Monday, July 30, 2012

MY BLOG IS MOVING

Hello Friends!  I know, I know! Many of you just started following this blog right?

I really feel as if I am supposed to make this less about me and more about HIM! Therefore I am moving allisonherrin.com to gods-girls.net where we will together learn to live out our FAITH, ENCOURAGE each other and INFLUENCE our families as we represent Christ to the world. Now don't get me wrong. I don't see anything wrong with folks having personal blogs. I follow and love many who do. I just feel as if this is what God is calling me to do.

Please check out the new ministry page HERE and continue to follow along there! It won't take but a second and I believe you will be blessed by it and so will I! 

Walking in Faith!
Allison

Who Do You Trust?

I walked into the courtroom full of fear. Trusting one man, the judge, to give me what I needed. Emotionally broken deep to my core, I thought what I needed was the very thing that this judge could give me. Protection for my kids, grace for my weariness, provision for my family.
NO! GOD! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN!

You can finish reading this post HERE.  and don't forget to follow the new blog.  I will be moving everything over HERE in the next couple of months.

Friday, July 27, 2012

God's Girls!

I have been praying for some time about what the LORD wants to do in and through me!  I don't want to write just for the sake of writing...I want to be a light for Him.  I want to represent Him to the world!  I want to bring Him glory! And while I know I will fail miserably at times, I know He can use me simply because He makes beauty from ashes

So, God is up to something, he is doing a new thing....
You can read more here

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Practicing Thankfulness = Contentment

Ecclesiastes 6:9 It is better to see what you have than want more. Wanting more is useless – like chasing the wind (NCV)

Why is it that when God supplies everything that we NEED, we still complain and WANT more? I'm am as guilty as anyone.

It’s an age old problem! The Israelites, while in captivity in Egypt, prayed and begged for God to set them free from slavery. You know the story; Moses came and delivered them, parted the Red Sea, gave them the Ten Commandments and led them in the building of the Tabernacle which God in turn filled with His Glory! They had everything they needed. They needed deliverance and God sent Moses to set them free. They needed guidance and God gave them laws to follow. They needed food; God gave them manna straight from Heaven. God gave them all that they NEEDED but for them, it wasn’t enough.


Literally, just days after being rescued from Egypt and seeing many miracles along the way the Israelites began to complain and doubt what God was doing. The Egyptian army began to come after them and one might think that after seeing God perform all of those miracles that they would have faith that God would deliver them here as well. But get this; They responded by asking Moses what he had done by bringing them out of Egypt for it would have been much better for them to stay in slavery than for them to die in the desert. They saw all that God had provided thus far yet still didn’t trust him to provide here.

After freeing the Israelites, Moses became their spiritual leader. They looked to him for guidance and wisdom and as any great leader does, He looked to God. Moses would go to the top of the mountain to meet with God and receive instruction for his people so that they could follow Him in all of His ways. In Exodus chapter 32 the Israelites decided that Moses was taking too long. They needed some guidance and they weren't getting it fast enough. Their great plan when they didn’t get what they wanted was to build a golden calf and surely it would guide them. I know it sounds silly to us, but the Egyptians had taught them much about false gods and when their faith was weak they quickly went back to what they knew rather than waiting on God to provide. Isn’t that just like us?

When the Israelites became hungry God gave them what they needed by raining down bread from heaven. He gave them more than enough for everyone in the camp. And wouldn’t you know it, they began to complain again. Sometime later, the Bible says, they began to crave other food. Again they began complaining and comparing life in the desert to life in Egypt. “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost – also the cucumber, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna” (Number 11:5-6). As He always does, God provided what they needed. The manna was more than enough to satisfy their hunger and give proper nutrition to their bodies but they wanted more!

Does any of this sound familiar to you? I know it does to me. We think if we could just get a raise at work it would make things easier for our family. We get the raise and guess what? It doesn’t make things easier, we just spend more. Or, if we just had more time then we could spend the extra time with our family and guess what happens? You got it! That extra time is spent striving for more! We might be with our families but we want more sports, more entertainment, more food, you name it, rather than just wanting what we have right there in our families. Unfortunately I believe America has become a breeding ground for wanting MORE! More money, more food, bigger homes, bigger cars, better job, better spouse, and you can put just about anything behind the more. I know this because I used to want all of the same things until the LORD taught me a few things as I struggled with poverty.

So how do we learn to be content with what we have?

1. We have to first understand that it is a learned experience

2. Secondly, you only learn contentment in tough times.  It's easy to be content when all is well but it is really put to the test and learned during adversity.

3. When you do learn contentment, striving for achievement and comparing ourselves to others are no longer suitable.  Thankfulness becomes the norm.  Contentment is found in wanting what you have, not pursuing what you want.

So how do we get to the point where contentment becomes a part of who we are? I think we start by changing our attitude. If we turn our complaining  into gratitude and thankfulness I believe our attitude will change without having any chance at staying negative.




We have to be intentional about being thankful because thankfulness breeds contentment.  Here are some ways that I practice thankfulness:

~ take 5 minutes every night before bed and write down everything that I am thankful for that day

~Pray daily for a thankful attitude asking God to show me the little gifts that I fail to see in my busy daily life.

~ Tell those in my family how thankful I am for them.  Here's the kicker.  I try to do this even when I am not very thankful for them at the moment.  That's hard, but it changes my attitude. 

Dear LORD ~ Thank you for showing me daily the little gifts that you give along the way.  A beautiful sunset, a friend over lunch, encouragement from my boss, a kiss from my husband, an unexpected act from my kids.  Give me your eyes to see them and allow contentment to grow in my life through my intentional acts of thankfulness.  In Jesus name!


today I am linking with:  Women Living Well and Time Warp Wife

Monday, July 9, 2012

FEAR GOD?

To fear the LORD is to hate evil... Proverbs 8:13

I remember when I first gave my life to Christ at age 19, I found a small pentecostal church to attend.  The Pastor often preached on the fear of the LORD but I never understood what it meant.  How could I fear or be afraid of, something, no someone so magnificent?  God had radically changed my life forever. He had revived my soul; awakened something in me that I had never experienced before.  Shown me a love that was indescribable.  How could I fear that?

It wasn't until years later that I discovered through The Word what it actually means.  To fear the LORD is to hate evil.  That's it!  To fear the LORD means to hate the things that are not of Him.  To hate sin, hate pride and arrogance, hate evil behavior and perverse speech. 

You see, God wants us to represent Him to a dying and hurting world so that others can come into relationship with Him.  To fear the LORD simply means to hate the things that He hates by living a life that He loves.  It means to be so in awe of the one who created you and to display his splendor through the life that you live; to live in awe of the one who created the universe and all of its majesty and beauty.  It really is that simple.




Proverbs 9:10 says The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.   So when we fear the LORD by hating evil, we gain wisdom.  When we gain knowledge of the Holy One by spending time with him, we gain understanding.  Who doesn't want wisdom and understanding?  With them we are better parents, better spouses and better friends. We are better people.  With them we make better decisions and soon discover there are less negative conseqences for our actions. With wisdom and understanding we come to a greater knowledge of who Christ is and in turn become more like Him ourselves. 

To fear the LORD is to hate evil and is the beginning of wisdom. 

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Hope in Suffering

I thought I would take a moment and share a post that I wrote on a blog that I contribute to weekly. Blessings!

There is Hope. Even in Times of Suffering

Thursday, June 21, 2012

I Have A Dream...

...If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. Exodus 33:15

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you would have done anything to get it? A relationship, a job, that new home. I know there have been many times in my own life that I have settled for much less than God's best for me because the pain of letting go of the dream in my heart was much more than the pain of staying in a situation that was not God's plan. Or so I thought.



Many of us have been willing to go into debt way over our heads, lie or cheat on a resume, be treated poorly by others and a whole host of other things, all for the sake of getting what we want. All because we thought the consequences of losing our dream were much worse than the consequences of sacrificing our values.

Moses wasn't willing to do that. You see, Moses wanted to enter the promised land more than anyone. He had a very personal relationship with God and he knew that God's promises were good. But what he knew even more was that the presence of God was so much better than any dream he could dream. Yes, he dreamed of entering the land that God had promised. Yes, he dreamed of the people that God had entrusted him with entering it too. But more than that, no matter how painful, he wanted God's plan. "...if your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here" And, guess what? Moses never did enter the promised land but he died loving and trusting God with everything he had.

I remember desperately wanting to homeschool my children.  God said no and I was devastated.  In hindsight, I see why.  He said no because his dream for my family was much bigger than I was able to see.  Much bigger than what I am still able to see.  What he did instead was settle that dream in my heart and showed me his plan.  But I had to be willing to hand it over to him first. I had to be willing to trust him with my dream.

What about you? Is there something you want desperately for yourself? What about for your family? Are you willing to forget that dream if God wants something different? Have you even asked him what he thinks about your dream? It doesn't mean that you should give up on your dream. Not at all. I just know first hand what happens when you enter into something that is not God's will and can I tell you, it is much more painful than letting go of the dream.

Thank you God that I can trust you no matter what!  Thank you that you have a plan for my life and for those that I love.  Please keep me from entering into ANYTHING that is not your plan and if I have a dream that doesn't belong to you, remove that desire from my heart.  Thank you that you are trustworthy!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Running the Race, Even in Crisis

Over the last several weeks we have been dealing with a crisis in our home.  I will spare you the details until they resolve themselves, but lets just say it has been one of the toughest things within my family, specifically a child, that I have had to deal with to date. 
But I can see God at work already.  He has reminded me of the importance of community.  Without them, my son would be grounded and possibly even chained to his bed for life.  Through my community of friends I was reminded of several things:
  1. Get beyond my emotions before making any decisions
  2. The importance of family identity. If I kept my son in his room all summer then our family relationships would suffer.
  3. Don't just take away his freedoms, but have a plan for building him up as well.
  4. I have to be willing to make hard decisions even when others don't understand
  5. The importance of biblical conflict resolution as we represent God to everyone involved in this situation
  6. I can choose to see this as a teachable moment or I can choose to crumble in submission to my emotions but the outcome of this really is up to me and how I respond.
You see, I had been struggling for some time with this whole idea of being missional to our neighbors.  There is a kid in the neighborhood who really struggles to make good decisions.  His family life is not the greatest and we decided that we could make a difference in his life.  What I discovered instead is that he was influencing my child more than we were influencing him and this particular crisis was proof of just that.  So, while it is one of the hardest things that I have faced with my family, I am really glad it happened.  It has become my line in the sand; a defining moment for my family.  God is at work and needed to get my attention. He has revealed my sons heart at a time where there is still hope. He has revealed to me, that I can't save the world while my own son, that he has entrusted me with, goes astray.  What I can do is pray for this family and hopefully be a living example of Christ just from the way we live our lives.


So we will continue to run the race with perseverance not focusing on the current position but keeping our eyes on the prize knowing that with God all things are possible, including giving us the strength we need to make it through this crisis and any crisis that we may face in the future. 

Romans 8:31 ...if God is for us, who can be against us?

I am linking with:  The Unveiled Wife and Women Living Well

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

My Dirty Little Secret

My name is Allison and I am an action adventure movie addict! There I said it. Whew, that feels good! I feel like I should start a support group or something. I went to see The Avengers for Mother's Day. It was the only gift I wanted. I love, love, love this genre of movies! The Avengers and other movies of the like get my adrenaline pumping like nothing else. Not only do they drape the inner space of my mind on a regular basis, they also live on my computer screen, my desk at work and yes...my clothes. My favorite t-shirt is my husband's Captain America shirt. My kids and I will fight to the death to see who gets to wear it (ok not really but it comes close).



Needless to say, The Avengers far exceeded my expectations. The way the producers and writers combined the action with the humor was remarkable. I had never seen it done so well in a movie before. More than that, the portrayal of relationships between the heroes was powerful. The tension, the underlying emotions, the valiant team effort in spite of feelings and circumstances; simply brilliant!

Thanks Marvel Comics for effortlessly bringing me into the world of my boys! I shall never return to princesses and castles!

What about you? What is the one thing that most people don't know about you? What is your dirty (rated pg please) little secret?

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Blessed Indeed

As I reflect on the last 41 years (yes, I know you had no idea I was that old because I don't look it) I am overjoyed at how truly blessed I am.
I have great friends, an amazing family and an indescribable God. Words can do no justice to how I am feeling today. Overjoyed simply doesn't describe it. So today I simply want to say thanks. Thank you for being a great friend. Thank you for being an amazing husband, precious kiddos and a selfless sister. Thank you for being the best dad ever! Thank you for being a reader who likes to laugh, or cry, at my crazy life from afar. Thank you for loving me in spite of myself.
As I sit her reflecting in the last 41 years I realize that for my birthday I could be given no greater gift than what I already have. I am blessed indeed!

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Super Heroes

A Mother's Day poem from my son Cameron:

Thank you mom for all you do,
Cleaning, cooking, and loving too.
I couldn't think of what a better mom could be,
Nothing better could you give to Rob, my brothers and me!

Today is Mother's Day and for all you moms out there let me just say you are a superhero! I know being a mom doesn't always feel super but it's days like today that hopefully remind you just how treasured you are. If you happen to be one of the superest of heroes, a single mom, let me just remind you how incredibly amazing you are. I know you don't always feel appreciated and I know first hand how incredibly challenging your job is but know that you are especially treasured by our God in heaven and He sees your daily sacrifice. To all the super heroes out there that we call mom, Happy Mother's Day.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Doing Good Without Growing Weary

My Pastor preached a phenomenal message at church this weekend and I just have to share. It is too good not to. The way he breaks down scripture and brings it to a practical level is nothing short of amazing. It is a gift from God that I wish I had (without coveting, mind you). Our church has been going through the book of Galatians over the last several weeks in a message called The New Normal and it has blessed me beyond words. This particular message, however, spoke specifically to where I am in life and I thought I would share just in case you are there too.
Personally, I have been in a season of transition which is why you haven’t heard from me in a while. I started a new and exciting position at work, got married in October (woohoo!!!!), have been struggling with different challenges with the kids, and have just been in a place spiritually where I don’t feel like I am hearing from the LORD. Have you ever been there? Just feeling dry spiritually and desperately needing to hear from God. That is where I have been for some time now. I have been stuck in several areas of my life and want desperately to hear God’s direction in those areas. It feels like I am literally begging God at this point. So what do you do in these times? Do you wallow in the pain and silence? Do you beg as I have been doing? I know many of us, including myself, allow seasons like this to literally freeze us right where we are. We do nothing, either out of fear or discouragement or other nasty little emotions that we let control us. For me, it has been all of the above to the point where I have felt trapped and unable to move forward.
So what am I going to do now? I am going to do what my pastor preached this weekend. Like Emmett Smith, who ran only 2 yards his entire first game but ultimately ended up breaking the record for longest yards, I am going to put one foot in front of the other until the momentum has me moving forward. I am not going to let my emotions control my life as I learn to obey the law of Christ no matter how I feel. How? By doing good as it tells us to in Galatians 6. We do good by helping others (v 2), doing our best without comparing ourselves to others (v 4), taking responsibility (v 5), being generous (v 6), and listening to God (v 7). Once I learn to do good by following the word of God, I am going to keep doing good by implementing a system that makes
doing good repeatable. I hate systems, but they make just about anything replicable. Even though they go against every fiber of my unstructured being I hope by implementing a system I will be able to live out God’s plan, even when I am not hearing directly from Him. Here is the one my Pastor uses with the acrostic BLESS. I think I am going to give it a try:

B – Bless others – x3
1. Bless someone in the faith
2. Bless someone outside the faith
3.Randomly bless someone else

L – Learn – x3
1. Learn something new from where you are in the Bible
2.Learn something new from somewhere else in the Bible (Proverbs is a great place)
3.Learn something new from some other source

E – Eat – x3 (great things happen around food, we have 21 meals on average per week. Pick 3 times this week that you will be intentional about who you eat with.)
1.Eat with friends
2.Eat with people outside the faith
3.Eat one on one with someone that you can be intentional with

S – Sense – x3
1.What is God saying to you? (hint: are you spending enough quiet time with him to find out)
2.What are you saying to yourself? (does it line up with what God says about you?)
3.What do you believe about what others say about you? (does it line up with what God says about you?)

S – Serve – x3
1.Serve 1 person inside the faith
2.Serve 1 person outside faith
3.Serve another person randomly

(By the way, a little suggestion here: If we are not hearing from God and are in a season of dryness we need to continue reading scripture. Scripture is the very breath of God and we will always, always hear from Him there.)

So, I feel like I have a good plan for moving forward and I plan on enlisting my accountability partners to help me with it. If you don’t have an accountability partner, I highly recommend one. I have 3. It will change your life. One of my precious girls texted me this morning asking me to read Psalm 143:8 reminding me to simply let God show me his unfailing love and as I trust Him, and lift my soul to Him, He will show me the way to go. Thanks Maria for your friendship and accountability. I know that I can always count on you.
So what about you? Are you struggling with something? Do you feel stuck? Are you feeling dry spiritually? I believe that if we learn to do good according to Galatians 6, allow God to love us as we pour out our souls to Him according to Psalm 143 and find an accountability partner to walk with us along the way we will be a lot less likely to grow weary in doing good and we will reap a harvest as God directs our paths.

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