The Married Life!

Golly!! It's been quite the last 7 weeks!! 

The Married life! 

What a GREAT life! 

Today, Cody left me this card 

And I love what it says: "Hearts and flowers are beautiful, but what we have day in and day out while we're sharing life together is more beautiful still. I love our life together.. and I love you." 

That's got to be one of the best descriptions of hour our first two months of marriage have been. 

It's been fun, it's been an adventure, and we've fallen so deeply in love with each other since the day we said "I promise."
He reminds me, often, of the vows that he made to me.

Like the vow to always kiss me goodnight. 

or the vow to SHOW me that he loves me before he tells me. 

I have LOVED making a home with him. 

I have loved LIVING in that home with him. 

I've loved the routine, yet I've loved the spontaneity of the little surprises.

I've loved getting to know him. 

I've loved getting to spend time just BEING with him. 

I've loved getting to do married things like baking, and cleaning and watching TV with him. 

I've loved seeing the way he leads me.
The way he hangs curtains and pictures and puts things away and does the laundry and cooks...
It's just awesome.

I heard everyone tell me before we got married, that the first year would be the toughest.
Mind you, we still have 10 months left of that supposed, "toughest" year, but so far, it's been quite the opposite. We aren't, by any means, perfect, but I think what we've discovered has been there all along, and I think people just forget about it sometimes. 

Forgive. 

Talk. 

Have inside jokes.

PRAY.

There's so many little thing's I've learned just in the past two months, it's incredible.
I will say that I LOVE being married SO much more than dating, being BF/GF/ or even fiances. 

There's so much more freedom, and I also just love being with him!
I hate that I have to leave him every morning, but it makes weekends that much more exciting!

I love doing ministry with him. I love knowing that he is praying protection over me, us, our family, our future children, our home. I love that he prays, period! I love that he loves scripture. I love that he is so positive. I love that he is a natural teacher at heart. And father. He's going to make the best Daddy ever!

I just really enjoy him as a person. And i love being able to experience the intimacy in every aspect as husband and wife, best friends, lovers, help meets, prayer partners, accountability partners, everything.

I cannot wait to see where we will be next year this time, or 5 years this time, or 50 years this time. 

:) It's so exciting. 

Love love love hard

And now....

So, a month and 2 days after the big day...
A week after an incredible youth retreat where I was wrecked...
Ending a 21 day juice fast....

its so strange... I feel... Something I can't quite describe.
I'm not sad...
I'm not lonely...
I'm not unhappy...
I'm not upset...

Im in the wake of a years worth of planning for one huge perfect day.. And now its over. I think about our wedding day every day... Thats not an exaggeration either. I think about our incredible honey moon every day. I think about mission trips I've been on, every day. I think about leading people to Christ every day. I think about what my purpose is every day.
I think I have a holy discontent. I think that would be an appropriate description.
I feel like Theres such an urgency in my Spirit to be doing what I was specifically made for, and I'm not doing that. I mean I am loving people and myself, I am being obedient to God, I am serving, I am doing my due diligence.... But I feel like thats not quite it.
I feel like I'm sitting on talents and gifts that God has given me.
I feel like people are dying and I could be helping bring them back to life. I don't  want to be mistaken- I am So SO grateful for what I have and where God has me, but I almost feel guilty because I'm not making any forward progress to what I was created for.

I was created to create.
I was created to worship.
I was created for relationship.
I was created to see transformation.
I was created to build up.
I was created to go.
I was created to share.
I was created to love deeply.

Im sure I feel the same as millions of other people in corporate America... And christians in corporate America at that... Trapped by there curse of toiling and laboring for my food. Trapped by needing food to live. But I'm not really living when I'm toiling just to survive...

To be honest I feel like I'm not making a difference. Everyone wants to make a difference somehow. And I don't feel like I'm in a place where I'm doing that.. 

.......

The Beauty Of Surrender; What Faith Can Do

That is just a little idea of the amazing things that have been happening in my life.

If anyone remembers my last blog... it was about the debt i was in and couldnt get into school because my transcripts were being held, but also the way i wasnt worried because i knew God would take care of all of my needs according to His riches in Christ... thats what scripture says.. and i say I believe, dont I? Then I should live like it.

Well since that last blog..... my world has been stirred, shaken, rocked and rolled. All, of course, to reveal a better me and a closer relationship with Abba.
It would take me a day to write everything thats been going on, and what Ive learned, but I will mention a few.

I wrote last time that I knew the debt was a consequence for doing something I thought I wanted to do, and taking precious time away from what God wanted from my life to pursue another career. (I still love photography and I dont think ill ever stop) but that wasnt what God had specifically designed for this little life. There is always forgiveness, but that doesnt erase consequence. I still had to go through all that debt and all that turmoil and time I wish I would have been in school..

For the past several months, miraculous things have happened... in terms of pretty much every area of my life, from parts of my family- my mother completeing a TRI-ATHALON, to my personal finance -getting a new job and doubling my income,getting on good debt consolidation and repayment plans, and my debt at the Art Insitute being forgiven, to being abundantly blessed in terms of the wedding of my dreams, and so much more- to Codys and my relationship - to friendships that have grown and been revealed.... i mean really there is so much that I truly believe God has done because of the faith that I kept, the faithfulness I had in surrendering and throwing my hands up and saying "alright, Youve got this... I cant do it any more" and in leaving it there..

God has really been showing me what its like to be a Daddy's girl... a blessed-beyond-measure (instead of spoiled rotten) little baby girl. Ive never known what it was like to run up to a man and say "Daddy look what I did!" or "Daddy I need your help" or "Daddy I love you."

Until now.

Its such a beautiful thing. I look at Cody when he is with Children, and how he was born to be a Father, but more than that, he was born to be a Daddy. He was born to love like a Daddy loves, care and nurture and protect and provide and teach like a Daddy teaches: Gently, humbly, willingly, passionately, lovingly.
And the coolest thing is that the closer Cody gets to his Daddy, the more that all is revealed in him, because we all become like those we are closest to and spend the most time with, and we all have our parents blood pumping through our veins. When Cody made a decision yo take on the cross of Christ and walk beside Him and follow and believe, that was the day he was grafted in, adopted into the Family, became an heir to the Throne, and Christs blood began pumping through his veins, beating in and out of his heart, and he started becoming like his Daddy.

The closer Ive gotten to God, the more I have been learning to be LOVED by a Daddy.


And let me just tell you....Its the most exhilerating and incredible feeling to know and be sure of the fact that I am LOVED I am CHERISHED.. I am WANTED.... I am ADORED... I am PRECIOUS... I am SPECIAL... all because I was fearfully and wonderfully crafted... God the Artist took His time and put every piece of me together and didnt finish until He made a masterpiece, and for the first time, I looked in the mirror, and said "I love myself."


What a revelation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No matter the weight, no matter the flaws, no matter the mistakes, no matter the imperfections and the quirks...
I know there is someone so much bigger than me who loves me, and I am free in that. And it all happened when I gave up trying to be the god of my own life - making decisions, judging, condemning, trying to provide and deal with things..
When i stopped all that craziness and finally let God be God.... thats when It came.


Surrender is so beautiful. But we make it out to look "weak."
Faith is so simple,but we make it seem so hard.



Its loosening your grasp.

Trust.

Relax.

Breathe.

Liberate.

Live.

Let God be God.

Seriously Mysterious

nothing ever happens by accident. nothing. and when you realize that, its when you can (sortof) relax and let everything kind of just.... happen.. Now, we do have to make effort and do our part, and God will bless our efforts, but in reality... Everything we do, every word we say, every place we go, every mistake that's made... it's not an accident. Something is meant to happen because of that something that just happened...

Now, my wonderful fiance has recently learned about the difference of God's sovereign will and God's perfect will, and what he's discovered is that everything is under God's control, under God's umbrella... nothing is actually out of the will of God, just in one or the other.

Obedience... Radical obedience is what will lead us to being consumed by God's awesome, perfect will, which we all know (just sometimes don't obey) is the better..no, BEST thing for everyone. It's a complete win-win!!

Now.... selfishness... our humanity... our desire for what 'feels' good or what 'looks' good... that is how we fall into the abyss of God's sovereign will.
We are faced with little, mini "forks in the road" consistently, at almost every moment. Some are more serious than others, but we are always faced with them. And what we don't realize, is that at any given moment when we make the smallest, (selfish) choice, it could relate in something we see as awful.

For instance....(story time)


I came home from spending time in Northern Virginia studying theology, doing things I had a passion for - music, ministry, learning about God...
I came back from that period in my life, and decided that I didn't want to study theology any more, but I wanted to study art.. specifically, Photography, because it's something I liked doing, and I was good at it, and figured I may as well study it in school and eventually make a living out of it...

I got into the school, and ended up going to a school for all of.. ohhhh 3 months, and ended up not being able to go back the next quarter because all of my student loans, all of my grants and scholarships didn't equal the amount of money it cost for me to attend even the first quarter!! Therefore, I wasn't able to return until I was able to pay the 3-something thousand dollars to the school. I tried to get into two other schools, who needed all transcripts from all schools I went to, and the former school wouldn't release transcripts until the full amount of $ was payed. Needless to say, I took a break from school for a while until I could pay off that money... and what accrued over the next two years of time? You guessed it, student loans.

Now, I'm almost three months engaged, planning a wedding in 9 months that I'm paying for primarily by myself, getting back into school, and hopefully starting my career in ministry....and I found out I'm over $8,000.00 in the whole from defaulted student loans.



Sounds a bit overwhelming? Well it was for the first 24 hours....
then it started to sink in that maybe... just maybe.. possibly.... a small, selfish, prayerless decision under the umbrella of God's sovereign will, could have lead to that little bit of stress, that would launch me into my destiny, which finally falls under the umbrella of God's perfect will.

Who knows... this could be what needed to happen to push me into making albums and spreading God's love and praises through music throughout the state, country, world..
That could bring in some money to help me pay off loans and enter into this marriage debt free, and even put money into savings for other things God has for us.

Who knows.... This could be a means for me to rely COMPLETELY on the mercy of God to once again get me out of a mess so deep that if it weren't for HIS grace and HIS hand pulling me up, I'd be absolutely and inconceivably hopeless and helpless.


All I know is that I know that because of the little and seemingly insignificant decisions of deliberate disobedience I made a few years ago, I have been through what can be described as hell (circumstantially). Not necessarily as punishment, but because of cause and effect, I think. Because I did something dumb then, I reap the repercussions of it now. Like if a teenager knows she shouldn't have sex, but she does, and ends up with an STD or pregnant, an STD isn't punishment, and God knows a child isn't punishment.. it's just what happens.
Anyways, but I said all that to say this: All of the awful "effect" things that I've gone through in the past few years have led to so many greater things than I thought could have ever happened... Things that God has orchestrated the whole time.

Now, I'm not saying that it's "okay" for anyone (including myself) to go out and do whatever the heck I want to do at any given point, just because God's grace is so abundant and so... perfect....
But what I am saying, is to be deliberate about your decisions, words, actions.. Be prayerful. Don't be RELIGIOUS, but be in conversation with the one who already knows what's gonna happen. It's simple, really. All He wants is to hear your voice call His name. All you want is to have a good life, right?

Well once you realize that God's grace - His PERFECT will - is so amazing, so sweet, so loving... You can't help but to fall in love - not with the grace, but with the giver of the grace,and then you can't help but to converse with Him, and then you hear what He actually wants you to do in every situation, and you make the obedient decisions, thus effecting not only your life (making it a good one) but also effecting everyone's lives around you, which is the ACTUAL definition of all life: To know God and make Him known.

Hmm.. I think I just gave myself a revelation. Hah. Funny how just talking things out works out great sometimes.



What can I say... I've learned alot lately. Been through alot lately. Oh, and gained so much alot lately. (in terms of fulfillment and love in alot of aspects of my life.)


This is something that I know I need to remind myself of repeatedly, but its something that you may have never heard, or actually realized.


I hope God showed something to you through my blabbering... If not, I hope He will through something else, someone else, or Himself.


The way things work out... the way God's already worked everything out...

Seriously... it's mysterious. And wonderful.




Go make a difference.

Love someone. Love yourself.

:) <3

"It doesn't have to be perfect"

Last night, after I got off work, I came home, then changed and rushed out the door to head to a birthday gathering at a place called Sips 'n' Strokes in Marietta.

I really didn't know what to expect except for painting and wine, which was good enough for me.

When I got there, I thought I was going to be late, so i was already nervous, and I hadn't pre-registered for the class, so I was nervous that it was full, not to mention there were probably 50+ people in the building, all dressed down and casual, and I'm dressed up and in knee-high high-heeled boots. lol. great. But I decided that it was going to be good and not to worry. Everything ended up working out, and one of the girls ended up bringing Chocolate wine. :)


As we started to get ready to paint, the instructor was prepping us, and one of the first things that came out of her mouth was "it doesnt have to be perfect.. this is very loose, very whimsical." That went in one ear and right out the other, as it usually always does. I can never seem to take that saying to heart, "it doesnt have to be perfect."

After the fourth or fifth time she said it to us, while we were painting, I said "that's good to know for all the perfectionists in here." and the girl next to me asked if i was a perfectionist. I said yes, then added that I was very artsy... then it kinda hit me that artsy fartsy and perfectionism do NOT go hand in hand, and that eventually, my true artsy self will have to accept that, so she can be free, and the perfectionist has to stop being the controlling pessimist that she is.


Anyways... I decided then and there that this would be very therapeutic for me, and that.....It really DIDNT have to be perfect. Once I decided that, it was actually very freeing...

As my freehand painting started coming together, it was quite relaxing, and I let go of my mentality that painting had to look like an exact replica of an Ansel Adams photograph.. (See how unrealistic my expectations on myself are?)

What's the fun in setting yourself up for failure, and ultimately failing, anyways?
Cody said something pretty profound one time.. he said, you never learn unless you fail... That's one of the hardest things for me to accept.
I love to learn, I love it.... but i HATE failing, almost more than anything. But the two go hand in hand.... it really is a successful love-hate relationship.

How paradoxical -

in this cool real-life application last night, I completely failed at what my expectations were of what I thought I needed to do for this painting---but what did I learn? That in the failing, it was still beautiful, and more unique, more... me.

:)













.....And I was truly happy.

Fearful, Wonderful, -Breathtaking..

A verse came to my mind a few moments ago, and unfortunately I didn't know the reference, so what did i do? What we all do when we don't know something that we want to know - GOOGLE IT.(i hope you donate to charities, Google Man)

(Biblegateway is a marvelous site, btw.)

Anywho, I typed in the words "fearfully and wonderfully" and this is what came up, that stopped me in my tracks, and literally drove me to tears..


13-16 "Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God—You're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I'd even lived one day."






....Wow... I just read it again and started crying. Yes... I'm a cryer..


Have you ever had one of those days when you just mess up? Or one of those days when you continually mess up? Or one of those days when you just ARE a mess up?
Well, I've had probably the world's share of those days, and I hate to say I have a terribly inkling that they won't stop here.

This is about to get very personal.



Over the past few years, I've realized so much about myself... things I wanted to know, and many...MANY things I did NOT.

One thing that has been a major, MAJOR issue in my life since...i dunno - about a year and a half old - has been acceptance, and abandonment.

That's right.... i have never felt good enough. But seriously - there's not a whole lot of people who do. and the one's that do feel good enough, usually aren't and will come off their high horse soon enough.

But the things that I've struggled with for so long are so unreasonable, very illogical, and just.... wrong. But inside my brain, and inside my heart.... they're so real, and so right... which is wrong.. (sry if that's confusing)

I was born an extremely, painfully introverted person. God made me introverted. (My own boyfriend doesn't even believe me, cause I've had 21 years of practice to trick the world into thinking I'm not) According to my mother, for the first few years of my life, I never cried, I never laughed, I never did anything more than grunt or gurgle a little, maybe a little whimper here and there. I was extremely observant, and not very responsive.. She actually took me to a doc to see if I was mentally retarted.... that's how introverted I am, naturally.

As I got older, I stayed pretty much the same, only talking and interacting with anyone who was very VERY close to me, even crying if I had to ask for a straw at a restaurant.

All of the observing of my older brother saved my hind quarters from alot of spankings, because he got 99% of them. He was the loud-mouthed, hyper-active, trouble-maker, and I saw this did NOT please mom, so of course, I chose to avoid those things.

In school, I imitated just the same as with my brother - watching the kids around me to see what teachers responded positively too, and avoiding the negative responses at ALL costs. I learned quickly, and excelled quickly, too. I stayed quiet, and never initiated friendships, but a very few amount of them from the ones who did.

It wasn't until middle school that I felt that I could actually start to try and imitate what I thought got the positive responses out of people. I started liking boys, so I tried to copy the girls that the boys liked. I started seeing who was "popular" so I was nice to them, to be in the "in crowd." I did all my work and only visited the principals office when I was called to go home early for some reason or another..

I started pursuing music at about that age too....
I was drawn to a pentecostal church that one of my best friends went too, and somehow, they found out i could sing....
(I actually remember being in the back seat of a sweet lady's car that was giving me rides to church, and a song came on the radio. i started singing softly, and she turned around in shock saying that I sounded JUST like the radio and that I needed to sing at their church.)
Of course, I liked the positive response from her, but had NO idea what would come of that. I obliged to singing at the church, and sang very softly, resentfully, bashfully, almost ashamedly infront of the youth group, and everyone went bonkers.

My mom started asking me if I wanted to pursue music, and I guess I shrugged and agreed, hesitantly. So my mom, being the 'doer' that she is, set up a trip to my aunt and uncle's music studio down in florida, and i recorded a 5 song demo of popular early 2000's contemporary Christian music.. We did a photo shoot for pictures, and mass produced cd's that she started giving to everyone she knew, from friends and family to radio stations and record labels.. got me into voice lessons which i was only in for about 2 sessons (hated music theory) and started booking me to sing at churches/events.
I liked the fact that people liked SOMETHING about me. I almost thrived off of it, because it meant that they were accepting me...

Deep down, I hated it and resented singing all the time infront of people, because I felt like that was the ONLY way that they would like me, if I did something that I really really DIDNT want to do ------ be EXTROVERTED and make myself vulnerable infront of groups of people to either be pleased or disappointed.

I became my own worst critic.... I learned QUICKLY what flat and sharp notes were and that they weren't good at ALL, and got REALLY bad reactions out of people, and would beat myself up terribly if i hit even a hair of a flat or sharp note during ANY performance.

My mom kept asking me if this was what I wanted to do, and if I was sure that I wanted this, and I kept saying yes, because I liked that people liked something that I was doing..... But every single time I would get ready to get up somewhere and sing, I would be in TEARS and practically vomitting from stage fright, shaking, nervous, angry, irritated that I had to do it, but still doing it... Then afterwards, people would tell me "great job" and I would NOT believe them..
All that went through my head was how stupid i looked up there and how much i messed up and everything else.

Recording was no different. I had SOOOOOO many opportunities to record with SO many wonderful producers and studios and musicians and artists, but when writing or recording a song, I never ever ever was pleased and would be in the studio for HOURS upon HOURS upon HOURS just because it was never good enough. (I know there's a thing called "auto-tune" and what not to make people that DONT sound good, TRY to sound good, but it wasn't enough... i had to be perfect.)

Until I was about 16, this went on and on and on... all the same...
I wanted to sing, I wanted to be a singer - yadda yadda - but I was either too young, or I put myself under too much pressure or whatever the case may be..

When I was 15 or 16, I was under a management contract that was definitely NOT contemporary Christian by any stretch of the imagination, and the songs/dances/clothes/places they were wanting me to sing/dance/wear/go were extremely uncomfortable for me. And of course, for me to say ANYTHING that displeased ANYONE was out of the question for me, but my mom started sensing that I was uncomfortable, and it even got to the point where I broke down and cried in the studio (told you i was a cryer) during the middle of recording a song, and my manager said I was a waste. A waste of everyone's time and money and they I needed her, she didn't need me, that she could go out and anyone would love to be in my shoes, and I was ungrateful... All those things...

In the back of my mind, I'd always thought those things about myself, but no one had every actually come out and told me, until this point.... and as soon as those words hit my ears.... it stuck. Didn't have to tell me twice.. I was done..

I told my mom no more, no more singing, no more recording, no more. I was done.
And of course, I felt even more like a failure because of all my mom had put into investing into me and my "talent" that it all just went down the drain, and I was afraid God was NEVER going to give me anything again, because I just slammed a door of blessing in his face.... Oh the turmoil my soul was in. It was bad.

It was about that time that alot of drama was happening at my little private christian school, too, that went haywire, and i asked my mom to pull me out of the school so i could finish early and graduate early and be done. I told you... i was DONE. with everything. My relationship with my boyfriend, pretty much all my friends, my music, everything. I had no motivation, I was just... done, because I felt like a failure and a waste of space and breath and time and energy and everything else. I was a waste, and had proved it, time and time and time again.

I feel like I lived two lives as a teenager, because that's only one side of the story.... that's only the music side.... the other side is just about as long, but has alot more to do with the relational side of my life as a teenager - going through trying to find who i was- being good enough - STAYING good enough... eating disorders, obsessiveness, addictions, confusion, experimenting, just a mess... I was a mess up. I tried to go to counseling, I tried talking to friends, who just stabbed me in the back, I tried going to my boyfriend, who ultimately ended up saying he just couldn't handle me and more- thus proving even more that i was a failure at LIFE.


I was so.... so lost.

Anyways--
that's a little bit of my story just to tell you this..



My number one struggle is feeling worthy or deserving of anything good, anything special, anything gentle and loving....
I feel like everyone sees exactly what they want to see in me - because it's what I show... I show everything that anyone wants me to be -
happy ALL the time, giddy, smart, charming, poised, beautiful, graceful, responsible, funny, creative, sexy.... anything that someone would consider just AWESOME qualities in someone else... that's what I have become. Or that's what I show that I have become.Not to say that my character is not some of those things, but I have just learned and adapted so much to what everyone else wants, that I don't know what I want, and i don't know who I am.

there have been a few times when I have shown my true colors to a select few people,
and needless to say - they aren't here.
I feel like I have put such high standards on myself, that when I fall short of even one thing or another, I have failed miserably as a human being, and deserve nothing short of abandonment and rejection.

What a sucky life to live.

But I am learning. Slowly, but surely I am learning..

I am learning that the real me is not always happy all of the time, and that's okay.
I am learning that the real me is not always beautiful, not always so sly and charming, not always sexy or appealing, not always clean and neat and tidy in a stepford-wife kind of way.
I am learning that I forget things.
I am learning that I lose things.
I am learning that I don't think before I do some things.
I am learning that I can get disorganized if I dont stay focused.
I am learning that I dont have to like everything that people think I like.
I am learning that I do have an addictive personality.
I am learning that I can be co-dependent.
I am learning that I love, and I love hard.
I am learning that I am unique.
I am learning that I am beautiful.
I am learning that it's okay to admit things- like my pleasures, and my hurts, my past and my dreams.

I am learning to be loved. I honestly didn't have the slightest clue what that meant before, and still am having a hard time truly understanding it... But I am learning.

I am learning that every child, every infant deserves to be coddled and loved and cherished and taken care of and told sweet, endearing, loving, nurturing things from all around them... even if they don't get those things.

I am learning that I'm now crossing over the line from girl to young lady to woman, and as a woman, I'm learning the things I SHOULD be, and the things I NEED to be, and the things I really am.. and learning to accept those things.

But what I am learning most of all is that deep inside, I'm still that little, precious baby girl, that was fearfully, wonderfully, marveously hand-crafted, inch by inch, piece by piece, carefully and intricately, just the way that I am supposed to be. There were no mess up's when the Creator was sculpting me, there were no mistakes... There were no blemishes, and He spent more time creating the perfection that He calls me than I can ever truly understand.




.... and I cry, yet again..

I've grown up hearing the somewhat cliche of "If you feel like you're being attacked, you probably are, because you're a threat to the enemy."

Basically - In the Christian walk, when you KNOW you're doing the right thing, following the will of God, being Christ-like in obeying, and bearing fruits of the Spirit, then you will probably experience things that feel like "why is this happening to me? i haven't done anything wrong, as a matter of fact, I'M DOING THINGS RIGHT FOR ONCE!" Usually, for me, when this happens, it means that I've become more than a blip on the enemy's radar, and he's taking note of the changes I'm executing in my life. I've become a threat. I'm no longer sitting on my rear, waiting for something to change, but I'm BEING the change, and he doesn't appreciate it, so he feels he has to throw things at me to complicate the situation, and trip me all up. He thinks, "maybe she'll get mad a God and throw the towel in and become complacent again....Maybe she'll turn her back on God because she thinks she's being punished for no reason."

Well, what the enemy should know by now, is that when he does those dumb little games, it always draws me closer to my Defender. Think about this for a second -

When a child is small, and for the first few years of life, has been completely dependent on their parent(s) for everything, and starts venturing out... they find something that scares them a bit, or they fall and scrape a knee, or a playmate steals toys, beats up on them a bit... whatever the case may be... what does the child revert back to? Normally, the child - no matter how independent - will always run back to and search for and cry for and reach for what they know has taken care of them and who they know will protect and defend and care for them....

It's the same instance here --

I'm just a baby, still... learning that since before I was even thought of, that I was protected, nurtured, cared for, fought for, cherished, loved, adored... So, naturally, where all of that stems from - God - would be innate inside of me to revert back to. A great mentor told me recently that humans will resort back to whatever is natural to them.... that can be a bit scary, or a bit of a relief.

So... going back to the attacking thing -
When the big bad bully tries to come and beat up on me a bit, then I know instead of trying to fend for myself, i have a Warrior for my cause! So I run as fast as I can back to Him and tattle on the devil, then let Daddy take care of the rest.

The last blog I posted was about how I felt a change brewing, and things started to roll on those changes...

Now, as things are progressively changing and things are becoming more clear and more evident, I don't think that the devil is too pleased, and has decided to try and throw me off...


The coolest thing that I've noticed, is that I RECOGNIZE these obstacles as attacks from the devil, and not as punishment from a God who is just trying to catch me at something I do wrong. I've been very human over the past few months, and my Father has seriously worked on my heart a lot about those things. He's made all my shortcomings very clear to me, but not in a harsh, abrasive manner, and with all the love in the world has told me how to correct them. Yes, I have faced consequences, but now, since I'm making the changes and cutting that garbage out of my life, I no longer am facing consequences, but I'm facing the pissed off enemy who doesn't like when I obey the King...

[wait... whoops... can i say pissed off? well... i just did. :)]

It's a very, very interesting time for me, because I am learning that each circumstance I go through has shown me more and more that it DOES NOT DEFINE ME.
Each circumstance may test me - my character - but scripture tells me that through trials come perseverance, and through perseverance comes strength and through strength, character is molded and birthed into something beautiful...

hmm... now that i think about it... a while back, i was praying that my true character would come to fruition..... Guess i know now better than to pray for that or patience. HA!


Anyways - it just goes to show that change happens, change brings A LOT of traveling companions, and does NOT pack lightly..... But what have I been saying for the past year??

MAKE.A.DIFFERENCE.

Difference is change.

Change is good.

Good is God.

God is Love.

:)

I guess that's really all there is to it.