Good Father

Last week (26 April 2017) while at Engage Night at our church, The Worship Center, we heard a song about our father. The idea of Engage Night is to go over a topic that has a lot of meaning that should be engaged a lot stronger and deeper. This night was prayer. How did I forget about the Lords Prayer? Every Christian and some non-christians know this prayer. 

Matthew 6:10-13 Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts. As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation. But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

How did I forget the prayer that really started the best relationship we could have with Our Father in heaven. As we talked through each section (5 of them), we worshipped and prayed ferociously and proudly. One of the songs was by Chris Tomlin "Good Good Father" and even though I heard that song probably a couple dozen times I started to weep, because the fact finally came to light at that moment in my personal life. Some of us had great fathers and some of us not so great fathers. We want the good memories of a family and father that encompass it, but some people have only bad memories or no memories. The Bible is not discreet in telling us about our relationship with God. I found that God is talked about as our father roughly 265 times in the Bible. But the fact is as a child we want to be loved, as we grow up we want to be loved, and as adults we just want to be LOVED! We often forget that the the lord created us a heart because he wanted us to know Him and we will return to Him with out whole hearts - Jer 24:7. 

In the words of the song it says "Oh, I've heard a thousand stories of what they think you're like But i've heard the tender whisper of love in the dead of night And you tell me that You're please And that I'm never alone. OOOOOOHHHH now thats powerful! 

At the end of the night I saw my husband raise his hand high in the air as if he was wanting God to reach down and touch him. Of course I am a bag of tears bursting all over the place by now. And the Holy Spirit was strong in my soul. The song that was played has been one of my all time favorites and is currently played in our home every day now is "Unstoppable God" by Elevation Worship. It is upbeat and so true to the core of my Soul!!! "Jesus our God unstoppable"

I pray that you all have a blessed day and I am so sorry I have not been on here typing more. I plan to begin again and even talk about some of the new things I am currently doing in my own prayer and spiritual life. 

God Bless,

~Vickie

Week 9

What a year! So week 8 was last written August 2014… talk about slacking. But I realized I have been reading so much that I am almost done with week 10 and haven't even posted week 9. Here it is…

Billy Graham said "I've read the last page of the Bible. It's all going to turn out all right."

This weeks devotional was one I had to re-read and Loved that I did. The first day talked about surrendering, but more so about surrendering your flesh to the spirit. Often times we do not obey what God is telling us because we forget to surrender to the spirit. When we surrendering completely to God all our fears and worries are taken care of. This reminds me of the security blankets of the world that we hold on to that we cannot relinquish to God. My example is money… I know the bible says that give all to the Lord, yet for me it is so hard! Will and I have about a year left in the Military (our second security blanket) and we do not plan to stay in. It will be 11 years that we have been doing nothing but the Air Force. It is just a huge change and I feel like I am clinging to it with all my might! I need to cling to Jesus and all of His glory He has in store for us!!! It is just hard to look at just His plan when there is so much going on in life that it gets so busy…..

In day 3 I did a lot of underlining as well as starring…. "We were created to pursue God" How very true! We worship Him, we need to get to know Him, and be satisfied in Him. We put so much faith in wordily things, yet we give little trust to God. In Jeremiah 1:19 it says "I am with you and will rescue you, declares the Lord". And if we just listened to this every time we are in doubt or aren't sure of something in our lives it would be a lot less stressful. Giving God all the control is giving us faith, trust, and loyalty to Him alone!

The lack of allowing God to take away the fear of the world will keep us from stepping out in faith.

My husbands favorite verse from the Bible is in this weeks reading…. Psalm 23. Take a moment to read over it and to really dig deep into the wording! "I lack NOTHING"

God Bless you all

~Victoria

Again it has been awhile

Sorry I know that it has been awhile seen I have been on here. However, i have good news…. we had our little boy a month ago on August 26th 2015. His name is Ezekiel Codey Clouse was 9lbs 6oz 20in long and just beautiful!!! It has been quite and adjustment with a newborn, but we are getting the hang of things I think.

I read an article today from a lady talking about being a good parent. How I feel that is such a hard thing these days. Maybe it has always been a hard thing, but it feels like now I guess because I am a parent. I feel this way also because of how rough society and social media and well the media in general are on people. If you are not nice and someone friend then it seems you are wrong. It is all about being politically correct even in parenting.

So my take away from that article is that you will cry, you will get mad, you will wonder if you are doing the right thing, and your kids will probably not like you. But God will prevail through it all if you keep Him at the forefront of your family and you also lead by example for your children.

I pray that each and everyone of you are good parents or are at least trying to be. Give God all the glory!

God Bless!

~Victoria

Stars In The Night

"No matter where you lead
We wanna follow you
The trouble is we forget who we belong to
We chase the wind and tides
We chase the reasons why

We fix our eyes on what we know is true
Even in our share grace makes a way through"

These are the Lyrics to Tenth Avenue North's song Stars In The Sky. I fell in love with the lyrics and the song! We constantly look and try to find God yet the whole time even through our own shame of life events His grace shines through!

Have you ever gotten the feeling that you are explaining faith to yourself? I will be honest I have felt that way lately. I think because I have been so busy with other things that I have not given God the time I need with and for Him. My faith and my spirituality is right there in my faith for Him. I have become a very outspoken Christian, but not a pushy one by any means. I guess more proud of who I am and what people see in me as a Christian! Anyway this Song got me thinking about the lost out there and what will happen to them. I know it is our JOB to at the very least tell them about God and introduce them to Jesus, I just worry for their souls!

I wonder what life would be like without Him in my life. WOW it felt cold just thinking about it! We live in a very dark world and the stars in the night make me think about who we are supposed to be and follow God NO MATTER WHAT!

Enjoy!

God Bless

~Victoria Clouse

Prayer Requests

Has anyone every had issues praying?

I feel like I have always been a huge spiritual person, even from an early age. But for as long as I can remember when someone would ask me to pray for this person or pray for that I would get so excited being able to put my prayers to better use then my generic tunes (thats what I would call them). Just in the last week I have been asked to pray and offered my prayers to 3 separate people. I reached out to another person on a separate occasion for prayers and it feels amazing! I am one of those people that when I pray I never ask God for "things". I find that to materialistic and feel that to be very unpersonal. I like the REAL stuff. The stuff that helps others or even the ones that help me to help others. Like with school and with my family in deciding where God wants us to best fit into His plan for us in being better shepherds! Reaching out to others has been a real challenge for me in the past, but sharing things with people about my faith has made me feel closer to the Lord.

So with this short post I am taking prayer requests for anything that I can pray for you or someone you know!!!

God Bless,

Victoria Clouse

IT HAS BEEN WAY TO LONG....

Good Morning everyone!!


Does it seem at times that it has been way to long since you last accomplished something, or since you last made in effort to call someone or go see them? This has happened a lot in my life lately. We are now settled into our home in New Mexico and a month later I leave for training away from home for 3 weeks. When I got home there was so much going I just had to catch up on family life, work, school, and even God. I made a commitment with someone to do something and because of all life's other things I have pushed it to the back burner. It is something I wanted to do and thought I could handle along with everything else going on. I just need to prioritize things better.


God deserve more time then we give Him credit for. What time do you have to devout to God out of your day? For me it used to be when I would drive to work. Now it is more when I drive home. Even then I find myself thinking about the bills, the house, the laundry, dinner, Sophia, the next baby, childcare, school, work, family/husband time, what are we going to do this weekend, we need to do grocery shopping, we need to get the babies room together, get our murphy bed set up..... and it goes on and on and on. Before I know it I am pulling in the driveway and all I want to really do is lay with my family on the couch and watch a movie.


Bottomline, life is rough and it gets extremely busy. I a am just grateful for the people who do text me and call me to check in as well as my husband for the continued support he provides me with all the craziness called LIFE! Yet the fulfillment in life comes from the Lord. Giving him some of your time is what he wants most and what we need more then anything. Giving back to the lord should be the number one priority!


lets start with prioritizing and putting the lord at number 1!


God Bless,


~Victoria

Thankful

I know I know it has been way to long…..

Since my last post Will and I got orders to Holloman AFB, NM. Google it! It will be a bit of a change, but we are pretty excited overall about it. We bought a house, we move in like 3 days, Halloween has passed, and one of the best of all Holidays THANKSGIVING was just last week!

With that said what are you Thankful for? I mean not just your health and your family I am talking about the deep down stuff….. I will start: I am Thankful for the spirit that I have always felt deep inside of me that is alive and spinning circles of Joy in my heart. I am becoming the women I hope God intends for me to be and I am internally Thankful for that. I am Thankful that I have health care for those times where we need to go for whatever reason and do not pay anything. It is pretty scary out there without the military and its help with healthcare. I am Thankful that I live in a country where we can argue about religion and voice our opinion (even if they are different from my own) and not be killed in our beds in the middle of the night for doing so. I value the freedom regardless of the opinions and regardless of the faults we have in our country.

Please share what you are Thankful for.

God Bless,

~Victoria Clouse