Prayer circles

Today was my first day on my Obgyn rotation. It was a thought provoking day, a difficult day and a good day all in one.
It gave me questions that I don't have answers to, but most of all moved my heart to prayer.

My job today was to find the heartbeat of the baby. And that heartbeat once I found it produced a joy in me that I can't explain. It tugged at my desire for children like a hard jerk, while I know now is not the time. It pulled at my heart to circle the babies God has given me desire for in prayer. I feel like I prayed all day.

I prayed for my future babies heart, with each heartbeat I found. I prayed for their growth with each ob patient I had. I prayed for their kidneys when a lady told me of her child's kidney issues. I prayed for their toes when I saw little baby toes as for their nose when I saw a cute baby nose. I prayed for my body and its ability to grow the baby, and I prayed for the delivery that I hope to one day experience. I prayed for that baby that they would love God and I prayed the God would prepare Paul and I for the day we become parents.

While I am not pregnant, not trying to be pregnant and it won't be for a whole util I finish school and start a job I am so thankful that if anything, the next 6 weeks will be spent wrapping my future babies in prayer. I can wait for these babies a but I want to be able to give them what they need and we can't afford that now not would it be healthy for a baby to be conceived during clinicals due to the demand on the body and what my rotations require. But like I spent time praying for my future husband, I'm going to commit to praying for my future children.

I want to also pray for these women that they would see the gifts they are growing and that they would love them. I'm excited to get to pray for them and see God work.

What are you praying for?
Xox
Anita

Count it all joy.

Friends, Sometimes in life we have trials, whether big or small. How do you deal with trials? sometimes I pray. Sometimes I ask why. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in what I want and whats not fair about the situation or how if only this or that had happened this would have been prevented. But what does Gods word say I should do

"Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.- James 1:2"

Joy?
Thats what I'm supposed to call it?

When I think of joy I think of a sense of peace and pleasure. A kind of sunshine rainbows nothing is going to rain on my parade sorta sensation. Joy is not the "why,crying,blaming,frustrated,don't understand,wanttorunaway" sort of feeling I get when trials come my way.

But Nehemiah 8:10 gives us some insight. "The joy of the Lord is your strength."

Ever felt week in a trial, powerless? Were you lacking joy?

Joy is not based on circumstances it is based on God. It's knowing Him and knowing that He was the perfect plan and  having faith that He will see you through.

James goes on to say in verse 12 "Blessed is the man who preservers under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."

We are to have joy. We are to love Him. We are to know that in verse 3 when it says why He allows trials "because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance."

Oh.
So. The testing of my faith produces perseverance and the perseverance produced gives a crown of life, but to do that I gotta stand the test have count it as joy? How do I do that.

Practice thankfulness.

It's God's will for us that we be thankful and that realizing of what God has given will produce in us a joy and a hope that knows that as God has provided for us before, He will provide again. It's what the Israelites missed when God brought them out of Egypt. Thankfulness.

So what am I thankful for? In no particular order.

1.  A wonderful God that loves me enough to save me.
2.  A wonderful husband who loves me no matter what I do. 
3.  A puppy dog by my side that is curled up and sleeping peacefully. 
4.  a yummy chinese food lunch, when so many don't have food
5.  Pop. (caffeine really). 
6.  the word of God and the promise that it has. 
7.  great professors at my school. 
8.  the opportunity to be in school. 
9.  my health
10.  the tattered yarn wrapped around my wrist symboling a beautiful connection with amazing women 
11.  great friends. 
12.  my hearing aid.
13.  my car that got me safely to and from school. 
14.  knitting
15.  the pretty roses that my husband got me last week for no reason. 
16.  Gods faithfulness in my life.
17.  Well done by Moriah Peters. 
18.  dinner on Monday night with my friend Kelly.
19.  A visit from my friend is coming this weekend. 
20.  Gods love for me is not based on my performance. 
21.  God rewards our faithfulness. God has a plan 
22. that my doggie is so well behaved. 
23. that we have the written word of God to read. not everyone has had that in the past. 
24. the ability to study
25. the life I've lived. The good the bad the ugly. It all worked out beautifully. 
26. that God continues to teach me. 
27. that I have a home. 
28. that God has blessed me with a wonderful career field. 
29. that I don't know everything.
30. that when I feel like I know everything I'm reminded that is not true, but God does. 
31. That I have such a giving husband.
32. That God has given me a heart of compassion for people
33. That God changed my heart, and is still changing it.
34. That God gives good gifts. 
35. That God encourages me. 
36. That no matter what happens that this world is not my home, and that one day I will see the beautiful gates of heaven. 
37. Confidence knowing that God put in me in PA school.
38. Knowing that when I ask for forgiveness God is just to forgive. 
39. The puppy that is now keeping my toes warm in this sort of bipolar weather we have been having
40. That beautiful role models that God has placed in my life. 

God has blessed me and this is just a small glimpse of some of the ways. Some big things, some things, but there is no doubt that He is behind it all. 

Friends. Pray that God will give you the strength to count it all joy. 

Practice thankfulness 

Remember the Joy of the Lord is your strength. 

Know that every good gift is from above. 

and know that no matter what He's not finished with you yet, He's sharpening you and growing perseverance in you. 

"because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."

Love Him. Love Others. 

<3

Submission isn't easy but obedience rarely is.

Hello friends,
My life has been a whirlwind of seeing patients, studying for exams, and interviewing for jobs, but I see how much of my life could change depending on the job I take, and I see the desires that God has put in my heart and I pray that He will continue to light the path.

Submission to God's plan is the first thing I have to do. Trust that He has the plan and trust that He knows what is best. Jesus was perfectly submitted to God.

For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. John 6:38

Jesus is our example and if Jesus came to do the work of the Father, then our goal should be to do what Jesus did and do the work that God directs whether thats showing kindness, praying for people God puts on our hearts, giving of our time and money, giving everything we can and have to God. 

Submission comes in other forms. 

Ephesians 5:22 says " Wives submit to your own husbands as you do the Lord." 

How do we submit to God? in everything. The writer of Ephesians (Paul) knew we would have questions so he wrote in verse 24 "Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands." There is the clarity we need. Wives submit in everything. Now if I were to take a survey on who thinks that is easy...no one would raise their hand is my guess. Just as submission to God takes effort and desire and time to learn.  The bible speaks of spiritual infants and similarly I think there is an infancy in marriage that occurs. You mature (hopefully) in your ability to communicate and relate to your husband and you learn to trade milk for meat. The little lessons of your first weeks of marriage come and grow to bigger lessons, bigger realizations, and I say this in still an "infancy of marriage" as I have only been married for 7 months. However, I can tell you that the 7 months has stretched me from selfish and unaware to selfish and aware. Once aware, we are charged with praying and studying to grow and learning how to put the other person before you, learning how to be patient, learning how to be understanding. The days I fail out number the days I succeed but as with God I don't' earn my husband's love he gives it freely no matter how much I mess up or fail. And yet just as I struggled with submitting in everything to God, I struggle in submitting in everything to my husband. But, I'm growing and trying. 

When you get married you can't predict the things that will be hard to submit in. The places that your husband will want to lead you, won't always be the places you want to go. The things your husband wants to teach you, won't always be what you want to learn. (sound familiar to how God is with you?) Lately my husband has been leading me to really examine what I think and believe. He is pushing me to know the word, to study it, to ask questions and not just to take an answer but to search for truth. Its a wonderful and frustrating experience all at the same time. And yet I see God teaching me as my husband is teaching me. It's a stretching experience but one that I am confident will lead me to a deeper relationship with my husband and with God. 

Ladies, if your husband is leading you you have to trust that God is leading Him to the right place. Will it be easy always ? NO. But I encourage you to meditate on the verses the bible gives on submission to God and pray that God will help you to submit to your husband as to the Lord. (Note your husband is NOT your God, or savior. Jesus is Lord, but Jesus has told you to submit to your husband and out of obedience to Christ you are to submit. Not if you want to, but it's a mix of repentance and prayer that will help you do what you are to be obedient in.)

Well friends, I have a pie in the oven that needs to come out, and dinner with friends I need to get to. I encourage you ladies to pray that God will help your heart be open to what I am saying and open your hearts to honoring your husband and the Lord. 

xoxo

Anita

Hebrews 3

Hebrews 3

English Standard Version (ESV)

Jesus Greater Than Moses

3 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. 3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. 4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5 Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 6 but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.


7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,


“Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers put me to the test
and saw my works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
they have not known my ways.’
11 As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Hello Friends,

This morning I am reading in Hebrews 3 which speaks of how Jesus is greater than Moses and urges us to hold firm in our confidence until the end. The History Channel has been doing a series on "The Bible" which started last Sunday and I find it so applicable to have watched that and now be reading this. 

Moses, as we see in the old testament, was  one of Gods most faithful servants. He trusted God no matter the situation. Moses was faithful, but we know that Jesus was more faithful. The Hebrews writer tells us to "consider Jesus" and it's something I have been trying to do more and more, moment by moment. I think it's a process of giving your life over to Christ, a surrender of your time, your talents, your desires, your fears, and while I would like to say I just handed them all over in one big swoop, the reality is some things I held on to, some things I gave Him and then took back, and some things He pried out of my hands. I'd like to tell you I have now mastered the surrender to God but if I said that I would be lying. So to be honest, some days I am better at it than others, but my heart is that I would be able to give God all I can, and that I would be a faithful servant to Him. 

I love verse 4:  For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. I love the truth there. God is the builder of everything. The giver of every good and perfect gift and the giver of the very life and breathe we have. How beautiful and wonderful. I am so thankful for my gifts, and I wonder if I find this verse particularly fitting since I am focused on thankfulness this year. How important for us to remember- He is the builder of all things. All the good in me was put there by God, it's not of myself. 

Finally this passage encourages us to stand firm in our pursuit of the Lord, to encourage each other each and every day and to share the hope that we have.  The evince of a Christian truly partaking of Christ's salvation involves endurance to the end. Definitely a push to examine ourselves that we are remaining steadfast and not having our hearts become hard. I pray friends that your hearts are open that you are pursuing the Lord. 

Today I'm trusting that as God led His people out of slavery by Moses, that He will lead me today through this world to the places He wants me. I'm praying for wisdom and discernment and trusting He will give it and I am above all thankful for Him and His faithfulness. 

<3

A moment of thanks

At my new rotation Mondays and Fridays I start my day next door to a Barnes coffee. I've learned to love a ginger peach tea and the calm nature of the start of the day. It's as though my heart and soul long for the quiet moment before the day. The moments to reflect on God and His goodness before starting the crazy momentum of the day.

It gives me a moment to be thankful for the breathe I have this morning, the healin God is giving me from my cold, the opportunity to study and grow and learn, the opportunity to read on my iPhone and drink a tea when there are people who have no home. The moment to focus on my thankfulness for my clothes, and for the hair on my head and for my toes that are nicely pedicured from yesterday. I can be thankful for my husband and his help, the breakfast I ate and the promise that I have a home. But all these blessing while wonderful are nothing close to the blessing of my savior and His sacrifice for me.

I am so thankful for my Lord and I am so thankful to know him.

<3 data-blogger-escaped-br=""> Anita