Where do I Draw the Line?

“The greatest enemy to the church is "contented worldliness." C.S. Lewis

I often take a close look at the things I am doing in my life. Am I walking toward Him or am I straying off the path? Where do I draw the line on what I will tolerate or not toloerate. There are so many things we stop to look at or partake of that are not pleasing to God. He said we are to be Holy because He is Holy. Is that possible?

I pray God will help me to be the child He wants me to be, not my will but His. I pray He will help me to be the friend He has called me to be. I pray He will help me be the mother He intended me to be. I pray He will help me be the wife he meant for me to be, the employee He meant me to be, the witness He meant me to be. I pray He will daily get in my face and show me who I am and show me the things I need to change. I want to know what displeases Him.

I sometimes think of the things I don't want my own children to do or be involved in and then I reflect on my Father in heaven. I know we will commit sin, but shouldn't we strive to live a Godly life, one that is pleasing to Him. I want to not only abstain from evil but abstain from the very appearance of it. Don't you think He is watching us and He is pleased when we strive to do what we know He wants us to do.

The word says in 1 Corinthians 15:33, evil communications corrupt good manners. I ask myself what are the things in my world that communicate to me? Television, movies, radio, billboards, advertisements, magazines and the list goes on. Who is communicating what and am I allowing things to go into my spirit that I could avoid? Someone once said to me...America watches demented people committing sin for entertainment. Wow, what a thought. Then I read the scripture that says, looking back is like a dog who returns to his vomit. I heard it described like this...someone going through a bucket of vomit to see if there was anything edible in it. I know that is gross, huh, but for me, it put sin in perspective.

I love the Lord and I want to be a vessel He can work through, not because of what I have done, but because of what Christ has done in me. He has changed me. I am not the same person anymore. I want to abstain from the things that would infect my life and poison my spirit. I want to live Holy. I want to practice righteousness. I want to draw the line on compromise. I will not be content with worldliness, I want to eradicate as much of it in my life as I can. Love motivates love. I love Him because He first loved me!

Reading His word cleanses me. I take a shower to clean my physical body and I take a shower in His word to clean my spiritual man. So today as I walk in faith, I pray He changes me a little bit more than yesterday. He died for me, therefore I will live for Him, for without Him, I have no life, no direction and no hope. I have drawn the line.

KIDNAPPING

I have been gone for a week and now I am back again, not knowing what the future holds but knowing who holds the future. The only real peace that I have is in Him. I am in the Trust Mode waiting on Him, knowing He is in control and He loves me, He cares, He knows what I am feeling and He is working everything out to my good, because I love Him and am called according to His purpose.

The past few weeks have been some of the toughest. When I came home from seeing my mother, I would call her and she would beg me to come back. I went up and spent a few days, came home and then received a call that she had fallen and hit her head on her dresser. She had a knot on her forehead the size of a fist. She was with two caretakers in her home, so I immediately made calls to my supervisor to let him know I was on my way back to Oklahoma. My mother is on blood thinner and as they were preparing to take her by ambulance to the hospital, I was praying she did not have an arterial bleed.

The doctor who has been caring for her is a small town doctor and has stated he doesn't really know much about what to do in her case. He advised the caretaker to put an ace bandage around her head and get her to the hospital. The ace bandage caused the knot on her head to go down, but the blood pooled in her eyelids making pockets of blood and they swelled shut, then the blood turned her face purple.

Thankfully I got to the hospital and found she did not have an arterial bleed, it was just surface. They had put her on Ativan which makes my mother act really strange. She also was thinking she was blind which didn't help matters any. She was begging me again to get her out of there. She kept telling me she needed my help, she would fight with us and we couldn't keep her in the hospital bed. Finally after three days of this, the doctor let her go and had made an appointment for a Neurologist in Oklahoma City. I came home, then returned to take her.

My sister is very nervous and she believes drugs are the best thing for mom, but I personally believe and have told her that I don't believe mom should be so sedated that she is almost comatose. I feel she should be able to choose. So before I left for Oklahoma City, I told them not to give her the ativan, so she could be aware of what was going on around her.

So the end of this story is... I took mother to the Neurologist. I advised him of her fighting and how the ativan was making her act really strange and comatose like, she was waking up in the middle of the night fighting and trying to leave the house, but couldn't walk. The doctor said to take her off of it and if she had a seizure to turn her on her side until she got through it, and if it was violent to take her to ER. She takes her other meds, but no more ativan for my mother!!

So on the way home, I called my sister and she refused to listen. She kept telling me that was what brought mom out of the seizures. I let her know the doctor said no more, but she still insisted. I asked mom if she wanted to go home or go to Texas, she wanted to go with me, so we didn't even stop to get her any clothes. You might say I am the renegade in my family, I just decided it was time for a kidnapping.

I have never actually kidnapped anyone before, but I do admit I kidnapped my mother! She has been in Texas for four days, she could not walk, could not concentrate to form a sentence, could not go to the bathroom on her own and after four days she has had no seizures and is walking with a walker, going to the bathroom by herself and sleeping all night. We bought her some clothes and some pajamas, pray with her daily and read the bible to her.

My sister asked what I was going to do if she had a seizure and went into a coma, I said at least she will be happy and it is ultimately in God's hands. We have gone out to eat, shopped a little, laughed and talked alot. We push her in her wheelchair, people stare cuz she has two black eyes and her face it black and blue, but who cares?

She is staying at my daughters who has always wanted gramma to come live with her and because I work all night. My husband leaves early, so we have no one there. This kid of mine is a saint, she has been telling gramma for years she was going to move her in with her and she decided about a month ago to do so and things kind of fell into place.

Mom still gives us a tongue lashing once in awhile but she is happy at least twenty two hours of the day and has some quality of life. She may not be here tomorrow, but today she is living it up. Thanks to all of you for your prayers and if you would send up a prayer for my brothers and sisters so they understand mom wants to live normally for a little while longer. None of them wanted to care for her in their home and I think she should be with family.

My daughter once told me..."Mom... true love is not convienent!" God must really love me to have blessed me with this kid who has such a Big heart for not only gramma but for everyone else around her. I can see the fingerprints of God all over her life. Thank You Lord and thanks to all of you for prayers.

How Much Time Do We Have?

When you've walked through the valley of the shadow of death
When you thought the worst was over and the worst is what was left
Some things He can't explain now, but by and by He will
Look up through the pain now, you will find Him Deeper Still
Deeper still you will find Him, deeper still than before
Deeper still goes the anchor, deeper still the ocean floor
Deeper still He has taught you, deeper still there is to go
Deeper still is the Savior, deeper still than we know.


I don't really understand the pain of life and death and why we have to go through it. Watching my mother suffer this week has had such a humbling profound effect on me. I can't seem to stop the tears, yet I know she will never have to suffer again when she enters heaven, but it is hard to let her go. The agony of not knowing too is almost too much to bear, day by day she seems to get weaker, then by His Grace she regains some strength. Still I have never seen her this way, so weak, so dependent on others, so wanting to tell me things, but not able to find the words. She is confused.

I have been exhausted, this is taking its toll, I don't like it, I don't want her to go through this. I have realized at this time, the things I haven't said, I ask myself if I communicated how much I appreciated all the sacrifices she made for us. Did I let her know I loved her? I realize how much we take for granted. The knowing that I could lose her any moment brings me to realize what is really important. I have spent the last few days letting her know how much I appreciated everything she has done, how much I love her, how I am am there for her.

She asked me to Pray for my sisters and brother, she said you are doing more than you think you are, she wants them in church, I told her I promise I will pray. It's in God's hands, only He knows how much time we have. I could go today, I am not promised tomorrow, she may be here six more months, or maybe one day, only He knows.

Thanks for listening!

God Doesn't Play!

This week, I was reading 2 Kings 19, 20, 21, it is about God's servant Hezekiah. I love the Old Testament, God shows Himself is so powerfully and He doesn't mess around, it's His way or the Highway! In Chapter 19 where the King of Assyria is ridiculing God, he is actually boasting that there is no God who has ever delivered anyone from his hand. He is telling everyone not to listen to Hezekiah when he tells them the Lord will deliver them. The King of Assyria thinks he is all that and no one can defeat him, he is boasting of how great he is and how God can't touch him.

God responds back to Him plainly and clearly in no uncertain terms. Later in the chapter, it talks about how the Angel of the Lord went into the King of Assyria's camp and killed one hundred and eighty five thousand men. Of course the King of Assyria had bragged about how he would never retreat. You could say his mouth overloaded his rear end, because when he got up and saw all those dead bodies in the camp, he got out of there. Not only did he retreat, he ran all the way home. I think He realized God doesn't play, He is dead serious! Later as he worshiped in the temple of his god, nisroch, he was murdered by his own son.

After all this, God sent the prophet Isaiah to Hezekiah to tell him he was going to die and he would not recover. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and began to weep bitterly reminding God of how he had been devoted solely to him, so God sent the prophet again to tell him, He changed his mind and would give him fifteen more years. Well, Hezekiah wanted to make sure so he asked God to give him a sign. So the sign God gave him was he would turn back the shadow ten degrees.

Can you imagine that? Think of what has to take place for this to happen, the sun shifting backwards ten degrees!! Whoa! That's big! I can't even comprehend it! It would be like, SCREECHHHH!!!!!! Everything in rotation would stop and then shift into reverse, ten degrees then start up again. I love this!

There is so much more, but I don't have room to tell you, so you will have to read it yourself. The main thing I learned from the book is Hezekiah was faithful and devoted to God. It is like he had this ministry, he led the people to worship God, he worshipped God, but he didn't prepare for the future. It would be like leading a present day ministry and then dying in a car wreck and the ministry falls apart because there was no one to continue on. We are to prepare for the future, to make sure the work of the Lord continued. We should be making disciples, reproducing ourselves. It's all about Him, it isn't about me. I hope I have inspired you to read this for yourself. I love the Old Testament!!

Juvenile Offenders

This week after I got off work I had to go to a meeting or what is called a Behavior Group at the Correctional Facility. In this group, there is usually a boy who is on what they call a plan. He is not allowed to face the group because of an offense he has committed. He must face the wall until he is given permission to turn and face the group.

In the particular group I was asked to attend there were nine boys, a case worker and the director. His offense was that he had been volunteering with a thrift store and the lady there had given him a bag. The bag had another bag inside because it was a set. The boy said he thought the she meant he could have the set, but apparently it was a misunderstanding, but at the facility there is no such thing as a misunderstanding. This lady is known to give the boys who help some clothing also, so when they go home, they have clothes to wear and she had given him two sweaters. To make a long story short, one of the boys previously had taken advantage and gotten more clothes than he should have, so this boy was told by his caseworker he could not have anything but the bag she gave him.

However he wanted the sweaters so had not put them back and his caseworker had gone to find out if he had anything put away and when he did, it became an issue. The caseworker called it stealing, lying and manipulation. So they wanted to confront the boy since he is going to come to my home to live. So I confronted him with 2 Tim3:16, Rom. 13, Luke 6:46 and 1 Peter 2:13-14 where it talks about all authority is put in place by God. I explained to him I was there because I care and he had gone against what his authority figures had told him to do. I then explained we must obey authorities so we can escape punishment, as well as be obedient to God, but I also understand the temptation he was faced with, but we have to remember 1 Cor. 10:13, where God always gives us a way out, a way of escape.

It was really a difficult time for this boy, he had been confronted and in trouble for this for about four weeks, but he kept saying it was a misunderstanding and they wanted him to admit it was manipulation, lying and stealing which he eventually did. He left the room humbled and crying. My heart went out to him. These kids have been crippled by their parents because of the way they were raised in such dysfunctional homes. His mother is incarcerated for a year for drugs, his father is also addicted. Only God can make a way in this situation. This boy doesn't want to go home, he wants to change his life.

He said later he had learned much about what God wanted for him and how he had made the wrong choices. I had prayed God would open his heart and eyes, because the flesh is alive and well. You don't change eighteen years of dysfunction overnight, it's a process. I love these boys, God loves them, He created them and Jesus is the only hope they have of ever changing. He changed me, so I know He can change them for nothing is too difficult for the Lord.

The greatest thing I have learned in counseling someone is that the Authority is in the Word. When someone asks me a question, I always try to tell them, well, let's see what the Bible says about it, because I don't want to give you my opinion. So guess what, I have yet to see a person who was not set free when I let them see what God said about their situation. Thank you Lord for your Word!!

God's Masterpieces-My Daughter and Grandson

Perfect Peace

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." Isaiah 26:3

It is so good to just stop and rest in the Lord. Yesterday I got home, cleaned and shined every room in the house, lit some candles, put on a ham, some beans and cornbread. After getting dinner ready, I left it on warm, then went to the shower, then crawled into bed and stayed there sleeping ever so peacefully until it was time to go to work.

The day before I didn't sleep at all and after working all night, I was ready for a time of rest and relaxation. I called my husband and let him know I wasn't planning on getting up for dinner, I was going to sleep until I had to get up, so no one interrupted me. He and the boys ate dinner, cleaned the kitchen and had bible study. I never heard a sound. So now I am refreshed and ready to go back into battle.

Aiden Skylar Thompson

Isn't this the cutest baby you have ever seen? This is a picture of my grandchild. He is three months old now!

God is so good!

I"ve Been Praying

As I was praying today, I was asking God for some peace. So much has been going on and it is bigger than I am, it is beyond my control. My mother is very sick, one day she is good, the next it is terrible.

The facility I minister in has other faiths who are continually trying to discredit the Christian teaching in the facility, so there is spiritual warfare going on all around me.

I am working full time, my sisters and brother are calling me and telling me all these things that are going on to the point I am about to scream.

So today as I was praying and just talking with God about the things I have going on... which He of course is already aware of. I was gently reminded, I live in a sinful world and things are going to be out of control sometimes, and it is in those times, that I must learn to trust.

I felt God was just speaking to my spirit and letting me know He too had many days where there was no peace. I felt my spirit calm, as I was reminded of what He went through on this earth for me and I will go through things too. He is still in control, no matter what is going on.

Life, death, sickness, health, joy, sorrow, love, hate, peace and unrest, they are all a part of this world and I am not responsible for what happens, but I am responsible for how I respond to it. I pray I remember hour to hour, He is there and He knows, He is aware and He is working things out for my good. I stop for a moment and Thank Him. I am so glad He is in control and I am not!