Worthy of Love

You are worthy of love!

September 7, 2020

Worthy of Love

Did you know that even when you have blown everything, Jesus still loves you? The Bible says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Translate that into real life:

Even while we were still doing evil stuff that makes God sad, He held out the eternal salvation to us. This gift cost Him the blood of his only son, and He was okay with giving that to us as we were still doing things to make Him sad.

Often in our life we get told by our own mind, “you aren’t good enough.”

It goes something like this:

“See what mistake you just made, they won’t love you anymore because you did that.”

Then you get sad. You feel discouraged. You try to win their love. You know what is really sad? Most of the time, those inner voice thoughts are lying to you! The person you thought you “wronged” because you forgot something or didn’t remember to text this or called while they were at work or accidentally said that – um, they laughed it off or *SHOCK* didn’t even notice! They certainly don’t hate you for that slight.

Or like this:

“God can’t love you, you aren’t good enough – look what you just did!”

When we sin, God does feel sad. Like a parent whose child knows what they shouldn’t do but they do it anyway. Life choices have consequences. God doesn’t save us from all of the consequences of our choices just like a wise parent lets the child walk through the consequences they can handle. This is so we learn from our mistakes. But guess what. God still loves us! Just like we still love our children!

You know what the Bible says about inner thoughts that do not align with God’s Word? We are to think on good things (whatever is noble, just, of good report…) to retrain our mind to see things in God’s perspective. This is hard to practice sometimes.

I often judge myself too harshly. I can’t seem to find the right reset button. I end up digging myself further into sorrow by trying to reset. I need to learn to just abandon ship; jump off and give the whole ship and my rescue to God. Then the reset day would actually be better!

From simple such as “the day not going well” to life-changing such as “rejection letter from college.” All of those things in between – don’t allow failures to drag you down. Read and study – in history, most people fail before they rise. Those who give up on life never achieve what they want to achieve. You have to stand, look at the failure and let God move.

I try to fix it. How can I redo this so it isn’t a failure? That isn’t always the answer because sometimes that whatever-it-is just isn’t meant to work. God can redirect us and show us what we need to let go and what needs to move forward – and He’ll lead you toward the right path in order for you to apply yourself into something He wants you in!

I’ve learned it’s always best to let go and let God do it. But my mind always wants to fix everything. I can say “I know this” but it’s really hard to put the knowledge into practice sometimes. It gets harder when you feel there is no safe place for you. There is. God has given you places and people to be around that are working in His love – it may be a best friend or a family member or a co-worker.

Someone needs to tell you this: You are worthy of love! You are so worthy of love! The Creator of the Universe loves you! That is your building block. From that, all things grow and prosper. You are worthy.

Read this slowly with your name in the blank (and tell your mind to be quiet, no negative “buts” added on!): “__________ am loved by God. I am worthy of unconditional love just as I am.”

Thank you for reading!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

Choosing to Rest

Ever feel overwhelemed by the busyness of life… especially around Christmas?

December 14, 2019

Choosing to Rest

The busyness of life can overwhelm us if we allow it.

Especially when your heart is troubled.

Anybody relate? 

This is the first Christmas season where all the kids have been shopping and I haven’t gone with any of them.  My Daddy passed away one year ago the tenth.  My little tradition of carefully penning the newest addition’s name in glitter glue on a silly felt stocking and adding it to our collection to hang was done by one the of girls this year.  I almost found myself feeling unimportant and stressing out because I wanted to be there…

I’m standing on the floor beam and use my standard line when my gym girls are racing.  On beam that means they end up wobbling and the exercise doesn’t look pretty when you are bouncing and wobbling. “…don’t race.  If you feel wobbly…” I demonstrate so they will laugh and pay attention, doing one passé step and wobbling as I come down “…pause…” I stop with both feet firmly planted “…take a breath to steady you…” I take a deep breath “…and now go on.” I start doing the steps again without the wobble.

This works great for my excited littles at gym.  Sometimes they race because they want to do more and more and more, but really they just need to focus on the task at hand.  They need to control the landing of their foot on the beam so the direction is perfect and they land with confidence.

BAM

Life.

It’s the same as walking the beam. 

Don’t race.  That one hit me; don’t we all race when we feel wobbly (overwhelmed)?

Pause.  REST IN JESUS! 

Both feet firmly planted. In the Word – while I’m pausing, I’m resetting by “planting my feet firmly” in the Word.

Take a deep breath.  Worship and pray.

Then you can go on without the wobble. (Worry, feeling of drowning, feeling of uselessness, etc)

Now we take our life and everything whirling around us one step at a time, focusing on each day as it exists, allowing God to control our steps, and we will walk with confidence!

Oversimplified?  Maybe, but that mental picture that God gave me as I was coaching certainly is helping me rest and enjoy this season instead of feel “wobbly” with worry and feeling useless! 

Thank you, Jesus for planting cool visions in my head from sometimes the simplest of things… God uses the simple to confound the wise!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Reset, Again

Resetting the brain of a PS2 inspires me… really?

November 10, 2018

Reset, Again

In the last blog (Proper Burial) I mentioned that Rebeccah likes to tinker with stuff.  She often fixes electronics when we think they are broken.

She had our playstation 2 unit scattered apart on the table (for the 5th time).  After hours and her final conclusion of “I have no clue what’s wrong with this thing!” she decided it was truly trash.

She always puts the garbage electronics back together like they were supposed to be – search me as to why (maybe because I once told her that sometimes resetting something was all it needed to come back to life) but she claims “a proper burial” for broken electronics is with the item totally back together.

So after Rebeccah put the Playstation 2 console back together for its “proper burial,” it now works.  (It was bought used and had a short since day one, sometimes the CD tray got stuck, and lately it would just choose to die.)  For days, that console has been working great.  She reset it back to “original” after cleaning every part in it and it has new life!

I’ve been considering that for some time.

Sometimes God wants us to close the doors on something old and leave it buried.  Sometimes he wants us to reset it.  Maybe what we’re resetting isn’t so much the item as it is our way of thinking.

The playstation console’s brain just needed all the dust cleaned out, everything disconnected and reconnected, and the source of power reset.  Yes, this was the 5th time!

Maybe we need to allow God to reset the way we think – clean all the garbage out of our brain and connect all the synapses to what we’re supposed to think about (remember, whatever is good, just, lovely, think on these things?) instead of dwelling on misfires like our failures… hmm.

Is that a lot to think about because I saw the inside of a playstation brain cleaned and now it works?  Maybe.  But I like to analyze things… maybe I analyze stuff too much.

I try to allow God to renew my mind daily.  (He says each new day is fresh in Him.)  Thinking about the things I see in life (like a silly piece of electronics) working according to God’s design helps me think that all things obey God.  (I know, silly, but if it helps me be encouraged, maybe it will help someone else!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

Proper Burial

When you can’t fix it, it needs a “proper burial” – for electronics… but maybe for more than that.

November 8, 2018

Proper Burial

Rebeccah likes to tinker with stuff.  She always has.  Most of the time, she can fix electronics when we think they are broken.

If it is headed for the trash, she always gives it at least one try (and she likes seeing the “guts” of the item too).

Today it was the playstation 2 unit (for the 5th time).  We bought it used in the first place and it had a short from day one.  Rebeccah has fiddled with it four times successfully, but this morning, all of her efforts led to naught.  She had it completely apart.  Every breadboard, wire, connection, screw, etc. was separated in her ordered little piles.  (Conclusion was “I have no clue what’s wrong with this thing!”)

So I’m trying to work on “Fibbing Fishermen” (#5, it will be out soon) in the Devonians series when I hear Kimberly show up:

Kimberly: “Becky, what are you doing?”

Rebeccah: “Putting it back together.”

Kimberly: “I thought it was really garbage this time?”

Rebeccah: “Yes, but when something dies, we should at least bury it in a proper casket.”

Seriously?  For me, this was just apropos timing.  We’ve closed a business, I’ve started a totally unexpected but awesome job, life is shifting into a strange limbo for us right now, and every time we turn around it appears something else is stealing something of value from us.

Bury it.  Wrap it and every part of it back in the casket and hide it from sight.  That so made me laugh.

Perhaps that’s what God wants us to do with these remaining bits of the past; bury them completely.  Hide them away so we are fully open to what God has planned next!

For me, right now, it’s pretty awesome: my job is teaching children (I love this!) and I get to expose each of y’all to something I’ve always wanted to do (gymnastics) as a perk!  Granted, we can’t live on this income alone; but it is something I can do very well.  I’ve felt a peace about our life right now despite the fact that our insurance is due in 8 days and we are $1350 short, I can’t focus on that.  All I can do it do my best and let God take care of the rest.

God will provide a way.

***NOTE*** You know what’s really funny?  After Rebeccah put that Playstation 2 console back together for its “proper burial,” it now works.  No short, no sticking CD tray, no dying.  She and Lucas have been playing football for almost an hour now and no issues.  Even though she couldn’t find the problem, just resetting everything back the way it was supposed to be fixed the problem. (It is almost time to go to work so, I’ll think about that more later!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

Reset Button

Ever wonder about the reset button?

August 8, 2018

Reset Button

When I was a kid my dad was always bringing home (what we would call dinosaurs now) computers and rebuilding them as school and play computers.  The 286 had a flat red square that Daddy always said, “Do NOT touch this button!”  (I had dreams of one of the little ones touching the button and the computer blowing up like a bomb.)

As I learned to program, though, I realized the reset button was to shut the computer down from self-destruction.  If it was caught in a loop (bad software) or someone attempted to overload the system with applications (operator error) the user (me) would try the famous Ctrl-Alt-Del a couple of times, but as a last ditch effort, we hit that red button.  Usually, the computer would load back up without a hitch and we’d avoid or fix whatever caused the glitch.

In life, God gives us a reset button every day.

He says His mercies are renewed each morning.  He forgives all trespasses and helps set us back on the right path.  Sometimes our “road to self-destruction” is simply doing the same thing over and over and getting frustrated because we get the same results (loop?) but God wrote us an escape clause.

I imagine computer code like this: If x person gets into y then; if y (number of times around) = >2; exit loop; end if.

It’s the “Exit loop” that gets us out of danger – and that’s because God wants us to do and be our best.

Instead of continue in our self-destructive loop, we should allow God to work on our problem (attitude, perception, etc.) and help us climb out.

Thank you, God, for resets!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

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