Pain like no other

I have decided that there is no pain like that of a hurting heart. While physical pain whether broken bones, gashes, concussions, surgery and so on are really painful, it goes away relatively quick to be forgotten and only remembered on rare occasions. However the pain of a hurting heart leaves you with a lot of memories and lots of not so great experiences but you do come out of it eventually and you are often much stronger and better off, and I have seen and experienced the Father in those excruciating times and he has held me and been my strength through it all. So here I go again, and well, its Him that I seek and Him that I long for. It's him who heals this broken and hurting heart. :D If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have made it this far. So while my body still shakes and I can't seem to not be anxious it is Him who gives me peace and Him who carries me through.

So to the cross I look and to the Saviour I cling... for in Him I find all that I need.

Heart changes

Today has been quite a day. But I am constantly reminded of His faithfulness. His enduring faithfulness. For in Him I can trust and I will not be let down. He holds my heart, no matter what state it is in He has it. His justice is so so beautiful. His mercy is SO great!!

Dear...

Dear heart,

Thank you for letting me deal with some things you have held on to for a while. I know the hurt you have and I know it's not easy to face, but let's face it so that way a part of you doesn't die off.

You hold so much in you... let's not go this long again without examining your condition.

Dear mind,

Thank you for finally slowing down a little. I know you had a bit more time than usual yesterday to process what has been going on recently. Let's continue to process on a continual basis I'm not too fond of doing it all at once.

Dear body,

Thank you for enduring that 27 mile bike ride yesterday in 100 degree weather. And thank you for not sun burning!! Let's do it again on Friday!

Dear City of Arlington,

As you continue road construction I would greatly appreciate it if you also continued sidewalk construction. You see the sidewalks randomly disappear at time and leave me stranded in a big whole. And also where you do have sidewalks please fix the huge gaps and bumps. My bike and my body do not appreciate crashing and crashing hard especially when you are thrown to the street and there is oncoming traffic. Thanks

Dear today,

Let's have a wonderful day! Let's go on a few adventures and enjoy all that the Lord has given us this day!!!!

So much

Why so often do we speak death over ourselves. We say things that in the end I think have more harm than saying nothing at all. Why so often do we pull each other down, even though so many times we aren't aware of yet affect so many people. I wish we could all just be more aware of these happenings. I know that these things happen, but why do you dwell there in your swimming pool of death. Why do you cling to the lies that have come to steal, kill and destroy? You know the truth, you know the Father, yet why oh why do you choose death over life? Do you not remember the promises of the Father?! YOU HAVE BEEN SET FREE!!!! You know that you have to choose truth over the lies. So many are praying for you, so many are fighting for you. Look around... the Lord has his hand over you, he is pursuing you so hard!!! I want to scream the truth at you, but I know I can't. I know there is still hope, so while there is still hope, I will pray for you. I will stay here and petition on your behalf.

O Jesus, be with us all! We need your grace and mercy, your justice and discipline.

COME DADDY COME PLEASE DADDY!!!!

Letters...

So many letters have been written. A heart poured out on so many pages. So many to friends now and friends to come and people from the past. I've thought so often of sending them, and yet here they lay in my lap. I guess I'll keep them a little longer. Who knows maybe there will be a day when someone will need these letters I've written to them. I have given them so much thought and so much went into these letters and yet here they lay. Sometimes I think they were more for me than for them. If it were for these letters being written I would still have so much held within. But not now. I have found a freedom in writing to so many people.

Yet there is still that pile of letters, purposely written for someone yet to be known. Well... back to reading and writing....even more letters...

Another day at the Coffee Shop...

Got to work and said the usual hellos and how are yous...

I'm standing at the register and well I take a deep breath and I stop breathing, my heart stops...

My mind races 90 to nothing... no it can't be...

I look up and my heart starts beating and I release the air I clinged so tightly to...

The sense of smell is strongly linked to memory...

The smell was that of my biological dad...

I am thankful it was not him.

I was then reading a book over my break concerning that Jabez and his prayer. I find it so intriguing how the writer of this book, specifically stopped to mention Jabez and his prayer. His name meant pain, it was a curse placed on his life from birth. But he completely changed it around. He was blessed by God. He was begging God to take away this curse and turn it completely around. So God did. He gave him what he asked for, because he believed in full faith that God would do it.

I'm sure we all have had curses, words of death, spoken over us. Don't accept them. Ask for God to take them away. You see no curse or word of death can withstand the light of the Glorious One.

Seasons

A season of change...

The Lord is leading me to give over everything. It's currently reached the point of friendships. I have been led to really focus on my friendships here. I've held myself back from being as vulnerable as I need to be with the people I live with and not pouring myself out and being a servant like I so long to be. This has been slowly changing over the past few weeks. But this time of really focusing on the Lord and what he is doing in my life right now.

I'm so looking forward to the end result of this, just have mixed feelings about the whole process. So many emotions have started to come up and so many things have come to the surface. This whole refinement thing is hard, but so so so so sweet!

My heart hurts, but this is good because the Lord is moving and refining!

A heart left hurting...finds healing...

A brief update...over the last month so much has happened that I can't even really begin to describe, but I am now in a new house and everything works and is running! :D

So a few months ago in January a friend of mine came into town and dropped one of his best friends off at the internship. I had the joy of hanging out with these two men of God and it was wonderful! We rang in the new year together and had a blast! That weekend I got to enjoy the company of my sweet sisters! It was such a blessing. Well on the way back to the metroplex I had to drop my friend off at the airport so they could go back home. On our way to the airport there was complete silence for about 30 minutes. You would hear some sniffling from one or the other and a deep breath or two. We were sitting and each asking God what was happening. Our hearts were breaking and we weren't sure why. Well before long he soon knew why his was and I was still wondering about mine. Well, here I am a few months later and I now know why. Friendships are dear to me, especially ones that the Lord has blessed me with. Now I must give not just some but all of my friendships over to the Lord. I have fought this for a few weeks, giving them over to the Father a few at a time. It's been really hard as I have shed many tears over each person who has impacted my life and loved me. And whom I have loved. Tonight, I sit here and want to let you know. Even though it's still kind of hard, I am so thankful for the Lord asking this of me. As I gave over each friendship, the Father filled the gap that was left in my heart. That yearning for companionship and fellowship was filled with the fellowship of sweet Jesus. I recently went on a short road trip with one of these friends that I had to give over to the Lord and found the time together to be very sweet, not because we were able to catch up, but because Daddy was first and foremost. I have found a love for my friends that I have never known before. Given to me by Jesus, to learn to love deeper. Something I have so longed for.

He has now asked me to give over my house mates to Him, and while I know it's hard I so look forward to this process for I know that this is the best thing to do.

I pray that Father does the same in your life at some point and that you find yourself completely satisfied in Him and loving those around you in a deeper ever more real way. A love that surpasses understanding and you find that through Christ 1 Corinthians 13 rings true in your life because of HIM!

Through this I know friendships will grow deeper and sweeter. May we continue to spur one another on towards love. Sharpening one another as iron sharpens iron and helping pick one another up. May we all come to a point to where we are so filled with the Holy Spirit that we can't help but love, truly deeply passionately completely pure love.

Lets run into the depths of the ocean....

A new start

What a week it has been. I had my first tire blowout, I met 2 of my new roommates. I said goodbye to an old friendship. Let go of a lot of stuff. Continued in worshiping the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. Started a new book.

It has finally come. We are moving into the Beulah house this weekend. In less than 5 days I will be living with totally different people in a totally different environment. PRAISE THE LORD!!!! I get to see my best friend in 2 week. See a wedding in 2 weeks. Go on a road trip with some of my favorite people in 3 weeks. Move in less than one and work a lot and go to school in between. I am so looking forward to this month as there will be on full week of no classes!!! YAY!!!

For the rest...like my heart...

I am more in love with my beloved today than I was yesterday

I am highly favored

I am blessed more than I can imagine

I am deserving of so much worse, but am treated as a princess

I am learning to walk by faith

I am learning what humility is and looks like

I am at peace

I am weak and he is strong!!!

I am filled with joy

I miss some friends

I am broken over the hurting

I long to get married

I am nothing

I have nothing

For all I am is found in Christ Jesus our Lord!

I am well!!!

I only wish I could explain what is going on in my heart... soon...soon I'll let you know!!!

continue to love...allow the grace and love of the Father to fill you... you are going to need His strength today!

And now for something completely different...

So yesterday everyone but Em was home and so we were discussing living arrangments as Em has asked to have her own room. (which therefore puts me in an odd perdicerment). So after trying to figure something out where no one is really put out or anything...I let Em know that we have found a solutionn and we can move stuff around when she gets off... well...that didn't happen. So here I am the next day...still the same problem with a totally different attitude. Em is still in the same room as I. I no longer feel estranged from her...just a little hesitant. This seems to be where a lot of my relationships stand right now... and with people who are really close to me as well I might add. I have found myself overwhelmed with love for this inparticular friend of mine... something I wasn't sure I had for her. But by prayer this has happened...by the Fathers doing.
Our house has since decided to all go our seperate ways...Lynn gets married in a month...Brooke will move in with some girls from the prayer room...Em will get an apartment... Allie will move to Fort Worth... And I... well... we will have to wait and see. I know the Lord called me here to DFW for a reason and I am not going to walk away from that. He just has to provide a way, a better job and a place to live... So here I find myself in yet a familiar place... walking on faith for his COMPLETE provision. If you have known me for more that o say about 6 months you've prolly seen me make it by some miracle or another to pay the bills or pay for school. He always provides... just I never know where it is coming from.
The Lord gives and He takes away... there is this song that has been stuck in my head for the past day and it is by todd agnew... at one part it says... Lord won't you give me a little more cause my heart breaks for those kids and all i have is not even enough for me...the Lord responds...why don't you let me have the rest of what you have and I will give you some real wealth... well I know that's not money... it's eternal wealth...this is what I want... but can't quite seem to get there.
I'm reading this book right now... the Lord Almighty amazes me!!! I want to tell you all that he is showing me right now... so much revelation and realizing so much... :D AHHHHH!!!
But I'll have to leave it at this....
"they will no longer call me 'my master' but will call me 'my husband'"
I can no longer call me my master... but can't help but to call him my husband
REDEEMED!!!!!!!!!
Well...it's late and I have to open...so that means I won't get much sleep tonight...but thats ok...

Something is changing...

So much of my life I've seen good as far off dreams that'll never happen. As amazing things happened in my life it seemed all so surreal. Why would this happen to me of all people?! Then God showed me, not just told, who I am, who I really truly am. I began to see myself change, like I was watching my life in a movie or something. Then I no longer seemed distant from myself, but living here now. I thought my hearts desires could never be reached, but one by one they are being reached. Little by little small dreams I had became true. And now I see freedom, not from a distance but by walking in it. I no longer see things as paintings, but as real as my roommate sitting next to me now. The bride before the bridegroom is no longer just a poster on the wall, but understood and experienced.

The ladder grew, the colors came back, the storm more intense and yet more exciting, the items of the box no longer broken, the flowers blooming bright closer to the heart but farther in location. And so much more.

I hope you understand a least a little bit of this.

Something is changing, this is what I've wanted over the past year. I just didn't see what was happening in my heart. But now I see a small glimpse of what's coming. :D

2009

So looking back on what happened this past year has encouraged me to run harder and thank the Lord for his faithfulness. The year 2009 was by far not my favorite. It was filled with turmoil and pain as well as reunions and goodbyes. I am thankful for this past year and what the Lord has taught me through it. A little of what happened in 2009:

-Gained lots of wisdom from Ninny and parents

-My best friend meets her future husband... she just didn't know it at the time

-I am out on my own, away from HA

-Learn to dive deeper and wait upon the Lord

-God protects me and my family

-I become very ill, at the time for an unknown reason

-Soon realize how thankful I am for my lifelong friends

-Go on lots of adventures just me and Jesus

-Go on even more walks just Him and I

-Watch close friends go through really hard things

-Learn to intercede and to not stop praying

-Get even sicker, can't move most days due to pain

-Become lonely and feel overwhelmed by isolation

-Learn to defeat self pity and listen to Jesus

-Lots of trips to hospitals and way too many doctor visits!

-Have surgery the next day

-See and understand to much greater level of this quick fading life

-Brother gets married two days later

-Wisdom teeth removed a few days later

-Learn to do what seems like everything all over again

-Come to understand more of who I am in the Lord

-Move to DFW and learn to live on my own

-Seek the Lord

-Wondering if I'm growing at all

-God shows me how he has been changing me

-Depending fully on God

-Live with complete strangers who soon become sweet friends

-New season of life

-Lots of roadtrips and even more conversations

-Go to see family, understand that this is not our home

-Become even more thankful for people and don't like materials near as much

-Live, laugh, cry, love

-Gain friends, lose friends

-Made lots of mistakes, Jesus picked me up everytime

-Challenged, pushed, loved, prayed for, rejoiced with and cried with

-Learn to love deeper

-Learned to run harder

So here I go, so much more happened, the above is just pretty general. Here we go, lets go to the throne, the place where we belong...right into his arms!

2010 is a new season, though this past year was filled with pain and brokenness, I know throughout this next year it will prove worth it. A change is coming! I'm excited to see what is in store for us. This year is a year of change, victories, pursuing dreams and walking out in faith. I want to see miracles happen, dreams become reality, new life birthed, new journeys begin and experience LOVE most of all in a whole new way. To fall more in LOVE.