uptomytoes

Category: Rest

  • Prayer Is…

    Prayer has been both my first response and my last resort.  It has been the thread of sanity through difficult seasons.  The words that put me back to sleep during a restless night.  Prayer is the ending of long days The blessing offered with my children at night.  The quiet of the morning and the…

  • Grateful and (a little) Stressed

    May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.  Romans 15:13 This morning barking dogs disturbed my semi-peaceful slumber…at 4:15 am.  Sometimes I wonder why sleep remains so elusive for me. I found myself asking God,…

  • When You Don’t Know What to Do

    I often think about my life and wonder why I haven’t been blessed with a Jane Austenish peaceful life. You know sitting in a quiet room reading Shakespeare sonnets, writing letters, or sewing doilies and such… waiting for my tea and cucumber sandwiches to be delivered. Instead of sitting daintily on my lounging couch, I’m…

  • Waiting with Peaceful Expectation

    I’m a picture person.  A visual learner. I understand things better if I can get a picture of it in my head. Today God gave me quite a profound picture. I was reading Matthew 4:18-22.  It’s the passage where Jesus invites Peter and Andrew to join Him.  The whole scene played out so vividly in…

  • Perfect…Just Perfect

    A while ago I wrote a blog where I mentioned my expectations of perfection.  At the time it garnered a fair amount of conversation. Apparently, others see this propensity in me as well. And, although I now see it very clearly, I’m still unsure of how to change it because I’m not sure where to…

  • Living Strong

    I’ve been thinking about strength lately, mostly because I really need some. I’ve been praying about it a lot too. And I realized that I’ve been living under the assumption that at some point God will just zap me with strength so I can get busy doing all the things I think I need to…

  • 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…

  • 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…