A Mountain Top Moment

P E A C E F U L

To choose a single favorite moment from our trip to Colorado is way too hard. I don’t know if I have an all-time favorite but there is one that has stood out more than the rest.

It was on the second day of hiking. We were driving through the mountains, trying to find our hiking trail, and no we didn’t get completely lost, but I finally just sat back in the seat and started to soak it all in… driving through the mountains, the windows down and the icy mountain air brushing across my face, my hands out the window feeling the breeze with the Jesus music blaring, yet all I saw and felt was a horizon filled with breathtaking snow topped mountains and peace.

This is my happy place. This is my moment. This is peaceful. This is priceless.

I realized in this moment that life is good. God is good always. And trials become good. Yeah we got kind of lost in the mountains but I was only lost in the beauty and majesty of this place.

Then… it started snowing. What could be better? It was magnificent. Glorious and perfect. You could see the clouds of blustering snow come in and covering the green tree filled mountain side. It only lasted for ten minutes or so but seeing that and knowing who created it was worth a thousand tree covered mountains.

- Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of Your Name - Chris Tomlin

During these moments the only words I could really say was thank you, God. My heart was full and I could not express exactly how I felt except thank You Lord for who You are and for the daily blessings that You give me—the both small and big ones.

“It’s a crazy life” accurately describes mine. The past month has been one of the best times of my life. It was a jammed packed life session but so worth every moment. My head rarely hit the pillow, my car ran and ran, my mind was constantly filled with thoughts, to do lists, test knowledge, and my hands never stopped moving.

I look back over the days and think of how incredibly blessed I am. God is good, always, and I see that more and more every day I live on this earth. My time in the mountains helped me realize that life is about the One who created all of this. I serve Him and only Him. My life, who I am, what I do or have just done (graduated for high school) is not about my accomplishments but solely about the One who moves mountains and calms the seas.

- I live my life to declare You are King -

I love my life. I truly do. I love the good times and the bad. I am growing to like the bad times more because it is when I encounter trials that I truly grow and see more of how great my God is.

James 1:2-3, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." (NASAB)

In the moment on the mountain I breathed for the first time in a long time. I couldn’t form all the words of gratitude that I wanted to say so I just said thank you over and over. Remember to take those moments in your crazy life to recognize God and thank Him for who He is and what He has done and is doing in your life.

Holla to my mountains… see you again in three weeks.

~Gracie

Happy Mother's Day to a Most Amazing Woman

« Meaningful Mondays »

Of course I am tempted to start out with the cliché saying that I have the best mother in the world and mine is better than yours. But no, while I still may think that, mothers are not to be compared but rather praised simply for who they are. God knew we all needed different mothers with different strengths and weaknesses to teach us different things throughout life.

I honestly do not know how my mother does it. She is literally amazing. Somehow she manages to teach school to seven kids, she cleans, she cooks, she watches two adorable toddlers, she councils dad, she hardly freaks out about all the things that don’t go as planned each day, she makes everyone laugh, and somehow she manages to stay composed without pulling her hair out. And she does all of this each day. But I do not want to focus on all the “busy” things she does throughout the day but rather the women behind the actions. The reasons she does what she does every day without fail.

She is a woman full of sacrifice. Each day she gets up early to make breakfast for all of us famished animals. She chose to homeschool all seven of us for 13 years without fail. She could have created a career and gone after the world’s view of success, but no, she decided to be a mother and man am I thankful for that.

She never gets her nails done and drives us all around the country to wherever we want to go instead of going on a girl’s date (which she needs to go more often). She spends all of her time, her resources, her energy, she heart, and her life pouring into her family. Each moment she makes a selfless decision to bless someone else rather than giving into desires for self-comfort.

^ This is our relationship ^

She is a selfless woman full of humility. I have never seen anyone do the things she has done and gone through the situations she has witnessed and come out as graceful and selfless as she is. She is a woman clothed in Christ rather than expensive price tags and a fake image. Her beauty is in her heart. And her heart is the size of a mountain. All the love that she selfless gives to just her kids and husband each day is amazing. And it doesn’t stop there but she uses each opportunity to bless someone else with an encouraging note, a meal she prepared, or a kind word. She hardly ever does something that she actually wants to do but rather seeks out opportunities to serve others.

She has a servant’s heart. She never seeks to be recognized for what she does but is content with being in the background, serving away (well sorry, not getting away with that this year). She throws her whole heart into everything and finds her worth solely in Christ.

She is wise. My goodness, so very wise. I come to her at least once every week and explode into an explanation of how my life is going to fall apart. But, within moments she calms me down and puts things back into perspective. She is a constant encouragement to me. I know that if mom can make it through the day, there is no doubt that I can. The Spirit never fails to work through her to get to me.

She is a woman of commitment. She is committed to her husband who she faithfully loves no matter how much of a dork he is. She is committed to walking with Christ and raising her children. She is committed to showing everyone she meets a little bit of Jesus.

This kind of comes close to how crazy we are

She is my friend. As an 8 year-old I never thought of my mom as being my friend. Now I wouldn’t know what to do if she wasn’t my friend. We talk, we laugh, we pray, we cry, we encourage each other, and most importantly we love. We love each other and Christ. It is a blessing to have gained another friend that I know will never judge me or turn their back on me.

She is strong. She is an encourager. She is modest. She is a life giver. She is a Proverbs 31 woman.

Proverbs 31:25-29, “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teachings of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.” (NASAB)

And to all the other mothers and godly women who have also impacted my life, thank you. Just because you never had kids or do not yet does not mean that you are not a momma to someone. Women are designed to nurture and love on kids. Thank you to my mother’s friends who are like my second mom, my teachers, instructors, coaches, youth group leaders, the list is long of women who have left an imprint on my heart that will forever remain. Thank you all for being wonderful, God filled role models.

I feel like I still cannot completely put into words exactly how I feel about my mom, she is simply incredible. I hope one day I will be at least half the woman and mother that she is. She is inspirational, full of wisdom, absolutely adorable, completely hilarious and full of life, she bears the weights of this world with grace, she lets the love and light of Christ shine through her in everyone she interacts with, SHE IS GOLDEN.

Proverbs 31: 10, “An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far beyond jewels.” (NASAB)

 And I know she is golden only because of the Christ living within her.

When spring and summer roll around and she forgets to plant flowers, dad and I remind her that she was met to raise children not plants. And can I get an AMEN to that?! ;)

7 of her blessings

I love you with all my heart, Mommy!

~Gracie

7 Things About Being in Life's W A I T I N G Room

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Waiting. Waiting. And more waiting. Three of the most challenging things I have to do in life.

Waiting is not my forte. Learning to wait on God is even harder. It truly takes much of yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. These past few years I have had to wait for so many things. I honestly do not think I can list all of them—there are a ton. I am by no means an expert at waiting. However, here are 7 things I have discovered about being in God’s waiting room:

W A I T I N G contently in prayer and peace

> W. hat Is Waiting?

                  Some people think, oh waiting is so easy, we don’t have to do anything, well that is the point, we cannot do anything and instead we have to let someone else do it for us. However, I would not call waiting easy. Many times we are control freaks and want things to happen immediately.

                  Waiting is not sitting around on your rear all day and just waiting for God to show up and do something in your life. Waiting starts with the attitude and the heart. It is a mindset of letting go and letting God. It is actively seeking His face always, but being willing to wait on Him for answers while living out the rest of our life to the fullest. It is being content with life just as it is in this moment. Remember to become content while waiting.

> A. sk For Guidance

                  For me, waiting is literally one of the hardest and most difficult things I have to do. Sometimes I am waiting for days, other times its months, and I have prayers that have been on my heart for years and God is still answering them with—wait.

                  Part of waiting is being willing to ask God for patience and wisdom through this process. Yes, He is making us wait for whatever reason, but He also gives us these opportunities of waiting to draw nearer to Himself and realize that we cannot do life on our own. He wants the best for us and with our selfish hearts it is hard for Him to just give us what we want when we want it. Instead, He has to grow us closer to Himself. He is patient until we are ready and mature enough to graciously receive whatever it is we are waiting on.

> I. nvest In Prayer

                  Waiting calls for more prayer. Plain and simple. Warning: mini story ahead. I was planning on completely filling up my summer with running around the country (and out of it) doing different things. Yah for adventures. One of the plans was to attend a Summit Ministries Conference in CO. There are many dates for this conferences and as we got closer to the sign up deadline, I couldn’t decide which date to go with. One of them I had close friends going and the other one I just really felt God tugging my heart to go. However, the latter one I really wanted to go to suddenly filled up. I momentarily panicked but went ahead and signed up for the other conference date that also worked. Afterwards I said, “God, this one is completely out of my hands. I signed up and I would really like to go to the conference that I feel you pushing me towards. I am on the waiting list for that conference but there is nothing I can do about it. This is all You.” I knew that in this situation, all I could do is wait and see what God’s will for my summer is. Well I waited and it was a struggle. I prayed. And prayed some more. I wanted to have a set schedule but I couldn’t yet. A few weeks later I was printing off Spanish homework when I got the call—I’m officially into the conference date I wanted. It was out of the blue and I was completely taken by surprise. It was such a joyful and rewarding feeling. I had waited for weeks not knowing the outcome. However, I had peace knowing that God completely had this under control. He knew what was best and I relied on Him and His timing to show that to me.

                  Investing in prayer means that when we have something we are waiting on, do not pray once and simply drop the subject waiting until something happens. No way. We need to pray and petition it to God because He uses these situations to show us His glory and to grow us up. He will teach and show us amazing things that were completely off our radar.

1 Thessalonians 5:17-18, “Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (NASAB)

> T. akes Time

                  Waiting is the opposite of going. Patience is key. I have asked God so many times why He is making me wait because “I don’t have time to wait”. Truth be told that from that statement that I obviously need more practice with patience and waiting. Waiting is not waiting if you try to intervene and do something on your own power because God is not showing up when you want Him to. God is on His own time schedule and He will do things when He is ready and when He knows that you are as well. Remember to stay patience.

> I. nsignificant Insecurities

                  Waiting can sometimes seem discouraging. We think that God will never come and answer our prayers. What if He doesn’t hear me? What if He doesn’t care? What if…? All of these questions, concerns and worries are ridiculous. They are not even worth the effort of saying.

                  God will answer us. It may not be in the way we imagined or in the time frame we wanted, but He always answers to those who call upon His name and seek His face.

Matthew 7:7-8 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (NASAB)

                  If we are going after God and not the worldly things of this life, this verse will become a reality in our lives.

> N. ever Give Up

                  I have learned that anything in life that is worth having or worth experiencing will not come easy at all. I embrace those struggles because without them, life would be bla. Nothing would have worth because it was so easily obtained.

                  Stay strong when the going gets tough and lean on the Rock. Remember that failure builds character. Learning (or failing) at patience while waiting is not easy, it will take time, but the lessons you learn along the way are worth it. Never give up on God or prayer.

> G. od Is Good

                  No matter what happens, God is still God and He is always good. I have slowly learned this and seen it play out in my life time and time again. In the midst of a situation it may not seem that God is in control and sometimes we want to freak out, but we have to remember that God has a master plan. He wants to bless you beyond your wildest thoughts.

Ephesians 3:20-21, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” (NASAB)

                  Just because you asked God to do something in your life and you are waiting and praying for that thing does not mean that God is going to swoop down after you’ve waiting long enough and do it. He may and He may not. He does things according to His plan and His purpose.

                  I do not know His plan, and I am okay with that. I do know that nothing happens by accident. I know that each waiting room I come to in life I meant for me to learn something from. I know that I will have to wait for a lot of things in life. I am content with that because if I tried to live life solely on my own strength I know that I would fail tremendously. I trust God to work out each area of my life if I am faithful to pray and serve Him.

God truly works all things for good to those who love and honor Him.

If you are struggling waiting remember:

To be content with waiting

To ask for patience

To invest in prayer for your situation

It will take time

Never doubt

Never give up

God is always good

Blessings in your waiting room,

~Gracie