"Prayer"

Remember as a child always reciting the same prayer at meal times? “God is great, God is good…” Though we always said the same thing, we were learning how to pray. As we grew older and more mature in our spiritual lives, our prayers became more intimate, personal. That is because we learned that prayer is our communication with our Creator. It is an intimate and glorious time!

As a parent, I love to hear my children pray. In the beginning, each of their prayers were the same. I could almost quote Ben and Callie’s bedtime prayers because they said the same thing every night. It really was monotonous, but at least they knew the importance of prayer. It is so sweet to see them grow in their relationships with the Lord. Their prayer times are really becoming a personal experience between them and their God. I remember a time when we had just been home with Caleb for about a month and he was helping me in the grocery store. He loved to help me check off the items on my list and looked forward to that fun time in the grocery cart. Well, this one particular day, we had a lot of groceries and had been there for quite a while when he asked if we could go. I told him in just a minute that we had to "PAY" first. He immediately bowed his head, folded his hands, and began to "PRAY" just as loud as he could (of course, at the time, it was mostly in Chinese so I didn’t understand it). He thought I said that we had to pray first and he didn’t care who was watching or listening, he was praying! That made me laugh but at the same time was a reminder that no matter where or when, we can lift our prayers and praises to our Father. I joined him in prayer right in the middle of the grocery store and then we proceeded to PAY as well!

God’s Word tells us in Ephesians 6:18 “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and request. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”

Our lives should be in a constant attitude of prayer. How many opportunities pass us by where we could have lifted up a request or praise? The people we pass on the street, the friend that is burdened, our fellow brothers & sisters, our families, our pastors, the church, the blessings we see day in and day out, all these and many more are opportunities that we have to talk to our Heavenly Father. We don’t have to pray just at meal times or bedtime; we GET to engage in a one-on-one conversation with our Creator any time, any place! Okay, now I’m overwhelmed! WOW! We, who don’t deserve it, get the honor and privilege of presenting our requests and offering our praise to the One and Only God of the universe!

I Thessalonians 5:17-18 “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Take advantage this week of the wonderful blessing we have been given to talk to our God. Sweet, sweet fellowship!

Have a blessed week!

Allison

"Our Special Christmas Present 2006"

I sit here this morning just reveling in all the blessings around me and I am so humbled and amazed at my God! He is everything we need but he gives us so much more! I have a wonderful husband who is my best friend and love of my life, and 3 beautiful children that bring so much joy to our home and me!

For the past few days I have been reminiscing on a wonderful Christmas present that God surprised Matt and I with just 4 years ago today! That precious gift forever changed our marriage and our family and taught us to appreciate, so much more, every blessing God bestows on us. That Christmas surprise was our sweet, little Caleb!

Four years ago today, December 15, 2006, we received a phone call that we had a son! I will never forget the words on the other end of the phone from my adoption agency as she said, “I have a little boy for you.” With Matt working in Virginia at the time, we were just a couple of hours away from heading up the road to be with him. I rushed home and Matt and I together, me in Wilmington and him in Virginia, opened the email and saw, for the first time, our little Caleb! What an amazing moment! I remember looking at the picture of him with his hands on his hips thinking, “He will fit right in to our family!” Lol! We were actually still in shock, because just a day before, we thought we were going to adopt a girl. But our God has a beautiful way of changing our paths to line up with his! I printed all three pictures of our “little Christmas present” off the computer and put them right beside me on the drive to Virginia. I cried and prayed the whole 6 hours and just was amazed at my Lord! I spent that week with my family, almost in seclusion, just praising my God! Our family back home wasn’t aware of our gift yet, but we needed time to process all of what the Lord was doing.

I spent a majority of that week sitting by the creek behind the house Matt was renting praying and reading my Bible as God dug deep in my heart! My God is so good! The kids and I even took a 2-hour drive to our adoption agency, which is close to DC, and spent time with our family coordinator, who for over a year had just been a voice on the other end of the phone. This day, she became my prayer partner and laughed and cried with me as we spoke about our wonderful God and how everything happens in his time and his ways are perfect! Sweet fellowship!

When we came home for Christmas, we were able to share with our family what precious gift we had been given! Our focus was on bringing Caleb home! We spent the next 4½ months finalizing every detail to bring our son home!

On December 15, 2006, our family was changed! I was in love with this beautiful miracle from God that was waiting for us in a Chinese orphanage. No more to be known as Guang Yue Chuan, orphan, but forever as Caleb Yuechuan Jordan, our son and precious miracle of God!

To God be the Glory!

Allison

"SHOOFLY"

Isn’t it very annoying when you sit down to eat and there is a fly just buzzing all around your food? After I went to the grocery store one night, I left the front door opened a little too long unloading groceries and I let a fly in. Now, flies are one of the nastiest varmints alive, and when seen in my home; don’t have a very long life span. Flies love to land on your food and I don’t want to even think of where that fly had its last meal. All I know is that they are disgusting and carry filth that is transferred right onto our dinner. Last summer, Ben and Callie had a lot of fun trying to get a fly that had entered our home. He was very pesky and they got a work out trying to swat him. It took so long in fact, that they named him, “Peter”. Why “Peter”, you ask? I have no idea! Leave it to my children to come up with that! Ha-Ha! Well, “Peter” eventually lost the battle to the wonderful “fly swatter” but many of “Peter’s” friends and relatives have come and gone. Such a nuisance! We now have 2 fly swatters in the house to doubly attack those pesky, little creatures.

I started thinking about the verses in I Peter 5:8-9. “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith…”

We have to be alert at all times! Satan is looking for our vulnerability to attack! He reminds me of that little pest that buzzes around but we have to stand firm in our faith. If we lose our focus on Christ, Satan can land right on us with all that filth and disease that he carries and make us “sick”. SHOOFLY!!!! As we stay self-controlled, alert, and firm in our faith; we can use our giant “swatter” and wipe him out. God has given us everything we need to swat him out. He has given us direct access to him 24/7 (Eph. 6:18 “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”) and his Word that is alive and active (Heb. 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword…”). Both of these are great weapons in the godly arsenal that we have been armed with!

My prayer this week is to be alert and focused on my Heavenly Father! That is where peace abounds and where we can flee the devil!

Have a blessed and “varmint-free” week!

Allison

"Basket of Blessings"

I love to hear stories of how God has blessed people! I’m sure you have experienced that in your own life as well. I can’t tell you all the times I have been totally amazed at my God and how he blessed me just at a moment when I didn’t expect it. Those are special times! I’m not just talking about monetarily, but in any way; an unexpected note of encouragement, a kind word from someone, a prayer answered, seeing your children do for others without being prompted, etc. I could go on and on about the different ways God has encouraged my soul through a person, his creation, his Word, or many other avenues. The bottom line is, he is the Master Encourager and blesses us far beyond what we could ever deserve! But let me ask you, how many times have you missed it? You may be saying, “Miss it? I don’t get many blessings.” Well, that my dear friend is where you are wrong. Please forgive me for being utterly upfront and blunt here. But the fact is; if you don’t feel as though you are as blessed as someone else, then you are just missing it. God blesses each of us differently and in ways that bring him glory and honor.

There was a time in our family, just a few years ago, when there was a lot of negative things, valleys, if you will, that we were facing. As Matt & I spent much time in prayer together seeking God’s face in dealing with these trials, we felt God telling us to focus on all the blessings in our lives and give him the burdens.

I Peter 5:7 “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

So, that is exactly what we did. We put a “Basket of Blessings” in our living room and encouraged each other, and our kids, to write a blessing that we experienced from God in the basket and to celebrate God and all the ways he loved on us that day. We would read them aloud and give God the praise for what he had done. Ben & Callie (before Caleb made his entrance to our family) were younger then and the sweet things they would write truly touched my soul! What we came to realize is that our attention to the trials began to diminish. Not the trials themselves, but the attention and anxiety to it. You see, just the smallest of “good” things, started to turn into the biggest of blessings! I remember my sweet Ben putting a note in our “Basket of Blessings” one day when he thought I wasn’t looking. That precious note read that he was glad that his mommy didn’t have a headache that day and that God made her feel better. What a blessing? My sweet son recognizing God’s blessing on his mom! It really became something special and we started taking to heart the many things God was doing, that once before we had, so selfishly, been too consumed with the negative to notice them. Our verse of prayer during that time was:

Phil. 4:6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Wow! How life changing when you allow the Word of God to be your prayer! The Word transformed our family and we began to see our situations turning around. As we took each and every opportunity to give God the thanksgiving he deserved, we began to love God in a deeper more meaningful way. God didn’t turn every one of our negative situations around the way we thought they needed to go, but he transformed them into the way he intended them to be and we found ourselves completely and totally at peace!

So what do you do with this devotion? Well, I encourage you to begin to put the negative talk, thoughts, and actions away and begin to transform your thoughts to our Wonderful Lord and all the ways he DOES bless you! If the words or thoughts that consume you are “I don’t have enough of…., I need more of…,I wish I could…” then it’s time to STOP!

God’s Word plainly says,

Phil. 4:19 “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”

Not according to “my glory” but “his glory”! What a difference a pronoun makes, huh? It really is all about him! There are so many things in our lives that can discourage us and bring us down, but it’s time to give God our burdens and entrust him to take care of them in his time! I encourage you all to have your own “Basket of Blessings” and see how life changing it is when our attention becomes focused on our Lord and his glory!

Enjoy the rest of your blessing–filled week and prepare to be amazed!

For HIS glory~

Allison

"What's My Plan?"

I love to have a plan! I have found that if I don’t have a plan, then life gets a little chaotic. So, with 3 kids, 2 jobs, a husband, cheerleading, ministries, and many other wonderful responsibilities, I have to be very organized and have a plan. Webster’s dictionary defines “plan” as this: “a method for achieving an end”. Pretty simple and exactly correct. We plan and organize in an attempt to achieve our goal. In the morning and again on our way home, we all go over our “game plan” as far as doing our school work, activities, & chores in an effort to make sure we don’t miss anything. We had returned home from school one day and everyone went about working their plans and Caleb came to me in the kitchen with a bewildered look on his face and said, “What’s my plan, mommy?” He was ready to complete the task but couldn’t quite remember the plan of action.

Well, there is nothing like “life” to get in there and reorganize our “plans”. Have you ever had one of those weeks where things were going along pretty smoothly and then there is a “bump” in the road? Well, you make it over the bump, and then there is a pot hole around the corner, so you make it through that, and then there is a sink hole straight ahead? Oh, yes, I have had those weeks and by the grace of God, I missed the sink hole! You know, nothing major, just plans thwarted. But for me, it threw me off my master plan. My very organized scheduling was thrown completely out of whack, but praise God that in my time of “reorganizing” he reminded me that he is the Master Planner of my life.

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

In the midst of my trials, God so sweetly whispered encouraging words in my ear and led me to cling to his Word. As organized as I try to be, God holds my plan and it is a plan that gives me hope and a future. It is good to have a plan and be organized in our daily lives, but we also need to realize that God is in control and he holds the future. We need to be grounded daily in his Word so that when plans get thwarted we can trust in him who holds the world in his hands. Pondering on this verse of Scripture has made me appreciate so many things this week. Through my little “adventure” down a wobbly path, God showed me how blessed I am to have such a wonderful, godly mother, how honored I am to have a husband that loves me and works so hard to provide for our family, children that bless my soul, jobs that don't feel like work, and most of all, a Savior who gave his life for me and loves me more than anything! Thank you sweet Lord!

Have a blessed week and remember to rely on God and ask him “What’s my plan, daddy?”

Allison

"What Do You Want For Christmas?"

Well, it’s no secret that I love to shop! One of my favorite shopping times of the year of course is “Black Friday”! Just saying that gives me chill bumps! Now, shopping on “Black Friday”, for me, is not just about being the first to get the “goods”, I love it for the sport of it! Yes, it is true! I love the crowds, the bargains, and the craziness that it brings, but most of all because it is the big kickoff for the holiday shopping season! Ahhh! It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Just makes you want to break out into song, huh?

This “Black Friday” shopping was probably the most fun I have had! What began as just an evening stop on Thanksgiving night to Toys R Us with Matt & my sister to pick up some good bargains for Christmas, turned into an all night shopping adventure around Wilmington meeting lots of “interesting” people and laughing till my sides hurt! My poor husband hung in there with us all night and was such a trooper! If you are one of those brave souls who ventures out on “Black Friday”, you know the chaos that is all around. People frantic to get the perfect gift at the perfect price for their loved one for Christmas. Some people camp out with tents & sleeping bags for hours on end just to guarantee their first spot in line to get their prized possession. In many of the lines we stood in, you would catch people’s conversations asking each other what they wanted for Christmas. Even upon our return, our kids were asking each other what they wanted for Christmas. That is a very popular question right now.

So, I’m asking you, “What do you want for Christmas?”

Here we are on December 1, 2010, officially beginning the Christmas season. Christmas decorations are up, or are in the process of going up, and all the holiday parties are underway. The countdown has begun and the shopping frenzy has already commenced, but I found myself, many times over this past weekend, asking myself, “What do I want for Christmas?”

It could be very easy to get materialistic in this society and find all kinds of things that would fill up my Christmas list, but as I ponder the desires of my heart, there is only one gift that could satisfy and bring such contentment. That gift came in the form of a baby, born in a lowly manger. His name is Jesus!

Luke 2:10-12 “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

My gift is the Messiah! Any gift that I will receive on this earth, although can be very special to me, can never compare to the gift that was born over 2000 years ago in a humble stable. That precious gift was the gift of LIFE! I accepted his gift of salvation many years ago, but the gift continues to bring such peace and overwhelming humility that just makes me fall deeper in love with my Savior! You see, when you accept him as your gift, this is the gift that keeps giving. On a daily basis, the gifts I receive from my Lord produce so much gratitude. His gifts include; grace, peace, provision, love, mercy, compassion and many more that I could go on and on. You see, he tells me in his word that he wants me to live a full and abundant life.

John 10:10 “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Will I exchange gifts with friends and loved ones this year? Of course, and those will be fun times with gifts chosen specifically for that special person and done with much love. But in response to question laid on my own heart this weekend, “What do I want for Christmas?” Well, I want more of my Jesus! Sweet Lord, Almighty God, the Great I Am, Everlasting Father, Jehovah! That is what I want, that is what I need!

There is a song that has been dear to my heart and says exactly what my desire is this Christmas, it is my Christmas prayer…

I've touched the hem of your garments

And I have felt the leading of your hand

But today, my eyes look much higher to see the face of the great "I am"

So more of You Jesus, more of your face, more of your glory in this place!

What a glorious Christmas this will be! More of my Jesus! Imagine what this world would be if everyone desired this same precious gift for Christmas. My prayer, this December, is that this joy he gives me will spread to those around me and his glory will SHINE!

What do you want for Christmas?

Blessings~

Allison