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Make Your Mark

Hello good friends. Thanks again for reading. Hopefully now I am back in there will be more frequency to my posts. I really appreciate all of your love and support, as always.

So as I posted last time, there may be a mcphee baby happening this year, no I am not pregnant but it is on the cards. This gets me thinking about time and although I dont have the correct perception of time due to my condition, Sam still grew up really darn fast:( He will be at school next year...WHAT!!??.
These types of thoughts get me thinking about my life and the lives of people around me and I think if  27 years has gone this fast, the next 30 will go even faster. It puts a fragility on life, and an element of non-permanency. Often we look at what we are going through as the be all and end all of life. That our boyfriend or friends or house or holiday or conflict or pain is all consuming. That we will live forever because we are so young, yet it ticks by quickly. In 100 years we wont be among the living.
This makes me massively assess my heart. My motives. My reasons. It can even change my prayer to God.

When I take the time to take the focus off me and what I am experiencing ( or lack there of), and focus as much as possible on God and what His plan is for all of us, my prayer becomes this:
Instead of : "God heal me, let me feel love for my son, let me love life and be excited and sad and motivated and consistant  blah blah blah. Basically, God heal me so I have a good life...",
my prayer becomes: " Jesus as much as it is possible with my condition, use me. Help me love the way you have loved me, even when I dont feel it. Help me make a difference in the peoples lives that I am in. Give me strength to be strong for others. Break my heart for what breaks yours ( thank you brooke:) Take whatever I have of worth, and make it something beautiful to show the world that you are beautiful"

All of a sudden, the focus of my heart is others, life becomes about what I do have and less about what I am lacking. We all go through the tough patch, the hopelessness, the grief, the loneliness, the confusion. We all have a reason to bury our heads in the sand, dig our heels in and stop. Stop believing. Stop trusting. Stop dreaming. Stop living. Stop loving. The true test of our character is that in those times, where will you put yourself? In a state of bitterness, hatred, injustice? Or will you believe the footprints poem that says " in the hardest times in life, when you only saw one set of footprints... it was then that I carried you..."
Will you believe the promise of God that he will never leave nor forsake us?  Or will you become a victim and make the world and this life all about you? Let me tell you this is the cycle of my life friends, you are not alone.

When life hands us the dirt and the bad and the ugly, your next move will  make a mark. Whether you want it to or not, the way you react resonates around you. Your choices define you. To fall victim is easy. It is actually the natural response. But ah when someone gets knocked down, and you see them stand and reach for something more, that is when heaven and earth move and something happens in the kingdom of God.
When I witness that in people, I witness Jesus. I see His character and love and life before my eyes through that person.
I want to be that person. I want to  make a mark that will imprint on my childrens lives, and in all of the lives around me. I want to take this depersonalisation and show the enemy that it will NOT define me. It will NOT change what I believe and that is does NOT have the power to stop my influence in this world. That is what I want, but not consistantly what I do. I give in to the lies that I will never get better, that the world is turning without me, that I dont exist properly or to the level of others in this world. That I am missing out on Sams life every single day. If I believe them, those lies become truth to me, they become my belief system and before I know it I am a victim who is stuck inside my own mind. It is all about me. My mark in life imprints negativity and brokeness and heartache, it imprints lifelessness and bitterness. I vomit it out and it flows to my husband, my son, my friends. It resonates around me. I want my mark to resonate Jesus and his saving grace.

Can I encourage you friends, to assess what it is you are marking/imprinting on to the people around you. The conversations you have, the information you discuss, the choices you make when no one else is watching. Are you proud of it? Can Jesus use it? You will continue to make a mark with your choices until the day you die, and we will then be accountable for why we did and said the things we did. I want more than anything for Jesus to take my hand and say " well done good and faithful servant". Im scared that the condition of my heart right now wouldnt be something that is deserving of that comment, but I atleast want to strive for it, with the little that I have. May we all strive for it, to make the most of what we have. Whether it be heartache, or hopelessness, Jesus can make it into something he can most definitly use, and pour out His love and hope and beauty into. What you have is enough,however broken you feel.  We just need to say no to the lies and yes to the truth. We were created for so much more than what we are living for.

all my love xxoo.

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