"Lord, please change my heart!"

"I don't know if I love my husband anymore." "Being a mom is too hard." "I don't like the fact that I am aging."

"Lord, please change my heart!"

"The Christian walk is too hard." "I'm tired of struggling." "It feels like I've lost my desire to serve."

"Lord, please change my heart!"


"I don't really have the desire to read my Bible regularly." "I don't feel like praying anymore." "I think I'll sleep in this Sunday...."

"Lord, please change my heart!"


These are all thoughts I have had or that have been shared by others. What do you say to someone who is struggling in one of these areas? What is the answer? God has been gently opening my eyes to the fact that I am powerless to change my own heart. He has to do it for me. I cannot "will" myself to change any of these things or "muster up" something from within myself and make it better. It has to be a work that God does in my heart.
As I have been learning this I have felt such a sense of freedom wash over me! Now when I become aware of an attitude or thought that is not what it should be my prayer is simple, "Lord, please change my heart." That's it.

I am His precious child. I picture myself holding up my heart to him and saying, "...please fix it!" And He begins the beautiful process of changing my heart!

I am so thankful that God has been showing me this because it has begun to make such a difference. Praying this way is producing things in me that I never imagined!

Attitudes and mindsets that I have wrestled with for years are changing because of one simple prayer and a merciful, loving, grace filled God that delights to change his child's heart and bring it more into conformity to His own heart.


I have a long way to go...but I find hope and comfort in the fact that all I have to do is ask and He will change me.

The best part is that as my heart is changing and I am more aware of the fact that it is nothing that I could have done, I then give Him all the credit...and He gets the glory...and that's really why we are here anyway.

To glorify Him!

"Lord....please show us the areas in our lives where we are in error and not thinking Biblically. Please place within our hearts the desire to want to be changed, and then...PLEASE change our hearts...that we might glorify YOU!"

(Gina has begun writing again after taking a few months off. She has some fresh, new perspective after going through some very dark times. She would love it if you stopped by for a chat and some coffee! You can find her at her personal blog: Chats With An Old Lady.)

Thankful...

We were in the kitchen last week as my daughter's and I were discussing the Thanksgiving menu for 2009! I said, "Girls, we are discussing this already and it is still a month away?" "Yes!" They shouted with excitement!

Listening to their excitement about their favorite dishes that they wanted to prepare, it began to stir my emotions inside of me! I am not sure what has perspired in your lives since Thanksgiving of last year with still having a heart and spirit of being thankful, but I know that it got me thinking!

Have you sat down recently and began thinking what exactly does it mean to be thankful in all things? The girls again reminded me of that during our Woman's Bible Study this past week! Does it not just get you when the younger ones are the ones reminding you? UGH!

Philippians 4:6-7 says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

We began discussing how this verse says, in everything to be thankful and then you let your requests be made known! Ouch! Does that mean you have to be thankful before coming to Him with your requests? YES! I don't know about you guys, but that can be pretty difficult at times.


So, again we continued with our Bible study and after we finished I could not get "with thanksgiving," out of my mind. Upon recalling some of my stories since last Thanksgiving, I was thinking this could have given me a heart attack!




For instance recently with one of our newly "adopted" daughters who came out of sexual abuse and incest for 23 years had an opportunity to be interviewed and share her story. One thing that struck me was her thankful attitude towards the Lord as He had protected her all those years! She was thankful that she was now in a family she could count as her own. Somewhere she was safe and loved! She brought me to tears and it was a sweet reminder to me that in every circumstance there is thanksgiving! Wow!


Is this a difficult proposition to be thankful in all these matters before even coming with our requests before the Lord? YES! Can it be done? YES!

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13

Listen to this from Acts 16:22-25: "Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them." If that does not bring me to conviction!

So this is what I simply gathered. To be thankful in all things! This Thanksgiving, when you gather with your family and friends, remember those that came before us and their difficult times under their circumstances and conditions. Their thankful attitudes and hearts should encourage us to come with thanksgiving before bringing our petitions to Him!


Close and Personal:

What can you be thankful for in the midst of unbearable circumstances?

"Thanksgiving." Should it be only celebrated in November?

Can you think of a time this year that now looking back you realize you should have been thankful?


My dearest Savior,

I want to take time to tell you thank you for those moments this past year that seemed so gloomy and difficult! Those times now looking back you were using for your Glory and Honor yet I saw them so hard to endure! Father I love you and I thank you for entrusting those difficult times to us and our family! May this Thanksgiving we remember that it does not end in November but rather last all year round! I praise you now and forever!
Amen.

What God Has Done

Just over a year ago, my family moved clear across the country to a small town out west, very different from any place I'd ever lived.

Let's just say this Southern girl wasn't exactly thrilled.

The following is an excerpt of a post I wrote on my personal blog not long after that move.

What does God do when your life is going along smoothly, happily, without a real care in the world, (compared to a mother whose child is hungry and she has nothing to feed her or a father who is struck down with cancer and can no longer work?)

What does God do when you think you've been through it all, an ongoing battle with depression, the stuff of life that happens, but what sometimes feels like it happens all at once?

What does God do when your child loves her school, her friends, is doing well academically, and you feel so blessed in the opportunity that (you think) you know is rare?

What does God do when you fall in love with your church, your home, your neighbors and you are so grateful (but never grateful enough,) savoring in the moment in life when everything is going along smoothly, happily, without a real care in the world?

I'll tell you.

God moves you.

He challenges you.

He plucks your family from their cozy nest and plops them in what seems to be the middle of nowhere.

He lets tiny battles of sadness and anxiety rise up in what was once a Cease Fire Agreement.

He leads you to a new school that makes you a little unsure, but thankful nonetheless.

He allows a moving company to make such a mess, such an inept attempt at packing, storing and moving household goods that even the cynical you is still in disbelief.

What does God do?

He knows all, sees all, is in control over all and all the while He never takes His eyes off of you and your little family still shaking off the goose down you left behind in your cozy nest.

Without explanation. Without excuse. But not without purpose.

What do you do?

You wait. You pray. You cry.

You laugh at the absurdity,the disbelief, and the frustrations.

You settle in the new cozy nest that you've found once again called faith.

You lean not unto your own understanding but rely on His Will, His Love, His Sovereignty.

In your own humanness and shortcomings, you try to fluff this faith nest for your little family, nuzzle them and find shelter from the cold.

You give thanks that your living God, the one true God has created this nest called faith.

And you wait to see what He will do next.

Over a year later, what has God done?

I'll tell you.

God has stretched me more than I thought I could ever be stretched. I've been tested in areas of my faith, places I never knew needed testing. (But He did.)

Sometimes I failed those tests, but I've learned to rest in His Grace and Forgiveness and that there are things and Someone greater than myself. His Love and His Son.

My family has grown closer.

Changes and challenges were thrown our way. Because of them, I now home school our daughter. It has been a blessing that I may have never experienced without this move.

What else has God done?

He has watched and listened to my kicking and screaming, put my tears in a bottle and wiped them away.

He understands that I miss my friends and my family, my magnolia trees and fresh peaches. He understands that I long to dip my toes in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

My Savior, who was both man and God, has experienced being torn from His own home and placed in a dry place. I take great comfort in that.

As He understands my pain and sadness, He also has a purpose for me. I accept that (even on mornings when I wish I could still watch the blue herons swoop down over our old pond.)

I do not know what else God will do. I have to take things day by day. I am thankful for new friends I have made and for being reunited with old ones. I am grateful for a new bond I have with my husband and for the daily science and grammar lessons with my daughter.

I'm anxiously waiting (and sometimes still kicking and screaming a little) for what God will do.

I still miss boiled peanuts and sweet tea, but I know His Plan is always greater than my own.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD."For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55: 8-9

Has God moved you to a dry place (literally or figuratively?) What has He done in your life?

Join Melanie at her personal blogspot, "This Ain't New York."

Glass Ceiling Syndrome

The Cafe is thrilled to welcome Nicki Koziarz today!

“For nothing is impossible with God.” ~Luke 1:37

Sometimes, I just think…it’s never gonna happen.

As a woman dawning on the first year of her thirty’s next year I realize in some eyes, I’m still considered young. But I also realize that in a world filled with the hurry up and do it concept I have yet to hurry up and do it. {smile}

Not more than a few days ago my oldest daughter who is 9, came up running up to me with much excitement in her tone! She was rambling her thoughts to me of all she hoped of dreaming to be…one day. In the realm of her dreams she will become an Olympian, a missionary in China, find the cure for cancer and all the while wearing the Mrs. America crown.

She’s looking pretty good these days. {wink}

It’s hard as a mom to not want to bust her bubble of all that she hopes to be one day. And in fact, she very well could accomplish all of those things. She could. But will she?

Will she still want the same things for her life in ten, fifteen or even twenty years?

Probably not.

I was thinking today about when we start to put a cap on our dreams. Is it in high-school? College? Or when we become a woman living in the “real world”? Is it when we jump that first time and fall flat on our face? Or is it when we start to wonder if our dreams are really within reach?

Glass Ceiling Syndrome is the fear that we can only go so far. We convince ourselves that there is someone more qualified, more likely and more worthy to go where we want to go. It’s an unofficial barrier that puts us at our stopping point. And most of the time when the glass ceiling meets our life, it is seemingly impossible to break through.

But, you do know that our God is the possible God.

You know that our God picks the unlikely for the likely.

That he qualifies the unqualified and He turns the light green when it should be red.

Think about it for a second. All throughout the bible, you and I can find heroes of the faith that seem to have no business being where they are at. What about Noah? Or Moses? Or David or even Mary, Jesus’ mother? These people just seemed to not hold the titles of what it would take to do something amazing for God. But yet, they did.

For many years in my life, I held a title in my soul of, “The Unlikely Candidate”. I believed that because one morning at the tender age of 19 years old when I held up a pregnancy test that said, “positive”, that my glass ceiling was reached that day. I believed that the Lord would forgive me, but that was all. There would never be anything more for my life than that of an unlikely girl.

My glass ceiling reached me way before I could ever even try to reach it.

Until one day quite frankly, I just got sick of it. I got sick of just going through the motions of life. I got sick of standing against the wall. And I got sick of that glass ceiling that seemed to suffocate me day after day.

So I broke through it.

I ran against my flesh and ran towards Jesus. I let Him pick up the broken pieces and make me whole again. And I let Him work through those raw wounds in my soul and put those dreams back in my heart again.

Do you feel Unlikely for Jesus today?

No matter where you are at in life, hold your head high, wear your title well and break through that glass because God‘s got so much more for you than you can ever imagine. Believe that the dreams that you once held in your heart are real and that the Father wants to see them come true too.

In Him,

Nicki

Nicki Koziarz is a lover of sand between her toes and enjoys laughing until her belly hurts but really in the depths of her soul she is nothing more than an a once broken down Jesus girl. Nicki is a staff writer for the exciting new Proverbs 31 ministry, “She Seeks” which is a place of encouragement for today’s 20-something women. Check out www.sheseeks.org for more encouragement.