Tending To My Heart

As a young girl I was taught so so much about how to dress, how to act, how to behave around grown folks, how to speak when I was supposed to speak and how to remain silent when I was supposed to be quiet and with all of the learning how to do this or how to do that, I didn't learn one thing about how to take care of ME. You know the real person, the inside person, the person that cries to sleep at night and doesn't even know why. The person that is depressed and needs an outlet to speak about what has happened and try to understand why. The person that is broken and in dire need of repair. The person that is showing you outwardly with shyness, backwardness and clumsiness what is truly going on on the inside.

I look back on those days and realize just how off the rails my emotions were but I didn't have an outlet to express them. I had suffered from childhood depression and was considered in early grade school to be "mentally retarded", by my very aggressive teacher, because I didn't speak much and if I did speak it was in a muffled mutter. I was painfully shy and didn't want anyone speaking to me directly and I surely wasn't going to speak to anyone I didn't know or care for. I was easily frightened and usually just wanted to be alone. ALONE, ALONE, ALONE but yet did I really want to be alone? or did I want to be cared for and left alone? there is a difference here. There was always so much activity at our house. So many people milling in and out that I kind of got lost in the process and fell through the cracks of depression somewhere along the way. No one fully realizing what had happened to me or how to make it any better. The motto of the house was, "Get over it!"

I learned how to make folks laugh and how to serve people and how to be so so pretty but I never ever learned how to guard my heart and mind because at that time I had not been taught any of those important things. All my Aunts ever seemed to think was important was to catch a man, catch a man, catch a man and I thought well how hard can that be? Which to me wasn't very hard because apparently I wasn't fishing in a really good spot and caught the first fish that nibbled and boy was that a horrible tragedy! I learned all about jealousy and anger and fits of rage and just CRAZINESS in general but I still hadn't learned how to guard my heart and my mind. I learned really well how to walk on eggshells.....and to say just the right thing at the right time but I didn't learn how to take care of myself. So..I continued allowing everyone to just run rough shod over me and do as I was told and my heart became more bruised and torn and the depression got deeper and deeper.

You see I had not yet learned what the word of God says about guarding your heart and your mind with all diligence because out of it flow the issues of life. I had not learned that. Oh I am sure at some point I had heard a sermon on it. Lord knows by that time I had heard thousands of sermons on just about any subject you could pull from the Mad Hatter's hat and still didn't understand or know how to take care of me. Not take care of everything and everyone else, but to take care of me. Not the outward appearance but the inside. My broken heart, my crushed spirit needed help and needed it desperately. Many more years of trying to catch that fish (man) different fish, same fishing hole. Until I finally gave up on all of it and just checked out of it all. I literally had a mental breakdown! It was so bad, in fact, that the doctor didn't expect me to ever recover from it. But, slowly I did recover. No, I was never the same and that is ok cause look what I was working with. I learned to stand up for myself, I learned to say NO!!!! and most importantly I learned to turn to the God that made me and say hey, you are the manufacturer if you don't fix me, I won't be fixed! I had to learn that I was important. I was worth loving, I was worth saving and that God loved me with an everlasting love and it really didn't matter what anyone else thought or said about me.

This has been a life-long process people. This did not happen overnight. I have only a few paragraphs here to sum up a lifetime of pain, sorrow, regret, mistreatment, discouragement, then help, joy, love and the oil of the Holy Spirit that heals, protects, guards, mends. I am still a work in progress but I am progressing. I don't know who will actually take the time to read all of these early morning ramblings but I needed to write it out for me. If any hurting broken woman will take the time to read it, it will help her too. So win/win. Don't allow the enemy of your soul to keep you so wrapped up in doing that you forget that you are a human being. God loves you, He created you in His likeness and in His image and you are very important to Him. YOU, just you, not how you look, how talented you are, how many clubs you belong to, how many Pinterest projects you get done today, YOU just you and YOU are enough! Tend to your precious heart. Learn to meditate on the word of God. Learn to allow the Holy Spirit to minister to those deep and wounded places and be healed in Jesus name.

Fear Not! only believe!

Has Your Miracle Been Timed-Out? Do you feel like everyone else is getting their miracle all the while you are praying and seeking God and you feel like the windows of Heaven are closed, the BIG office in Heaven has put your call on hold and you just can't seem to get through?  Do you feel like you are walking through an endless maze to get to your miracle? Well...in today's daily Bible reading, as I began to read Matthew 9, the Lord began to give me this writing and so here it is.........

Today as I was doing my daily Bible reading, I began to read about the woman with the issue of blood, which is found in Matthew 9, the whole chapter is full of Jesus healing people. This healing with the woman of the issue of blood is usually the go-to sermon preached from this chapter but today I want to deal with the other guy, the one that was put on hold as Jesus took notice of the woman that had touched the hem of His garment, this man's miracle was already in progress: In Matthew's gospel the man is listed as a ruler that came to Jesus and said my daughter is already dead but if you will come, you can heal her, that is good but if you really want to get a fuller description of what happened let's go into another account, another perspective from the gospel of Mark and in the fifth chapter we get a fuller and richer account of this story. As it happened the ruler's name was Jairus and his daughter was near death, he was coming to Jesus to get Jesus so He could come and heal her. His faith level was high obviously or he wouldn't have even came to get Jesus in the first place. He told Jesus what he needed and Jesus and His followers started along behind Jairus but right in the middle of the making of the miracle, if you will, the woman with the issue of blood knowing that if she could just touch the hem of His garment that she would be made whole, she had already purposed in her heart and mind to do this very thing and she had already pressed through the crowd to get there and when she did get there she did exactly as she had purposed in her heart to do, she reached out and touched the hem of His garment and when she did.....................she stopped everything because Jesus could feel the anointing, the virtue coming out of Him. Wow!! Isn't that amazing that we can touch Him in such a way that it stops everything and He focuses in on you and your need, your problem, your anxiety, your need for a MIRACLE!

But.......what about the "other guy" Jairus, what about him? right in the middle of him getting to Jesus to get Him to come and heal his daughter his miracle get's timed out by Jesus so He could speak a word of healing into this woman's life. I can only imagine how Jairus felt that day. He probably felt like this woman had just interrupted to a point where he was going to miss his miracle. But, it was not so, Jesus was and is well able and willing to heal and save and deliver anyone that comes to Him in simple child-like faith. To make matters even worse for Jairus as he was waiting for Jesus to finish with the woman and to come with him to his house to heal his daughter, one of his servants approaches him and says, "Don't bother the Master any further, your daughter is dead." Oh my! what hear-breaking, gut-wrenching news that must have been! and as the enemy was trying to take his faith and cause him to no longer believe in Jesus, Jesus turns to Jairus and says, "Fear not, only believe." and believe he did and Jesus came to his house and raised his daughter up and said she is only sleeping. Can you imagine the jubilant joy in this household? Oh my gracious! The joy of restoration, the joy of just experiencing a life-changing miracle. His daughter was raised from the dead!

I have often thought, "What if Jairus hadn't continued to believe Jesus? What if he had listened to his servant and just went on his way? He would have missed his miracle! He would have gone home to a dead child, a broken heart, an unrealized dream but no! HE BELIEVED! and received his miracle! Don't give up today! Don't stop believing that God is well able and willing to heal you, save your child, fix your finances, restore your marriage! He is well able! He is more than willing! Your miracle is on the way!

Aren't we sometimes fearful that God has abandoned us? That He isn't listening to our needs? That He isn't willing to work a miracle in our lives, that He isn't willing to restore all and to focus just on us. Listen..I have been through seasons with the Lord where I thought surely I had been put on hold and that Jesus was just too busy to deal with me, I'm sure we have all felt that way at one time or another in our lives. But, He is the Great I am, He is the Alpha and the Omega, The Beginning and the end, He knows everything and is everywhere at the same time and is well able and willing to bring restoration, healing, deliverance, salvation, mercy, grace, whatever is needed right to our house. No matter how many other people have already received their healing, no matter how many other people you have seen that have received restoration in their marriage, no matter how many people have seen their children saved, healed and delivered, FEAR NOT, ONLY BELIEVE! YOUR MIRACLE MAY BE TIMED OUT BUT IT IS ON THE WAY!!!

The Bible reading that I do everyday is Daily B.R.E.A.D.. Here is the link to the group that I am a part of. Great group, accountability to daily Bible reading, lots of commentary on what is read and just a great group of folks that love Jesus and love His word.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1810761232523159/?ref=bookmarks

I hope you all have a great day and just remember your miracle is in the making!
Priscilla Hinds
Blogger/Writer AWord42Day
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Beautiful In His Time

In Ecclesiastes 3:11 the word tells us that He has made everything beautiful in it's time. Did you get that? He has done it, not us and in it's time. Not in our time, not in our friend's time, but in the appointed time for that person, place or thing. God is not ruled by time. He works in and out of time. He walks the time line and is at the beginning and the end simultaneously. We want things to happen right now and that's all there is to it. Right now God! I want everything to just work out just like it should and yesterday please? But, we must realize that just like the autumn leaves that were once green have to slowly turn into their new season and before they release their fully spent selves to God and fall down to the ground, it is a waiting process. I have been walking today and as I walked, I could hear the rustle of the leaves around me and I began to think about leaves and how I have seen green leaves with just one little spot of gold or red and they were still pliable and mostly green and yet they were lying on the ground. I thought to myself isn't this just like us? Don't we turn loose before our time? Don't we jump the gun and say Lord I can see the vision of what you have for me? I see what you are calling me to and let me just turn loose and take that leap and then like that leaf that still was mostly green all we do is fall to the ground before He was finished with that beautiful coloring process that only time can bring. I want to stay on the tree until He is completely finished with His beautiful artwork. I want to do exactly what He wants me to do and not what I want. What I want, although it might be good, in theory, if not His perfect will, will land me on the sidewalk looking up just like that mostly green leaf.

I know I look at things differently than most people and I see things in a different light but, He truly spoke to me today through the leaves and through all of the beautiful colorations on each and every one of them. Only a loving and awesome God could grow a tree and each leaf be completely different and yet strangely, the same. Only God can color each leaf and  make each one beautiful in it's time. Only God can take people and allow their color and brightness to come from within and reflect His perfect glory, all the while allowing for that perfect work of His to continue. I have said for years, anyone can count the seeds in an apple but only God can count the apples in a single seed. When we consider how majestic all of God's handiwork is, we will realize our significance through our insignificance. The Psalmist David said it best when he penned these words in Psalm 8: When I consider the heavens, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him? I totally understand that feeling of awe. I have many times looked at the beauty in creation and just cried like a baby and said oh God why do you love me so? I am amazed at the beauty that He has created and at times feel so insignificant and small but in my weakness, He is made strong. In my imperfections, His perfect glory is manifested. When people see Him in me, I am so happy and humbled and still shocked and amazed that He would bother with me.

He has brought me from such a very low place and I am in awe of His goodness and His mercy towards me. I never cease to be completely dumbfounded that He would just keep calling and reaching out and calling and reaching out time and time again to a stiff-necked, stubborn willed girl that wanted her own way. Today if you feel like a green leaf hanging on a tree among all the beautiful colors just waiting for your chance to fulfill your destiny, know and realize that He has truly made everything beautiful in it's own time and He has not forgotten about you. If He called you to it, He will bring you to it and then through it for His glory and honor. Just hang on little green leaf, your bright and colorful days are just ahead and as your season moves forward you will begin to see His timing and reasoning in each and every step of your journey.

Cultivating Self Control

Ah.....gentleness and self control. The last 2 fruits of the spirit mentioned in Galatians.These are fruit that we must cultivate. Why do these 2 seem to elude me? With much prayer and seeking and reading the word have I sought after you and you still run from me. Just when I think I will be able to climb up that beautiful fruit tree and finally acquire a piece of that wonderful fruit, I fall right back down to the bottom. With shear frustration I lay on the ground looking up at you and it is as if you are mocking me you fruits of the spirit of God. Why would you not want me to have you? Why would you run from me, when I desperately need you? Why?

Honestly it seems that every problem that I am trying to overcome in this season is all tied to self-control. Dieting has bombed out once again because of lack of self-control, a very sharp-tongued temper when protecting my mother has once again reared it's ugly head. All of this is rooted in lack of self-control and gentleness with people. Lord knows if a person was describing me, gentleness is not a word that would readily come to mind. In fact, most of the time when I am on a roll, gentleness runs and hides in a closet somewhere for fear that just a look from me will melt off it's sweet lil' face. I don't want to be this way. I do not want to be this way and then guess what? I tend to be this way.

I have promised myself and the Lord that I would not allow myself to go to the nursing home each day until I have immersed myself in the presence of God and His grace and mercy and goodness and His wonderful joy. Now right in the middle of this writing, the nursing home has called me to set up a care plan for my mother and I told the lady it would not be today because I was already upset with them and would rather not come until Friday. I cannot allow myself to be baited by the enemy of my soul to fall apart and act out or become angry and end up sinning! I can be angry but I can't sin. That is the word of God and if I allow folks to get me to the point of sinning, then I have stepped over the line and I will get a whipping from the Lord and that will bring much sorrow.

I genuinely don't want to feel this way. I don't want to be agitated and angry and fed up and all of the above. I have got to line myself out with the word of God and get the oil of the Holy Ghost on me and let that oil form that ducks back that we have all heard so much about. I am sure if anyone takes the time to read this, they will either say well that Priscilla needs to get a hold of herself or they will say, hey, I feel exactly the same ways sometimes. I realize that in this season, God is cultivating these 2 seemingly illusive fruits of the spirit. He is training me to keep my mouth shut. He is training me to wait, to think before I speak. To calm down, keep my eyes on Him and just let that bone sit on my nose until He says otherwise. When I saw this pic of the dog with the bone on his nose, I thought yep that's me, I am in training. That is exactly how I feel right now the pressure of the self control issue is lying right on my nose, right in front of my eyes and God is staying wait, acquire strength. Hold on, acquire grace and mercy. I shall cultivate these fruit through the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit of God.

They say that the most sweet fruit is up high and out on a limb. I truly believe that and so therefore I will climb. I will lay fear aside and go out on that limb and acquire these much needed fruit.

Priscilla Hinds
Blogger/Writer
AWord42Day

Let Joy Be Your Compass

I have heard this little phrase over and over again in the last couple of years. "Let joy be your compass." What does that  mean exactly? Well...to me it means this: 1. The word tells us that in His presence is fullness of joy. 2. The joy of the Lord is our strength so when we say let joy be our compass, we are truly saying let the joy of the Lord that you received in His presence be your guide.

Sounds good to me. Letting the joy of the Lord lead you. When you find yourself in a situation that has caused you to lose your peace of mind and your joy has flown out the window, it is then that we need to look internally and do a joy check. The Holy Spirit of God is not only our comforter but He is our guide and when we allow Him to lead us into all truth, we will avoid the things that cause us to be frustrated, agitated and down-right angry. Not to say, mind you, that we will never be frustrated or angry but what I am saying is when you are around people that keep you upset, and you find that your joy is gone, it is time to realign to the Holy Spirit. Get in the presence of the Lord and get your joy back.

In the scriptures we see King David, the man after God's own heart saying these words: Lord, restore to me the joy of my salvation." Notice he didn't say restore to me my salvation because he still possessed that glorious relationship with the king of kings but his joy was gone because he had allowed himself to become entangled with people and things that he should not have and had in the process of doing those things lost his joy. Joy is from the Lord. Joy is not the same thing as happiness. Lots of folks confuse the two or think that they are one in the same and this is not true. Happiness is based upon the happenings around you. Oh, I am happy about this or that but joy that comes from God is in place as long as you are following His plan. That joy is in full abound no matter what comes or goes because it comes from being in the presence of the Lord.

I encourage you today to set aside a time each and every day to worship God, get in His presence and just talk to Him. Don't beg or ask for anything. Just talk to Him. Thank Him for all that He has done and just soak up his presence. Your joy will soar and you will realign your spiritual compass and then that wandering about will stop because your true north is reset. God bless you today as you seek His face and are overwhelmed with His glorious joy, that is unspeakable and full of glory. One of my favorite songs is Over my head by Jenn Johnson out of Bethel church. The song touches my heart and spirit. When you get into the presence of God and just go all in and let Him just wash over you, you will be in over your head and it's ok.

Here is the link to the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mAvt3CxEQM

Melancholy Reflections

I am feeling a little melancholy and reflective today as I am playing Christmas music that my mother and I used to listening to when I was growing up. She always started playing it around this time of the year and by the week before Halloween we had all of the Christmas cards addressed. She loved it so much, in fact, that her Sunday school class the Willing Workers put her in charge of the annual Christmas party. She would find the restaurant or hall to have it in and get it rented and then she would proceed to get the place cards ready and I would get to help her. I remember one year she found this little place that had what mom called notions and what-nots. They had party goods and a mixture of glassware and such and this particular year she found little miniature manger scenes and she was thrilled because she wanted to use them to put with the place cards.

So...she bought them and we got home with them and she began to get all of her things together for the party and mind you, it was still October...she was a planner for sure. She had a place card for each person and I helped her write each person's name on them and then she glittered them down with silver glitter and placed one of those lil' mangers on each one. The top of our dining room table was covered in them until they had dried and we could put them in boxes for transport.I really do wish I had pics of all of the years that she was in charge of the Christmas party and all of the cute ideas she came up with for decor.

It's funny really, the things that you think of when you get older. I truly did enjoy helping my mother with all of her crafty, decorating adventures from tossing around ideas, to finalizing them, to going to stores looking for just the right things and then getting it all together to see the beautiful finished product. My mother was truly gifted and I didn't even realize it really. She was just my mother and this is what she did. She was an excellent country cook, he was an amazing seamstress and I took it all for granted because she was my mother and that is what she did. The thought never occurred to me until years later that she was the reason that I was such a good party planner, decorator and caterer. Just never entered my mind that she should get any of the credit.....oh aren't we conceited and arrogant? LOL

I remember one time she and I were talking about gifts from God and how everyone had some special kind of gift that they possessed that was different from anyone else and she looked at me and said, "I don't reckon I have a gift." I said, "Mother! are you kidding me?" I have never known anyone that could sew like you. You sewed with a pattern, without a pattern, you could modify any pattern, you made up patterns in your mind and just started sewing. Oh my yes! You have a gift for sure. She looked at me almost shocked and said well..I guess so, I never thought of it like that. I just always had to sew so my kids would have clothes to wear and never thought much about it being a gift. I said mom, if you had been born in different circumstances you could have been a fashion designer. Now just think about that! She just smiled.

Each of us have been specifically designed and created by a loving God that loves diversity and embraces the oddities in people. Lord knows I have several and now have learned to appreciate them and that has set me free from the self-conscious demon that hounded me for years. My mother had the exact same issue. She was always self-conscious about her looks, when she was quite beautiful. She was always self-conscious about her cooking when she was a very good cook, especially chicken-n-dumplings, chocolate pie and biscuits and so many other wonderful things. She projected onto me self-consciousness and low self-esteem without even meaning to. For years my mother and I had a very strained relationship, at best. We just couldn't seem to get along for more than a few days at a time.

I had a lot of anger, resentment and down right bitterness over some unresolved issues from my childhood and I just would not let it go. I would say that I couldn't but the truth is, I just wouldn't and it made both of us miserable. When I finally allowed God to begin the healing process in me, He sent me to Arkansas to help with my mother. We argued and carried on like we hated one another. This went on for a really long time. I would cry out to God and it was like He was not taking my calls. I felt like I had been put on hold at the switchboard in Heaven. But through the years of healing, restoration and much much grace, our relationship has been really good for several years. Now...at what seems to be the ending of my mother's life, I am at peace as is she. It is well with our souls. We have learned to appreciate each other. We have learned to listen to one another and through tragedy, pain, misunderstanding, trial and much error we have become like two peas in a pod.

Isn't God amazing? How He would take two broken people and bring them together to make them whole and turn their lives into something beautiful and meaningful that will last? God is so good and there are not adequate words to describe how grateful I am that I came to Arkansas. I had to pray through about that because I left family, friends and all behind and never went back. Of course for visits but that is all. This was a mission from God and I will finish it. I have ministered, preached, sang, written blogs, lead people to Christ, counseled with drug addicts, alcoholics, abused and battered women and I still consider my mother my best and first ministry. Many times I wanted to run away from her. Many times we barely could stand each other but God had a plan that would be fulfilled. He wanted to bring wholeness and restoration and that is what He has done.

When I look back now over my years with mother, I find joy, happiness, lots of smiles, lots of homemade chocolate candy from scratch, lots of blackberry cobblers, lots of beautiful veggies from mother's garden, lots of Elvis music playing on the stereo, lots of gospel singings, lots of Revivals, lots of beautiful flowers that mom carefully planted around our home,lots of beautiful dressed, custom designed by mom and lots of love that I never really saw until my later years. I can now look back and see all the good and toss the bad and say it was all for the good and can glean and glean from it all and move forward. I am writing my mothers memories and for the first time in my life, I really truly understand my mother's journey. She was and is such a loving person. She was and is full of encouragement. She was and is beautiful. She was and is a gifted woman. All of the things that made up her life, made her who she was and is today. I always took that for granted and God has allowed me a small window into her heart to see it all and to write it down. What an awesome gift and honored privilege to get to do this. To be able to tell my mother's story with dignity and grace so that all of her pain will not be wasted. God always has a plan and even though we don't see it or even know or care about it, it is still there working out for our good and for His glory.

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