The Important Part of the Picture isn't where You've Been, It's that You are Here

Tuesday coming in, and I'm wondering where January has gone, and where the week is alrady going, and maybe you are wondering like I did for a long time--where did my life go and what did I do? Because sometimes looking back we look back to see what we hoped for, and when we don't see that, we see nothing at all. But that isn't true. You might not see what you hoped life would be, but you may have become more than what you ever hoped for.

 

The crazy part of living a life that looks crazy is the persistence and courage that roots down deep in us and keeps us holding on when the storms fly crazy and the road ahead is beyond our ability to see. While we are not building the life we expected, we are building the ability to keep believing in and fighting for life.

 

We are learning not to be quitters, and the fact that you are still here says something in your picture is still what you hoped for because you hoped to still be part of the picture.

 

Is it the exact picture you had in your head? No. But I don't know anyone who actually gets that anyway. So today, instead of looking back and seeing how it doesn't match what you had in mind, can I give you some hope that you're being here says it can still look amazing?

 

See, the main part of the picture is your presence, so don't let the past tell you what it can't be. Let the fact that you are here give you hope of what it can still be.

 

Praying for you as you stand and hope...

Love and prayers,

Jerri

 

www.jerrikelley.com

If He Prayed for Me

Saturday I wrote a blog and FB post about women praying for the men in their lives in a way that is focused on the men, not on what the women want from the men, and it has left me wondering. I wonder two things:
1. What would I want the man who loves me to pray for me?
2. What would I want the kids' dad to pray for me?

As many of you know, the kids' dad and I were in the process of divorce when he died seven years ago, but if he were alive, I would still be praying for him as their dad because the way a dad lives affects his kids in every aspect of their lives. I hope he would also pray for me as their mom, and if he did, I would hope he would pray something like this:

Father, help Jerri not to live in unforgiveness of any kind because that closes her heart to love, and I want her to love our kids deep and wide.
Give her wisdom for her finances because in taking care of those, she also takes care of our kids.
Give her wisdom for disciplining the kids, and help her to never discipline out of anger, frustration, or fatigue.
Show her you love her in ways she knows and feels.
Help her see our kids as you created them to be and bless that in them even when it is hard or stretches her or causes differences of opinion.
Help her to listen to the kids and see things through their eyes, too.
Help her to never compromise your Word but to live what she tells them she believes.
Help her to see her value as a mom when she wonders if she makes a difference at all.
Give her friends to encourage her on hard days.
Bring the people she needs to meet practical needs like repairs.
On hard days, help her to know when to just go do something fun and when to stay and fight it out.
Help the two of us to talk and co-parent well.
Give her physical strength to do all she needs to do and mental/emotional strength to face the intangible challenges.
Give her a tenacious spirit for praying for our kids.
Give her hope that things do turn out well for the kids even in the places they are struggling.
If you bring another man into her life, I ask that he would love our kids like You love our kids, that he would be fair and wise, that he would bless who you created them to be, and I ask that he would be part of the parenting team, not a distraction or problem.
Lord, bless Jerri to be joyful in you. Bless who she is, not just as a mom but as a person. Give her courage to be an example of faith to our kids and to become all you created her to be.
I ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen.

Yeah...I think I would like for him to pray something like that...

Pondering Intimacy with God

This morning I am pondering intimacy with God. In the OT the priests went into the Holy of Holies at a certain time. It was like a seriously intense date with God. They planned for it and prepared for it.

 

In the NT, those who were intimate with Christ made the effort to be with Him, to know Him. Granted, there were those who were healed who didn't come near Him, such as the centurian's servant. But the ones who knew Him, spent time with Him. They talked with Him, listened, asked questions, prepared for time with Him.

 

Even the woman at the well who "chanced upon Him" responded to Him and talked with Him, laid her hearts questions before Him, listened, and dared to believe the impossible, not because someone told her about Him but because of her epxerience with Him.

 

Today I am pondering intimacy with Him. The listening, heart sharing, believing the wonder of Him, and preparing for Him, not in a religious way, but in a personal way.

 

You know, Zaccheus did not prepare lunch in a grand formal dining room, but he had intimate time over a meal he had not even planned. Kind of like hotdogs on white bread with a line of mustard and the leftover chips from the open bag. And Jesus totally felt honored and welcome.

 

One thing each of the intimate encounters with Jesus has in common is that the person actually made the effort to spend time in Jesus' presence, to connect, to hear, to be honest.

 

Pondering....

 

Jerri

www.jerrieklley.com

Husbands, Can You Help Us Out a Little Bit?

Yesterday my way groovy friend Heather Brizzi and I had an iron sharpening iron session over the phone. Specifically we were talking about husbands and marriage, spiritual warfare, and prayer. Really, it all went together. It has stuck in my head, and this morning the Lord and I talked more about wives praying for their husbands.

 

If we are harcore real, the truth is most of us pray for others based on what we want out of it. We pray for people to be blessed or become or respond or act in a way that makes us feel good or makes things easy for us. Wives do that with their husbands. I know. I've been a wife. My female friends were wives. We've prayed together.

 

But this morning, the Lord is really impressing on me--

"If you did not look at your husband in relation to yourself and your prayers had nohting to do with you, what would you pray for your husband?"

 

That has me thinking, but we'll talk about that tomorrow or Monday becaus then the next question came to mind:

 

what would your husband want you to pray for him?

 

Huh.

 

So, men, I am asking you to be hardcore real and help us ladies out. What do you want your wife to pray for when she lifts you up to the Lord?

 

If you don't feel comfortable with a public answer, please PM me. I really want to know, and I know other ladies who want to know as well because some of us really have hearts to be great wives, so would you please help us out?

 

Thanks,

Jerri

www.jerrikelley.com

Genesis and Everything Else Begins the Same Way...with God

Two weeks ago I posted about the 2010 and 2011 and how our life changed. I said a foundational piece for me was that God created a whole universe out of nothing. Everything that had never been...from nothing.

But there is something more fundamental than even that. You know, the story didn't start with creation. It started with God.

In the beginning, God.

Everything starts with God.

I've been thinking about this because people want shortcuts, and there are no shortcuts, but people try them. They try the book studies and the conferences and the whatever classes because those are supposed to be life-changing events.

As someone who attended book studies and classes and retreats, I can tell you none of them changed my life. Because none of them changed me.

What changed me is far simpler than that.
1 I read my Bible every day.
2. I prayed a lot.
3. And I started agreeing with the Bible, not with what I wanted to hear or how I wanted life to be.
4. I admitted when I sinned by not acting in accordance with God's ways.
5. I did the hard things that obedience requires instead of taking the comfortable road with its explanations and excuses.

Simply put. I chose God.

I stopped looking for books that helped me feel better about myself and looked to the God who wanted me to have the best version of myself.
I stopped looking to retreats to have some amazing encounter and focused on creating time in my every day for intimacy.
I stopped looking for spiritual highs and decided I would take whatever truth did, even when it hurt, as long as it meant I got Him.

And He has been faithful to respond.

In Jeremiah 29, God says, "You will find me when you seek me with your whole heart."

I wanted everything He is so I made Him my discipline.

If I had to choose between sleep or prayer, I tried to always get up and pray.
If I had to choose between TV or reading my Bible, I read my Bible.
If I had to choose between my ego and becoming like Him, I choked down more humble pie.

Everything starts with God.
Everything I want to be.
Everything I want for my life.
Everything I want for my kids.
Everything starts with God.

Want to change your life?
Start at the beginning.

In the beginning...God.

Jerri L. Kelley
www.jerrikelley.com

Prayer for Those of You in the Hard Places

Father God,

I lift up the folks who read (and don't read) my posts on FB and my blog, and I ask you to speak to them today. If not through these words, somehow. Show them the answers to the issues they face, and, Lord, nag them if you have to, especially if they are the problem that is preventing the answer. Give them wisdom and grant them forbearance to way up under the weight of the issue until you bring it to solution. I pray that in the waiting, you would show them your character, not as a hateful God who is waiting to squish them like a bug if they step or breathe wrong, but as a God who has invested His very breath into them, because that is what you really have done. Given us your breath and given us your life so we could breathe again when we were dead in our own mess and waste. Help them to see the God I know, the God who loves deeply and desires honest relationship with mutual love and respect, with hearts to serve each other. Show them the path, not just to their answer, but the path to you because that is not something shown to us very often, and when it is, it is usually wrapped in ritual and checkmarks, not radical passion and committed love. Thank you, Lord, for every person you have brought within my writing world and personal one. Thank you that you have a plan for every single one of them, and sometimes that plan is hard to walk or impossible to understand because this world is not for sissies, but, Lord, I pray that in the hard and impossible to understand, they would understand this--you are with them.

I love you, Father. Help me love you more.

Help my lack of faith, Lord.

Amen

Jerri

www.jerrikelley.com

The Grief Others Don't See, God Sees and Steps Right Into

This morning as I was praying I prayed for folks on FB, and I had this urge to get on FB and tell a woman it's okay to grieve your baby, even if no one else understands. God understands your heart grief that no one can relate to or even knows about. I didn't, though, because, frankly, it kind of sounded weird...and really personal, and how would I word that anyway?

 

I checked my email, and there was an email from a very dear friend who has no children and is not married, but her elderly dog she has had since a puppy is very sick and may not make it through the day. Her heart is breaking, and she metnioned our conversation this week and said, "Thank you for reminding me God loves me even when my heart is breaking."

 

How much does He love her? How much is He concerned about her pain? So much so that He spoke comfort to me to offer her. He WANTS her to know He feels her heart. He WANTS her to know her grief is His concern. He WANTS her to know even when some people see "only a dog", He sees her life companion. THAT is the fulness of His love for her.

 

God is so many things, but the greatest thing He is...is definitely love.

 

Ephesians 3:16-19

 

Jerri

www.jerrikelley.com