Everyday Miracles
Lora Armendariz
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Miracles Happen Everyday

God daily shows us how special we are and how much He loves us.  Join me as I write about how my life and the lives of other people who have been touched by God's grace.

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All Things for Good.... Even This

4/11/2014

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Use it all God.  Every hurt, Every heartbeat.  I give it all to you.  You use all things for good.  Use me.
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As I pray those words I can feel it, like a spring bulb emerging from the soil, life is coming out of the coldness and promising beauty. 

Right now, my life is in a tender season where every hurt is deep and hard and every joy is brilliant as the sun. 

God, in His great wisdom, has given me identical twin girls who now a battle a rare sickness before they are even born.  And this has thrown my world upside-down.  I left my husband in Russia to see the amazing medical professionals here in the United States.  I left my daughter with my mother-in-law while I underwent surgery this week.  I lie in bed now trying not to let every worry and doubt shatter my faith into pieces. 

But, with every breath, I feel strength of a new and amazing kind burn within me. God is taking me to new heights, burning away the old and replacing it with a new kind of love and power that comes from Him. 

And everywhere I look I start to see the changes and am amazed.  I am closer to my mother-in-law, loving and appreciating her undaunted insistence to care for her family.  I see and admire the strength and love of my sister who has taken me in to care for me even as she juggles her own full life.  I thank God daily for the courage and trust of my husband who always knows just what to say to take away my worries and encourage me and I can feel his loving arms around me even though we are oceans apart.

Even when I had to go to Houston for surgery and every moment was a challenge just to remember to focus and breathe and pray, I was blessed with physicians, surgeons, and nurses who cared enough to hold my hand and even hug me in the hard moments.  And my brother-in-law who has no experience with pregnancies and babies, took time off of work so that he could see me though the procedure, make me laugh in the hospital, and see me safely back home again.

I can see God smiling at me through every crack in this topsy-turvey world.  His love shines out at me through a thousand souls who pray for us, hug us, love us, and offer a helping hand.

So, God, let me not see this as a time of pity, but a time for your power.  Use it all for Your great good.  I give it all to you. 

Photo by Fountain_Head via Flikr
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They're Watching

11/4/2013

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I don't know about you, but when I go to the salon to get my haircut I find it difficult submitting my head to the lady with the crazy chopped-up hair-do.  Why?  Because I think that if I let her start snipping then I'll end up like her. 

Its the same thing with adds on TV.  If I wear that shirt...I want to look like her.  Or, "Surely those pills don't work...look how unhappy he is."  And on, and on. 

Well, guess what...you are a walking-talking-billboard for the lifestyle you lead. 

I heard a story about a lady who became a Christian after ten years of marriage.  She found Christ and wanted desperately for her husband to make the same choice.  She pushed and pulled.  She nagged and bribed.  She tried everything to get him to read the Bible, go to church, and be saved. 

At each and every attempt she failed miserably. Finally, she stopped trying and started praying.  God told her to leave her husband's soul to Him.  This lady then started to simply live her Christian life just as God gave it to her.  She became happier as she learned to give her worries over to Him and to rely on His strength and guidance. 

And then the miracle happened.

One day she was cooking up supper after a long day at work and after having to redirect the poor attitudes of their teenage boys.  As she cooked she hummed one of her favorite hymns, praying for her family, and finding peace in the quiet of her little kitchen.  "Wow." She heard her husband whisper and looked up to see him watching her.  "I don't know how you do it."  She stopped and stared at him and said, "Me neither, but I'm thankful."

That Sunday her husband actually drove the family to church.  Later he confessed that he'd been watching her for years.  He'd thought the whole "being saved" thing was a joke.  He said he didn't understand why his wife kept insisting that Christ was wonderful and powerful and life changing.  All he saw was an unhappy nagging wife with nothing about the Christian life that seemed worth adopting.  But when she'd let it go and allowed God's love and peace to reign, she became positive advertisement for the Christian lifestyle.

I love her story.  I think of her and tell myself, "Remember, they're watching.


Photo by Leonid Mamchenkov



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We All Deserve True Love

9/8/2013

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God gave us all a time to be quiet and a time to speak.  Proportionally, I truly believe in listening more than talking and I love the old saying, "We have one mouth and two ears therefore we should listen twice as much as we speak." 

But, I have a hard time listening to stories of abuse and domestic violence.  It pains me to hear accounts of marriages torn by pain and suffering, families trying to endure beyond the fear.  I hate to hear these stories because the intense suffering of it hurts me, too.  These are people who have been injured intimately by the very people who should have loved them completely, unconditionally, and protected them and supported them in life.  To me, abuse and violence is one of the clearest examples of just how broken our world is. 

I have a daughter.  She is beautiful and precious to me.  My husband and I want a brilliant, love-filled present and future for her.  I just finished a young-adult novel that included a story of domestic violence.  This novel, Unclaimed Legacy by Deborah Heal, showed a home with an abused wife and as I read it I thought about some of my dear friends who have been in marriages and homes with this kind of pain.  The thought of my child ever enduring such hurt is troubling and I know I will fight to make sure she never does.  I prayed about it and realized I already have two powerful weapons to protect her--God's word and a happy marriage.  Making God's teaching part of our daily lives while my husband and I continue to love and support each other and care for our beautiful family will help guide our daughter to a happy future.

I believe we all deserve true love and thankfully we have it unconditionally through Christ. 


God, as my child grows, help me guide her towards that kind of love.

Deborah Heal is the author of the Time and Again young adult series.  I recommend reading her novels and reading her article about domestic abuse at http://deborahheal.com/staying-relevant-but-keeping-violence-in-ya-fiction-under-control/ 


Enter her giveaway below for a chance to win the complete Time and Again trilogy signed by the author plus a beautiful mug! 

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Love Life of the Young

8/12/2013

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A very sweet young girl approached me the other day needing advice about a guy.  At first I puffed up, totally ready to tell her that the world is more than high school and how the opinions of one confused young man shouldn’t alter her own feelings of self-worth.  But a voice whispered to me to be still.  So I listened.  And when I listened to her, I remembered.

Oh, did I remember.  Those young teenage years are brutal.  Your world is closed up in the bottle neck of the social norms of a group of people who haven’t yet figured out who they are and have no business telling you who you are either.  And, when you meet that guy that makes your heart fall to your feet and your mind imagine your very own happily ever after, it is so cruel to be rejected. 

A distant reminder of that pain blinked through my heart and instead of giving rather callous advice to this young lady, I realized that some things just have to be lived through to be understood. 

That didn’t stop me from encouraging her to be strong, to remind her that she is more than what one guy thinks about her, and that God loves her more than she could ever imagine.

I know that many of my words were like putting Band-Aids on a wound that only time can heal.  The Band-Aids won’t really help, they only let her know that I care.  I care about the pain she feels as she goes through this journey.  She’ll get there.  And, perhaps life won’t get easier, but God strengthens us along the way. 


Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
1 John 4:7

Photo by Moyan Brenn
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That Much Tougher

7/26/2013

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I was talking to a close friend of mine today, a military wife whose husband is going on deployment soon.  She made a comment that stopped me in my tracks, made me pause.  She said that her marriage and her faith in God were stronger now than before her husband entered into the service.  While she hated the thought of going through the long months without her loved one, worrying for his safety every moment, she was still thankful for those trying times.  Tears filled my eyes and my heart rejoiced.    Not only was her attitude positive, but she was also preparing her mind, heart, and soul for those months ahead through prayer and Bible study, sharing what she was learning with her husband .  Her choice to do all this instead of wallowing in self-pity and anger was inspiring.

Oh!  How I wish I could see all my trials this way

Sometimes I do.  Sometimes I remember to thank God for teaching me, for pushing me, for tossing away that comfortable security blanket I keep trying to throw over my head when presented with a task that seems more than I could ever handle.  Because God knows we can if we would only gently lean on Him. 

My friend, during her time on base, has watched the stresses of deployments and trainings rip and tare families and marriages.  Confronted with the months of surviving without their partner or parent, some desperately take paths that lead to intense hurt.  But others fight through the fire and emerge tougher, welded together through the heat, ready for whatever the world throws at them next.

God, show me the beauty of my trials!  Teach me to believe that you are ever shaping me into something better.  Help me to choose the paths that lead towards your glory and you precious plans for my life. 


Photo by Brett Jordan

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    Lora is a Christian writer, wife, and mother who travels the world with her husband, living and working on ranches.

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