Tag Archives: family blessing

God’s Pleasure, A Prayer for Mi Familia

1 Christ is All, 2 Mi Familia, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Think, , , ,

Before I forget ~ I love you, mi familia. That has been my heart motivation towards you from the beginning. Some days my motivations were obvious. Some days, I am certain, they were a total mystery, and had you scrambling to understand.

But if I could exchange, in your mind, the times you got the “mom look,” which made you squirm or feel anything less than the true brilliance I saw in you, if I could trade that out for the gazes you didn’t see, for the times I was pondering you in my heart and I was beaming out of sight when you were singing at the top of your lungs in your bedroom or being nice to that rascal-of-a-neighborhood-kid who needed a friend and I just thought, wow – my children are the most amazing ones ever...Yes, if I could trade some of those moments so you would know the depth of my admiration, my respect, and my abiding love for you (still, more than ever), so that there would never be a way for you to doubt how proud I am of you, well, then, I would. I would do it in a flash.

Meanwhile, this is true: your dad and I pray for you and we pray for your {JOY} because the JOY of the LORD will be your daily, ever-present, help-in-time-of-need, STRENGTH for all the life and living ahead! If you’re choosing between utilizing your own gifts, talents and abilities to achieve successful living, life and love (which you could do, because you have so much in you), versus living a Holy-Spirit-empowered joy-strengthened life, and an abundant joy-strengthened life at that, well, please, my darlings – choose the JOY-strengthened life for sure!

A & G, summer 14

What does that look like? It looks like when Averi and Gemma start doing cartwheels all over the lawn. Here they are, sweet littles and they just start going. And it takes all their arms and legs and gravity and muscle-control and trust and having their hearts and arms opened wide. But when they start and we clap and cheer, those two girls just keep going and going and going like it is nothing at all. They are filled with joy in the moment and the only reason they usually stop is that it’s time to leave or night has fallen. There is no worry about how they will feel tomorrow, for they know tomorrow, they will more joy-strength for many more cartwheels! That is some joy-strengthened living!

Let’s plan to get more {joy}. We are praying that for YOU!

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“Since we first heard about you, we’ve kept you always in our prayers that you would be filled to overflowing with the revelation of God’s pleasure over your lives. This will make you reservoirs of all wisdom and spiritual understanding. We pray that you would walk in the ways of true righteousness, pleasing God in every good thing you do. Then you’ll become fruit-bearing branches, yielding to his life, and maturing in the rich experience of knowing God in his fullness! And we pray that you would be energized with all his explosive power from the realm of his magnificent glory, filling you with great hope and {JOY} in the Holy Spirit!”
Colossians 1:9-11 The Passion Translation

AMEN! Oh, yes – Amen!!!

Before I forget to tell you ~ God is pleased with you.

And so am I. {mom}

 

A Prayer for My Grown Children

2 Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , , , , , ,

A prayer for my 5 grown children

This is from an email I sent them in 2012. Tara, Stephanie, Tredessa, Rocky & Stormie… 

the rhoades kids

May you each {within your own homes and families, now} live full and exciting lives, marked by sheer delight and pure joy, along with the surging Holy-Spirit-strength that comes from that!  And I pray you will have many good conversations with the people who matter the most and will enjoy experiences and memories that warm your heart at the end of each day along the way.

I pray that you will be blessed with work, the life-giving kind of service and labor that comes from knowing you are doing the good things God actually created you to do way before anyone else even knew there would be a you (see Ephesians 2.10). I speak grace to you, over your lives. I shake heaven’s gates praying you will have the grace to be everything God created you to be and the grace to accomplish everything He created you to accomplish!

I pray you will press in to know the One who loves you most (Hosea 6.3), and that you will zealously, and with consecrated energy, live for the praise of His glory! I urge you to break off the chains of the quotidian existence sometimes imposed by the times and our culture in its’ pursuit of amassing things, gaining impressive status or careers with fancy titles.  And  I pray and declare that you’ll live, really live, in the hope for which God has called you.

Make every effort to enter into the rest of God (Hebrews 4.11), my sweets. Jesus paid it all, so don’t bother trying to earn your place in Him. He has got you covered.

Righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost – that is Kingdom of God, the doors-wide-open welcoming House of the Lord. This is where we live, in the Household of Faith. There is bread in His house, you’ll never lack for His provision. Come, eat, my beloved children. Don’t go hungry when the feast has been spread.

I pray you’ll sleep sweetly through all your nights (Proverbs 3.24) under the moon and stars hung by your loving Father, having lived your days without regret and shame. And I pray you’ll drop into bed in sheer exhaustion, but that it will always be that “good kind of tired.”

I never even hoped to dream I’d have children like you. You were made for me. And I was made for you. I love you all very much and am wholly honored that God chose me to be your mom. And I am, you know…And I pray for you!

These are not just a random selection of nice thoughts for these who came from me. They are actually dedicated, targeted prayers for wholeness (and healing, too as it is needed) for a few of my weak areas – places where I may have (probably) failed them. Thank God He can redeem and restore and His grace is greater!

Blessings for My Grown Children on a Random Tuesday

1 Christ is All, 2 Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

[Come] and, like living stones, be yourselves built [into] a spiritual house, for a holy (dedicated, consecrated) priesthood, to offer up [those] spiritual sacrifices [that are] acceptable and pleasing to God through Jesus Christ…you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, [God’s] own purchased, special people, that you may set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues and perfections of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. 1 Peter 2.5, 9 Amp

Hey, my sweets~

These are not just hopes and dreams and wishes I have for you.  And so what if they were?  I love you, each of you, with something so deep that all the words I will ever speak cannot quite ever measure up.  All 5 of you {my amazing children: Tara, Stephie, Dessa, Rock-man and Stormie Dae}- I remember you as a first miraculous flutter in the hidden place as God was putting you together, when you were known only as the child within, to now, full-grown and  productive people who wow me with your dazzling beauty.

rhoades family at christmas

But these are words I speak  on a Tuesday morning as a pronouncement, an authoritative declaration as your mom – an Image-bearer (a broken one, at times) of God Himself.  I want to impart that mothering side of God to you and say, on a Tuesday:

Blessings, my sweets – not just a cutesy-wish or an empty word, but mammoth-sized, Biblical-proportionally-sized, heaven-sent power and help in time of need BLESSINGS on you today!

May you be answered when you call on the Lord, the truest Lover of your soul.  Your help comes (present-tense) from Him! (Psalm 20.1; Psalm 121)

May the favor of God surround you like a shield, just deflecting the ridiculous assaults on our hearts that so often befall us, day in and day out.   (Psalm 5.12)

Having eaten fully of the goodness of the Fruit of the Holy Spirit at the table of the Lord (prepared for you right in front of the enemy), may you also bear much good fruit in your life today and may you produce much seed and impact generations you’ll never even see. (Galatians 5.22; John 15.16; Psalm 145.4; Psalm 128)

Be forgiven, I bless you with forgiveness.  Run to the Savior for forgiveness of sins.  If you only confess them, He will be faithful and just and forgive them – every single one.  He will cleanse you from all unrighteousness.   There is no reason to live in even a moments’ bondage today.  Not one.  And when you call on Him, I can assure you, based on the promise in the word of God (1 John 1.19) and because of all Jesus paid for on the cross – your sins will be forgiven.

May the fullness of the JOY Jesus came to give be yours, completely, wholly, finally!  (John 15.11; John 16)

May you find healing in your heart from misunderstandings or hurtful words or hard times and be agents of grace when you are on the other side of that equation.  Give healing, too.  I bless you with the strength to do that.  :)  (Psalm 147.3; Psalm 34.18)

May you reflect the Light of your life, brightening the lives of everyone in your path by exemplifying the One who has so graciously shined His face upon you. (1 Peter 2.9; Isaiah 60.1)

May you receive all the wisdom you cry out for today , all the wisdom you need to live a godly life and gain understanding.  (James 1.5)

And may you know, at the end of this day, that you were fully living in God’s grace – that empowering Presence of the Holy Spirit who gives you everything you need to be who He created you to be and to have done all He called you to do.  May you and your household be the blessed ones and may your loves (DP, Tris, Ryan and Jovan) and your babies (aka my “grandbebes”) get in on all of this, too!  May your day be sweet.

Signed with love and blessings~

A servant of the Lord, your mommy and one who admires you so much,Tara, Stephanie, Tredessa, Rocky & Stormie ~ I pray these things and more for you, and I pronounce them with the authority of one called to be yours and you mine.  {mom}

 

“Just as a nursing mother cares for her children,  so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much with affectionate longing, we were delighted to share with you and impart to you not only the Good News of the Gospel of God,  but our very lives as well. 1 Thessalonians 2.6-8, paraphrased

Undone

2 Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think, , ,

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The three

It’s a trail of bright colored Play-Dough bits and crayon drawings of “piles of snow” and stickers and paint and Light-Saber battles with vacuum hoses and cookies and orange pop and more cookies and dancing to the Fiesta Latin music channel (learning to do the twist and to shake our booties) and announcing, “Watch Nonna, I’m gonna fly now” as we jump from 3 steps up and Nonna’s heart is temporarily arrested until the landing is obviously successful.

Guini

It’s Guini loving the most dangerous thing a one-year-old could love: neon-colored plastic jacks, which she likes to pull one by one from an old Quaker Oatmeal cannister and place on the floor and then immediately one by one they go back in.  She actually squeals with delight as she pulls them out, dazzled over and over by the colors and we just watch her as she dazzles us.

Hunter

It’s Hunter begging to be frightened again and again.  He makes me put on the Darth Maul mask and chase him, but screams in utter terror when I truly surprise him and then lifts the mask to make sure: “Nonna?”  Ok.  Relief.  It is just Nonna.  Back to being chased.  Then, time to cuddle and repeated requests to sing “Jingle-bells-all-the-way.”  With Hunter, nothing is ever done once.  If once was good, many times are better.

Gavin

It’s Gavin “posing” me with a couple of stuffed animals as he cranks and adjusts Grandpa’s tripod, pretending there is a camera there.  He tells me to wait “just one second” then instructs me, “Say cheese.”  He squinches his eyes and I smile as he creates a clicking sound with his tongue and then he tilts his head head and says, “Awwwwwe...” because I smiled so prettily.  And as he thanks me for sitting still,  I wish I were aiming a real camera back to capture this exact moment of pretend into which I was invited.  And I force myself to see it deeply so I can never forget this February afternoon…

Being a mom was the most wonderful thing.  Being a Nonna, I am completely undone.

May you also know this joy!  Blessings!  Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  I am feeling a strong urge to climb a fourteener just so I can scream out my gratitude to God for all He has given me, for how He has blessed me.  Gavin, Guinivere and Hunter, my personal heritage from the LORD, how I love you!