Surrender

Life is full of ups and downs. Even a single day or hour, can have wonderful moments and heart-crushing moments right after each other. If you are like me you want life to resemble a fluffy cloud floating on a gentle breeze but let's face it, life can be tumultuous at best. My tendency is to cling to the good and reject changes that issue in the unknown. Yet I keep sensing God asking me to surrender it all, surrender the unknown, surrender the good and bad. God gives and takes away. Even my breath is his to give and take.

 It's hard.... deep down not to desire some level of control over my present and future. Yet surrender means letting God be God. I'm not very good at letting Go but I can choose moment by moment to surrender.

Called To Be

Who are you really called to be? I wrestled with this very question over the past year. I had started to confuse my God-given identity and calling with my worldly identity. I am not the sum of my net worth, or my achievements or my physical attributes, or lack of nice attributes, or the sum of my many flaws for that matter. I am definitely NOT the sum of all my experiences. I am not a victim. Who I am called to be, so much more than all those things.

Yesterday I was reminded to walk in my true identity. God wired me to be a passionate, deep thinking child of his who loves the broken and has a burning desire to see lives restored. I am called to be a voice to those who have been battered and horrifically abused in every way........ to remind them who God really is.

I am called to speak to those who have lost sight of themselves and God as a result of trauma and share with them God's incredible faithfulness.

My life if a living testimony. My story may be filled with years and years of pain at the hands of others, but my story didn't end there. I am an overcomer because of the spirit of the Living and Loving God that fills my heart.

It is by his grace that I have survived and by his grace I will continue on.

The enemy is quick to deceive and he often has tried to convince me to hide behind a mask and pretend that I don't bear the testimony that I do. He lies to me and convinces me to be ashamed of my own story. The truth is, I was called to be a threat to enemy...... to stand up and declare truth and help set that captives free.

Learning to wait on God's timing

A tiny seed is kept in its protective shell until just the right time. Some seeds have to endure darkness and cold before they will grow. They start out weak and delicate but when nourished by the right soil, and provided with fresh water they become so much more than one could ever imagine.

We are just like those tiny seeds. If we trust God he will plant us in the right place at the right time. In my immaturity, I want to know what the plan is, what he has for me and what the future holds but this is our journey of faith.
Our job is to trust God to plant us. He gives us the word to wash us and nourish us.

Then when the winter has passed we will grow where we have been planted. Maybe we will feel out of place and fragile at first but as time passes we will grow into a righteous planting of the Lord. He will prune us and shape us out of love.

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7-8).

So Lord, prepare our hearts to surrender to your plans and your timing. May we trust you fully. Give us a strong desire to always look upwards and seek you first. May we grow strong in you, bearing much fruit in due seas

on.

Fully Known

"We sometimes think we want to disappear when really we want to be found."

Each person's deepest desire is to be fully known and truly understood. Being alone is not the root of loneliness at all. The true root is when you are misunderstood and feel like no one really gets you.

Everyone hears and sees through their own perceptions of themselves and you. When you are not truly known or understood, that is when true loneliness sets in. You can be in a crowded room of people but feel lonely.

There is no point in explaining who you are or what you mean because others will only hear their interpretation of a portion of what you say.
I think one of my biggest life frustrations has been those moments when I felt mischaracterized and misunderstood.
Yet we live in a world where everything you do and say is judged through other's perceptions.

If you express your values you are considered a hater of others. If you give an opinion you are considered a know it all. If you are quiet you are considered closed if you are authentic you are considered to have no boundaries, or too open. If you are shy you are considered to be unfriendly, if you are hurting, you are considered weak. If you speak passionately you are considered condescending or overbearing or too intense. If you stand up against evil you are considered to be unforgiving or judging or stuck in the past. And the list goes on.......

Let's face it, in this world we are damned if we say anything and damned if we stay silent. It doesn't matter who you are, how many friends or family members you have, you are bound to be misunderstood at some point if not regularly.

Ultimately, the only one who knows our hearts and understands our deepest thoughts is God. He gets you, he knows, he sees, he alone understands. Our quest to be fully known and understood will never be quenched by finding a person to fill it. It can only be filled by the one who created your heart in the first place.

Worthy of Love

Is there even such a thing? The phrase worthy of love was a question I began asking as a kid? Am I worthy of love? Even from a very young age, I was keenly aware that love is not given equally to all children or adults. Some are loved from birth while others are rejected from birth. Some are loved by peers, others rejected by peers. So I set out to discover if I was worthy of love at as wee little girl. I decided that that young age that I most certainly was not, but was determined to try to earn love somehow. Well, we all know that love can not be earned.

When a child hasn't experienced the unconditional love of a parent it's really hard for them to fathom God's love. So I believed that's His love was just as unattainable, but still, I foolishly set out to earn it.

As adults it's easy to fall back into the trappings of childlike beliefs, trying to earn God's love and wanting to be worthy of it.

Here is the reality. There is nothing I can do or say to be worthy of anyone's love, least of all God's. What? You argue.. but seriously. IF "LOVE" IS BASED ON WORTH THEN IT IS NOT LOVE!!!

I will never be enough but yet I am fully loved by the God who created love. You see Love surpasses worth and merit.
We treat love like it is money. Money can be earned and traded for many things but when you have none your net worth is considered zero.

Love is the opposite when I am have nothing left but love, I have everything. God's love isn't like the twisted version I constructed as a child. I couldn't earn it by being good, doing chores, or serving. It had to be freely given by choice.

Each person chooses whom to love and whom to reject. I think it's more common to be rejected by others than to be loved.

But God chooses to love despite all the reasons others reject us. We can't earn his love or deserve it but we can choose, will we accept it or reject it. We all fail, we are all imperfect, we are all in the same human condition of being extremely fallible.

Yet, in the midst of it ... True love never holds out a measuring stick instead it embraces, transforms and makes a way.

I was rejected by mankind, even within my mother's womb but God's love whispers " you are mine, come as you are, I have made a way in my great Love for you. It is unchanging, unfathomable and filled with Grace."