Alpha

Our little 10 pound dog "Jewel" loves our whole family.

Girlie feeds her so she is devoted to her in a special way.
She loves to snuggle with Bub.

I am the Momma, so she follows me around.

But NO ONE holds a candle to Daddy.

She gets sent to her bed during meals and when we are done eating, we release her by saying "That'll do".

If Mr. M is not home and ANY of us release her, she is out of her bed in a flying leap the INSTANT "That'll do" even BEGINS to pass our lips.

However, if Mr. M is home, I will say "That'll do" and she does not move. She looks away from me and stares at Mr. M with her little stub wagging... utterly intent upon him.

There IS no command except a command from him, when he is home.

"That'll do," he finally says and she hurtles herself from the bed in a nanosecond!

Her little world is crushed when her Alpha is not home.

She waits for him in the front window. She whines for him. She has more anxiety and spends a lot more of her spare time "guarding" the house. I assert myself and show her my dominance and that she does not need to be in control just because her Alpha is gone, but she clearly does not believe me. She PINES for Mr. M in his absence. All is not right with her world when he is gone...

The kids and I all understand how she feels...

Devotion James 5:6

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 

James 5:16

It can be difficult to admit our flaws, faults, fears, and failures even to ourselves. There can be pain in looking at the truth of our motives and actions. We share personal information and call it a ‘prayer request’. What motivated us to do that? We can tell ourselves it is thoughtfulness or that we were just concerned. Much tougher to admit it was because we wanted to look like we had the inside scoop or simply because we wanted to impress our friends with a juicy story. Yuck!

A friend does something wrong or hurtful and we don’t confront them because we don’t want to “make waves”. Why not? If we are honest with ourselves, might it be because we are more concerned with them liking us than anything else?

If we can get up the courage to be honest with ourselves, we can then bring these things to our Heavenly Father. We can humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings.

These are important and valuable steps, but this is not the final step. We need to share our ‘yuck’ with other people. We don’t necessarily have to share our greatest character defect or secret sin right out the gate. Start small. Open up about little things first. Test the waters. We might very well find that when we share our darker side, we become more accessible and more likeable. Then in this opening up, in this confession, we will be healed. Little by little we will become whole.

Devotion 4:6-7

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”- Philippians 4:6-7

PEACE. We all want peace. Peace and quiet, peace of mind, peace on earth, keeping the peace, making peace, peace offerings, and even 'rest in peace'. The thought of peace probably resonates with us as human beings because God designed us to long for His peace. 

And Scripture tells us how to get it.

Think of all the things you are thankful for. We can start with the basics: the fact that our hearts beat, our lungs breathe, and our brains think. Work our way up from there: Trees. Clouds. Snow flakes. The beach. Ocean. Babies. Music. Then get personal: My best friend, my job, cream soda, my little brother. When we function from a place of gratitude, we can’t help but begin to see things in a better, more hopeful light. We come “glass half full” kinds of people.

It is in this spirit we are told to come ask God for what we need. We don’t need to be stressed. We don’t need to wonder if He hears. We don’t need to be afraid. We can just come to Him with thankful hearts and ask Him and trust that He knows what we need and what is best for us. When we do this, His peace – a peace we can’t even begin to understand – will protect us.

Then it all comes full circle. When we come to Him with a grateful heart, we will be given His peace to guard our hearts. When we have His peace dwelling in us, we will not need to be anxious and worried. When we are filled with peace and we are not anxious and worried, we will be even more able to focus on our gratitude for who God is and what He has given us and done for us. We can then approach God in prayer with a peaceful heart filled with thanks.

Proverbs 31:30

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”- Proverbs 31:30

Although it is true that “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”, I find myself often wanting to always be honey when the truth sometimes lies in vinegar.  There is nothing wrong with compliments and kindness. But there is a thin line between compliments and flattery, between being kind and being a people-pleaser. Scripture is clear about the difference. “Charm is deceptive.”  This seems more a challenge than a condemnation. Can I strive for more loving truth and less deceptive charm?

When I am in line at the grocery store and glance over at the newsstand, I see 87 magazine covers showing me what beauty is and is not. Perhaps it’s the glorious model already back in her pre-pregnancy jeans even though her baby is just 9 minutes old.   Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, maybe it’s the pop star photographed in her bathing suit looking like a *GASP* size 10 while the tabloid headline screams that she is obese. Even if we don’t pick up those magazines and read them, they still creep into our subconsciousness.

There is nothing wrong with being beautiful. In the Old Testament, It was Queen Esther’s beauty, that God used to save the Jews.  It’s the value we place on it, how we use it, and what other areas we neglect when we focus on our beauty that are more God’s concern.  What is beautiful to Him is a woman who fears the Lord and finds her confidence in Him.