Secrets

God told me a secret about your heart…

A woman found out I was going through a divorce (the 3rd one). She didn’t really know me. I picked up my daughter from a slumber party at her house and she handed me a daily devotional. I was ticked that she knew my personal bizness and promptly chunked the devotional in the very back of my Tahoe. “Great. She feels sorry for me.”

A year later I was getting something out of my car and found that devotional wedged between the seats.

Because of her obedience to give me that devotional:

I had an encounter with God that forever changed my life and I felt true peace for the first time.

I began attending church.

My marriage was reconciled 7 years after our divorce and we were remarried.

Imagine my surprise when, about 3 years after my reconciliation in marriage, to see this very woman sitting in front of me at our new church. Only God. I was able to go to lunch with her and give her a personal thank you and tell her the impact she’d had on my life.

It dawned on me this morning. That seed planted in obedience has actually reproduced of its EXACT SAME KIND in my life.

I now write prayer devotionals similar to the one she gave me: a 30 day purity of heart devotion. A prayer devotional for flight attendants to pray over their crew and the cities they visit, a daily devotional for freshman college girls after leaving their nest to keep their hand in Jesus’s hand.

I also help others share their overcoming testimonies in the form of devotionals: A prodigal prayer journal, a teacher’s journal to pray for each of their students by name daily.

That devotional changed my life and the lives of many others and even cities around the world.

There was no sign of life in the moment it was planted…It was just a tiny little mustard seed of faith planted by a woman who had God’s kind of compassion on me and knew He could be my answer in life…but with time that teeny tiny seed grew in darkness and secret until it began to bear fruit in my life and many others.

YOU HAVE SEEDS IN YOUR HEART WAITING TO PLANT IN OTHERS! Seeds of joy. Seeds of strength. Seeds that carry life!

Your seed won’t look like my seed. It will be unique to you.

I think of my precious and amazing daughter, Monica. Her nana was a school teacher. She taught at a tiny private school/daycare off 28th street in North Fort Worth. No glam. For many, many years she was faithful without a big paycheck or any recognition. From birth, Monica attended the daycare, preschool and then school through 1st grade. Her nana planted seeds of love for teaching and children in Monica’s heart.

And that seed bore fruit: Monica was recognized as one of the top 20 elementary educator’s in Texas and was invited to the Texas Governor’s mansion for a bbq and round table about Texas education.

The seeds we plant will be MORE fruitful in other’s lives.

Who and how did another plant seeds in your heart? The way and what type of seed planting is YOUR SECRET SEED that you carry in your heart! Will it lie dormant or will you share it with another so they can produce more fruit?

Some of us don’t know what we carry to give birth to...so journal with God on the seeds other’s planted in your life and then be intentional to scatter that SAME seed because it carries resurrection power.

Matthew 13:8 Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted.

Maturing in our Walk

Taking my little pup-pup Luke for a walk and like most puppies he’s not in love with being held back by a leash. Even though it is for his protection. He growls whenever he sees it just sitting around the house :) He’s pretty obsessed with the leash. Fighting it. Biting it. Trying to jerk himself free. He wants to have some part of it in his mouth as we walk. I guess it makes him feel like he is somehow in control. 

What I notice is that the first 10 minutes of our 20 minute walks are spent with him obsessing about the leash. And then he finally lets it go and starts exploring and enjoying himself. For the first half of our walk, he misses all the beautiful flowers and sights to see. Oh and smells to smell with that curious little nose of his. 

We can be like that in relationships. So worried about whether someone who has a little more experience in an area or an elevated view is trying to control us or maybe we are the Pokey Little Puppy type. We have to be drug along. Stubborn -sitting out on the walk. We don’t know how to walk yoked with another always perceiving it as control or resisting being part of the team rather than seeing the tie as one that binds us in Love and trusting it’s there for our protection. 

We aren’t enjoying our walk of life, we fight being led by another when God has put people in our life for JUST that reason. We don't have to fight the things that keep our hearts in check because it's only for a season while we learn. It’s a crucial step of maturity to learn to walk with another. When we stop fighting being “controlled” and let go, it’s a sign that we are ready to be free. A place of maturity where the leash isn’t even needed because we are so in tune with God, we stay close to His side and never want to be ahead or behind but walk with Him hand in Hand. We understand the sweetest place is by His side.

Better go and get your armor

Our rental house has a lovely backyard. I like to start my day with God sitting outside reading His promises. I LOVE TREES and the yard has lots of beautiful trees…but what I I DON’T love about that yard: It has thousands of mosquitoes. We’ve been there for a year and even in winter, those pesky little buggers swarm me. 

At first, I was afraid to go out into the backyard but it’s just not my personality to let things deter me. You can’t be friends with a mosquito. Mosquitos don’t play nice. So it was war. (and no, i’m not in need of any mosquito remedies thank you ;)

We did all we could for protection. We have every form of citronella candle, torch that you can buy. We even bought these special little lights that zap them. I’ve got bug spray-all natural. All chemical. Lavender. We even have a salt gun to pepper them ;) If anything, they got worse at our attempts to get rid of them LOL! Why were they still there? I cast that devil out of my yard. I commanded them to die in Jesus name. Finally I decided armor was necessary. So I covered every square inch of skin other than my face with an armor of clothing. Hoodie that went over my hands, pants that I tucked into my ugg boots. You would think I would be hotter than hades in the summer but it was just like a light blanket. 

Mosquitos are like the enemy in life. He attempts to distract us from enjoying God’s presence. He wants to keep us in fear that we aren’t safe. That God is good but bad things still happen. We are exposed and vulnerable and then we focus on something NOT of God and give power to it. We live distracted lives not ENJOYING much because we can’t focus! 

In relationships, people can bring their own mosquitos to the meeting that keep you from enjoying their company. You end up swatting at the air and missing opportunities to really connect and enjoy the time together. Maybe others annoy us with their judgments or their opinions. Maybe they don’t hold the same perspectives or our agenda isn’t a “high value” to them. Maybe we get caught up in how disrespectful or talkative they are or how they don’t communicate…or how lazy they are….or selfish… Maybe they are know it alls or just have some part of their personality that grates on our nerves. Those are distracting mosquitos. 

You can find mosquitos everywhere you go in life now that I think about it. 

I finally got some revelation on this blasted thing that has plagued me for the last year. 

Ready for the big reveal????

IGNORE THEM. Yep, that’s right.
Put your armor of God on and forget about them. 

So many distractions out there.
If it’s not mosquitos that annoy us then it’s the snakes of suspicion and if it’s not snakes then it’s rats of rage or coyotes of conflict or hawks of bad history or buzzards of people not minding their own beeswax and so on and so on. Don’t focus on the plentiful pests! Focus on love and life until it becomes so big that you don’t notice the distractions anymore. In this life you will have mosquitos but take heart! Jesus has overcome the mosquitos!

When you put the full armor of God on, the enemy cannot harm you but he can still distract you from your purpose here on earth. 

How to slay mosquitos from your day? 

1. Put God’s armor on (eph 6:10-18)
2. Ignore distractions (phil 4:8)
3. Quickly take the enemy out
(Luke 10:19- not to be used on people ;)
4. Then do your thang-laugh, love, live. (John 10:10)

When you have to poop on the plane

When you have to Poop on the Plane

This guy, we’ll call him Larry, gets on board with his doggy who we will call Percy cuz I didn’t catch his name either but he looked like a proper little pug dog. Larry is supposed to keep Percy in a kennel because he’s a pet on board and NOT a service animal or “medically necessary” animal. He pulls him out of the carrier and assures me, “My dog is a veteran flier. He’s flown overseas and I've never had a problem. He always does great. Everyone says so and they usually just let me keep him in my lap.”
I give Percy a little scratch but let Larry know that Percy may be an angel dog but he’s required to remain in his carrier for our 2 hour flight today. 

So when I see Larry barreling down the aisle towards me carrying Percy, I am perplexed. Dude, we’ve had this conversation. But then I noticed there is a…errr…substance running down from Percy onto Larry’s pants. Aw, man.
INCOMING! 
I’m ready for them. I push the lav door open. 
Larry apparently thought Percy would finish his bizness on the toilet? In “hind”sight this was highly unlikely. Larry hovered Percy over the right spot for a bit but Percy said No Go, Larry. Larry tried to hand Percy to me. NOPE! This is your deal. So he put Percy down and jerked on the paper towels letting them flutter around the lav and onto the floor. He wet some trying to wipe the front of himself where it looked like he had poo-ed himself. Percy immediately let it all out on his preferred pottying spot - the carpet in front of the lav. The smell was PUNGENT. Toxic fume event on board! I need a settlement from the airline ;)

Percy, though a veteran flier, was not having a good day on the plane.

I was so tempted to try to blame this on Larry. But it was Percy who did the deed. But Larry brought him on board…But I am actually the mean old flight attendant who made Percy get in his little kennel when other flight attendants let him ride in the lap. That probably stressed him. Whose fault was it?? 

Like Percy, other people uh hum LARRY, sometimes put us in situations we should NOT be in.

A father leaves his little boy. Little boy grows up but has a handicapped heart. Who was going to teach him how to be a man? A father? A husband?
Or maybe Dad stays but unleashes all his anger and frustration out on his children because they can’t stand up to him. 
Our mom has to give us up for adoption because she can’t care for us properly.
A needy mom or wife dominates and controls every single area of her household and gobbles up anything good for herself. She’s hungry for love and attention but no one wants to give it. She feels so rejected. She’s gotta control so she feels like her sky isn’t always falling all day every day. 
A husband has a wise wife with a beautiful heart who is kind to him but he’s drawn away by the fake pearls and skin deep beauty of another. 
Someone so needy for attention or love, seeks to hook up with our hearts not for what they can share but to drain us dry for their own personal reasons. 
Self hatred. It breeds addiction and a hunger in the soul. When we feel far away from God, we try to feed that hunger with sex, money, control, attention. 
We choose to find attention in a way that isn’t the highest and best. 
We keep finding ourselves in the same situation over and over again. Creating our own drama repeating lies from our past that we’ve never properly worked through.
It’s so easy to blame another person. I am this way because of THEM and let that bitter root grow and poison our hearts. 
Poor Percy, we think. It was Larry’s fault! Larry was the dummy. He was the decision maker. 

BUT Larry might know that Percy does terrible while he is away…won’t eat and is sad. Larry just wants to care for the dog and there is no ideal situation. Or maybe he’s just cheap and doesn’t want to pay for it…

We want to judge the intents of someone else’s heart when they make a mess but we all have our reasons for doing what we do and some of them are very pure. We are doing the best we can with the hand in life that we have been dealt. Most aren’t malicious save the narcissist. Our brokenness inside our heart that motivates our actions is not meant to hurt anyone. Much of the time believing the best understands it’s ignorance. One thing we can count on in this world is that all will be imperfect at times and let others down. We will cause harm whether knowingly or unknowingly. Blaming is CRAZY MAKING. Blame them. Blame ourselves. Blaming God cuz isn’t he ultimately in charge. Blame the airline. Blame the passenger. Blame the government. Blame the people who kneel or don't kneel or don't agree with you. People who struggle with perfection and insecurity (like me) look for someone to blame. Don’t go down that road. It’s a dead end. We aren’t warring with flesh and blood. That’s really how we can walk through this life. Not pointing fingers, demanding perfection or finding fault. We can bring messy situations to let the light with a heart to help ourselves and others grow. We can love. #InAPerfectWorld #EasyToSayOnPaper#AndToSayToSomeoneElse #ThenItHappensToYou

But Percy was the victim here. He did nothing wrong. This situation was forced upon him. Believe me. I saw his big pug eyes. He would rather have been ANYWHERE ELSE than on that plane pooping on his owners pants. Sometimes, we find ourselves walking down a road that we didn’t turn left on. The cancer diagnosis. The miscarriage. The job layoff. The guy who claimed he loved us so we gave ourselves to him to find out that we are the star of our very own video that we never knew about but it was passed around at school. 
The abortion when we knew better. 
The eating disorder that's out of control because of the anxiety we can't stop.
The anger that boils over on to those around us like acid killing everything good in our relationships. 
The internet teaser. At first it was an accident but what about after that? The next time, we clicked and we were hooked.
The self centered decisions that hurt those we love most. We can’t get ME ME ME off the decision making throne. 

Back to our bathroom fail on the plane, the deed had been done. There was no use crying over spilled ______, Larry was practically in tears. He was on his hands and knees and had the dirty paper towels from the lav floor in his hand and was attempting to clean up Percy’s mess. Larry was smearing it in a circle and making a bigger mess. He was robotically repeating the same phrases over and over, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. ’Percy’ never does this. He’s normally such a good dog. I can’t believe it.” 

And you know what I did? Because I could tell Larry was “trying” to do his part and acknowledged the mess. 
I said, “Leave it, Larry. I’ll finish this. Take care of Percy and then get him back in the kennel.”
I said this basically because my jumpseat was right there…and out of respect for the other passengers that needed to walk down the aisle and use the facilities AND the fact that Larry was actually making a bigger mess with his efforts. 

SoI got the haz mat kit out. Snapped on some gloves and a gown and mask. We have some of that carpet powder like your mom used to use and it somewhat soaks up stuff like this. Another fight attendant raked it up with a handy dandy scooper they include and then we got rid of it. I covered it up with some news paper until it could get a deep clean ;)

So whether our mess in life is as a result of our own decisions, someone else’s or a casualty of life’s lows, we are sometimes put in situations less than ideal but we have help. We are not alone in those less than ideal situations. We are not alone in our pain. We have a person who wants to be our best friend. Wants to help us walk out of the maze we find ourselves lost in. His presence carries joy in spite of our suffering. Peace instead of our fear and chaos. Power instead of victimhood. Unity instead of drama. Love instead of fear or blame gaming it.

Got some poop in your life? It's time to come clean. He will cover us. He took all of our messes to the cross with Him when He died. There’s no mess to big that He can’t love you through it. Let Him in. Ask Him for help.

Oops...

I hit print on the printer and the pages starting spitting out. I pulled one of the sheets off the printer. NO NO NO! Oops!  It was off center by a hair and over the line that marked the decorative border. I measured the paper with a ruler before entering in my margins. Durn! 

I ripped open the printer so it wouldn’t waste any more of my “pretty paper” but not before it printed six of the prophetic words. 

Thank goodness I had enough paper. I fixed the margins and re-printed the 30 prophetic words written for the event. I decorated and packaged the “good” ones up. 

I went to throw the six misprints in the trash and I heard, “Don’t throw them away.”
Well, what am I going to do with six off center prophetic words? 

“Leave them just as they are.” 

I felt the sense that he had six very special women who would receive these words.
“Okay so I fix and reprint these six then.”
I went to throw them away again. I felt a strong NO!

“Why then? I have plenty of paper and these don’t look right.” 

I felt He said,
I can anoint these more than the others. Because in your weakness I can be strong. In your imperfections, I can be perfect. Bring me what you have. The lame, the weak reeds and I will be their strength. The misfits. The misprints. They don’t fit in a box because I didn’t make them to FIT! These women know that in their weakness I can be strong. They see past imperfections and see how I see.   Those that look for perfectness end up only seeing imperfections in themselves and others.  They don't see me in the mistakes so they are disappointed. 

I felt led to send one of them to a friend in the mail. It took a while to get there and apparently went through a rainstorm as well ;) I love that the title is “The Power of God.” So “fitting.” I just love how much fun God is - even and ESPECIALLY in my imperfectness.

2 Corinthians 12:9-13
Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

The asian dude and 2 emotional support animals

The asian dude and 2 emotional support animals
Let me go ahead and offend everyone with that title ;)

I was working first class and the agent comes down and asks if we can pre-board a lady and her TWO emotional support dogs. Welp, I love doggies and so did one of the other flight attendants so we gave the thumbs up.  #PuppyLove

So this young 22-ish girl gets on with her SMU shirt and yoga pants oh and two shih tzu type (sp?) dogs. They aren’t big dogs but they aren’t teeny tiny either. I give the pup-pups some love and ask SMU girl politely to put her bags up when she has an opportunity since she is sitting in the bulkhead row. She ignores me and says, “Can you tell me if this seat is empty so I can have some more room? There’s not enough room.”
Hmmmm
what I wanted to say: you are always able to purchase an additional seat if needed and talk about no room, you should try the coach and then a spirit of thankful would come upon you haha but instead I kept it simple.
“I’ll check but first class will likely be full.”
“Oh. Great.” SMU girls said sarcastically.
Oh lawd. It’s going to be a long flight to LA. She opens her suitcase and puts it in the currently open seat next to her.
I wasn’t sure if she missed the “first class will likely be full” or that she needed to put her 3 bags UP not to mention her “emotional support” animals crawling everywhere :) I’d let it ride for a minute. Maybe the seat would be open. I love ESA’s and they are so valuable but I think these might have been Entitled SMUGirl Animals ;)

I forgot about her and her problems. I started working on setting up my galley and getting pre-departure drink stuff ready when she slams the bathroom door open next to me with a flurry of expletives under her breath with one dog under her arm and then “This purse is probably ruined.”
I say commiseratively, “It’s hard traveling with little ones. Probably like traveling with kids.”
“It’s not the dogs. That dumbA#$ spilled my starbucks tea all over my $1000 Louis Vuitton.”
What Dumba#$? Wait. Where was her other dog?

I peeked around the corner to her seat: . I cannot paint this picture for you with words. An asian business man with Harry Potter glasses sitting in the seat next to hers. His knees tight. HER suitcase in front of his knees. His briefcase in his lap. with hands clutched on the top handle. Eyes straight forward. Already sweating and HER other dog on the arm rest sniffing at and licking the guy’s ear. 

Okay - so THIS guy spilled YOUR starbucks? I doubt it. Entitled much? She could care less how she was affecting those around her. 

The other flight attendant put her bag up.
I asked her seat mate: “Would you like me to put your briefcase up. He nodded but didn’t let go. I shooed the dog out of his ear but he’d already bonded with the guy through scent and considered him a new friend ;-/ The guy reluctantly released the briefcase that he was holding on to like a life preserver.

SMU girl huffs around the corner, “Where’s my suitcase?”
“We had to put it up to make room for the other passengers.”
“Well, I needed something out of it!”
“Can it wait until after we take off? And if you could please keep the doggies close to you.”
“I guess.”
She was a hot mess the whole flight while the guy next to her..obviously was traumatized. I’m not sure if she yelled at him about her tea (not his fault) The guys sat there the ENTIRE 3 hr flight and refused said no to water, nuts, meal, dessert. He had now pressed himself to the very opposite edge of his seat away from her and he looked like he might need some emotional support after this ride too.

I tell this story for two reasons - first because it is HILARIOUS and just when you think you've seen it all something like this happens.... but I also saw a little life's lesson it. 

I feel like this is the dynamic for a lot of life. We work around high maintenance drama people who are entitled/very self focused or we are them :)

If I could learn anything from this situation it would be this:

We don’t have to allow other’s to covertly put their drama or problems and sense of entitlement on us. Their drama spills over into our realm without a please, thank you, would you consider helping me with this and we either rush in to help or we sit silently sweating and shut down until we blow up and cut off the relationship. We have every right to say kindly, “Hey, can we have a dividing line that represents your seat area...your chaos and mine?”
When my freedom encroaches and affects you then it’s okay for you to say so. Otherwise we perpetuate this fallacy about relationships: that only one person matters.

Not Yet

"Not yet." I heard the quiet voice.  It was in response to double checking with God on moving forward on a project that had been forming over a year’s time period.  It really wasn’t my project, it was more His but something fun and creative.  Over the months, I’d acquired all the things I needed to complete it.  The project needed an artist or graphic designer, and someone to legitimately put it together so I needed help from a couple of professionals.  I’d called them both 6 months before.  I knew both of the women really well.  One said she’d get back to me and never did…. the other just didn’t return my phone call regarding it which was highly unusual.  I wanted to be totally open to God’s timing so I put it on the back burner of my life.

Recently, I’d felt it was time to try again so I made an appointment with one of the ladies and she could see me the same day.  Maybe that was a sign but I still submitted it all to God….and that’s when I heard the “Not yet.”  See, I heard that same phrase a lot and I figured God was teaching me to be patient.  To sit and wait so I wanted to be obedient.  

In my past (PJ-pre-Jesus) I did things my way and then, once I started following God, I still had the tendency to get ahead of Him.  That “Not yet” had saved me from doing a lot of stupid things.  God didn’t try to “break” my will but I had through this process learned to submit my will to Him.  I rarely made a move without asking Him and if I realized I had moved ahead, I quickly put my butt in reverse and put it in park so I could reset with Him.  His ways are always.always.always best so I’d learn to HEEL when I heard “Not yet.”  

I felt the timing was right with God on moving forward and felt the timing was His so I was confused…  Not yet?  What was this voice in my head?  God, do you want me to do this or not?  The voice didn’t feel like the enemy’s and it didn’t feel like God’s either even though it kinda sounded like how God spoke to Elijah in the still, small voice.

A girlfriend texted me and said she saw some black bars in front of my face like I was in a jail but the keys were in my hand.  I quickly picked up the phone to call her. I mean I had JUST asked Him about the “not yet” thing.  While she was telling me about her vision, I looked at a little bumper sticker thing that was right in front of my face - it said “She believed she could so she did.”  That was it!  In my spirit, I felt it.

The “Not yet” was coming from unbelief in MYSELF.  I was trapped in a prison of my own unbelief.

I did not believe that I could do this.  It was the still small echo of unbelief probably rooted in rejection that I could NOT possibly create anything valuable or worthy with my past. 

Oh I believed God could do it.  

I could believe it for anyone else but not for me.  

I prayed for God to confirm that was in fact the answer and that I did need to move forward.   Later that day I went to a spin class.  The instructor said, “You have got to believe in yourself.  You have to believe you CAN do it.”  

Well, I had submitted this voice in my head to God and He had revealed that I had unbelief…not in Him but in myself in a few different ways.  

See these little voices in our head that we think are God are sometimes NOT God.  They can be based on doubt and unbelief.  They can be based on gaining glory for ourselves.  They can be grandiose ideas based on trying to give ourselves meaning or value, they can clearly be the devil-lies causing shame, anxiety and harm, it can be a worldly wisdom, logic reasoning versus God’s plan. 

How do we REALLY know when we are hearing from God? Why does it have to be so complicated? It does take time.  A foundation of truth and love have to be set in place before we are ready to build so many of my “Not yets” might have been on point.  Sometimes we are moving about when God is asking us to sit- like my little puppy running here and there and wrapping his little leash up until he can’t move and has trapped himself and then he HAS to sit.  

I do think we have to do some serious investigating of these voices though rather than jump to the conclusion they are our Father.  

We gotta LEARN

to DISCERN (yay-that rhymes #catchphrase)

Oh, guys, if this proves ANYTHING it means you cannot hang on to the first scripture you think of-you have to SEEK God every moment as if He is your breath.  We’ve got to dig deeper in relationship with Him and remove things that give us misperceptions. We have to ask Him and get to the bottom of these voices leading us and we can’t only ask God when it’s something we DON’T want to do or is big.  The things we want to do and the things we don’t.  The things that seem “good” and those that might be “dangerous.”  The safest place to be is in the will of God.(someone else said that;) We need to submit every step.  Every conversation.  Every part of our day until we are so in tune with His instructions that we become fluent in it and trustworthy only to do what the Father is doing and only to say what the Father is saying.   Otherwise, we will make big messes.  If you are on the seal team and on a mission and you don’t follow the plan and stay in sync with your team then people die.   Don’t use this as a permission to bypass God’s “Not yet.”  Learn to listen and discern for yourself what He is saying to you.  The plans of God for your life require that you stay in step with Him so don’t just believe every voice you hear.

1. Ask God, “Is that you?”  Really spend time with Him on it. 
2. Does it line up with God’s word, His heart, His character?
3. Ask Him to confirm it with an outside source.  (like a bumper sticker, friend or a cycle instructor;)