Psalm 19:14

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer."  Psalm 19:14

I LOVE to sew.  If you know me, you know that.  What you may not know is that when I sew, I think.  And when I think, my mind is not always on things that are pleasing to the Lord.  Lately, my thoughts have been on church situations.  I get very "passionate" in my thinking when people are hurtful to my Pastor, my husband (the Assistant Pastor) or our intern.  It makes me angry when they are treated with disrespect.  It frustrates me when people believe that one of these godly men are out to hurt our church.  It makes me even more frustrated when these people are only showing up on Sundays, do nothing during the week, are not active in small groups or any other part of our church and then show back up on Sunday to complain again.  These are the people that make me want to pack it in.  This is when I say ministry is just not worth it anymore.

So I sew.  I focus on what these people are doing.  I have had quite the conversations (in my head) with these people.  I let them know what I think.  I let them know how they have hurt me and my family.  And in my mind I yell and scream and hold nothing back!  And I keep sewing.

Lately, the Lord has been convicting my heart about this.  I have been sewing and fighting for so long that I don't even know how to fix this.  My thoughts go into a tangent and I just keep sewing.  Now, I guess I could just quit sewing, but I don't think that is the answer.  There is no power within me to change this but finally, today I had a breakthrough!

I was working in my Bible study book "Unglued" and came across a section where Lysa talks about the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts.  It was as though the Lord verbally spoke to me.  He said, "Your meditations are not pleasing to me."  Oh boy!  You know where my thoughts automatically headed?  Directly to what I think about when I am sewing.  I guess I never truly realized how little control I have over my thoughts in this situation.  I get angry and upset and instead of taking it to the Father and asking Him to change my thoughts, I plunge myself deeper into frustration and build my walls higher.

This week has been especially difficult.  I believe that Satan is working overtime because I am trying to break free from something that he has held captive for so long.  My heart has been in turmoil.  I have been angry, hurt and frustrated.  My stomach has HATED me all week and I just keep sewing.  But this time, instead of focusing on the anger and hurt attacking my heart, I focus on Psalm 19:14.  I pray that God will change the meditations of my heart.  I pray that He will help me keep it together.  Like I said, there is nothing in me to change this, but there is power in the praying of scripture.

Are there things in your life that cause you to come "unglued".  Are the meditations of your heart pleasing to the Lord?  I would love to hear from you.  I know that I have a long way to go, but putting one foot in front of the other is progress even if it is imperfect.