Roses for Her

The first beautiful bloom on this one!! (Referencing the red rose picture below) 🌹 God sees your beauty like a beautiful Velvet Red Rose. They are so beautiful even when they stand alone! ❤️  This deepest red colored rose does not need anything to help enhance it's beauty. It is passionate, strong, loving, sweet, and courageous! You are his Beloved!  

Each year since my grandma Henry has passed away I have planted a rosebush in her name. My grandmother loved roses and had many in her flower beds. I remember visiting her in Oklahoma each summer and helping her plant and prune and water all of her lovely roses each morning! She taught me a lot about them during this time together. I bet she had every kind you could have! When she got older she found it was too hard to take care of all she had built up and a lot of them are gone now. When she was still alive though, she would talk about her roses from time to time. I know she missed seeing them. I also know she hated that her arthritis was as bad as it was. It stopped her from doing so much. She loved to garden, That's probably where I get my love from!

The first year I planted pink roses for her. Pink is my favorite color and I had nothing in my garden at that time. We had just moved into our house on Townline Rd. in Michigan, and I was still grieving her loss so I did not put much thought into picking the roses. All I remembered was that she said knockout roses were easy to take care of. So pink it was! 

The second year I planted a yellow knockout rosebush. Yellow is my grandmother's favorite color! She once painted her whole kitchen canary yellow! I asked her why such a bright color? She said, "because the color is pretty and even when I was a little girl the color yellow always made me smile." I still remember her smiling as she told me that looking at her walls in the kitchen.

This year I was wondering what color roses am I going to plant for grandma? Where am I going to put them and what kind? I actually prayed about this. I felt like I wanted to hear from Grandma and I wanted to plant something she wanted to see in my garden. On May 1st, the Sunday before Cinco de Mayo, which is her anniversary, my beautiful Niece Tiara, gave me the most heart felt, loving message I have probably ever received! I won't go into all the detail, but she said God sees me as the most beautiful Red Velvet Rose, because even when I am by myself I am absolutely beautiful! ❤️☺️ Right away the tears started to flow. Tiara didn't know all the reasons for the Lords message that day, but I knew why he was giving me a parable of a rose! It spoke to me in more ways than just one.

Right after I left from talking to her I went to the garden center I worked for last summer. She always had a bunch of roses to choose from right before Mother's Day weekend, so I knew I would find what I wanted there.

This is a climbing Jose velvet red rose bush. It was all the Garden Center had for roses at all that day! I asked if she was getting anymore in and she said she was suppose to get a bunch more with these, but they messed up her order, so this year these 3 Red Velvet Jose Climbing Rosebushes that she had was it!

I asked for a clear message and the Lord delivered for me that day!! So I want to share the first bloom, and it's beauty! 😄 

Matthew 7:7 Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seek, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be open to you.  

Matthew 21:22 You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it.  

Mark 11:24 I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you've received it, it will be yours. 

Luke 11:9 And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.

John 16:24 You haven't done this before. Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy. 

John 15:7 But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!

Psalm 2:8 Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the whole earth as your possession.   

Face to Face with God

My heart is heavy as I write trying to wonder what life is like now for a friend of mine? Wonder what emotions she is dealing with and her two little girls. 

Let me tell you, her girls are the cutest!! I got to see a video of them sending my friend an, "I miss you video" that their daddy recorded when we were all in Arizona for graduation!

I have gotten to know beautiful Lauren through my time with Holy Yoga. She is so sweet and loves Christ. 

During one of our structure breakdowns. We three decided to pause and take a picture! 💜😊

This photo was taken on the last day of retreat after graduation. This is our whole group. We all stayed in one cabin together throughout the whole week!

One thing in all the news readings that stuck out to me about her husband is all the reporters commented on one of the last pictures he posted to Instagram saying, "you've been my rock!" I truly believe that! Lauren is strong and passionate about what she does, and I believe she carried that over into loving Dave Mirra.

Suicide, why does there have to be that kind of fog in this world? How can someone be so sad, so lonely, so empty to think the world is better off without me in it? How can one person think they are not loved!? 

And God! What about your promises? What about their promises? You know, the ones they made before family and friends... And ... You? What about those little girls? How will they fill this hole the size of Texas in their hearts?

As my tears flow down my red cheeks, I realize I can't answer any of these no matter how hard I search for the answers to these questions. One day we will know all there is to know, but right now the only thing that is stinging my mind is, we all have to lose loved ones at some point in our lives because we are human. And, if it weren't for Adam and Eve's escapade with that dirty Devil himself then I think things would have been less painful here on earth. 

 

"First is human body and then the spiritual body comes later." 

Scares me to think of losing my loved ones! Makes you want to kiss your kids a little extra and tell them how much they mean to you! How much they mean to God! 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 That they have an amazing purpose here on this earth for His honor and His glory! John 15:16 That He adopted them already and they are His children forever and because of that, they will never be alone! Ephesians 1:5 That they are favored!! That they are yoked with God already, because they were created perfectly in His beautiful, amazing image! 1 Corinthians12:27, Genesis 1:27 That there is promise for their life! 

God does not separate from us. Hear me! God is not the one that pulls away! He never leaves us and He never forsakes us! Hebrews 13:5,Colossians 1:14 It is written and promised to us! So in my search for promises for Lauren, and her girls I relalize God gave me more answers than I know what to do with! They will be loved by my Father in Heaven! Romans 4:25, Philippians 4:13 That! I know!!! 

To Lauren, Maddison and Mckenzie, 

Our hearts are weeping with you. I am so sorry my friends! I know my words will never be enough, but know that we hold you dearly and are praying for you through this time! 

In loving memory of Dave Mirra 

If you are dealing with thoughts of suicide please reach out. Don't keep your thoughts hidden. The Devil loves to prey on people with secrets! There is light through all the darkness, I promise you that! John 8:12

The Healing Freedom of Abba Father

Proverbs 3:5-8 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart;  do not depend on your own understanding.  Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom.  Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.  Then you will have healing for your body and strength for your bones.”

Psalm 55:22 Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

Psalm 16:11 

you make known to me the path of life

you will fill me with joy in your presence, and 

with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

The Healing Freedom of Abba Father 

Let Him speak life into your bones and rejuvenate your soul. 

Let Him be the safe place.

The place you cast doubt and He says, "No my child, I am with you!" 

The place where you express anger, and He turns it into singing songs of worship. 

Let Him be the place where you cast fear and He turns it into security and love!

Know that He has grace and mercy and love for His children always. 

Let the lovely bones of your body breath Him in with the deepest breath! 

Let your soul start healing from the inside out. 

There is no reason to fear my Father tells me. For He is with me always! I truly believe that.    

There are so many times in my life whether I was on the wrong path or the right path that a situation I was in could have been worse. When I was a young christian I found myself asking why weren't you there? Don't I matter to you? Why don't you care? Why am I alone? 

But see, He was there! He was always there. Protecting me from what could have happened. I made choices that led me down a path and in the midst of my troubles my Father still cared and loved me and protected me. I just didn't feel it, because I was so far away from Him. I had taken a wrong turn and it is so easy to do when you make your own choices. In my selfishness I looked at Him and said, "why didn't YOU do better than this God?" 

Now I can see what might be a troubled situation and I steer clear of it where I can help it. I seek Him first, and He guides my path. It is so much nicer this way, trust me! 

But if I do find myself in a situation that is uncomfortable I know that I have the armor and strength of God and the enemy will and does fear that! 

I know that with the right actions and judgement I will win every time no matter the outcome here on earth! 

If you'd like to comment about something please do. I'd love to hear your thoughts or struggles. I'd love to pray for you. 

Confidence in His Grace

Ephesians 3:12, "In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence." 

Hebrews 4:16, "Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

Confidence is something I have always struggled with. Will I be good enough, what will they think of me, did I do that right, did that sound right, are they talking behind my back, why am I left out? 

You know the petty, but very real wonders of this world for some of us! 

People can be so judgmental at times that the fear of being in front of others has caused us to protect ourselves and resist that quiet sweet call from God telling us to step out in faith somehow. 

I wear many hats, and each one comes with a step of faith God has called me to or put me in. Over the years I have learned to give myself grace as if God himself were standing right next to me talking me through the steps. Now, I am by no means perfect, but I knew that giving and receiving grace was something I needed to work on.  I use to be so bound by chains of anger when something was out of place, not done right, something wasn't completed, I sung a song wrong or out of its original order, friends or family disappointments. I could go on! 

Grace is something I have learned to give myself when my house is not spotless and the dishes are over loading the sink, grace when I don't have dinner done and I have to run and get something that costs twice as much that someone else made and I know it will probably give us all cancer or something because I did not make this meal from scratch! 

I've even learned to breath in grace when I know I'm doing the best I can, yet, still failure follows somehow. We all have an insecurity of that word! Failure...... 

Let it roll off your tongue a few times, because what I've learned is some of the best lessons and gifts from God come from failing in my life at something. I'm not trying to say I am proud of my failure, or that continuous failure is okay. It's not, please let me make myself clear! Some of mine have been followed by real pain and a time of repentance and steering clear of sin.  However, some failures I have just simply learned from, fixed the problem and moved on, I've realized it's okay to fail at times. 

 

The most beautiful thing I have discovered is that there is love from my Father in Heaven and He wants me to learn and perform at my best. When I fail He weeps with me. His arms are open to catch my biggest fall. I can trust in that and there is freedom in coming and kneeling before Him even when I feel my confidence to do so is very small. 

This beautiful reality has given me a new confidence today I have never had. I love being a child of God. I love sharing about what he's done in my life and what he's doing! Having the confidence to step out in faith is scary at times, but so, so rewarding.

Have you been believing a lie about confidence and God's great grace? Let yourself hear from God and comment below or write me privately about it. 

Introduction

My husband Joe and I Christmas 2015 at my parents house in 

Oklahoma.

My three children; Coehn 11, Baylea 8, Joey 5 

and I at my middle sister's wedding in Oklahoma