I LOVE the beach!  It’s my happy place where I take in the sounds of the ocean and enjoy the warm sun on my skin.  It’s been a couple of years since I have been.  The last time we were there we saw some mean clouds come in while we were on our balcony.  This storm came in from literally nowhere.  The sun had been out on us all afternoon without a cloud in the sky.  Life can be just like this sometimes.  We can be going along and then out of nowhere a storm is upon us.  What do we do and how do we respond when the storms of life come?

“Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him.  Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat.  But Jesus was sleeping.  The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us!  We’re going to drown?”  He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?”  Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this?  Even the winds and waves obey him!”Matthew 8:23-27

Aren’t we just like the disciples?  We are gripped with fear and we cry out for Him to save us.  Here’s the good news…HE’S IN THE BOAT WITH US!  He knows how to calm the raging seas.  Let’s take a closer look at how Jesus responds to His disciples.  He says, “You of little faith, why are you afraid?”  Why do we not trust Him more?  Even the winds and waves obey Him!  When we look back over our lives we can see how He has carried us through our storms and brought us out of them.

A couple of years ago I was walking in the biggest storm of my life.  I was shaken with fear.  The Lord really pressed it upon my heart that I needed to grow my trust in Him.  He led me to Isaiah 55:8-9,

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” 

I learned during this season that God is Sovereign and in control.  His thoughts and ways are higher than ours which to me means that His way is the best way.  When we can surrender to this truth, we start finding that we let go of the way we had planned and we start desiring His plan above our own.  My prayer life started changing.  Instead of “Lord, save me” my prayer became, “Father, I don’t know what lies ahead of me, but I do know that you are with me, you are for me and your ways are better than mine so I trust you Lord.”  My perspective changed from it being about me to trusting Him.  This prayer has changed my outlook on life.  I find that the storms don’t cripple me as much as they used to.  Instead of huge raging seas the storms seem to look more like a thunderstorm.  They are still hard and I still cling to Him, but there is peace.  I know that I will be okay because I belong to Him.

I also found myself studying Ephesians 6: 10-18 and learning about “The Armor of God.”

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.  Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.  With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the spirits.”  

We have to be READY!  We have to stay ALERT and on guard at all times. We have to stay in His word.  The minute we let down our guard the enemy will come in and try to steal, kill and destroy.  He tries to whisper words of doubt and fear to us, he tries to make us take back the chains of guilt after we have been broken free.  He is the father of lies and deceit.  We do NOT fight against flesh and blood.  We don’t fight each other. We fight evil.  When we realize that our God died for each and everyone one of us and loves us all the same we stop fighting and we start loving.  We see each other differently.  Isn’t that amazing!   So who’s in with me?  Are you tired of fighting?  Would you rather love?  Then I invite you to join me as we put on The Armor of God and we TRUST our God that goes before us in the battle of evil.  He promise’s us it’s a battle that is already WON!

I don’t know what kind of storm you are in, but remember that you have the Savior of the world in your boat with you! You are never alone.  If your world is calm and at peace, PRAISE Him, and stand firm and on guard always ready and prepared for the battle.  Jesus himself tells us, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.”  John 16:33 

Oh Father,

Thank you so much for overcoming this hard world.  At times it can leave us breathless and shaken to the core.  We are often afraid and we cry out to you to save us.  We are grateful that you keep saving us from our storms.  Thank you for never leaving us or forsaking us.  Father, help us to trust you more!  Help us to know that your way really is the best way and for us to surrender our control and rest in yours.  Help us to put on your armor and be ready and prepared for the battle of evil.  Give us a heart for your children Lord, help us to see them like you do.  You love us all and came to save us all!  Thank you Jesus!  Thank you for the cross! We love you too!  Amen

Experiencing God is something I long for every day.  I want to feel His presence and see Him at work.  I look for Him.  I can see Him in the sunrise and sunsets.  Often times in the hill country the sky will get so dark at night that the stars alone leave me in awe and wonder.  It takes my breath away.  The word tells us, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Psalm 19:1    I never fail to find Him when I get alone with Him in His creation.  If you are experiencing distance and you can’t seem to feel as though He is there, go outside…alone…in the peace and quiet and look into the heavens, you will experience Him.

Sometimes you can experience Him just in time to rescue you from the pit of despair.  This happened to me at a “She Speaks” conference in North Carolina in 2011.  One of my besties invited me to come along with her to a conference hosted by Proverbs 31 ministries.  She felt a calling to learn how to write, blog and share God with the world.  Many ladies in our community came together and raised the money for her to go.  It was a moment that she “experienced” God.  She didn’t want to go alone.  I accepted the invitation and found myself signing up for leadership classes.  I was not a writer and would never be able to share God with the world in that way (Ha…never say never)!  Meredith and I took completely different classes.  After each class we would meet up and share what we learned.  If you have ever been on a women’s retreat you know the mountain top moments you can experience.  Meredith was on a cloud.  Her light and excitement was through the roof.  I on the other hand was somber and still.  During this season of my life I had experienced a huge heartbreak in some friendships.  This heartbreak left me hurting and crying at night for weeks.  I needed to heal, but I didn’t know how.  I wasn’t feeling Him and He seemed distant from me.  A sweet friend texted me that weekend saying she was praying for me and sent me a verse.  I highlighted it in my bible.  I let the words sink in,

“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

Wow, what a beautiful God!  He is mighty to SAVE!  He takes delight in YOU, He quiets you with His LOVE, He REJOICES over you with singing.  I needed to hear those words.  He used a friend from home to speak to me.  I couldn’t stop reading it.  I found myself with a break in my schedule and went to the prayer room to be alone.  The leaders of Proverbs 31 had prayed over each lady in attendance.  There were over 600 ladies.  They had placed each ladies name and the verse they prayed on tables in the prayer room.  I wanted to find my name and verse, so I went searching to find it.  It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  I had made it to the 5^th table when I saw a name that stood out to me.  Rivera Douthit, now that is a unique name, I thought to myself.  At the time I lived on a street named Riviera Drive.  The similarity drew me to her name…right under her name is where I found mine.  Her name stuck with me.  I met back up with Meredith and she was giddy with excitement.  She had been partnered up with a “Prayer Partner” in her class and she wanted me to meet her.  They had agreed to meet up at dinner.

Dinner came and Meredith was anxiously looking around the room for her.  She found her and took me over to introduce us.  She said, “Gennie, please meet my new friend Carole.”  Carole also had a friend and she introduced us to her.  She said, “Let me introduce you to my friend RIVERA!”  WHAT!  Really!  What are the odds?  I gasped, “Are you Rivera Douthit?”  She was in a state of shock herself.  She was the RIVERA DOUTHIT right above my name in the prayer room.  I told them how I had learned of her name.  She said, “We must be meant to be “Prayer Partners” too.  We exchanged cell phone numbers and got back to our dinner tables.  I met her for five whole minutes at the conference.  When I got home I reached out through a text and she reached back.  We started praying for each other.  Our relationship grew.  We were both intentional with each other.  Relationships take effort, time, and nurturing in order for them to grow and be fruitful.  We were growing.  She is a writer and speaker in North Carolina.  I prayed with her as she wrote her first book, and I watched God do amazing things through her words in Intimacy. 

Rivera and Carole (top row); Meredith and Gennie

Our women’s ministry was planning a beautiful evening for the women in our community.  We wanted to have a guest speaker, so guess who came!  Rivera and Carole!!!  Carole led us in worship and Rivera brought the beautiful message.

Carole leading worship

We had over 200 women come and join us that evening.  It was truly a Holy night, and it took place exactly a year ago today.  6 ladies accepted Christ into their heart.  I was humbled to my knees.  Our God had orchestrated not only a beautiful and lasting friendship from above, but a beautiful evening where He was mighty to save six more!  “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”  YES, He is the GREAT I AM!  He can use us in our brokenness, even when we can’t feel Him, He is there…orchestrating His master plan and pursuing us even in the midst of our pain and sufferings.

The story doesn’t end there.  Rivera had met another sister in Christ at another conference.  They had been put together by the leading of the Lord.  The weekend that Rivera and Carole came to Texas, Sheri came too.  Here’s the neat part about Sheri, she and I grew up in the same small town of Mt. Pleasant, TX.  Her mom had taught my husband and sister, and Sheri had even coached my sister in volleyball.

My sister, Jessica, Sheri and me

Through Rivera, the two of us Mt. Pleasant gals came together and all of us had a beautiful evening of sharing our God stories.  We even had the opportunity to minister to a homeless man at one of the downtown Dallas Starbucks.  God is so neat and so BIG that we really can’t even comprehend His GREATNESS.  He can bring two small town girls together through another girl in North Carolina.  He can move mountains and part the red seas.  He can bring a message from our messes!  What a mighty God we serve.

So here’s some questions to think about this week and challenge you as you seek to experience Him.  Do you look for Him?  Do you spend time in His creation or in His Holy word?  When you do experience Him, do you PRAISE Him?  Do you spend time nurturing the relationships He has given you?  Do you want them to grow and prosper?  He gives them to us, but it requires work on our part.  Are you willing to put in the work?  Who is He nudging you to reach out to today?  Be brave and obedient and reach out!

Here are more invitations for you to experience Him.  Visit Meredith’s blog, Murray Crew, as she and her husband share ways for couples to grow closer together.  Visit Rivera’s blog, Rivera Douthit,  and buy her book Intimacy – In To Me You See sold on-line at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble, you will be blessed in reading it.  Finally, support my sister, Sheri Brown DiMaggio, as she and others take a mission trip to Belize to help be the hands and feet of Christ.  They are selling these shirts to help get them there.   Remember how Meredith got to North Carolina, through other faithful servant’s giving and look at the ways in which God has worked, new friendships, new believers in Christ, we can’t even count all the ways.  Visit their PayPal account today to order.  If Sheri is able to raise enough funds to go on her trip she wants to give $5 for every shirt purchased toward abolishing human trafficking.  Can you see their BIG hearts for Christ?  It’s one of the many reasons why I love them!  Be blessed as you go seek Him.  He promises us, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13 

Get to seeking friends!!!

#gloryup #ourstoryisHisglory

As far back as I can remember, I loved being the center of everyone’s attention.  I was the first born in my family and the first born grandchild on both sides.  You can imagine the way everyone doted on me.  I enjoyed entertaining my family and making them smile and laugh and for them to tell me how proud they were of me.  These moments made me feel alive and accepted and my self-esteem grew.

My mom and dad with me when I was almost 3

In high school, I was very involved in many activities, but it was my hidden passion for theater that caught my dad by surprise when I told him I wanted to be a famous actress when I grew up.  I wanted to be FAMOUS!!!  My dad always had a way of speaking so gently and led me in different directions.  He asked me if I had ever considered being on the news and being a “News Anchor.”  It didn’t take me long to say yes because news anchors could be famous too.  I wanted to remain in the spot light.  So I found my way to college as a Broadcast News major.  I truly enjoyed my major, outside of my Diction class where my Professor crushed my dreams.  He told me that if I really wanted to do the news I would have to move back to East Texas to even have a chance.  If you know me, you know what he was talking about.  You just can’t shake an East TX accent.  (Insert smiley face here, Ha!)

When it came time for me to do an internship program before graduating I looked for something that would be behind the scenes.  I had grown insecure in myself after that class.  I found my way to Radio Disney.  After only a semester of interning with them I landed my first job…straight out of college!  They hired me as the Promotions Director.  Wow!  I had arrived…or so I thought.  I loved my job and all of its many perks.  I would pick up musicians from the airport and drive them to our promotions and even hung out backstage with the Backstreet Boys.  I was star struck myself.  I started buying into my business card and thought that my title told the world that I was important.  I had started my family and all three girls were babies.  I would drop 2 of them off at our church preschool each day and the baby was at a lady’s home.

It was exhausting…being the business card title.  My heart began to feel a tug when my Catherine asked me on a Saturday morning if we were late for school.  What was I doing?  I was rushing my children around and their lives were vanishing before my eyes.  My husband was doing most of the cooking and cleaning, on late night promotions he would already have them bathed and in bed when I got home.  Something had to give.

I called the church preschool to see if there was an opening for my youngest daughter who was only 6 months old.  The Director told me that I was the fourth person that very day that had called looking for infant care.  She said she needed to find an infant teacher and then the class would make and she would call me back.  Little did I know that she would be calling me back that very next day except it wasn’t to tell me that she had found the teacher…it was to ask me if I wanted to be the teacher.  What!!!  That was ridiculous.  Why would a Broadcast News major that is now a Promotions Director ever want to be an infant teacher and rock babies?

Pride is a very ugly sin!  I was struggling with it and it was time for it to go before it destroyed me.  The word tells us, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18.  As I look back on this season of my life I can see God’s amazing hand of grace and love for me.  He was pursuing me!  He wanted something so much better for my life.

The Preschool Director, who is now one of my very best friends, told me that as she prayed for the position the Lord kept reminding her of me.  My name, my face, continued to surface as she prayed.  She barely knew me at the time.  All she saw was a young mom dropping off her girls each day, hurried yet confidant.  She told me that she saw a successful woman in me.  Wow!  I found my way home that afternoon to visit with my husband about what had happened.  He was immediate in his response, “I think it’s perfect, why don’t you give it some thought.”  We actually did more than think.  We put pencil to paper and made a list of pros and cons.  The pros doubled the cons!  What’s crazy is I was actually going to make $20 less to leave my salary paying position using my degree to go rock babies after receiving a discount from the preschool and not having to pay the afternoon care.  I was going to work 9a to 2:30p…no more late night promotions or weekends!  My babies would go home with me!  Ashley, my youngest was going to be one of my infants.  Isn’t that amazing!  Even though all of these pros were so affirming I still struggled to let go. I would come up with the craziest excuses as to why not to leave my position.  It was my pride that had a hold of me.

Thankfully after prayer and revisiting the list, I came to my senses.  I accepted the position.  I turned in my two weeks-notice and I was now an Infant Preschool Teacher.  The very first day I was humbled to my knees.  These ladies that loved and cared for my children were such beautiful hard workers.  I had never seen that in them.  I was so busy being consumed with me that I was missing some amazing women.  I thought of myself as someone higher than I ought.  Romans 12:3 tells us, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you:  Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”

Fast forward a decade and here’s a glance of where God has taken me…the opportunity to be a better wife and a mother to the best gifts He has ever given me, Promotions Director of Radio Disney, Preschool Infant Teacher, First Connections Director where I greeted and welcomed people into the church and helped them find a place to connect, Co-owner of a Home Health Agency where I would go into the hospital and homes to pray with our patients and their families, and then back to the school’s to welcome families and get their babies enrolled to learn and grow.  By the world standard’s this might not be success but to me it is. I think of them as very high positions.  I have had some of the most beautiful opportunities to share my faith and love for my Savior.

This summer I was looking back over some of my study notes in Daniel.  I had studied it last spring with some of the most beautiful sister’s you will ever meet.  It’s an amazing book with so much to wrestle with and understand but what I found was so beautiful and so true.  It was a verse that I had not even noticed during our study time, but when I read it tears came.  It says, “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” Daniel 12:3

This is A TRUE STAR! It’s the kind of STAR that I want to be.  I no longer have dreams of Hollywood and those big lights…He has stirred my heart for even more!  I am not living for me anymore…it’s for Him, to point people to Him and show them that He really is the truth and the way.  “Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

Do you struggle with pride?  Do you think of yourself higher than you ought?  Is your pursuit for your own dreams causing harm to others? Is your family rushing through life before your eyes?

“Oh Father, thank you for saving me from me.  What I mess I was in and continue to be, yet you come and rescue.  Thank you for showing me the importance of humility and to think of myself less and think of You MORE.  Thank you for giving me this story to share.  I pray it penetrates to each heart that is reading it.  Thank you for giving us the TRUE light of the world in Jesus Christ.  I love that you tell us that whoever follows Christ will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.  I PRAISE you for this truth.  Lord, help us all to be the true shining stars that you designed us to be.  We want to bring glory to your name!  We love you too!  Amen”

Glory up!!!

My grandmother had Alzheimer’s disease, the terrible disease that steals a person’s ability to remember.  We had watched it grow from small episodes of Dementia to full blown Alzheimer’s.  This woman that I had known my whole life was no longer truly with us yet she remained.  My mom called to tell me she had been placed in the hospital.  She told me not to worry about coming, but I was on my way regardless.  My husband took care of my three girls and told me to take as long as I needed. The drive to the hospital was four hours away.  It was just me, the radio and my Lord.  I was intimate with Him with my concerns and worries.  I cried, I sang songs of worship and praise, I reminisced to when I was a child at Mema’s house.  It was a beautiful drive to the hospital…a REAL journey.

My Mema

I made my way to the third floor of the hospital where I found my mom sitting beside her mother who was resting.  She embraced me and thanked me for coming.  The “Today” show was on the TV with a segment about the Winter Olympics.  Mom caught me up on what the doctor was saying. Mema’s heart was growing weak again and they were recommending a heart catheter.  Mom had already made the decision before I arrived to not have the heart procedure done.  It would prolong her life but with what quality as she was trapped with no way to remember.  Mom told me they were going to place her on Hospice care and get her discharged that afternoon.  She asked me if I could stay with her while she went downstairs to call the Hospice company to arrange for them to meet her at the nursing home.  I agreed – of course.  

I was sitting in the chair right next to the bed holding her hand.  She began to awake and turned to look at me.  When she saw me, her eyes lit up and she said, “Gennie, what are you doing here?”  She knew who I was.  I squeezed her hand and told her that I wanted to see her.  I got up and walked over and leaned in for a kiss.  She looked me in my eyes and asked me, “Do you think I will know when I get to the top of the mountain?”  This kind of question was not surprising to me as I immediately thought she was having a lapse in time and was falling back into her own world or another era or delusional make believe.  We were taught to embrace her comments and not cause more distress by telling her that what she was saying was not really happening.  I thought about the Today Show being on talking about skiing and mountains and had determined that she must have been hearing the TV which caused her to think about the mountains.  I answered her with, “of course you will know.”  She continued to describe what she was seeing.  “Oh Gennie, I wish you could see it.  It’s the most beautiful white.  It’s so bright and beautiful.  I saw my mom and my brother.  They smiled at me.”  As I heard her words, tears began to fall.  She was not having an Alzheimer’s moment, she was truly seeing…a REAL journey.  This moment in time took my breath away.  She then took my hand again and said, “It’s okay for you to go, good-bye.”  As I told her that I was not leaving I wanted to stay, she drifted back to sleep.

Mom returned to the room and I embraced her with tears.  I told her Mema was ready to go home!  I told her what Mema had said and tears began to fall from my mom.  She told me that her Grandmother and Uncle never smiled!  Wow!  In Heaven they do!  In Revelation 21:4, John tells us, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”  This is GOOD news!!!

My father-in-law passed away on January 22, 2014.  He too told everyone that was in the room with him that he was going higher and higher.  The journey to our forever home is REAL!  Jesus tells his disciples in John 14:1-4, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God; trust also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going.”  This is GOOD news!!!

My three girls and their Grandad in his final hours.

After the passing of my father-in-law, Ryan and I both began to feel a tug on our hearts to be closer to our family.  Our time on this earth is so short in comparison to our eternal home.  James tells us in James 4:14, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”  We want to make the most of our time here and the precious people that God has given us to spend it with.  We found ourselves in June of 2014 packing up our family and moving to the Hill Country where both of our families live.  What a REAL journey it has been.

Every day is a journey for all of us.  Are you making the most of your journey?  Are you growing closer to Him?  Have you accepted Him as Christ your Lord and Savior?  Today is a good day to say YES!  It’s one of the easiest and best decisions you will ever make. You simply invite Him into your heart.

“Father God, I believe in you.  I believe in your son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for my sins.  Thank you Father for loving me and preparing a place for me in Heaven. Please forgive me for my sins, Lord.  I want to start new and have your Holy Spirit as my guide to help me journey through life and lead me to my forever home.  I love you too! Amen!”

Happiest of New Year’s to you and yours!  I’m looking forward to journeying with you through this REAL life with a REAL forever home!

I would love to hear from you if you have ever had the blessing of seeing someone journey home.  Leave a comment and share your story.  If you said YES, to Jesus today, please let me know either privately or publicly.  I’d love to lift up PRAISES for my new brother or sister in Christ and pray for you as you embrace your new life!  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.  The old has gone, the new is HERE!” 2 Corinthians5:17

GLORY UP!!!