Well...hello there!

Several weeks ago, I posted that I would be blogging again and I am pretty stoked to be back. My heart is full and my joy abundant. It has been seven months since my last post and I am happy to say I am content and at peace with where I am in my life. Now, don't get me wrong, there is always room for improvement and growth. There are circumstances that I had hoped would turn out differently BUT I am ok with them. At the end of every day there are a couple things on my prayer list that have been there for the last seven months and will remain for now. I hope to never stop longing to be closer to Christ.
The last time I posted in Sept. I posted about faith and how at times it is circumstantial. When I sat down to post tonight, I realized God's timing is yet again perfect. On the way to work this morning I was doing my make up and on the phone most of the way in (I know, not safe) BUT once I stopped and was just quiet for a moment a song I was hearing for the first time was on the radio. Kutless' What faith can do from the It is well album (i think). Powerful lyrics and for me today it kicked off my time of worship for the rest of my drive to work. The chorus in the song says, IVE SEEN DREAMS THAT MOVE MOUNTAINS HOPE THAT DOESN'T EVER END EVEN WHEN THE SKY IS FALLING. IVE SEEN MIRACLES THAT JUST HAPPEN SILENT PRAYERS GET ANSWERED. BROKEN HEARTS BECOME BRAND NEW, THATS WHAT FAITH CAN DO. The last verse says...Even if you fall sometimes, you will have the strength to rise. YES SIR is what I thought after the song was over. This was awesome and had me humbled. The song just after that was one by Sanctos Rios (sp) I just heard one verse in this song but yet again for a reason Im sure. It says...In this life I know what I've been but in His arms I know what I am. I LOVE IT! (I will touch on this soon!)
I got to work early and just sat in my car like o.k. God why are we back here? My faith is strong I believe and I feel as though I am doing well with overcoming my past. Ya know, actually I still don't know what exactly he is preparing me for currently but I am very excited to wait it out and see. Several things I do know...1) I have come leaps and bounds in 7 months and am proud of myself. Let me say I AM NOT saying I have not made mistakes or fallen, but how I have handled those things is what I am proud of. 2) My faith has grown and is more of a foundation than ever 3) God in the last two weeks has been preparing me for something that I do not know, but welcome.
I am glad to be back blogging and sharing my life with you! I can't wait to break it down and share my faith walk with you. More importantly, I can't wait for you to see through me what an AMAZING God we serve.
BRACE YOURSELVES, its good stuff coming your way :) see ya soon!

Is your faith circumstancial ?

Sadly, I have to say mine has been at times. About a week ago, I got into a really ugly place and just couldn't get out. I saw nothing but darkness and no end to my heart ache. Since then, I have realized several things.
First, we won't see the light or the fact that there is an end to our trial if we don't try to. I figured out while I was gone that I am a glass half empty kinda person and it came into place so quickly I didn't even notice it since I have been home. I don't want to be that person! I don't want to be the person who is fake either though and says "with God my life is great". I want to be real, able to admit when I am struggling but at the same time able to see that this to shall pass.
Second, I have thought that my life has just stopped because one of the three most important things in my life is now gone. BUT I know realize I am just having to get my priorities in check. Get the things in line that I know are for sure constant and never stop loving. These are my children and Christ.
Thank God for my kids, they are the only ones who can make me laugh right now when I am just in the depths of a bad day. They love me and at this point in life, the aren't leaving or judging. My goal is to keep their little hearts full of love and joy seeing that life is possible to be abundant through Christ. What I can control is me, my actions and my behavior nothing else. I will allow them to see love through me and that even on the bad days, we can run to our heavenly Father and say I can't do this but I know you can. Why do we ever doubt or try to do better than what God can?
So at the end of this week of searching, I have found that my faith should not change when my circumstances do. EVERYONE WILL eventually leave my children included. EVERYONE WILL let me down and I WILL let at some point let everyone down as well. What I know is consistant, is Christ and His love for me. I will choose Him and to seek His face in all of this because I know and believe that what He has for me in the end is so much more than I could have ever created for me and the kids. I will be faithful to what He has called me to do even when I don't understand.


We are called to trust Him absolutely, resting in His sovereignty and faithfulness.

Failure

This past Wednesday, T.J. asked us a question. What does failure look like to us? I have thought alot about that since then. I feel like a failure every day right now, in so many ways. I am in my second failed marriage that at the end of the day ended the same way (how we got there different but the end still the same). This alone confirms to me my biggest fear that anyone is capable of anything and that in the end love is not enough. I right now have two kids crying for something I can't give them and may never be able to give them. Andrew not sleeping well unless he is in the bed with me and entering a new world all together, Alex angry and has her own feelings of failure that are so false. I can not find a job after weeks of looking. The urge in the pit of my stomache to just screw it and give up, take what the world has to offer and go with it. I can't get the last bit of weight off the right way and I know that in itself is a test that I may fail at. People commenting on things I say as if they know both sides of this story. Anger inside of me that just wants to errupt into someone I don't want to be. The feeling as though I want to run as fast as I can and for as long as I can and NEVER look back. I want to go inside my house with my kids and not be around anyone who can hurt me or them EVER AGAIN. Tell me this isn't failure!
I know none of this is very "christian" but this is truth, authenticity. This is how I feel, don't judge me people. Most of you have never been in this place I am in and have no clue what you would or wouldn't do or say. I am doing the best I can and today is just not a good day, I feel like a failure.

Letting Go

Accepting total responsibility for what is presently happening in your life and becoming 100 percent accountable for your future choices, actions and behaviors is huge in letting go. We can get a good start by pulling from the past with all its disappointments, regrets, and heartache, but then step out in faith and let go. I know this is the place I am at in my life. Letting go, to even hear those two words is painful. I know though that I am going to be no good to the cause and my purpose here if I don't. This situation is pulling me down and hindering me from moving forward in God's best for my life. I have lived my life for many years now "safe" not believing that God would cover my sin and allow me to heal from my past. Too scared to take a risk and thinking I had no choice in the matter "stuck". Isa. 43:18-19 says 18) “But forget ALL THAT, it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. 19) For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. (NLT)
My heart aches for portions of what I am leaving behind. BUT portions are not enough. I don't want to settle and except just enough any longer. I know that in the future, God's plan for me is one that includes a fearless leader because Christ is his foundation. A man who joys over not only me but my children. I know that His plan more currently include a job with good income that I can provide for me and the kids and not need to rely on others at the same time being able to hold my head high knowing that I waited on His best. I know that God's plan includes ministry work for me whether it be a wife to a minister, a missionary to a foreign country or a platform being able to share my story to girls and ladies who have been in my same situations. I don't know exactly. I do know though that through my faithfulness and patience He will make my direction clear.
I once heard that you could fill your hand with sand and squeeze your hand as tight as possible so that you don't loose any sand but you could hold onto so much more sand if you would just us both hands and let the excess slip away. This is a good picture of where I am today. I have tried so hard for weeks now to hold on to that little bit of sand that I thought I couldn't live without. Instead of this very exhausting and dead end roller coaster ride, I want the abundant life that God has for me overflowing with joy and inner peace because I was able to let the rest go.
Please do not get me wrong, what I am letting go of is very dear to me and if there was any way I could hold onto it and still achieve all that God has for me I would. This is not currently possible though. I realize now that holding on to this will only bring me down because I need for all of my being to know that God is capable of amazing things if WE move out of the way and get over what WE cant overcome.
So in letting go I am loosing people I love and all that I hoped in at one time. What I am gaining though is a future that is bright and endless. My goals and my standards for myself are set high. I know without a doubt what I want in life and in my relationships and will not settle. I am gaining self confidence and hope. Hope for more. More out of myself and my relationships with others. Hope in Christ, that He alone will supply all of my needs. Love, Security, Identity, Companionship, Friendship, Fatherhood and Intimacy.
All along He wanted me to seek after Him, to trust that He alone would take care of me. When everyone else has failed me and turned their backs, HE still stood waiting for me to come to Him. What an amazing God we serve. He simply wants us to allow Him to love us, receive His love. Because I believe in ALL that He promises, I will be but a servant to His plans for me. GOD SEND ME, for I am letting go of all I had hoped for in this world. I am yours to the ends of the earth or here in our small town, just use me.
Eph. 3:20 says : Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.
How awesome, His plans include somethings that are even more than what our minds can grasp at this current time if we can just take that leap and know that dying to ourselves and stepping out on faith will NEVER lead us down the wrong path. In fact, I believe that by choosing the harder less traveled road we will reach a level of peace and happiness would would never attain any other way. So, will you take that leap of faith or will you settle for what we as humans can handle.

Pain

Today I am at a pretty rough place and trying hard to push through and be real enough to own it and walk through it. I think this is the point that in my first divorce I made tons of bad choices that led me down a road that I can't afford to go down. I didn't feel all of this pain and heartache the first time because #1 I coped with alcohol and sex and just so many inappropriate ways to "deal" when truely I wasn't dealing at all. #2 I coped with a relationship occupying my time with someone else that took my mind off of the situation and allowed me to feel wanted and accepted. When the truth is it hurt me more because I wasn't dealing with what my heart was feeling and the pain it had to go through to heal. So I only endured more heart ache when that relationship obviously didn't work out.
So today I am stuck hurting beyond belief knowing that the only way to heal is to go through it each day at a time feeling all of it. It would of course be easy to say "he's doing it why can't I" truth is in the end I want to be different and so to be different I have to act different. Satan would love to use this opprotunity to overcome me and crush all that Christ has been doing in my life lately. I refuse to take the easy road though.
Yesterday, someone reffered to me as a flower that was blossoming (sp) and I take pride in that. Only because that means that people are being able to see Christ in me and at the end of the day I want to be as Christlike as possible. So that all of this pain and heartache of my trial is not in vain but that Christ may use me to reach others.
Am I saying I don't have fleshly moments, NO absolutely not. I want to scream and cry and say ugly things. I want to break things and run away at times. When I think that all the way through though I realize that my ruining my testamoney or going back to my old ways only harms me and those involved get exactly what they have been waiting for. THIS IS WHERE I KNOW I AM DIFFERENT! So yes, I will hurt for now but in the end I will have blossomed and God will use me.

Only a trial can prove the depth of our faith and character

What is faith? My opinion is that it is believing in something we could easily not. Having no physical evidence or proof. Webster says it is something that is believed especially with strong conviction, or firm belief in something for which there is no proof.
As believers we are called to be faithful. Believing in something bigger, purpose and hope. We are also called to be faithful to Him and allowing the Holy Spirit to live within us to guide us and give us wisdom. Faith is hard and most of us have this kinda faith, I believe you are an awesome God who is all knowing and all powerful BUT... this is where we get screwed. This BUT part is not being truly surrendered I don't believe. Don't get me wrong, I myself have lived here in this BUT faith for all of my relationship with Christ until now and it has been so easy to justify. Let me say though, I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT WE REACH OUR FULL POTENTIAL IN CHRIST WHEN THERE ARE BUTS INVOLVED. Because we are human and not God himself we are selfish beings and to die to that each day is something most of us haven't gotten yet. I am finding it hard and each day is a choice. Sadly I have failed at this recently.
Truth is, Faith is not easy and so if it is easy your looking for then you will struggle and continue to search for peace and answers in your walk. Do I think that struggles will not come if your faithful? No, but what I am saying is that you will have peace and joy in those times.
Let me give a personal testament to this faith thing.
God has called me to be faithful in a certain area of my life right now. I came home to all too familiar trials and have doubted whether or not I should have prepared myself for the whatif's. Whatif's being "God, whatif I would have prepared for the worst. I would be allot better off today." In fact, I have yelled at God and told him of how angry I have been in the last few days because things just are too hard and I wasn't prepared. After getting in the word tonight I realized that I jumped out of being faithful and began to look at how impossible and hurtful the situation is. There are those who are thinking look at this girl and how foolish she is, "you are only hurting yourself" they say. Here is the thing though, yet again I have been confirmed on what I feel the Lord is calling me to do. The Holy Spirit is within me and that is what I will allow to guide me. So, I may be in for heartache and pain but I will turn to my God who will deliver me each and every time. I will be faithful to what I know I am called to do even when I have no earthly reason to. In this, I know that I will be blessed. I know that I have a long hard road ahead, but nowhere does God call us to take the easy road or to rest in the fact that we are doing all "we" can handle. He is so much bigger than anything "we" could orchestrate.
I DO NOT want the life that I can "handle" I want the life that he has called me to which is selfless and vulnerable so that I may be a testimony to those who are watching. Do I succeed in this all the time, no not hardly but I know that I am seeking to be Christ like as a human can be and in that because I am only human I will fail. Thank God that he is gracious though and loves me and waits for me to come back to Him each time.
Check out Habakkuk, it is an awesome book that speaks of just this.

Nothing can seperate us from HIS love!

I don't know about you, but this gets me stoked! In my current situation, it would be so easy for me to pull a poor me. I often feel inadequate and unloved right now. Being separated from Matt has been so much harder than I expected coming home. I feel incredibly unloved by him and it makes me question allot about myself. I feel unloved at times by Andrew when he is crying I want to go to my Ma's house and be with my Daddy. Mind you he is only 2 so that is normal when unexpected change happens in their little worlds. I could go on and on, but you get the point.
What is most important for me to know especially in these moments and for you to know in similar moments is NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM HIS LOVE. Isn't that comforting! At the end of the day when people have said ugly things or when your children are acting out, remember that our God is still loving us. He is waiting for us to come to Him with our heartache and sadness to renew our spirit. Believe me when I say that He will deliver you from your storm. He has delivered me in the past and will deliver me in the present. Stand firm on the fact that we are loved by God who is the creator of the purest form of love SELFLESS! Bath yourselves in truth when Satan wants you to believe the lies that you are unlovable.
I hope this has encouraged you today, and remember that loving others is something we are as believers called to do. LOVE GOD/LOVE PEOPLE