Bare Earlobes

Good Thursday Morning To You!!!!

Hope you all had a fantastic Labor Day Weekend! Mine was wonderful! Started off Friday with a trip to Hattiesburg to take Hannah my 15 year old to her first Cross Country Meet. Now, for you who know Hannah, this will not surprise you at all. Hannah is all about the jewelry. Especially the earrings! Well...she wore this certain pair up there and I found out later from one of the other girls that she had brought a pair to change into to when she ran. :) Yes....she did. The devastation to Hannah, however, was when they told her she had to take it all off. No not the clothes too, the jewelry. Whew! But to Hannah, you might as well have said that. She came over to me with it all in hand and said, "I can't wear it". (: You see....it represented who she was, what she liked, her personality. And now she's having to take it off, run without it. Would she still be Hannah? Could she still run her race with bare earlobes? To her amazement maybe, yes she did. She ran with no jewelry at all. Just an "ugly uniform" as she said, a ponytail and tennis shoes. Not her usual "look" but she ran anyway and finished. The Lord spoke to me this morning about this. Sometimes, we get it all stripped away and it comes down to just plain old us and what we are made of on the inside. Who are we really without all of the "accessories"? Nothing wrong with "accessories", I believe God made them for girls especially but do we have what it takes when it is all gone to still run the race that is before us? I believe with all my heart we do! I believe that when all of the stuff is gone, even God things, ministry, etc. that we are who He created. You see those are just by-products of who we really are. You see in a hurricane, for all of us who know what that is like, when the wind settles and the tree is left there bare, it is still a tree, leaves or no leaves.

I don't know where you are right now. I dont' know if you have lost it all, had to step down from something, had to give something away, whatever situation you are in I want to encourage you to still run. Yes run that race with all your heart because it is all just "accessories" and those things are not what makes you run your race in such a way to receive the prize or not. It is who lives and dwells within you that gives you that ability. For "in Him we live and move and have our being" and that we can say as Paul one day "I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith, I have finished the race!" WOO HOO!

BLESSINGS TO YOU TODAY!
Marty