Dreaming With God

"I have a dream"... Famous words from a famous person. But this time, the words are coming from my mouth. I have a dream deep in my heart that has been there for years. I love this dream. And I want, more than anything, for it to come true. There's just one thing, God has told me to lay down this dream. To sacrifice it, and give it back to Him. It brings frusteration, tears, hurt, confusion, and questions. Frusteration because I don't want to give it up. Tears and hurt because I have had it for years. Confusion because I think God why did you give me this dream if you were going to ask me to lay it down? I know that God is faithful, and I know that He doesn't give things to us that we can't handle. Yet I find myself battling with my flesh everyday. And everyday I need to kill my flesh and tell myself that it is worth it. It's worth listening to the voice of God, and obeying His word, than to live a life of darkness alone. We are starting on week 4 of Interns, and I already feel like I have been through a war. This year our theme is "Dreaming With God." No coinsidence that I have been called into this year. Because I will lay this dream down, and either pick it up later, or find a new dream. I'm excited for the things to come, and I'm excited to walk with God through this process! As I travel the road to the next battle, the Lord is holding my hand and I know His faithfulness. And I know His love.

More Reasons To Trust

So, just finished the first week of Interns. And, well, it was, interesting. I don't say that to mean that the class sucks, or anything like that. It just hasn't hit home yet I don't think. I am amazed at these " kids" eager approach to this program. I am finding more and more reasons to lay down my life at the feet of God, and turn around and walk away. This week hasn't been easy for me if I'm being honest. It was one of those weeks where it was awesome, awesome, awesome and then it crashed down infront of me. And as always, I found myself questioning God. And asking "why". Why when you told me to do interns is this happening to me? Why does it feel like I can't get my head above water? And yet through it all, I hear God say, " just trust me." We had a teacher this week say to us, "the Holy Spirit won't take you along for the ride just to dump you off at the end of it." As I sat in the class room, I could feel my flesh rising up and trying to get into my head, and put doubt in. And put guilt in, and frusteration. I can say that I am frusterated with God. But simply because I feel like I am going around in a circle with this particular subject. And yet, every place in the Bible it says that we are to trust God, through it all. So today I made a decision... I no matter what the circumstance will trust the Lord. No matter what. I will CHOOSE to kill my flesh daily and trust. Trust in an unseen God. Trust in the One who has never let me down, and never forgotten about me. 

Have Your Way

Have you ever had one of those nights where everything just seems to come into perspective, and your positive outlook on life seems to crash down and land at your feet? We haven't even started interns, and I'm already stressing out about EVERYTHING. "Lord, I don't know how to be that kind of leader, I can't remember to do all that, I can't be that organized..." Tonight I stand at a cross road, I can either trust the Lord with everything I have. With my finances, and with my earthly abilities. Or I can take the other road and continues to freak out, and want to just give up and cry. Sometimes the pressures of life come crashing into my head, paying bills, keeping fit, paying bills, trusting the heart of God. I want so badly to take the road of trusting God, but it just feels like I have been in this same spot for forever. Finding a job seems to be an Olympic sport to me. It's like an impossible feet or something! I know that God provides, I know that he promised to be there. And yet tonight I feel so behind. I feel like I need to crawl under my bed and stay there for the rest of my life. I feel like I can never get my head above water with anything. It seems to be a constant battle with finances. I hate the thoughts of doubt that creep in while this is going on. "Well God, maybe interns really wasn't a great idea. I don't think you really thought this one through..." Trust in the Lord with all your heart. HOW!? God this feels impossible! I feel like everytime I blog, I have this amazing song that ties into my blog... And yet again, I have one. The Lord speaks to me through music maybe. This time it's a song by Britt Nicole.

Have Your Way
Feels like I've been here forever why can't you just intervein? Can you see the tears keep falling and I'm falling apart at the seams. You never said the road would be easy, but you said that you would never leave. And you never promised that this life wasn't hard, but you promised you'd take care of me. So I'll stop searching for the answers. I'll stop praying for an escape, and I'll trust you God with where I am and believe that you'll have your way. When my friends and my family have left me, and I feel so ashamed and so cold remind me you take the beautiful things and turn them into beautiful. So I'll stop searching for the answers. I'll stop praying for an escape, and I'll trust you God with where I am and believe that you'll have your way. Even if my dreams have died, and even if I don't survive I'll still worship you with all my life.

Love Has Called

Today, September 12, 2009. 4 days till Interns start.... I sit as I write this, in my new home. A home that God provided, my youth Pastor found, and that I love. I listen as my new sisters run around upstairs, and as the dog barks at them because she wants to join in. I sit and think "can this really all be happening?" Could I at 22 years old be thrust into an environment with two crazy sisters, and amazing parents? After having already "grown up" with my parents? Could I at 22 have a curfew? Have to ask permission to go out again, and make sure that I'm home in time for dinner, and be setting a good example for a 10 and 12 year old who watch my every move? It feels so wierd, and yet so natural. After 12 days, I already feel like they are my family. I feel attatched. I don't know what I would do without them. I will fight for them.

I don't know how it will happen, what the year will look like, how many times I will want to quit, how many times I cry or how many times frusteration will over take me. But I know this. I love the Lord, my Church, my leadership, and I long to see a generation changed. And I don't know a better place to start. Than in a class room, with 6 people that I don't really know, and 9 months of intense discipleship. I think about my two sisters who will soon be involved with youth, going to highschool, and growing up. It's worth fighting for. It's worth balling my eyes out on the floor, it's worth being so frusterated with life, doing fundraisers in the rain,it's all worth it. Because if we don't fight for the next generation, and for our generation than who will? If I don't fight for my sisters, than who will? If I don't prove to them that there is more to life than the boy that dumped water on them at lunch, or the friend that is talking about them behind their back, and that you don't have to dress that way, or look that way to be popular. That when the world turns its back on them, I won't. That they are beautiful, inside and out. That through it all, they are WORTH it. They are worth it all, the tears, and frusteration, the fight. Because someone once fought for me. Someone took the time, and proved to me that I was worth it. I will do the same for them.


1 Corinthians 13:7 " Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance"

Worship

I'm sitting in my room with worship music on, trying to worship and thoughts keep flooding my head. Things I need to do, things I need to remember etc etc. My heart hurts right now. Because I want and need to get into worship. I want so desperately to meet God everyday in worship, find a special place. Yet everytime no matter where I am, I find myself getting caught up in everything else but worship. I lift my hands at the right times, I jump on que, and yet I'm just another soul searching. I've done it a thousand times. Stood in Church, cried as a song touched me, stood listening to worship, and watched other people get touched by God. Of course there have been times when I have been touched by God in worship, and things happened. I need consistency, I need GOD. I don't need fancy worship songs, or amazing singers, or guitar players, I need GOD. Plain and simple. No one else can touch my life the way He can. I will praise you through this storm... Sometimes it blows my mind how hard I find it to get into worship. Sometimes I catch myself just staring into space standing there. There Lord will guide my footsteps, and I will win this battle. As of tonight, I will continue to worship, because that's what you do. You worship in spirit and in truth. We worship because He is worthy. And we worship because He is our GOD.

" Walk towards me, I want to hear, the heavens singing over you. When you breath look at me, I want to be captured by you. Gaze into my eyes and let me know you'd fight thousands for my love. Slip your hand in mine, ask me to dance with you tonight, just ask me for my love. I want to hide what's deep in my eyes, I'm scared to be known by you. When I turn my head and see you there, I want to be pursued. Gaze into my eyes and let me know you'd fight thousands for me love. Slip your hand in mine, ask me to dance with you tonight. A dream I won't wake from, a story that will never end, the ground your feet walk on let me be there."
-Bethany Dillon For My Love

Blessed Life

It's Saturday afternoon, and I have just had the craziest week in my life. Craziest because God has taken me on such an amazing journey with my business. A journey that wouldn't have happened without it. I keep thinking to myself "God you know EVERYTHING!" I spent the week at PG Youth Camp. My main purpose: to look after two amazing kids. And yet every day I found myself touched by everything at that camp. I found myself on my face infront of God, having devotions with campers, laughing so hard that I couldn't breath, and forming amazing bonds with people. Things that wouldn't have happened had I hadn't started my business. My life has been changed, from a week at a camp with 20 kids that I didn't know going into it. Changed by the GRACE of God. And changed because I was desperate for Him.

There is a Shane and Shane called the answer. It describes perfectly how I feel at this moment. My life has been a viscious battle of good VS. evil. By that I mean, I know the answer, I know that I need to give my all to God, and yet, my flesh seems to win everytime. And this week I was broken, and made new. I woke up this morning, and felt like a new person. I felt like I won the battle. I don't know the point of this blog, there isn't a significant thing that I am trying to get at. But so many times I have gone through the motions. Gone through the Church services that rocked my life, where afterwards I was for sure going to change my ways. And then a week later, I am still back where I started. This is the difference, I didn't get rocked this week. It was emotional, although I did cry, it wasn't an emotional rollercoaster. It was a wake up call. It was my call. By God's grace, I have been pulled out of the garbage. Been pulled out of the comfort zone I was living in. There's no turning back. There's no giving up. I'm done playing games.

Here is the Shane and Shane song I was talking about. So simple, and so powerful.

i've tried more of me
and i've come up dry
trading You for things
things that go away
my happiness is found in less
of me and more of You
my happiness is found in less
of me and more of Youi have found the answer is
to love You and be loved by You
You crucify me and the world to meand i will only boast in You
i'm so satisfied
at the thought of You
growing up in me
covering everything my happiness is found in less
of me and more of You
my happiness is found in less
of me and more of You

Understanding The Heart

There are many things in life that I do not understand. I don't understand love. I don't understand the friends I have in my life. I don't understand math. I don't understand why I can never seem to get my act together, and be disceplined in my life. And I don't understand the yearnings (sp?) in my heart. There are so many things that my heart desires. To be the best possible daughter, friend, and listener. To one day stand before my friends and family, and get married. To have children of my own. To feel amazing about my self. And to be the person that God created me to be. Lots of other things as well.

I didn't understand why I had all these things inside of me. Why I had the unique name out of all my friends in school. Why I was abnormally tall. Why I was so good at sports. Or why, for some reason, everyone remembers me. I always thought that I was crazy for wanting some of those things. That some of them would never happen. And I realized that those things are there for a reason. They were put there by God. The craziest part is that they are promises from God. Promises to be great. Great in the things that He has given me. And that I am destined for. The heart is a crazy thing. Not many of us sit to pay attention to it. A fragile, delicate part of us. That has the ability to show people amazing things. And the ability to be crushed, so easily. Our heart is truly how we communicate. If we have a stone cold heart, than we, ourselves are cold, with no love. I communicate with people in my life based on the love I have for them in my heart. At the same time, the power the heart holds is incredible. Jesus said " I stand at the door and knock". The door of our heart. We have the power to open that door. We have the power to show people love, to bless them, to speak words of affirmation. Everyones heart is different, and yet, we were created for the same purpose. Love.

Read 1 Corinthians 13. Don't just read it. Absorb it into your soul. Into your heart. We were put on this earth to love (among other things.) Our greatest gift is love. " All for love a Father gave, for only love can make a way. All for love the heavens cried, for love was crucified."