I trust God to do a lot of things. I trust His promise to answer when we seek Him out to ask something of Him. I believe there is power in numbers. I believe in the salvation and eternity He promises to those that accept Christ's death for our sins. I believe He will do immeasurably more than we ever anticipate. And I do trust that he is merciful and forgiving when I am completely unworthy of it.
On the other hand, I find it hard to surrender worry, fear, finances, and relationships. I live a sinful life, every single day, my thoughts are sinful, my doubt is sinful, I try and notice and acknowledge it but do I get it all? Why can't I let it go? Why do I feel the pull of spiritual warfare over me, the devil tugging at my sleeve, trying to turn my heart?
I sometimes fall into the pit of Satan's lies: that if I get out of this spiritually lacking relationship with this guy, nobody will ever love me. If I go to work at a Christian camp I won't have the financial need when I return home. Because I made one decision I am no longer welcome to the place I chose against. It's a never-ending string of controversy. And I believe it! I eat it up! And then it upsets me that I have lost the armor of God that strengthens our mind, our thoughts, our hearts for the battles we must face as Christians. I haven't fought the good fight for Christ, I've been battered and bruised against it.
I have had an ongoing prayer for my life in the past few years for God to bring Godly people into my life.
At the end of the day, what kind of man do I want raising my children?
What kind of woman do I want to befriend, holding me accountable?
What kind of example do I want my life to be setting for anyone that may encounter it?
What will I allow the influences in my life to do for the Kingdom of Christ?
What will I accept as truth?
How will I be content with him alone?
But it needs to start with the last thing on that list: being content with HIM ALONE. I need to drop all guards, stripping away all the lies, the doubts, the fear, the worry, the abandonment, the yearning for love and realize that He is enough. He ALONE is enough. Let Him bring people, promise, hope into light. This is my personal prayer and my prayer for you reading this.
If you are weighed down with any of these things: let it go. Pick up the cross instead of resentment, instead of fear, instead of loneliness. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with the prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all the perseverance and supplication for all the saints... Ephesians 6:10-18
Recently the founder of Aggie Sisters for Christ came to talk to us about 10 things she wishes she would have understood and lived out in college. What a beautiful and hilarious Christian woman she was! I left convicted, inspired and most of all anxious to start the adventure of starting my own stories of reflection for each of the ideas she implanted last night. Thank you Dinah Thomas, the Lord spoke through you in many ways to those girls last night and I will pass it along.
1.Men are visual: Men are created to be visual beings, I'm not sure how many people realize the extent in which they contribute to a man noticing them. Ladies, you are beautiful! You can love your legs, your chest, or other assets without consciously causing a brother to stumble in seeing and loving these body parts too. Where can you help your brothers? What choices can you make to avoid doing purposeful things to draw attention to physical aspects of what makes you unique? Imagine the impact of letting Christ be the beautiful thing about you instead. Imagine the difference you may make to your Christian brothers, or even more so, the unbelieving men. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. --Romans 13:14
2. The things you do today will effect tomorrow: This one is pretty self-explanatory. If you choose to put off studying until the last day for a class exam -- you may not get the grade you hoped for. If you go around kissing random boys in your hometown -- your sister may marry a man you have kissed and you'll have to tell her. Ultimately, you will pay for the choices you make sooner or later so be smart about what you're doing and love the Lord, being undivided in your attention and focus for Him. Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth, give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. --Pslam 86:11-12
3. Building a foundation- Planning for the future: Living now you are making goals and have ambitious hopes you're reaching for. It starts today. Today is your life. There is no promise of life until your 80 or 30 or until tomorrow, let God build a foundation that a future may stand sturdy upon. Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. -- Psalm 119:18
4. Discretion is the better part of valor: Be prayerful in all things, do not rush into things. Use discretion when making decisions, for your life may depend on them. Imagine the generations coming up behind you and imagine the legacy you are going to impact on them. Living purely is a lifelong battle, if you are seeking the Lord's truth in each turn in your path you are going to be rewarded for bringing glory to Him. Allow Christ to be the center of all your choosing. "You are who you worship." My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen. -- 1 Corinthians 16:28
5. Be Intentional in Relationships: Seek out a same gendered partner to be your encouragement, accountability partner, mentor. Start prayer meetings. Being intentional means to commit to each other as far as picking a friend off the floor in hard times, no matter what --> ask God for a person like this in your life and take advantage of the fellowship between you. Make time, be available to opportunities for Godly chatter, payer, discernment in choice improvements. You can get no more than you give. Love all and find ways in which you can be a light in others lives. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. -- 2 Timothy 4:7
6. Love whoever He brings: Work to love those you have a harder time loving, pray for or about those relationships that could potentially be formed through having a good Godly attitude or outlook toward meeting new people. Ask God to put people in your path purposely and for you to have the words or patience or gratitude to care for them in a Godly manner. You don't know if you will get to share Jesus but you should be asking that He is there to be alive and evident either way. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.-- Romans 12: 10
7. Truth is not about how you feel: There are no excuses! God is stronger than all of your emotions. No matter the kind of day you are having or what crud you are facing, you need to live out the truth and radiate God's love through interactions you are blessed to have in order to flourish something for His glory. Advice: go to bed and start over again in the morning because each day in a brand new start. My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. -- James 1:19
8. Obey & thrive in God's timing: Although we tend to make our own timelines of what we think our lives should look like, it is important to trust that God's plan will be done in His own timing, despite ourselves. So while you may think you need to be married and settled down by a certain age, it is important to be forming Godly relationships as friends for support in the mean time and to trust that God is enough and you do not need the things on your list in order to feel happy or complete in Him. Focus on having qualities of Ruth, while it all happens in the Lord's timing. It is written: No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him. -- 1 Corinthians 2:9
9. Take advantage of your resources: Parents are you allies. God placed you within your family to be a missionary to them, likewise to other relationships that have been precisely placed into your life. It is important to thrive in these and to take advantage of what you have been given so that when one day you stand in front of the Lord and are asked, "What have you done in my glory with what you have been given?" you'll have a worthy answer. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him. -- Romans 8:28
10. Only God can satisfy: As long as you say, "if only" and yearn for things that are ungodly or not to His best intention for your life, you will not be satisfied. Don't look to anything else to be refreshing in your life, only God can fill that role. Grow in the Lord: Loving God and loving others. May the God of hope fill you with all the joy and peace as you trust Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. -- Romans 15:13
This weekend I had the opportunity to attend a women's conference held especially for our Aggie Sisters for Christ Spring Retreat where Marian Jordan pleasured us by speaking about Radiating as women of God. She shared many many things that hit heavily against my heart. Struggles were revealed to me that have been unaddressed, wounds that have not been mended but forgotten but are making a comeback to my attention.
Take into account that going into this weekend I had just applied to be in a leadership position within this sisterhood and had been rejected. Now, thankfully, I haven't had to face rejection very frequently in my life, which actually makes the "no's" I do get even harder. This particular rejection saddened me -- not because I truly wanted the position but because I had not prayerfully considered it at all. I honestly woke up one morning, threw together a letter I thought would tell the panel exactly what they wanted to hear and thought, "It might be fun". And now that I have been denied of this opportunity that I had obviously not been called to fulfill, I am humbled. I am reminded that it is not my plan, it is His. I am also convicted of making my priorities the top of my 'to-do' list rather than giving priority to the list the Lord has written on my heart. I am thankful for being turned down and I thank God from the most genuine place inside of me for putting the people He needed in those leadership roles and even more than that, for putting me back in my place and letting me find peace there and hope to overcome this apathy.
In addition to the lovely rejection notice I received this week, I also gave a notice of my own. A notice of eviction that read something like the following:
Dear boyfriend,
I am evicting that slightly off-beat heart of mine out of your hands
after over two years of it finding comfort there.
Why?
Because I feel like this relationship is potentially painfully destructive
and I feel called.
Love,
Can you still keep me company and save me from the loneliness of a new town on the weekends...?
Actually, it was a lot less productive than that. The real scenario was this: we had been crunched under major stress of finals, group projects, the financial strain of college life, moving and many other things that I could make excuses for. We were arguing, which seemed to have become a frequent occurrence lately (sadly, I can't even remember the petty things being debated) and in the midst I just paused whatever harsh words were spilling out and calmly said, "I want to break-up" and that was the end of it. We had our troubles in the past that led us to take a 'break' for the summer to pray about things and see where we felt led to go in this relationship or beyond it that had eventually led us back to each other but back then we had both decided that the next time would be the last time & being well aware of this, I broke it off anyway. Immediately I felt as through I had given so much of myself away that I was completely empty now and had absolutely nothing to fall back on. I felt abandoned, alone, sad, angry, hurt and I was lashing out in all the wrong ways.
When two people come together, they bond & when that bond is broken there is an emotional destruction that begins happening there. Over time, the more that bond is broken, the less that person has the ability to bond. Those words rang in my head. I felt ashamed, like a failure. After seeing the marriage of my parents fall apart I always promised to fight for the people I love and not let it wither away like they had. I failed to keep that promise and I failed to be different, patient when things got hard. I wasn't living in the love that the Bible explains, I was living in the love of the world and filled my life with lots of worldly accessories to keep my worldly relationship company.
I prayed for the first time in a long time that God would take all this pain that wasn't of Him and replace it with joy and relationships with Godly encouraging women. I prayed that I would be redeemed and made new in Him again.
God brought Marian Jordan to speak to us at the retreat I had the weekend after the toughest week of my semester.
Marian spoke about many things that touched my heart.
You are a girl worth fighting for!
You are the bride, you've been picked by the groom (God) & the whole world is watching you walk down that aisle, wishing they radiated like you do
Matthew 5:14-16
Exodus 32, 33, 34:4-8
Prayer: "Lord, show me your glory"
You have as much God as you want
Revelation produces Transformation
Give your shame to the cross and be a redeemed girl
That in which divides your heart is of the darkness and destroys your destiny in its struggle
We are trying to live out God's power without being plugged in
There is a battle between old and new self
The Holy Spirit is what convicts us and what wants to bring glory to Jesus
We aren't called to be right, we are called to represent
Discernment of the Holy Spirit- Is it glorifying to God? Is it consistent with His word?
You should be treated like a treasure
"You can't but I can!" -God
Whatever fills you, controls you
There will be seasons of life in which you are called out to deal with your junk (college)
The Holy Spirit will not flow where there is no access
Brokenness is beautiful to Him because it brings us to the brink of ourselves to find His truth
Unconfessed sin acts as junk in our flowing rivers
Do not ignore the call of Jesus to "clean your crap up"
If you have unforgiveness in your heart, it will be the only thing to overflow
Take an honest inventory of the overflow of your life
Ripple affect of radiance
Your life MATTERS: who will look back on your legacy and say they have been saved because you lived?
feelings follow actions
Every single person will stand before God to be asked, "What have you done with what I have given you?" -What will you say?
Your legacy determines what's to come
The Lord gives us trials as additions to our stories in ways that we can relate to others to bring glory to His name
Remember how amazing grace is
I realized by the end of Marian's time with us that I had a divided heart that was trying desperately to balance a focus on two relationships: my relationship with this guy and my relationship with the world: neither of these was a pursuit toward God and that's why I truly felt empty. I still hadn't found what I was looking for because worldly things are never fulfilling to us. I first saw myself as a sinner in need of a Savior at my lowest point, and again at the breaking point I came back to Him. I realize now that my life is in desperate need of His mighty love. Lord, give me a passionate, seeking, loving heart to seek you and find you.
Don't try to choke out the words, "Jesus, you are better" from your life.
So, I will be a redeemed girl: and my legacy will be determined by God. Because Jesus is better, it's a fact and no longer my opinion, I will live accordingly. This will be a long road of healing and seeking but it starts here, with me, today.
I haven't posted in a while, even now, I am in the midst of midterms in each and every single class of mine but I yearn for venting, & I resort to public venting,
awesome.
1. Almost 2 weeks ago my roommates and I found a dog on our porch, shivering in the cold, hungry and with a gaping wound located on the neck of this poor golden pooch. A leash was hanging off of her that had been obviously chewed through to escape, no tags were attached to her worn collar. She was also missing about half of her tail that may have been bitten off in a dog fight or worse (this was healed but not a favorable fashion for lab-looking puppies). We immediately led the puppy inside, searched the fridge for dog-approved lunch meat and called the vet. Realizing it was a mere 7 am, most vet offices did not open until later and we were left to entertain this dog without any good idea of where she had come from. After a few hours we got to take the dog into the vet, where she seemed extremely nervous and achey. The doctor ran multiple tests and revealed the results soon after:
Heart worms: Negative
Fleas: Negative Mange: Positive ...aside from her neck wound.
So, they allowed us to look under a microscope to recognize her (for now) mild case of mange defined as Dermidex. We were informed that we would be spending hundreds of dollars to keep and treat this skin condition. With the price of the tests, treatment and medication we spend over $250 in the first vet visit alone.
Bailey came home in a cone. Did I mention that in the duration of this long waiting/testing process we named this puppy Bailey? Yes, Bailey Belle. And have you ever heard that once you name something you get attached? Well, this is true.
In the morning we had waken up to a cone covered in blood from the wound that had previously been scraped and cleaned and coned. We were forced to remove the cone to clean both the wound and the cone. Attempting to putting this cone back on was a living nightmare. This poor puppy didn't know or trust us as we put gloves on and tried to hold her down and rub medication into parts of her body that ached the most: her neck. We soon realized that this would not be allowed by her and gave up.
The following night went much differently than the first. Having bought puppy food, a big doggy bed, an A&M blanket, a "comfort collar" and many toys we had pretty much accepted Bailey into the family and wanted to make her as comfortable as possible, given the situation. We had already starting opening our hearts to this poor puppy and were broken hearted to hear her scratching the entire night. We were terrified to see Bailey in the morning after a long night of scratching at her wound...again, feeling guilty that we didn't try harder to put the cone back on in fear of her biting someone.
At this point we feel helpless. We say a prayer and begin searching for no-kill shelters that could take her and be able to afford better treatments that would heal this horribly itchy condition better than a few "starving" college student could. We call one and got no answer. We then come across a place located on a ranch in a nearby town called "God's Little Angels" that take in rescue dogs, treat them and then find then loving homes. We call at 6 am and finally get a response. We tell this woman that the situation and how much we already love Bailey but cannot afford the long-term treatments she will need. This woman tell us that since she has mange she will not be able to keep her but that if we would keep her she will pay ALL of our vet bills for anything she needs for however long it takes to treat her conditions. We graciously accept and promise to bring Bailey by to meet her as soon as her treatments start to pay off.
The next day we go to the specified vet and get Bailey vaccinated and schedule her first treatment. She looked a lot better.
Now, knowing little to nothing about our sweet, sometimes overly protective Bailey, we started from scratch. After only a few short weeks, Bailey seems like a new dog. She is no longer timid or hungry. She is spoiled with toys, many of which she has already ripped to pieces. Bailey is potty trained, sitting and is working on more tricks. She is scheduled to continue treatments every other week and has been doing great!
The Lord answers prayers and brings that make you joyful to you when you are in need. Bailey brings joy.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:7-8
I also started a new job as a tutor for elementary aged students through the university and have absolutely fallen in love with it!
I have also been confronted lately that I left an amazing job as a Christian Adventure camp counselor in hopes of becoming this big bold woman in my normal day life. I have not exceeded that goal but I am also thinking that God isn't even close to finished with me yet. Lately when I go to Breakaway, which is a HUGE ministry here in College Station, Texas and all over the nation, I feel as though the Lord laid that message on the speakers heart for me specifically. It hasn't felt as though I have been being called out in a bad way, just encouraged by his words as though God was speaking to me through opportunities as those. I have also been led to join an organization here called Aggie Sisters for Christ, it is a group of women that get together weekly to dig into the word and to hold each other accountable and be encouraged in this walk of faith called life.
God has also been laying heavy on my heart the calling to go back to Camp Eagle to work this summer. Please be praying that he can provide for the things that may become barriers in the journey toward that.
I also apologize for being so lazy on this blog. I actually have to blog for a class now and it has been strange and foreign to try and balance the two. Thanks for sticking with me.
Take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. James 3:4
Although my blog has seemed to slow down my life most definitely has not.
I am once again a working woman. It's been a journey these two weeks back but now I am basically sitting on the sidelines now due to a cold from a freezing, wet trip to Trinity, Texas. I was welcomed to the Aggie family along with 120+ others from various other schools at Howdy Camp 2011. It was a weekend full of tradition, laughs and yells. I couldn't have asked for a better group to spend it with and am so thankful for the opportunity to be reminded that I am not alone in this transitioning process. It's going to be one hell of a ride. I can hardly wait!
This new life is beginning to feel real.
But forget all that--it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. 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. Isaiah 43:18-19
I trust God to do a lot of things. I trust His promise to answer when we seek Him out to ask something of Him. I believe there is power in numbers. I believe in the salvation and eternity He promises to those that accept Christ's death for our sins. I believe He will do immeasurably more than we ever anticipate. And I do trust that he is merciful and forgiving when I am completely unworthy of it.
