"Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!"

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters." 1 John 3:16

"I confess that I've been blind. Open up this heart of mine. Show me how to love! Father let this world I know take me where you want me to go. Show me how to love!" This is the calling that I'm answering in my life right now. It's time that we stop denying we are broken. Last week at CCF I made a huge leap of faith and opened up to everyone about my mistakes. It was the single hardest thing I've ever done to stand in front of this group of about 80 people, some people that I knew and some that I had never met, and admit to them that I'm broken and that I messed up. Then I played for them the song that I wrote this summer. I poured my heart into those lyrics about forgetting what we're here to live for. I sang about living for the world and not for Christ which is what I have been doing. I had no idea how hard it was going to be to become so transparent. Even more important that that, however, I had NO IDEA how much support I would receive. As I poured my heart out to them, I saw tears from the eyes of those who love me, even those who hadn't met me yet, but because of my words they already knew me so well. An individual asked if one girl and one guy would come pray for my husband and me as we stood in front of them. Then one of the most touching things I've ever felt happened, HALF OF THE ROOM or more got up and surrounded us. Since then, I've received emails, facebook messages, texts, and visits at work from people telling me how they admired my transparency and some of them stating that we should all be so open to each other.

"Are you not my brother? Are you not my sister?" We have to be there for each other! If we aren't, who will be? Christ is always there to embrace us, but sometimes that embrace needs to come to us through our loved ones. If you're not honest and open about being broken, how is anyone supposed to know how to put you back together? Further than that, when you know someone's broken what do you do to fix it? Sometimes it's complicated. Sometimes we have to take the bull by the horns. Other times, we just need to share our thoughts with another and let them handle it. The latter seems to be the hardest for me, but often-times the most appropriate way to handle a situation. Either way, we're called as Christians to handle it in love! Speaking out angrily seldom does the trick. Yes, sometimes we have to be brutally honest with ourselves and with our friends, but there's a strong line between honesty and hostility. When the brokeness has you angry, frustrated, or just down right mad, the hardest thing to do is show love. I know this. I've been there, but you have to find the strength to push through  the emotions. I have to tell myself that how I FEEL about the situation doesn't matter. What does matter is how God wants me to HANDLE it.

It's time that we get rid of this wall between us. You're my brother and sister in Christ. This war has got to end! We need to become transparent to each other so the brokeness becomes visible and we can begin the long-awaited healing process. "We are one heart beating. We are one body breathing. We are broken and needing."

"I confess that I've been blind. I confess, start with me Lord!"



I give up!

"I can do all things through Him who gives me strength" - Philippeans 4:13

I don't know about you, but I'm a person who tries to be strong for everyone. You know that drawer in your desk or dresser that just holds all of the junk you don't know where else to put? I know you have one. Well, have you ever taken that drawer out and found old mail, maybe a granola bar wrapper, or a picture from high school behind it? Been there. Sometimes things fall behind our dresser drawers and we forget about them. For those of us who attempt to be strong for everyone else, you know where I'm going with this. So we have a problem that we're trying to deal with, or trying not to deal with, but then we get a call from a friend who really needs your friendship. They need you to be there for them like they know you will be. Remember that junk behind your dresser? Yeah, when my friends are in need, that's where my problem ended up too. I understand. We forget about them thinking we'll eventually make it back to that drawer and deal with it and maybe we do get around to cleaning out the drawer, but what about the stuff that fell behind it? So, Spring cleaning comes along, you remove the drawer and... omg look at all that stuff! All of these thoughts come flooding in, reminding you of everything you forgot to deal with! Now what? At this point, you can make two decisions. You can create a new drawer to file them in or we can deal with them now. In the past, I would have said, "Well, I've gone this long without dealing with this problem, it's not really relevant to my life anymore so I'll just file it for later." Here's my word of wisdom that I'm learning the hard way. Don't do that! What happens is, over the years that drawer of "irrelevant" material builds up. It becomes 2 drawers, then 3..One of these problems may seem irrelevant, but how irrelevant can 3 drawers of problems be?! At that point, you feel overwhelmed. All you can do is sit on the floor, all of these problems laying out in front of you, and think about how now you have all this junk to deal with. You can't avoid it anymore. It's all there, staring back at you saying, "This is more than you can do. You're not strong enough. Just give up." Here I am. I'm staring at that drawer so-to-speak and you know what? I give up! My demons were right I'm not strong enough to handle everything that I now can't avoid. I've spent my whole life being strong. You know there's going to be a "but" though, right? :) But, here's the thing: I don't have to be strong enough to deal with it. I don't have to keep it together. In fact, I'm not supposed to be strong enough. God will be strong enough for the both of us. Isn't that amazing? I don't know what I'd do right now without that knowledge. Actually, yes I do. I'd be sitting on the floor still, staring at the mess in front of me. Instead, now I'm moving forward. I'm sorting through the mess and creating organized piles. Then, through Him and only through Him, will I be able to begin making the piles smaller and smaller. I pray that you are able to learn this a lot easier than I did!

 "I can do all things who Christ who gives me strength" Philippeans 4:13. :)

"I say It's Love"

I've made a lot of wrong choices in my life... "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins." I Peter 4:8

I'm afraid of losing the ones I love, yet I've pushed them away... "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear." I John 4:18

I've surrounded myself with negativity, and denied that it changed my attitude on life... "Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs." Proverbs 10:12

I've loved things of this world, held steadfast to them... "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them." I John 2:15

I've not been honest.. "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth." I Corinthians 13:6

I've hidden from my gift... "I will sing of your love and justice; to you, Lord, I will sing praise." Psalm 101:1

I've not forgiven those who've hurt me the most... "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself." Leviticus 19:18


     I'm done denying it! I've failed. I've not given love the justice that it deserves. I've not lived it, shown it, or embraced it. I've failed.
     Today I had the chance to sit next to my husband, the man who loves me with all of his heart and then some, the man who accepts me dispite my weaknesses, failures, and imperfections. I sat next to him as we listened to the vows we said "I Do" in response to being read to us once again.
Sugarland expresses it nicely. What is love? "Is it the one you call home? Is it the Holy Land? Is it standing right there holding your hand? Is it just like the movies? Is it the rice and white lace? Is it the feeling I get when I wake to your face?"
     Now, just like many girls, I wish love were more like 80's movies, as stated in Easy A: "I want John Cusack holding a boom box outside my window.  I wanna ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me. Just once I want my life to be like an 80's movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason. But no, no, John Hughes did not direct my life," and, I don't think it's legal to throw rice at weddings anymore due to the digestion processes of birds, but Yes! Love is right there holding my hand. Love is the one I call home! Love is laying on the couch, looking very uncomfortable, waiting on me to finish writing this so we can go to bed together. So I leave you with this: What is love to you?

Goodnight!

I have a question...

I love this video! Right now, however, this song really stretches my faith. From the first verse, my heart is screaming, "That's exactly how I feel!" They wrote these beautiful words that we have all related to at one point in our lives; right now is that point for me:
"Waiting for the Sunrise. 
Waiting for the Day. 
Waiting for a sign that I'm where you want me to be."
There are so many things I want to do with my life! I want to be a Speech Therapist and work with the deaf community.
I want to own a community garden with a cute market (I've already got a name picked out for my farm :) ).
I want to be a chef with my own restaurant.
More recently I've discovered that I want to live my life through music. I love to dance, use sign language to express music, sing (though not well in my eyes, others disagree), play piano, flute, learn guitar, and I want to learn to play the violin someday.
Which one of these things is where He wants me to be? I'm not too concerned about answering that question right now. I believe that time will answer it for me and I'll end up right where I'm meant to be. My real question revolves around the music part of my life. It's all very new to me to have people tell me that I have a talent in playing music. Ok, maybe that's not true, but it is very new for me to believe them. Music is my passion and it wasn't until I wrote a song, played it in front of friends and family in my home and at my church, and had so many people tell me that God gave me a gift, did I start to believe that maybe I do have some talent. I don't like admitting it though. In fact, I try not to believe it because I'm so afraid that I will come off as conceited. I'm far from it, but I'm terrified that someone will think that I am if I say that I can sing(not that I can). Even more than that, I'm afraid that I will share my music with someone who won't like it. People can be cruel. I'll admit that I struggle with worrying that others don't like me. Confidence is something I definitely lack. However, I think that we all need to embrace the gifts that God has given us with humility, but also with confidence. We were meant to share our gifts in order to reach the hearts of humanity.
My question is: How do we share our gifts, making ourselves vulnerable to the criticism of others, but remain confident?