VaShawn Mitchell - Turning Around for Me (Live)

This is beautiful!!!

De-Clutter Your Mind

De-Clutter Your Mind

By Glynnis Whitwer

Getting organized is near the top of most of our to-do lists.   But I’ll venture to say 75% or more of our clutter problems aren’t because we don’t work hard enough, or that our homes are too small or our children are messy.  Most of our problems start because we can’t think through what needs to be done.  We can’t get our minds under control.  We can’t make decisions.  We are on mental overload.

Do you know that feeling?

For years, I lived with an ongoing sense that I should be doing something all the time. It ate at me. Even when I was focused on something important, there was a latent unease about what else I should be doing.  It was an underlying anxiety that hung around, even when there was no pressing deadline or responsibility.   It caused stress and lack of sleep.

It wasn’t until I read David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done, that I discovered a reason for this tension.   It seems our brains aren’t designed to store and manage all of the information, deadlines and demands that swirl around us at all times.

Allen writes, “The big problem is that your mind keeps reminding you of things when you can’t do anything about them. It has no sense of past or future. That means that as soon as you tell yourself that you need to do something, and store it in your RAM (your mind), there’s a part of you that thinks you should be doing that something all the time.”

It was a head-slapping moment when I read those words. That was it! Allen goes on to explain that the first step to finding a solution is to get everything out of your mind and store it somewhere safe. Not the “safe” place you stored an important document at home, and now can’t find. But somewhere close at hand.

I realized my mind was trying to manage more stuff than it could hold, and one to-do list wasn’t the answer because it wasn’t keeping things in safe places. 

So I decided to do something about it and created a project management notebook.  Here’s what I did:

1. I took a personal assessment of all my responsibilities, projects, priorities and tasks. Everything.  I got everything out of my mind and onto one master list.  This took a few pages and about a week as things came to my mind.  I listed things that I had to do that week and in the coming months.  Nothing was too big or too small to include.  I didn’t try to bring any organization to it, I just did a major brain dump.
2. When I had everything in one place, I had a near panic attack at how big the list was.
3. Once I could breathe normally, I divided that list into two lists:  a project list and a task list.  A project is anything that takes more than one step.  Like planning a birthday party or writing a book proposal.  A task is anything that is only one step, like making a dentist appointment.
4. Using that philosophy, I created a project management notebook to keep track of all my responsibilities.  I actually developed this idea further and now keep lists of all kinds of things I want to remember, like devotions I want to write and notes on upcoming projects.  This notebook isn’t fancy.  It’s just a simple three-ring binder.
5. I create my weekly to-do list by pulling a manageable number of items off one of my lists. 

Having a safe place to keep track of things I need to remember enables me to have more peace, and be fully present when I need to be.  I don’t have that constant anxiety about what I am forgetting.  But even more important than that, having everything in one place made me realize I was doing too much.  No one could keep up the pace I had set for myself.  But without a master plan, I couldn’t adequately assess my workload.

The truth is I have enough time and energy to do everything God asks me to do.  The problem is I add lots more on to my plate. So I’m on a journey to be a better steward of my time and mental energy.  And that starts with keeping my mind clear of clutter.

Glynnis Whitwer is on staff with Proverbs 31 Ministries as the Senior Editor of the P31 Woman magazine and director of the Writing Team. She is one of the writers ofEncouragement for Today, the Proverbs 31 e-mail devotions, with over 500,000 daily readers.  Her newest book, I Used to be So Organized, was released last fall.  Glynnis, her husband Tod, and their five children live in Glendale, Arizona.  Visitwww.GlynnisWhitwer.com for more information.

The Air I Breath....

Breathe on me by: Natalie Grant

I have known good and bad.  I have been stripped and left for dead before.  I have known what it is like to feel like you have been kicked in the gut.  You go to inhale and there is nothing.


It is at those moments that I realized how much I needed God.  He literally had to breath into me, life.  I would go into my walk in closet and curl up in ball and wait for God to restore me. Lay there feeling lifeless and he would begin to speak over my life. 


When the enemy comes and knocks life out of you....God will breath into you hope, strength and joy.


I remember feeling like I was nothing, trash, hopeless. I had people call me needy, trash, whore, freak.  My  ex said I would never be able to work again, raise the kids and no man would have me I was too messed up.  At the time I excepted those words over me. 


There came a time that I prayed and cried and release all to God.  He began to speak over me and HE told me who I was, and what I would do and be for him. I felt unworthy and didn't know why he even wanted to use me. Then I could feel him hold me and we began to dance. I closed my eyes and let him breath into me, HIS dreams for my life.  


When God breaths into you, you have no choice but to live!  You will become whole and will walk in his path because his breath changes everything.  I am not the same Woman I was before.  I have survived on the air he breathed into me.


That is why I love him so.  I was curled up in a ball and hopeless and he met me there.  He picked me up and trumped, cancelled what everybody was saying about me.  What HE proclaimed began to take form.  He is my Master, Savior, and Lover of my Soul.  I will forever worship at His Majesty's feet, because life began again...when he breathed into my soul.


So no matter what you have experienced, lost, or feel like right now, I urge you to not be afraid to come and collapse at his feet.  He will bring breath life back into you, your situation.  God is the restorer, healer, provider, protector.  Whatever you are in need of, turn to Jesus.....whisper Jesus....call out Jesus and he will come and meet with you.
This is the Air I breath by: Byron Cage

Married Couples ......Counseling

This is great counseling on having great Sex.....every marriage needs a little instruction and counsel every now and then, rather young or older.

(click on link below)

http://youtu.be/EOL2ggofxJE

Hope Anew

I wrote this song when I was jobless, without a car, often very little food.  I know the pain of poverty.  My heart is to reach out to people in the natural.  Ministering to their hunger, shelter, emotional, and spiritual needs.  If each one of us just helped a little , what a difference the world could be.

Hope Anew

Verse 1-

The days seem long, 

yet time is slipping away.

The nights are cold,

yet the heat of pain seems to stay

I feel so alone,

all by myself,

Where have they gone?

Where have they run away?

Must I face this on my own?

Is there no one to stand by me?

If they could only see

 how much I need,

to be loved, to belong.

Chorus-

Coming together

for such a great cause

Looking beyond 

each and every fault

Taking the hand 

of the one who needs you

This is the time  

for my love to be true.

Oh …This is the time for hope  anew.

Written by: Char Sumner Allen

Not over till God says it's over

Some of the worst decisions I have made, God used to show me the paths that I am not to take and the ones that I am to take.  We learn from our mistakes.  None of us are immune to mistakes.  When I started realizing how human I really am, then I began to learn how much I needed God in my life to change me, mold me, and remake my mind, heart and desires.


When I look back at my mistakes I can see why I did them.  Then I couldn't.  I was just stumbling over myself and making poor choices.  Everyone around me were quick to judge but they didn't know what I had already walked through and that these things plagued my life still.


I have so far to go, even now, but I know I have grown from that time in my life.  My prayer daily is that God will help me to slow down and listen to what he is saying about things.  To help me to prayerfully respond to life and not react emotionally.  Emotions can change constantly, but when we are grounded in God's word and being obedient we can be constructive in our lives and not destructive. Building up ourselves and those around us.  


I believe that each one of us have a weakness.  The key is to be honest about it and daily bring it to God.  God knows what my weakness is, I ask for strength and help with it every day.  I want to grow to a place of overcoming power even in my weakness.


I encourage everyone who has made mistakes or failed, to pick yourself up, dust it off, ask forgiveness and move forward.  Leave it behind.  Learn from it and let it be your footstool an even higher level in God.  God has great plans for your lives and he desires to see you succeed.  Don't let yesterday keep you from your tomorrow.

Can One Person make a difference?

I remember sitting in a travel trailer.  My children's father had taken us to Tennessee and put us in a trailer park out in the middle of no where.  He kept telling me I was losing it, going crazy.  He was trying to drive me to it.

I sat there and felt so low.  I felt uncertain of myself or my worth.  I had been beaten down so low with his verbal abuse, and how he kept me fearful, that I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

He was at work, and the kids were in bed.  I turned on the tv and Bishop Jakes came on.  He was preaching and began to speak directly to the camera.  He said you have forgotten who you are.  You are God's princess, his daughter.  He began to remind me, who I was in God. At that moment I began to cry.  It was like peeling an orange....folding back that which blinded me.  I began to remember that I was God's precious daughter and that he loved me regardless.

It was at that point that God began to remind me who I am, and what he wanted to do in me.

Bishop Jakes had never met me and didn't know the situation I was in, but God moved him to speak those words of hope over me.

Never underestimate God using you.  You never know what life you are going to alter.  What life you will change with your obedience.  I am so glad that Bishop was obedient.  It changed my life forever.

Whenever God wants to use you....let him.  Be a vessel to alter directions, rescue the hurting.