Am I strong enough?

I love posting about songs that touch me.  I really listen to the words and I just know that God is speaking to me through them.  It is almost as if they were written just for me.  This morning as I was getting ready for work and  meditating at the same time about my life and the bible study I am participating in right now called "When I Am Afraid", the song 'Strong Enough' by Matthew West came on.  It hit me and I had to stop in my tracks and use this as my prayer.  It is saying exactly what has been on my mind lately.  I want to share the lyrics with you:

"Strong Enough"

You must
You must think I'm strong
To give me what I'm going through

Well, forgive me
Forgive me if I'm wrong
But this looks like more than I can do
On my own

I know I'm not strong enough to be
everything that I'm supposed to be
I give up
I'm not stong enough
Hands of mercy won't you cover me
Lord right now I'm asking you to be
Strong enough
Strong enough
For the both of us

Well, maybe
Maybe that's the point
To reach the point of giving up

Cause when I'm finally
Finally at rock bottom
Well, that's when I start looking up
And reaching out

I know I'm not strong enough to be
Everything that I'm supposed to be
I give up
I'm not stong enough
Hands of mercy won't you cover me
Lord right now I'm asking you to be
Strong enough
Strong enough

Cause I'm broken
Down to nothing
But I'm still holding on to the one thing
You are God
and you are strong
When I am weak

I can do all things
Through Christ who gives me strength
And I don't have to be
Strong enough
Strong enough

I can do all things
Through Christ who gives me strength
And I don't have to be
Strong enough
Strong enough

Oh, yeah

I know I'm not strong enough to be
Everything that I'm supposed to be
I give up
I'm not stong enough
Hands of mercy won't you cover me
Lord right now I'm asking you to be
Strong enough

Read through and meditate on these words.....they kind of fit all of us, don't they?

Where's the Focus?

I have had so many things on my mind lately I am not sure where to begin.

This morning our sermon was on faith or more more general, where is your focus?  You know we all try to live a good moral life and probably follow the "golden rule"  We all like to "do unto others as we would have them do unto us", or do we.  There is a lot of gossip we participate in but get upset when we are the FOCUS of the gossip.  We all want to win a million dollars but get upset when someone we deem as "undeserving" gets the lucky break and becomes the FOCUS of the millions.

Take a look at Mary and Martha from Luke 10: 38-42.  Martha was busy making things ready for Jesus' visit. Cooking, cleaning, being a good hostess.  She was doing all the work and Mary was doing nothing.  She was just sitting there.  It is no wonder Martha got upset.  It was not fair.  Why should she get stuck doing all the manual labor while Mary gets to enjoy the company?  I bet we all feel that way at times.  I know I do.  I feel  like no one does anything and it is up to me.  As parents, we run ourselves ragged trying to get our children to all the different events and activities the have going on, including church activities and work and your spouses activities.  Sometimes, it can be very taxing on a person to feel like all that pressure is on them.  All this pressure and stress can leave us stressed out, depressed, filled with anxiety, frustrated and overwhelmed and leave energy to take care of ourselves.

In James 2:8, we learn that we need to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  The problem is, if we are so stressed, anxious, frustrated and overwhelmed and possibly even down right miserable, how can we love or take care of ourselves.  If we can't take care of ourselves and we don't love ourselves, we are not going to truly love others.

In Martha's case, she was so busy taking care of the house, trying to please everyone that she forgot her focus should have been on Jesus who was sitting in her living room.  She didn't stop to spend time with the Lord, sit as His feet and listen to his teachings.  She was upset and even asked Jesus to tell Mary to help her since Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to what He was saying.  She was not concerned about the food that needed cooked or the bathroom that needed cleaned or the clothes that needed washed.  She was only concerned with what was right there in front of her. She was fulfilling her spiritual need because the opportunity was right there, the rest will still be there later. Even Jesus told Martha that she was worried and trouble about many things, but only one thing was needed and Mary has chosen that and he would not take that from here.

I tend to be a Martha in my marriage.  I am so busy trying to fix things, making things right, making sure the bills get paid that sometimes I forget to be the wife God has called me to be.  Because I am so busy trying to fix everything, I don't always allow my husband to be who God has called him to be.  And because I am such a busy body about so many things, I don't take time for myself very much.  I have been trying to loose 50 lbs since January 2011.  I did well, lost about 15 lbs then gained it back.  Last May, I started again with a picture if myself in a bathing suit and this blog and a determination to loose the weight.  Again, I gained it back.  This past January, I started for the third time.  To date,  have see-sawed between loosing 21-28 lbs. I have definitely made progress but the journey continues.

I am learning to love the new me. It is excited to put on smaller clothes.  I still have set backs, but it is easier to re-focus my energy because not only am I changing physically, I am growing spiritually.  I am learning to love me and take care of myself. I spend more time than every before sitting at the feet of my Lord and He is helping me to let go of somethings and allow Him to take care of it.  It is liberating and scary all at the same time.

So ask yourself, where is your focus? Is your focus  on you and how you can fix things or on how will Jesus allow you to work through things? Do you have the faith to allow Jesus to lead you out of the Martha mentality and into a Mary moment?

Sgt Major McLean / CFI

Today, as I watched my oldest daughter go through CFI (Command Formal Inspection) I realized how little time I have left to spend with her.  It seems like just yesterday, she was a freshman entering the JROTC. Now she is finishing  up her Junior year with rank of Sgt. Major and also Commander of the Lady Rifles Drill Team and a promising future for her Senior year. 


Next week is the JROTC awards night and she will find out what awards she will be getting for her work in JROTC and what position she will hold in her LET 4 (Senior) year.  She loves this stuff and wants to join the military and make it her career.  In one year, she will be going off to college or directly into the military.  Probably the US Air Force because she wants to be a Meteorologist and she feels this will be her best avenue to pursue that career.  


I am so proud of her and how JROTC has changed her the past three years.  She has gained so much more confidence and has become a much better leader through this training.

Proverbs 22:6 (NASB) tells us: Train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old, he will not depart from it.  I can only hope that she will continue to grow as a young Christian woman as this new world beckons her.  I still have one more year to train her up but she is becoming her own woman regardless of what I am doing at this time.  I am betting that the next few years will involve more tears and prayers than the last few years, but the way she was raised and the leadership skills she is learning through JROTC, I am sure will allow her to be a woman that her father and I will be proud to call our daughter.  


I Love you Gracie and will ALWAYS pray for your future!!