Have you ever wondered why when we have scars and it is healing we feel like we need to scratch it? Usually we skirt around the area wanting to just rip it open because it itches so bad. The medical term for this itchy feeling would be healing, but I believe it goes much deeper than that. Just listen to this…
When we come into the church covered in scars and wounds it seems that we are reminded constantly of what we were and how great it would be, sometimes, to go back. Well, I believe that the nagging voice we hear is like the itch on our scar. The voice of destruction makes us so uncomfortable that we either cave in like idiots ripping open a perfectly, beautiful healing wound or we skirt around the issue forcing us to our knees, praying that the irritation will go away!
Healing is a long process one that always leaves some kind of mark. Marks we call scars can sometimes with great treatment heal with no evidence, however, that is not always the case. Sometimes are scars are puffy and unpleasing to the eye, sometimes they are just small and visible just to remind us of what happened. Scars in a spiritual sense are much the same.
So often I’ve wondered why God forgets about our sins, but we so often remember forever. I think maybe it is because He doesn’t want us to forget how merciful He is. When it comes to scars God doesn’t allow us to heal to see us fall. I believe that sometimes it is for our own strength this happens showing us that instead of allowing that itch to get to us we need to give it up to heal. God gave us those scars to learn our strength is in Him and that even though He has forgotten our sins we need to know that every time we feel the itch it is time to hit the knees and lay it down.
God has given us grace and mercy now we must learn to be thankful. Every time you feel like that itch is coming back do not scratch it, lean on the strength that gets you through it.
September 19, 2007
September 16, 2007
Godly Beautiful.....
From scarves to flowers to belts to stilettos, beauty is something that has become skin deep. As much as I fall in this category I want to open your eyes to something much deeper. God has made each one of us beautiful in some way. When beauty is seen in the correct way and we become satisfied in ourselves we find a strength that is within.
When Jesus is put first in our lives we find ourselves in a set of different eyes. Look at it this way if beauty is held in the eyes of the beholder than the only beholder that should concern us is God. If we know that God would be satisfied than we know that the people of God will as well.
Look in the mirror and what do you see? Do you see the woman you want to be? Now I’m not speaking of the color of your eyes or the whiteness of your teeth I’m speaking about you. So, often we portray someone we don’t know someone who is so vain that the only piece of God in us is unnoticeable. We lose the person God wants us to be. We fall into believing that we are not good enough and that is such a lie. Godliness is beautiful and much more pleasing to the conscience.
A good example of this would be Esther. When Esther meets the King she comes before him as a natural beauty and a true woman who is conscious of what her inner beauty shows. The other girls, however, lost themselves and did what was expected, covering themselves in jewels and gold. I enjoy this story because not only does Esther start to fall into the expectations, but at the end she stands up as a true woman and changes the whole dynamic of inner beauty and confidence in God. We should never lose ourselves in what we think we should portray. Find your inner beauty find yourself and respect yourself. If someone doesn’t see the beauty that is of God than who cares, they shouldn’t be who you care to satisfy anyways. Never forget that you are beautiful and never forget that God makes us all different. You don’t have to be skinny to be beautiful, you don’t have to be blonde to be beautiful, you don’t have to be anything but you.
Remember the inner beauty will always outweigh the outer, because the outer beauty will die and the inner beauty will fly!
When Jesus is put first in our lives we find ourselves in a set of different eyes. Look at it this way if beauty is held in the eyes of the beholder than the only beholder that should concern us is God. If we know that God would be satisfied than we know that the people of God will as well.
Look in the mirror and what do you see? Do you see the woman you want to be? Now I’m not speaking of the color of your eyes or the whiteness of your teeth I’m speaking about you. So, often we portray someone we don’t know someone who is so vain that the only piece of God in us is unnoticeable. We lose the person God wants us to be. We fall into believing that we are not good enough and that is such a lie. Godliness is beautiful and much more pleasing to the conscience.
A good example of this would be Esther. When Esther meets the King she comes before him as a natural beauty and a true woman who is conscious of what her inner beauty shows. The other girls, however, lost themselves and did what was expected, covering themselves in jewels and gold. I enjoy this story because not only does Esther start to fall into the expectations, but at the end she stands up as a true woman and changes the whole dynamic of inner beauty and confidence in God. We should never lose ourselves in what we think we should portray. Find your inner beauty find yourself and respect yourself. If someone doesn’t see the beauty that is of God than who cares, they shouldn’t be who you care to satisfy anyways. Never forget that you are beautiful and never forget that God makes us all different. You don’t have to be skinny to be beautiful, you don’t have to be blonde to be beautiful, you don’t have to be anything but you.
Remember the inner beauty will always outweigh the outer, because the outer beauty will die and the inner beauty will fly!
September 14, 2007
Who I am!
*I am Apostolic and love ever minute of living for God *I love to sing and play the piano *I love my family and friends *I love my church family *I love to laugh and smile *I love to spend time alone and with people *I love when people play with my hair *I love water and swimming in the lake and in my pool at home *I love to spend time with my dad *I love my mom she is my best friend* I love my cousin Channy she's my blessing from heaven*I love to ride horses and get dirty *I love to get all dressed up for church *I love fall and it is my favorite time of the year(most romantic) *I love to read books and the Bible *I love to pray and spend time with my amazing creator *I love to work and helping people *I love kids and can't wait to have them *I love sports and miss being able to play them *I love going out in the woods and hunting birds *I love going fishing, but not actually fishing *I love driving and taking road trips *I love Ohio/Indiana and miss it there *I loved being the Youth Leader *I love making a difference *I love listening to kids and watching them figure things out *I love the smell of fall *I love the color aqua *I love driving big trucks *I love going to the Christian Bookstore *I love listening to music *I love the feeling of the wind in my hair *I love the sky when the stars engulf the sky *I just love life and everything God has given to me*
Learning to love God's way...
Many times we think we know exactly how to love, but really we don’t. I often have thought that I loved something or someone, but truly in my heart I didn’t. For in the Bible it says that no one loves more than a friend who gives his life. Jesus is that friend that gave his life and sometimes we forget how true that makes his love. We never think about love being more than an infatuation or lustful chemical reaction between two people. We never think that love could be anything like complete submission to God.
I heard the other night the most powerful thing I’ve ever heard. No man who says he loves God can love his wife and treat her wrong and say he is submissive to God. A man who can say that he loves God and can treat his wife like dirt is not being submissive to God. We are like a complete circle one that is always with God in the center.
I also heard another very good story about love. A pastor from Minnesota said that when he proposed to his wife he told her that he was nothing without God. That he was not worthy of her and that God had to be the center of their marriage for it to ever work. He told the story of how he broke a red rose which he said was the love that would bind them together. He then grabbed a white rose that he had behind his back and placed that rose in the center. He said that God was the center and that will make their love complete. Now I don’t see them all the time, but with that line you know he must truly love her and God.
So often we look at love as something that we just feel, however, God says love is much more than that. For we can’t even imagine how great love is and what it's true meaning is. God is our love and when we love someone we bring God in it. Love is something that can’t be explained or understood the only way you can describe love is to say… JESUS!
I often have asked myself why I run from love and now I know. How could I ever truly give myself to someone in such an amazing bond when I couldn’t give my whole life to Jesus? How could I ever love someone when truly I didn’t know Jesus? Now with the Holy Ghost I trust that God will guide me towards the perfect man. The man who I can make proud and complete. The man who I can pray with. The man who I can work with and build a beautiful ministry. A man who I will be proud to stand next to because his life is centered in Christ and our love will be centered around our love for Jesus!
That is the love I’m looking for… a kind of love that goes much deeper than just the flesh. A love that hits your soul. The kind of love that makes you smile. JESUS!
I heard the other night the most powerful thing I’ve ever heard. No man who says he loves God can love his wife and treat her wrong and say he is submissive to God. A man who can say that he loves God and can treat his wife like dirt is not being submissive to God. We are like a complete circle one that is always with God in the center.
I also heard another very good story about love. A pastor from Minnesota said that when he proposed to his wife he told her that he was nothing without God. That he was not worthy of her and that God had to be the center of their marriage for it to ever work. He told the story of how he broke a red rose which he said was the love that would bind them together. He then grabbed a white rose that he had behind his back and placed that rose in the center. He said that God was the center and that will make their love complete. Now I don’t see them all the time, but with that line you know he must truly love her and God.
So often we look at love as something that we just feel, however, God says love is much more than that. For we can’t even imagine how great love is and what it's true meaning is. God is our love and when we love someone we bring God in it. Love is something that can’t be explained or understood the only way you can describe love is to say… JESUS!
I often have asked myself why I run from love and now I know. How could I ever truly give myself to someone in such an amazing bond when I couldn’t give my whole life to Jesus? How could I ever love someone when truly I didn’t know Jesus? Now with the Holy Ghost I trust that God will guide me towards the perfect man. The man who I can make proud and complete. The man who I can pray with. The man who I can work with and build a beautiful ministry. A man who I will be proud to stand next to because his life is centered in Christ and our love will be centered around our love for Jesus!
That is the love I’m looking for… a kind of love that goes much deeper than just the flesh. A love that hits your soul. The kind of love that makes you smile. JESUS!
Trust in God's way...
Have you ever felt like nothing else could be as bad as what you are going through right now? Have you ever sat in your own self pity and knew that nothing could be as bad as what you were going through at that very minute? Well, if you have maybe this will help you feel less alone.
Before I came into the church I went through one of the toughest things in my life. I knew that by having my second knee done that God would take care of me and make all the pains go away. Going into that surgery I convinced myself that I knew what God was planning for my life, however, I didn’t. My plan and God’s plan were two different things. God wanted to teach me that we can’t have everything when we want it and how we want it. We can’t wish healing upon our lives or greater yet ask God to do something we would never do for him and that is give something.
As of right now I look at where I am and smile. I have just gone through a long discovery of what God has been wanting me to learn all along TRUST. Through every trial or mishap in my life I’ve wished God to do something great for what I wanted in my life. I always said I wanted God to do what He wanted in my life, but when things went wrong I looked up at God like why bring me through this. Until lately did I realize that trust doesn’t just come when everything is going right, it comes when all things are going wrong and you can’t understand why? Like my Pastor said it is when you trust that you lift your head up when all you want to do is put it down.
Lately I’ve been so confused so frustrated with God. When He’s promised me things I’ve expected them now, when I’ve wanted things I’ve placed a timeline on God. I became frustrated with God looking at things and questioning why am I not good enough, why am I not pretty enough, why am I the one who is sick, why am I the one who can’t sing, why am I not using my gifts, why…why…why?
Now after several trials and many days of tears I’ve realized one thing. My trust in God was lacking and my belief that He was going to take care of me was zero. I called myself a Christian I called myself a girl of great faith, but I wasn’t.
It has taken me several face plants to realize that I didn’t trust God and his timeline. I didn’t trust that I was going to be okay that even with mishaps in my life that God wasn’t done. I’m ready now. I’m ready for what God wants and whatever that may be I’m ready to take it with arms wide open. God is my rock, He got me through some tough nights lately and He’s helped me realize one thing…. Life is nothing without him. Trust is something that we so commonly say we have, but until we are tried is it really there.
Now ending this little blurb I’m going to say this. God is a God of everlasting love. I may be sick, but I’m not died. God’s not done until He decides so. So, why give up when you don’t hold the timeline. Trust God He knows the greater plan even when you think you have it all figured out!
I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me!
Before I came into the church I went through one of the toughest things in my life. I knew that by having my second knee done that God would take care of me and make all the pains go away. Going into that surgery I convinced myself that I knew what God was planning for my life, however, I didn’t. My plan and God’s plan were two different things. God wanted to teach me that we can’t have everything when we want it and how we want it. We can’t wish healing upon our lives or greater yet ask God to do something we would never do for him and that is give something.
As of right now I look at where I am and smile. I have just gone through a long discovery of what God has been wanting me to learn all along TRUST. Through every trial or mishap in my life I’ve wished God to do something great for what I wanted in my life. I always said I wanted God to do what He wanted in my life, but when things went wrong I looked up at God like why bring me through this. Until lately did I realize that trust doesn’t just come when everything is going right, it comes when all things are going wrong and you can’t understand why? Like my Pastor said it is when you trust that you lift your head up when all you want to do is put it down.
Lately I’ve been so confused so frustrated with God. When He’s promised me things I’ve expected them now, when I’ve wanted things I’ve placed a timeline on God. I became frustrated with God looking at things and questioning why am I not good enough, why am I not pretty enough, why am I the one who is sick, why am I the one who can’t sing, why am I not using my gifts, why…why…why?
Now after several trials and many days of tears I’ve realized one thing. My trust in God was lacking and my belief that He was going to take care of me was zero. I called myself a Christian I called myself a girl of great faith, but I wasn’t.
It has taken me several face plants to realize that I didn’t trust God and his timeline. I didn’t trust that I was going to be okay that even with mishaps in my life that God wasn’t done. I’m ready now. I’m ready for what God wants and whatever that may be I’m ready to take it with arms wide open. God is my rock, He got me through some tough nights lately and He’s helped me realize one thing…. Life is nothing without him. Trust is something that we so commonly say we have, but until we are tried is it really there.
Now ending this little blurb I’m going to say this. God is a God of everlasting love. I may be sick, but I’m not died. God’s not done until He decides so. So, why give up when you don’t hold the timeline. Trust God He knows the greater plan even when you think you have it all figured out!
I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me!
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