I must go to India...

If you follow Angie Smith's blog, or Beth Moore's blog, you may have seen them writing on a group of bloggers going to India. Angie Smith (wife of Todd Smith of Selah...you MUST read her blog, it is wonderful) and Melissa Moore Fitzpatrick (Beth's daughter) are in India with several others for Compassion International. I need to go. I need to be impacted like they are by the realities of this world. I am closed up here in my tidy little world. I worry about my weight, my hair, my clothes, my home, my friendships, my kids, my finances, etc. In a world where people are impoverished and are thankful for food, for shelter, and for health-wretched as it all may be-I should be ashamed of my own selfishness. And I am. Mostly I am ashamed of how closed off my mind is. How it is utterly filled with thoughts of self. MY happiness. MY contentment. MY needs. MY wants. Puke. It is all sickening. If for one moment I could smell and see and taste the despair of people who need Christ then per chance I could really know true contentment. Like in my heart...deep within...contentment. Or perhaps it would cause me to despair of my own wretchedness all the more. Or maybe it would change my life forever and Keith and I would pack it all in and give it all up to go ANYWHERE for the cause of Christ. I mean, Little Rock Arkansas? Sure...we gave some precious things up to come here. But it ain't India folks. I don't know the first degree of counting the cost. Well, maybe a degree. It hurt like nothing else to leave behind our precious friendships. But...otherwise...it is all only stuff...a house, a church, a job. It was dipping in our toe to the waters. I long to go deeper. I pray God allows us...entrusts us....to go deeper. I am willing to shed this stuff. Stuff is heavy. Stuff is a burden. Don't get me wrong...I am thankful for my stuff...mostly. I just don't want my stuff to matter more than obedience. I realize I need a change of perspective and I'd rather God NOT have to give it to me via pain and suffering. I would rather choose to see things differently via His giving me the opportunity to know life outside of these four walls. SO...Lord, this is my prayer...that You will open a door for me to see You in a new light and that You will open the doors to go deeper with You into the water sweet Jesus.

Love you all~M.

Hello Blogspot!

I have caved to peer pressure...to going with the flow! I realized after Marla left her Xanga blog that my blog list, which is 35 long...consisted of only 5 remaining Xangas. Now, I don't know if this really matters....but I have noticed that I like the look and options of the blogspot blogs and figured there must be a reason more people are choosing blogspot. Plus, it is easier to comment within your own blogosphere...is that a word? SO...I am jumping in and abandoning Xanga...which I must admit oddly enough...troubles my loyalty. I mean, it is rather odd to be loyal to a blog account...but I feel strange saying goodbye. I am wondering at this point if I can print my blog out for keeping...and if I can...exactly how much ink and paper will that consume? Hmmm..we shall see. Anyway, maybe in the meantime having a new blog will be like getting a new notebook or a new journal and I will be compelled to write more. My husband has been asking for more blogs...funny huh?

So, you may wonder why I named my blog, Because of Grace. Well, simply...it is because anything that I am...anything that I possess of value is because of grace. If I have anything valuable to contribute, any talent to lend, any advice to offer it is ALL because of grace! Truthfully, most days I feel I have so little to contribute. And the days when I feel I do have something to say...I am always humbly reminded...that it is all because of Him...because of His unfailing, amazing grace. So, with that, let's get started...

Why exactly is grace so profound to me? Because:

• Some days I do not feel like doing what I feel like the Lord has asked me to do~namely, be a living sacrifice.
  
• Being a wife and mother is HARD and I mostly feel like I fail at it.
  
• I am miserably lazy and idle with too much of my time.
• I lose my temper and raise my voice out of frustration too many times...a day.
• I struggle with wanting what I cannot have and not wanting what I do have.
• I struggle with eating too much.
• I want to be thin...not so I can be healthy (though that would be nice) but because I want to be pretty....in the world's eyes.
• I am too often in the world and not in the Word.
• I am a terrible friend sometimes.
• I am a terrible wife sometimes.
• I am a terrible mom sometimes.
• I think about myself far more than I think about others.
• I do not love people like I ought.
• Because this list could go ON AND ON AND ON....you get the idea.

But, it is all covered by grace. And tomorrow I get a chance to do it all over again...with His help..the right way. I am so thankful for grace! ~M.