how to love, they know how to believe, they know how to have faith, and the know how to give! I believe God put them in our world to do more than just make us frustrated..LOL He put them there to teach us, because they really know more about some things than we do! Yes, the Bible does say to train them up in the way they should go, but really along the way while we are training them in the truth and how to behave, they are training us how to love and give! We need to daily give our heart to God, so He can lead it and He can teach us through Him and our children how to give our all and receive kisses from heaven I love y’all..