Drowning

Right now I feel as though I'm swimming in the middle of the ocean, slowly losing the energy to keep going.  Each day I feel a little more pull, and pretty soon I'm going to be completely submerged in the water.  The good news is, I am reminded of the story where Jesus called the man to walk on water, and he did.. but when he lost faith he began to sink.  Even after he had lost that faith, Jesus pulled him up before he could drown.  That story gives me hope, because that's like my life.  I have trusted God in the past, and with that faith I've been able to do great things.  And yet here I am today with no faith; drowning.  Therefore I know what I need to do.  I need to call on God to save me from myself and help me to walk on water again.  So many times I have pleaded with God to save me, but I put little effort into it myself.  Sure, I tell myself I'll change tomorrow.  But what about today?  Isn't the best time to change the here and now?  If I really want to be forgiven, if I'm really sorry, why wait until tomorrow?  So right here, right now, I am asking You to save me once again.  But this time I'm going to do my part as well.  I am going to work at this as though my life depends on it, because it does.

A Change of Heart

There are so many things I need to learn about who Christ is, but my goal for this next week is going to be to learn about his love. Both His love for me as His child, but also the way that He loves all people. I seem to really struggle with judging other people, but that also is stemming from me judging myself. I base how good of a person I am based on what I look like, and I support this by looking at what others look like and comparing. I want to begin to learn that who we are has nothing to do with what we look like, but more to do with who we really are as a person. Right now, I don't like the person that I am. But God put me on this earth for a reason, and I want to find what that is. I want to begin to see myself the way that He sees me, not only so I can love myself, but so that I can love others.

Today I learned a valuable bible verse:

Mark 11:24 "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

This is something I struggle with in many ways. But today, this applies to believing that I have been given God's forgiveness, and that he loves me no matter what I've done.

A New Life

Until now I’ve never really understood why some people have such a hard time coming to Christ, but I’m beginning to realize that a lot of the struggle is surrendering your life to Christ. It’s the pride that holds us back. We think we can run our lives better than God can. That has been me for the past few years. Even though it was small steps in the wrong direction at first, in the end I was running from God. So now, sitting here today, broken and scarred, feeling miles away from Him, how do I begin to bridge the gap that I’ve put between us?

Here’s my first step; admitting that I’ve been ignoring God and His plan for my life. It’s amazing to see what a mess I’ve made of my life because I haven’t been relying on Him. This step is also difficult for me, because in realizing all the mistakes I’ve made, it makes me feel as though I’ve been broken so many pieces that I can’t be put back together. I’m ashamed of the things I’ve done. Yet I am forgiven. 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 says “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”

The gift of redemption

Today is a beautiful day, because just as the Bible says, God shows up when we least expect it. I woke up this morning being a little reluctant to go to chapel because honestly... some days I don't feel much like praising God when I'm angry with Him. Yet while singing the songs today, the Holy Spirit washed over me and brought out emotions I didn't know where inside of me, eating away at what I thought was my faith. He showed me that no matter what I do, I can never get away from God's love because each day I am given the amazing gift of being made new.

I was made new today. I can't say that I'm going to suddenly have all the answers or be perfect, but I'm not going to take the gift of the cross for granted anymore. In the past I've seen it as an excuse to sin because I know all I have to do to be forgiven is ask. But not anymore. Today God showed me that I can overcome my sin, but only through His saving grace. Even though I will continue to struggle with the burden of physical pain, I know that God will be my strength, He will walk with me and guide me and when I think I have no more left to give, He will show me that with Him, everything is possible.

You know me through and through

Why is it so easy to pretend that God doesn't know our every move, that he doesn't see our actions, or hear our thoughts? I seem to so easily forget that He is the one who made me exactly as I am, and that He knows me better than I know myself. There are so many days where I think about other things much more often than God, and then I look back on my day and realize that those things are what's ruling my life. I know that it's the devil causing me to be blinded by those things, and each and every time I allow that to happen I'm allowing him to keep me from God.
Yesterday was one of those days. My thoughts were driven by thoughts of food, such as what my next meal would be, how many calories I had consumed so far and how many I was still allowed. When these thoughts come into my head I have such a hard time getting them out. Today and until I have learned how, I pray that God would be the center of my thoughts and that when I struggle to get the thoughts of food out of my head that He would take those thoughts away. I truly believe that over time He can heal me of this ugliness that I've felt for so long. He defeated death, and He can defeat the lies that satan is feeding me.

The power of trust

Even though I've been fighting this battle for so long, sometimes I still struggle to accept that this is my life. I struggle to wake up in the morning knowing the day won't be easy, I struggle going through daily tasks as others do because they take so much energy, I struggle with going to sleep at night knowing tomorrow will be another tough day, but most of all I struggle with trusting that this is part of God's plan for my life. I continually have to place myself at the foot of the cross knowing that whatever the reason for this pain is, God has not chosen to reveal it to me yet. It's like the story told in Job, where it is explained that God is sovereign and we are not and therefore there are going to be things in this life that we do not understand simply because He is God and we are not.

Today I am most struggling most with trusting God with my future. In about six weeks I will have made it through my first semester of college being four hours away from my parents, and it has been some of the toughest times I've had to face so far in my life. Being so far away doesn't allow for the same kind of support I had while living at home and there have been and continue to be days where I long for the wonderful support my parents provide. Even though I will have made it through this first semester, it wasn't an easy road, and it scares me to think about what the future will be like. I want to continue my schooling and have a job as a nurse, helping people heal in potentially both physical and emotional ways, and yet I don't know how this could fit into my life with the pain I feel every day. I hope to some day meet a man that will provide for our family so that I can stay home with our children, but what if his job does not bring in enough so that I have to continue to work? Am I going to be able to handle the stress of a job and kids? I have to trust God that no matter what my future brings, He will give me the strength.

Today that is my prayer. That I would have childlike faith, trusting God in everything.

The beginning

I seem to struggle with staying connected with God when I don't write my thoughts to Him, so here it goes. I recently read the book Choosing to SEE by Mary Beth Chapman and in her book she shares some of her blogs. This gave me the idea to begin a blog, and though no one may read it, I know that God is listening.

I don't really know where to begin, as I have so many feelings inside of me that I feel are blocking my view of what God wants to show me. Therefore I am beginning to unfold these emotions one by one, slowly surrendering to what God wants to do in my life. The emotion I struggle with the most would be frustration. For so many years now I've battled these stomachaches and no matter what I do, nothing makes any bit of a difference. The doctors have no idea what is wrong with me and probably think it's all in my head. So both my mom and I began researching and continue to research what could possibly be causing all of this pain, and though we have continued to try new things we still have no answers. Each day I pray that God would take this pain away, and though He still hasn't, I have to trust in the fact that He has a better plan.

I sometimes think of myself like Paul when he asks God to take the thorn from his flesh and God answers in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

That passage just amazes me! Rather than becoming upset that God would not take the thorn from his flesh, he praised God for his pain because in his weakness he was made strong through Christ. My prayer today is that I would remember that in my weakness and pain, I may too be made strong.