Moaning.  Moaning. Moaning.    I forever sound like the little llama in red pajamas, weeping wailing for his mama. 

The ugly truth hurts.  Stings.  Is disgusting to ponder.

For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.

Matthew 12: 34

I think my heart must look like the dredges of my mocha.  Seriously. 

I was challenged, rather convicted, when my buddy Kay asked me,

Friend, our speech is simply an expression of what is in our heart.  How is your heart?  To answer the question, listen to what you say.  The cure is a heart change, not more caution about the words you use.  How is your heart?

My first response is to say, “Shu-ut up.”

It’s not my words I need to change.  It’s my heart.

This heart of mine, it pumps. 

It has moments of pinkness and even redness.  At times it swells with unconditional love . . . it isn’t always black . . . but it does resemble my coffee grounds more often than not.

Dark.  Brownish.  Specks of sin.  OK . . . clumps of sin.

Doesn’t Jesus tell us to come unto Him like a child?

I’m struggling. 

The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.  (Luke 6:45)

This treasure . . . this jackpot of life . . . this pot of gold . . . it ain’t in my heart the majority of the time.  But I want it be. 

I long to dispense gold freely from my treasure chest.  I want pirates to come searching for my treasure.  Bring it on.

The solution?

Hello.  Wake up before the kids, Jodi.  Do your Bible reading everyday – not because you have to, because you want to.  Because you want to be a “workman approved by God.”

Because my hearts desire is to, 

open my mouth in wisdom,
And the have the teaching of kindness on my tongue.
Looking well to the ways of my household,
Not eating the bread of idleness.
May my children rise up and bless me;
My husband also, praising me, saying:
“Many daughters have done nobly,
But you excel them all.”  (Proverbs 31: 26-29)

Besides meditating and memorizing scripture, the other thing I know that I desperately need to do is put up some wall art.

Does anyone have a recommendation for scripture wall art . . . something I can customize?  I don’t want to search online.  I want to search my Bible. 

I got to . . . I have to . . . 

“diligently teach my sons and talk of scripture when we sit in our house and when we walk by the way and when we lie down and when we rise up.  I {want to} shall bind them as a sign on my hand and scripture shall be as frontals on our forehead. I shall write them on the doorposts of our house and on our gates. 

(Deuteronomy 6: 7,8)

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