Unable to sleep. I fell a sleep for 15 minutes then Treyton woke me up....and here I am with thoughts of my life running through my mind. I look at my life...and I think I believed in God and Jesus since I was young, I say I think...because now I KNOW I believe in God giving his own son to die on a cross for our sins and be resurrected so that we may have eternal life in heaven. I feel it with every ounce of my being. I feel his love, I feel passion and love for God. I can see that without God I would be full of anger, hate, bitterness and instead I have qualities of God, kindness, forgiveness, compassion and love for people. Even th people that have hurt me badly....I don't wish them pain, I forgive them, pray for them and try to understand that they were hurt as children too. For some reason God has saved me from that crap and allowed me to not be like them. I am so forever grateful to God for that. I feel my life in so many ways is evidence that God exists. I did believe in the simple truth there was a God and a Jesus...I just don't think I understood....the depth of that....that he gave up his son...for me...this mess of a person and that he could save me, save me from my hurts, that he could love me, forgive me and let me into his heavenly home when he deems my time on earth is done. I don't think I understood that, not that I can completely grasp it now either. Now looking back I can see where God was in all my hurts...right there with me helping me get out. I can't help but have this passion to help people know his love and know that he is pursuing them and that he is jealous for their love and attention. I still need a mountain, an outlet, I want someone to know that healing can happen and it happens through Christ. I am so excited for this weekend....might be a mountain in more ways than one....one to conquer and two to shout from and three to celebrate Christ from!!!!
My goals...to wake up daily saying "God Use me, all day, everyday, don't let me sweat the small stuff", to take shame out of abuse, to let people know healing can happen, to help people know about God and his son, to live each day to the fullest, with forgiveness, compassion, and God's love shining through me, to be humbled. I am just a body for God to use...a temple....if someone had said "my body is a temple" a year ago....I would probably would of thought they had lost their minds. But here I am using that sentence, comprehending it, that my body is for God's purpose, to do his work. My experiences are for character building, he's giving me tools to do his work. CRAZY that my God, our God, thinks I/we can do his work...that we are worthy of his love! I am just amazed, I am just at the beginning of grasping this stuff...I can't wait to learn more, to love more, to pray more, to grow more! Cheers to living life for God!
Monday, April 18, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
weathered the storm
I look at my life and how it's coming around....I have this new amazing love for God! I can't get enough reading time in. It's so funny, all my life I have HATED reading. Not much would hold my interest. I currently have 4 or more books waiting to be read, along with reading the bible and my current book. My bible study has me so excited for reading this 66 chapter love book/letter from God (that's what I hear it called). Funny how suddenly I have the patience and actually the ability to comprehend this stuff. I know that it is the work of God, only he could get me to enjoy reading.
He has put these special people in my life...each one for his purpose. I never thought there would be a day when I would say this, "I am thankful for my life, all of it". I can't do anything about the past and God only knows if I'll have tomorrow....so I live for today. I am so amazed that God can take my hurts and turn them into something wonderful...He has done that in creating me. I'm not arrogant, just realize I'm something more than what I thought I was. I am a wonderful mommy full of so much love for these little loves of my life. I have the ability to trust and love people again and I feel God's love for me where before I was so blind thinking I wasn't good enough for him or that he couldn't forgive my mistakes. Sure I'm sad about my past and sure I still deal with things, I hate the dark - ok FEAR the dark! Things trigger bad memories a smell, a voice, a sentence. But a simple prayer and facing and talking about the past gives me a whole new take on it all and gives me strength over it. I would say that if I could do it all over again I would do it differently (thank God I don't have the choice)...but then I think "would I be 1/2 the person I am today without my experiences, without the people that I have encountered throughout my life, without my challenges, short comings, abuse?" "would I be here, in this city, Loving God the way I do right now, doing his work for him?" I was made for this! I was made to mother these little blessing and take my experiences and grow in to this flower. I used a metaphor once that my life was like a garden....some flowers come and go, somethings stay for ever and blossom into such beauty and some weeds need picked, sometimes the flowers get weepy. I am a flower in my own garden....weathered the storms (im sure there will be more), weeped from time to time, but God has poured his love into me and give me strength and growth and has allowed me to bloom.
I am blessed beyond belief...just for the simple fact this amazing God loves me, right here, right now....in my mess and all!
He has put these special people in my life...each one for his purpose. I never thought there would be a day when I would say this, "I am thankful for my life, all of it". I can't do anything about the past and God only knows if I'll have tomorrow....so I live for today. I am so amazed that God can take my hurts and turn them into something wonderful...He has done that in creating me. I'm not arrogant, just realize I'm something more than what I thought I was. I am a wonderful mommy full of so much love for these little loves of my life. I have the ability to trust and love people again and I feel God's love for me where before I was so blind thinking I wasn't good enough for him or that he couldn't forgive my mistakes. Sure I'm sad about my past and sure I still deal with things, I hate the dark - ok FEAR the dark! Things trigger bad memories a smell, a voice, a sentence. But a simple prayer and facing and talking about the past gives me a whole new take on it all and gives me strength over it. I would say that if I could do it all over again I would do it differently (thank God I don't have the choice)...but then I think "would I be 1/2 the person I am today without my experiences, without the people that I have encountered throughout my life, without my challenges, short comings, abuse?" "would I be here, in this city, Loving God the way I do right now, doing his work for him?" I was made for this! I was made to mother these little blessing and take my experiences and grow in to this flower. I used a metaphor once that my life was like a garden....some flowers come and go, somethings stay for ever and blossom into such beauty and some weeds need picked, sometimes the flowers get weepy. I am a flower in my own garden....weathered the storms (im sure there will be more), weeped from time to time, but God has poured his love into me and give me strength and growth and has allowed me to bloom.
I am blessed beyond belief...just for the simple fact this amazing God loves me, right here, right now....in my mess and all!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
One Year ago
Just thinking back to a year ago! I wish I had posted this last night but I didn't want to get up and sit at my computer at midnight. The message at church today was "God, are you there?" and about How to hear God when he speaks to us and last night I was going to post about 1 year ago when I heard God speak to me.
1 year ago last Monday, I came home from my GG and immediately obeyed God. I had never heard him more clearly than I did that night. He was telling me it was time to reach out to my biological family. I came home and checked on FB and immediately sent a friend request to my biological Aunt and my biological mom. I didn't hesitate one moment...I'm not saying after the fact I wasn't scared to death of what was done or scared of what might come of it (cause I was). You see I had spent MANY of years hiding form the people from my past, people that hurt me, people that still were connected to the people that hurt me. I had gotten married and not shared my new last name with anyone in connection to them and moved to my current town. Obeying God that night was the best thing for me.
I heard God that night! I had truly opened my heart and mind to him, put total faith in the fact he must know more than me and that he and only he, could protect me and carry me through what would come of it. Amazing how he has transformed me and is showing me his purpose.
Just one year ago...I was just wondering through this life thinking I've made it to the other side, I was a victim, once a believer but then lost...totally lost, just going through the motions of life, being a working mom, wife, attempting to have friends. I trusted very few people and shared very few deep details about my life.
One year later I am growing, growing as a person, growing from my hurts, growing in my faith and love for God, growing as a friend, wife, and mommy! I get excited to read the word of God (which I have always hated to read). One year ago I chose to obey God and to trust him and he has given me faith, life, excitement, love, he taught me to control my fear, to not think about myself, to forgive others and forgive myself, he has humbled me and helped me admit my mistakes, he has also made me see I am a survivor, he has given me true friendships and helped me learn to trust people and invest in people. He has given me his love and I just want to shout out about it ALL the time...I fear I will annoy people so I try to not be the "weird Christian" that everyone avoids but my passion for God and ECC has a giant hold on me. I want to share this amazing God! I want everyone to have a chance at having control over their pain and not let their pain control them!!! I thought my wounds were healed so long ago when really God allowed me to shove them under the carpet and pretend Iwas fine until 1 year ago, he knew I could trust him enough to start digging into all of these emotions and my past. Talking about things has done wonders and I can say in one year my life, attitude, and faith have done a 180! I am SO SO grateful for Eastlake and my Eastlake family and Growth Groups and most of all To God for my past year. I am SO VERY ready to start helping others face their past and begin this journey of healing!
The funny part....maybe funny or just interesting....I was so expecting not to like ECC, I tried it once and gave this awful review, nit picking at stupid stuff (still ashamed but it is what it is). I went back 4 weeks later and I was hooked! God got me there...that was ALL God I am sure and even with me fighting everything, he did it. He knew me and knew I missed him and church and fellowship. I wasn't even sure how to face God at this point. On the last day of sign up I signed up for a growth group reluctantly...hoping it was full...again God did that, there was still space and then he nudged me to go be uncomfortable at my group of people I didn't even know! And then go back again the following week...of course after that it got easier but none of that was me, It was all God pulling me along like the ball at the end of a chain. You see, he pursues each of us and if we give a little he will pull us along. That's why that one night I just gave it all to him, came home obeyed and I am seeing a glimmer of his purpose for me and makes my past all OK. I am who I am because of it all and sure I wish it had never happened but it is what it is and God has made me this bright star full of his light. He wants that for everyone I am sure. So give him an inch and let him take you a mile.
1 year ago last Monday, I came home from my GG and immediately obeyed God. I had never heard him more clearly than I did that night. He was telling me it was time to reach out to my biological family. I came home and checked on FB and immediately sent a friend request to my biological Aunt and my biological mom. I didn't hesitate one moment...I'm not saying after the fact I wasn't scared to death of what was done or scared of what might come of it (cause I was). You see I had spent MANY of years hiding form the people from my past, people that hurt me, people that still were connected to the people that hurt me. I had gotten married and not shared my new last name with anyone in connection to them and moved to my current town. Obeying God that night was the best thing for me.
I heard God that night! I had truly opened my heart and mind to him, put total faith in the fact he must know more than me and that he and only he, could protect me and carry me through what would come of it. Amazing how he has transformed me and is showing me his purpose.
Just one year ago...I was just wondering through this life thinking I've made it to the other side, I was a victim, once a believer but then lost...totally lost, just going through the motions of life, being a working mom, wife, attempting to have friends. I trusted very few people and shared very few deep details about my life.
One year later I am growing, growing as a person, growing from my hurts, growing in my faith and love for God, growing as a friend, wife, and mommy! I get excited to read the word of God (which I have always hated to read). One year ago I chose to obey God and to trust him and he has given me faith, life, excitement, love, he taught me to control my fear, to not think about myself, to forgive others and forgive myself, he has humbled me and helped me admit my mistakes, he has also made me see I am a survivor, he has given me true friendships and helped me learn to trust people and invest in people. He has given me his love and I just want to shout out about it ALL the time...I fear I will annoy people so I try to not be the "weird Christian" that everyone avoids but my passion for God and ECC has a giant hold on me. I want to share this amazing God! I want everyone to have a chance at having control over their pain and not let their pain control them!!! I thought my wounds were healed so long ago when really God allowed me to shove them under the carpet and pretend Iwas fine until 1 year ago, he knew I could trust him enough to start digging into all of these emotions and my past. Talking about things has done wonders and I can say in one year my life, attitude, and faith have done a 180! I am SO SO grateful for Eastlake and my Eastlake family and Growth Groups and most of all To God for my past year. I am SO VERY ready to start helping others face their past and begin this journey of healing!
The funny part....maybe funny or just interesting....I was so expecting not to like ECC, I tried it once and gave this awful review, nit picking at stupid stuff (still ashamed but it is what it is). I went back 4 weeks later and I was hooked! God got me there...that was ALL God I am sure and even with me fighting everything, he did it. He knew me and knew I missed him and church and fellowship. I wasn't even sure how to face God at this point. On the last day of sign up I signed up for a growth group reluctantly...hoping it was full...again God did that, there was still space and then he nudged me to go be uncomfortable at my group of people I didn't even know! And then go back again the following week...of course after that it got easier but none of that was me, It was all God pulling me along like the ball at the end of a chain. You see, he pursues each of us and if we give a little he will pull us along. That's why that one night I just gave it all to him, came home obeyed and I am seeing a glimmer of his purpose for me and makes my past all OK. I am who I am because of it all and sure I wish it had never happened but it is what it is and God has made me this bright star full of his light. He wants that for everyone I am sure. So give him an inch and let him take you a mile.
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