Tag: forgiveness

Bible, blessings, faith, faithful, forgiveness, freedom, God, God's love, God's grace, Jesus, religious, rucking, scripture, sin, spiritual, Uncategorized

Backpack Burdens

katietkennedy

My husband bought me a rucking backpack with a weight included. He will often do a rucking workout and thought it might be a good option for me.

I use the backpack on occasion during a workout. By the time I am finished, my shoulders are very sore no matter how tight I fasten the other buckles. I think it’s just a product of carrying additional weight on your back. When I remove the backpack there is a huge relief. My shoulders are delighted to have the surplus weight gone.

This reminds me of our faith journey. We often carry around burdens we are not meant to carry. We add weight that doesn’t need to be there. Where does this extra weight come from? Sin. Sin separates us from God. When we sin, we distance ourselves from God and add extra pounds to that backpack by feeling unworthy, ashamed, guilty, or too full of pride to admit our mistake. All these weights are added by Satan, not our Heavenly Father.

God has not meant for us to hold this unneeded load. When we come to God humbly, repent, and cast our burdens on Him, He receives them. He unloads them from our back. Jesus carries the weight of our sins, worries, or anything weighing us down. He knows we are not made to handle that heaviness. He loves us too much. This is why God sent Jesus down to die for our sins so we wouldn’t have to live afflicted with our burdens.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1)

Find peace in the words of Romans 8:38. “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Cast off those burdens and live in the freedom God intends for you.

animals, Bible, blessings, children, dog, faith, Family, forgiveness, freedom, God, God's grace, God's will, Jesus, mistakes, parenting, religious, spiritual, Uncategorized

Puppy Passion

katietkennedy

We recently got a new puppy and named him Blue. Our three daughters adore him. My husband and I have also grown quite fond of him. Blue doesn’t deserve this love. In fact, he’s destructive and bites everyone non-stop. His actions don’t merit our unconditional love for him. Yet, we give it to him anyway.

Blue rips holes in our shirts, unties our shoes, and steals our sneakers. A few minutes after he is naughty we come to tell him how adorable he is. He can hardly do wrong in our eyes.

This reminds me of our faith journey. We can be like this puppy at times. We know what we are supposed to do but still choose to make poor decisions. We mess up all the time. We forget to praise the Lord. We don’t show gratitude and we lack trust and obedience. For all of our mess-ups, God is still waiting for us to come back to Him.

It’s amazing if you think about it. We sin over and over again. We only need to come humbly to our Father and ask for forgiveness. My family’s love for Blue doesn’t change based on his behavior. Neither does God’s love for us.

We hide from God embarrassed of our mistakes. God wants us to come to Him. Sin separates us from God when we let it. Don’t let pride or anything come in between you and our amazing Father. Repent and turn toward Him.

faith, faithful, Family, forgiveness, freedom, God, God's grace, God's will, Jesus, moms, parenting, religious, scripture, sin, spiritual, Uncategorized

Clean Slate

katietkennedy

One afternoon I was tinkering with my phone. For a long time, I haven’t been able to add my husband to any calendar events. With a new school year starting, I was determined to resolve the problem. After getting some help from someone way more technologically savvy than myself, the problem was fixed. The only downside was all of my calendar entries had been removed.

I had a clean slate. Literally, nothing was on there. I kept waiting for myself to freak out, but I never did. It was oddly freeing. I actually sat there and relished the brief moment. I wasn’t ready to load up the calendar again. I knew, that as soon as I entered the fall activities and the school schedule, my clean slate would be gone.

This reminds me of our faith journey. We get a clean slate every day, all we have to do is ask for it from our Heavenly Father. He washes us clean as we repent. Just like my calendar had a fresh start, we get that same new beginning, just by asking.

God wants us to bring our sin to Him. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

We are all in the same boat. We all mess up. God already knows what we’ve done. Thankfully we have an amazing Father who wants to free us of our burdens. Let Him.

horse riding, horses

Skip the Jump

katietkennedy

My oldest daughter is passionate about riding horses which means we spend hours at the barn each week.

One Saturday morning we attended a horse show. We watched as a girl was jumping a line of two jumps. The horse jumped over the first crossbars and then refused the second jump. The girl circled the horse to redo the jump. Her trainer yelled for her to skip the first jump and go straight to the second one.

The girl nodded as if she heard the direction. She completed her circle and steered the horse over the first jump. The horse yet again shied away from the second jump. The horse and rider circled again, the trainer yelled the same thing, “just jump the second jump.”

The girl headed towards the jump and jumped over both jumps this time. I was glad to see she had gotten the horse to jump over both jumps, yet she hadn’t taken the trainer’s advice. Both times she nodded her head as if she comprehended what the trainer said. Both times she ignored the advice of the trainer.

This reminds me of our faith journey. Have there been times in your life when God tells you to skip the jump? You hear Him. You understand what He is saying, yet you can’t resist the temptation to go over the jump.

Why do we do this? Why do we ignore the advice of our wise and loving God? He has our best interests at heart, yet sometimes we think we know best.

Just like the trainer and rider didn’t seem to be on the same page that day, we often can miss the playbook God has written. We make up our own course and ride it out. Sometimes we have to learn the hard way.

God is like that trainer, showing us the correct path to take, yet forgiving us when we go astray. He molds us and grows us with each mess up we make.

Bible, blessings, bravery, challenges, courage, dream, faith, forgiveness, freedom, God, God's grace, God's will, grief, Jesus, loss, mistakes, moms, perserverance, positivity, religious, scripture, sin, spiritual, women

Set Free from Sin

katietkennedy

Your childhood probably looked different from mine, yet most of us will agree that we made plenty of foolish decisions and experienced some sort of loss. Trust me I made a plethora of mistakes, just ask my high school and college friends. Better yet, don’t.

The great thing about our loving and forgiving Father is He does not hold our past against us. We can turn our sin over to God, say we are sorry and ask for His help going forward. That’s it. It’s that simple. His sacrifice on the cross made a way for our sins to be washed clean.

You and I have experienced much loss. My mom took her life when I was 20 and I denied myself from grieving for 17 years until the weight of it finally took me down. Thankfully, my loving God was there to catch me and help me turn over my pain to Him.

We all have sin and pain in this life. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t.

Here’s the good news. You don’t have to let it hold you back and keep you from moving forward.

The Lord’s transformative power freed me to share my story today. The heaviness of my sin and grief was preventing me from becoming who God made me to be. I thought I could handle everything in my own power. I was wrong.

As I learned to turn everything over to Him, He gave me freedom beyond words. I am free to write, to put myself out there, to take risk. I am motivated to be obedient to my Heavenly Father and trust that His plans are better than mine.

I am concerned with pleasing and praising God, not the world. I am thankful He loves me more than anyone on this earth, for His love is never fleeting.

Don’t let your past hold you back from the wonderful plans God has for you. Don’t deny yourself the freedom and peace that comes only from believing in Jesus.

back to school, Bible, blessings, brain, challenges, computer, coronavirus, faith, Family, forgiveness, freedom, God, God's grace, God's will, introverts, Jesus, moms, parenting, perseverance, quiet, reboot, refresh, religious, scripture, sprummer

Computer Cleanup

katietkennedy

As summer ended, my three girls headed off to school after a very long summer. Let’s call the summer of 2020 sprummer; the never-ending spring that merged into summer. I sat down one morning to begin the herculean effort of organizing my life. After six months of girls talking non-stop throughout my day, my house was silent. The non-stop chatter and fighting had made it almost impossible to complete a thought or task.

I sat excitedly in front of my computer; my to-do list at my side. I was ready to tackle as many items as humanly possible. As I flipped from website to website sending emails, ordering supplies for kids, or filling out activity registration forms, my computer couldn’t keep up. Its lazy pace was making me frustrated and stunting my productivity.

I decided maybe my computer needed to reboot, so I shut it down. When I powered the computer back up again, its speed was significantly improved. Whatever was causing the sluggishness had been cleared up.

This reminds me of our faith journey. Every morning is like a reboot.

Lamentations 3:22 says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

God’s mercies are new EVERY morning! Not some mornings, every morning. What fantastic news!

We can experience a reboot every day. What does this look like? It means taking our good and bad from yesterday and giving it to God.

“You have been set free from sin.” (Romans 6:22). He gives us a new day, a second chance, and the ability to walk in all the ways He commands us with freedom. Because of His sacrifice, our sins are forgiven.

This glorious news means we don’t have to walk around carrying the burdens from yesterday.

Have you had a reboot lately?

birthdays, blessings, faith, Family, forgiveness, freedom, Jesus, parenting, religious, scripture, spiritual, Uncategorized

Sprinkled by the Spirit

katietkennedy

When it comes to sprinkles, they are loved and used liberally in my house, especially during birthday season. Birthday season spans from April through July where we celebrate eight birthdays between immediate and extended family members. That’s a lot of cake and balloons.

When my youngest daughter, who is five, is in charge of decorating the dessert, you can expect a generous application of the sprinkles, utilizing every variety we have in the pantry. As part of the celebration, we unintentionally began a tradition of eating breakfast in bed. This typically involves waffles or pancakes topped with sprinkles. The sprinkles transform a somewhat conventional breakfast into a special treat.

I recently read Hebrews 10:22. “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”

As I read this verse, the word sprinkled jumped out at me. I don’t know about you, but most of my life I let self-inflicted guilt weigh me down. Guilt used to filter into all areas of my life. I would experience guilt for lack of productivity, decisions I made, or beating myself up for missing out on something. Carrying guilt around is exhausting. 

Hebrews 10:22 delivers the assurance that God provides freedom, not guilt. While we are all guilty of violating His commandments daily, He already made the ultimate sacrifice for our sins and therefore we get to be free! Free to relinquish our guilt. 

Steven J. Cole says, “Guilty Christians are not joyous Christians.” 

Guilt can weigh you down. Let God sprinkle His love, forgiveness, and grace upon your soul so you can walk freely into the path He desires for you. Don’t let guilt hold you back.  

coronavirus, dog, faith, Family, Jesus, parenting, religious, spiritual, women

All Kinds of Mess

katietkennedy

As a mom, you find yourself knee-deep in all sorts of messes. With young kids, you are changing diapers, cleaning up spills, and picking up endless toys. If you have a dog like us, you are constantly vacuuming dog hair, putting away pet toys and other destroyed objects, and scooping up poop from the yard so kids don’t step on it.

Most of the time I don’t mind cleaning up after my loved ones. However, one particular morning I was at my wits’ end. In addition to being a prisoner in my home and homeschooling, my dog was having digestive issues. It began as vomit and eventually shifted to diarrhea. 

I heard our dog Casey moving about downstairs in the wee hours of the morning. I debated whether to get up. If I lay in bed like I wanted to, I would surely pay the price. I stumbled out of bed and hurried downstairs. She was doing the potty dance, as I opened the front door she dashed in the opposite direction into our den and proceeded to diarrhea all over the one mostly white rug in our home.

Typically animal messes don’t phase me. This particular morning I was not in a mood to deal with this type of mess. As Casey soiled the rug, a cuss word fell out of my mouth. While technically the word properly depicted the substance coming out of my dog, I had not planned on waking one of my children with profanity.

The diarrhea was the worst smelling thing I ever cleaned up. No, I take that back. The worst smelling odor I experienced was emptying a utility sink filled with sewer backup. I’m not sure anything will surpass that stench.

As we sat around the dinner table that evening discussing our day, my husband commented on how I spend quite a bit of time cleaning up poop. I laughed because sadly it was true. Maybe I should contact the television show Dirty Jobs.  Is there an opportunity to profit from cleaning up dung, hmm…?

The talk of mess reminds me of our sin; big mistakes, little mistakes, endless sin. However, our amazing God continues to forgive us over and over again. God never loses His patience with us! He lovingly draws closer to us and washes us clean. He never stops loving us regardless of the turmoil we create.

While my dog may have ruined our carpet, it’s just a carpet. We, on the other hand, hurt others with our words and actions and yet God still forgives us.

What an amazing God we have who helps us mend the broken pieces. As we honestly and humbly confess our shortfalls, He transforms our heart.