Pam Boyd’s Blog

So, this past spring I started working out really hard to get my 42 year old body back in shape and healthier.  I try to fit cardio and weight training in my schedule at least 5 times a week. It’s so easy to put on my walking shoes and enjoy the beauty of His creation. When I walk alone, I take time to have a conversation with God and I thank him for all of the blessings in my life lately. After all, this is just not a physical walk, it’s a spiritual walk.  Many times, He’ll put a song on my heart and I’ll sing it to Him.  These are very precious moments with my Savior that I just get lost with Him. 

Now I can’t say that all of my walks are like that.  On some walks I cry out to him for unanswered prayers.  One day I was feeling really frustrated and impatient with something going on in my life that just hadn’t happened yet.  I was waiting for Him to take care of it, but it was taking too long; therefore, came my weariness and doubt.  I began to tell Him my reasons and thoughts as to why this issue needed to be solved already.  I gave Him an earful that day!

It’s during times like this that He always reminds me of Psalm 37:7, “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” (NAS) and then I like the way the Message Bible states it so emphatically: “Quiet down before God, be prayerful before Him.”  In order words, quit your fussing and whining and get to praying!

Now walking with my tail tucked between my legs, I humbly obey His word, get quiet, pray and….wait.  After all of my worrying and frustration, I realize that this situation is totally out of my control.  There is absolutely nothing that I can do to get the ball rolling.  I must trust and obey that God will take care of it all in His timing.  I suspect many more lessons will be learned along the way. *grin*

Freedom from Rational Strongholds

(Excerpts taken from “Sparkling Gems from the Greek” by Rick Renner)

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 states, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. …We are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

If we want to be free from every stronghold of the enemy in our life, we have to understand that there are 2 kinds of strongholds: rational and irrational.  The rational ones are the most difficult to deal with…because they make sense!

When talking about ‘taking every thought captive’, Paul refers to rational strongholds.  The greek word for ‘imaginations’ is logismos, which is where we get the word “logic” as in “logical thinking”.  A sound mind must be submitted to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit; otherwise, your mind will develop a stronghold of ‘natural’ reasoning that starts to let all kinds of lies in your life dictate what you do.  Your logical mind will always try to talk you out of obeying God.  It will tell you that you can’t afford to obey the Lord and that it isn’t a good time to step out in faith. Your natural mind will come up with all kinds of logical reasons to explain why you shouldn’t do what the Spirit of God is telling you to do.

I experienced this about 12 yrs ago when we were living in Amarillo TX before we had children.  We had been trying to get pregnant from 1991-1998 but to no avail.  We had tried artificial insemination 3 times with no luck. Our money had run out, too.  So we took a break from it for a year and started saving our money again for the next try.  In May of 1998 Brady got a call for an interview with a television station in Monroe, Louisiana and we both thought, “Wow! We could live close to our families again, only 30 minutes apart!”  We started getting excited about that opportunity and looking at how all of the pros outweighed the cons in our ‘logicial’ minds.  Then we began to pray about it and Brady told me on the way to the airport that if this was God’s will for us, then he’d know immediately when he walked in the building and sat down for the interview.  Well, much to my dismay and brokenheart, he called me afterwards and said that this was not God’s will for us.  The company had not made a decision on whether to hire him or not, but he felt compelled to let them know that he was no longer interested.  We were sad for a few days, but really trusted the Lord that He had something better for us.  

That ‘something better’ turned out to be our son, Abram Neal Boyd!!  You  see, if we had disobeyed God and followed our own ‘logical’ thinking and moved back to Louisiana, we would have missed out on God’s promise for us to have children!  In July of 1998, that same year, just 2 months later, we found out about the opportunity to adopt a little boy who was to be born in October.  We were able to use the money we had saved on his adoption! It still gives me goosebumps when I think about it.  Satan will try any and every little trick in his book to distract us from hearing the Lord.  

Most of us knows what the Lord declares in Isaiah 55:9, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts”, but do we really believe it?  If we constantly give in to rational strongholds, and do not start to recognize them and denounce them, then it seems for sure that we don’t believe this declaration from the Lord.

I am so thankful we did not walk in our flesh and move just because ‘it made sense’.  We would have missed out on not just our first child from the Lord; but also, our second child.  Both Abram and Callie were born in Amarillo TX.  Both were adopted at birth and both are the greatest blessings in our life!

Ephesians 1:16 “I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.”

So how long has it been since you gave thanks for the loved ones God has placed in your life? To take it further, how long has it been since you spoke those words to your loved ones? Well, Valentine’s Day is around the corner and we all know that ‘love’ is celebrated on that day whether it’s for your spouse, your family, your friends, or that special someone in your life.

The number of Valentine’s Day cards exchanged annually is approximately 200 million, making Valentine’s Day the second-most popular greeting-card-giving occasion. (Christmas has 1.9 billion) (This total excludes packaged kids valentines for classroom exchanges.) (Source: Hallmark research)

Wow!! Compared to Christmas that’s not a lot of cards with heartfelt love going out. I wonder why that is. Now I know that some of it could be because you can send a FREE card via the internet now, but how many of you appreciate a card that you get in the mailbox more than an e-card? For me, I’d have to say a card that I receive in the mail means that the person who sent it really took the time to pick it out just for me. They chose to go to a store and read hundreds of cards before they found just the right one. (OK, maybe not hundreds.) But you see, time is valuable and so when someone chooses to use that time for me, it’s always precious to me. I have a dear friend who does just that. Actually, I have many dear friends who do that, but this friend continues to do it even though we’re many miles apart now and not only does she send me a card on special occasions, but she also sends cards to my children on their birthday. She has taken love and thoughtfulness to a whole new level. I wish that I could say I do this for all of my loved ones today. Truth is, I used to many years ago, but life got so busy that I stopped and I started sending the e-cards (at least I remembered to do that). ☺ I guess you could say that the Lord gently reminded me through my dear friend to ‘stop and smell the roses’ and to take time for the ones that I love and that are special to me. My friend doesn’t know how much her actions have encouraged me. (I think I’ll send her a card to tell her just how much.) ☺ Thank you, Peach!

Won’t you join me in taking time to thank God more often for your loved ones and better yet, take time to thank them more often whether by snail mail, email, a phone call or a visit? Valentine’s Day shouldn’t be the only day that we celebrate our love for our loved ones. ☺ Let’s celebrate love all year long!

p.s. In case you’re wondering, I’m getting a delicious meal at Pappadeaux’s with my 3 valentines this year. ☺

After reading some of my son’s emails that he has sent to a few recipients i.e. my parents and a couple of children’s websites, I noticed that he writes just like he thinks…straight and to the point. There is no gray area with Abram, it’s either black or white. You definitely do NOT have to wonder what he’s thinking; although, sometimes I DO wonder where he comes up with some of his thoughts. The Lord reminded me that this special little guy loves to live out loud. We all should take note and love to live out loud!

Steven Curtis Chapman wrote a song about it. One line of his lyrics is “This is the life we’ve been given, made to live out, so…live out loud.” Wow! What a great quote! The Oxygen channel even uses Live Out Loud as their slogan. I believe that most of the shows on the Oxygen channel are reality shows and they go to the extreme of ‘living out loud’. This makes me wonder if we, as Christians, truly live out loud in reality. If we had a reality show, what would it look like? Would it be staged like all of them are on TV already or could you be truly yourself with cameras coming at you from every angle?

Here’s another thought, if we lived out loud serving the King of Kings would we be content and satisfied with our life? Ralph Waldo Emerson has an interesting quote about that. He states, “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

Paul instructs us how to produce the satisfied sense of well-being that should encompass a Christian’s life in Ephesians 5:15-17 “Therefore be careful how you walk; not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” When we feel good about life, about who we are in Christ, what we are doing for the Kingdom, and where we are headed, honorability and compassion become a big part of our character. We desire to make a difference. There is an overwhelming sense of joy that cannot compare to short-term happiness.

An unthinkable, most horrific crime that is rampant in the US and abroad wrecked my heart in Jan of 2008. I couldn’t believe what my friend, Lisa Bevere, was telling me about the child trafficking that she witnessed in Thailand a couple of years ago. Child trafficking? It was even more horrible than what I thought it was! And, it was going on right here in the U.S., in our own backyard! After feeling sick in my stomach and crying my eyes out over these precious children, I began to pray and ask the Lord how I could get involved to help stop this billion dollar crime. Lisa has an organization that she founded called Pearl Alliance that helps to raise funds and awareness to rescue these precious children of God. Lisa has become a dear, trusted friend over the past 2 years. She is full of wisdom and courage and great tenacity to see this industry come to an end. In a recent address to America on Anti-Trafficking Lisa states, “More than stocks & bonds, the children of this nation are our greatest wealth! Their present and future safety…our only hope of lasting legacy. The oppression and injustice we tolerate for others will over take us all if we remain silent. I am passionate because I’ve not only heard…I’ve seen, so I speak my passion. In the name of all that makes us humans created in the image of God, how can any of us remain silent when the voices of so many children have been silenced?”

Her passion and courage is contagious! Please visit her website PearlAlliance.org to see how you can get involved.