Christmas In Yankeeland...

“Joyful are those who obey his laws and

 search for him with all their heart.”

~Psalm 119:2~

Lots of big changes in the Hill household since I last posted.

First off, I got not one, but two new jobs!  Before, I was working in St. Paul which is about 40 miles (one way) in white-knuckling traffic to a job that was less than desirable for my personality type.  Now, I get to work way closer to home at jobs that are perfect for my personality type and skill set.

I am currently working 2 part-time jobs.  During the day, I work for the City of River Falls as the Assistant to the Director of EMS (Emergency Medical Services) and in the evenings/weekends, I work at The Home Depot.  Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about HD, but as it turns out, I love it.  By far, one of the funnest jobs I’ve had- the people are great to work with and definitely not your typical retail.

I love working for EMS – it’s so great to be back in a job that’s so involved in the community and really makes a difference in people’s lives.  I work with a really great group of folks there too.

Secondly, I am no longer dating the guy I was seeing before.  He had some family stuff come up that required his full attention and after seeking the Holy Spirit for wisdom, I decided to end things between us.  We ended on amicable terms, but for the record- I’m still available for Mr. Tall, Dark, Handsome, and Independently Wealthy.
I’m also eligible for adoption by someone who is wealthy.

Thirdly, I am beginning to make some friends.  I know my time in St. Paul was not in vain, there were people there I was destined to meet and I’m so grateful I did!

I’m starting to really see God’s favor in every area of my life.  One of my co-workers at HD mentioned to me tonight that he didn’t know of any other employee that had won the hearts of their coworkers as quickly as I have.  I’m grateful for the unmerited favor I’m walking in right now.

This has been a welcome change of scenery- I’m finally coming out of a season of just overall feeling beat-down and depressed and walking into one where I’m joyful.

I don’t really remember the last time, if ever, I was actually this joyful. 

As a single person, the holidays can be a little lonely, but this year, it’s a little extra hard.  This will be the first Christmas that I’ve ever spent really alone- I’ve never not been with my family and/or friends for the holiday.
Lisa and Charles are back in Texas to be with their families and while I have friends, I don’t have many.
Just to show that God is not surprised by this- He placed me in a job, with people who are required to work 24/7/365 (EMT’s, Paramedics, First Responders, etc) just in time for the holidays.  I’m developing a great relationship with my coworkers and now have somewhere to hang out should I get lonely.

I can finally say that I’m confident I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.  I still get made fun of for my accent (that may never change) and I still can’t understand people up here half the time, but I’m doing really well.
I still love Texas with all my heart and I miss my people there, but life is getting really good here.

Obedience comes at a cost, but things worth doing are always worth the sacrifice.
I trust God- I don’t always understand His plan, but I trust it.

I know He’s doing a deep work in me- He’s healing some deep-seated wounds in my heart from my marriage and divorce, wounds from my childhood, and bringing restoration in areas of my life that I thought may never come.
He is just so good.

He is the keeper of promises and it’s so amazing to watch them come to fulfillment in my life.

Thank you to all those who love me, pray for me, and encourage me.

It takes a great deal of courage to press on when I start getting really homesick.  Some days, it’s more appealing to pack up and move back home, especially when there are so many that want me to come back.  I wish it was that easy. 

For those that encourage me to stay the course, keeping doing what God has called me to do (even when they don’t understand why I have to be so far away to do it!) – you are my life-savers.  I could not do this without your support.

I pray that God reveals a new part of Himself in a special way to you this Christmas.

Have a Merry Christmas and Be Blessed, Y’all!!

~Pamela, Chester, & Daisy Mae

I can be reached at Pamela@ACreativeWord.com

Visit our website at www.ACreativeWord.com

When All Hope Seems Lost…

John 16:33

“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

Isaiah 61:3

“To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes,
a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.
In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory.”

So here I sit with my glass of wine and my coconut cake – with my heart aching a little.

I’m no stranger, I’ve been here before, especially over this last year.  I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t cleared out many a wine bottle and kept the Pepperidge Farm people fully employed with benefits.

It’s not the end of the world, not by a longshot, but sometimes, life just seems a little hopeless and just a little too hard.

We all get that way sometimes, I think- surely I can’t be the only one that ever feels like my world is spinning a little out of control and I’m weary and tired of trying to hang on.

Tonight I feel like certain things will never work out for me:

• I’ll be single forever
• I’ll never be enough to please my wounded mother
• There will never be full restoration in my family
•  I’ll never have enough- I’ll never be truly valued to the degree that I should be
• I’ll never have the discipline to be as healthy as I want to be
• Nobody likes me, everybody hates me – bring on the worms!

And the list just goes on and on; in other words, a pity party.
These are all things that I feel in my heart.  There was a time in my life not that long ago where these feelings would’ve buried me.

Fortunately, I know how to climb out of this funk, but I also know there can be healing in the funk.  Sometimes, your heart just needs to grieve.  The safest place to do that?  God’s presence.  Not just His word, but His actual presence.  Become like Mary and just sit at His feet, put your head in His lap and pour your aching heart out.

You might argue that He already knows your heart; sure He does, but He wants that kind of relationship with you- the one where you trust Him enough to actually talk with Him.  He longs for that fellowship with you.

So do it- get alone with God and pour your heart out, get it all out and sob, ugly cry, and just sit at His feet.  Be angry, be sad, be hurt, be disappointed, be whatever emotion you’re feeling right then and tell Him what’s on your heart- the good, the bad, and the ugly.  He’s a great big God- He can handle your words.  What’s more, He wants to handle your heart- your accusations, your disappointments, He wants all of your burden.  He wants to comfort you in every way that you need comforting.

I know from my own experience, it’s in those heart-rendering times that He tends to speak the most profound things to me.

See, usually, while I’m pouring out, He’s pouring into me.  Man, I am so grateful for that.  When I’m emptying myself out, He’s filling me full of Him.  So often, this is the place where new revelation is born.  He speaks to me, and always, always reveals a new aspect of His love for me.

I started this evening out hurting, just kind of beat down- but I remembered the game-changer: Just because I feel something, doesn’t make it true (thank you Shawna for that wisdom).

Just because I don’t feel something, doesn’t make it true either.  Just because I can’t feel God working in my circumstances, doesn’t mean that He’s not- in fact, just about the opposite is always true- He’s working overtime, and change is coming.

Just because I feel disappointed or hopeless doesn’t make it true. 

Jeremiah 17:7-9

“But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.
They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water.
Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought.
Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.

The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.

Who really knows how bad it is?”

Don’t believe the lie that you must stay in the funk.  Don’t buy into the feelings (or facts, whatever the circumstances might be), wholeheartedly believe the truth.

For me- it looks like this:

Feeling (Facts)	Truth
I’ll be single forever	God has promised to provide a husband He created just for me; He also promised me a family of my own
I’ll never be enough to please my wounded mother	I am not supposed to be enough; He is the only One who can heal her heart
There will never be full restoration in my family	God is the God of restoration; His word never returns void and He promised to restore it years ago
I’ll never have enough- I’ll never be truly valued to the degree that I should be	He is my provider; He not only values me, He delights in me
I’ll never have the discipline to be as healthy as I want to be	His grace is more than sufficient for me; I can do all things with His strength
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me – bring on the worms!	I am not to be conformed to this world – His opinion of me is ALL that defines me- He calls me righteous and beloved

Life is just hard and God knows it’s hard.  That popular saying that God doesn’t give us more than we can bear is a lie- God wants to bear it for us.

If you’re struggling- He’ll meet you right where you’re at, right now, just get before Him and let it all out.  He longs for you…

Blessin’s Y’all!

~Pamela

Visit our website at: www.ACreativeWord.com

I can be reached at: Pamela@ACreativeWord.com

I'm Bucklin' Up and Gettin' Ready, and It's Already Bumpy...

 

As I get ready for these huge, possibly life-changing tests on Wednesday, my anxiety is at an all-time high.  My trust is where it should be, but my physical body just won’t get on board.

 

I'm leaning so heavily on one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible today.  Psalm 18.

 

It’s my favorite depiction of how God rescues us.  I've posted it from the New Living Translation because it's just so vivid.

 

Sometimes we like to keep God in this snuggly Father figure box (which He most definitely is) where He just scoops us up and loves on us and kisses our boo boos; but sometimes it's important to have Him really reveal Himself to us as the powerful Almighty God of the Universe.

 

I love the way that David describes Him in this chapter because He is my rescuer and today, this is how I need to see Him.

 

The Almighty God of the Universe. 

I Am.

My Redeemer.

My Healer.

My King.

My God.

 

I need Him come down on His angelic beast and fight for me. 

 

All because He has heard my cry and He delights in me.

 

Not because of who I am, but just because of who He is and because of how much He loves me.

 

Yeah, I need Him to be that God today.

 

Psalm 18

For the choir director: A psalm of David, the servant of the Lord. He sang this song to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from all his enemies and from Saul. He sang:

1 I love you, Lord; you are my strength.

2 The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.

He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.

3 I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies.

4 The ropes of death entangled me; floods of destruction swept over me.

5 The grave wrapped its ropes around me; death laid a trap in my path.

6 But in my distress I cried out to the Lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help.

He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry to him reached his ears.

7 Then the earth quaked and trembled.  The foundations of the mountains shook; they quaked because of his anger.

8 Smoke poured from his nostrils; fierce flames leaped from his mouth.    Glowing coals blazed forth from him.

9 He opened the heavens and came down; dark storm clouds were beneath his feet.

10 Mounted on a mighty angelic being, he flew, soaring on the wings of the wind.

11 He shrouded himself in darkness, veiling his approach with dark rain clouds.

12 Thick clouds shielded the brightness around him and rained down hail and burning coals.

13 The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded

    amid the hail and burning coals.

14 He shot his arrows and scattered his enemies;  his lightning flashed, and they were greatly confused.

15 Then at your command, O Lord, at the blast of your breath, the bottom of the sea could be seen, and the foundations of the earth were laid bare.  

16 He reached down from heaven and rescued me; he drew me out of deep waters.

17 He rescued me from my powerful enemies, from those who hated me and were too strong for me.

18 They attacked me at a moment when I was in distress, but the Lord  supported me.

19 He led me to a place of safety; he rescued me because he delights in me.

20 The Lord rewarded me for doing right; he restored me because of my innocence.

21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not turned from my God to follow evil.

22 I have followed all his regulations; I have never abandoned his decrees.

23 I am blameless before God; I have kept myself from sin.

24 The Lord rewarded me for doing right. He has seen my innocence.

25 To the faithful you show yourself faithful; to those with integrity you show integrity.

26 To the pure you show yourself pure, but to the wicked you show yourself hostile.

27 You rescue the humble, but you humiliate the proud.

28 You light a lamp for me. The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.

29 In your strength I can crush an army; with my God I can scale any wall.

30 God’s way is perfect. All the Lord’s promises prove true.  He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.

31 For who is God except the Lord?  Who but our God is a solid rock?

32 God arms me with strength, and he makes my way perfect.

33 He makes me as surefooted as a deer, enabling me to stand on mountain heights.

34 He trains my hands for battle; he strengthens my arm to draw a bronze bow.

35 You have given me your shield of victory.  Your right hand supports me;

    your help has made me great.

36 You have made a wide path for my feet to keep them from slipping. 

37 I chased my enemies and caught them; I did not stop until they were conquered.

38 I struck them down so they could not get up; they fell beneath my feet.

39 You have armed me with strength for the battle; you have subdued my enemies under my feet.

40 You placed my foot on their necks.  I have destroyed all who hated me.

41 They called for help, but no one came to their rescue.  They even cried to the Lord, but he refused to answer.

42 I ground them as fine as dust in the wind.  I swept them into the gutter like dirt.

43 You gave me victory over my accusers.  You appointed me ruler over nations; people I don’t even know now serve me.

44 As soon as they hear of me, they submit; foreign nations cringe before me.

45 They all lose their courage and come trembling from their strongholds. 

46 The Lord lives! Praise to my Rock!  May the God of my salvation be exalted!

47 He is the God who pays back those who harm me; he subdues the nations under me

48 and rescues me from my enemies.  You hold me safe beyond the reach of my enemies; you save me from violent opponents.

49 For this, O Lord, I will praise you among the nations; I will sing praises to your name.

50 You give great victories to your king; you show unfailing love to your anointed, to David and all his descendants forever.

 



 

 

 

 

I am forever convinced that no matter what I do, what I go through, no matter how ugly it gets, and no matter how awesome it gets, there is absolutely, NO END TO HIS GOOD!

 

Blessin’s Y’all!

Pamela 

I can be reached at Pamela@ACreativeWord.com

www.ACreativeWord.com

 

Ever Been Ransomed? I Have...

Psalm 45:11 (NIV)
¹¹ Let the king be enthralled by your beauty;
   honor him, for he is your lord.

Very recently I had an event occur in my life in which I just felt ashamed.  It felt like I had taken a few steps forward and then a huge leap back. 

I was crushed.  My heart was so broken because I just knew that He had to be as disappointed in me as I was in myself.

Well, that was lie. 

It wasn't a huge leap back, it was a little stumble backwards, and I hadn't fallen so far that I was out of my Father's reach. 

Has that ever happened to you?  When you were trying to live a holy life and you just slipped and did something you knew in your heart wasn’t pleasing to Him?

Because of this experience, I have an even deeper, more real knowledge of His grace. 

He ransomed me that day, like so many other times.

I was born into a life of sin, one that I continued to live into adulthood.  A life of sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, rage, anger, depression, thoughts of suicide, inadequacy, hopelessness, and disappointment. 

I was captive in that life.  I couldn't get out of my own accord.  Nothing I did seemed to even lessen the pain that I was caught up in.  I certainly tried everything that the world offered, more drugs, sex, alcohol, and the list goes on.  I was raised in church, I knew all about Jesus and I knew His word, however, a bunch of head knowledge doesn't make me 'know' Him.  I knew of Him, but I didn't know this 'savior', and for many years, I didn't quite understand what I was actually being saved from.  I thought all Christians dealt with this life and that by just going to church, well, that'd get me into Heaven and it would all be a lot better there.  I knew that others struggled, but I thought that was just how it was supposed to be.  You pay your tithes, you spend your hours working for the Lord at church, and you said your ‘amen's’ at the appropriate time to support your pastor. 

I still didn't really know my Savior.  The One who ransomed me Himself.  I heard a preacher use the word ‘ransom’ to describe what Jesus had done for him.  It stuck with me even though I didn’t really understand the deepest meaning of what he was referring to at the time.

Sure, I knew that I'd been saved from going to hell and all, but what else could I have been saved from??  I needed to be saved from my life. 

Even as a Christian, I needed to be rescued from the life I had built for myself.  I loved the Lord and I served Him, but I still didn't know Him.  I constantly struggled in so many areas of my life with addiction and desperation and most of the time, I felt so alone.

But then, something incredible happened. Mercy reached in to save me...And it was so beautiful. 

Talk about an enlightenment…

I was finally able to grasp the concept of real grace. 

Believe me when I say that I’ve had my share of moments when it was impossible to look at myself in the mirror out of shame and guilt.   Thankfully, it’s not about what I see when I look in the mirror, it’s not about how I feel about myself, or even how I view myself as a person.  It’s about what HE sees when He looks at me.  When my Father looks at me, He sees Jesus, in whom He is well pleased.  He sees grace and mercy.  I can’t earn the love that He has for me by doing good works, living a certain way, acting a certain way, or even by saying the right things.  He freely gives it to me. 

This is a relationship, an intimate relationship; He knows the crevices of my heart, soul, and spirit and nothing is hid from Him.  And He loves me the same. 

I am fearfully and wonderfully made and He is enthralled by my beauty! (Ps. 45:11)

Now, I walk in a freedom that I’ve never really known before.  There’s grace and mercy as payment for my sins.  They pardon my guilt and shame.  Because of His grace, and His mercy, I’m able to live a life that is pleasing to Him.  It’s with His strength that I’m able to finally be happy and free from condemnation and legalism.

Why doesn’t the church talk about this??  Isn't this ransoming what salvation is really all about?!  All my life, I've been taught that salvation was living by a set of rules that were impossible for most to live.  Salvation was something that you had to earn and work hard to maintain.  For most, hell is a far off distance from where they are right this instant, the life they're leading right now (a religious life maybe?), is probably what they really need to be ransomed from.

My savior is only a cry away.  He hears me because He's right there with me, leading my every step.

It’s about relationship people, NOT religion.  Going to church every time the doors are open don’t make me a Christian any more than going to Alaska makes me a penguin (somebody has to get that!).

My prayer today is that whether you find yourself in a place where you need to be ransomed or not, that you have the realization that God is real, and He desires an intimate relationship with you.  He created you for Himself, but you must choose Him.

He wants to be your everything, because you are His whole world.

Blessings!

Pamela

Video found here.