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Friday, March 13, 2009

Welcome!


Thanks to all of you who stop by today after reading my P31 devotion on jealousy-- a very real human emotion, but one that's not easy to admit we struggle with. I will return on Monday with an update on my weekend at Hearts at Home. In the meantime, I invite you to have a look around here and I hope you guys have a great weekend. Y'all come back now, ya hear?
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22 comments:

Wendy Blight said...

Marybeth,

Thank you for such an honest post today. I heard my voice and my cries as I read your words. Oh, that we could be content with what the Lord, who knows us and created us, gives us. He knows what is best and wants the highest and best for us!!! May we trust Him more after your powerful words today.

Blessings,

Wendy

Anonymous said...

I woke up very early this morning and I am feeling the Lord speak to me. I believe that he is calling me to teach His Word. I have been praying about the life that God has for me, and wandering what Lord okay what do you want me to do. I know I want to serve you with my whole heart, I know you are going to move me from being ordinary to extraordinary. So right here right now I am submitting my will to Your Will. I want nothing more than to please you with my life and if teaching is what you want me to do than teaching it is. Thank you Lord for waking me up out of a dead sleep this morning and giving me a calling. Amen, Amen, Amen!!! I wrote this because I can see how Marybeth is letting the Lord use her, and I want the Lord to use me.

Nancy J. Locke said...

Good morning, Marybeth. :D

I clicked in from the newsletter. What a beautiful heart you have to share this subject with others.

I'm pleased to find your awesome blog!

Thanks for the free ebook link.

Nancy J

Momofboys said...

Hello Marybeth, this is my first time commenting on your blog. It is difficult to admit that jealousy resides in me where the Spirit of God is supposed to be residing as well. But it's a battle everyday to beat down that spirit of jealousy! Thanks for being honest when you could have easily hid the fact that you can be jealous. By the way, you have a beautiful family!! -Claudia

Anonymous said...

Wow...its like this one was written just for ME. I am ashamed to say that I' so guilty of jealousy. There is one particular person in my life that I'm contantly comparing myself to. Shes a stay at home mom of one. Her husband has very lucrative job and my friend is able to have a housekeeper as well as go to the gym, spa, salon, etc regularly. SHe is completlely self-focused, just as I long to be.

I, on the other hand, am a full-time real estate agent with six children (4 of whom are adopted). I homeschool my oldest adopted son, I'm the neighborhood resource leader for my church, and the list goes on and on. I had my hair done professionlally all of once last year. My husband is in the military and gone a lot, so I'm carrying the weight of the family on my own shoulders.

Sometimes I pity myself, but I know the things I am doing are exactly what God wants me to do...still, that green-eyed-monster is always creeping up on me. Thanks for the message!
beth

Julie Zine Coleman said...

Really liked your devotional, Marybeth. Jealousy made the top 10 (commandments) so it must be a very common human problem!

In the end, jealousy is about doubting the goodness of God. If we believed He is totally good, then we would understand that where He has us is the very best place we can be. Charles Spurgeon said, "If there were any place better for you than the one in which you find yourself, Divine Love would have placed you there."

So knowing all that, why do I struggle with jealousy?? A lack of faith. Human sinful nature. All of which can be overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Thanks for making us aware once again of this sin. Being aware can be half the battle.

Anonymous said...

Thanks MaryBeth for another wonderful post. It read like I could have wrote it.....well if I had your gift of writing that is.

Please know that I read your blog almost daily even though I rarely comment---so please don't take the lack of comments as a bad thing!!! You are bookmarked if that does anything for you!!!LOL!

Anonymous said...

Hi, Marybeth! Wonderful devotion today. Jealousy is something that Satan really uses to pull us away from God and the contentment that we can find in Him. The "comparison game" is useless, because someone will always have more than us (of whatever it is we are comparing), but someone will always have less than us, too. We tend to focus on what we don't have that others do, instead of the many things that we are blessed with that others don't have. And I just wanted to let you know that I'm also a daily reader - I love reading what you write and the way you live out your faith!

Anonymous said...

I am struggling with this very issue. I disguise it however as an offense or something and honestly didn't even realize it until this morning. I was just in my prayer time and my mind was racing. Wanting so much for God to show me what I really needed forgiveness for. As I struggled through my prayer time it was my conclusion that my issue is certainly jealousy and ouch...did that hurt. That's when I came to my computer to find your devotion this morning was on jealousy!!!! God is good and I just wanted to encourage you this morning that God has spoken to me through you. I can't thank you enough for reminding me that when we are honest with our feelings and our struggles that it's then that God can begin to work in our hearts!! Your blog page is beautiful :)

Candi

Cheri Bunch said...

Marybeth,
I love your honesty! Thank you for sharing your heart with us today. Truth sets us free......even another's truth can open the door to freedom for us! I appreciate your word for today so much. It is one of my favorites!
Blessings,
Cheri

Keti said...

Hello Marybeth, Thank you for today's devotion. I, too, struggle with jealousy, plus try to be "better" than the next person. God is teaching me humility and the spirit of service, though. There is nothing wrong with being ambitious, provided the ambition focuses on being a better child of God and a better servant to others, I think.
I have a friend of whom I used to be very jealous. Just as you say in the devotion, though, bad things happened to that person and I really would not want to be in her place. As you suggest, I intend to focus on my path, not looking right or left...
Take care, may God bless you abundantly. :-)

Sheena said...

I was struggling with the issue of jealousy just yesterday.Our public exam results were out and I as an educator that taught quite a weak class ended up with students not really scoring high marks meanwhile some other collegues really performed well.I felt pressured as well as inadequacy.Well...we all struggle in this area and i have surrendered it to the Lord and asked Him to grant me the strength to be ALL that He has me to be.

Thanks for being real.Have a blessed weekend.Oh ya... u r in my favourites too but i dont always comment.We live in two different parts of the world LITERALLY.I am in Malaysia...That is in Southeast Asia.I think you would need a map to find it.

Sweet blessings
Sheena Jeremiah

Our Stories God's Glory said...

Hi Marybeth,
I loved your honest and oh so true comments. I am happy to report that I have had some victory in the area of jealousy. Looking back, I realize, first I had to recognize my jealousy and let it out into the light, His light. It was so ugly and so not how I was supposed to feel as a Christian woman that it was hard to admit. Once I did admit it, yuch! I did not like this about myself and I knew God wanted to help me here. A trusted friend said to me that if I was so busy looking at and envying someone else's gifts, I couldn't recognize my own unique gifts, develop them, and allow the Lord to use them for His glory. Well it didn't happen overnight, and the struggle isn't completely over. But I now recognize the "green monster," more quickly, confess my jealousy, and ask God to remind me of the truth that I am wonderfully made and He has a plan for little ole ME!!
Thanks again...And to all you writers and editors out there, I encourage you to get For The Write Reason. It has changed my life!
Many Blessings,
Elise (OurStoriesGodsGlory.blogspot.com)

Kathy Schwanke said...

We are doing a series w/ our youth group on sexual purity and biblical dating. In our planning and discussing the differences between boys and girls, we see the very hunger God put in us "in the beginning" was for boys to "subdue" and girls to "be the special one" to go alongside the subduer.

The very core of our identity as women is to be a "special someone", and it takes a lifetime to believe and recieve God as the only satisfier of our needs.

Unfortunately the green monster never "checks out" completely, we just get better at slaying him when he makes an appearance!

So we boast in our weaknesses that Christ may be glorified!

Thank you for your transparency, it is a blessing to know we all (even those who seemingly have "arrived") have monsters to battle!

Anonymous said...

Hi Marybeth,

Thank you so much for the devotional on jealousy. It's just what I needed today. I have been struggling with jealousy for a few months now. It's about something very silly. For many years my husband and I have been playing a certain sports game regularly and we are a good team. Since last year, one of my friends started to learn to play this game and she picked up very quickly. Along the way my husband helped teaching her while I was slacking off sometimes. Over time they sort of formed a "team" and now I can sense my husband prefers to playing with her instead of with me even though he doesn't admit it. So there have been mixed emotions going on inside me, jealousy of my friend's ability to learn the game quickly and fear of being abandoned. One good thing out of this is that I realized I need God everyday. Now after reading your devotional and all the comments above, I'm even more encouraged knowing that I'm not alone in this struggle and that I needn't to be surprised if the "green monster" comes back, but I need to keep my focus on God alone.
Please pray for victory for me. I appreciate you all.

LenaLoo said...

Hi Marybeth!
Thanks for your words this morning! Just what I needed, you know?
~LenaLoo

Anonymous said...

Thanks Marybeth. I came to your blog before and didn't write and I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I think you are absolutely the "cutest" and of course your family is so precious looking.

I guess the green-eyed monster looked at me and left when I figured out that if I got all the success I wanted, skeletons would fall out of my closet and scare eveyone away from me. That made it a lot easier for me to pray for the success and protection of others and rejoice when they achieve and being contentent without being complacent in the place God has me.

I love your blog and thanks so much for sharing your heart with us.

Bless you and thanks for taking time to blog.

Jackie Edwards
New York City

Oh Dear said...

You know the funny part is, I can be jealous of a person for one thing and that same exact person is jealous of me for something else! I have to remind myself how good I have it! How good I have it with a kitchen floor covered in crumbs that I will sweep up, bills piled that will someday be taken care of and no date night with hubby scheduled for the rest of the year! God is good and He has designed this life just for me!

Kimberly said...

Your devotion today was wonderful, and I am so glad you were honest not only with your friend, but also with us.

I knew just from reading the title of your devotion that I needed to read it. I can so easily get my focus off of Him and onto how I compare to everyone around me.

Thanks, again, for your honesty. Knowing I am not alone in my struggles is such an encouragement.

Surrendering my heart and life to Him (daily, hourly, minute by minute),
K :)

Anonymous said...

Marybeth:

I just wanted to say I needed to hear that! I am a vocalist and have been on many stages throughout my life. I always struggled, and still sometimes do, with jealousy. I have some of the same feelings you expressed in your devotion today, only in the musician sense. Thank you for being honest and helping me realize I am not alone and that I am not an awful person for having them. Thank you for reminding me to put my thoughts on the Savior Who died for those jealous thoughts and keep them on Him!
God bless you in your ministry and keep being real. The world really does need to hear the TRUTH!
Kristi

Anonymous said...

I am from Louisiana, I enjoy reading you writings on P31. It really blesses my heart. I wanted to also tell you that my grandmothers last name was Whalen so maybe somewhere down the line we are kin,who knows. I pray that God will always bless you. Donna

Melissa Milbourn said...

I love you. Thinking about you in my prayer time this morning.