Vikki Grijalva is one of the regular readers of TLC. She is also a leader at TLC and in her community. You’ve come a long way and I’m proud of you. I’m praying that you have a wonderful birthday this year and that there are many, many blessings of joy, peace and love!
I think of Sarah, who wanted a baby. She didn’t care that God said he would make her husband a great nation. She simply wanted one baby to kiss and to hold and to call her own. My prayer is not for a baby but it’s a hope nevertheless.
I think of Sarah who for a moment lost her faith in God and sent her handmaiden in to sleep with her husband. The consequence of helping God out was that Ishmael was born and the fight was on. I pray I stay in submission to the plan.
I see Sarah receive her promise in her old age and I wonder, God will that be me? Will my promise come at the end of my life?
I read God’s word and I see where he says, Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. How long is the wait Lord?
I understand that my timing is not God’s timing and that he deals in issues of eternity and I deal in issues of today. They look quite different in perspective don’t they?
Sometimes I have to confess that I am like the father who came to Jesus to ask for help with the healing of his son. Mark 9:23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” Help my unbelief Lord.
I find that I have more strength than I thought I have.
I find that I believe more than ever that I have all the power I need.
I grow and I learn and I learn and I grow…
The prayer changes and takes on a different shape and so does my life.
I realize the answer begins to come into focus.
I praise You Lord for I am like Elijah and I see the cloud in the distance. It is only the size of man’s palm but I can close my eyes, I can take a deep breath and I can almost smell the rain coming.
Everyone’s been asking what Anthony’s been up to because he’s never around these days. Well, he got a fabulous job and moved to Los Angeles. He met a beautiful girl named Frances, from our home town, at the May Day Fair. She is smart and funny and the rest is history.
So on a rainy day they went out to look for some fun! Here are some pictures.
So there you go. He has trade shows coming up in February, but maybe we’ll see him around in March!
How many blogs do you read? I used to read quite a few but time constraints these days lead me to only read a few. Here are Michael Hyatt’s tips for writing a blog people like to read! 10 Mistakes of Blogging. I probably make them all but I’m going to work on it this year!
Today was a first for me. We had agreed to let a film company film a movie in our RMA store. It is California after all! Plus, they offered me a small part! 🙂 It’s a comedy and it looks like it will be really funny. The crew arrived and set up. They were really nice and very professional.
But wait, I get ahead of myself. I was feeling calm and not pressured at all. After all, I had to play myself how hard could that be? I do it everyday. Then my friends starting asking what I was going to wear. Uh, well, normally to work at the store, I’ll wear a nice blouse or sweater and jeans or pants. I didn’t want to dress up too much because I wanted the me on the screen to be the me in the store, if that makes sense. Then my husband asked me what I was going to wear. When I told him I didn’t know he said, “What? You don’t know? Well, just dress like you do when you go out with your friends for dinner.” Okay, really when I go out to dinner with friends, I straighten my hair and put a little more makeup on. My wardrobe really doesn’t change too much. So now I went into a vanity mode. Too late to go shopping so I didn’t know now what I was going to wear.
This morning I called my hair stylist in a panic, “Can you straighten my hair?” She was booked but one of the girls agreed to come in and do it as long as I washed and dried my own hair. Now, I can straighten my own hair, but hey, this was the big screen. Okay, now what to wear. I wore a purple jacket, black blouse, jeans, and purple boots to get my hair done. Actually, this is an outfit I wear often because I love my purple boots. The girls at the salon said, “Wear the jacket, top and boots but lose the jeans and put on black pants.” So I went home and changed. I’ve been losing weight but I didn’t want to chance it, so I squeezed into my Spanx and if you’ve ever worn Spanx you know it’s a half hour process. That didn’t work. When I put on my black pants they were too big. So I then took the Spanx off, yes another process and put the pants back on. Okay they fit fine, (yeaaaah). I was hungry but there was no time to eat. I had to get to “the set”.
They filmed the shot in about an hour and a half. They had me film my scene two ways, one happy and one annoyed. We’ll see when it comes out which one they use or don’t. In any case, I did a new thing today! The movie should be edited and ready by November or December. I’ll keep you updated. Fun stuff! And yes, you can have my autograph. I’m not too big for that….yet.
Remember when you were a child and you were told to respect your elders? Do they still teach that today? I wonder!
Two weeks before Christmas I was standing in a long line at the Post Office getting some packages mailed out. When I was two people away from the window, yes one window open because we’re a small town, a woman walked in leaning heavily her cane, walking slowly with her little black purse. She stood in the back of the line about 5 people behind me.
I didn’t hesitate. I said to the people behind me loudly, “You guys don’t mind if I let this woman go in front of me do you?” Now, they might have, but thankfully everyone pretended to see her for the very first time and they all said no. She turned bright red and said, “Thank you all, I don’t get around as well as I used to.” She shuffled forward to get in front of me. By then I was one away from the window. Do you THINK the guy in front of me had any chivalry at all? No! He looked back at her and turned away. She then asked us if we could help her open her purse as she couldn’t unzip it very well.
This is when I wish I were even bolder than I am because I SO wanted to ask the guy why he wouldn’t give up his place in line for an elderly person? This is when she smiled at us and said, “I’ll be 90 on Christmas Day.” We all smiled at her and wished her happy birthday.
Just a reminder everyone! One day we’ll all be in this place, shuffling through a line where a younger generation or two will be busy being world changers. Will they prefer us and help us or will we be on our own? The only way it continues is for us to teach, and to be the example to the elders of our generation.
My final resolution is Commitment to Jesus Completely. Pastor Rob Koke taught on three forms of commitment and I have to say that I want when God searches my heart for Him to find that my commitments to him are core and not private.
For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son. God gave it all. The very least I can do is give Jesus everything. Everything means all of it. It means I have to make a commitment that reaches beyond my selfish ambition.
There are three forms of commitment according to Pastor Rob Koke.
There is the belief in God that is public commitment. Public commitment means that you say it because it sounds good. Politicians say at the end of their speeches, “God bless you and God bless America.” They say it because everyone says it and it sounds good and it’s good for business. Public commitment is what we say because it sounds good. There is no other fruit to bear witness to that belief. Only words. Merely words. Some of us come to church on Sunday because it pleases our spouse or our parents or in our mind it’s what we are supposed to do but in no other way do we show any sort of commitment to Jesus. It’s not displayed in our lives.
Then there is Private Commitment. Private commitment is what we think we believe, and we really do think we believe it until something happens to prove our commitment and we find out we didn’t really believe it after all. This is like Peter when he at the last supper with Jesus, after saying you are the Messiah, after following him for three years he says to Jesus, I’m going to the mat for you. Jesus says, “Peter, before it’s all over tonight you’ll deny me three times.” Peter is like NO WAY, NOT GONNA HAPPEN. But it happens.
Private commitment, as I understand it, is I believe my house is going to serve the Lord until another idol rises against it. A woman, raised her children in church, her husband and she were elders in the church, she grew up in the church and she goes still today. Only her children have grown up and moved away and her husband has died. She has found love again but to do things right and get married, she must give up her husband’s pension. So she says in her heart that God will understand her fornication and she and her friend move in together. After all, it’s not her fault the government is the way it is. Suddenly her testimony is tainted and everyone is shocked. Private commitment, we believe it to be right until it might cost us something. Private commitment shows a distrust of God. We need to trust him that he will work it out. Private commitment is, I don’t believe there should be pictures of half-naked bodies on the Internet, until I look at my kid’s MySpace and then I think that it’s her own private site and none of my business. It isn’t that I don’t love God. I believe Peter loved God, the woman who is shacking up loves God and the parents struggling with the kid’s MySpace page love God but it’s a love that is willing to be put aside for what we want.
Finally there is core commitment. Core commitments can be that we believe if we stand on a rooftop and jump we will get hurt because no matter how much we will it to be different, gravity takes over and we fall rather than soar. Core commitment are those things that we believe that can’t be shaken no matter how much we try. Job had core commitment. He said, I don’t know what is going on but I know God is God. Abraham had core commitment. He was going to sacrifice his son but He knew God will not forsake him. Peter had core commitment after he wept bitterly, met up with his frailty and overcame it.
Lord, help me to trust you. To be so entwined in your life so that our hearts look like one. That would bless me beyond imagination!
My fifth resolution is to study the bible and not form my own idea of what it means. The Lord asked me an important question a few months ago. He said, “Where can deity dwell? Many lift their hands in worship and sing Hallelujah but their homes are legacies of chaos.” I repented that day and went home to earnestly seek out if I was the one he was speaking about because I really want to live a holy life. Not a religious life, there is a HUGE difference.
I’d like to live a life that honors God. One that looks different than my neighbors. I want to live a life that glorifies the Father and doesn’t stain the name of Jesus. That means I have to live out what the bible says and not what my excuse is. It means that maybe I have turn some shows off that are just not healthy for my family to watch. It means that just because every other kid on the block is getting drunk at parties doesn’t mean mine have to be. It means that I am not going to bring my children to wrath by standing in church and saying one thing and going home and doing another. It doesn’t mean I am going to be perfect, or that God expects me to be, but there is a long way from excuses and perfection.
I was praying for my TLC women because I saw something that struck my heart. I have a nice big group when we do self-focused bible studies. In other words, when I bring a study that is helping the women overcome some of their life struggles then they LOVE it! When I do a bible study to study the word of God for it’s own merit, they don’t love the study or me as much. They don’t do their homework. They drop out in record numbers. I was praying that their private commitment of ‘what’s in for me’, becomes a core commitment of ‘my testimony is not the only way to help people’. Knowing the word of God, for the word’s sake, and not my own, is what’s important. As their leader the buck stops with me, what am I not communicating to them? I have to accept that responsibility.
We all know what the Lord hates. Yet we call ourselves believers and then continue to sin. We can’t keep talking out of the both sides of our mouth and continue to have any sort of testimony in our communities. Pastor Mark Crow preached a message in which he quoted statistics on church attendance. He said the builder generation the generation of WWII was 65% churched, the Baby Boomers were 32% churched, the Gen Xers were 16% and this new generation is 4% churched. See, we said we loved the Lord but we didn’t teach it to the next generation and if we did it did not match our walk.
If we are going to rationalize the word and make excuses as to why we are addicted to porn or alcohol or shacking up with our significant other or have a society where we take pride in being called a baby mama or baby daddy then we really can’t say we are believers. The words and the actions don’t match up and actions speak louder than words. And our kids are watching what we do not what we say. Lord let us become the women you’ve called us to be and not women who say one thing when our lives clearly show another.
My fourth resolution is my tithe before wants. Everyone of you know how I feel about tithing. I believe in it and I give my tithe not out of a feeling of I must but out of a feeling of I want to. I am a cheerful giver. When I was first a believer I was taught to tithe and the reason for it and I got it! How could I not give him everything when he gave me everything?
Only I have confession to make. I have absolutely no problem tithing my money. I give tithes and then some, I give offerings and plenty of them but I don’t always give the tithes of all of my life. Remember tithe is not just money. That would be easy for me to give I’m not a control freak about the tithe. I am a control freak about the 80% I live on I’ll admit that. What I don’t always give is my time and talent. Sometimes, I tithe my time to the Internet, sometimes to a good book, sometimes I tithe my time to sleep, sometimes I tithe my time to a good friend who I want to share a tea and gossip with and many times I tithe my time to chores and work.
I’ve become really good at fooling myself. I say, “My whole life is a tithe, I work for the church.” Not true, the time I work for the church is service to others and not about my personal relationship with the Lord. Sometimes I feel like Jesus is speaking to me when he said to the disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, “Could you not have kept watch with me an hour?” I am so so sorry at the time and I try to do better but just like the disciples I go back to the slumber of my life. I don’t neglect my prayer life, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t take the challenges that come my way necessarily as first fruits but rather I take them for granted and sometimes give what is leftover.
This year, I’m striving to stay awake. Take an assessment of your life. Do you tithe? Money? Time? Talent? Or do you give the leftovers? It will determine your life’s blessings. Wisdom comes from the Lord. God knows I need more wisdom, yet the word tells us she cries in the street. I want to still her cries this year and I want to sit at her feet. That demands my attention and the best of me, not what is left over.
My Second Resolution is my family before my obligations. Christmas Day, I watched my mother who is 68 go into mom mode. She is a good Mexican mother so she quickly put the tamales on the stove, the chili verde to warm along with the beans and rice. We arrived and all the food was ready. Her face fell when we said we weren’t hungry. She then went into mega mom mode as she asked us every 15 minutes if we were hungry now. We finally all sat down to eat with her.
Her face shone with satisfaction at having her family home. I watched her gleam as she watched her grandchildren. Anthony is her favorite, something about a Mexican grandma and her first born grandson. Anthony hung the moon in my mother’s eyes. She hovers over him and Anthony has such a love for his Nana that the scene just oozes love. After my kids left, Doug and the kids and my stepdad went into the family room to watch television. I cleaned up my mom’s kitchen all the while she kept saying, “LEAVE IT”. She wanted my time not my service.
When I finished cleaning her kitchen I sat with her at the kitchen table. She brought her homemade candy and cookies so we could talk. I looked at mom and how happy she was. Once again she told me how worried she was about how much I worked.
I realized that each year one of my goals is to spend more time with my mom. It never happens. There is a church to run, counseling to do, a store to manage, a family of my own, my girlfriends say they miss me and my dog needs a walk. Too much stress in my life and suddenly months have gone by and I haven’t visited my mom. Instead I call her every other day. She deserves and needs more than that.
How many times have I been told by my friends who don’t have their moms here anymore how much they wish they could have spent time with her? How many times have I heard from my friends who live in the same town as their mom how much their mom drives them crazy? I’ve never made room in my life for my mom to drive me crazy. This year, I’m going to put my action where my mouth is. I won’t have my mom forever, I need to make time for her now. What about you? Are you neglecting family putting others first? Are family members asking for your time?
Pastor Susan 