Who Are You Giving Thanks To?

The last week I haven’t felt very inspired when it comes to writing.  Life can get so hectic sometimes.  Often when I do get some down time I just want to sit around in my comfy Aeropostale jogging pants, t-shirt, fuzzy socks, and not think…about anything.  But with the Thanksgiving holiday approaching with all of the Facebook posts about what’s in the oven and what everyone is doing, I guess you could say I got a little writing motivation.  I found myself on dictionary.com looking up what the actual definition of Thanksgiving was, I was curious to look a little deeper.   And I found a list of 4 definitions for the word thanksgiving:

1. The act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially to God.

2. An expression of thanks, especially to God.

3. A public celebration in acknowledgment of divine favor or kindness.

4. A day set apart for giving thanks to God.

It probably won’t be very difficult to guess where I am going with this.  I couldn’t help but notice in all of these descriptions of the word thanksgiving, the mention of God was included in some way.  Honestly when I looked up the word I didn’t know what I would find, but when I did notice this of course my wheels started turning.  I asked myself the question and I will ask you the same thing:  Who are you giving thanks to? 
When you are grateful for your family, your friends, your health, your food, your possessions, your job, your…  Who are you giving thanks to? 

I hope you all have a blessed and safe Thanksgiving holiday.

Are You Tired?

As I write this, I am tired, I am spent, and I am so done. But I have to stay awake ALL night. Do you ever feel like you get to a place of exhaustion where your brain just seems to be on cruise control? Some type of auto-pilot? It doesn’t want to be bothered with complicated questions or tasks. Just let it be. Leave it alone.
In those times of exhaustion when I don’t even feel like I have the energy to think…what do I occupy my time with? These drained moments can happen at various times and for various reasons. We have all been TIRED. 

When exhaustion is strong, my discipline is not. I know I tend to be less patient, less discerning, and less on guard for spiritual attacks. I take the easy, no-brainer path. And when I say or do the wrong thing, sinning in any way, I use being tired as an excuse for my behavior. I say, well God, it’s understandable that I said something snappy to that person, I was tired! I slipped up and used coarse language today because I was tired! I let myself be a part of a conversation I had no business chiming in on because I was tired. I ate a slab of lardy-heart-attack-inducing food instead of sticking to my eating plan because I was tired! I am great at making excuses for myself. Do I think God really buys these excuses I’m selling? Is sin ever excusable in the sight of a Holy God? The answer is NO, as much as I hate to acknowledge it.

But another more comforting truth is He gives us ways to overcome exhaustion and not sin, so we don’t have to make excuses for it! I think about the story of Moses in Exodus chapter seventeen when the Israelites were attacked by the Amalekites at Rephidim. Moses told Joshua to take some of the Israelites and go down to fight the Amalekites, while Moses stood on top of the hill with the staff of God in his hands. Aaron and Hur followed Moses up the hill, while Joshua and the other men fought the battle. As long as Moses held the staff up the Israelites were winning the battle, however if his hands grew tired and he lowered the staff the Amalekites began to win. Moses became exhausted so Aaron and Hur actually sat him down on a rock and they each held Moses’ hands up for him till sunset and the Israelites defeated their attackers. The illustration I am trying to make from this story is the Lord has brought godly people into each of our lives to come along side of us and help us when we are weary! Am I using these people to help me when I am exhausted, am I calling on other prayer warriors to help me fight this battle? 

In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 God’s word says,” Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Am I praying continually? I don’t see any stipulation that says when I am tired then I get a free pass to do whatever my fickle emotions tell me to. Honestly as much as I struggle following through with this I know that prayer should be this believer’s constant companion. 

For the final let’s drive this home point Isaiah 40:28-31, so eloquently reminds us that our God does not grow weary and also gives strength to those of us that do! “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

He has equipped us to overcome our struggles when we are tired, we just have to go through the One that does not slumber or sleep! I for one am glad that there is someone I can depend on to watch over me when I finally do get to lay my head on the pillow.

Plane Providence

“Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.” Psalm 143:10 NIV

This week I went for a walk at a local park.  I noticed an older woman with white hair and glasses pushing a younger woman in a wheel chair in the parking lot of a picnic shelter.  The girl had brown hair and may have been in her thirties.  As I walked around the trail near that lot, the thought came to me of what it would be like to just walk over to them and strike up a conversation.  But I didn’t.  I continued to walk past imagining the scenario in my mind.  How would they have reacted if I had walked over to them?  What was their story?  Who was the white haired woman and why was the younger one in the wheel chair?  Would I have had an opportunity to pray with them?  Then I began ruminating on how common it is for us as human beings to never want to intrude on each other’s lives.  We are afraid to strike up a conversation with a stranger because we think it would bother them.  But is that really true?  Especially if I am a Christian going out into this world equipped with the Holy Spirit of discernment to guide me toward who to talk to and when? 

In my more discerning moments I have had the opportunity to talk and pray with strangers.  One of those times sticks out in my mind; several years ago I was waiting at the airport in Roanoke, Virginia to begin a flight to Florida.  I noticed a cute elderly lady at the terminal traveling alone.  Anyone that knows me well knows I have a heart for elderly people and have focused my ministry on them in the past.  Imagine my surprise to find that when I boarded the plane and located my seat it was right beside of that little lady.  That was when I thought to myself, okay God what are you up to?  I did not believe that this was a coincidence after I had noticed her out of so many other people back at the terminal, providence was involved.   Our flight was heading to a lay-over in Georgia; I struck up a conversation with her for part of the trip.  I was pleased to find out she had been pretty self-sufficient and spunky all of her life, the talk flowed easily.  As we started getting closer and closer to landing in Atlanta, my heartbeat started pounding in my ears because I knew after exchanging pleasantries God was telling me to pray with her.  The closer we got to landing the more that fire inside of me grew, that moment when your flesh is fighting against intruding on someone’s life.  Your thoughts becoming anxious that the person will think you are crazy or get angry at the mention of anything related to religion or prayer. So on this particular occasion (after many times I’ve failed to obey in the past) I let God lead, I asked her if I could pray with her and if there was anything she needed prayer about.  She was not offended at all and told me she was actually on the flight because her brother was very ill and she was going to Texas to visit him.  I prayed for her and her brother as my heart calmed down and my flushed cheeks began to lighten.  The plane landed, we exited the gate, and she was gone just as quickly as our lives had intersected. I’ve never seen her again even though she was from the county I live in.  For all I know her brother could have been miraculously healed because my God is more than able to make the impossible happen.  I don’t know what God’s purpose was that day I could speculate about many things but some reasons and answers I will never know this side of heaven.  But I can say how silly I feel even to this day, when I feel God urging me to do something and I still have doubts about how it will go or how someone will react.  Because I can look back and confidently say EVERYTIME He has prompted me to step out in faith with others and I obeyed His call I have never gotten the bad reaction I was so fearful of. 

Many people feel unloved and unnoticed in this world.  There are some that may really be waiting for anyone to talk to them even if it is a stranger.  I’ve always heard one of the greatest gifts I can give to a person is my time.  Can I stop my busy life and give someone my time today?  I may never know what a difference it could make for them right now or maybe even bring a lasting change in their life.  And not because there is anything special about me but because I serve a God that is able to do supernaturally what I could never do in the natural. Will I allow God to use me to be the change He wants to see in this world?  Will you?

My Testimony Part II

Needless to say there was a lot going on in my life following the break up.  I remember one of my good friends calling me up one day and saying he had something important to tell me.  He said, “I found God.”  I remember saying, “Oh, well that’s great.”  While thinking to myself, what is he talking about?  What does that mean, to find God?  As far as I was concerned he was my friend and I would stand by him, but he just as easily could have told me he was beginning a study on the Matis Indians of Brazil, and I would have been just as clueless.  I vaguely remember him sharing more about God as the weeks went on. 

I distinctly remember a particular week in June of 2005.  I went out on a second date and ended up still feeling empty, it was obvious the dating situation was going nowhere; I had no real romantic feelings.  I was depressed there was no other guy to take away the loneliness.  At the end of the week I was supposed to be taking a girl’s trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee with my best friend.  At the beginning of that week I was on my way to work and had a car accident, my car versus a tractor trailer.  Thankfully it was a low speed crash and I wasn’t seriously injured.  I felt like at that time not much more could go wrong in my life.

 I made it to Tennessee for the weekend.  What was supposed to be an awesome get away ended up feeling even emptier.  Not only did I not have a good time, I was miserable.  I turned to alcohol again; I bought wine coolers to drink in the hotel room in an effort to relax.  It didn’t help anything.  It didn’t make me happy.  During the trip, we went shopping at the outlet malls and I found myself gravitating to a bookstore.  Inside, I ended up in the Christian book section and bought two Christian books, I didn’t know why. 

When I returned home from the trip I was so sad.  I called my friend who had found God and told him I had not had a good vacation.  I told him,” I have never felt more lost in my life.”  I was at my lowest point and lost was the best description of how I felt.  He said that he was going to come by and pick me up to take me to Wal-Mart because I needed to buy a book he had been reading called “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren.  He explained that you read one chapter a day for forty days.  I agreed to go get a copy of the book. 

I started reading the book and was amazed.  For me, being so in the dark about church and what the bible said I was suddenly getting answers to questions I always wondered about.  And several days into the book, while reading in my bedroom that night, I came to the end of the chapter and the author explained what I had to do to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior.   Ask for forgiveness for my sins, believe and receive Him as Lord in order to begin a relationship with Him. I finally understood what that meant and I came to the realization that I had been looking at things the wrong way, I wasn’t good.  No one is apart from God.  I knew I needed forgiveness.   I was ready to ask Jesus these things, so I knelt down and prayed to Him.  

One of the most profound things about accepting Jesus as my Savior was going from feeling alone so often to comprehending I had NEVER been alone!  I had a new relationship with my Creator and my life made more sense after that than it ever had before when I thought I was in control of everything.  Did accepting Christ erase all of life’s problems?  Of course not!  I still had to work through my hurts, my shortcomings, and bad habits.  I am still growing now, but from that moment on that is where my new life began.   It changed my perspective on life.  It was not about me all of the time there was something so much bigger than me.  I no longer had to fear death because receiving forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross meant I could have eternal life in heaven!  I also had the guidance of the Holy Spirit after accepting Jesus, so my level of discernment grew, I could understand Scripture in a way I never had before.  Since I wasn’t raised in church, even the most common stories from the bible were new to me.  I couldn’t get enough of the bible and the new knowledge about God I was absorbing.  I discovered my idea about what made a person good had to line up with what God’s word said, not my own scale of morality.  I desired to be with other believer’s and I found a church to go to where I continued to grow in my new faith.  They became like another family to me. I experienced a love that was supernatural, He helped me to love myself and others in a way I never had in the past. The emptiness I had felt was gone when I started a relationship with Jesus.  The hole in my heart was filled with the only One that could complete it.  Nothing in this world ever did or ever will compare with how He loves me.  I am thankful for His grace to a girl that had no earthly reason to receive it and still could never deserve it in her own strength. 


Jesus is always with us, we don’t have to be in a church service to accept Him as our Savior as my own life has shown.  We can pray to receive Him at any time or anywhere.  I pray that you will consider where you are in your life.  What do you believe about life and death?  Pushing the thought aside will not change the fact that death comes to us all.  I pushed the thought away for many years and occupied myself any way I could. If you are confused about faith please look for the answers, it is too important to ignore.   Do you feel like you don’t know how to accept Him?  The bible says in Romans 10:9,” If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  You believe in Christ and you confess that belief, ask for the forgiveness of your sins.

When I look back over this time in my life I see God's footprints all over it, He was drawing me unto Himself! Is He trying to get your attention right now in your circumstances? My hope in sharing this story is to lead others to the love of Christ and to glorify Him for what He has done.  Honestly there is SO much more I could share about the little and big ways God has shown Himself in my life but this has been long enough for a blog post!  Please if you have any questions about my experience or questions about faith feel free to email me, smithbl144@gmail.com   Have a great week and God bless!

My Testimony Part I

I wasn’t born into a Christian home, not that it was a bad home, we just didn’t attend church. Being an only child, my parents and I were very close and had a great relationship.  But during most of my life the idea of God, to me, was somehow distant.  I believed in a God and the story of Jesus because I was from the bible-belt area of the country where those ideas seemed to be common knowledge.  It was simply a part of the culture all around me.  I would sometimes say a quick prayer before bedtime to a God I wasn’t truly acquainted with.  In my mind I was a good person.  Which translated into I didn’t steal, kill, or do any "major" sins, so I was on my way to heaven, right?  But deep down inside of me there was no certainty of these things and I was terrified to talk or even think about death.  Essentially I was lost, unaware of the emptiness in my soul.  I was in a relationship with many other people and things but without the relationship.

As I began to grow into adulthood I felt a sense of not being completely right with God.  I recall times where I would pick up a bible feeling like I should know what was in it.  But after reading a few chapters I didn’t understand what it was talking about and I would quickly abandon the idea.  I refused to step into a church until I was ready to be “sinless” because there was nothing worse in my eyes than being a hypocrite.  Until I was ready to change I would not be a fake.  I had no clue that it wasn't in my power to change myself that I needed God to help me. 

When I was right out of high school and seventeen years old, I met my first love.  Our relationship quickly became serious and we dated around 6 years into my early twenties.  As I continued to live life however I wanted; I felt sure that this relationship would end in marriage.  So I invested everything I had into it, all of my time and emotions.  All of my future plans centered on this person being in my life forever.  I already knew where we would live, what kind of house we would build, and how many children we wanted.  During the same time the relationship was growing I was also continuing on a path that led to many nights of drinking and partying.  There weren’t many activities or attractions where I was from, drinking and having a good time just came naturally.  It was what “everybody” was doing in their early twenties and I was no different.  Although I never became an alcoholic, when I look back on those years I am not proud of many things I said or did.  Whenever I would go to parties most of my friends and I couldn't just have one drink, we drank until we were "wasted."  And at the time I didn’t see how I was drinking more than I ever thought I would have. 

As I explained before, my boyfriend had become the center of my life.  And I knew exactly what life would be like years from then when all of those “plans” we made would happen.  I remember during the times when the relationship hit big problems and I was miserable I would always comfort myself with the idea that I would be happy when I graduated college, when I moved out of my parent's house, when we got married, when we had kids, etc.  I was always looking ahead like circumstances would fix the problems. 

In 2005 when I was twenty-three years old, the relationship with my boyfriend came to an end, I was devastated.   Not only did I feel a huge hole over the loss of love, I also felt like there was a hole in my future.  All of those plans I had made were gone.  For the first time I felt like I was not in control of what happened in my life.  After investing so much time into being a couple I had forgotten who I was.

Faced with all of these questions and doubts I did what I knew how to do at the time, I ran to anything I could find to make me feel better.  After having long hair all of my life, I took my crazy behind to the beauty shop and told her to chop it all off short.  I went on a few dates.   I lost weight and started exercising.  I made time for my friends and family that I had neglected while I spent all of my time with my boyfriend.  Because of watching the effects alcohol had had on someone I cared about I was starting to turn away from it a little more.  I was starting to see how it could change someone I loved into an alcoholic.  I remember my last drunken night at Macado' on St. Patrick's day, I really made a fool out of myself and cried on my friend's shoulder all the way home. I thought I was having a great time while I was drunk and the party was going but when the party stopped all of my problems were still waiting on me. Even with all of these actions I was taking to do something about my situation, I still felt so empty.  Nothing I did seemed to quiet the ache inside.  Everything I did felt like I was putting a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage. 

Impatience Steals The Importance Of Today

So, if you’re anything like me, you are impatient.  Impatient waiting in line at the grocery store, impatient driving behind the car creeping down the road, impatient waiting for someone to get to a lunch date… this list can go on for miles.  I am a planner, I like goals, I like lists, and I like some semblance of order in everything.  And as we all know, life in general wreaks havoc on the world of us “planning” types.  Life cannot really be planned.  What we want to do from one day to the next doesn’t always pan out.  And for many people the plans of tomorrow never come, because they didn’t know that a particular day was to be their last day.  The older I get I continue to learn more and more ways to allow myself to enjoy the journey more instead of always trying to get to the next destination.  I try to remind myself that all I really have is today; today to love others, today to make a difference, today to worship, and today to pray.  Each day has its unique challenges and sometimes the challenge is fighting against the ordinary.  The routine seems to sometimes become life sucking.  When I am in my routine I tend to look less for opportunities to minister and focus more on what I need to get done with this “just another day.”  But today was one of those days I really felt like I tried to slow it down.  I fought against that impatience in order to try to glean some life out of today.  I smiled at people in the Walmart check-out line and didn’t get frustrated at how slow it was going.  I got behind that creeping driver and I stayed way behind as to not “push” them down the road, trying my best to focus on the scenery and my music playing.  Something else I have started doing that has brought a lot more peace into my life is taking my Nook in the car with me when I’m on my way somewhere.  Today I was going to meet a friend for lunch and she was running about 10 minutes late and I happened to get there about 10 minutes early.  In that situation I’m always tempted to get frustrated waiting for someone to arrive at a certain time, but instead I took my Nook out and started reading.  Reading always soothes me.  I also rolled the windows down and felt the sunlight, listened to the bustle of people and singing birds around me.  Peace came at a time that I could’ve been irritated.  It was my time-out from everything I needed to get done today.  When I am able to capture those moments even in the most mundane of days, I feel very thankful to God.  This was just another reminder of how impatience steals the importance of today.  Take your time; life is not a race, it is a beautiful journey.