BW: Personal Relationship

Before we can start working on any other part of being an obedient child of God, we have to have a relationship with Him. How can one have a relationship with God? What does that mean? I hope to answer these questions through these posts.
Some many Christians say that they have a personal relationship with Christ. Many say that it is the most important part of their walk. But what does that mean? What are they doing? What should we do to have that relationship? To know about the Lord doesn't mean that we KNOW HIM. There is a difference.
When you have a relationship with someone you spend time together, communicate and trust the other person. Well, here we are talking about the One-True-Holy God. God who loves us so much he sacrificed all for us! Does He deserve our leftovers or our best? Should we attempt to reach our to Him? Yes we should and we need to do do all three of those starting with spending time with Him. We need to make our relationship a priority in our life just like we would with our husband, kids and friends.
So the first step would be to make the time with Him a priority. Here are a few tips for making time to be with Him:
Wake up before everyone else
If you have little kids, when you lay them down for a nap, make that your time
Have a time where everyone is quietly working on something and you spend time with God
While dinner is cooking, use that time
Instead of watching tv, use that time
When the kids are all down at night, use that time
When the kids are in the bath, playing, listening to a story, etc. There is time at some point during the day where you can get them entertained and you can give your time to the Lord.
If you work away from home, use the time in the car to talk to him. Turn off the radio and enjoy the silence in the car- no interruptions and spend time with God. You can use your lunch hour to read your Bible if needed.
If you look at your days, there is a space of time that you can use for spending time with God. I am not an early riser. I can get up early a few days in a row but after that I just can't seem to wake up the next day. I don't know why so I don't get up before everyone at 5 or 6 and spend time with God however I do make time as the day goes on. I have my prayer time and Bible reading and Bible study. Plus I am teaching my children about God and His word.
One thing I am learning though is that we have to at some point start being silent in His presence and just listening. Us mothers of little ones might find this part difficult but if we make the effort it will be worth it.
Something I would like to add about what I have written so far:
I am not saying that we should have our time with God and then move on. No. We need to put Him in every part of our lives. I think about Him all the time and talk to Him too. My point is that if we don't make a conscious effort to have a relationship with Him, then it probably isn't going to happen.
I am going to stop here for today. I am hoping to add some more to this tomorrow. I am trying to keep up with my duties around here and keep up with writing this too.

A little about me before I begin

I sat down today with the intent to start the series on being a woman who follows God, her focus on pleasing God but nothing seemed to come out. I would start typing but I didn't like what I was reading. I then felt like I should share a little about me. I don't know why but that is what this post is going to be about. I will try not to make this too long or too boring.
I don't want to start with my birth but I will start with when I was a child. My parents divorced when I was almost 2 so my time was split between 3 or 4 houses (my grandparents did a lot of watching me too). I grew up around a few strong women with strong ideas. I wasn't really around anyone who homeschooled or a mom who was a keeper at home. I grew up thinking that I need a man but didn't think that I needed to be married. I also wasn't going to let any man "rule" me or tell me what to do. If my boyfriend/husband didn't agree with me, too bad. Sometimes I followed exactly what I have said and a few other times I ended up being slapped around a time or two and even apologizing for "causing" it. My past is interesting to say the least.
My dh and I accepted Christ as our savior when he wad 22 and I was 21. I still held my beliefs from above and didn't change overnight, not even close. I started hearing foreign ideas to me but didn't pay too much attention. It has taken me years to really begin to hear and change. Where do the "ideas" that I have been wrong all these years come from? The Bible. It took years of God working on me and not giving up on me to change. I still have a lot more growing to do but who I was and who I am now are very, very different. The Lord has patiently worked on me and I am who I am now because of the Lord. I am so thankful he isn't like me. I would have given up years ago.
Being a Christian and a woman who is married means that a large part of our walk will involve serving our husbands but that doesn't mean that is all. There are so many areas of our walk that we need to work on. I am not a woman who has arrived, cont rare to that, I have a long way to go. I am not writing this because I am this great and wonderful all-knowing person, I am a woman who wants to please God. I have been feeling a tug and hearing a whisper that I need to write something along these lines. To be honest, I didn't want to. I have been fighting it. One of the reasons is because I have a huge fear of rejection. I kept saying,"What if no one likes what I share?" "What if no one wants to read it?" There were more excuses but they boiled down to me not doing what the Holy Spirit was impressing upon me to do. Whether or not what I write is read or even liked isn't the point and I realize that now.
I praise God for everything that he has done in my life. I pray that this series does bless someone but most importantly I hope that God is exalted and glorified through this.

Biblical Womanhood Series

I would like to start working on a little series called Biblical Womanhood. To be the best Christian wives, mothers and women we can, will take some sort of effort on our part. Life isn't necessarily easy but we can enjoy it. If we aren't enjoying the life we have now maybe we need to reevaluate our priorities. We need to see where and how we are spending our time, what our focus is on, how our attitude is, etc. These really do set the tone of our homes. You know the saying, "If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy?" I really think that is true. We have so much power and we don't realize it, we don't realize that we influence so much. If our focus is on God and eternity, we will make mistakes, but our lives and those around us, will be so much better. As Christians (whether male or female) we shouldn't be sour all the time, we don't need to walk around with a chip on our shoulder. We need to fill our homes with joy, joy for the Lord! We need to purposefully be joyful everyday. Even if we are having a bad day, things just aren't working like they are supposed to, we still have the love of the Lord. Jesus Christ loved us so much he came to earth and suffered in a horrific way so we can go to heaven. We are here for such a short time, we need to make the best of it. We need to show the world what it is like to be a joyful and happy person. We are going to spend eternity in the presence of a God that loves us so much. What do we have to be upset and angry about? If you went to a restaurant and the servers there always had bad attitudes and were mean, would you keep going back? Would this be your favorite place to eat? We as Christians are the servers and the patrons are the unsaved world. If Christians acted like the servers in the restaurant, why would anyone in the world want to be a Christian? Everything starts with us. We have the power to affect so much, why not make it positive?
I want to use the Bible as our base. Here a few verses that I would like to start us off with:

"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength." (Deuteronomy 6:5)

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)

"Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands." Proverbs 14:1

Proverbs 31
"10Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

"Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. Psalm 35:27

11The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.

12She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life."