Love Love Love

A quick note of encouragement for you today:


Last Wednesday I was standing in worship at Bible study and was feeling really awful. I just felt so unclean, so wretched, so unloved. I was listening to lies that were telling me how unlovely I was. In the midst of feeling this way, God spoke to me so clearly. 


He said: "Why would I heal something that I don't love?" 
I immediately froze with adoration and shock. My whole mindset was changed in an instant. 
He instantly healed me of nine "incurable" diseases when I was twelve in case you aren't familiar with the testimony He has given me.


So, let me get this straight. The Creator of the universe loved me enough to physically heal my dying body, to emotionally heal my heart, and to breathe life into me...? Wow.


Even if you are sitting here thinking "Yeah, well, I don't have such a dramatic story..." God's love is evident in your life too. He is the source of our life.


The very fact that you are breathing is a testimony that God loves YOU. 


So choose this mindset every day as you seek God more and more: 
THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE IS SO IN LOVE WITH AND HEAD OVER HEELS FOR YOU! How cool is that?


God wants to work in your life. He wants to bring emotional and physical healing. But we have to do our part too. We have to walk with Him, get to know Him and get in relationship with Him. He loves you. He tells us many times that we are the apple of His eye. So if me and you are the apple of God's eye, and we have a full understanding of that reality, we can choose to refuse any lies that tell us otherwise.


You are lovely. You are fabulous. You are loved. God says it. Believe it. Every day.

Excellence 101 (It's taken me 19 years to learn this stuff)

*Don't give up.

 - For six years, I have prayed for some individuals with whom I am very close to. From the day I said "amen" to my first prayer for them to this very moment, there were many tears, some hurtful experiences, and numerous opportunities to lose faith. I might have wallowed for a little bit, I certainly wasn't the most graceful about things at times, but I got back up -I chose to forgive because it is a commandment, not a feeling. Six years later, I am beginning to see prayers answered. The Lord hears, He has compassion, and He ultimately works on our behalf when we do our part. Make the lyrics "Though my heart is torn, I will praise You in this storm," an anthem; a battle cry. No matter what, keep praying. Keep walking with God. Keep reading your Bible. Keep expanding your knowledge of Him, because He is so much bigger than our circumstances and He is working behind the scenes. He sees the full picture; the finished puzzle. We are pieces in that puzzle who can simply see what is right in front of us. (And sometimes we can't even see THAT!)

*Identify what is truly important, and do it with pure excellence -nothing less.

- Better to do a few things really well than to spread yourself out over a million things and do them all mediocrely. Devote your time to things that you know are worth doing and that are going to have a positive impact on others. Refrain from wasting time with mundane modes of existence that don't matter. It's important to expand your perspective and realize that there is so much more to life than this moment, than the next ten years, than the next fifty years. Eternity is real. Invest in actions that carry eternal value. Be dedicated. Be devoted.  

*Rest is vital.

- I've never been one to sit still. Ask anyone -I'm always moving, always going to some appointment or working on a project. I would even deal with guilt if I took a break to rest and I soon found myself having forgotten how to relax! I've realized that unfortunately, we aren't Energizer bunnies. We need rest. I mean, really, even God took a break. Who am I to deny rest when my Creator set aside time to rest? Make a conscious effort to discover what chills you out, and then do it! I'm still trying to figure out how to relax. Today I actually had to stop, sit in a chair, turn off everything, and just sit there with me, God, and my mind. Sad? Maybe. But if that's what it takes, then do it. Rest your body and rest your mind, otherwise it will be a million times harder to do everything! 

All in all, I have been trying to live a life of excellence in every area. It is important that we let God invade every compartment of our lives -picking and choosing where we allow Him entry to our lives is cheating ourselves out of living the wonderful life God intended for us to live. We'll never "arrive," we'll never attain perfection on this earth, but that isn't what's important. Society demands perfection out of us, but the condition of the heart is the most important element here. We must continually seek to know God and to make Him apart of our lives more and more every day. 

Eliminate "impossible" from your vocabulary, invest in eternity and remember to rest! 

A Revelation Whilst Brushing My Teeth...No Really...

Greetings. 
Ah, seasons of God.
I have been in a season that has certainly tested me and has been molding me into a new creation. I've had a lot of time to be alone with God, (and I mean A LOT) and as a person who has always been on the other end of the spectrum as ridiculously social, I have definitely hit the wall a few times, frustrated with feeling isolated for various reasons. Christine Caine's words just keep echoing in my ears: "Embrace your place, embrace your place..." So that's what I have been doing. It started with a mental decision. I just said "Okay God, I am in this place for a reason, and I choose to follow You through it. I choose to take advantage of the alone time and use it to get closer to You, to read Your Word more, to pray more. Thanks for having my back in all of this and guiding me even when it seems like my situation is completely random and scattered." And it's amazing, for every decision I thought was completely arbitrary in my life, for every stressful situation that left me crying out wondering where God was, when life looked like scattered dots all over the map, I look back and see a perfectly straight line. 
He has His hand on us through it all, but we have to LET Him. He wants to guide us through the seasons that are individually constructed to sculpt us into who He wants us to be, but we have to LET Him. 


Proverbs 4:26 - "Ponder the path of thy feet, and LET all thy ways be established."


I read that verse on a late train ride home from Chicago and my mind was blown. LET. That word means we have to give up control. We have to realize that we don't know everything, that we can't make things work out the way we want them to no matter how hard we strive to control situations to ensure a favourable (in our minds) outcome. 


And He said to PONDER the path of thy feet. I don't know about you, but my entire life, I didn't just ponder the path of my feet. I stomped on my own path, I made my feet go where I thought they should go regardless of what anyone else had to say about it, and almost 100% of the time found myself absolutely miserable. I got swept up in trying to please this society, in trying to validate my existence and prove my worth to a world who's demands never end. If there was a competition, I made sure I was in it, and I made sure I won it. Always. Academic, athletic, musical, I was your girl. I'm not saying this to brag, I'm not saying it to be puffed up. It's the opposite. It's a story of brokenness, of a girl who tried to gain love by being the best at everything. A girl who didn't understand how much her Creator loves her and desires her regardless of what she does or doesn't accomplish. I was so competition and fighter oriented, if any competition arose, I didn't stop and think "Well, does God want me to do this?" "Do I WANT to do this?" "Does this fit in with my heart's desires and what I just plain love to do?" "Am I doing this because I'm a perfectionist and obsessed with winning because I think it'll prove that I'm worth something?" I just immediately jumped at the chance to win more recognition. 


I did that for a variety of reasons. Some people who held influential roles in my life said they loved me, but in their words and actions made it very clear that they only loved me when I made them look good. They would never be around, but when I won some new award, they would suddenly appear out of the woodworks, congratulating me publicly -but in reality it was never about me, they just wanted to look good. Through those experiences, God has taught me many things. He uses every day to continually instill His love in me, to restore me, and to heal my heart. He taught me that I can choose who is in my life -sometimes people who grow up with exposure to dysfunctional circumstances may tend to think they have to accept whoever walks into their life and that they have to put up with whatever that person brings to the table, but it's not true. Decide to stop the cycle of abuse. Decide to submit to God and let Him show you what it means to live a godly life. Let Him bring the right people into your life. And He has further taught me the beauty of forgiveness and how important it is to forgive those who hurt us. When we forgive it allows God to work in our life and the lives of those we have forgiven.


While I was brushing my teeth ten minutes ago, I was thinking about the upcoming school year, and I remembered a position I was offered on campus that looks really great on paper, but I had heard it was not an enjoyable experience at all. My old reaction would be to jump at the chance, to quickly accept the offer without considering its implications, without considering what God wanted, and without considering what I wanted. All I would think is "Oh okay awesome, I just got offered this really great thing that's going to look legendary on my resume. Yes yes yes!" It would absolutely be an auto-pilot reaction. But I was standing in the mirror, brushing my pearly whites, and all of a sudden God just said "You don't have to say yes to everything." I almost choked on my toothpaste. Such a simple concept (as it usually is) yet to someone who was so programmed to mindlessly and unwisely accept any offer that society deemed admirable, it was a spiritual smack upside the head. Saying no does not make me or you less of a person and it does not make me or you a failure. I'm not accepting the offer because I plain don't want to do it, and regardless of the recognition it may bring, it is not something that God wants me to sign up for. I've realized that seeking and desiring His will above all else is imperative to living a successful life. 


So. I know I'm not the only one that deals with this kind of stuff. If you're reading this and you feel the pressure to live up to someone else's standards and expectations, you feel unloved unless you perform in a certain way, or you just find yourself saying yes to anything and everything [the "disease to please" as we call it] just take a step back. Realize how much the Creator of the universe intimately loves you, realize that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, and above all else, just choose to walk with God in every second of every day. PONDER the path of your feet -don't stomp around trying to make a square fit in a circle. That's how I always felt. I was doing things I didn't love just for the recognition. I was trying to make myself into a person that I simply was not destined to be -I wasn't living a life to discover the desires, dreams, and loves that God planted in me from the foundation of the world. 


When you narrow your audience down to One, when you live to love and please the sweet Father that made you, it allows Him to work in your life and it allows Him to guide your paths through it all. Pray that HE would order your steps, that HE would reveal to you HIS plans for the life you live [I don't like saying 'your life' because it really isn't our life. It all goes back to Him.] Pray that He would bring divine connections into your life. Make sure you forgive those who you hold bitterness against. It is vital. He loves us through anything and everything, so we must love others through anything and everything. You are the apple of His eye. Choose Him in every circumstance, and when you're looking backwards instead of forwards, you'll see a perfectly straight line covered in God's goodness and favour.

Faith and Excitement For the Future

Wow. I sit here and think about all that God is doing and it's amazing. He has turned my world topsy-turvy in the best possible way, and I am learning to trust His plans for my life and to have faith and excitement for the future in the process. 


Faith and excitement for the future. It is vital. I'm going to be straight up honest. The first eighteen years of my life were hell. They served their purpose for sure, like The Rocket Summer says "I wouldn't know just how sweet this is if at first I had not gone through bitter times, through bitter places..." I went through illnesses that the doctors told me would kill me before I turned twenty, I grew up in the midst of abuse and cruelty, and a lot more that I won't go into. BUT. God truly makes beauty out of ashes. He saved my life, turned me around, and I have spent the last six years loving Him and living an amazing life. 


God has been showing me something recently. Given my past, somewhere along the way, in the midst of the hurts, the pains, the disappointments, I became scared to dream. I listened to the lies of fear and was distrustful of the future, because everything about my current circumstances screamed to me that life was terrible and that I better be prepared to deal with another catastrophe in the future. That is such a dangerous mindset. Maybe you've fallen into a monotonous existence, scared to dream big for the future because of circumstances that broke you down. Find the strength to pick yourself up, and with God, take the risk to dream big. Massive. Huge. Dream the dream that He gave you, the dream that only He can make possible.


So, I am in the process of listening to God and of having Him teach me how to dream again. He's teaching me how to trust Him and how to rest in Him while He lays the future out before me in His timing. What He does for me, He can do for you. He is no respecter of persons! How cool is that?! You don't need to read a million self help books on how to be successful or to find your dream or whatever...I just started out with lots of prayer. I would literally sit there and say "Okay God, I have NO idea what I'm doing. I don't really have any stellar role models that I've grown up with to show me what it means to  walk into the dreams You planted in their hearts...I am starting from scratch, and I know You're guiding me. And thanks a million times over for that. I choose to trust You, I choose to love You, I choose to focus on You, and I know that all else will come together in Your time." And within a few hours, I stumbled across a book that I bought for $1, called "Knit Together" by Debbie Macomber...I just found it sitting in a bin at OfficeMax and felt led to buy it. I mean, a $23 book for $1. Yes. And that was no coincidence! God has used that book to reveal some great insights. 


So get excited for the future! I serve a God Who works on an unfathomably massive scale - Who desires only good for me and you. He wants us to be optimistic and look into the future with wide open eyes, ready to serve, ready to bless others, ready to walk with Him and walk into the fulfilling life He has planned for each of us. He's got your back, you just have to LET Him have your back. Quit fighting it.


The second part to this: The most successful people, the people who absolutely changed the world, were the same people that everyone initially thought were crazy. God gave us our dreams, and our dreams should be so massive that they absolutely require Him to bring them to fruition. Thus, be careful who you discuss your dreams with. I've been laughed at by family members and have consequently learned to guard the dream. Now, I pray over my dreams - I pray that the Lord protect them and that His will be done over my will. 


So you might get called crazy, you might get laughed at. Take it as motivation. See it as a green light - if you encounter opposition or resistance, it's probably an indicator that you're a potential world changer, a person capable of impacting the world with God. Don't let anyone or anything get in the way of God has planned for your life. If He planted the dream in your heart, step on the accelerator with Him and don't let up, no matter what circumstances or people say. 


"No turning back, I've made up my mind, I'm giving all of my life this time. Your love makes it worth it all. All to You I surrender, everything, every part of me, all my dreams and all of me. I trust You God, I trust You..."

When It Rains, Do We Still Let Him Reign?

Today was the last day of classes. And I withdrew from Calculus. This was a huge battle for me - over the semester, this class changed my personality, changed my perspective, it got me on my knees seeking God with every part of my heart and soul, and the last thing I ever wanted to do was bail out on the last day after all of the hard work I had put in. During this semester, I have literally gone moment by moment -not even just day by day. I have been at the point of asking God to help me just make it through the next minute of classes. I have realized more and more how pointless most things in this world are, and it was getting difficult to care about doing work in classes that I don’t even like, to attain a grade that meets society’s standards, to eventually “make it” in this world that makes us jump through so many hoops. I have fallen so in love with God, I have realized that everything I’ve done up to this point is to satisfy people other than God, and coming to that realization has completely turned my world upside down in an awesome way. Before walking this closely with God, while still being a perfectionist and still looking to society for validation, I would be in an absolute conniption about withdrawing from Calculus right now. I would be so angry, thinking I failed. (I’m THAT kid who has never even made a B in her life, let alone withdrawn from a class) But you know what? God has been changing my perspective this year. I am seeing things with His eyes more and more, and I’m seeing this life in relation to Eternity. I’m not one bit sad about withdrawing, and I honestly mean that! It has taught me that sometimes, no matter how hard you work, you just have to let things go. You just have to trust that God’s plans still reign, that He still reigns in your life, regardless of current circumstances. And that’s what I’m doing. Withdrawing doesn’t mean I’m less of a person, it doesn’t mean I’m a failure, it doesn’t mean I suck at life. It means that I am learning to admit when I don’t understand something, it means that I’m acknowledging that I cannot always depend on myself. It means that I am fallible. And that’s what makes me human. And God is infallible; perfection. And that is the difference between us. That’s part of what makes my relationship with Him so beautiful, is that He catches me every time, and that I am in the best situation possible when I continue to trust in Him and His plans. So now, I emerge from this semester, having grown SO. MUCH. This was one of the hardest seasons of my life - but I can honestly say that it has been so beneficial. I’m happy it’s over, but I’m glad it happened. God used it to mold me into a girl who reflects Him more and more each day, He used it to show me how to trust Him again, and He used it to deepen His relationship with me. And I’m so grateful. Things don’t always go the way we want them to - but who ever said that it’s our way or the highway? God sees all things from beginning to end - and when we choose to trust Him no matter what is happening around us, He can work all things together for our good. Now, I continue on my journey of getting to know Him and trusting Him, walking in the new qualities that this season has created in me, and being in love with my Creator. God, my Provider, my Healer, my Peace, my Joy, my Defender, my best Friend, my Father > Calculus. I encourage you, no matter what you’re going through, no matter what society is telling you or what circumstances look like, make the conscious decision to trust Him. Read your Bible, know Who He is, know His character, know what He says about trusting Him. Trust is not a random feeling that walks into our heart. It’s a choice. Decide to look to God even if the whole world caves in, and you’ll always come out smelling like a rose. To quote Starfield, hold the Hand that holds the world. Trust the One Who loves you and wants the best for you more than anyone else could ever desire for you.  


"My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise. I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations. For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth." -Psalm 57:7, 9-11

"Reign In Us" - Starfield

You thought of us before the world began to breathe
And You knew our names before we came to be
You saw the very day we'd fall away from You
And how desperately we need to be redeemed

Lord Jesus come lead us
We're desperate for Your touch
Oh Great and Mighty One, with one desire we come
That You would reign, that You would reign in us
We're offering up our lives, a living sacrifice
That You would reign, that You would reign in us

Spirit of the Living God fall fresh again
Come search our hearts and purify our lives
We need Your perfect love
We need Your discipline
We're lost unless You guide us with Your light

Lord Jesus come lead us
We're desperate for Your touch

We cry out
For Your love to refine us 
For Your love to define us 
For Your mercy to keep us blameless until You return

So reign, please reign in us
Come purify our hearts we need Your touch
Come cleanse us like a flood and send us out
So the world may know YOU reign, You reign in us

"The Things we Chase, the Status we Crave, it's Nothing. We Invest in the Bankers, but Not in the Maker. Think about it." -Bryce Avary

I’ve been realizing a lot lately. God has been showing me so much every day -my mind is constantly being blown by His awesomeness. There’s this song, “Nothing Matters” by the Rocket Summer, and it totally describes how I’ve felt lately. My eyes have been opened to just how pointless most of this life is, how we work so hard for status, for money, for things that die when we die. We put all our faith, all our belief, all our focus on things that society tells us are important. God has been showing me that it’s important to invest in things that are eternal, to invest in Him. To form a strong relationship with Him every day, because that’s what counts forever. That’s what never dies. How do we form a strong relationship? It’s not hard. Voice a desire to God that you want to get to know Him more, talk to Him, pray to Him, repent to Him, read the Bible to learn Who He is and how loving He feels towards you, and act with Him how you would act with a best friend, because that’s what He is. Get plugged into a great church with people who love you and support you [if you need a church, come find me! I’ll help you find one!] And it’s actually really freeing to realize that nothing matters in this life. It sounds depressing, but it’s really not! It’s awesome! I don’t have to spend my time stressed out or anxious about making things happen, about attaining status or making money, or creating my life into something that society deems acceptable. I’m already accepted by the Creator of the universe and am seeing things from an eternal perspective more and more each day. I am falling more in love with Him each day and getting to know His character more and more, and that is when all things change. I just went through one of those weeks where you look at your calendar and it makes your eyes spin... but I gave it all to God last Sunday before I started the week, and this week has been so great! I made the decision to look at God instead of my circumstances, and everything worked out so well, all with me being happy and free of stress. God is constantly bringing people into my life to form great relationships with, as well as people who want to know Him. It’s amazing, I don’t even have to try! I’ve had at least eight conversations with random people over the past two weeks about Christ, with people just flocking to know the Truth. God is so awesome. It just all goes to show, when we put God first in our lives, when we make Him Ruler over EVERYTHING, He makes all things come together and work for our good. That, I have seen and live out every day. Let’s remember to put God first and to resist getting bogged down in what seems so real around us. Make sure the life you live will carry over into the next. Invest in Eternity.