Get a drink!!!

What's wrong???

So back in the beginning of May, I told you all in my humor story, "When Your Best Friends with a Nurse" about how my wild imagination caused me to think I could possibly have a brain tumor because I kept feeling dizzy every time I stood up, when I told my lovely nurse friend my symptoms, she informed that most likely I was just DEHYDRATED and that I needed to just...GET A DRINK!!!

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 I had thought up all kinds of wild and crazy schemes and YET, nothing was really wrong with me, I just NEEDED TO GET A DRINK!!! It was the simplest thing, I had forgotten to get enough to drink. I had gotten out of my water routine and my body was letting me know that I needed to hydrate myself. Here in Arizona, one must not forget to hydrate and even more so during the desert. When drinking water, you have to take into consideration also where you are and the climate. I have to remember that I LIVE IN A DRY DESERT and that it's VERY HOT OUT!

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This happened to me AGAIN the day we had the picnic with our church. I was out all day, playing kick ball, throwing water around at each other in the water fight, I was continually pouring water over my head to cool off, buuuuuuut when I got home that night, I realized I was SO THIRSTY, I just guzzled down water. I remember thinking, it's kinda odd that I'm this thirsty, i'm sure I was drinking, I've been playing with the water ALL DAY long.

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BUUUUUT NO

Then it clicked, I had drank some YES, buuuuut most of the time I had just been around water! I had probably been emerged through out the day in at least 5 gallons of water, and yet, none of that really mattered to my body because I had only taken into my body about 1 bottle waters worth. I could be in my swimming pool ALL DAY LONG and STILL get dehydrated while fully emerged in water. BECAUSE,  It doesn't matter HOW much your in or around water if you don't consume it inside of you!

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SOMETIMES

Sometimes in life, in our spiritual lives we think that there is something wrong with us, we feel all weird and off and we begin to think of all the things that could possibly be wrong in our lives. Is there sin in my life? Is God punishing me for something? Has God abandoned me? Has God forgotten me? Is the devil attacking me? WHY IN THE WORLD AM A FEELING THIS WAY???

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What you need

What if it's something SO SIMPLE??? What if you just need to GET A DRINK??? Think about it, when was the last time you got a really good drink from that spiritual well? When was the last time you prayed through til you broke in your spirit? If your feeling like something is wrong with you, MAYBE YOU JUST NEED TO GET A DRINK!!!! 

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Are you spiritually dehydrated???

Oh but I could NEVER be spiritually dehydrated! I'm in church 3 days a week, twice on Sundays, I just got back from a conference 2 weeks ago and our church is in the middle of revival, HOW COULD I POSSIBLY BE SPIRITUALLY DEHYDRATED??? Allow me to tell you from personal experience, it doesn't matter HOW MUCH your around spiritual things, how many church services your in, how much preaching you hear, if it's NOT BEING CONSUMED INTO YOU!!! You can't just be around the spiritual water, you've got to consume it inside of you. You've got to pray until  you BREAK in the spirit.

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Consider your surroundings

Perhaps your thinking, well I don't understand, I AM PRAYING, yet I still feel this way. Sometimes we need to take into consideration where we are in life. Just like living in AZ or it being summer time is a cause for me to need to DRINK MORE WATER, Sometimes the environment we are in is a cause for us to spiritually need MORE WATER! If your living in an ungodly environment, that's like living in a spiritual desert, YES YOU CAN MAKE IT, buuuuuuuuuut your going to need to be drinking MORE WATER!!!

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There are have been seasons in my life that were like a long, hot DRY SUMMER and the only thing I could do to survive was to drink and drink and drink. It seemed like I just couldn't be in church enough, I was SOOOOOO thirsty I would look for opportunities to get more water. I just couldn't get enough, I would drink at church and then home and find preaching CD's to listen to and DRINK SOME MORE. There are seasons in our lives that we will need to remember to drink more. 

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Long Term Effects

Not having enough to drink won't kill you right away, BUT if you don't take care of it, DEHYDRATION WILL KILL YOU!!! Although being spiritually dry is not particularly a sin, spiritually dehydration can lead you into sin.  If not taken care of and repentance is not made, sin will ultimately lead you into a spiritual death.

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Have you gotten a drink yet today???

If NOT, go get one, right now!!! Then another one, and another and another. There's plenty, get some for yourself and pass some to a friend, there's plenty of water to go around. Let's stay hydrated my friends...

GO GET A DRINK!!!!  

"He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7:38)

♥Mary Frances :)

Skeletons!

I looked at the big garbage bag full of totally cute, babelicious and waaaaaaaay adorable stuff. Was I REALLY doing this??? Was I really going to get rid of all these beloved items??? YES... I WAS!!! And it had ALL started with a dream...

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I had this dream one night several months ago, that our whole house was decorated in Halloween stuff! Ghosts, witches, ghouls, monsters, skeletons...EWWWW… it was so creepy!!! In the dream I remember I was in my room with Kim and I was just like, I CAN NOT believe that my sister decorated the house in all this junk!!! She HATES THIS STUFF!!! I remember feeling so appalled. This is HORRIBLE!!! I said to Kim. I do NOT want this stuff decorating my room.

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When I woke up in the morning, I thought oh man that was a weird dream...I am really glad to know that my sis and I would never decorate the house in all that stuff. Later on in the day I was thinking about it, and although it wasn't like an audible voice or anything, I RELLY felt like God impressed something on my heart.

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I felt like he told me that there was some skeletons in our house, but we couldn't see them. I felt like he told me there were things that look sweet and innocent, but they are really representing evil. Although we wouldn't ACTUALLY decorate our homes with Halloween stuff, in a way, we still were by allowing these things into our home. I was like OH WOW!!!

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I was like BUT WHAT??? I mean we don't have TV or Movies or video games or NOTHING of the sort...but still, I felt like God was specifically telling me that there was INDEED stuff that we needed to get rid of in our home. So in my morning prayer, I began asking God to open my eyes to stuff and to give our household convictions about stuff that he didn't like.

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WEEEELLLL God moved in on that prayer VERY quickly!!! The first thing he showed me that he didn't like was...MAGIC!!!! Anything, that was magical was not pleasing to him...I'm like WHAT??? I mean, I’m like the BIGGEST fan ever of ALL the Disney princesses, how could magic possibly be unpleasing to God?!?! However, as I thought about it, it began to make sense.  Anything that mysteriously happens, if its not YOUR IMAGINATION and its NOT A MIRACLE OF God it is Magic. Now if it’s not from our own human minds and its NOT from God, that only leaves one other option…Satan.

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I know it sounds creepy, and fanatical, but I really believe that when it comes right down to it, magic is of the devil. Magic is the PRETTY, SWEET version of something else we all know as WITCHCRAFT!!! Ooooo I know it sounds extreme, but it’s true... I mean bibbidi bobbidi boo... it seems soooo innocent but what does it mean??? I would hate to find out that I’m spouting out some sort of devilish chant.

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I remember as a child, troll dolls were very popular. Everyone at school had them and a lot of the kids at our church even. My mom would NEVER let us have troll dolls. I used to wine and complain about not having a troll doll like all the other kids. I remember thinking, WHY DOES MY MOM have to be so strict? What could possibly be wrong with a troll doll when EVEN the pastor’s daughter had one? (with clothes on)

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Well, my mom told me WHY she didn’t like trolls and WHY she would NEVER allow one into our home. She said that trolls were nothing new. They had troll dolls when she was a child. She said that what most Apostolic people probably didn’t know about trolls, but she did because she was not raised in the truth, was that each troll represented a different spirit. She said that her and her friends would line all their troll dolls up next the Ouija board and play. Now if you don’t know what a Ouija board is, it is a board game that plays with spirits. As soon as I found out her reason for me not having one, I NEVER again asked my mom for a troll doll. It made sense to me. Why would I want something that represented evil?

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So often we think that the people are fanatical because they won’t celebrate a certain Holiday or participate in certain traditions. But if we get the whole scoop and find out the meaning behind these things, we would be able to understand WHY they have a conviction. You say, Oh I don’t want to know the history or the meaning behind something, it takes the fun out of EVERYTHING. Proverbs 8:13 says, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil…and the evil way.” If we are God’s people, why would we even want those things?

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There are so many things that we try and hold on to or get away with, but why? We wouldn’t let a witch doctor come into our home and cast a spell on our kids, but we’ll read about it to them in a book? “Neither give place to the devil.” (Ephesians 4:27) The devil disguises evil as fun and cute, JUST so he can get a foot into our homes. The devil knows how us Apostolics are. We’re not gothics, ready to hang up straight evil on our walls, so he has to disguise it.

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We’re in a battle in a spiritual battle. What I write about is not to put people on a guilt trip, but to encourage us as Christians to search our homes for skeletons and to pick up the sword and start fighting against evil coming into our homes. As David says in 1 Samuel 17: "Is there not a cause?" How important are our families and children to us? Are they not a cause WORTH fighting for?

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 “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

To be continued…

♥Mary Frances :)