Stephanie Pace

As I read through my devotions this morning it occurred to me that everyone has something in his/her life that is either a bother, a hurt or a problem that needs addressing.  Not only do will all bear the wounds subjected to us by a world rife with sin, we have the wounds buried within that are of our own making.  God’s word tells us that it is not a matter of if we will have trials it is a matter of when and how we will handle those things.  As I read the words of Charles Spurgeon this morning I just thanked my God, that He is who He says He is.

“Great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all.”
— Matthew 12:15

What a mass of hideous sickness must have thrust itself under the eye of Jesus! Yet we read not that He was disgusted, but patiently waited on every case. What a singular variety of evils must have met at His feet! What sickening ulcers and putrefying sores! Yet He was ready for every new shape of the monster evil, and was victor over it in every form. Let the arrow fly from what quarter it might, He quenched its fiery power. The heat of fever, or the cold of dropsy; the lethargy of palsy, or the rage of madness; the filth of leprosy, or the darkness of ophthalmia—all knew the power of His word, and fled at His command. In every corner of the field He was triumphant over evil, and received the homage of delivered captives. He came, He saw, He conquered everywhere. It is even so this morning. Whatever my own case may be, the beloved Physician can heal me; and whatever may be the state of others whom I may remember at this moment in prayer, I may have hope in Jesus that He will be able to heal them of their sins. My child, my friend, my dearest one, I can have hope for each, for all, when I remember the healing power of my Lord; and on my own account, however severe my struggle with sins and infirmities, I may yet be of good cheer. He who on earth walked the hospitals, still dispenses His grace, and works wonders among the sons of men: let me go to Him at once in right earnest.

Let me praise Him, this morning, as I remember how He wrought His spiritual cures, which bring Him most renown. It was by taking upon Himself our sicknesses. “By His stripes we are healed.” The Church on earth is full of souls healed by our beloved Physician; and the inhabitants of heaven itself confess that “He healed them all.” Come, then, my soul, publish abroad the virtue of His grace, and let it be “to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off.”

Charles Spurgeon

What do you need to be healed of today?

So, I’m standing in the kitchen this morning listening to Matt and Carol in the morning, and Carol was talking about baby names on there.  She asked for people to call in with unique and unusual names.  Of course, as a mom, it made me think of the names of my own children.  Now, as is the case with most moms, I thought I was picking wonderfully unique and beautiful names for our girls.  But more importantly to me, I wanted strong names that gave credit to our God.  I would like to tell you a little about our girls names, how they got them and why they point to a Great Big Wonderful Daddy!!

Before I got pregnant with our oldest daughter, I was pregnant with another baby.  At first things seemed to be fine.  About Eight weeks into the pregnancy, I got violently ill and as many of you know me, you know this is the hallmark of my pregnancies.  I was put into the hospital over Valentine’s weekend for dehydration and to get the nausea under control.  Then miraculously around the fourteenth and fifteenth weeks my nausea started to subside and we began to rejoice.  Then we went for a checkup and the nurse was unable to find a heartbeat.  At first no one was worried.  They thought we might how miscalculated the dates, so we were taken back to a room to have an ultrasound.  At that point, we discovered that my precious baby hadn’t developed properly and there would be no rejoicing at the end of the pregnancy with a bundle of joy.  Anyone who has been througa miscarriage knows how devastating that is.  I can still remember and feel that pain.  But God is so good and so wise.  And we are so pitifully week and lacking in wisdom.  Our doctor informed us that after a D & C we could wait a few weeks and try again.  

About eight weeks after the miscarriage we were going on vacation with our extended family.  We always stayed at our Aunt’s house as a half-way point to the beach.  The morning that we woke up at her house I turned over in the bed and she has one of those devotional flip books on the night stand.  The verse that morning read, “I asked the Lord to give me this child, and He has given me my request.” 1 Samuel 1:27.  I KNEW I was pregnant again.  I had no doubts that God had answered my prayers and was giving me proof.  So, when we chose her name we knew that we wanted a variation of Mary, because there is a “Mary” in every generation of our family that goes back a long time.  We also knew that FAITH must be her middle name.  Therefore when our little girl came into the world on March 7, exactly 2 days shy of the one year anniversary of the loss of our first baby, we knew her name had to be Mia Faith, because God had been faithful in answering our prayers and we also had faith that He would do so.

Our second child came almost five years after Mia.  I could not face another pregnancy until Mia was older and could do more for herself.  Prior to this pregnancy Barry and I had been through some rough times in our marriage and a few times we weren’t sure we were going to make it.  But with the help of some wonderful counseling and a lot of support from our Lord we worked though the problems and decided we were ready to add another member to our family.  This pregancy was difficult from the start.  I had to be hospitalized for dehydration.  They implanted a port-a-cath to deliver fluids and anti-nausea medications with home health care.  I had blood clots and had to be hospitalized for a week with them around the sixth or seventh month and then our little girl was born almost seven weeks early.  As we discussed her name, early on, we knew that we wanted something special.  The word Selah’s definition is debated and no one really knows what it means but most theologians say that it is either to indicate a pause in worship to focus or it is used as an amen.  We also knew that our lives had been marked repeatedly by God’s grace.  So we wanted her name to mean “To pause and reflect on God’s grace, ” thus Selah Grace’s name was chosen.

Not long after we had Selah, our pastor, Jerry preached a sermon and a verse in that sermon really struck me and I know that God gives us what we need as we need it and this was the verse: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—” Ephesians 2:8.  This verse sort of sums up what I want the lives of our family to be about.  God’s grace is such a gift.  There is nothing that we can do to deserve it.  We don’t deserve His grace, but through our faith, he readily gives it.  Why does he give it?  He loves us.  We are His chosen children.  He has named us and called us His.  And I don’t know about you, but I am so grateful for His grace and His name.

So I have been feeling really guilty about not blogging for a while and my 40 day challenge hasn’t gone so well… the list could go on and on.  But I am not going to embrace the feelings of failure and inadequacy.  God is a God of grace and mercy and so I am just going to do what I have to do almost every day…start over.  I am claiming a new beginning that is assured to me by my Savior and I can’t do this any other way.  So now , to the reason I am really feeling the urge to blog.

One night last week, my oldest daughter, Mia was helping me cook dinner.  It is something that she loves to do and so do I, occasionally.  I’d be lying if I said that I love to cook with her all the time.  I am too much of a control freak for that to be true.  But God has been on me for a while now about my issues with desiring to control my life. A counselor once told me that I couldn’t be the CEO of the universe because that job was already taken.  That is so true!  So why can’t I get that through my thick head?  God used Mia the other night to once again drive home the fact that He is the CEO of the universe. 

We decided to cook chicken pot pie for dinner.  Now I love to cook it for my family for a variety of reasons.  Not all of which are good.  The first reason is because it is healthy.  The second reason is because my family loves it!  The third reason is because it is really good and I get rave reviews from anyone who eats it, and thus I cook it because I am proud that I can!  (I see a whole new blog entry here. LOL!) So, when Mia starts helping to cook THE dish that is MY signature dish you can imagine how that went.

Mia – “Mama can I cut the chicken up?” 
Me – “No, it has to be carefully shredded and it’s really hard to do.”
Me – “Mia, can you put this bowl of frozen veggies in the microwave for exactly 15 seconds?”
Mia – “Sure Mama.”
Mia – “Can I pop open the can of Cream of Chicken soup?”
Me – “No, let me do it.  You might break the tab off the top like you did last time and then it’s really hard to open.”
Mia – “Oh, ok Mama.  But I really think I can do it…”
So of course I opened the can.
Me – “You want to put the soup in the pot with the chicken broth?”
Mia – “YES!!”
Me – “Ok, but be very careful, the broth is hot and if you don’t do it just right you will splash the hot broth on you… OH, be careful… here let me help you do that.”
Mia – “MAMA, I CAN DO IT.”
Me – “Ok, you finish scraping out the can and stir it really easy…”

I finished shredding the chicken, layered the veggies on, poured the sauce over the chicken and veggies; all with Mia watching by my side offering to help.  Then we came to the part that I know is the most important part of the pie, the topping.  I let Mia help me measure the flour and milk. I let her stir in the butter and other ingredients until the batter began to form.  But I noticed that there was a lot of flower in the center of the whisk and so, of course I had to take over and Mia of course informed me that if I had just told her she would have taken care of that.  Then I turned to her:

Mia – “Can I finish stirring it now?”
Me – “Well, I changed some of the portions of the ingredients and I need to feel the batter to see if the consistency is exactly right.”
Mia – “Oh.  But I’m a really good stirrer Mom.”
Me – “Yes you are, but I really need to do this part.”
Mia – “Well, can I put the batter on top?”
Me – “No, sweetie, that is the most important part.  I have to make sure it is done just right.  If I don’t the juice will seep out and come up over the batter and the batter will have a hard time rising and then it might get soggy.  So I better just do it.  Here, finish stirring it and then I’ll put the batter on.”
Mia – “Mama you just gotta trust God and hand over the spoon.”

Dead silence.  In that moment my God reached deep into my heart and showed me how wrong my attitude was.  I was like Marlin in “Finding Nemo;” making Mia feel like she couldn’t do it as good as me.  I was letting my pride in “my dish” take over a precious moment with my child.  I was denying that God is the CEO of the universe and trying to control my own life.   How self-centered?  How sinful?  So what did I do?

Me – “You are absolutely right. Here’s the spoon.  You can do it.”
Mia – *Eyes sparkling* “ALLRIGHT!!”

I turned away, got a baking sheet to put the dish on in the oven, wiped the tears from my eyes, washed a few dishes at the sink and didn’t turn around again until she said, “I’m finished Mom.  Look how good I did.  It wasn’t so hard.  I told you, you just had to trust God.”  And there sat that pie with holes in the batter, juice on the top and my precious baby girl grinning from ear to ear.  I grabbed that pie up, plopped it on the baking sheet, tossed it in the oven, grabbed my girl up and told her she was fabulous and had done a remarkable job on that batter.  We ate that pie, soggy crust and all 30 minutes later and it was the best one ever!

So who’s holding your spoon today?

All right ladies, God gives us in His word what we are to strive for in our lives.  It is laid out for us in Proverbs 31: 10 – 31:

10 Who can find a virtuous and capable wife?
      She is more precious than rubies.
 ¹¹ Her husband can trust her,
      and she will greatly enrich his life.
 ¹² She brings him good, not harm,
      all the days of her life.

 ¹³ She finds wool and flax
      and busily spins it.
 ¹⁴ She is like a merchant’s ship,
      bringing her food from afar.
 ¹⁵ She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household
      and plan the day’s work for her servant girls.

 ¹⁶ She goes to inspect a field and buys it;
      with her earnings she plants a vineyard.
 ¹⁷ She is energetic and strong,
      a hard worker.
 ¹⁸ She makes sure her dealings are profitable;
      her lamp burns late into the night.

 ¹⁹ Her hands are busy spinning thread,
      her fingers twisting fiber.
 ²⁰ She extends a helping hand to the poor
      and opens her arms to the needy.
 ²¹ She has no fear of winter for her household,
      for everyone has warm^[b] clothes.

 ²² She makes her own bedspreads.
      She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns.
 ²³ Her husband is well known at the city gates,
      where he sits with the other civic leaders.
 ²⁴ She makes belted linen garments
      and sashes to sell to the merchants.

 ²⁵ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
      and she laughs without fear of the future.
 ²⁶ When she speaks, her words are wise,
      and she gives instructions with kindness.
 ²⁷ She carefully watches everything in her household
      and suffers nothing from laziness.

 ²⁸ Her children stand and bless her.
      Her husband praises her:
 ²⁹ “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world,
      but you surpass them all!”

 ³⁰ Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last;
      but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised.
 ³¹ Reward her for all she has done.
       Let her deeds publicly declare her praise. 

If you are not a wife you can substitute woman for wife and still see what God wants from us as women.  Is this truly attainable?  I say yes.  Is it attainable overnight and all at once?  I don’t think so.  (I caveat this by saying these are my opinions, which is subject to all the flawed reasoning of the sinful, human mind! ) But in my opinion, this is a lifetime endeavor in which we have times that we will be successful and sometimes failures.  There are things in our lives that make being a Proverbs 31 woman very difficult, but not impossible.

So, here’s the deal:  WHAT IN YOUR LIFE IS KEEPING YOU FROM HAVING A CLOSE AND INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AND BEING A PROVERBS 31 WOMAN?  We all have things in our life that keep us from having a relationship with God that is transformational.  We want to do it all on our own.  We want control.  We want to walk our own path in life and do it our way.  With that desire comes questions, doubts, pain and confusion.  We have strongholds in our lives that keep us from being in love with our Saviour and being loved by Him.  We have things in our lives that make us doubt God and ourselves.  What is your stronghold?  

This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, marking the 40 days Jesus was in the wilderness prior to his crucifiction.  My challenge to you and I is to take the next 40 days, starting Wednesday, to identify one stronghold in your life and for these 40 days attack that stronghold everyday.  Give it to God.  Let Him erase that stronghold in your life.  Ask Him to help you walk in the words of Proverbs 31.

I am going to create a group on my facebook page where we can go and give each other support through the next 40 days.  If you want you can post your stronghold there and how your walk is going.  What kinds of things are you doing to erase your stronghold?  What tools is God giving you to do that.  Where are you succeeding and where are you stumbling?  Let’s go ladies it’s time to start the race.

Yesterday I had the priviledge of attending the meeting for stay-at-home Moms, Common Ground, at Grace Community Church.  We had a wonderful guest speaker who addressed how important it is for Moms to really treasure the times that we have with our children because they grow up quickly.  She also spoke to how wonderful Grandchildren are and she said she knew why they were called “Grand.”  The impact that families have on one another has been on my mind a lot lately, especially the impact we have on our children and they in turn have on their children and on and on…  I went to Psalms 78 and this is what I found:

 ¹ O my people, hear my teaching; 
       listen to the words of my mouth. ² I will open my mouth in parables, 
       I will utter hidden things, things from of old-

 ³ what we have heard and known, 
       what our fathers have told us.

 ⁴ We will not hide them from their children; 
       we will tell the next generation 
       the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, 
       his power, and the wonders he has done.

 ⁵ He decreed statutes for Jacob 
       and established the law in Israel, 
       which he commanded our forefathers 
       to teach their children,

 ⁶ so the next generation would know them, 
       even the children yet to be born, 
       and they in turn would tell their children.

 ⁷ Then they would put their trust in God 
       and would not forget his deeds 
       but would keep his commands.

 ⁸ They would not be like their forefathers— 
       a stubborn and rebellious generation, 
       whose hearts were not loyal to God, 
       whose spirits were not faithful to him.

As I read this I wondered, am I doing enough with my children that they will teach their children to love God?  AmI close enough in my own walk where it is evident that I love Him?  Is my heart loyal to God and my spirit faithful?   these are tough questions and ones that I know I will struggle with daily as long as I live.  

This passage also made me think of my own ancestors and in particular my Grandparents and I wrote this poem about them that I want to share.

Frank and Ruby

Rock solid, steadfast love
Fiery Woman.

Silent strength, determined soul
God-filled Mama.

Open arms, tender touch
Ever-present Nana.

Generous spirit, heart of gold
Great GRAND Mother.

Twinkling eye, mischievous grin
Dapper Man.

Serious demeanor, loving spirit
God’s path Daddy.

Gentle giant, limitless love
Stead-fast Paw Paw

Proud pal, giver of time
Great GRAND Father.

Bended knee, valiant honor
God’s House Keeper.

Lifelong  love, embracing souls
enduring Couple.

Solid ways, uncompromising walk
Hard-working Parents.

Giving time, generous heroes
Stupendous Grandparents.

Laughing hearts, smiling eyes
Awesome Great GRAND Parents.

Others first, God above all
Jesus Followers.

When I am old…… will my Grandkids see me this way?

Have you ever been in that place where just getting through each day was the goal; anything more just can’t be managed?  You feel like life is just one big treadmill that is set on the hill-climb mode mode and you just don’t make any progress.  That’s where I have been for months.  I haven’t felt like blogging.  I haven’t wanted to read my Bible.  I haven’t wanted to teach Bible Fellowship.  I haven’t really wanted to leave my house.  Thankfully God understands. (And if there really is anyone reading my blog they will too…)  The last few weeks I have seen some sunshine and felt it’s warmth on my heart as I have felt God’s presence.  There are two things I want to share today that have hit me hard.  I am currently attempting to do Beth Moore’s “Breaking Free” study and on page 14 she quotes Oswald Chambers and I want to share that with you here:

Our soul’s history with God is frequently the history of the “passing of the hero.”  Over and over again God has to remove our friends in order to bring Himself in their place, and that is whre we faint and fail and get discouraged.  Take it personally.  In the year that the one who stood to me for all that God was died–I gave up everything?  I became ill?  I got disheartened? OR — I saw the Lord?  

It must be God first, God second, and God third, until the life is faced steadily with God and no one else is of any accoung whatever.  ”In all the world there is none but thee, my God, there is none but thee.”

Keep paying the price.  Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.

Wow!  I think about how in my unrest and dissatisfaction I have turned to friends for consolation.  I have called, text-ed, emailed, visited, done anything but be quiet and put Him first, second, third or even 99th.  I have just slogged on in my unfaithfulness and my unbelief.  But God is so good and so patient.

The second thing that I want to share is the scripture that has helped me see the truth of God.  In my Beth Moore study-time this morning I found scripture that put this all in perspective for me.  First is 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.  How often do I wait patiently for the Lord to fix things?  How often do I want it now.  ALWAYS.  But God knows so much more than I could even imagine and sometimes he is just waiting for me to turn to Him.  The last few weeks as I have been homeschooling Mia we have really focused on reading the Bible and memorizing scripture and it hit me this morning as I was having my quiet time that it doesn’t do any good to memorize scripture if we don’t apply it.  We have memorized Psalm 40:1 I was patient while I waited for the Lord, He turned to me and heard my cry for help.  God hears our cries for help, but are we patiently waiting for Him to help.  The last scripture that I want to post today is 2 Corinthians 4:7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.  This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.  While we are here on this earth we have all kinds of limitations on our bodies, minds, souls, etc.  All of these limitations allow us to shine with the power of God within us, but for that light to shine through there have to be cracks in the vessels.  The more cracks in the vessel, the more the light shines forth.

Sorry it’s been a while since I posted.  The holidays are always hectic and on top of that we have had a cold virus and a stomach virus at work in our house.  Today though, it was time to get to work. 

My husband and I worked and worked today moving furniture,  washing clothes, cleaning out clutter and in general just cleaning up the chaos and rearranging things to give us a fresh look at what we already had but couldn’t really appreciate because of clutter or simply because we were so used to it being where it was that we had ceased to even think about it, much less appreciate.

I think often our spiritual lives are much the same way.  We get so entrenched in having things stay the same and being comfortable with things the way they have always been that we cease to see things the way they really are.  We become so comfortable with the clutter and chaos in our lives that those things don’t seem all that important or a detractor from living life fully and completely.  As my husband and I were working today I got to thinking about all of that and how moving furniture, cleaning up your house and trying to get rid of clutter of is often painful and a lot of hard work.  How much more painful and hard is it for us to do that in our spiritual lives?  Thankfully though, God has told us in His word Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”  Man.  Isn’t it awesome to know that there is a loving Father there who is not afraid to dig through the mess, clear away the clutter and keep working on us until his work is complete and we are whole and beautiful.  

After all this reflection on cleaning up and how Philippians 1:6 assures us of God’s commitment to work in our lives it made me want to break into that song I sang so often as a child, He’s Still Working on Me.

Right now my husband and I are leading a class where we are looking at the book, “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” by Tedd Tripp.  This book has caused me to re-examine many of my parenting practices with our two precious babies.  This book has challenged many of the popular and conventional approaches to child-rearing.  Some of the things the author says I agree with totally.  Others, not so much.  The one thing that I will say, is that it has really made me conscious of the fact that to parent in a Biblical manner and with God’s glorification in mind my own heart has to be following after God and I have to know my Bible.  Without the word of God to direct my parenting choices I am following the world and not God.  I am giving control of directing my children’s growth and development over to “the masses” and to popular cultural views.  We have examined many of the popular ways to discipline that are un-biblical and are getting ready to examine how to do it bibilically.  

For me it is boiling down to what Psalm 119:11 says: Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You. For me to be the very best parent I can be, when the going gets rough, when I don’t know the answers off the top of my head, there is a great place to look.  And when we find what we are looking for we need to bury those words deep into our very souls so that we can know the path to take.  When we “treasure” the word of God it allows us to make decisions with the right heart, a heart that holds scripture to be the ultimate guide and not let our “feelings” guide our direction.

Tripp tells us it is our job as parents to “shepherd” our children’s heart’s.  It is our job to help them love God and glorify Him.  We see in Luke 6:45 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil thingsout of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.   If our intent is to help ourselves and our children have hearts that show our overflow in a positive and glorifying way we MUST follow the tenet of Psalm 119:11.

A week ago this past Monday I started home-schooling my oldest daughter Mia.  Her first day was Great!!!  (She took a sick day.)  Bless her little heart.  She laid on the couch coughing up a storm and I had to laugh at us because we both had been so excited about her first day of home-school and she didn’t fell like doing a thing.  Tuesday morning, however, was a totally different story.  We used a kids cook book by Paula Deen for our lessons that morning.  It is amazing how many subjects can be taught by cooking!  We did several things last week, including visiting the PARI Institute in Rosman, NC for a cancelled field trip.  (Click the link to see what I mean by cancelled.) You can click here to see the pics… But I have to say that the best thing we’ve done since we started was having her memorize scripture and reading from the Bible.

We have focused on Psalm 89: 1 – 8.  Hearing her little voice recalling Psalm 89:2 “I will tell everyone that your love stands firm forever.  I will tell them that you are always faithful, even in heaven itself.”(NIrV) Having her read those verses and then tell me that they were all about praising God and how mighty and faithful He is was tremendously touching for me.  We looked up the word “faithful” and have had several conversations about what the word truly means and have talked about what the verses mean to her as a new believer.  

I know that there is much controversy about home-schooling and it’s impacts on kids, but from my perspective it is so sweet a connection to be able to sit down anytime of day and answer questions about God’s faithfulness and to know that God can be spoken about during ANY lesson makes it worth whatever the cost to have that privilege.  And having her tell my Mom that the best part of home-schooling is the time she gets to spend with me makes me want to do a little dance.

I know that we are going to have a huge learning curve this first year, but as my little one so eloquently told me after reading these verses.  ”He’s an awesome God, Mom and we have to praise Him.  We can trust Him to do anything.”  I am hanging on to that as we tackle each day together.

The other day I was cleaning the house and was thinking about a conversation I had with one of my friends, Sara, about cleaning and we were both laughing at her descriptions of the morning because we have a mutual friend,  Jen, who had gone to Sara’s house to give her a hand with some “Deep Cleaning.”  Jen had helped Sara pull her stove out to clean behind it.   I did not know that it was possible to pull a stove out.  I know, you’re probably laughing like a hyena right now at my lack of what some would say was just common sense.  However, growing up we had a cook-top that was set into the counter and the two previous homes my husband and I have owned were the same, so I just didn’t know you could pull a stove away from the wall.  Anyway, a couple of days ago I decided to pull the stove away and clean around and under the stove.  It was nasty.  Just imagine 4 – 7 years of non-attention and neglect.  As I was cleaning, I got to thinking about how in our own lives we do a lot of surface cleaning and don’t get down and dirty cleansing away all the really grimy stuff in our lives.  I think we are too often overwhelmed at how sinful we really are.  We don’t really want to confront and clean out the junk in our attitudes and actions because often it is just too easy and too “fun” to really commit to following the path that God wants in our lives.  We have a tendency to pursue our own happiness rather than holiness.  And we too often don’t want to give God the control of our lives and let Him show us the grime in our souls.  We also don’t want the pain that goes along with accepting the detergent and scrubbing that accompanies deep cleaning.  We have to remember however painful and difficult cleansing is, it is imperative that we do it.  We read in Matthew 7: 13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Our challenge in life is to find the small gate and narrow path that is ours, as God’s children, to walk and as hard as it often is, to joyfully walk our path.  We all must do what is commanded in Psalms by asking God to  ”Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” Psalm 51:2  even when the cleansing is painful.

 I think I hear the Clorox calling…