How to Make Your Heart Smile Today

My mom quilts.  She crafts with her hands.  It's talent that God has gifted her with and she makes some pretty quilts with her hands.  It soothes her and gives her something to do.  It's her artistic expression.

Some say that stitching intricate patterns in colorful fabrics to make a cloth picture is a gift.  And I would whole-heartily agree.  I think about how God gifts us with his talents, I can't help but think that those gifts are His creative voice that he breathed into you.

Ephesians 2:10 says "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  My pastor said it nicely on Sunday..."you are God's poetic voice" in who He has made you to be.

That soothes me when I realize I don't have to be someone I am not.  And it also comforts me when I think about how God is becoming me to be more of a beauty.  I know...that was a gutsy thing to say. I am humbled when I read in the Bible I am made in God's image.  I honestly think that God is pretty wonderful...I like that image...I want to become his poetic voice.

When we compare ourselves to people that we only wish we could be, that is not being the awesome image that God imagined for us.  Don't try to be someone else.  Don't let man set the standard that God created for you.  Be you, the other person is already taken.  Be His poetic voice that boasts of His workmanship.

So stitch this truth into your life today...I am...you are...

.....the works of His hands, His artistic and creative expression.  His wonderful work.  And as you walk in faith, God is perfecting your poetic voice.   Perfectly measured with just enough lovely to reveal an intricate pattern, mixed with some beautiful.  Now sprinkle a cute little pink bow, (or handsome man tie) and you got yourself a smiling heart today.

Celebrate this...you are God's poetic voice.

If We Had Coffee Today...

If we were having coffee today, here's what I would tell you...

Someone loves you.

Not just by those people around you.  But by a Awesome Someone, who knows you well.  

With the breath of Heaven, there is One who thought of you today, and said "you're good".  In His very first exhales...an image was created.  A special, unique and vibrant life.  A Creator's creation.   You. 

You might say these are fancy words...

But know this...God is for you.  Even if it doesn't feel like it.

Because you are loved by a perfectly wonderful and holy Craftsman, that means its only His love that satisfies.  We look for that fulfilling love in many of the wrong places.  We so easily give our fragile hearts to things that don't love us back.  We lend our hearts to things that don't matter.  We often consume ourselves with the quest of finding satisfaction that we forget to guard what was so innocently created.  

Pouring you another cup...

Stop looking for a love in stuff when that stuff can't love you back.  Don't be consumed by your quest to give your love away at first temptation.  Protect the purity that God has blended into your being.  

You are loved by a God who knows how you struggle with your self-approval and worth.  God sees you with His worthy eyes.  So don't live for God's approval but from His approval.  I heard that in church Sunday and it is still dancing around my thoughts.  That's love in it most beautiful form.  His holy death gives you a life of love.  

Yearn for His holiness not that false sense of approval from people.   

He is dying for you to know Him and love Him like He loves you. 

I will always find what I really need in the One who will never leave me wanting.  

You want to be loved.  I want to be loved.  We all do.  

I love you enough to tell you that you ARE loved by God...just believe it, you don't need to understand why or how.  His love goes beyond our clumsy sin-filled hurting hearts.     

God's love remains.  Even when we don't.  It's the only love that does.

Romans 5:8  "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Let this love dwell in your heart and dwell on it.  God.Loves.You.  Don't harden your heart to His love.  

Ready to believe it now?    More coffee please...