Can I Tell You Something?

I am overwhelmed at how amazing our God is. A few days ago I couldn't tell you this would be the first words out when writing this today. Things have been hectic lately. Going with the flow and trying to get things done from day to day had just become my life. Counting down the days until summer break was the high light.
However, a few months ago when my life went in a very different direction and things settled down, I knew God was telling me to take this time when school was on a pause and things at work were winding down to really focus on Him, and learn all I could from His word. He was calling me to a time that I would grow closer to Him. God does this very specifically to each of us; calling us on a journey with just Him to be loved, grow in His word, and grow in our faith. I knew that this was my season if I allowed God to work in my life. It is a choice, you know. God will call out to us, and it is up to us to accept His calling, or to simply ignore it.
God has been showing me so many things about myself and about my life. Too often we depend on other people and other things to make us happy. Sadly that is one of my down falls. I rely on friendship more often for advice than praying. I am extremely happy when I get things that I want, instead of praising God that during this economic down turn, I am not feeling most of it.
Yet, my God is amazing. Still calling my name to focus on Him.
I have come to the realization more than ever now, that life without fully in God's will is not the life I want to live. Last night I was laying in bed, about to fall asleep and all I could hear in my head was "focus on me, focus on me". This morning I woke up and felt over joyed with the love of God. I felt that every place in my heart was filled with the love of God.
I yearn for all God has for me. I am very passionate about following God's will. I am very passionate about this, because I still remember when I was only living for myself. Yes, I was a Christian but you could barely see it from the out side. I was living life for myself and it got me absolutely no where. I have tried living like that, and it only leads to destruction.
I know what God has for me is greater than anything I could ever imagine. Yet, I feel the society we live in is so afraid to grasp that. I am too at times. We feel that relying on the unknown is a risk too hard to take. So instead we live life, and we make decisions based on what our feeble minds think is good. Yet if we would just GIVE IT TO HIM, He would transform it to something amazing. Do not be satisfied with a simple day to day life. Expect more, search for more, live for more in Christ. Be a solider for Christ, and fight the good fight for others, not for your self. Life is short and our journey here is but a blink of an eye. Make a difference. You and I were made for more.
God Bless You!

Another End to Another Year

I am really going to do better about blogging. Since school has started it has been difficult for me to really post anything significant, due to the fact that if I am not at work, I am studying for my classes. But soon, very soon actually my class will be over and I will have more opportunity to post. This semester I am taking Church History and Christian Theology. Both classes have been really challenging, however I have learned so much and I am really excited about how far I have come in just this year. I prayed so hard for so long for God to open doors for seminary school, and it all just fell right into place. I am excited about where I am at right now, and excited about where this will take me.
This year has sort of been a blur. I am not that comfortable with that feeling actually. I have been reminded recently how bad it is to wish your life away and not living for today but the weekend, or vacation. For example we all say "I wish the weekend was now" or "I will be okay when this is over." How boring is that? I mean yeah we all want really good things to happen to us. However we can't just wait until the next exciting thing happens. We have to live for today and not for the weekend or for next year for that matter. People always say "Next year will be better!" or "January 1st starts my diet!". Well why not start your diet today, or make today the best day ever? God gave us this day for a reason and we must not postpone happiness, when it is available today!
We are not guaranteed another day on this Earth, and although we do not like to talk about it much, we must realize that we have to make TODAY the best day it can be. Everyone is on a journey and on the way to where you need to be, why not make the ride fun, enjoyable and exciting? Life is better that way, I assure you! I wake up every morning and say that this morning will be the best day ever, because it makes my day really enjoyable. I find myself getting really excited about what will happen and who I will talk to and learn from. It is amazing!
One finally example of this lesson I have been learning. Having a career and living life, I could choose to wait around until I get married. Not fully enjoying life because I didn't have someone to share it with. However, on the days when I was a hopeless romantic (crying while watching a sappy movie) I would say to God " I have faith that you have someone for me, and I can't wait till you reveal him to me". I turned the "whoa is me" attitude and turned it around into me praising God and speaking the faith that I know He has someone to me. Now I am not saying that by doing this will bring Prince Charming any faster. However what I am saying is that I enjoyed the ride on the way to where I am going. I would hate to admit to myself when I do meet Mr. Right, that "Yeah I just waited around for so-n-so. Didn't really live, just kinda survived."....ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!! Life is to be lived to day!!!!!! So my last words on this post to you is GET STARTED, LIFE IS HERE! God Bless you all!!!!

The Light at the End of the Tunnel is Near....

I was in the middle of studying and realized I had not "blogged" in a while. So I thought I would stop and type for a little while. Life has been extremely busy. School has been going really well. I made an A in my first class, and I am almost finished with my second. I have one paper and one final and that is it for the summer. I have really enjoyed learning in my classes. The studying has been pretty intense, but when I finish I realize how much information that I have learned, and can take with me for the rest of my life. I am taking the summer off, for some much needed rest, but I am excited about my classes in the fall.

The class I am currently in is New Testament Orientation II. This class is much more difficult than my first class. The New Testament has so much information and going into it, since I have read the NT many times before, I really thought I would have much of the background information already. Apparently, I did not know what I was thinking, because I am learning so much more than I ever thought I would. I have such an appreciation for both the New Testament and the Old Testament. I am loving all of this, and it is such a rewarding experience.

This process of going to school, learning, studying, passing has been such an amazing experience. I have been wanting to go to Seminary school for so long, and have known that God placed this desire in my heart for a reason. When looking back and visioning how this all has played out, and how easy it was for me to start going, and having time to study as hard as I do, it is all God. God really has placed this with favor in my life, and although I have to do the work, this is in no way shape or form easy, God has given me peace to really focus and study well. This experience really demonstrates to me, that God does have a plan for each of our lives and when He gives us a desire and you know without a shadow of a doubt that this is His will, it will work out. It took me 2 1/2 years to start after the initial feeling, and yet I just continued with my life, and finished my undergrad and tried for a job, and even worked for a year before it all came to be.

When I remembered how this all worked out, it really puts into perspective things that I know God has told me now and I am still waiting for them. I do not want to waste my life away just waiting when I know it will come to pass, but I just have to be patient and wait. Many times, I find myself consumed with what I want, and I do not just live and when it comes it comes.

When I knew I was going to seminary but it had not happened yet, I didn't stop living, I wasn't consumed with it. I knew it would happen and I just kept doing what I knew I needed to do so that it would happen.

Life is really good right now. Now don't get me wrong, I could pick out things that are wrong, and dwell and be unhappy. However, as I am sitting on my couch and watching Little People Big World (lol) life is great. My job is almost over, I only have 4 weeks until summer vacation. I really have sooooo many things to be happy about and proud of myself about.

Things will never be perfect and I will never have everything I want, but I am happy. I will keep working and striving for better and strive to be a better person for God. But I am not ashamed to say that I think I am doing pretty well right now. God has given me so much, and I am really realizing that by leaning more on Him and less on myself, I am at peace.

I have lived by myself for about 6 months now, and its so easy to nit-pick everything wrong and things I haven't done right because no one else is around to blame it on. But I am learning everyday how to lean on God more and more. I still have so many things to work through and on, but in the words of Joyce Meyer "I'm not where I need to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be". I will praise God for that. I remember so many times I would think to myself "I am never going to be able to change this or that"...and I was right, by myself I can't. But with God I was able to. I was able to stand strong and live by myself and manage my money and go to school and go to work, and really work on some of my negative aspects. I was able to do it, because of God.

Life is good, and the moral of the story is: Instead of thinking about all the wrong things that are going on in your life, or wrong things about you, praise God that you aren't where you used to be, and that will motivate you to move closer to God so you can become more like Him.

Praise God, and may He bless you!

A New Year

It has been awhile since I have posted anything. That should tell you a little, on how my life has been so crazy the last couple of months. It is now February, and it seems like last week was Christmas or at least New Years.

Some new things have happened since my last post: I started Seminary school (Liberty University) and I have started my growth group with MyChurch. Some amazing things have happened, and although my plate is full, it is all with things that I am so excited to be a part of.

I am a students again! I am so excited about that. I really expected me to slide back into that old mind set in my under-graduate years, and yet, it is not that same.

I have learned so much in just the past couple of weeks from my lesson. I am currently taking Old Testament Orientation. I have to tell you, I have never been a bible student (unless you count the six weeks in third grade that I attended a Christian school). All of this information that I am learning, has given me such a new found respect for the Old Testament. When I previously read the OT I really couldn't understand much of it. I understood most of the stories, Psalms, and Proverbs, but really I felt that the New Testament was what I really enjoyed more. Now, I am just so interested in the OT. I would have never imagined the amazing things I have found in my studies. The most rewarding thing so far is how much I am learning about God.

God's mercy is one thing that I have learned so much more about. The Israelite's would continuously turn away from their Father, and yet God is always there to take them back. He wants to love them, and show them His mercy. His arms are always reached out for them, and He is ready to bless them. They would turn and worship foreign pagan gods, and not respect anything that the LORD has done for them.

When thinking about this, I wonder how would God's chosen people be so quickly to turn away from God and towards these foreign idols that our Father is so adamantly against? Then I realized that although our modern society of Christians would look down on any other Christian turning away from God to worship idols, we have put things before God. Isn't that in essence idolatry? I think it is.

There are many times that I have found myself too busy that by the end of the day, I haven't read my Bible at all, or stopped to talk to God. We tend to be so busy with the things that God has blessed us with (jobs, friends, children, food, etc) that we forget to thank and praise the one that gave it to us. We start getting too comfortable in our nice life and forget to realize why it is so comfortable. This has really had some influence on how I chose to spend my free time. I am not going to say that I will never be too busy again or that I won't forget to read my Bible. But what I will always keep in mind, is that although the stories in the Bible are from the past and many of the same situations are not the same, we still have something to learn from the inspired word of God given to us from the prophets. We would not still be here on earth if there wasn't anything for us to learn from the Bible and from God's inspired words.

That is just one of the things that I have learned so far from my studies. It so far has been an amazing ride, and I can't wait to tell you more about it!

I do not know where God is leading me and the reason behind going to Seminary school, other than that I really felt that I was called to go, and after everything worked out so perfectly, I knew it was in God's plan for me to go. But, I am learning so much, and I am leaning on God more than ever. He has become my firm and steady rock in every situation.

Living alone, and dealing with life on my own has been difficult after everything settled down. But I praise God for this gift that He has given me, and I praise Him for the journey He is taking me on. Life has become so amazing, and on my worst day, I still have God, in whom, I can share all of it with. That is the best part of my life right now. I am so excited about this new year, and the many things that I will learn and grow from in it.

God In A Box

A fitting title, 'God in a box". There are many things in my life that I chose not to allow God to totally take control of. Be it my attitude on any given day, the situation I may be apart of, or the choices I make on a daily bases.

Many things have changed in my life the last couple of months. I live by myself now, I am finally going to seminary school, and I am more dependent on myself than ever before. I think this was God's plan all along. As if I could change any of it.

I always wanted to live by myself, but I guess I was too scared, and poor to actually do it with out some help. I had a couple of roommates lined up when Mel was engaged, because I knew that someone would have to take her place. Slowing but surely, I ended up living by myself though. Again, I say that this was God's plan all along, because everything fit right into place. Now, I'm not going to say that there wasn't some growing pains, but in the end.... I really like living by myself. Looking back on to the situation, I really believe that God knew that He really needed me to get to a place, where I was completely dependent on Him for me to grow into the person He wants me to be. I could only grow so much with a twin sister living with me. There would always be apart of me, no matter how much I loved and depended on God, that would always depend on Mel more than anyone else. So this was a good thing. I am living by myself and am just growing everyday into the person God wants me to be. I talk to God so much when I am here alone, I really feel His presence so much more now.

This has been such a learning process. I have learned so much about myself and about the type of person I am. I really am becoming myself now. I would never take this time in my life away. I want to grow as much as I can while I am single. I want to grow and learn in so many areas.

I think right now God is really working with me about my self-confidents. Again, with a twin sister always around, I could usually feel confident because I had another person beside me. But if you stop using a muscle (and in my case that was my individual self-confidents) you will end up loosing it. And so I guess that is what happened.

Most recently I have struggled with being myself around people. Often times, when I leave a group environment, I bash myself so bad because I said something stupid, weird, or inappropriate. I think that is one of the enemies tactics, so to isolate ourselves away from people, and make us feel like we are fighting a loosing battle. Realizing this social battle, I realized that I did not allow God to totally be involved in this situation. I knew that this was an attack by the enemy, but I wasn't doing anything to combat it.

I put God in a box, because I thought that this struggle was for just me to fight. Kind of stupid, but none the less, that is what I did. However, this struggle directly connects to why God wanted me to live by myself. In every situation He wants me to rely on Him, and to grow in the person He wants me to be. God gave me a personality, and a specific one at that. Being just myself is totally okay. It is okay if people like me, and it is okay if they want to hang out with me, and start conversations with me. Being self-conscious can and will destroy all of what God wants us to be. It can bind us so tight, that we forget who we were, and the qualities about ourselves that God has gifted us with. This can not stay with us, for we will never be who God intended us to be.

How do we fix this? Well first I think that we should learn who God is, and what He can do in us. This can be done through prayer and studying His word. Ephesians 1: 13 says "..... You put your faith in Christ and were given the promised Holy Spirit to show that you belong to God. The Spirit also makes us sure that we will be given what God has stored up for his people." Second, we should rebuke any negative thought that we know the Lord has no part in. It is one thing to have the Lord show us our wrong in certain situations, but it is another when we are trapped in a spiritual warfare with our enemy telling us lies. Third, never give up on one and two!!!!!! God will over power the negative!

To grow in God, is to learn what amazing things He has for us. I can not stress enough, how being self-conscious can destroy any possibility for us to realize what has been given to us by God. I do understand that we should all be humble and reverent to the fact that we all have faults. I am not saying that we shouldn't. I believe that God gives us those understanding to help us in communicating with people around us, and to understand what we need to work on personally and things like that. However, I believe that in most cases when we are self-conscious, it only hinders God's process in our hearts. Being self-conscious can also lead us down a path of fear, doubt, burden thoughts, and anxiety. This is never good when trying to be all that we can be in Christ Jesus.

In all of this being said, this is what I am going through right now. It isn't the biggest thing that is going on in my life right now. However, it is something that I can definitely get a hold of and work on. As a single girl, it is easy sometimes to struggle with self-confidents. But it doesn't need to be. God will not remain in a box, that He doesn't even fit in anyways. He is so much bigger than anything we could ever imagine. That alone gives me hope in all things.

Alone With God

So tonight is my first full night alone, without anyone here. My sister just got married a couple of days ago. I am so happy for her, and yet I am sad because the journey that we have shared all of our lives is now over. We will start a new relationship. One that I have been told from many, will be a better relationship. I am excited to start this new journey. For the first time in my life, I will be alone. I do not mean for that to sound sad. It isn't sad, but I have never really been alone before. For the record, I am not talking about being physically alone. I am talking about having to worry about only me. Providing for only me. Living on my own. It will be a change, but I am excited about the change.

I was at church on Sunday and I was a little teary eyed. This was one of the first times that I was not meeting anyone at church. It was just me, arriving alone, and not having anyone to save seats for. While the worship music was playing and I was praying to God, I could really feel a comfort from the Lord. I felt like something had ended or rather finalized and this was a new beginning God could have with just me. I am so excited about the time we will be spending together. I love that I can just have a conversation with the Lord in my living room out loud, unafraid of any interruptions of someone coming home. One of my friend told me "I really feel like the Lord wants to refine you through this and make you more and more dependent on Him through it." I really realized that tonight. I have always relied on my sister. She really is the one I relied on. Now is the time, to fully rely on God. I know it will be a process. But I can see that this will take me so much further in my spiritual walk with the Lord. I am just so excited about spending time with Him, and when I am alone, just feeling safe, because I know he only wants the best for me, because I am one of His children. God has a specific plan for my life. So many times, I will think that, and then I will just be overcome with doubt. But I will not allow that doubt to sit with me any longer. The Lord wants this time with me, because He has a specific plan for me, like He has for all of his children. 

I will not assume that He doesn't or that I am not that important. How could the God of the universe have a specific plan just for me???? Why? Because He is the GOD of the UNIVERSE!!!! That is why. And I will continue to repeat that, until all of the doubt of that goes away. 

I am drawing to a close of the Old Testament. I just read the book of Habakkuk. I really thought it was appropriate. The subtitle read "Trust During Chaos".  I love how Habakkuk is a prophet of the Lord, and yet sometimes he doubts and complains. When Habakkuk finished complaining for a moment the Lord answers and says in chapter 2 verse 3 "At the time I have decided, my words will come true. You can trust what I say about the future. It may take a long time, but keep on waiting it will happen. " I love that. I love that the Lord is just so true in every word that He says. When I read that verse I felt confident about my own future. I know what the Lord has told me about my future, but sometimes it is hard to actually accept the truth of it. Also, when I read that verse, I wonder why God doesn't plainly talk to us like He did with Habakkuk. It would be so easy to trust what is verbally told to us. But we must have faith, and that is what this next verse says, 4:"I, the Lord, refuse to accept anyone who is proud. Only those who live by faith are acceptable to me." Faith is what we all must accept, and live by. I hope during this time in my life, and as I grow deeper in the Lord that my faith just grows to unexplainable depths. That is my prayer. 

Good Times

So it has been quite awhile since I have "blogged". I have been so busy. I started work again, and my sisters' wedding date is getting closer and closer........busy times.  At the same time, I am determined to remember every moment, of the "wedding process" because it is a special time for a very special person. 

School has been busy. I have relaxed a lot more than last year. I have so much more responsibilities than last year, but I am focused and am trying not to become overwhelmed. I really have relied on God so much. If there is a situation that arises that I have no control over, 9 times out of 10, I have just released it. I am never going to be able to control everything that comes my way. So instead of getting upset and worried, I just give it to God and relax. 

I have had a lot more conversations with God lately. I enjoy just talking out loud and speaking my thoughts while I'm cleaning or driving, or just whenever I am alone. I feel at peace when I have that time with Him.

I am starting seminary FINALLY in January. I am really excited about it. I have felt that my life has been on hold up until now. I feel that I can not be complete in what God has for me until I start my seminary education. I have had no formal bible education, and I am so excited about learning and discovering new things. Recently I have felt "unworthy" enough, or that I need to work on more things before I can go. I know that it is just a lie and I know that no one is completely "ready" or whatever that means. No one will ever be perfect, and to wait until you are, would be a waste of a life. Because you will spend your life time waiting until you are "perfect". It is funny how when you are doing what the Lord has called you to do, doubts will constantly combat you. 

I know that things are going to try to steal my focus when I start seminary, and I am praying now that I will be strong enough to stay focused and really dedicate these next two years to my studies. This is so important to me, and I am just so happy and at peace with my decision to go. Whenever I think about starting school, I almost get giddy. I have been waiting so long for this. I had applied to seminary schools before and they had never work and now I know the reason why. This is the perfect place that I would have never guess a year ago that I would have been accepted to. God's timing is perfect, and amazing! I am completely blessed in so many areas! 

Now, if I can just rely on God's timing in everything in my life. I am slowly getting there! And as long as I am growing, I am doing good! From glory, to glory I am growing!