The following is the transcript of a Facebook live for the Every Day Incredible Ladies Facebook group.

Good evening, Ladies! My family and I just got back from vacation, which was wonderful. I’m very glad that we got to go.

I hope you guys are having a good evening, whether you’re listening now or after the fact. Like I was saying, we just go back from vacation and I’m very glad to get to go. This is the first time my boys had ever seen the ocean so of course, they were extremely excited. That was very fun to see. We have three boys and the littlest one’s just turning a year old (this week actually), so all three of them just absolutely loved the beach.

My middle son is four and he has been really afraid of the water in swimming pools or anywhere else, so I thought he was going to be afraid of the ocean too, but he loved it. Even when the waves knocked him down, he still loved it. He was playing right out there in the surf and would go out in the water with us. He had a ball.

The other night I was playing with him in the swimming pool at a hotel and I was letting him take off his swimming vest to just be in the water, trying to teach him the basics of swimming to help them get over the fear of water. 

We moved over to the hot tub and I was pointing out to him that it was not very deep, and as I was talking to him I felt like God was talking to me- because he often does that through my kids.  I’ll be telling my kids something and then it’s like I hear that whisper to my heart saying “okay, have you ever noticed that connection? How that’s like we are, or like God as the Father?” I don’t think it’s a coincidence so I don’t take it lightly when scripture refers to God as our Father. I think that’s something that is a very intentional thing, of course, so as I go through these moments with my kids, I feel like God reveals certain truths to me. I love when that happens. It’s very encouraging.

When I was in the hot tub with the boys,  Keegan was a little scared of the water and not wanting to let go. He was clinging to me tightly and I reminded him that the water was not very deep. None of the water in here is over your head, and you can touch the bottom at any part in this hot tub. As I was talking to him about that, what I felt like God was telling me was that that’s the way things are with us sometimes.   

We just need to put our feet down and stand our ground. We need to stand up, standing on the ground beneath us, because if we have God as our rock (the first breath prayer that I’d share with you guys was “Lord, be my rock” – if you guys remember that), if we have God as our rock, we have a solid ground to stand on.

As I was telling him, I know that the water can feel scary, I videoed some questions leading up to this, but I asked him, “how deep is this water?” He said “three foot,” because we had talked about it, and I said, “so what do you need to do if you feel a little scared in the water?” He said, “well, stand-up.” I  said, “exactly,” The first thing I said is to not panic. The last thing you wanna do is panic. I said, “so, what you need to do if you start feeling a little bit scared?” He said, “stand up and ask for help.” I said, “absolutely.”

Don’t you think that’s a little bit like how things are with God when life gets a little troubled, when the water gets kind of scary, we need to stand our ground, and we need to ask for help when we need it.  It’s the same thing, whether you’re a child in a hot tub, or if it’s just whatever age in life in general, because we have to be able to stand our ground and ask for help when we need it.

My thoughts went to Ephesians, chapter 6, and if you hang around every day incredible very much at all you’ll quickly see that I keep going back to those verses and references to our spiritual armor because that is so incredibly important. So, I’m going to read this passage to you. It says,

“Finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes for our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the authorities against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms therefore put on the full armor of God so when that the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground and after you’ve done everything you stand.

So the breath prayer I want to share with you for this week is, “Lord help me stand my ground.” We have things that come up right and left all the time that could potentially knock us off our feet, like the waves of the ocean. Things that could potentially knock the breath out of us (and anybody who knows me knows that I’ve had my fair share and I’m sure all of you have too) but when you have things that kind of knock you off your feet, just remember that you need to ask for help to stand your ground.

We had a situation when qw came home that kinda reminded me that we just need to take a breath, stand our ground, and ask God for help because we know that whatever we face when we are letting God take control; when we’re trusting Him with the situations in our way, we know that everything will be okay.

I am so incredibly thankful for that.

So this week, as things come up, I encourage you to pray, “Lord, help me stand my ground.” I hope you guys have a good evening. Bye!

the ground benea