WELCOME TO MY BLOG

My name is Barbara Frone and I welcome you to my blog. I pray that my walk with God will encourage your heart and that God will bless you for every step you take towards him. God has a plan for each and every one of us and if we will earnestly seek him every day, he will not only show us his plan for our lives, but he will live it through us. We serve an amazing God!































































Monday, March 12, 2012

CHANGE YOUR MIND

         About four weeks ago, I downloaded an app onto my iPhone called, MyFitnessPal.  When I first logged onto the app, it asked me for my weight and how much I would like to lose in a week.  Then it gave me a weekly calorie allowance in order for me to lose however many pounds I indicated that I wanted to lose in a week's time.  I then entered the food I ate every day and it kept track of my daily calories.  It also allowed me to enter any exercise I do, which basically adds to my calorie allowance for that day.     

          Today, after reflecting on how much this app has changed my thinking about food and exercise, God put on my heart that the changes I am seeing in my thinking is much like how he wants to see the changes in my thinking while daily walking with him.  This is what I understood God to mean.  Instead of going on a diet and trying to change myself quickly, I just kept track of what I ate and let the app tell me the truth about what I ate (in calories) and the truth about exercising (the calories I burned).  This truth changed the way I thought about the food I put in my mouth and about exercise. 

          Instead of trying to change ourselves, God wants us to read his Word (the truth) every day and spend time in prayer with him, and as we start keeping track of the truths we learn, our mind will start seeing things God's way.  Our mind will start changing slowly. 

          You see, when I first became a Christian, after every sermon I heard, I would go home and try to change myself.  Sometimes I succeeded, but more often, I failed.  But even when I succeeded, it never lasted long.  You see, my mind was still the same.  We need to change our mind first, and then the body will follow.  The sayings, "It's all in the mind," and "The battle is in the mind" are so true.  Change your mind and you will change your life.  But how do you change your mind?  By seeing the truth.  My fitness app told me the truth about the calories in the food I was eating.  The Bible tells you the truth about everything else.  The Bible is full of God's wisdom, truth.  All your life you have been taught the world's way, but the world's way will only lead you down the path of destruction.  You need to have a change of mind.  So read God's truth every day and you will slowly start seeing the changes you have always wanted to see, but this time they will stick because you first had a change of mind.  


P.S. - For those of you interested in hearing about the changes in my thinking that I noticed after using this app, here they are:  

1) I started eating only half of what I usually eat because I didn't want to enter all those calories into my app.

2)  I started avoiding certain foods because the calorie count was shocking.  For example, when I go to Barnes and Noble with my daughter, I always eat a red velvet cheesecake from the cafe, but after I found out one piece of that cake is 1250 calories, I could never look at the cake the same way again. 

3)  After not eating as much at every meal because I didn't want to enter that many calories into my app, I started getting fuller quicker.  Actually, I started not liking that full feeling. 

4)  After getting fuller quicker, I realized that I really don't need as much food in a day as I thought. 

5)  I actually started not finishing my plate after I felt full, because I didn't want to feel fuller (This is a miracle for me, because I never do this.  I always eat everything on my plate!)

6)  I started looking for ways to get more exercise into my day, because I wanted to add the calories I burned into my app.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

RESCUE ME, PAPA!

          This weekend my mom called me and told me something that my great niece said that I never want to forget. She was sitting on a slide outside, but was too scared to slide down and when she saw her Papa, she said to him, "Rescue me, Papa!" I haven't been able to get that phrase out of my mind, "Rescue me, Papa!"

          Our Heavenly Father not only wants to save us eternally, he also wants to save us every day. It makes him happy when he can rescue us. If you would allow me, I would like to put it into something us humans can understand. God gets his strength from saving us. Remember the woman at the well? When Jesus' disciples left him at the well, he sat down because he was tired, but when his disciples returned and offered him food, he didn't take it because he regained his strength after giving his living water to the Samaritan woman. He didn't want anything from the woman at the well except to save her. He wants nothing from us except to save us. He wants us to come to him every day and ask him to rescue us. Think about it. What do we have to offer God? What can we give God? There is nothing good inside of us. God cannot draw anything from us. We don't have anything inside of us for him to draw on. He wants us to draw from him.

          Our Heavenly Father wants to save us from temptation, from hurts, from whatever we have to deal with that day. He wants to save us by giving us wisdom and strength. He wants to save us by fighting our battles for us.

          We need to see Jesus as our daily Saviour. If we see Jesus as our teacher, we will see him as someone giving us a set of teachings that we by our own effort must apply. But Jesus didn't come to be our teacher. If we see Jesus as an example to follow, his example will only condemn us by his perfect, sinless, holy life. And if we are trying to make him as an example to follow, it is upon our own resources we have to draw on which we have none, because we are spiritually bankrupt. Jesus came to this earth to be our Saviour. Not a judge, not a lawgiver, but a Saviour. "For unto us a child is born this day in the city of David a Saviour."

"Rescue us, Papa!"




Saturday, March 3, 2012

THE BEAUTY OF A CHRISTIAN WOMAN

Here is a poem my sister sent me in a letter yesterday.  The poem was written by Jan Elkins.

The beauty of a Christian woman is hard to define,
But if a lady has it, you'll have a gold mine.
Because then the sick will be warmed and fed,
the classes taught, the Bible read.
Her life will demonstrate she has a higher goal,
and the trials of the earth won't take their toll.
Her face will reflect the Son above,
show off his mercy and never-ending love.
Her feet will be swift to be at your side
if you should want her, or should the need arise,
to feel the squeeze of an encouraging hand,
to know that she really does understand.
Her lips will be quick to praise,
and with a song your spirits raise,
because she'll want you to do your best,
use all your talents and let God do the rest.
She'll look with compassion on all that you do,
and be there to support you the whole year through.
Yes, the beauty of a Christian woman is hard to define,
but if a lady has it, you'll have a gold mine.

Friday, March 2, 2012

THE PROMISED LAND

     Do you want to know the quickest way into the Promised Land?  Do you want to know how to get to the Promised Land in eleven days instead of forty years?  Do you want to leave the desert where it is dry and go into the Promised Land where there is milk and honey?  Do you want to leave the desert where there is murmuring and complaining, and go into the Promised Land where battles are won?  Do want to leave the desert where there is worrying and doubt, and go into the Promised Land where there is peace and joy?  Do you want to leave the desert where there might be fleshly comfort, but in the Promised Land there is spiritual comfort?  There might not be any giants in the desert but we don’t have to worry or be afraid, because the battle is the Lord’s.   

     Now let's get back to the question, "Do you want to know the quickest way into the Promised Land?"  The answer is, "Obey God."  Believe God by obeying what he is telling you to do, because when you obey God's voice, you are not only saying to him that you trust him, but you are trusting that whatever he is asking you to do, he will do it all through you.  But when you don't obey God and you do what you want to do, when you want to do it, you are not only saying to God that you do not trust him, but as soon as you do what it is you want to do, it will be your flesh doing it, not God.  Not only is our flesh as filthy rags, but at the Judgment Seat of Christ, we will only rewarded for the things God did through us and everything that our flesh did will be burned up as wood, hay, and stubble. 

     What I have learned in my walk with God is that if I listen to God's voice and not to mine, if I obey what God tells me to do instead of doing what I want to do, it all flows so easy, so effortlessly.  But if I do what I want to do and when I want to do it, it doesn't flow easily at all.  In fact, I often get down right frustrated. 

     Every time you obey God's voice in your heart, you take one step closer to the Promised Land.  How will you know when you have arrived?  You will have peace and joy in your soul always, no matter what is happening around you.  Bon voyage!