So I completely failed at my goal of writing on this every week but I am okay with that. Life and school have been crazy and busy with all my brother's senior stuff and all my homework I really didn't have time to write anything last month. A couple of quarters ago I received a printout entitled "Father's Love Letter" from a member in my Bible study, so I am going to share because it's pretty cool. Hope you enjoy!
My Child...
You may not know me,
but I know everything about you...Psalm139:1
I know when you sit down and when you rise up...Psalm 139:2
I am familiar with all your ways...Psalm 139:3 Even the very hairs on your head are numbered...Matt. 10:29-31 For you were made in my image...Genesis 1:27 In me you live and move and have your being...Acts 17:28 For you are my offspring...Acts 17:28 I knew you even before you were conceived... Jeremiah 4`:4-5 I chose you when I planned creation...Ephesians 1:11-12 You were not a mistake...Psalm 139:15-16 For all your days are written in my book...Psalm 139:15-16 I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live...Acts 17:26 You are fearfully and wonderfully made...Psalm 139:14 I knit you together in your mother's womb...Psalm 139:13 And brought you forth on the day you were born...Psalm 71:6 I have been misrepresented by those who don't know me...John 8:41-44 I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love...1 John 4:16 And it's my desire to lavish my love on you...1 John 3:1 Simply because you are my child and I am your Father...1 John 3:1 I offer you more than your earthly father ever could...Matthew 7:11 For I am the perfect Father...Matthew 5:48 Every good gift that you receive come from my hand...James 1:17 For I am your provider and I meet all your needs...Matthew 6:31-33 My plan for your future has always been filled with hope...Jeremiah 29:11 Because I love you with an everlasting love...Jeremiah 31:3 My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore...Psalm 139:17-18 And I rejoice over you with singing...Zephaniah 3:17 I will never stop doing good to you...Jeremiah 32:40 For you are my treasured possession...Exodus 19:5 I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul...Jeremiah 32:41 And I want to show you great and marvelous things...Jeremiah 33:3 If you seek me with all you heart, you will find me...Deuteronomy 4:29 Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart...Psalm 37:4 For it is I who gave you those desires...Philippians 2:13 I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine...Ephesians 3:20 For I am your greatest encourager...2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles...2 Corinthians 1:3-4 When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you...Psalm 34:18 As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart...Isaiah 40:11 One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes...Revelation 21:3-4 And I'll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth...Revelation21:4 I am your Father and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus...John 17:23 For in Jesus my love for you is revealed...John 17:26 He is the exact representation of my being...Hebrews 1:3 And He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you...Romans 8:31 And to tell you that I am not counting your sins...2 Corinthians 5:18-19 Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled...2 Corinthians 5:18-19 His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you...1 John 4:10 I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love...Romans 8:32 If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me...1 John 2:23 And nothing will ever separate you from my love again...Romans 8:38-39 Come home and I'll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen...Luke 15:7 I have always been Father and will always be Father...Ephesians 3:14-15 My question is...Will you be my child?...John 1:12-13 I am waiting for you...Luke 15:11-32
...Love, Your Dad
Almighty God
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
What Does Easter Mean to You?
So, lately driving to and from class I've heard on the radio the question "What does Easter mean to you?" Generally if you're just a regular person you think easter eggs, rabbits, and candy. If you are a Christian you think how Jesus conquered the grave. But with all the hustle and bustle candy, eggs, and bunnies I think even us Christians pass over the fact of what Easter is really about, we know, but do we really celebrate Easter in a way Jesus would want us to. I want Easter to mean more to me than "oh yeah Jesus rose from the dead, that's why we're celebrating today." Growing up Easter was never a huge deal in my family, so I never made it a huge deal for myself. I want Easter to be a day for me dedicated totally to my King, not eggs or candy. If He wouldn't have been brutally beaten beyond recognition, hung on a cross, and rose again my life would be nothing. Can you imagine what life be like if He wouldn't have did what He did? My life would have no meaning, He gives my life meaning because of His extreme sacrifice. Yet, He doesn't want us to just remember His extreme sacrifice on Easter He wants us to remember it daily. I want to wake up each and every morning and thank God for what He did, so I could get out of bed every morning and live my life. I also think about how He did what He did because He loves me. For the people I love the most I don't think I could have done what He did. Yet He loves us each individually so much beyond what we can grasp that He died for us. We reject Him daily, do things we're ashamed of, and yet He still loves us. So what does Easter mean to me? It means that my Savior died for me, conquered the grave, and loves me even though I reject Him, push Him out my life, forget to talk to Him and make others more important. And He still says I'm still here, I never left.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Oddly a Day I Needed
Saturday was a strange, crazy, weird, and oddly good day. It started out like a normal day; homework, facebook, watching a movie; just a relaxing day. Then I went to close my computer and go to the park and something on the hinge of my computer broke, cracked. I was so frustrated because I feel like there is something always going wrong with my computer. I called my mom in tears, upset, and extremely frustrated. I got off the phone still frustrated but I decided I would still walk to the park to get it off my mind. By the time I got to the park I had this renewed feeling about the situation. I was thankful that my computer broke because it was the only way God could get through to me. He was saying stop spending more time on your computer than with Me. Stop finding your happiness in technology and find your happiness in Me. Come to Me when you're stressed, when you're worried, to find rest, come to Me and I will do so much more. I will be your everything, I want to be your everything... if you just let Me. This was such a big step for me, because the old me would have dwelt on this and let it ruin my whole day.
Then as I was walking back a guy from the church nearby stopped me. He started talking to me about passover and invited me to come to supper at their church. It was strange, but was good. I didn't go because I was scared and didn't really know what they believed. But this was the weirdest, strangest, best day I have had in a long time. It was a day I really needed.
God is working in me and I'm so so excited about what He is going to do inside of me after Saturday. I'm excited about this quarter, about new friends, about this new chapter in my life. I realized that I needed CCU the past 2 years of my life to grow in my faith. But right now I'm exactly in the place I need to be. I need to be in a place like this, not surrounded by all Christians, to be uncomfortable, to see what it's going to be like in the real world, and I'm so excited about what God's gonna do through this. Last quarter I couldn't wait to get home, but I'm so happy where I am that I don't want to leave. I'm challenging myself to be uncomfortable and bit by bit, step by step I'm leaving my comfort zone to see what God has for me in the uncomfortable.
Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity. ~ 1 John 2:15-17
Then as I was walking back a guy from the church nearby stopped me. He started talking to me about passover and invited me to come to supper at their church. It was strange, but was good. I didn't go because I was scared and didn't really know what they believed. But this was the weirdest, strangest, best day I have had in a long time. It was a day I really needed.
God is working in me and I'm so so excited about what He is going to do inside of me after Saturday. I'm excited about this quarter, about new friends, about this new chapter in my life. I realized that I needed CCU the past 2 years of my life to grow in my faith. But right now I'm exactly in the place I need to be. I need to be in a place like this, not surrounded by all Christians, to be uncomfortable, to see what it's going to be like in the real world, and I'm so excited about what God's gonna do through this. Last quarter I couldn't wait to get home, but I'm so happy where I am that I don't want to leave. I'm challenging myself to be uncomfortable and bit by bit, step by step I'm leaving my comfort zone to see what God has for me in the uncomfortable.
Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity. ~ 1 John 2:15-17
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Needing to Be Uncomfortable
I recently wrote a note on facebook and then today I got to thinking that I want to make a blog. I hope my blog brings joy, inspiration, happiness, contemplation, and a little bit of love to those who may read it. I know there's no way with school and everything that I will be able to post everyday so I am going to try and at least write once a week...although I may fail at that also. I am awful at journaling so I don't know I well I'll do this. I don't care if anyone reads this, this is for me and to get my thoughts out of my head and into writing. Again I wrote this a couple of weeks ago just to get what was weighing on my heart out in the open.
Needing to Be Uncomfortable
Today on a trip to the Botanic Gardens with my Bible study group we sat down and started talking about the quarter. The quarters theme was experiencing a change and although I was hardly there this one day helped me come to a realization.
I always tell myself I am gonna change: I am going to get closer to God, I am going to open up, I am going to be more social, I am going to show people the real me, the me I see inside myself but don't really let anyone else see. I get all excited about it and then life happens and I get scared. I put my wall up, try to be invisible, stay in my bubble, and don't let anyone in because in reality I am afraid of change. I tell myself I want to change but I really don't because I am comfortable where I am. I am afraid of letting people see the person I am on the inside and person I really wanna be because I don't want to get hurt. I think by putting my wall up and staying in my bubble I am saving myself from all the hurt that relationships can bring. But then I will look at everyone around me and all the friends they have and how close they are to so many people and I realize that I am bringing myself more hurt by putting a wall up and not letting anyone in to see the great person I know I am. I want so bad to let people in and take down that wall but the thing is I don't think I really know how to and that's why I have never been able to change. I don't think that I am every going to be able change and let down those walls without help. I need to be forced into situations that make me uncomfortable and start bringing down those walls because the thing is I won't do it on my own. I will stay in my room like I have done all quarter and seclude myself, afraid of what people will think of me. A big thing for me is that I went from an environment of all Christians to this one which was really hard for me, but something I believe I needed. But since I have lived at the Towers I felt really lonely, I don't have anyone here that I can just hang out with or talk to. People that can help me change, friends that I see everyday and will help me take down my walls, so people can see the great person I know I am.
So this has all been weighing on my heart lately and it came boiling to the surface today because I was hanging out with people and laughing and being myself. But then it came to an end, I came back to my room and I felt sad because I was alone again. I realize that you need time to be alone but at this point in my life I want to be having fun and hanging out with friends because there is no other point in my life it's going to be like this. But I'm stuck and I don't know how to change and become a more confident fun person that people want to hang out with. So I need help because I've tried changing on my own and time after time I go back to what is comfortable. I want people to look at me and say she is confident, she loves Jesus, she is fun to be around, and she doesn't care what anyone else thinks about her. I need to be uncomfortable or else no one is going to get to see the person I know is inside me.
Thanks to a few people today for helping me realize this, you don't know how much today meant to me, and how much it truly helped me.
Needing to Be Uncomfortable
Today on a trip to the Botanic Gardens with my Bible study group we sat down and started talking about the quarter. The quarters theme was experiencing a change and although I was hardly there this one day helped me come to a realization.
I always tell myself I am gonna change: I am going to get closer to God, I am going to open up, I am going to be more social, I am going to show people the real me, the me I see inside myself but don't really let anyone else see. I get all excited about it and then life happens and I get scared. I put my wall up, try to be invisible, stay in my bubble, and don't let anyone in because in reality I am afraid of change. I tell myself I want to change but I really don't because I am comfortable where I am. I am afraid of letting people see the person I am on the inside and person I really wanna be because I don't want to get hurt. I think by putting my wall up and staying in my bubble I am saving myself from all the hurt that relationships can bring. But then I will look at everyone around me and all the friends they have and how close they are to so many people and I realize that I am bringing myself more hurt by putting a wall up and not letting anyone in to see the great person I know I am. I want so bad to let people in and take down that wall but the thing is I don't think I really know how to and that's why I have never been able to change. I don't think that I am every going to be able change and let down those walls without help. I need to be forced into situations that make me uncomfortable and start bringing down those walls because the thing is I won't do it on my own. I will stay in my room like I have done all quarter and seclude myself, afraid of what people will think of me. A big thing for me is that I went from an environment of all Christians to this one which was really hard for me, but something I believe I needed. But since I have lived at the Towers I felt really lonely, I don't have anyone here that I can just hang out with or talk to. People that can help me change, friends that I see everyday and will help me take down my walls, so people can see the great person I know I am.
So this has all been weighing on my heart lately and it came boiling to the surface today because I was hanging out with people and laughing and being myself. But then it came to an end, I came back to my room and I felt sad because I was alone again. I realize that you need time to be alone but at this point in my life I want to be having fun and hanging out with friends because there is no other point in my life it's going to be like this. But I'm stuck and I don't know how to change and become a more confident fun person that people want to hang out with. So I need help because I've tried changing on my own and time after time I go back to what is comfortable. I want people to look at me and say she is confident, she loves Jesus, she is fun to be around, and she doesn't care what anyone else thinks about her. I need to be uncomfortable or else no one is going to get to see the person I know is inside me.
- God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. ~Ephesians 3:20
Thanks to a few people today for helping me realize this, you don't know how much today meant to me, and how much it truly helped me.
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