"The Appreciation Room"

"I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart. I will tell of all the great things YOU have done. I will be glad and full of joy because of YOU. I will sing praise to YOUR name, O Most High." Psalm 9:1-2

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8

Dear Praying Friends and Family,

I have been trying to write this particular email for several weeks now, but just could not get it from my head to the computer. I guess the LORD had some more lessons to teach me about this, and will continue to for the rest of my life. I pray that HE will allow me to share some of the thoughts HE has brought to my heart in a way that will encourage your heart as HE has mine.

I few weeks ago i shared with you about The Love Dare book that i got my husband for our 26th wedding anniversary. Before i got the chance to give it to him I felt like the HOLY SPIRIT was nudging me to read it and give it to him by my actions instead of giving him the book. Well, i wish i could say, i've been passing with flying colors my "Love Dare" challenge but as a "sinner saved by grace" i have certainly failed many times since i shared this with you. But...as i have slowly read the first few chapters, i can say the LORD continues to help me learn to love my husband and appreciate this wonderful man that HE provided to be my life mate 26 years ago.
One of the chapters i read, entitled "Love Believes the Best," just keeps coming to my mind. In that chapter the writers challenge us to love our mates by focusing on their strengths instead of their weaknesses. They give a great illustration of this in what they call "The Appreciation Room." The more i think about this all important room, the more vital i see how this concept is scriptural and crucial to the success in our marriages, in our relationships with our children, our extended family members, our coworkers, friends and enemies,and most important of all, our heavenly HUSBAND, the LOVER of our SOULS, our LORD JESUS CHRIST.

"The Appreciation Room,"
as Stephen and Alex Kendrick so beautifully share, is

" a room in the deep and private corridors of our hearts where our thoughts go when we encounter positive and encouraging things about our spouse. On the walls are written kind words and phrases describing the good attributes of your mate...they are things you've discovered about your husband or wife that have imbedded themselves in your memory. When you think about these things, your appreciation for your spouse begins to increase. In fact, the more time you spend meditating on these positive attributes, the more grateful you are for your mate." They go on to say that "Most things in the Appreciation Room were likely written in the initial states of your relationship. You could summarize them as things you liked and respected about your loved one. They were true, honorable, and good. And you spent a great deal of time dwelling on them in this room...before you were married. But you may have found that you don't visit this special room as often as you once did. That's because there is another competing room nearby.

Down another corridor of your heart lies the Depreciation Room, and unfortuanately you visit there as well. On its walls are written the things that bother and irritate you about your spouse. These things were placed there out of frustration, hurt feelings, and the disappointment of unmet expectations. This room is lined with the weaknesses and failures of your husband or wife. Their bad habits, hurtful words, and poor decisions are written in large letters that cover the walls from one end to the other. If you stay in this room long enough, you get depressed and start expressing things like, "My wife is so selfish," or "My husband can be such a jerk." Or maybe, "I think i married the wrong person."

Some people write very hateful things in this room, where tell-off statements are rehearsed for the next argument. Emotional injuries fester here, adding more scathing remarks to the walls. It's where ammunition is kept for the next big fight and bitterness is allowed to spread like a disease. People fall out of love here." The Kendricks warn us that "spending time in the Depreciation Room kills marriages. Divorces are plotted in this room and violent plans are schemed. The more time you spend in this place, the more your heart devalues your spouse. It begins the moment you walk in the door, and your care for them lessons with every second that ticks by."

The writers acknowledge that "these things may be true...but so are the things in "the Appreciation Room." Everyone fails and has areas that need growth. Everyone has unresolved issues, hurts, and personal baggage...we have all sinned. But we have this unfortunate tendency to downplay our own negative attributes while putting our partners failures under a magnifying glass.

Let's get down to the real issue here. Love knows about the Depreciation Room and does not live in denial that it exists. But love chooses not to live there. You must decide to stop running to this room and lingering there after every frustrating event in your relationship. It does you no good and drains the joy out of your marriage.

Love chooses to believe the best about people. It gives them the benefit of the doubt. It refuses to fill in the unknowns with negative assumptions. And when our worst hopes are proven to be true, love makes every effort to deal with them and move forward. As much as possible, love focuses on the positive." The writers go on to exhort us to "let love lead your thoughts and your focus. The only reason you should glance in the door of the Depreciation Room is to know how to pray for your spouse. And the only reason you should ever go in this room is to write "COVERED IN LOVE" in huge letters across the wall.

It's time to move into "the Appreciation Room," to settle down and make it your home. As you choose to meditate the positives, you will learn that many more wonderful character qualities could be written across these walls. Your spouse is a living, breathing, endless book to be read. Dreams and hopes have yet to be realized. Talents and abilities may be discovered like hidden treasure. But the choice to explore them starts with a decision by you. You must develop the habit of reining in your negative thoughts and focusing on the positive attributes of your mate. This is a crucial step as you learn to lead your heart to truly love your spouse. It is a decision that you make whether they deserve it or not."

Wow...just this one chapter keeps growing in my head...what i mean by that is the more i think about it...the more the LORD shows me how much HIS desire for me is to live in the "Appreciation Room," of my heart, beginning with my relationship with HIM foremost of all. When i linger in "the Appreciation Room" of gratitude with my heavenly HUSBAND JESUS CHRIST, HE enables me, HIS bride, to focus on the positive attributes of my earthly husband.

A few weeks ago, my husband and i returned to Dallas, on June 8, to celebrate our 26th anniversary and have some further medical treatment. GOD answered some very long time prayers and desires of my heart while we were there that i have been praying for years. In that evening's devotion in Morning and Evening,by Charles Spurgeon, the Scripture reading was "Thou shalt see now whether MY words shall come to pass unto thee or not." -Numbers 11:23. I honestly just wanted to fall on my knees and worship the LORD and say, "Yes, LORD you have just shown me in a dramatic way that YOUR WORD is true...by answering this "impossible" prayer and heart's desire of mine. I didn't fall down on my knees just then, i was sitting in a swing outside at the peaceful apartments where we were staying at Earl Remmel's (www.safehousingdallas.com) when i read those words, but my heart was and still is in awe at what GOD had done and is doing to continue answering this long time request. GOD did bring HIS WORD to pass... and after much asking, and delighting in HIM, 'HE gave me the desires of my heart." Ps.37:4.

But just as the prophet Elijah had the great victory over the Baal worshippers when the LORD burned up HIS sacrifice and not theirs in I Kings 18, and then fled for his life from evil Jezebeel and went and prayed that he might die under a Juniper tree, i found myself lying across the bed in the apartments where we were staying just a few hours later after that great victory struggling with feelings of depression and defeat. It was there in the quietness of that bedroom that the LORD brought the words from the the "Appreciation Room" to my heart, and applied them to my relationship with HIM. You see, i do HIM the same way i tend to do my husband, and instead of staying in "the Appreciation Room," i wonder off into the "Depreciation Room," and start grumbling and complaining about HIS ways with me. HE reminded me, " In everything give thanks, for this is the will of GOD in CHRIST JESUS concerning you." 1 Thess. 5:18.

I have really struggled with depression since i took an antibiotic, a few weeks ago...and it left me feeling like "doom and gloom" for several weeks, along with some other head issues that have continued to plague me. I knew that what i was feeling was from a physical cause, and eventually this too would pass. Well i wasn't sure it would pass...and at that time on the bed...and several times in between, i have had trouble staying in the "Appreciation Room" and giving thanks for it. I don't like feeling depressed, or my head feeling like it has sand paper in it, ...or that i am about to cry at the drop of the hat, but it was where the LORD JESUS has allowed me to walk, and is teaching me to trust HIM in "the Appreciation Room," of my heart...to "walk by faith not by sight." 2 Corinthians 5:7.

Like you, i struggle at times "giving thanks in everything" for things that i don't understand how they are going to work for good...but my LORD JESUS is teaching me, minute by minute, day by day, month by month, year by year,that HE is indeed trustworthy. As i look back in some of my prayer journals that i have written in through the years, i am amazed at prayers that HE has answered, that often i forgot even about praying about. When i look back and see prayers that i've prayed for years...and see how even in the midst of my suffering HE has granted me the desires of my heart, now that really builds my faith..."Hast thou not seen how thy desires have been granted in what HE ordaineth?...." It helps me to be able to trust HIM for the other desires in my heart that HE hasn't answered yet..." but HE is working on them:). It takes GOD time to grow an oak tree, and it takes HIM time to answer some of our prayers...especially those that seem impossible. But HE says, "With GOD all things are possible," Mark 10:27, and i am learning HE is indeed the GOD of the impossible. HE is true to HIS WORD...over and over and over again.

Earlier this week i read a quote in the June 30 Springs in the Valley devotion book that made me think about GOD's "Appreciation Room. " It is through our Quiet Times with HIM where we spend time with HIM in prayer and Bible study, that helps us to stay in the "Appreciation Room" where we praise HIM and thank HIM, instead of the "Depreciation Room" where we grumble and complain at HIS ways in our life. The quote from Springs said:

"In the silences I make in the midst of the turmoil of life I have appointments with GOD. From these silences I come forth with spirit refreshed, and with a renewed sense of power. I hear a Voice in the silences, and become increasingly aware that it is the Voice of GOD."

O how comfortable is a little glimpse of GOD!
-David Brainerd

This summer, GOD has given me a new place to meet HIM in the "Appreciation Room" of my heart, and i have enjoyed walking along a beautiful trail not far from where we live along Swan Creek. As i have walked along that trail early in the morning, enjoying the creek running over the rocks, and the trees overhead, GOD has met me there over and over to refresh my spirit and renew me with HIS power. I have one place in particular that i like to stop at where the water is running gently over the rocks and i am reminded of the words to the great hymn "How Great Thou Art:"
"When thro the woods and forest glades I wander And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees, When i look down from lofty mountain grandeur, And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze; Then sings my soul, my SAVIOR GOD to THEE, how great THOU art! How great THOU art! "
...it's real easy to spend time with the LORD there and spend time in HIS "Appreciation Room," thanking HIM and praising HIM for how very great HE is...HE has proven HIMself over and over in my life and yours...and i see HIM the most in my darkest hours.
Elisabeth Elliot (www.elisabethelliot.org) wrote in her book A Path Through Suffering:

"Through my deepest waters, hottest fires and darkest valleys GOD has taught me the deepest and the most eternal lessons."

"YOU who have shown me great and severe troubles, shall revive me again, and bring me up again from the depths of the earth." Psalm 71:20.

I am finding that it is easier to stay in "the Appreciation Room" with my husband and others, when I have spent time each morning in the "Appreciation Room" of my heavenly FATHER and HUSBAND. When HE renews my heart and mind day by day through HIS WORD, HE gives me HIS love to love others unconditionally as HE loves me. "But GOD demonstrates HIS love for us in that while we were yet sinners CHRIST died for us." Romans 5:8.

Oswald Chambers says in his Feb. 23rd reading of My Utmost for HIS Highest:

"When we realize that JESUS CHRIST has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, and sin, nothing that we meet with from others can exhaust our determination to save men for HIS sake."

When i look at the "log in my own eye," it helps me to not be so quick to look at the "speck in my brother's eye" whether that be my husband, child, or whoever CHRIST has called me to love. I can only do this by abiding in CHRIST, HIS WORD and HIS power through daily prayer and taking time to think about what HE's sharing with me. This means carving time out of the day to spend time with HIM...and that takes a conscious effort on all of our parts. There is always something to steal away the time that GOD has given us and desires us to spend in fellowship with HIM. HE loves us so very much and longs to have that intimate time with us in fellowship that we wives desire to have with our husbands...HE is our HUSBAND and HE wants that time with us...HIS Bride. With that time, we thrive in CHRIST, and HIS Living WATER washes over our minds and hearts, and renews us so that we can have HIS love, HIS joy, HIS peace, and HIS forgiveness. Without that time with HIM we dry up and wither away, and our lives our often characterized by "grumbling and complaining," bitterness, and anger, over HIS ways with us. I know, because i struggle with this when things don't go my way. It takes a conscious effort for me to stay out of the "Depreciation Room," dwell in "The Appreciation Room" and be thankful in everything, including depression.

Out in my flower garden, where the LORD is teaching me to love to spend time with HIM, HE has many lessons to teach me from nature. One of those came from my neglect recently of a beautiful red rose bush i had planted a few Mother's Day's ago, in honor of my two children. That "Double-Knock" out rose bush has bloomed profusely and it brings me great joy to see the beauty of it...and how i pray my children will bloom for HIM like that rose bush. Recently, when the Japanese beetles started showing up, i thought about spraying my rose bush with a product called "Surround," to protect it from the beetles. "Surround" is not a pesticide, but it works as a cover to protect it from the beetles eating the leaves and buds. You just mix the white power in a bottle with water, spray it on, and it covers the plant with a white protective coating. I have used it in past years, but I hoped the Japanese beetles wouldn't be too bad this year and i never got around to spraying my rose bush. I was wrong, the Japanese beetles had a field day, and ate holes in the leaves of the rose bush, and ate the blooms too. All because i was too lazy to cover my plant with "Surround."
When i reread the chapter above about the "Depreciation Room" and how it should have a sign above it that says, "Covered with Love," i thought about my rose bush. That "Surround Covering" is like the Grace of GOD, that enables us to "Cover with LOVE" a multitude of sins. Had i "Covered with Surround" my rose bush to start with, the Japanese beetles wouldn't have been able to eat it up. When we abide in CHRIST spending time with HIM daily,HE gives us the grace to "Cover with the Love" a multitude of sins and keeps them from eating away at our hearts...and defiling many. "See to it that no one misses the grace of GOD and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many" Hebrews 12:15. Instead of bitterness and anger and negative thoughts pouring out of our hearts and minds, HE helps us to forgive, and forget. HE enables us to have HIS loving and forgiving heart for our husbands, and children and others that wrong us as it says in Psalm 103:10-13"HE does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is HIS love for those who fear HIM; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgression from us. As a father has compassion on HIS children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear HIM."

In this 46th year of my life, GOD amazes me with how HE continues to give me HIS love where i could not begin to love...to teach me to "Cover with Love" a multitude of sins, to dwell more and more in the "Appreciation Room" instead of the "Depreciation Room" in all of my relationships. I know that HE is doing this through me, little by little, day by day, as HE draws me into HIS Appreciation Room and teaches me to give thanks to HIM in everything.

As i thought about the song for this week, the beautiful old hymn, "In the Garden" came to my mind. This hymn was one of my dear, dear Grandmother's favorites who loved JESUS, loved every one she met, and loved her flowers. My Grandmother was one who could have been bitter about the events of her life...her first husband died at 27 leaving her with a 5 year old and 2 year old, and then when she did remarry many years later, her second husband was a heavy drinker, and she had a difficult life. But my dear Grandmother, lived by GOD's grace, and she "Covered with Love" those things in the Depreciation Room, and chose to live in "the Appreciation Room." Seven years before her husband died, the LORD JESUS saved him, and he became a new creature in CHRIST. He stopped drinking, went to church with her, read his Bible, and was a different person because of what CHRIST had done in his heart. My Grandmother was truly an example and inspiration to me and all who knew her of GOD's grace. She was able to "Cover with Love" a multitude of sins because she was covered by the blood of JESUS and spent time "In the Garden" with her SAVIOR.

"In the Garden" by C. Austin Mills (1868-1946)

"I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses;
And the VOICE I hear, falling on my ear, The SON of GOD discloses.

Chorus:
And HE walks with me, and HE talks with me, and HE tells me I am HIS own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known.

HE speaks and the sound of HIS voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing;
And the melody that HE gave to me Within my heart is ringing.

I'd stay in the garden with HIM Tho' the night around me be falling;
But HE bids me go; thro' the voice of woe, HIS voice to me is calling.




The older i get, the more i do love to spend time in my flower garden, like my Grandmother and Mother. JESUS, our HUSBANDMAN , loves to spend time with us alone in the Garden our hearts, where HE produces beautiful fruit and fragrant flowers that brings glory to HIM. In John 15:5 JESUS tells us, "I AM the VINE, you are the branches; he who abides in ME, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from ME you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in ME, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in ME, and MY words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you." John 15:5-7.

HE knows just what needs weeding in my heart and just what needs pruning, how much rain and how much sunshine to bear the most fruit for HIS honor and glory. As i remember that, it helps me to rest in HIM, when HE allows those seasons of discipline that hurt...and i recoil at the pain. Spending time in the Garden with HIM, helps me learn to Appreciate my HUSBANDMAN's way with me...and helps me learn to stay in "the Appreciation Room," while HE patiently works in my life and the lives of those i love to accomplish HIS will.

"Why should I start at the plough of my LORD, that maketh the deep furrows on my soul? I know HE is no idle husbandman, HE purposeth a crop."
Samuel Rutherford


"The Appreciation Room" is a wonderful place to dwell, a bountiful and overflowing garden of the richness and beauty of our LORD JESUS CHRIST. In HIM lies peace and in HIM there is abundant and overflowing love to cover a "multitude of sins," including our own. "And we know that in all things GOD works for the good of those who love HIM, who have been called according to HIS purpose...If GOD is for us, who can be against us? HE who did not spare HIS own SON, but gave HIM up for us all-how will HE not also, along with HIM, graciously give us all things?" Romans 8:28,31,32


Thank you for remembering my friends Greg and Wanda Adams in your prayers. It's been a rough week at the hospital for them with complications from chemo, but they will both tell you that GOD has brought such wonderful blessings in their lives through their trials and they wouldn't trade this time for anything. Greg is home for now, and Wanda is his full time nurse, lovingly caring for her husband...so please continue to remember them. They live in that "Appreciation Room," with our SAVIOR and HE is revealing how very sweet HE is in their darkest days just as HE does ours. Truly our PROMISE KEEPER does keep HIS promises "Thou shalt see now whether MY words shall come to pass unto thee or not." -Numbers 11:23.
"YOU turned my wailing into dancing;YOU removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to YOU and not be silent. O LORD my GOD, I will give you thanks forever." Psalm 30:11-12.

I love you and wish you and your family a happy 4th of July weekend. What a debt of gratitude we owe to GOD and to those who have laid down their lives for us that we might enjoy the freedoms that we still have. It certainly is a time to reflect and pray and asked the LORD to help us during these perilous times and grant us courage and wisdom for the days ahead. A friend of mine said her family was going to read the "Declaration of Independence" together...i thought that was a great idea.
I read these quotes yesterday from Chuck Missler's email newsletter ( http://www.khouse.org/ ) on Freedom and wanted to share them with you:

Throughout world history, the power-hungry have constantly fought to overpower and dominate others, whether overtly or through sneaky politicking. Freedom - whether political, religious, or spiritual - is wonderful to enjoy, but at the cost of great sacrifice and vigilant protection. In America, we are the heirs of great sacrifices made to give us a heritage of freedom. Let us guard and protect this inheritance, and not squander it like ungrateful children. To keep our freedoms, we need to appreciate the cost. We need to be willing to understand the sacrifice ourselves, so that we have the same legacy to hand our children: On Freedom:

"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will." – Frederick Douglass
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." - Thomas Paine
"A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you." – Ramsey Clark
"You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free." - Clarence Darrow [That is, even if you don't like what your neighbor believes in, it's still vital to protect his freedom.]
"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men." - Voltaire
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." - Wendell Phillips
"Freedom is never an achieved state; like electricity, we've got to keep generating it or the lights go out." - Wayne LaPierre
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." - Somerset Maugham
"The land of the free will cease to be when it's no longer the home of the brave."- Rick Gaber
"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned -- this is the sum of good government." – Thomas Jefferson
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." – Samuel Adams
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value." - Thomas Paine
"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." - Galatians 5:1 When something is rare, it has more value, which is why gold and diamonds are valued more than sand. Freedom is growing rarer again – but it must be sought after, dug up, and cherished like the treasure it is. We have readers from around the world – many of which value freedom way beyond those of us who have an abundance of it.

Remember – "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required" - Luke 12:48



You are such a blessing to me...and i thank GOD for you and the love you have shown me and my family. Thank for taking time out of your busy schedules to spend this time with me this holiday weekend and our dear SAVIOR who gave HIMSELF that we might have eternal life and be free indeed. "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." – John 8:36 "For GOD so loved the world that HE gave HIS only SON that whoever believes in HIM shall not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16.

With all HIS love,
mitzi

"Simple gratitude helps us to experience GOD at work in every moment of every day."
-Harriet Crosby
The Bible Promise Book for Women