Wisdom Teeth

I’m pretty sure dentists always want to pull wisdom teeth because they are too lazy to do fillings on them. :( Granted there are bad cases where they are impacted, but my 2 wisdom teeth had seemed like they would be impacted but then came in just fine. I always felt it was so odd how MUCH they push people to get wisdom teeth extracted. I think that’s the main reason. Dentists can be lazy. It’s slightly harder to do fillings on wisdom teeth so they would rather not. So pulling them is more convenient for them, but not for you, cuz you have to recover from that. :(

Dentist

My new dentist today said I need both my top wisdom teeth pulled. I asked “Can I just have the right one pulled but get a filling in the left one?” He said “Why do you need them?!” I thought, how rude. :( I should have said, “But if I get both my wisdom teeth out i won't be wise anymore!" Lol 😂 😁🤣

God Loves You!

God loves you! He loves you more than words could ever express!  More than all the water in the ocean and all the sand on the shore!  His love for you is so immense that he sent his only son to die for you so that you could be with him someday!  If you are not Christian, or are not sure if you are, please say this prayer out loud, "God I believe that you sent your son, Jesus, to die for me.  I accept this free gift that saves me from my sins.  I pray that your Holy Spirit will come into my heart.  Jesus, I want you to be my Lord and Savior all the days of my life.  In Jesus' name Amen!"

Apostles

The verse that shows why there can’t be apostles anymore and why a belief in a 5 fold ministry is not biblical. 

“You are members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” Ephesians 2:20

The apostles were the FOUNDATION , meaning there cannot be anymore apostles. 

So if you know anyone who calls themselves apostle....show them that verse. 😉👍🏼

Ah the pride of some people. :(

And no one can be a prophet anyone. You can prophesy but you cannot call yourself a prophet. The true prophets only existed in the Old Testament. 

All this silliness of people trying to elevate themselves with a title is not of God. Jesus said in Mt. 23, “You are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Amen! 

If you want to be great, be the greatest servant there ever was! You can’t just give yourself a name or a title to make yourself great. Serving others is what makes you great. Amen. 

Jesus is saying do not call anyone by any special title because only God is God, NOT people. And we are all brothers, meaning we are ALL equal. No one is above or below anyone else. Amen. 

I know I published 33 books now but I’m not going to get a big head about it. For one because they don’t sell that much, lol, and two because it was pretty easy. :) 

The only reason we can accomplish anything we do is because God enables us to. God gave me lots of time at home so I can have lots of time to write. So the only reason I could publish that much was because of God. :)  Amen. 

May God bless you all! :)

My Mom's Testimony

I experienced a major life crisis back in 1991 which shook my faith so severely I almost gave up on God entirely.  My son was 10 and my daughter (that was me :) was 6. I was going about my usualy routine getting ready to take the kids to daycare and go to work when little Elisabeth (Lisa) whispered to me, "Mommy I have to tell you about something yucky, but Daddy told me not to tell you."  My heart started racing.  I knew I needed to stop everything and give her my full attention.  She then, in her 6 year old language, told me that her father had done something inappropriate with her while they were taking a nap together the day before.  My first thought was "He wouldn't go that far, would he?"
My first husband and I had been married 11 years. He had confessed to me an incident of infidelity several years earlier and begged for forgiveness, making promises that it would never happen again.  He also asked me to keep it a secrety.  I had granted the forgiveness and kept his secret, and I was not aware of any further problems.  But it had begun to erode my respect for him and trust in him.  So although this was a shock, it was not completely unexpected. 

I reassured my daughter that everything would be okay and thanked her for sharing with me.  Then I went about my daily routine as usual.  But my mind was racing, trying to make sense of what she had told me.  What would you do?  Can you imagine having to choose between your husband and your children?  I knew I had to take it seriously, but I wanted to minimize it and explain it away.  I also was thinking I didn't want to damage his reputation.  I couldn't talk to anyone at church; after all, he was a respected founding member of our small congregation who had been leading the Children's Ministry for many years. (Wow right?)  I didn't want to talk to my parents either.  I didn't know where to turn....so during my break at work I went to a phone booth adn called Focus on the Family counseling hotline.  The counselor kept repeating the same things, "6 year olds don't make up things like this.  You have to file a restraining order against your husband."  But I kept protesting; it was just more then I could handle. 

That's when God stepped in.  (Praise God)  I heard myself giving the hotline counselor my contact information, knowing that he was a mandated reporter and that Child Protective Services would be notified.  I know it wasn't me, because I was resisting all the way.  It was a miracle!  Although being involved with CPS for several years was a nightmare, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, God used them to protect my daughter when I was not strong enough to protect her. :(  Over the next 5 years there was a trial reuniting of the family at the request of the children and the approval of the counselors and social workers.  It was a time of darkness and confusion for me.  Would having this father around be better than no father?  How could I ever trust him again?  We reunited for a time but then divorced 2 years later, due to me not being able to trust him anymore.   

I am just so thankful that little Lisa was able to confide in me, but it is shameful and frightening to think of how close I came to keeping the incident a secret.  Who knows what kind of emotional and physical harm my daughter could have endured without that intervention. If God can use my experience to protect just one child, to make it all "work out for good" then I will give Him all the glory.  And that is why I wanted to share this story with you all. 

The message I want to emphasize is: Please don't keep dark secrets.  Don't let evil remain hidden.  Our precious children need our protection.  (Amen!)

During and after this ordeal I became hardened and bitter.  I didn't want to read the Bible or pray.  I felt betrayed by God.  How could He have allowed such a terrible to happen?  But I still listened to Christian music, and through the messages of hope and God's kindness and love, my heart slowly softened.  (Praise God!)  I also received a lot of help from the book by James Dobson "When God Doesn't Make Sense."  I came to understand that God must allow us to choose Him.  Love and trust in Him must be voluntary, not compulsory.  My first husband chose to surrendur to sin (and Satan) rather than surrendur to God. :(  Although God could have prevented the abuse, He allowed it to occur.  And only he in his infinte wisdom knows why.  I understand that His ways and His thoughts are so much higher than mine and I believe that He has my best interests at heart.  God already knows my heart, so I don't have to prove my love for Him, but when I choose to praise Him anyways, in spite of the unanswered questions and the leftover scars, it proves to myself that I still love Him and trust Him. 

God healed my heart over the 11 years after the divorce until I was able to trust someone again, and he brought my now husband into my life.  He represents Christ to me in so many ways (awe....) and I'm just so grateful to God for his miracles. (amen :)  And provision) Only God can bring beauty out of the darkest evil and fill a broken heart with songs of praise again. 
Amen and Praise God :)

May God bless you all!  Thank you for reading. :)

A Spiritual Gifts Question

A question for any of you. :) Why are the spiritual gifts that Paul lists in Romans almost all different from the gifts that Paul lists in Corinthians?

He said in Romans 12, “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; 8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”

Why does he not list here tongues, healing, miracles etc?

Killing and Attacking Sin

I just thought of a great illustration for killing sin in our lives.  When you go to kill a sin in your life, you have to attack it like killing a fly in your house.  When you go to kill a fly, you can't be half willed about it.  You can't be double minded about it.  You can't at the same time want the fly to live and to die.  You have to aggresively kill the fly in order to accomplish the task.  You have to hate the fly, in order to kill it. 

It's the same way with sin in our lives.  We have to hate it before we can kill it.  You have to despise it's presence around you just as much as you might despise a fly in our house.  You have to aggressively kill it and not be double minded about it.  You can't at the same time want your sin to live and to die. 

Here is why we should hate sin.  Sin taints the purity of our lives.  It blocks us from God.  God never builds a wall with us but we can build a wall between us a God with our sins.  Any time we love anything in the world, or think about anything in the world, more then God, we are sinning. 
For me I think of my recent addiction to Amazon.  Us women sure like to shop.  :) It seems like an excusable sin because Satan lets us lie to ourselves that we are just providing good things for our family.  But do the people in your family REALLY need all the extra things you buy for them?  Probably not. 

It's funny how many clothing items we think we "need."  In Bible times I think people only had like 3 outfits and that was it.  I don't know for sure but possibly.  But these days if we don't have like 20, or 50, :) outfits hanging in our closet for us AND our kids, our flesh throws a fit. 

But a funny thing about shopping, or any addiction in your life, is that the more you do it, the more you want to do it.  That is why you have to kill it.  You can't let it grow, or like a weed, it will quickly take over the whole front lawn of your soul.  If you let sin grow without uprooting it and killing it, it can kill you. 

 You might think that the next object you buy, or that next cigarette you smoke, or the next beer you drink, or the next cake you eat will make you happy, but then you find that it doesn't.  You wonder why it doesn't fulfill you.  Sometimes it makes you happy, but the joy is very short and momentary.  Mostly you know something is wrong, because it doesn't fulfiill you very much, like you hoped it would.  Deep down we all know we won't be the most happy we could be until we are serving God.  We all know, in our spirit, that anything in this world will prove to be fleeting and worthless.
The more we think about ourselves, the more miserable we will become.  The more we indulge the flesh, the more miserable our flesh will become.  The more we say yes to our flesh, the more demanding, and impossible to please, our flesh will become. 

So just kill sin.  Don't give any place to it in your mind and in your heart.  Always remember that only God can fully satisfy your soul.  And pray for strength and wisdom every day to resist whatever it is that your flesh gets drawn to. 

May God bless you all! ;)

Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen

Poor Joyce Meyer :( People always pick on her so much but she speaks SO much good truth!  And I feel sorry for how much so many bash Joel Osteen too. I’m pretty sure no person alive loves humanity and cares for people as much as Joel Osteen. That’s why God has blessed him with such a big church! May God continue to bless Joyce and Joel! And may they keep pressing on and doing great things for the Lord, even when Satan tries to shoot millions of flaming arrows at them and their ministry. 😢

I love their sermons! My entire inspiration for starting my Jesus packets and making my Jesus bracelets that I did was from listening to Joel and Joyce all day. If you listen to them a lot, they will set you on fire to serve and love God like no one else! Except Steven Furtick. He does a great job at that too! :)

May God bless you all!

To all the Youth Workers!

Here's something to encourage any of you out there that work with youth, my youth pastor changed my life!  If it wasn't for my youth pastor I probably would have ended up a smoker, maybe a pot smoker, and possibly pregnant at 14 or 15.  Seriously I was headed down a very wrong path in my youth.  So good job to any of you out there who work with kids or youth!  And keep up the great work!  For me, that was why most of my jobs were with kids, because it was my way to pay back God for what he did for me through my awesome youth pastor.  She didn't preach to me that much.  She simply was a super duper cool example of what a cool on-fire Christian looked like.  I looked up to her and admired her so much!  Thank you Leanne Grant Prochnow for all the ways you inspired me and all us youth.  We love you!!!!  And may God bless you tremendously for all of your awesome and wonderful service for all us crazy kids. lol  God bless!