Obstacles Welcome: How to Turn Adversity into Advantage in Business and in Life is a book that challenged me to not get so easily derailed.  Ralph de la Vega was separated without warning from his family in Cuba at the age of 10 to start a new life in the United States.  Immigrating by himself at that tender age was only the beginning of the challenges through which he persevered to better himself time and time again.

Now the CEO of AT&T Mobility, the second-largest mobile phone company in the United States, Mr. de la Vega uses what he has learned to help others – whether it be through providing excellent customer service in a crisis or challenging young people to see the opportunities in the middle of what seem to be hopeless situations.

While this book is largely about leadership and succeeding in business, it is a good book for anyone to read.  The book initially piqued my interest because my husband is in the mobile phone industry and has worked for AT&T in the past, and I am very glad that I chose it.  I was able to interest my teenaged Boy Scout sons in reading the book by letting them know that Mr. de la Vega is a board member for Boy Scouts of America.  I believe that anyone – teenagers, stay-at-home moms, college students, entrepreneurs, etc. – would benefit from reading Obstacles Welcome.

I was given a free copy of this book by Thomas Nelson Publishers in exchange for my unbiased review.

“According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love:

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.”  Eph 1:4-6 (KJV)

I think these are my favorite verses in the entire Bible.  At the beginning of the year, I decided to “park” in Ephesians for the whole year, and it hasn’t gotten old yet!  Every time I read through it (sometimes the whole thing in a day, sometimes just part of it for the day), there is something fresh that jumps out at me.  But the above verses are my absolute favorites.

I have always been fascinated by adoption.  I love the idea that a child who is deprived of the most basic of human needs – the love of a family – can be so fully integrated into another family that it is as if they had been born into that family, with all the rights, with all of the parental love given to natural born children.

This is what the Lord has done for me.  Even before the creation of the world, He looked into the future, saw me, and CHOSE me.  I am and could never be anything on my own.  Yet He so fully integrated me into His own family that I share the inheritance rightly belonging to His own Son!

I am far from what I want to be as a wife, as a mother, as a friend … as a Christian.  Worse yet, I am far from what my husband needs in a wife, what my children need in a mother, what my friends need in a friend, and what I should be as a Christian.  In spite of that, though, I am fully accepted by my Father because of Jesus Christ.

Now THAT is amazing GRACE! 

“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;  that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;  strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy.”  Colossians 1:9-11 (NKJV)

My mom left me a comment on my last entry that referenced the verse above from the Psalms.  She told me that she is praying for “strength of soul” for me.  Later today, a friend of mine who is going through a difficult time of a much greater magnitude than I forwarded the verse from Colossians that somebody had quoted to her.  As I read the verse, I realized again how much the prayers of other people really do mean to us!  When other people are lifting us up to the Lord in prayer, He is faithful to answer those prayers.

My mom said that she was not just praying for physical strength for me, but for strength of soul.  I believe that was the intent meant for my friend, as well, as her difficulty is not a physical one.  I was reading over the two verses together and realized that the Lord allows us to go through times when our physical strength may be lacking so that we can develop stronger souls!   And even more than that, He Himself becomes our strength when we stop trying to do it all on our own.  When I am honest with myself, I realize that there is no way that I can do it on my own – I crumble when I try.  But when I allow Him to come alongside and be my strength, the difficulties seem to shrink.  The problems may not go away, but my perspective changes and the problems don’t seem so overwhelming.

Why, oh why do I keep having to relearn this lesson?  Why do I keep insisting that I need to go on in my own strength?!?

Oh, and for those who are wondering, the test results for Lyme Disease were negative.  I’m praising the Lord!

“Bless the LORD, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”  Psalm 103:1-5

Now that my 15 year-old son is recovering from Lyme Disease, I am waiting for test results to show whether or not I also have Lyme Disease.  (I had expected to know by now, but the doctors’ office lost the test results.  Grr. )  If I do have it, it will be the 7th case of it in our family in the last 4 years!  I started to have pain in my knees when my baby was about 6 weeks old, and that pain has now spread to most of my other joints.  I feel like I would expect to feel in my 70′s, not my late 30′s.  I am also dealing with extreme fatigue.  If I did not have 8 children to care for, I believe that I could sleep all day, every day!   It didn’t occur to me at first that it might be Lyme Disease, because I did not have the high fevers that were associated with the first 5 cases our family had.  However, when I saw that my 15 year-old definitely had Lyme Disease but had not had the high fevers, I realized that I needed to get checked.

It can be discouraging to go through health problems day after day, week after week, month after month, and sometimes year after year.  I am blessed in that my health problems have been relatively minor.  I have not had to deal with any of the really life-changing problems that face many people.  Still, there are times when I am discouraged by the fact that my health is not as good as I think it should be.  ;-)

My 15 year-old and I were listening to the radio in the car together Friday evening, and we got to hear the daily broadcast from Focus on the Family.  We got to hear the story of Duane Miller, who had mysteriously lost his voice and just as mysteriously regained it several years later.  In fact, we listened to a recording of him teaching on the verses quoted above when his voice was restored.  The recording was painful to listen to in the beginning, as it sounded as if he had a severe case of laryngitis.  However, as I listened to his voice being restored, I had tears rolling down my cheeks.  I encourage you to listen to the January 15th broadcast of Focus on the Family!

Duane Miller talked in the broadcast about the sovereignty of God.  He talked about how he had to come to grips with trusting the Lord for his voice.  The Lord, in His wisdom, allowed Duane to lose his voice and struggle without it for several years.  At just the right moment for His purposes, the Lord then restored Duane’s voice.  Duane has gone on to have a successful speaking ministry.

Nick Vujicic is another person who has faced tremendous obstacles in life – obstacles that would have stopped many of us.  I had seen him on YouTube before, but was sent this video again today.  Nick was born without limbs, but lives life to the fullest, encouraging others to do the same.

Whether I have Lyme Disease or not, whether I feel good or not, whether or not things are going the way I think they should, I can still praise the Lord.  And when I praise the Lord, He will help me to get through the day in a way that glorifies Him.   Regardless of how my body feels, my youth is renewed like the eagle’s when I praise the Lord!

Sometimes, the hardest thing in the world can be to be thankful for something.  It’s easy to be thankful for the blessings we receive.  It’s easy to be thankful for sunshine and good health.  It’s easy to be thankful for happy marriages and beautiful, obedient children.  It’s easy to be thankful for good jobs and sufficient money coming in.  It’s just easy to be thankful when things are going our way.

But life isn’t always about sunshine and good health.  Marriages are failing all around us and children are going their own ways.  More and more people are losing their jobs and most of us are concerned about whether or not the paycheck is going to stretch until the next one comes in.  How are we to be thankful during those times?

I fail in being thankful more times than not, but I am really trying to train myself to look for the good in things.  And I think that it is important that my children  learn to do so as well.  Sometimes it is harder than others, like when I feel that I’ve been hit with one thing after another.  Right now is one of those times.  When it seemed as if everybody was on the mend from the H1N1 virus and we were getting back on our routine, my 15 year-old son started to get sicker and sicker until he ended up in the hospital.  The baby and I spent Thanksgiving week at the hospital with him as he confounded the doctors through one test after another.   Thankfully, the doctors finally diagnosed Lyme Disease and started treatment for him, and we were all able to come home.  However, we came home to 2 other children being sick with a cold!  That cold has now passed to my husband and to me, and I’m currently feeling quite miserable with it.

Miserable as I am, I still have much for which to be thankful.  While it does seem that we’ve been hit hard with one thing after another in the last couple of months, we still have an intact family, my loving husband still has a job to go to, and the 15 year-old is getting treatment and is doing MUCH better.  Furthermore, if this bug follows the same pattern in me that it has with the others, I should be a whole lot less miserable tomorrow.  ;-)

Once I get started, there are a great number of things that I could list about which I am thankful.  Many of those include relatively minor details that the Lord has worked out in the last few weeks.  Details such as being able to stay at the hospital with my son as he went through test after test, in spite of having my 3 1/2 month-old baby with me.  We live a fair distance from the hospital, and there is no way that I could have gone back and forth to care for the baby.  The hospital policy during flu season states that only parents are allowed to visit the patients.  The fact that the baby had already had H1N1 played a big part in an exception being made for her.  The nurses even brought a crib into the room  for her!

Even though our family missed celebrating our favorite holiday together, we are looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving once we are all feeling better.  After all, who says that Thanksgiving can only be celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November?  It would be much better if every day of the year were a day of Thanksgiving!

And after having listed just a few of the things for which I am thankful, I must say that I am feeling much better.  :-)

P.S.  Just after publishing this post, I went to iTunes to try to catch up on listening to some of the podcasts that I enjoy.  The first one on my list was a Revive Our Hearts broadcast by Nancy Leigh Demoss titled “Abounding in Gratitude.”  Talk about timing!

I have not felt qualified to post anything for the last several days.   Who am I to think that I can offer encouragement to other moms when I can’t even get my own children to do what they are supposed to do?  Who am I to think that I have anything worthwhile to say?  Who am I to even think that I know anything at all about mothering?

Yes, I’ll admit to having somewhat of a pity party during the last few days.  I have been discouraged at the apparent lack of growth and maturing in children who seem to have the same issues come up over and over again.   Why do the same things have to be addressed time and time again as if for the first time?

Hmm.  I think I see a similarity here.  Does the Lord not have to address the same things over and over again in my life, too?  Is the Lord ever discouraged about my lack of growth?  I seem to have a problem learning the lessons that the Perfect Parent is trying to teach me, so maybe I need to not be quite so hard on my children when they don’t learn the lessons that this very imperfect mother is trying to teach them.  Maybe instead of focusing on my discouragement with my children, I need to look inward to see what the Lord might be trying to teach me.

To start with, I find that I need to let go of my discouragement and put my hope in the Lord.  The above verse is found three times in two chapters with almost the exact same wording.  (It is also found in Psalm 42:11 and 43:5.)  The Lord must have really thought it important to have included it so many times.  You might think that He knew that there would be times when we would be discouraged and need to have our focus redirected to Him!

Secondly, since I believe that the Lord has put this desire to be an encouragement on my heart, I need to obey whether or not I feel qualified.  Maybe it is that very lack of qualification that can be an encouragement to someone else.  No one need feel that they can never measure up to me, because I certainly DON’T have it all together!  I will just keep posting as the Lord gives me words, and pray that I don’t ever get to the point where I feel that I can do this without His help.

Has anyone else felt discouraged and unqualified as a mother lately?  If the Lord has given you something to encourage you, please share it.

The Lord has made Himself real to me time after time.  He has made me feel His love, He has shown me His care, He has let me hear His still, small voice.  You would think that I would be continually grateful, that I would continually be basking in the Light of His presence.   Unfortunately,  I have a tendency to forget Him.

In my self-centeredness, it is not always praise for the Lord that immediately comes to mind when things are going well.  Nor is it always an immediate cry for help that comes to my lips when thing aren’t going so well.  Instead, I might feel self-satisfied when I feel that I have done things right or just plain down-in-the-dumps when things don’t seem to be going my way.  It’s really not about me, though!  I was created to bring glory to God, and focusing on myself and my circumstances definitely does not help me to fulfill that purpose.  When things are going well, it is not MY doing, but the Lord working through me.  And when things seem hard, that is precisely when the Lord can step in and work.

Apparently, David had a similar problem.  He recognized that it is RIGHT to rejoice and to magnify the Lord continually, but he also realized that he was needy in his self-centeredness.  Oh, the hope there is for me, though, in his next words … “yet, the Lord thinks upon me.”  I may forget the Lord, but He does not ever forget me.

Temptation is a daily part of life, unfortunately.  Some days there are more temptations than other days, and some temptations are stronger than others.   Some temptations are for minor things … like complaining … and others are for major things that are easier to recognize.

I memorized the above verse when I was in the 10th grade, and it has come to mind on a regular basis since.  It has been a real encouragement to me when I have felt overwhelmed, and the Lord has proven Himself time and time again.  Recently, we were assigned this verse for memorization in the Bible Study that I am going through, using the book Growing Strong in God’s Family.   (Tyranny of the Urgent is another post referencing this study.)

I had the verse written out on a 3 x 5 card in my Bible along with the other memory verses for the study.  Yesterday, one of my children was lamenting the fact that temptations can sometimes be very difficult to overcome, and I was able to pull out the card and give it to the child.  I need to also pass it along to the rest of the children.  I hope that it will be as much of an encouragement to them in their lives as it has been to me!

The opportunity to pass along a meaningful scripture yesterday further illustrated the point to me that it is important for me to be modeling a quiet time and scripture memorization for my children.  I know that it meant a whole lot more to the child receiving the verse yesterday that I had pulled it out from my Bible rather than having to go look it up and suggesting that it be written out.  It was obvious that the verse meant something to me more than just a platitude to pass along.  I just wish that I had been more faithful with my quiet time and memorization earlier, but it’s never too late.  I pray that the Lord will help me to be more faithful from here on out!

I have a confession to make.  I LOVE Southern Gospel music, especially the older stuff.   I didn’t even know what Southern Gospel music was until the mid 90′s, but then my family was introduced to one of Bill Gaither’s Homecoming videos, and I was hooked.  I grew up listening to the Gaither Trio and Doug Oldham, but I had no idea about such groups as the Statesmen, the Blackwood Brothers, the Happy Goodmans, or other such groups before seeing the Homecoming videos.

Last night, we pulled out Singin’ In My Soul from our collection of Gaither Homecoming videos and watched it as a family.  At one point, Tanya Goodman Sykes was singing a song written by her late father, Rusty Goodman.

Look for Me (Words and Music by Rusty Goodman)

When you finally make your entrance to that city
Of jasper walls and bright golden avenues,
As you behold all its beauty and its splendor,
Remember there’s just one request I make of you:

Look for me for I will be there, too.
I realize when you arrive there will be so much to view.
After you’ve been there ten thousand years,
A million, maybe two
Look for me, for I will be there too.

As you go down your list of firsts there’s no question
We’re gonna have to see our loved ones, me and you.
And when you feel you’ve shared your story with the last one
Who wants to hear just how you made it through,
Look for me for I will be there too.

I realize when you arrive there will be so much to view.
After you’ve been there ten thousand years,
A million, maybe two,
Look for me for I will be there too.

Rusty’s brother Howard was still living and was present as Tanya was singing.  He sobbed his way through it, and then made the confession that, as he was getting older and thinking about his own mortality, he had doubted at times whether all that he had sung about for so many years was just a myth, or if there really would be a Heaven on the other side of death.  Tanya’s singing had helped to renew his faith in the Lord he had followed for so long.  What followed Howard’s confession was a sweet time of sharing and singing as others revealed that they, too, had struggled with doubts, but that the Lord had helped them to come to the point of trust.  Bill Gaither sang his song “I Believe”

I Believe (Words and Music by Bill and Gloria Gaither)

I believe, help Thou my unbelief.
I take the finite risk of trusting like a child.
I believe, help thou my unbelief.
I walk into the unknown trusting all the while.

I long so much to feel the warmth that others seem to know.
But should I never feel a thing, I claim Him even so.
I believe, help thou my unbelief.
I walk into the unknown trusting like a child.

Have you ever struggled with doubts?  I have.  Somehow it’s encouraging to think that even those who spend their lives in service for the Lord can have these doubts.  Yet the Lord is gracious, and He has made Himself real to me time and time again, and doesn’t chastise me when I fall back into doubt now and then.  Instead, He draws me into an even sweeter walk with Him.  ”For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.”  Psalm 103:14

This is a favorite Psalm of Christians worldwide.  It brings to mind a picture a life of ease in an idyllic setting.  But more often than not, we find ourselves weary and thirsty.  The cares of daily life wear us down, and those green pastures and still waters are only a mirage.  We search for things to restore our souls, but end up feeling more and more used up and exhausted.

Wait a minute!  Maybe the key is that we’re searching for THINGS to refresh us!  While there’s nothing wrong with mom’s nights out or scrapbook crops or a good book and cup of coffee, those aren’t the things that we should be relying on to refresh us.  Those things can help, but has anyone else ever noticed that the more things we do to give ourselves a break, the more we need/want?  Too often, it seems that the more I try to use things or activites to give me the time off I need, the more restricted I feel.  I seem to shrivel up in my soul, rather than grow and mature into a more happy wife and mother.

The Lord has promised refreshment, but He has said that HE will provide it.  If I am not spending time relaxing in His presence, no amount of other things will satisfy my soul.  He can certainly use outside activities to provide some of our rest, but it is time with Him that will truly rejuvenate me and cause me to mature and grow.  I have seen this happen over and over again – why is it that I am still so quick to neglect that quiet time when things get hectic?

Why, oh why am I constantly having to relearn the same things over and over again?!