Lighthouse Keepers

Is joy the same as happiness or contentment? What is Joy and do you have joy? Where does it  come from? Can we have joy in difficult times? I love people. There. The secrets out. I just love people. I really enjoy having one on one time with people. I love to see where they are at in their walk  with God. If I can sit down with someone and find out where they are in their faith, I walk away  blessed, and encouraged. But what’s the real reason behind this joy that I find? I’ll answer that yet. :) I’m a pretty happy girl if I can take a drive to good ole Tim Hortons, or if I can have a relatively  clean house, or if my children are having a good day, but that happiness is not lasting once the  children start crying all on the same day or even the same hour. Once the house needs to be cleaned  again (or you find out that there’s another whole area of the house that you didn’t get to), that  happiness is soon turned to unhappiness. Don’t even g...

It was a few weeks before Christmas. Money was tight, expectations felt high and then came that hydro bill for over $800. Long story short, I ended up snapping at the Hydro One employee on the phone and then hung up on her. As far as she knows, I have stopped feeding my kids so that we can forever pay the hydro bills. Truthfully, it was not her fault. She was simply the messenger and who knows what I did to her day.  Looking back, I am disappointed at how I handled the situation. I like to think that I learn as I go and have grown since, though I am sure I have more great stories to come.  It is that time of year again. We sing and speak of love, joy and peace. We prepare gifts and are full of excitement. Or are we really? It is also possible that we are busy, overwhelmed and frustrated. As we go to town, we see the hustle and bustle all around us. With the hustle and bustle, there is a lack of smiling faces. Chances are we will experience bad customer service, get cut of...

Thinking back to when I was a little girl, to my early teen years, then to my mid-late teens, friendships were a big part of my life. I mean, they are for almost everyone! And no matter how the dynamics change and the maturity levels change, there is something that never changes. The thing that never changes is our desire for closeness, security, and comfort within friendships. These characteristics make us feel complete and happy, but they can also be a great enemy. Our desire for these things can cause us to unconsciously (or maybe at times a little too consciously)cut people off who aren’t as close to us; we stick to getting together with the friends who we can talk to easily, who know us so well, and who we have so much in common with. And that is how a clique is formed. Until about two years ago, cliques were a way of life for me. There were times where I was aware of it, but most of the time I didn’t give it a thought, because it was so engrained into me. These elite...

Several months ago I did a devotional for a ladies group and I shared very personally on what I had been going through in trying to establish balance in my life. I would like to share the collection of excerpts from other authors as well as my own thoughts here in hopes that I can encourage other women who feel as I did/do.     We began with an attempt to balance on a board that had been laid across a cylinder something like the one pictured here.   Balancing on the board was hard. No one could balance for more than a few seconds. You have to take into account what you are balancing on, which way to lean, how to best keep it balanced while doing other things. After a while it would get quite exhausting.   This is our lives. We try to balance out being a good wife, mother, employee, friend, being involved in ministry. That’s like not just balancing on one board but stacking them up and balancing four or five boards all at once.   Often when...

When anxiety and despair come knocking what do you do? (Source) I have never really struggled with anxiety to the extent I'm sure some of you have, but within the last year the Lord has been revealing to me how much I depend on controlling certain areas of my life for my sense of security. With my parents moving to Mexico for missions, raising young children; which is the most faith testing experience I have ever gone/am going through, becoming pregnant after struggling with infertility, this year has been a bit of a hard one. Not that these things are bad, but they were unplanned, unexpected and disrupted what I thought I had going for me, or how I had things planned out in my head. The Lord has been so kind and gentle in reminding me of his promises and his care for me in every situation. I am learning that resting in Jesus no matter how difficult the battle may be whether it is an internal or external one is really the safest place to be. This is a process though...

I’ll never forget the day when my second oldest, who couldn't have been more then four at the time said to me, “mommy are you happy at me?” And I immediately said “of course I am happy about you. I love you so much!”  Then she completely caught me off guard and replied “then smile at me.”    Even as I write this I feel the power of those words coming from my little girls mouth. It made my stomach turn.  It literally shook me and broke my heart that she could sense that I was obviously not happy and simply did not have joy right then.  I could tell her that yes I was happy but I knew she knew better. That day I realized that I had been depriving my sweet precious family of a vey powerful and wonderful gift.  The gift of joy. I had had a hard day..or probably a hard week and I had let it drain me of joy and happiness and my dear family had to feel the consequences of it. It was not fair at all. Since then God has so often reminded me of that day and I ...

Are you anxious? Are you worried? Are you afraid?   We have so much to be anxious, worried and afraid about. Often our feet have not even hit the floor yet and we have something worrying us or we haven't even had your breakfast yet and we've already heard some bad news. Almost every single news outlet thrives on making sure we get the news, the terrible, the horrible, the no good, the very bad and depressing news. The news we hate to hear but we actually look for it, we listen for it, without even consciously knowing. Maybe it's because our focus is more on the negative events that are going on around us. It's almost like a habit.  Most people would agree that the media is too focussed on the bad news.  Sorry to be the one to tell you girls, but we look for it and they know it. Two men from a well-known university set up a "tracking the eye" experiment on the computers in the university la...