Our word for the week: LIGHT (You can download it in a PDF or download in MSWord). Please print it and post it everywhere as you allow His word to light your path this week.
His WORD for us this week: “I am the light of the world. If you follow Me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.” John 8:12, NLT
Today’s Assignment: Start or continue reading chapter 5. This is a shorter chapter but oh so important!! Be sure to highlight or underline anything that resonates in your heart and journal what you sense God is showing you.
Connecting: What are one or two things you’ve read so far in Chapter 5 that you sense God’s bringing to “light” for you? Are there verses or sentences you’ve underlined or highlighted? Click “share your thoughts” just below this post and do just that.
Giveaway Winners:
The winners of my May 9th giveaway are: Kristen B, Tara, Audrey, Mary M. and Carolyn K
You will each receive a copy of A Confident Heart and my testimony/teaching message Letting God Fill My Empty Places.
The winners of last Wednesday’s May 16th giveaway are: Kristi Stirler, Amy Martin & Kim S.
You will each receive a copy of A Confident Heart, my “Rest Assured” message on CD and a Starbucks gift card.
The winners of Rachel’s Ebook, The Scent of Prayer are: Roberta D, Tatia, Laura Y, Belinda & Debbie.
You will receive a free Ebook download.
*We have all of your emails so we’ll be in touch with details about your gifts this week.
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“The insecurities from my past are not the truth in my life” & “God sees beyond who I am to who I can become”.
This is what needs to become a reality in my everyday life. I think that I have overcome these feelings that I have carried for years, only to find them rare their ugly heads again and again. I know that God has purpose beyond what I have allowed him to achieve in and through me. I feel his calling on my life. Today, I will write down those things which cause me to feel so insecure, so unworthy, give them to God (for real this time), tear them up and throw them away. God, help my faith to believe that you do make all things right.
My mom passed away in 2008. Followinng this, my dad stopped speaking to my sister and I. It has been a long 3 1/2 years and he is still not speaking. Our mom’s will has finally been settled and we can move on. Today’s devotion with Donna’s story really struck a chord with me. I felt all of the things she listed while growing up with this dad who was so abusive to all of us, especially my mom. And now, what kind of relationship can we possibly have? This devotional prompts me to make an attempt to make peace, but if he chooses not to, to go to my heavenly father instead. Thank you Lord for your love and forgiveness. Help me to share this with all whom my life touches.
Ch. 5 (pg 89)
“…Sometimes that hurt little girl still has too much to say in my heart. If I listen to her, powerful yet IMMATURE emotions from my past rise to the surface. But they are NOT truth in my life.”
I have been guilty of this more times than I care to admit. I started counseling last September and discover that I was allowing the “little girl” in me to throw tantrums. That was a hard pill to swallow. I could not progress to the woman God create me to be allowing these emotions to run me. I first had to identify all the triggers and events (past hurts Ch 4, pg. 79) that I made myself believe were fine, but in fact where areas that I had not completely given to God. I was vulnerable, delicate, etc. for a long time walking around thinking I had made peace with it all. That little girl in me had been hurt and let down SO MUCH (and I hadn’t dealt with it) that I, in essense, had an emotional breakdown. I couldn’t even get an audible prayer out because of the chaos in my head. I couldn’t hear God and that scared me. Sometimes I’d just say help me and other times I’d lie in bed and moan. I remember going to prayer and a lady asked if I had a cold and it was like sometime stuck in pin in a ballon and all the air came out. I had let it all out. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, let down and disappointed. So, I began counseling (I thought) to help me get over my broken heart, but past hurts, failures and disappoints surfaced. For the first time in my life, I was able to recognize how those negative emotions kept me from prospering. When I was able to pray, I heard God. I picked up a book that I had stopped reading almost a year before and God used it to speak to my heart.
Today, that little girl is gaining strength and confident is knowing who she is in Christ and how much she is loved and adored by HIM. In the last month or so, I keep hearing God in the spirit affirming me….I truly felt like it was my daddy loving his baby girl and IT WAS! God knew I needed that touch to let me know that little girl in me could grow up now and be mature. Today, I am in awe of God’s love and grace.
Thank you JESUS!
Lord, I pray that you heal all my sisters who didn’t know the love of a natural father and searched for it in men as I did……Fill them with Your “Daddy” type of Love (like You did for me) as only You can so that the litte girls in them will grow with confidence…in Jesus name. AMEN!
Chapter 5, (pgs. 88-89)
“Often God will call you beyond BEYOND your limitations to do something that requires faith.”
***I screamed AMEN after I read this. I’ve been laid-off from my teaching position since June 30, 2009 and it has cause me to experience every emotion in the books. The gift of teaching and connecting with students is so deeply rooted it oozes out of my pores. It is the only thing I’ve ever done effortlessly…that’s why I know it’s a God-give gift. I was working at a modern school, in an ok neighborhood, with mostly eager (to learn) student, wonderful colleagues and support staff. It all went away when I got my pink slip. I was demonted to being a substitute teacher, which meant a DRASTIC cut in pay and work day-to-day. I spent the majority of the last 3 years complaining and mad about my paycut. I took a friend’s place who was pregnant (and leaving the school for good) as a long-term substitute at a school in a violent neighborhood, where parents and students showed very little respect for teachers and education. My first 2 months there, my car was stolen; students (4th graders) fighting in class; parents complaining by the massess; and at 33 yrs-old had to go to Urgent Care for an EKG. Now, I have a VERY good reputation for being an great teacher, who is strict, out-of-the-box and passionate. I found myself in the principal’s office over a dozen times from parent complaints. And to make matters worse, I had to move back with my mom who lives 45 miles (one way) outside the city. I remembering screaming at GOD asking Him why I was in the position I was in and at THAT SCHOOL! After a 2 months, the principal was asking me to take students that other teachers couldn’t handle (severe behavior problems, when I already had most of them in my own class). At one point, school police had to remove a parent and her son from my class. This was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY beyond my limitations and I ONLY made it by the grace of God.
I finished the year that June (2010) and praised God so hard in the parking lot of the school that I brke down. I was passing out awards at an assembly and there was this ONE kid (Josue) that I’ll never forget. Everytime I felt like giving up, God used that little boy to encourage me. I broke down at the award show. Most some miracle, I did well enough to be selected to teach summer school even though it’s not offered to subs. That was successful as well. That summer I tried MY BEST to get another position, BUT GOD…kept me at that school. In the midst of my frustration, I had prayed for the school, neighborhood and its students. That August, I received a call from the adminstrators to tell my that my class had some of the BIGGEST gains in their state test scores and I was asked to return (really the principal told me I had no choice). I said ok Lord…I can’t do this without You. I can’t have another year like those last 6 months. The principal could only keep me as a sub classroom teacher, which frustrated me again because it meant the same minimal pay even though I had a successful year. Nevertheless, I was allowed to pick the grade I wanted to teach (5th), hand pick my students, get technology others didn’t have and teach a pilot currculum that the District was trying out (which meant training). It was another successful year. I’ve had the pleasure of watching some PRETTY amazing kids (that other teachers wrote off) prosper…AND God has allowed me make connections with parents, grandparents and others. Those same parents that complained about me, tell their neighbors to put kids in my class. This last school year, I began as a sub class teacher again in Special Ed. I had 18 students in grades 3-5 (same room) with one aide and multiple disabilites, and 3 with violent tendencies. It was overhwhelming, but I didn’t buckle. I was deteremined to not be stressed like previous years. I worked so hard just to be bumped and watch my students spread out into 2 other rooms with their new teachers. I was placed in a 4th grade class just like the one I spoke about earlier next to the same classroom that I used be in. I had gone back to where I started and not moved forward…OUCH!
After 6 wks, I gave notice and walked away.
I’m embarrased to say, my faith has been up and down like a roller coaster. I’ve done a lot of reflecting on these last three years and God has helped me to see that I have had the greated growth as a teacher in all that I experienced in these last three years. He had much to accomplish in using me at that school. I visited the principal today and she is trying to work on getting me hired for the Fall. God is amazing…He’s calls us WAY BEYOND what we can do so that we have NO choice but to SEEK and REACH to HIM….and that is when He gets the greatest glory. It reminds me just how MIGHTY and IN CONTROL He is!