Check It Out.

I've posted "I Was Wrong (Divorce)" to two of my other blogs. I don't know that I will be keeping up with any of these blogs anymore.. it's been a good chunk of time since I have diligently written in them. I will be looking into starting a new one perhaps as I take this next step in my life.

I'm excited to say that I have found my ability to write again! It's an amazing feeling. Until then, because of the many posts I dedicated specifically to marriage and staying married, I felt it necessary to write a post about being wrong. You can feel 100% one way about something until you're forced to walk out the opposite side.

I'm getting divorced. Waiting for the papers to show up in the mail any day actually. I've never been less stressed since my ex-husband and I chose to begin the paperwork. I wish that we could have made it work. I wish that we both had made different choices... but at the end of the day, I choose to be grateful for the crossroads I am passing over and excited for what is on the other side.

Take a moment to check out the post if you will... either at Psalm 45:1 or Bride of Christ. Or don't. I just needed to get things off my chest and where else better than my escape zone through High School? Haha. Have a good day guys.

More Than A Good Time

There is a difference between fighting to keep a relationship and fighting for a relationship.

New Manna

Moses led God's people around a desert for 40 years; without getting into specifics we can all agree (I hope) that this was a miraculous account! Regardless of how they may have felt about it at the time, God provided for these people in a place that was empty for years. They didn't go through towns to buy new clothes or grocery shop once a month... they relied on God - quite frankly, because they had no other choice.

Slapped in the Face

The other day a friend of mine asked if we were still friends. I asked why wouldn't we be. They replied with some nonsensical reason. I got pretty irritated.

Embrace Differences

I'm taking an course that's walking me and fellow students through the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens book, by Sean Covey. It's definitely been eye-opening, but I'm not on here to rant about all that it's taught me. Just a piece that Abba opened my eyes up to...

Afire

Who doesn't love a summer night, under the stars, near a warm fire? Whether it's a more soothing atmosphere of a couple adults relaxing together around a small campfire, or a group of teenagers talking it up around a huge bonfire; it seems that summer nights need a fire to set the stage.

Just Stand.

Sometimes all God asks us to do is make a stand. Such as shown in 2 Chron. 20:17. God told them, as a multitude was on its way to take them out, that they wouldn't need to fight in the battle. He did instruct them to "position themselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord!"

Something I noticed was they still had to make a stand.. God could have said "I got this, you just sit tight." but He didn't. He asked them to position themselves and watch that He would come save them. We don't even know how close Abba lets the enemy get! Just that they took the leap of faith and He was faithful.

Psalm 91:2

Have you ever had a situation that seemed all around rocky? Where everywhere you look there's mass confusion. Waves are sky high, lightening is flashing through the dark, rocks are behind you threatening destruction. And you just have no idea what to do or where to turn first? I've definitely had that lately. As I sat tonight with my bible, praying in my heart, trying to figure out where to go next.. He brought me to Psalm 91:2 which says:

I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and fortress;
My God, in Him I will trust."

Oh the peace! Don't you love how God speaks to us through His living word? Hallelujah, He IS GOOD!

BURN flesh, BURN.

Solomon went up there before the Lord to the bronze alter which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings.
-2 Chron. 1:6 (NASB)

Wow... and to think there are days where all my flesh wants to do is sleep in! I think this simple verse gets passed over a lot, but whenever I come to it I have to pause. I can see Solomon, with the sweat on his brow and soaking through his clothes... muscles straining... just throwing sacrifice upon sacrifice to the burning alter.

Not because he figured God would repay him (i.e. he would get something out of it), he didn't even know God was going to come later that night (verse 7)! All Solomon knew in that moment was that he was overwhelmed with LOVE for his Lord and this was his way of showing that!

Nowadays of course, we don't sacrifice animals thanks to Jesus covering that, but we do lay ourselves down to die daily, this is the attitude we ought to have about our own flesh burning...and how sweet an aroma to Abba it is!

Brief Warning

I was in the bathroom from 2-3am sick. You see whenever I stop eating what I need and take in too much junk my body will let me know its time to detox - warning me to wake up and live right.

This time though was only partially about physical health. In the last two years, I wandered from the path I was so passionately on. I became drained. I couldn't reach out anymore... its only in the last two difficult weeks that I've stumbled back towards home.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because God showed me something in this drastic morning wake up call.

God's going to call out His chosen. It's our choice whether we follow that call... Do we dare think that He will call a second time? You better cut that pride out. If God gives you a wake up call... WAKE UP. Do not hit that snooze button mumbling five more minutes... because He might just let you sleep. Don't risk it.

-- I'll be going more into this soon using Song of Sol 5:1-6.

Actions speak louder...

Allow me to share a particular conviction on my heart (in my personal life! I'm not yelling at ya'll, I promise haha. [If you are convicted though... what's that tell you?]).

--
We are responsible for the words we speak. We are ACCOUNTABLE. If you give instruction to another, you ought to be living that same instruction out yourself.

If you tell someone else that dating isn't right, you had better not be dating. If you tell another person that they should be digging into God's word, then YOU had better be digging into God's word. If you tell someone to quit their whining and press on... you got it, you should stop whining and just press on.

"But what about circumstances... what about different situations... there's all kinds of reasons-" No. There's all kinds of excuses. Either your word can be trusted or you're a hypocrite. As children of God we had better not be hypocrites in this world, because we're supposed to be reaching out to it. You wouldn't listen to one, right? So don't be one.

Remember that actions speak louder than words.

I repeat-- God #ONE.

Why is it so important to put God first? I'm sure there are many, many, reasons to this question.. I woke up this morning with one in particular on my heart and it has to do with: desire.

When we wake up and make an effort to put God before absolutely anything else, whether its reading His word, listening, or praising Him for awhile (as He deserves!), we're sacrificing. Time is precious to us, it is a sacrifice when we set things aside for Him. It is our actions saying "I love You Lord and I'm willing to put You first even when I don't feel like it..because my desire is to please You! My desire is for You."

This just.. naturally balances life. Its how its supposed to be. How exactly?

There's more peace because priorities are correct (God on top!). You're not scrambling around for some "filler." See we all have a God hole in our heart, it can't be filled with anything but God. When we try to fill it with anything else its like trying to fill in a circle with a square or a square with a circle:

As you can see, there will always be gaps remaining; we attempt to stuff things in the gaps to get us through... but it will never completely satisfy. Moreover it'll take more and more to get to that point of "satisfied;" satisfaction never truly comes, but the distraction will do its job.. for a little while.

Keeping Abba on top is important because He is our Creator... everything about us, our lives, our other relationships, our thoughts, little things we do each day... everything about life flows first from Him. We cannot truly embrace it when we have not first embraced Him.

But now, O Lord, You are our Father,
We are the clay, and You our potter;
And all of us are the work of Your hand.
Isaiah 64:8 (NASB)

Just a thought.

Hey! It's been awhile. So I thought, why not share this quick revelation Abba showed me while I was talking to a friend the other day? :)

Faith.

What's faith?

It's not asking, questioning, doubting... when God brings us to a place where we must trust Him and are only told minute details, if any at all.

What's faith?

It's trusting, letting go and surrendering, without question... despite how bad one may not want to or how scary the situation. When Abba says let go, we must have faith He'll be there to catch us.

What's faith?

It's listening to that still small voice in the midst of a loud chaos, and holding on... faith is faith, and faith is a choice.


Peter, Andrew, James and John... Jesus called out, saying nothing more than a promise that He'd make them fishers of men. Without question they each immediately left what they were doing and their life to follow a stranger because they had faith (Matthew 4:18-22).

Sometimes all an impossible situation needs is a little faith.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And lean not on your own understanding.
-Proverbs 3:5 (NKJV)

Surrender.

Genesis 22:1-18

After all the storms that Abraham had to endure before his promised son was born one could imagine the immense love he held in his heart for this child whom he'd waited for so long. Then God told Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering to Him.

I can only begin to imagine the thoughts plaguing Abraham on the way up that mountain..how difficult and trying the journey was. Still harder as he prepared the alter with his trusting child at his side..and yet the hardest part I know had to be when Abraham raised that knife to sacrifice Isaac, who I doubt was as calm as we see in Sunday school coloring pages...


The journey is always difficult, those precious moments right before the breakthrough are the climax of pain...when following Abba's will however, He always provides-no matter how the outcome may appear.

Karar.

Why do we drag through worship? Don't tell me we don't. We all spend the entire week too busy to read a couple pages of our bible then we get to church and raise our hands through a couple songs, sometimes putting aside our list of things to do.

While God judges the heart and, of course, not saying that worshipping with our hands raised is wrong... there's more to it! 2 Samuel 6:14 tells us that David danced before the Lord with all his might; the Hebrew word for danced here (Karar) means WHIRLED! Oh, to completely release every anxiety and just let loose before our God...

When David's wife pointed out how ridculous he'd been, he was quick to say "... I will be EVEN MORE undignified than this (vs. 22)" meaning if he was hit with the glory of God, he wasn't going to suppress it! There was nothing that could hold him back!

Hallelujah!! Let us not be fearful of who may be watching but dance; let us WHIRL with all our might with our treasured Bridegroom!!

Where'd the Bride go?

Warning: VENT!

You know that spotless, beautiful and pure Bride that Jesus is going to come back for one day (Matthew 25:6)? Well in the midst of this black world… I can’t even catch a glimpse of her light radiating sometimes; which is weird, because it should be as obvious as the afternoon and midnight.

So that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,
Philippians 2:15 (NASB)

Check out these two testimonies from a book I read (Lies Young Women Believe):

This would be lie #11: "It's not really sex."

First- "We're really into purity- my boyfriend and I. So, we try to speak about it at events and stuff. We tell people that they can just do what we do. Just have oral sex."

And- "Honestly, there's not one guy in my youth group who I haven't kissed or touched in some way. Some of them got farther than others, but I have a line I won't cross. I've never had sex."

WHOA. Something ISN’T being preached in Church. Half truths are whole lies; we need to start hearing the TRUTH and ALL OF IT.

For teenagers to be coming into church just to leave and mess around, I’d say there’s no conviction… seeing as the Word is guaranteed to convict (Hebrews 4:12) then I’m left to guess there’s not a whole lot  of (or at least ALL of) the Word being talked about. All I’m seeing is a lot of confusion on things that should have a very clear line (in this case immorality). I want conviction; it's the most loving way I could ever be disciplined sometimes. It's a GOOD thing!
For anyone unsure why à Conviction vs. Condemnation.

We are the Church, the Body of Christ, His Bride. It's time to start acting like it because I'm seeing way too much blending and compromising with the world going on...

Wheat vs. Tares

Jesus told a very important parable about the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew 13 (13:24-30).

While servants slept an enemy came and sowed bad seeds in a man's crop and it came to be noticed as they sprouted. The servants asked if they should remove these tares, as they are poisoness to peopole; the master said "‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them;" (vs. 29) the two are near identical until the FRUIT appears!

He told them instead "Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, 'First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.'" (vs. 30)


Jesus was not talking about Christians. Not sinners and Christians, but the legit disciples from those who do their "Sunday duty." We're soon coming to a close on this earth; whether it's 10 days or 10,000 years is something on my Abba knows, but it's coming quickly. We're already seeing signs of the harvest! The line that was so long unapparent is becoming clearer and clearer.

Church, dear church.... sweet and precious Body of Christ, when will we respond to our Bridegroom's voice? Do we not hear that He is soon coming? Let us not sleep! ARISE!! It is time to wake up.

"And at midnight a cry was heard: 'Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!'"
Matthew 25:6 (NKJV)


Let us not be so prideful to think we're not the tares. We must humble ourselves enough to cry out and ask Abba to expose anything in us that would suggest that. We are not called to be 50/50 or even 25/75... we're called to be 100% for Him, and if any part of us is not for God, than we are against Him. The death of flesh is painful and costly, but to let it thrive is much worse off.

Seven times we are warned.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Revelation 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:29, 3:6, 3:16, 3:22 (NASB)

Know Jesus.

Imagine a husband and wife just committed themselves to one another. On their honeymoon though, the wife doesn't give herself to her new husband.

Not on purpose of course, she's just trying to set everything else up:
Making sure all his lunch is ready for the next day.
The reservations are in place for dinner tuesday night are still intact.
Keeping the house orderly so he doesn't have to stress out...

She does everything she can to make him happy. There's only one problem, she's neglecting the relationship itself. This happens so often with Christians... we lose the intimacy with our Bridegroom and then neglect it while trying to fix everything else that touches the topic.


Let us not be so prideful to think that we are above Jesus saying "I never knew you" to us on that day (Matthew 7:23).

Girls, you are beautiful.

Hey girls,

I've got a thought for you.. instead of thinking about your "faults" negatively. Look at them in a more postive light.

Instead of: "I hate my freckles/curves/eyes/hair/etc."
Realize: "My husband is attracted to my freckles/curves/eyes/hair/etc."

Because we are created perfectly in the site of God.. not only does our looks fit who we are and our lifestyle, but it also fits who God's made us for.

Isn't it amazing how intricate God really is? He is our perfect potter, we're just clay in His hand; yet He looks upon us and says: beautiful.