God Is Love in ALL Things!

Growing up I used to hate and despise change! This blog has focused a lot around that. Throughout my late twenties I have experienced so much change it has made my head spin. More change seems to be coming my way and I have learned to take it as it comes. My tendency in the past has been to fight it off and complain. I'm choosing to pick my battles, after all God wins no matter what :)

I've learned what it means to not act more spiritual than I am lately. Sometimes I don't have all the answers. I must lean on the spiritual discernment I get from the Lord. I ask for His wisdom and guidance throughout everything life throws my way. In doing this, decisions that I may make are not always going to win over the people that surround me. I let guilt from others enter into my thoughts way too much. I am constantly wanting to please everyone and stay on the positive side of everyone's opinions. I really need to surrender this over.

I have learned how much God's love can cover me. He is always on my side. He may not always love things that I do, but He still loves ME. I try to do right by Scripture, I seek His face and counsel in all things, and try to never be anxious but present all things as my prayer and petition to Him. I have learned to lean on Him and Him alone. I have learned how much I cherish those around me who can give sound advice, yet keep opinions to themselves. As long as I follow the Lord, they continue to love and support me. I am truly thankful for that.

I've learned how much wisdom my mom has and how much I haven't given her credit for her relationship with God. I would boast too much and think too much of myself in thinking I knew more than her when it came to spiritual matters. I have since repented and asked her forgiveness for doing so. She is my mom. She tries her best to seek the Lord as my parent and friend. She wants only what is best. The Lord gave her me to take care and watch over. I seek God's love shown to me through her. It is a beautiful thing.

So in all things, God is love. Never underestimate how much He loves you!

An Old Friend

I have neglected to write and keep up with this blog for quite some time. Recent developments in my life have prompted me to pick it back up again. I have found through my writing I am able to reflect and see how good the Lord truly is to me. Remembering I had this blog, I took some time to read over past blogs. I have poured my heart out into so many of these posts and saw how I have overcome (only through Jesus!) so many situations in my life. I would love to think that my life will consist of nothing but rainbows and butterflies but that simply is not so. Who grows from nothing but happiness in their life? My greatest battles have defined who I am today. Even a mist the happiest of times in my life, God is always pruning and teaching along the way.

As of late, I have acquired someone very special to me. It only took 28 years for me to find him (or him me, I'm not sure). One thing is very certain...God orchestrated it all which deserves nothing short of an "amen"! I am now dating my best friend. Him and I have been through and watched each other in some of the battles I have written about. We still incur battles even now, but we have stuck by one another. My warm fuzzy, romantic self says he is the best thing that God has put into my life. I have seen how skeptical I had become on believing their was such a man as he. I am cherished, loved, adored, prayed for, encouraged, blown away, and so many other words that I can't even express. So much more than that is how our hearts seem to just naturally fit. So our story begins...a journey that I have been waiting a long time for God to place into my life. I am excited for so many things. I am excited to see how I feel so comfortable with this man. I am excited to see how I still put God exactly where He needs to be in this relationship as I have failed on that so many other times before. I had the tendency to want to place my significant others on pedestals while God took a back seat. Not this time. Maybe it is my age, maybe it is the season I have been in for some time, who knows but either way I am blessed.

Our relationship is one that has many opinions thrown our way. This is also nothing new to me as I know new relationships will always have skeptics and cheerleaders. Ultimately, God is our Judge and our Guide. We are fully relying on HIM to show us the way and guide our steps. We have both never felt such peace about each decision we make as we do now. I believe God has given me a real sense and Spirit of discernment. I know when I am being obedient and when I am not. Your fruit will show as evidence of that as well. In this, I am being obedient. We have sought counsel, and we have already seen evidence of God's hand on this relationship. True miracles have been shown which has been, for lack of a better word, awesome!!!

I will try harder at continuing to write especially with new developments. Let this season of my life's journey begin...

Finding My Fit

I haven't written in my blog for a long time. I'm sure at this point I don't have any readers, but it can serve as a good outlet for me. I have found that I often write when I am going through a rough time in my life. Most of my past posts have been about transitions, change, and the overall molding that God is doing with me. I have reached yet another point where this is happening to me.

Growing up was fun for a while, but now it is becoming slightly painful. I have found that recently God is pruning me again. Pruning can be a very good thing as it shapes me to be more like Christ. I won't lie though, it sucks sometimes too. What I am finding to be painful now is that I am experiencing a loneliness that I cannot recognize. This is not a loneliness of desiring a partner in life (although that will be great whenever God wants to bless me with that), but it is more of a feeling that God is preparing me for something bigger. I have no idea what this "bigger" will entail or even what it is regarding, but God is putting me in a place where I am all His. My friendships are changing drastically. I look around and I am finding that there are few that are going through the same thing I am.

I am not a person who enjoys alone time. I am the example of what extrovert is in every sense of the word :) I am also in a point in my faith where I know to listen to God when He speaks. If he is taking me to a place where He is causing me to be lonely, I must follow. I desire to be in only His will. He hasn't led me astray. But this is hard. That sentence seems so mundane but it is all I can say to express this grueling time. I have one friend who seems to be going through a similar path, but it would be unhealthy for me to cling to them instead of to the Lord. It doesn't help that this person is one of the opposite sex. I know my tendencies of attaching myself to my male friends as that is such a comfort to me, but it seems to always get me in trouble. So I know not to do that.

I am having a hard time finding where I fit within my community now. Do you ever experience times where you don't feel needed? I am a person who needs to feel needed or else I feel I am not doing what God wants me to do. I'm not pouring into people in ways that I feel I could. I also am not getting poured into either in some ways by others because as I stated, my friendships have changed drastically. So God has me alone; no where but up to look.

I constantly want to be transparent in my faith with God, so this is what this is. My honesty could come across as hostile or angry but I am neither of these things. I am not upset with God, but I am in a haze. No clue what He is doing. What I can take comfort in is knowing I do belong one place which is in His presence. So I'll just stay there for this season of life.

Transition

We all know what it is like to face different seasons of life. Pivotal shifts where relationships come and go, faith is stretched, life circumstances just seem to completely change. I always was under the impression that these "transition periods" would only occur once every few years. Wrong-o! I have come to realize that I am experiencing another pivotal shift in my life as of late. My last transition period was just last year when God just starting moving in my life in such a way that was just rocking my world, most in all good ways. A few relationships faded, one particular broke, but new relationships and experiences happened that outweighed all of that. It was truly an amazing time. One that maybe was a long time coming. Being that this was all just one year ago, I did not see this shift coming. I thought God had brought me to such a place where I felt satisfied with life, a sort of contentment, excited to see where God was moving me, and knowing I was staying with the attitude of all things new!!
Lately I started to feel off the path though. I think, without realizing it, I was making MY plans (again). How often must I go through this?? MY plans never work. It is HIS plans that will bring me joy, peace...fruit. Had I taken my eyes off my Father? No, I don't believe I have. In fact, my relationship with Him in this past year has grown in ways that I could not imagine and it has been awesome!! But you see, just because our eyes might be on God doesn't mean Satan takes any steps back. Satan knows that I can have a controlling tendency and also knows where to hit me when it comes to insecurity. My placement lately has felt off. Am I where God wants me? Am I doing what He wants me to do? How can I be glorifying Him more daily?
It came to my on one of my drives (this is where I have a lot of God-talk time) that I am being put through another transition in my life. My close friends feel that I am on the cusp of something big. God is going to do a big work in me. I think I feel that too. I still have such a frustration in dealing with it though. The process to getting to "that something big" is really tearing me up. My spirit has felt down, my dreams of what I thought life was getting ready to look like has been put away on the back burner, and I continue to hear the word "wait". I do get excited to think about how far I have come since last year and if I am going on another roller coaster ride with my Jesus, then buckle me in! I want my desires to become what He wants, no longer what I want even if they appear to be God things...everything will be brought by prayer and petition first. I cannot go through anymore heartbreak, broken relationships, feelings of despair or loneliness. I also cannot control. It is open hands only from here on out. Transition, here I come...again.

Calling

Wow. It's been a really long time since I've blog about anything! So much has happened since April, it is crazy!! I have so much that God has been doing and teaching me lately. The biggest lesson I am learning right now is to have patience and wait. Wait on God. Wait on the things that He has planned for me, and He DOES have a plan! I have been getting the tug for quite some time to ministry. Ministry is a lifestyle, yes, but I am talking about even occupationally. I am in a period in my life where I think change is about to take place in a big way. A move may happen, it may not. But I getting a sense of urgency to start preparing. What does this preparation period look like? Well, the things that I anticipate I may be getting called to is going to involve me raising quite a bit of money. As most people, I have debt. I have been on the path of getting out of this debt for a while now. I have been making more of a habit to really pray over my debt and to receive victory over it all. God has provided money to come from places I didn't know here and there. It has been pretty awesome. But I need to be more diligent in my financial decisions. I fail at this a lot. I need with this a lot. But I have decided that it is time for me to start seriously taking a look around my house and see what items do I really need? I need to start selling. This will be part of this preparation. That way, if I do move...I will not have much stuff to take with me. And even if God calls me to stay where I am, who needs a bunch of junk anyway?? I can't take it with me when I die. I don't need all these movies that are garbage anyway, I don't need old childhood things that I have saved just because my mom maybe wanted me to keep it around. It is silly. I don't need to do that. So ebay will become a great friend to me. The post office will become one of my best friends as I'm sure I will be spending a good amount of time there. I am excited to see what God brings to me. I know it will involve music. I know it will involve discipleship. Love God, Love People...that should be our mentality anyway right? I am praying and fasting so much about all of this stuff. I don't want to do anything outside of what God tells me. I pray for wisdom and guidance into where He wants me. Who knows if anyone reads this anymore, but if you do. Pray. Not only for me, but pray for where God is constantly trying to take you because He is constantly wanting to take you to new levels with Him. The more we know Him, the more we can share with others!

What I've Become

Today as I had a few minutes of down time at work...obviously still do somewhat or I wouldn't be writing this, I came across several pictures of people on facebook from high school. I drew several conclusions upon gazing at these folks now. My 10 year high school reunion will be in 2012. These same folks pretty much look the same as they did in high school. Most of their pictures involve being drunk, playing drinking games, and dabbing into all kinds of smoking. My first thought was, I was friends with some of them, but only at school. I did not party in high school. I was too busy. But how I escaped not getting sucked into this kind of lifestyle, I will never know. I went to public school and overall I really enjoyed it. I had a few close friends that I held dear to my heart (don't really talk to them anymore), but they didn't really party either so I guess that's why we got along better. I always just looked at the party crowd thinking they were just wasting their life. And now I look at them and think, "gosh, not much as changed, they are still wasting life". Then I think, none of them really know what it means to live a life for Christ and not think it sounds like a bunch of crock. They think it means just living this goody two shoes lifestyle where you don't get to have fun and have to just give up everything.

In high school, most knew of my involvement in church but I was not looked down upon. It did not make them not like me, but they knew I just wasn't that "bad girl". I was the one everyone could talk to about their problems, relationships, and just plain drama. I just got to thinking how thankful I am that God has saved me and protected me from living a life that is meaningless. I am living life for Christ the best I know how with where my journey takes me, and I am having the time of my life. I don't feel like I am missing anything. When I look at these pictures of these people as judging as it may sound, I'm glad I'm not living life the way they are. But this also means reaching out to people like them. They need to know and be able to experience what I'm experiencing!!

I've become a person who lives life to the fullest within the plans and purpose that God has for me, and I LOVE it! :)

Lost Count

My particular situation has changed in terms of I no longer will be keeping track of how many days it takes to get the result. It is not the end result but the journey that is helping me most anyways. Besides that, I have neglected writing in here for over a week now anyways that I just don't remember what day I am on!

This morning I was reaching to do my devotion, but I still had a thought from last night that I felt compelled to write about. Expectations. I find that I place such large expectations on myself and unfortunately sometimes on others. I know I am not alone in this weakness. It is so easy to do, but it is nothing but hurtful to ourselves and to those around us. It is setting ourselves up for disappointment. Last night I had a very bad night emotionally. Thoughts and feelings were brought back up about my dad and it ended up being blown out of proportion. It caused me to take a small step backwards from the release I had been feeling with my grief. And I was getting upset about that. Why??? Because I had placed an expectation on myself that I am not allowed to go backwards in where I have gone with this, and I wasn't allowing myself to feel frustrated towards what was happening. I was trying to be the strength to everyone involved when I know I can't do that. I don't have enough strength within myself to do it. Jesus can absolutely help me and give me strength through Him to handle it all, but I myself cannot.

So then I thought, ya know....the only expectation I can ever have is in Jesus. I know you are thinking, well duh! But obviously it may not be such a "well, duh" thing or more people wouldn't have this struggle of expectation. Jesus is the only one that we can place such a high regard towards in terms of what we should expect from Him. These things that we can expect, because it says in the Word, are things such as peace, comfort, strength, love, joy, power....the list can go on and on. We can have these expectations because even though Jesus was human, He is still God. And God is everything. Now, can we have the expectation that we will find all these things immediately in Him....yes, but it doesn't mean we will ALWAYS feel those things because God is God, but WE are still human. We will sometimes have these walls built up that actually hinders ourselves from God. We don't allow him access because we are still trying to do things ourselves under our own terms. We have to just SURRENDER!

Moral to this post....expectations are bad when they are on ourselves, or others. Place your expectations, frustrations, joys, and love in and on Christ!! He can handle it :)