Glad to be Home!!

Wow! We have been on the go for awhile now and it feels good to be sitting at home today! Just to be at our house and not traveling! I am in a place right now where I just need some emotional rest! I think being on the go for weeks has made me tired emotionally! I am soaking up this weekend as a time to refresh my soul! We are going to go to church tomorrow, so I will update how that goes for our family. I feel like even though the church herself has lots of imperfections, (because we are humans and we take a God thing and try to do it our way) I still need community! So, I pray God will open my heart and allow me to worship Him and be used by Him at the church for whatever He has in store for me!

THE SHACK

First of all, this is one of the best books I have read!!! It covers all emotions. There are parts that are sad, parts that are funny, and parts that serious. I really enjoyed the read and it was fast. I couldn't put the book down! It is a work of fiction but you feel like you are reading a true story the way it is written! I very much recomment reading this book! On another note, it provoked some thinking on my part about God. Some of the thoughts I have had about Him or how I pictured Him in my mind....it just makes me wonder and think!! Some things about God we are never meant to understand but it remains a mystery until we see Him face to face!! I don't want to give the plot away but I do suggest reading it and maybe it will provoked some thoughts in your life!!! GREAT BOOK!!

Great Monday!

So...I got up early this morning and went and spent some time with God outside in the beautiful cool air. It felt really good before the day gets started and the girls get up and going! I feel very joyful this morning and I feel like a new season is beginning for me. I read Song of Solomon this morning because I was drawn to it I feel by the Spirit. A particular verse really stuck out to me today! It said something like come with me beautiful one, the winter is over, the rain has stopped! It is a time for singing. That is awesome to me!! I just felt God saying the time is changing, keep following me and I will never leave you and I will provide the singing! God has been so gracious to me over the last year and a half. He has taught me so much and has allowed me to learn so much. I am so thankful for Him never giving up on me! I don't know His final plan for my life but I feel like he is beginning to show me a clearer path and I know that He is equipping me for my purpose every day !!

The Waiting

So,my Bible study I am doing right now is on "Discerning the Voice of God" by Priscilla Shire. She is amazing and so easy to listen to and understand. I feel like a lot of the things she is talking about I have heard for so many years but they are sticking finally this time!! That is a good thing! She suggested a practice to help with saturating yourself in Scripture so that when you are walking through things in life, the Scriptures you have come to learn will be on your mind. She also shares about how to take a couple of Scriptures a week and apply them to your current situation in life and see how the Holy Spirit uses them. So, in an earlier post I discussed my struggle with church as we do it today and this week the Scripture I am meditating on is Psalms 27:13-14. It says," I am certain that I will see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be courageous and let your heart be strong. Wait for the Lord." How appropriate when I apply it to my current journey. I am not going to look at this practice as a legalistic thing that I have to do every day or week or else I am a failure (that is how I have done things in the past) but I am looking at this practice as a time to hear from God and how He wants to speak in my life and I have to make the time to listen!

Growth From Insecurity

So...my biggest struggle in life is insecurity! There, I put that out there. I don't always seem like that kind of person. I at times appear very confident, loud, funny, and that I have it all together! But...deep inside somewhere has always been the struggle of insecurity. I know that God did not create me this way and He longs for me to really live in the strength and security he created for me to live out. I did some really good work on this on Tuesday night with some Wise Women and it was very freeing. I am so glad I did it. I do know in my head that God loves me and he "fearfully and wonderfully made me" but it is living that out that is the difficult part. I have made some big strides this week and I do feel stronger and I feel that insecurity slipping away. I know this is a journey and I may relapse at times but I want to get stronger, I want to have more good days than bad days and more than anything, I want my daughters to see before them a woman who lives out of a secure and loved place!

The Sabbath

Well, today is Sunday...In our culture the day we are suppose to go to church. I have been struggling with this tradition for a while but I am seeking God's guidance as to what I am to do with it! I started reading a book, "The Early Church" by Henry Chadwick, in my search to discover how the church started and how we ended up where we are today. It is a great book with a lot of information. I consider myself a fast reader but this is a book that takes some time to comprehend! It is not that I do not ever want to attend church, it is that I want to know why I am there and if I am in the place God has called me to be. I have never in my Christian walk asked God where I should go to church. I have always attended a particular denomination because that is how I was raised. I was told that was the "right way." Now, as I have matured in my spiritual walk, I am beginning to see that one denomination is not better than another. It doesn't get you to Heaven faster or closer to Christ quicker. Denominations are simply preferences to how you worship Christ. The only way to Heaven is belief in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. Throughout the gospels, Jesus repeatedly says He is the Son of God and belief in Him is the only way to God. He mentions nothing about dividing the church into denominations. I am all for finding a place I feel that I can worship Christ and it is a fit for me, but when I find myself judging other believers for their style of worshiping the same Christ then I need to check my own heart. We will all worship together one day in Heaven and who knows what that will look like!! So maybe we need to be more open minded to others styles of worship! Now, my struggle is this... I have tasted the depth of relationships and it is becoming very hard for me to be surface with people so I don't want to waste my time doing activities that are surface, including church! I want to go to church for the sole reason to worship my God and Jesus His Son. I don't want to be the church lady- involved in activities up to my head but none of them for the right reasons. Believe me, I have been there and it is not fulfilling. When I do stuff for myself and none of it is for my relationship with Christ. I want to serve everyone God puts in my path. People in the world are hurting and have needs and they have been so turned off by church you will not find them there, so I need to pay attention to who God is putting in my path and reach out when The Spirit is telling me too. I have a strong belief that we would not find Jesus in church on Sunday! I think He would be out healing, ministering, loving the broken, hurt, sick people in the world!! Now...what do I do with my struggle...I am seeking God and I don't have an answer right now, so I am waiting......

Quote for Today

"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself" - Jim Rohn

How appropiate for me today!

Pain in the Journey

Pain is inevitable in a journey that changes you is what I have come to understand. It seems since this journey began in my life in May 2007 almost every aspect of my life has been affected and is changing. Relationships are in particular the hardest part to accept. It is not easy to change and it definitely not easy to let go of things. A wise person told me in the beginning of all of this that you can not force people to go on a journey with you. You can offer yourself and your heart but you can not force people to go along. I understand that in my head but it has been very difficult to live it out! I guess I really thought that not this much would change and that it would not be as hard on my friendships and my family. Things are changing and I am changing. I feel like I am being led more than ever by the Holy Spirit in my life. I have lived as a Christian a long time but I have not been this close to God in a long time, much too long! I have played a good church game and kept a good church face for most of my life but now...it is Real for me! I am actually hearing the Spirit lead me. Pain does not feel good, it hurts deeply for people to turn away from you, but I do trust my God that he has a plan. I read in James 1 :3 today about trials. I have read this verse so many times but today it STUCK..."trials (testing of your faith) produces endurance but endurance must do its complete work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. " This spoke to me today because I see May 2007 as the testing of my faith and that produces endurance...this phase I am in now is endurance (the long road)! I know by enduring, God is maturing me and completing me and I will lack nothing!

Just my thoughts today!

My First Day

Today is the first day I will begin to blog about my journey. My journey to discover ME. For most of my life I have just gone along with the flow of things and not really known if I like or dislike something. I had a chance to spend a weekend with some amazing Wise Women and was encouraged to discover my likes and dislikes. So, this is the beginning of discovering myself. What drives me, what do I Really like to do or not do, my passions, my discovery of new things, and how this journey has changed me into the woman I am today and the woman I am becoming!