uptomytoes

Category: Joy

  • A Common Theme

    Around 9 years ago I became a single parent to my five beautiful children.  About the same time, I started writing.  Although I’ve always been a writer in my own way – journaling, making notes, jotting down thoughts here and there. As a teenager, I even wrote a few poems although those might never see…

  • Are you ready to stop wrestling and start resting?

    This was eye-opening for me. In the throes of a deep conversation with a dear friend, I was asked by him to stop and be thankful.  To spend the rest of the conversation thinking about things that we could be grateful for…instead of things that we struggle with… Can I tell you…it wasn’t easy.  …

  • Grab the Robe with Me

    There was this song at my old church …it was a solo I sang on worship team sometimes. It was called “I See the Lord,” and I loved it. It was based on Isaiah 6:1 …I saw the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the…

  • Held By The Word

    Ever have that one song that speaks profoundly to your heart?  You turn it up louder the moment you hear the first chords on the radio.  You google it, play it at full volume, close your eyes, and lift your arms, either in praise or surrender to God.  You work out chords in an effort…

  • Running with Endurance

    A few weeks ago I was frustrated by my lack of time to do some things. Things like exercise, serious Bible study, sleep… My how things have changed and not in the way I imagined…I don’t know what I imagined but this wasn’t it. So a few weeks ago, I decided to just do it…just…

  • Trust and the Consequences

    You know how you think you know stuff and then you realize all of a sudden that you really don’t?  That has been my experience this past week. A dear friend of mine is working through some books and studies with me to figure out how to get to a healthier place in the whole…

  • What are feelings anyway?

    On the way to church recently my 7 year old daughter asked, “Momma, what are feelings?” I started to say, “They’re how you feel.  I mean they are what you feel…I mean…ahhh!!!” I couldn’t figure out how to define it without using the word “feel.”  I thought if I used the word emotion it would…

  • This Place at This Time

    I was shuffling through my bookcase – reorganizing and deciding which books I’d like to keep and which books I’d like to donate – when I found a book that a friend had written and sent to me a few years ago.  It’s called “Walks with Rich” by C.W. Hambleton.  I opened up to the…

  • Let Him Have It!

    Recently someone asked me what God is doing in my life.  What big things has God done? And I had to think… Sometimes it feels like I’m in a perpetual state of weary and I can’t see beyond the next moment…and other times I’m so desperate for a change that I look ahead with either…

  • A Simple Life

    One of my favorite things is playing the piano.  I grab a moment here or there to play a song or two whenever I get a chance.   Yesterday I pulled out one of my Christmas songbooks and began playing “Breath of Heaven (Mary’s Song)” by Chris Easton and Amy Grant.  I remember when it…