Surviving the Sword

This morning I was reading in my Bible in Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 31:2-4 say's "The people who survive the sword will find favor in the wilderness. I will come to give rest to israel. The Lord appeard in the past saying I have loved you wiht an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness, I will build you up again."

Have you ever walked in a seasson in life when it becomes hard? I mean the type of seasson where you are in the middle of the wildnerness and everything around you is blury, distorted and out of perspective? In this scripture God says  the people who survive the sword will find favor in the wilderness..... meaning God's favor is not going to leave you just becuase you are in a wilderness  or dry seasson, but when your survive , surpass that inital moment of a trial,or circumstances that onsets this seasson..... He will not leave you.

 Then the next portion of this scripture says I have loved you with an everlasting love, i have drawn you with an unfailling kindness, i will build you up again!
This part makes my heart leap becuase i know what it is to experience that initial moment or moments that lead me into a wildness seasson , and it was that seasson that hurts where nothing around me  seemed to be clear or focused, everything was off and blury that I myself didn't know where to go and what to do. Yet through that seasson of wilderness God was constantly with me and He was right beside me, walking with me, growing me, stretching me and changing me perspectives.
 You know through those moments when He  stretches us and challenges us and changes our perspectives, it sometimes sucks and we feel like  a big failure and as if we can never really accomplish what He wants us to do....But God is right there with us through every seasson and especially in this one he is right there saying "I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have drawn you with an everlasting kindness and I will build you againl." 
God never starts something in our lives that he does not intend to finish. He will always finish what he starts, he doesn't work on us half way then walk away from us leaving us in a big mess. No, He finishes what He starts and in the midst of it He loves us with an everlasting (the means never ending, neve leaving, always growing)love and he draws us (Pulls us, captures us, captivates us) with his unfailling kindness.
How amazing is that.... that is how God works, that no matter what seasson we may fall in , in life He is always there and He is always willing to push us forward , challenge us and grow us becuase He is a good God, a good father that loves always ....... He will help you survive the moments in life that take your breath away and push you back fifteen feet, and he will not let you stay pushed back or breath gone.  Instead , God will help you survive the sword, walk you through the seasson and grow you. In result you will come out with God's love ,kindness, and peace surrounding you more then ever before. Sometimes we just have to realize when a sword is thrown our way and the seasson comes...God will help you survive it and better yet He will bring you out of it!

Truths

Sometimes in life you just need to be reminded of the little truths in life. Like you are created in God's image not mans. or you can do all things through Christ, or God loves you! These little truths sometimes can shake you and bring you to see a new fresh perspective on life.
When people come into life and tell me I can't accomplish something or doubt my reason for chasing a dream I just want to throw the little truths at them...but some times the people that say i can't or doubt it actually me doubting and telling myself I can't. This would be one BIG LIE!
When God placed dreams and desires in my heart he meant for me to believe in them just as much as  he believes in me accomplishing them.
within the past year God has brought human trafficking to mind and to heart. My heart's desire is to completely see human trafficking stopped in my life span. To see girls that have been taken advantage come to place of freedom in Christ and realize that God is a BIG God and what happened has nothing to do with them..... it was sin done against them and God can heal and do something with your life.
On top of human trafficking my heart has been filled with missions. Missions is always at the forefront of my mind but recently it's been rapid in my heart. I am a girl that just wants to see God's love and heart spread through out the Nations in a distinct way that impresses thousands! I want to see nations turned around for God!
These dreams and desires are huge! But when we believe in them instead of doubting or allow others doubts to settle in we can see them come into reality! I am ready to just trust God with these in a real way. This morning a song stuck out to me by Barlow girls and the lyric was "Why do we think if we trust God too much He will fail us Nothing has come when I chose that in me, I'd trust Separate me You have called out to follow You blindly I won't fear You're leading me "
Not trusting God is not an option for me....Instead the only option I face now is to trust full on and seek my dreams and desires through him. Giving up on the dreams and desires he has placed in me is never an option. So i say to you will you trust God all the way or trust him with the thought in the back of your mind He is going to fail you?
I know God will never fail me and these 2 dreams will come to reality because I am believing in them and trusting in HIM!

Snowflakes, coffee, and warmth

It's something about this time of the year that I love. Memories overtake my mind of the sweetness of this season...Thankfulness overflows from my heart when I stop and think of all this year has held for me. I have been thinking lately what was this season really for.
Years ago this baby was born ,Jesus, and He was born with the sole purpose of changing the world and dying for me and you. God sent His only son to the earth and at a young age he would die for His people.
 How crazy is that ...I don't think I can ever fully grasp How God gave His only son to die....  the son He loved so deep...
Sometimes in life I can get caught up in the moments of family, friends, hopes, dreams, ministry, and just life and in return i forget how good and amazing God has been too me.
 You know I am not this amazing person I'm just  a girl who just simply loves because God loved me in a unconditional never ending way.
I have big dreams and big hopes in life but in this season I have learned and came into acceptance of if none of my dreams come true and none of my hopes and desires comes to place then I will be okay because I have experienced the great love of God and I continually experience this amazing love.

So this Christmas I am reminded of all God has done, and all He has placed in my life.
He sure has given me an amazing group of people that love me the way he loves me and they see me the way he See's me.  For this I am so very thankful..... So this Christmas stop for a minute and just let God love you, just let God tell you how much he cares about you and How big of a plan He has for you...I know this is such a cliche thing for me to tell you do ...but sometimes little things like this can change your life for ever.
God is good and He will never stop loving!

Desperation

About 2 months ago I began seeing things in a different light.
You know sometimes how life  is when we are just in a rush moment? So much to do , so little time to get it done. Well that has been my life for about oh 6 years now and in the past 2 it has just sped up a little faster.
  The past 2 months though things have been different my heart has slowed down, while my mind has continued to race.
 I was talking to a friend this past weekend and she reminded me of why do we have to do things like they have always been done and she proposed the question why stay with something if in a year from now you look back and see it  in the same spot and in the process you never grew, moved or saw growth with the area? 

Sometimes in life I choose to pick up people's "burdens"( thing's in their ministry/life  they need someone to come along side of them and serve and or help in) because I Love people, and I love relationships..... I love deep heart connected relationships, and one reason I do this alot of the time (not all the time) is because i feel in my heart if i do this then i will in return become closer to them and be able to be a part of their life. But in reality a majority of the times this is not the case. This has happened a lot this past year with a few people in my life and has happened in the past with old friends.

I don't know why things come up when they do , or why God allows different things to come up in different seassons but He does.
Today I am seeing the truth in how he pick up things and i am  seeing it in a different light therefor God is bringing it to the surface to change it. So I can make a change and be willing to allow him to change it too.

Thinking through the past year, this time last year / I am in the same place in a lot of ways... and my heart hurts when i think of that , because i never want to be in the same place year after year. Don't get me wrong i do see growth in a lot  of areas...such as marriage desire, allowing people to see me , being honest and vulnerable with those in my life the close people in my life my heart friends. But when it comes to other areas i see little change and no big growth.....is this a bad thing i don't know because I'm not God, my perfectionist heart says yes..... for me sitting still in one place  for a year and not growing and seeing growth is not  okay, especially when in the process you allow the passion to die down that God gave you! ......

So what to do now?

 Nothing? No,  pray, seek god hard , Get desperate ,  push in, press in , get desperate, hungry, passionate,thirsty for God to speak, move, touch,push...Desperate to do anything and everything to just hear God, see his heart, feel his heart!

But the one questions thats in my mind at this moment is how desperate do i have to get before He moves, how long will i be in this state of desperation? a day, a week, a year? when will God jump in pour out and speak?

I'm desperate!

Beauty, love, church

Last weekend a dream in my heart came to reality. For about 5 years now I have had this deep desire and passion to see a conference take place where girls ages 13-26 learn the truth of what God thinks of them and replaces the lies with the truth. I wanted to see worldly definitions of beauty and true identity stripped from the lives of girls and in exchange God give them a brand new thought a God thought of who they are and how we are His daughters and He loves in a deep way! So One day girl  happened...Throughout the entire day I saw girls really exchange the lies they have bit into for years and get truth of God in return and walk away feeling confident and ready to accomplish anything and everything. A desire came to reality....and it was amazing to be a part of that.
Over the past 6 months of planning for this even and even now I have had the love of God in forefront of my mind. When I think about the love of God, I am reminded of the relationships I have in my life. I am the type of person that is all about heart connected friends. Recently I was talking to a friend just about life and it didn't really surprise me but as we were both sharing about life we realized we had been going through some the same things. In those moments i step back and thank God for giving me a friend to do life with. To have a person in my life that not only is going through some of the same things but that will stand beside me and will encourage, love and pray for me and even challenge me because we have this relationship where we know when to push, stretch,pray and love. and we know when to just smile , listen, pray and how to bring it across.Relationships are important....They are what gets you through life and pushes you on!
To go back to life and insecurity and ahhh moments. Have you ever had those moments in life when you just looked in the mirror and have a moment of what the crap I can't do anything because my nose is too crooked, my teeth are ugly, my hips are too big no one will hear me because of how I look. Yep, I have had those moments many times. But you know what those times when you pick at your looks and your body that's not how low self-esteem, self-hatred, insecurity , and fear of man began. It all starts with your heart. Think back to when you were 5 or 6 or even in middle school and think of the first time you felt like you didn't matter, you were a nobody? What was spoken into your life, what magazine did you see? What movie did you watch? Word attach themselves to your heart and have the potential to kill you or bring life to you (Depending on the type of words they are). When you buy into a lie of I am nothing because my parents never paid attention to me , you can take that lie and then turn it  into I am nothing because my parents never paid attention to me and so no one loves me because my parents opinion is the only opinion that matters and if they don't love me or give me attention then no one will so i will just keep quiet because my voice does not matter and I am a no one! This lie can deeper and deeper depending on how long it's been there and it's root goes deeper into your heart and in all honesty it had the ability to kill you!
Why do we allow these words and lies to sit in? because its a comfort sometimes we don't know how to really live without these lies because we have gotten so use to living in a  tied up, bound up, beaten way of life.
Well in the middle of thinking this blog through this scripture came

When We Practice Real Love

^18-20My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.
^21-24And friends, once that's taken care of and we're no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we're bold and free before God! We're able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we're doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God's command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.

In this scripture it says lets practice real love, God loves his children deeply. He loves you and me deeply and when we practice real love not just with other people but with ourselves. If you can't truly love yourself then how can you 1. ever had this abiding deep peace 1 john is speaking of and 2. really have any real heart connected relationships in life? you can't...life is meant to be lived to the fullest and to be lived out with God's love.......
Take a chance and ........
His love is better then any lie you are believing,

Press play

Life sometimes is just brutal. So many know the feeling of when you walk into a store and nothing fits right or you sit there and scream at yourself becuase the past 4 months you have been trying to loose weight but in reality you have gained.
This blog is a journal moment. God has been challenging me and changing my perspective for the past 4 months and I have finally just agreed to the change instead of fighting the change.
I am always watching what i eat , trying to exercise and trying not to indulge in food and allow it to be the idenity of my life. or the focal point of exercising and completing being ocd about loosing weight. I know their are millions of women out their who are OCD and have that thought in their mind if only i could loose this weight i would be happy and i would be able to do the things God has called me to do. Yes thie is kind of true. Our body is a temple and we need to keep it healthy so if God calls us to a crazy country we are ready to go ....but happiness is not measured by your body... i know i will never be a size 0 but i have not allowed my size to define my happiness. My happiness is determined by God and what I do for him and just enjoying the life he has give me. This blog is crazy if there is anyone actually reading this know it was a moment to simply express myself. When the 1 day girl conference was introduced to me i began to re think alot and this was something that popped up and ya know i know it's not by chance i get to be a art of an amazing one day event that will change the heart and minds of so many young ladies and how they really see themselves and replace the lies with truths.
There is no point to this nor is there anyways to end this except to say my perspective has been changed and i am focusing on really getting healthy and finishing this healthy journey once and for all. yes my entire life i will continue this journey but i am ending this battle of weight and ready to just kind of see what God does through all of this!
Heres the newness and health

Gently stepping forward

Gently stepping forward.... My heart has been thinking for a while and aching. My hearts desire is to accomplish the call God has over my life and be completly opemed to Him and the people in my life.
For the past 2 years I have been on this journey of allowing God slowly into the deep corners of my heart the ones with a few cobwebs and even the ones i have became comfortable with and just lived life with. I am just now seeing a piece of the light...I am just now able to say okay God I'm ready , I'm tired of living life with these pieces of my heart not being fully touched by God. I've allowed him to speak and i have allowed him to see and touch the parts for a split second then i get scared and close up. It has taken me up until this point to be able to say ok God let's go , let's go on this journey, lets experience this moment, lets do it....I know it's not going to be easy i know there will be many times where i am going to want to throw in the towel and i know there will be moments when i will want to rush God in the picutre he is painting for me ....But i know allowing him to touch every piece of my heart and being opened and vunerable with Him is just the next stone I am suppose to step on....and after this I have no idea whats next but Im okay with that becuase he has the paint brush and the canvas and he is busy painting the picture of my life.