Tied Up Tight

Okay, so it has been a while since I’ve written a post. I’ve been really well intentioned in the last several weeks, but never very intentional. I’ve had several topics that I’ve wanted to broach, but right now those will have to wait.

Right now, I want to talk about what I’ve been learning in my Wednesday morning Bible Study of Ruth. Ruth is by far one of my favorites and if you haven’t studied it you should. It is AWESOME, but I digress.

Anyway, during our study we have talked a lot about Loss, Love, and Legacy. We’ve been asked to do some real “soul” searching, and become very vulnerable and honest with ourselves. We’ve been asked to write our story and share the journey that God has us on. To be REAL with you…it has been extremely difficult. I feel like I’ve been put in the middle of nowhere, with only a can of beans and a spoon. How am I supposed to get this thing opened??? I’ve prayed and asked God to open me up, but nothing seems to happen. Honestly, I feel like I am asking the wrong thing, so much so I’ve been asking to be broken. (NOT ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS TO PRAY). I’ll put it to you this way… I feel like I’m tied up tighter than the prom queen going to her 25th high school reunion. What is my deal?!?! I want to be FREE, but Freedom requires effort and work.

I know right now I am in an incredible time of Harvest. God is doing amazing things in my marriage and in the lives of me and my husband. God is blessing my friendships abundantly more than I could ever think or ask. God is opening doors for me to be involved in the ministries of my church and in the lives of others. SO WHAT IS MY DEAL!!! My deal is that in the midst of the Harvest I’ve gotten LAZY. Corrie Ten Boom said it best “You don’t realize Jesus is all you need, until Jesus is all you have”. Well, I’ve forgotten. I’ve forgotten how He has seen me through my darkest most desperate moments. I’ve forgotten about His provision and faithfulness. My momentary Desperation has been met, but something deep inside longs for more. In a time of abundance I know that He still has a story for me, and I’ve gotten lazy in pursuit of it. I mean I’ve still gone through the motions just like I always do, but I’ve not remained dependant upon or desperate for that deep intimate relationship He desires for us.

So What Now??? I need to start by having some REAL conversations with God. What is in me that He wants OUT!!! OR what am I putting into me that He wants GONE!!! That is hard to write, because I like the way that I do things and I have a nice little routine of life. BUT we have to start somewhere. WE HAVE TO GET REAL BEFORE GOD OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I want the story He has for me. I mean if it is anything like what He is blessing me right now with then I can’t even imagine what else He has in store. GOD wants us JUST THE WAY WE ARE…PERFECTLY IMPERFECT. He knows all our secrets, everything we are ashamed of and everything we hope to be. If we just open up ourselves and trust that “GOD IS GOD and WE ARE NOT” then I promise God’s provision will abound in your life and mine.

The Lost Moment

Have you ever had an epiphany and didn’t get around to writing it down or a crazy dream that you wanted to put pen to paper about. I do that all the time. I miss these moments. Recently though, I feel like I get a glimpse of God and then just forget. For example: the other day I was on my way to a friend’s house to pick something up, it had been a rainy day and I was driving through my neighborhood. As I was driving over a creek I looked in the distance and there I beheld the most amazingly, perfectly clear rainbow I had ever seen. I believe at that time I had just been in a “dispute” with my spouse over who knows what now, and I was still a bit heated over it. I could have totally missed this spectacle of God’s glory displayed for what seemed like it had been just for me. If you know me at all, I love to look for God in nature. My favorite place is Concan, TX floating the Frio River and beholding the beauty of His creation. He speaks to me in those moments of awesome splendor.
Well, in my dispute I’m sure I used some unsavory language. It is a problem that God and I are working on, and it was as if God said NEVER AGAIN!!! Since I was a child I think of Noah and God promising to Never Again flood the earth, and the symbol of this was a RAINBOW. So my behavior warranted a “NEVER AGAIN” from God. It was quite humbling.
I truly believe that God speaks to all of us and the question is…are we listening? What if I would have missed that rainbow and God speaking into my heart a message of love, correction, and promise of a future? How many other promises or moments designed by God specifically for me have I missed in the past or simply forgotten about? I know there are things to be done and ministry to be filled, but I would hope that we would take time to ask God to speak specifically to our heart and then slow down enough to listen and wait for what He has to say. HOWEVER, be ready to OBEY if He is calling you unto Himself and what that might take.

The Thrill of Being Disciplined

I know the title of this post may seem a bit strange but it is a perfect description of where I’ve been recently. Let me elaborate. Tonight I had the opportunity to meet with a good friend and share my heart with her. We talked for what seemed like minutes but it was most definitely hours. I opened up with her about some of the fears I have been dealing with. I’m not talking about a fear of heights, spiders, or snakes even though I FEAR those as well, but what I am talking about is a paralyzing fear; something that just terrifies you to the core of who you are. Right now God is taking me on a journey of overcoming the fears that are entangling me and freeing me to live in the liberty of who HE has created ME to be.

This is scary to say the least. However, there is one thing that God has faced me in front of, something that has wounded me beyond belief and changed the very essence of who I am. Something I thought I had dealt with a long time ago and He is calling me to overcome and be made WHOLE and ALIVE. In this particular fear, He is calling me to action to overcome, to do the very thing I fear the most at this point in my life, and I just can’t. I have looked God in the face and said “NO”, not out of a heart of rebellion, but out of shear terror. I love God and desire to overcome this with everything that is in me, but I AM AFRAID…FROZEN in fright. I know that God desires to restore me to a place of WHOLENESS, but it is the hardest thing I’ve ever faced. As I write this it has been about 3 weeks since I was called to obedience and 3 weeks that I have said “NO”. During the past weeks I’ve have been disciplined and chastened like I have never known before.

Now some reading this might not understand what I mean, and honestly I didn’t understand fully until now. Let me just say that we serve such an AMAZING WONDERFUL GOD that deeply desires the very best for us, so much so that He is willing to discipline us into a place of submission.

I have never experienced such a thing before. In the past several weeks one thing after another keeps happening: sickness, broken IPHONE, things lost that I know exactly where I placed them, discord in my home…I could go on and on, and yet my disobedience remains. Even though I am working through this stronghold in my life it is so exciting to know that my SAVIOR loves ME. He loves me enough to call me unto Himself when I am unwilling or unable to meet Him at the cross.

I know that God desires me, to make me WHOLE, and to bless me beyond my wildest imagination. I know that He is pursuing me, and that is what is exciting. The actual discipline, not so much, but just knowing that MY GOD loves ME so much that He will discipline me until I am in a place where HE can use me, grow me, and bless me. I pray that my frozen feet will begin to move in belief of what God has for me.

Follow Up:
I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago, and since I’ve begun to experience such a freedom in my life. What I have been afraid of was so much bigger and worse and ugly than what reality actually was. I am still a work in progress in dealing with this stronghold, but God is enabling me to begin to experience freedom. Just remember this about Fear:
False
Evidence
Appearing
Real
My Prayer for my readers is that we would be able to break free from these lies, preconceived, or misconceived ideas and live in the freedom that God desires for us.

Breakthrough

Do you ever feel like you have a breakthrough in a specific area of your life: diet, marriage, friendship, or spiritually? I do. I have breakthroughs in my marriage, in parenting or should I say disciplining, in my friendships, and even the occasional breakthrough in eating healthier (a.k.a. dieting, which doesn’t usually last for to long). Recently, though, I feel like I’ve had these “mountain top” experiences with God: having my time with Him everyday, pursuing relationship with him, and then I get distracted. I might get distracted by parenting, housework, or even church-work, and I forget. I forget what the mountain top felt like, and so quickly. I forget what He wants for me and the promises that He has given to me. The story He is unfolding before me is breathtaking and I just seem to check out. Kind of like reading a really incredible book and then just putting it down for several days and forgetting how captivating it was. Why do I forget so easily? I wish I could blame it on A.D.D. or something, but that just seems superficial.
The GOD of ALL creation who gave His ONE and ONLY son for me, who loves me beyond all that I could imagine, regardless of the fickle person I am, who has a plan for me (Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a HOPE and a future”), and I can’t get it together to show Him the adoration and praise that He so desperately desires from me with any kind of consistency. Seriously!!! I mean I love God, and desire a relationship with Him, but it has to go beyond just a desire to some serious action. It has to exceed church-work, praying, and time with God. Should those things be included…OF COURSE, but it needs to be deeper than that. The perspective needs to change. It needs to be a life lived in amazement of God’s grace and goodness in our lives. Take time and not miss the everyday gifts He sets out just for us . God has so much He wants to share with us if we would just take the time to listen and pay attention. My prayer is that I would give God the adoration and relationship that He so desperately desires to have with me.

The Lost Art of Hope

What happened to HOPE? When I was little I would hope for a new pair of roller-blades or for a friend to be able to come over and play. I would hope for my family to be okay after my mom miscarried 2 different times. I would hope that everything would be okay? I would play the silly game M.A.S.H. in hope that I would marry a cute boy by age 22, have 2 kids, a dog named “scruffy”, and live in a mansion. Even though those may seem silly now, I’ve lost part of that. I’ve lost the ability to look to the future with anticipation for what was to be. I’m not saying I have a doom and gloom perspective about life, just wrapped up in the duties and mundane everyday things. I live exhausted and frustrated at times. I’ve lost a sense of HOPE.

Now, Dictionary.com defines Hope as: to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence. Confidence, Faith, HOPE. I don’t feel like I have a very good grasp on those these days. Has my perspective on life become so jaded through my life experiences and just plain getting older? Why don’t I look at life with a more consistent perspective of Hope and Faith. Hope that my marriage will survive the staggering statistics of 50% failure rate or Hope that my children will see Jesus in a real way and learn to love and trust Him. Hope that I’m going to survive motherhood with all my hair and hope that I’m not always going to feel alone. My perspective most days is, let’s just make it though the day, but other days it can be, why isn’t my daughter listening to me, or, why can’t I keep up with the laundry, or even, why am I so frustrated. Honestly, I haven’t taken those things to God. I haven’t laid all of my frustrations and exasperation at His feet. I wasn’t made to carry the job of wife, mother, daughter, friend, and woman alone. God made me to need a relationship with Him, a relationship that if I go without will make me very lonely, frustrated, and burnt out. If I don’t lay my hopes and fears before Him and allow Him to take care of them I’m going to be very frustrated and always exhausted. Many times in the Bible He is declared to be the God of Hope. So why have I stopped hoping and just lived as if this was it? Always exhausted and wondering if there is more. Well, let me just say, THIS IS NOT ALL THERE IS. When we learn to live with a perspective of HOPE, even for an obedient child or for deeper relationships, a seed of Faith is born and God says that He can move mountains with just a mustard seed of Faith. So let’s hope for more and believe God for what He has in store for us.

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

Ok, I think I’m going to start just about every post with the phrase “Let’s Get Real”. It has a tendency to put me in the right frame of mind if I actually write it. So don’t be surprised if you see it pop up several times.

Today I have a lot on my mind. There are several things I want to talk about and I want to pick the right one for today. So let’s talk about what God has been sharing with me today. (That sounded about bit churchy…sorry). The past couple of days I’ve been reading a new book by John and Stasi Eldredge called Captivating. To say this is a great book that every woman should read, especially if you have little girls, is the understatement of the century. I could just write and write about everything I’m learning, but today I am going to share my revelation.

As I have mentioned previously, I’ve been reading the proverb of the day. Today I read Proverb 7. Proverb 7 talks about the young naive man who is enticed by the adulteress woman. As I began to journal I started to think about how it’s not only men who are enticed away from what God has for there life, but women as well. Now this is where the book comes in. The book talks about the story and plan that God has for women and what He wants to unfold. What caught me is, when they talked about how woman can hide. Let me explain. As a woman, I struggle with the feeling that I am a huge fraud. I mean I pretty much have it together on the outside, I wear nice clothes, my hair and makeup are always done, and I serve in my church, but if you came over to my house you would see a disaster area. I’m not a great housekeeper, wish I would have inherited that from my mother (she keeps a spotless house). I feel like a failure in a lot of areas. Sure I’m good at stuff, but stuff doesn’t mean much in the long run. I live sometimes afraid that someone is going to discover this about me…that I don’t have it all together. Well, let me clue you in here, most of us don’t. Well, due to this fact I have a tendency to hide, afraid of being found out. There are several places I hide and have hidden in the past and some of these may sound familiar. I have hidden in television shows, captivated by the story that is unfolding for the people in whatever drama series or reality tv show. I hide in my duties. I have an infant or now a toddler. We have certain nap times or schedules and can’t make it to playgroup or lunch with a friend. I hide in books or movies, escaping into whatever romance or adventure the characters may be embarking upon. It’s easy to hide and it makes us feel good. We may call it a guilty pleasure or that it helps us unwind. All of this may be true, but the question is not if it is okay to do these things, but what are these things causing us to miss. It goes back to being really intentional.

As a woman I was created for relationship. Relationship with my spouse, daughter, family and friends. However, most importantly I was created for a relationship with God. God’s heart at it’s very depth LONGS for a relationship with us, so why are we not seeking that. It is my greatest need as a woman, for relationship, I have God waiting to fill my every need, and I just want to drowned the world out in whatever program is on my DVR. Man, I feel like I’ve missed it big time.
So what now??? Now I really have to pray and ask God “WHAT?”. What do I need to give up for a real relationship with Him. I want a story, a legacy, that will live on in generations to come. How can that happen if I’m not being intentional…if I’m not willing to give up whatever He may ask in order that I might have all that He has to give? Would we give up our favorite TV show, book series, movies, or music if He asked? Would I give that up with a CHEERFULL heart? If not why? Am I so dependent on the pretense and drama of other’s fake lives that I would willfully miss out on the story and drama that GOD has to unfold in my own life? No one is going to remember who was with whom on Grey’s Anatomy, or if Jacob or Edward won Bella’s heart in the Twilight series, in 50-100 years, but what will be remembered is the kind of woman, wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend I was. We need to be very cautious that we don’t live life with a mindset of what am I getting out of it, but of what we are able to give to the lives of those around us. BE INTENTIONAL!!!
1 Corinthians 6:12 (New Living Translation)

You say, “I am allowed to do anything”-but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything.

Intentional

Okay so we are getting REAL here people. So what am I doing about my Fear of Loneliness? I’m turning it into a Passion for Friendship. I know that might sound a bit cheesy, but I don’t just mean friends with other girlfriends. I want to go deeper than that. I want to start with my friendship with God. For many many years now, due to past hurts, I’ve kind of shut down emotionally. I mean I’m still a very emotional person, just ask my husband. (You can feel a little sorry for him here). What I mean to say is that I don’t really invest a lot emotionally. I haven’t invested in my relationship with God, my marriage (that one hurt to write), I have more my daughter but not as much as I should, or in being a true friend. I haven’t allowed myself to be truly vulnerable with anyone in a long time. Sure, I may seem like I am, but I really just put an act on that everything is OKAY. There are times however, when life is just more than I can bear and I break down, but then I pretty quickly return to the “Everything is okay” face. Honestly, I’ve become very passive in my general lifestyle. I’ve let so many years slip away without a bit of intention applied to any of it. I’ve missed time that could have been spent growing in my relationship with God, I’ve missed time getting to know my husband as my best friend, I’ve missed making “moments” with my daughter, and too much time wasted not getting to know some of the amazing women around me. I want to be more intentional in my choices. I want to make my choices matter.

So what’s next? How do you change your perspective? Baby steps. Prioritize. My first order of business is OBVIOUSLY my relationship with God. It has been a long time since I’ve had a real heart to heart with God, other than when an emergency arises, and I am sick of the silence between us. Hey, but He hadn’t gone anywhere, I was the one who put Him on the shelf, and I was the one neglecting our relationship. So, due to the fact that it had been a while since I had really gotten into the Bible wanting or I should say NEEDING a Word, I decided to start with a simple devotional I was given at Christmas and then by reading the Proverb of the Day. I think God had Proverbs divided into 31 chapters, because He knew that would be a starting place for people to meet with Him. The devotional is sweet and simple, not very deep, but there are some great insights I have gained from reading it, but man the Proverb of the day is amazing. When I read it I have my journal next to me and write out the verses that jump off the page at me. I love it. If you have never studied the book of Proverb, man I highly recommend it. I also started having a REAL conversation with God. I don’t mean the whole “Father Who Art In Heaven” prayer, which is great, but I began to talk to Him like a friend. Now, why is it that I don’t have a problem praying in front of people, but when it comes time for me to talk to God by myself I get a little freaked. Oh yeah, the whole getting REAL thing is not comfortable. Even though He knows all my dirt, it’s just not fun admitting it all. Second, I wanted to start working on my relationship with my husband. I started reading this GREAT book For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn. Now, for me to say I am reading a book other than the Bible is HUGE!!! I have not read a book since college and that was Lady in Waiting, a really great book as well. I’m just not a book reader, but we are growing here people, and if I want to grow I have to engage my mind more than watching home improvement or cooking shows, or reading my favorite blogs. Books are not my thing, so much so that I have to set a goal for a chapter a day, and to be honest I’m a day and a half behind, but goals can be reset so no guilt here. Since I’ve started doing just these couple of things I’ve noticed an exponential difference in my perspective about life, my relationship with my husband, and I’ve got a renewed sense of passion and excitement about what God has in store for me in the future. Jeremiah 29:11 “ For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” The journey continues.

AFRAID

Recently I had the opportunity to go to a leadership conference for MOPS (Mother’s of Preschoolers) and they talked a lot about Fear and Passion (I’ll get to the Passion part later). They asked us what are we afraid of and how that is affecting our lives. Well, I never really thought of it. I mean I’m a mom of a toddler, housewife, involved in my church…”BUSY”!!! I hadn’t taken the time to be introspective about anything, especially my fears. It had honestly been to long since I looked in the mirror, so to speak. Well, April 17^th 2010 they made me write my fear down on a piece of paper and show someone. For some reason that freaked me out that I had to show someone ( there it is again being afraid). So, I thought and thought and I could have filled the paper out with things I came up with. I wanted to try and narrow it down though. I finally, after a few minutes, had it…Loneliness. I think one of my greatest fears is loneliness. As I began to think about this, I began to realize that I was pretty lonely. Okay, so this part I’m not getting all “poor is me” just being real here folks. Why am I lonely? I have a great husband, a beautiful little girl, great family, and surrounded by great people, but how well did I know any of them? How many of them are FRIENDS? I mean sure, I am “friends” with several people, but I mean how many of them would I call at 2am and not feel like a burden or if they came over, not care if my house was a total mess? Not very many. Now, let me say this is no ones fault but MINE. I have fostered an attitude of “let’s make it through today”, and not of “let’s build a lifetime”. I have done this in my marriage, the way I interact with my daughter, and the way I interact with others.

So why am I afraid? A lot of it has to do with past betrayals by dear friends, early hardships in my marriage, and just general life change and entering a new season. I want to say that I haven’t harbored resentment, but hey we are BEING REAL here. I have legitimately been wounded by past experiences and relationships, but I cannot allow myself to grow bitter. Where bitterness grows, Grace cannot flow. (Haha!!! I made a rhyme). However, it is hard to forget. Those feelings do like to rear their ugly little head and resentment and bitterness try to set in, but I have to choose to forgive. That in and of it’s self is GOD. WOW GOD…He says that He will never leave us or forsake us, and when God says never He means NEVER. Why am I afraid? Am I afraid of what God might ask of me? Why? He says that He will never give us more than we can bear. Fear has this insane ability to make God small. He says that a mustard seed of faith can move mountains. Can He not handle the problems in my marriage or give me patience to deal with my darling daughter when she is not being so darling, I think not. All we have to do is ask. So why don’t we ask? I have a tendency to put God in a box. I think that God only cares about the BIG things, the fact that the dishwasher is making funny noises or my daughter seems to secretly know every thing to do to frustrate me, doesn’t that matter? The answer is YES, but why do I know that in my head and have such a hard time believing that in my heart. I have such a finite brain and try to wrap that around God, and let me tell you it doesn’t work with an INFINITE GOD. He knows we have fears ,that is why He says “Fear Not” 366 times in the Bible. I mean seriously I think He has a clue. Still, I allow myself to become captive to my fears time and time again. Well, this is going to be a journey of me stepping out and overcoming those fears. I hope you will hop on and take this journey with me as I become intentional in the everyday realizing that I was BORN TO STAND OUT!!! Let’s Get Real Together.

Independence Day

So today is July 4th. I can't think of a more fitting day to launch my new blog. As some may already know this blog has been on my heart for several months now. I have been writing posts since April. I know you might be thinking APRIL...it is JULY what has taken so long. Well, to put it frankly I am a procrastinator at this sort of thing. I wanted to get a few posts written before I launched so I would have a bit of room without going weeks without posting anything.
My original plan was to launch in mid June. I have to say that God had other plans for sure. At the beginning of June my computer was possessed by the DEVIL, AKA a virus. Files were corrupted and my computer was pretty much inoperable. I think I might have lost my Salvation a few times in trying to get it fixed.;)
Anyway, this blog is a sort of release for me in my walk with the Lord. An Independence Day of sorts. I have been captive to so many things and ultimately the devil's lies. I'm breaking free of that, and desperate for change. I would encourage you to read the "about me" section of my blog to get an idea of where I am headed with this, but in addition to just sharing my journey I hope to challenge others to desire more as well. I certainly don't have it together and I certainly don't know much, but what I do know I hope to share. I will warn you though I can be passionate and VERY INTENSE when I write about things that have challenged me and convicted me. I will not apologize for what I write, because I'm just sharing what I am dealing with, but just consider yourself warned.;) God has been tearing me apart and making me deal with some nitty gritty issues and has prompted me to write about it. I hope that you will join my journey as we experience the freedom that God has in store for us.