pshhhhh...who needs a wizard?

I have watched the Wizard of Oz at least one hundred times in my 37 years of life if not more. In all these times, I learned that the scarecrow didn't need a brain to be smart, the tin man didn't need a heart to love and lion was full of courage he just didn't know it. What I didn't grab a hold of was the Ruby Red Slippers! Yes, I realized that she had to power to get herself home the entire time but she didn't know it. Silly girl, right?

But this time I was watching it and the very first scene with Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West went like this...

Wicked Witch of the West: Give me back my slippers. I’m the only one that knows how to use them. They are of no use to you. Give them back to me. Give them back.
Glenda: Keep tight in them. Their magic must be very powerful or she wouldn’t want them so badly.


Think about this a minute! The wicked witch KNEW the power of the ruby red slippers. Glenda KNEW the power of the ruby red slippers. Then there was poor ol' Dorothy with all this power and clueless.

Sound familier? Are you walking around wearing a pair of ruby red slippers and have no idea the power they hold?

Look at it another way...the witch KNEW, Glenda KNEW...what if we KNEW?? There is something powerful in knowing something. When you know that you know that you know...NOTHING or NOONE can persuade you. YOU WILL NOT BE MOVED. I know from my past experience that if I hear something once or twice I am gonna forget it eventually but if I know it, even if I forget momentarily, it can be easily remember if need be (kinda like that silly Algebra that had to be taken in highschool)

My challenge to you:

Do you KNOW that God gave his only son to die for you or have you just HEARD it? Do you KNOW that he provides a way when no way seems possible? Do you KNOW that when noone else is there Jesus is? Do you KNOW that God wants to give you the desires of your heart?

Don't spend your entire life on the yellow brick road trying to find your way back to Kansas. You should KNOW the way. Don't count on someone else to tell you. Don't count on remembering something you heard a pastor say one Sunday in a sermon. Get in the word. KNOW it. Once you know something, it's yours! It's yours meaning that it cannot be taken away from you. It belongs to you.

Imagine that for a minute. Knowing that you are the beloved's and the beloved is yours. Again, key word is KNOWING...

Do you know if you are a believer that you possess the power that can take you anywhere in this life? Do you know it enough to believe it? Do you really KNOW it? I don't think I KNOW yet but I think I am well on my way!

The Change

Pardon me if I've been acting strange, I haven't been myself lately. What you see is a person rearranged, someone affected me greatly. And I've got so much to say ever since Jesus looked my way... Mercy Me

What I really wanna know is…

Can you see the difference?

Can you see that my heart is so full of love that it is absolutely about to explode?

Some things I have learned along the journey:

Proverbs 13:24 says, “Those who love their children care enough to discipline them”. ENOUGH SAID. I found out a couple of weeks ago that the Song of Solomon is about God and the church. After learning that I had to go back and take a look again at the way God loves me: AMAZING…Check this out:

Song of Solomon 2:16 says, “My lover is mine and I am his”. Ladies, if you are anything like me you could understand this! Imagine someone going after “YOUR MAN” That is the way God feels about us. His property, we are spoken for, this one is taken, back off…all of those things could be written on our foreheads and heaven help the person that tries to come between us…God would definitely put up his dukes to defend us!

Then there was this:

Matthew 22:37–39
Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' (This was the easy part but then I read this) This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

Pppssssthhhh (this is that noise all the kids make with their mouths)! Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind…I GOT THIS! This is easy right? Just love God. How can you not love God? I mean he is super awesome right?

BUT then along comes this part, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”! I was stuck…really? Have you met my neighbors? I know what this verse means. It doesn’t mean the person that resides on your left or on your right. It means EVERYONE. EVERYONE is your neighbor. You know I actually said to God out loud,” You know? I could do this when I didn’t love myself very much. The verse says love your neighbor AS YOURSELF and I was pretty mean to MYSELF so I could be mean to my neighbor…lol." That didn’t work. He didn't respond with a LOL. He didn’t find that humorous! Not one bit. God and I really had to talk about this…

This is how it went:

Michelle: What about that girl at work that absolutely REAKS of cigarette smoke every morning. She always wants to hug me. I have to love her?
God: Yes Michelle, I gave you the power to hold your breath just long enough to hug her!

Michelle: Even that one guy that I KNOW without a doubt was trying to get me in trouble with the HR lady at work?
God: Yes Michelle, didn’t that work out in your favor? That wasn’t a coincidence. I work all things out for your good.

Michelle: But what about?
God: EVERYONE. Everyone deserves to feel my love and its time for that love to come through YOU.

So here I go…thinking I am going to spend lots of time holding my breathe and biting my tongue! I am off on my journey to loving the unlovable (in my world) but what I have come to find is that God in me is LOVE and it is easy to love people. It is fun to love people. It’s not nearly as hard as I thought and I am finding that more and more people love ME.

Happy Birthday Christopher!

April 7, 1991
7lbs 11ozs
Christopher Mark Saucier

I thought I would absolutely DIE the night I had you. I was 17 years old and clueless to what I was doing. But I will never, ever forget how I felt the first time I held you. Scared to death and totally in love!

Your dad and I were sitting in the drive thru at Burger King when I had my first contraction. The look on my face told him EVERYTHING. He panicked of course and had no idea what to do. He almost drove away without our food. It was hilarious.

ONE contraction and we went to the hospital. They actually laughed at us when we got there 

Home we went to eat our cold Burger King cheeseburgers!

Guess what? BACK LABOR is a horrible, horrible thing to endure but I endured it…for a LONG time. 12 hours to be exact.

After three trips to the hospital and being sent back home they finally kept me. You should let your Grandma Carolyn tell you the story:
She worked in the emergency room when you were born. Third shift in the ER was either super busy or super slow and this night it was super slow. In 1991, when you went to the ER for anything the first thing you did was get in a wheel chair and when you left you left there in a wheel chair. It was hospital policy. She said that each time she looked up there I would go..up to labor and delivery and I would wave..then on the way back out I would wave again…lol All night long I did this and all night long she waved!

It is now 18 hours since the back labor started and I am finally being kept at the hospital. The real contractions start and here we go… The doctor that delivered you looked like Magnum PI. Your grandma thought that he was the most handsome man but I just thought he was old and hairy and looking at things that made me uncomfortable however, I welcomed him with all my heart!

I had a love affair with Demerol that night. It was a romance like no other!

Then there you were! Oh Christopher, how I loved you the moment I saw you. All of that other stuff…the lack of an epidural, the 24 hours of labor, the unfortunate lesson I learned about eating cheeseburgers before labor, the IV that I hated with a vengeance… all of that stuff didn’t matter anymore. You were here! You had the bluest eyes and the sweetest face! You also had a cone head but that went away with time!  Your hair was blonde but you didn’t have very much of it. Thinking about that right now gives me such a feeling of joy! What a blessing. I didn’t know much about God back then but he knew me and he knew that you were gonna change my life.

We made it Chris. We grew up together. We learned how to conquer life together. We learned how to compromise and live life TOGETHER. That sounds weird for a mom and son but we did it just the same. When your mom is 17 you kinda have to have some mercy for her AND YOU DID  With all my mistakes you loved without finger pointing and kept a smile on your face even after you got older and new that you didn’t have as much as others.

One of my favorite memories is your second Christmas! All you got from me to open Christmas morning was a coloring book and crayons, 3 Little Golden Books and 4 Matchbox cars all wrapped up separately. You were so excited about those presents. Your 2 year old reaction has been your reaction to every gift (big or small) that I have ever given you. It shows that you have a heart of gratitude.

You love with your whole heart. You have grown into the most amazing man. I am proud to call you my son. You are loving, you are giving, you are consistent, you are stable, you are blessed beyond belief with people that love you. You make your own decisions and take complete responsibility if you mess up. You are aware of life and live it with respect for yourself and others.

You treat me like your friend, you respect like your mom, you get grossed out when I am mistaken for your girlfriend and are honored to be a part of me. For that I love you!

Happy Birthday Christopher!

Love,
Mom

The Joy of Protection

Where do I start...maybe at the beginning! On Sept. 23, 1973 I was born...just kidding! Not that far back...more like about 6 months (maybe not that long but close enough) I was in a place where God was yanking at my heart strings but I couldn't get past MYSELF to answer that call.

Anyway, we had some healing services going on at our church at the time that had some awesome worship and I was drawn there several times!
Once as an observer, no more, no less.
Once just for me, I met God there and forgave myself for all my junk and low and behold started to hear (really hear) the voice of God. I feel the need to clarify that no hands were laid on me or no prayer was said for me that caused this. I was in my chair and on my own (how awesome is God that he met me where I was! He didn't ask me to "expose" myself or make me feel uncomfortable! He was protecting me but I didn't know it then) The third time was the final time I went to those services and also the first time I heard God speak to me in an audible voice. What he said is unimportant but the fact that he spoke and I listened is the important part...that seems like forever ago!

This one sentence sent me on a road that I am gonna try really hard to describe. There was an astounding amount of protection around my heart and my mind! Shortly after this some dissention came about in our church. It saddens me so much because I feel as though some really awesome people have made some really difficult heart choices and changes in their life. Whether I agree with them or not is neither here nor there but in my deepest parts of me I feel they were decieved.

It is so important to understand how easily this could have been me! I was needing something in my life to grab a hold of. Someone that I could look to for comfort. Someone to guide me in the ways of God. I could have so easily chosen a "person" to follow. God showed me HIS way was the way; not the way of man! God protected me! God told me what to look for. He told me what to expect. I kinda laugh on the inside cause he is "just that good"

Let's jump ahead a few months! If you know me, you know I am attending bootcamp, planning a wedding, have 4 children, work 40 hours a week, etc!! Needless to say I am pretty busy! Well, I found that I was isolating myself (something that used to be done as a "defense" mechanism) but not in a bad way. When I say isolating myself I mean that I would respond to text messages, I would talk to anyone that called me or approached me but I found that I wasn't doing much reaching out (well, I was but only to a chosen few)! When I was asked about it my first response surprised me: It's not that I am hiding! I feel like I am in protection mode! The next question sent me straight to God and what I found is GREAT (imagine me doing a happy dance) What are you protecting?

This is where I can get LOUD!! :)

I am protecting my heart! I am protecting my family! I am protecting my friends! I am protecting my future marriage! I am protecting my pastor! I am protecting my image! I am protecting my self-worth! I am protecting MYESELF and all that is dear to me!

No longer will I be swaying to and fro with whatever the world throws at me! I love people but I don't love the things that they say. I don't love the things that they do. Now, I know that I am not perfect but I also know that I have come a long way! I know that when something "just doesn't feel right" that it's God telling me to beware and put up the fence! So many people say that if you build a "Wall" then you will become hard-hearted toward people but that is not the case! I have not built a wall. I have put up a chain link fence!! Just the right amount gets through. It is almost like a strainer! The good stuff I let in...the bad stuff stays out!

I don't desire to be with people that whine and cry about life. I don't desire to be with people that try to advise me on my future marriage that always have turmoil in theirs. I don't desire to seek financial advice from someone that tends to be "broke" or behind all the time. I hope this is making sense?!

My life and the lives that God has trusted me to mold and shape are precious to me. I will protect those lives to the fullest extent that I can. This doesn't mean that I will shut out all of those with so called issues because we all have them. I will just not seek those people out. I hope to one day be a light in their darkness. I hope to be the one to show them the way to Jesus through my example.

No I am not as "out there" as much as I used to be. I am in protection mode. I am in prayer mode. I am waiting on God to guide my next move and sometimes to even guide who that next phone call or text or invite to dinner might be too. I am begging him guide my steps when I feel the need to "vent". Who am I venting too? Someone that will bring me life? I hope so because that is my desire!

God gives me the desires of my heart! I desire to be smart. I desire to be trust-worthy. I desire to be financially stable. I desire to worship the way that God deserves! I desire to be a loving wife. I desire to be keen to my senses as a mom! I desire to come out of my shell at work and inspire people to love Jesus! I desire to protect my family. I desire to protect myself.

I desire to be protected from the world and God is doing just that and it is peaceful. It is content. It is joyous!

Days like today...

Ever had a day when you have nothing to say? No reason to do a status update. Nothing to blog about? No big revelations? No big issues that need resolving? Today is one of those days!

I have mixed emotions about this. Is this what peace feels like?

The biggest issue I can think of right now is the fact that it is 2:56pm and I am counting down the time until 4:30 so I can spend some time with Jason and Jase (the girls aren’t home).

My bills are paid. My kids are healthy. I have great friends. The wedding is planned. I am reasonably healthy and so is Jason. My house is clean. The yard is mowed. Supper is planned. I talked to my mom this morning and everyone is doing well over in the big NC! See what I mean….nothing!

Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. {29} "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. {30} "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

This rest and this peace are amazing. It is kinda weird to me since I have experienced so much chaos in my life. When you truly feel the love and peace of God it is life changing. It is oh wow..really, this is the peace of God life changing.

When you wake up and can look in the mirror and smile at the woman you see and love her. That is love!

When you can look at your past mistakes and say, “yea, those things happened. I did them. They do not define me but boy they sure taught me a lesson”…That is peace!

When the absolute most annoying person that you know; the person that would make you clinch your teeth when they walk in the room. The person that speaks and their voice sounds like nails on a chalk board…you know that person? When you can look them in the eye and tell them you love them and MEAN IT. That is God.

I am learning. I am on a journey. I am at peace. I am love!