Spiritwick

After the sadness of today's events, I was so emotionally weary as I headed upstairs to do the bedtime routine with my girls.  I didn't want to go up at all, but I went up.  I held one as she cried after a sibling spat.  I helped them pick up their toys.  I read them a Bible story...and a second one as they begged for more. Then, we started individual prayer times.  Melody was first tonight, and as I held her in my arms asking her what the best and worst parts of her day were, she looked up at me and said, "You're like Jesus in a way, Mama."  Quite surprised, I asked, "How's that?"  "You're wrapping your arms around me," she replied before starting her prayer.  Thank you, Jesus, for reminding me that that's exactly what You're doing today.  You're wrapping your arms around me, around us. He's been wrapping His arms around me gently, so gently for weeks now, but I couldn't quite recognize it through my own fears.  P...

God freed me from some of my internal traps through Phiippians 3, but I was still left with a big question.  If I'm not supposed to focus on being perfect at the plethora of things I could try to be perfect at, what should I be focusing on?  Fortunately, God was ready with an answer before I'd even realized I needed to ask the question, so He gave me a focus to address my energies toward in Philippians 4.  I turned it into a "to-do" list, and wrote it on my forearm to help me remember. Here is my simplified to-do list: 1) Rejoice. 2) Be gentle. 3) Pray with thanksgiving. I decided those would be my primary focus for the next day, and I've been trying to work on them for the days since. I knew that this was not a new list of things to try to be perfect at, but they were clear ways for me to fix my eyes on Jesus as I persevered on the path He's marked out for me.  I've already seen some benefits come from focusing on Jesus in these three ways. The...

Hello. I'm Amber, and I'm a perfectionist. (Hi, Amber!) I think when most people picture a perfectionist, they imagine a Type A personality who generally appears to have all her ducks in a row and/or to be in a tizzy if a duck gets out of line. I don't have a Type A personality, and I think some of my ducks may be lost under piles of laundry. In general, I tend to cope with my perfectionism by picking only a couple things to focus on at a time. "Sure, my house looks like a pack of hyenas came romping through here, but we made some progress today on Lily Beth's piano skills. I even managed to blog!" I tend to be more of a people-focused perfectionist. My environment may be pure chaos, but I'm focusing on the interactions and needs of the people around me. This means that a conflict with a loved one can rock me to the core. So, of course, a few days after our Uganda team met to talk about spiritual warfare and conflict resolution, I got in a fight with my...