Blessings and Buttons!

I have this person in my life who never fails to challenge me! He always makes me stop and think about myself, my attitude, my relationship with my Creator. He usually only gets about 5 minutes of my time but that is all he needs to get right to the heart of the matter. And, he always leaves me with the realization that I can do NOTHING on my own!

His name is Oswald Chambers and this is how he speaks to me...

Can you tell by it's dog-eared appearance how much this little book means to me? I'm pretty sure I received this copy in college and it has stayed on my bedside table ever since, right on top of my journal. It is intended to be a daily devotional with a new passage for each day of the year, but when the rascals came into my life (God bless 'em!), I gave up trying to stay on track and now just randomly go where the Spirit leads!
This particular passage is what has stayed in my mind since I read it last week.

From September 6, "The Far-reaching Rivers of Life".

"A river is victoriously persistent, overcoming all barriers. For a while it goes steadily on its course, but then comes to an obstacle. And for a while it is blocked, yet it soon makes a pathway around the obstacle. Or a river will drop out of sight for miles, only later to emerge again even broader and greater than ever. Do you see God using the lives of others, but an obstacle has come into your life and you do not seem to be of any use to God? Then keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you around the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never focus your eyes on the obstacle or the difficulty. The obstacle will be a matter of total indifference to the river that will flow steadily through you if you will simply remember to stay focused on the Source....

Think of the healing and far-reaching rivers developing and nourishing themselves in our souls! God has been opening up wonderful truths to our minds, and every point

He has opened up is another indication of the wider power of the

river that He will flow through us!"

You know what I realized as I read this? How many times I am MY OWN obstacle! Oh sure, I have had obstacles in the form of things that were beyond my control and issues and people in my life that made it hard for me to feel like I would ever find another route for my river to flow. But, more often than not, I am the one keeping things from flowing downstream towards abundant blessing! I am finally at a point, where I feel that I can recognize these truths in my life and ask God to weed them right on out of me! I want to be of GREAT USE to Him and therefore I need to recognize those obstacles that are

hindering my ability to be a blessing to others.

It usually ain't pretty but it certainly is moving me forward on down that river!

Anywho...I went into this whole Blogging thing knowing that I desired for it to be more than just sharing things from my home. I wanted to also share from my heart.

Thanks for indulging me today!

Now, what on earth do Buttons have to do with this?

Well... I FINALLY HAVE ONE!

It is for my Inspiration Friday Party and I just have to tell you that I felt like I had split the atom,

solved world peace and invented the wheel all at once

when I taught myself how to make this!

Now, some of you may notice that I already had a Sister Saturday button on the side of my blog.

 But that one was made by the other half of the Sister Saturday gang. My SISTER! And, I was determined not to go pestering my big sister to teach me something like I did when we were kids.

"Hey Heather! Can you teach me how to feather my hair like yours? Can you show me how to play this '45 of

Men at Work on your record player?"

I was going to do it all by myself. Now granted, the hardest part was actually finding a photo I liked that looked good when I shrunk it down and then publishing and copying the code in HTML, etc., etc. But, I felt like that Bachelor's Degree in Business finally came in handy for more than just wiping bottoms and noses. Not at the same time of course!

So, come on back and grab my BUTTON and join us for
INSPIRATION FRIDAY this week!

Now I just have to decide on what I want the Button to look like for my Main Blog Page!

My head hurts.

Blessings to you from this

Southern Girl at Heart,

Vanessa