Encourage youself in sign language

Sometimes you need to encourage yourself in the Lord when you are going through.

If Not For Your Grace in Sign Language

Anointed Hands of The Lighthouse Church of Independence

Im Pressing On

Pressing, I am pressing on! 

My old desires and ambitions gone.

My life has become anew

My Jesus Christ is my morning dew

So I press I stretch forth my hand

Know God has the master plan

I can only do what I can

But Im reaching for His hand

The hand of hope, peace, joy and love

Salvation given from above

So thought I press when times aren't easy

I press to live a life that is pleasing

So I press on and on an on

I press, I press

Candice Barlow

The Power of Prayer

When You Can't Get Out, Let God In

Ahhh!! The weight of life sometimes weighs us down; With the pressure of being a parent, a Wife/or Husband, a minister, and working a job; not to mention the bills piling up. Sometime resulting in a desire to yell out a big WHY!! We all need relief from the everyday life and the every day nagging that makes itself known in our lives. What we need to do is take a step back and breathe, because not everyone can be as jipper as the Warner Brothers Frog. Also, not everyone has the opportunity to take a break from reality and take a semi-vacation from life…So then, what on earth do we do to get a hold of our sanity and roll with the punches while in the mist of our ongoing life?


Ill tell you! You stop, take a step back, evaluate your life, and lift it up to God in prayer! We can not get out of our obligations as a employee, parent, spouse or a minister; So why not spend a little extra time talking to the King of kings about your troubles and burdens. Psalms 55:22 says Cast your burden on the LORD, And He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved. When we give our burden to the Lord He will sustain us (to bear; to uphold; or to support our burden) He will give us the Joy, Strength and Peace that we need to get through the day! And not only that He says we will not be moved, we will not stumble in our frustrating times but learn to place our burden into the Masters hands.  1 Peter 5 6-7 says ⁶Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:  ⁷Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.   Instead of getting angry, frustrated, depressed or sad over our situation we need to humble ourselves and He (Our God) is going to exalt us in due time! In other words when the time is right…Meaning it is in God’s timing that things change, not ours. He tells to cast our cares on Him; meaning throwing your stress, anxiety, and burdens on Him. Why? Because He Cares…Thank God that He is a God that cares…But He does not just Care; He cares for US! He cares for us so much that he wants to take care of our burdens and cares so that we can walk in peace and joy.

I am thankful that we serve a loving God that has us in mind. Let’s all kick the extra burdens out of our lives and let the joy of the Lord fill our hearts and lives.

Cooking With Sista B

Walking in Faith

Walking By Faith!

In our daily lives weather we know it or now we practice faith in the natural relm. When we turn on the shower faucet we know water will come out, when we pre-heat the over we know it will get hot, when we put gas in our cars we know they will run. This type of faith just comes naturally to us by the everyday experiences we have in life...We have done these things and know that natural things (from personal experience) will happen with cause and effect. If you have not done so before it is now time to exercise out faith in God the same way we put our faith in our nature things in life. Faith is the push your miracle needs to come to fruition! Faith is saying even though everything is saying this is impossible...I KNOW that ALL things are possible through Jesus. Every situation we experience both good and bad only leads to one thing. God showing Himself strong in our lives. You see we may be in the heat of a battle and if we endure we will turn our test into a testimony.

How do we activate our faith in God?
1. We need to trust Him no matter if things seem to be working if our favor at that time or not.
I once applied for a job that I knew I was qualified for and I knew I had the favor of God in my life. I did not get the job and I wondered why...yet I left it in God's hands. A few months later I found out that the job was no longer needed and the person in that position was released.
Trusting God says it does not matter what my circumstances look like I know You have it in control! The bible says in Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not to your own understanding."

2. Start practicing walking in faith. In order to fully grow our faith it needs to be exercised on a daily basis. We need to look our daily lives and situations as oppurnitunites to please God by practing our faith in Him. The bible says in Hebrews 11:6 "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
Know that when we are walking if faith we are pleasing God, so if we are not living in the realm of faith we can NOT please Him. I don't know about you but I want to be pleasing to the one who dies for my sins.

3. Be spiritually minded. When we are walking in the spirit we are in tune with Jesus on a personal level. We are able to boldly go into the Holy of hollies in prayer or praying in the spirit on a daily basis. You may ask; how do I walk in the Spirit? We look at the story of Nicodemus. Jesus told him you must be born of the water and the spirit. (also reference Acts 2, 10 and 18) Spend some time in prayer everyday whether you have 5 minutes or an hour. Make a point to talk to Him in your day.

4. Put your faith into action. The book of James tells us faith without works is dead. Look your daily situations in the face and say, God got's this in control even though I may not understand...I know and trust that God has it under control. There is no reason to stress over a situation because stress will not make it better. Stress will only add fuel to the fire. So relax and trust God.

5. Expect Positive Change to Happen! It takes a heart full of expectation for change to take place, so get ready to see God really move and groove in you life!

Blessings from my home to yours!


Sista B

Valentines Day

Valentines Day! Some say its overrated, some say it is the best day of the year. I say I welcome love and appreciation all year around, yet I still appreciate the special days set apart for some extra special appreciation showing! This was our first Valentines service at the new church my husband Pastors at! I love a good memory, so we went the Valentines Day Mexican Fiesta! Myself and a couple of the ladies at the church went to town cooking a wonderful Mexican Food feast! I decided I wanted to try Carne Asada for the first time! Where do we start..Of course the internet...Where you can find almost everything you need to survive the fast paced world that we live in. Of course once you purpose in your mind that you want to do something, and get started....You realize you do not have an ingredient!! Awe, no lemons or lemon juice. One think about being a Pastors Wife, Wife, Mom etc..you have to learn to improvise! Ha I decided to replace my Lemon Juice with Orange Juice..I am happy to say it was an Success! I also make a few other changes to it so let me know how yours comes out; here is the recipe!

Valentines Day Mexican Fiesta!

Ingredients

2 pounds flank or skirt steak (I used thinly sliced Rib Eye)
Olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Marinade:
4 garlic cloves, minced (I used Two teaspoons of pre-minced garlic)
1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin seed
1 large handful fresh cilantro, leaves and stems, finely chopped (If you have it, I did not have that)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 limes, juiced (I used Orange Juice about a cup)
2 tablespoons white vinegar (I left this out too
1/2 teaspoon sugar (Nope, I did not do this I forgot :))
1/2 cup olive oil

I also added Seasoning Salt and Garlic Salt

1 Lay the flank steak in a large non-reactive bowl or baking dish. Combine marinade ingredients and pour the marinade over the steak. Make sure each piece is well coa2 Preheat your grill over medium-high flame (you can also use a cast iron grill pan on high heat for stove-top cooking). Brush the grates with a little oil to prevent the meat from sticking. Remove the steak from the marinade. If you are cooking indoors, you may want to brush off excess marinade as the bits may burn and smoke on the hot pan. Season both sides of the steak pieces with salt and pepper. Grill the pieces for a few minutes only, on each side, depending on how thin they are, until medium rare to well done, to your preference. You may need to work in batches. Remove the steak pieces to a cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes. Thinly slice the steak across the grain on a diagonal. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-4 hours. (I only had a hour and it came out GREAT!)

2 Preheat your grill over medium-high flame (you can also use a cast iron grill pan on high heat for stove-top cooking). Brush the grates with a little oil to prevent the meat from sticking. Remove the steak from the marinade. If you are cooking indoors, you may want to brush off excess marinade as the bits may burn and smoke on the hot pan. (I actually used a griddle) Season both sides of the steak pieces with salt and pepper. Grill the pieces for a few minutes only, on each side, depending on how thin they are, until medium rare to well done, to your preference. You may need to work in batches. Remove the steak pieces to a cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes. Thinly slice the steak across the grain on a diagonal.