{Be EmPoWeReD!}

There are a few things that God has brought me to that have really liberated me and been my sustenance this past week. I pray they bless you as well.

Psalm 8:2 says-
From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies to silence the foe and the avenger.

That word silence in the Hebrew translates to Sabbath! In other words (Beth Moore's words to be exact) "When we praise and worship, Satan has to SHUT UP!"

I nearly came out of my seat when she taught that! Hallelujah! That conversation that is going on in the back of all of our heads -the one that has no hope in our circumstance,that is frustrated, and tells us to be at our wits end. The one that tells us that we need to be depressed, feel sorry for ourselves.....it is muted! Praise you King Jesus!

I told my 3 and 5 year old about that gem of revelation, and my oldest, Mia Brooke said, "Mom, it's not nice to say shut up." I said, "Your right, and to anyone else we never should. But it is perfectly alright to tell Satan to shut up!" A look of empowerment came all over her. Our singing and dancing in the van went to a new height that day! It has forever changed my out look on crankin' up the volume! Particularly when I don't "feel" like it!

The other insight God has blessed me with, comes from the best selling book by Randy Alcorn, Heaven. In it I was educated about our home there like never before. It was such an encouragement. I have almost apologetically told people that I am obsessed with heaven ever since my son went to live there. Randy infesizes that that is indeed how we should be! Keeping heaven at the forefront of our minds is keeping an 'eternal perspective'. Eternity will not be as this life, which is but a blink of an eye. It has no end. Striving towards that, pressing on towards the goal of that is percisely what we are to do. In the book, he reveals through scripture that those that we love that are already living there, can in fact, see all that we do down here! Sigh! I don't know about you, but that takes my breathe away. My baby, Macsen, see's all that I am doing. And I for one, do not want him to see me curling up in the fetal position, and withering away. No, my prayer is that as he intercedes with Jesus, that instead he is up there cheering me on, saying, "That's my momma!"

Be empowered! Press on beloved!