Remember

Pardon me, I'm in a mood, and not sure what it is...forgive the stream of consciousness as it just flows. Life is amazing and awesome, but as I attended a Bible study last night for the first time in what seems like forever (8 months to be exact), I suddenly looked around and remembered...

FREEDOM

I've been living in a vacuum for a very long time....maybe it was the crazy dream in March, the barren wasteland of my heart in April, moving to Texas in May, the depression and mourning and silence and alone-ness of June and July, the quiet acceptance in August...and as I started to breathe again, to live again, to exist outside of just being this floating survivor of some awful shipwreck in the middle of my life....hanging on desperately to any little thing, uprooted from the life I loved, cast into this place where nothing was stable, and the only reality was a lifetime of disappointments and dysfunction staring me directly in the face...it was all I could do, most days, to just stand firm and be faithful and obedient....to be healthy and whole in the deafening silence of asking, and seeking, and knocking....as God has breathed a whole new unexpected and brilliant life into me over the last couple of months, the rough season of 2012 has made sense. And although I've started to come out of the wilderness, it's been cautiously and quietly.

But last night....for the first time in such a long time, my heart began to stir to do ministry. As I listened to some heartbreaking assumptions and opinions on marriage, and heard the bitterness in the voices of women, and the underlying prisons of their entrapment, the word that kept reverberating in my heart was...

FREEDOM

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed (Luke 4:18).

I forgot...that freedom is the ultimate reward of life lived in Christ...that an unbelievable amount of Christians are still enslaved to those bonds....that freedom is only as good as we choose to make it, as we choose to keep it...that it's one of my fundamental messages of resurrection to others...that my life is full of freedom and redemption...that I long to share it...that I long to be what Jesus was in that verse....to be the catalyst that points to HIM to heal and set free....

I've sat here and wondered what had happened to my passion for ministry....and it hasn't been lost, only put back so that God could do some work in me, so that He could bring me to a new mountaintop experience, and teach me new things, and draw me closer, and give me a blessing greater than I imagined to take me into the next place...

And yeah, admittedly, I'm still pretty inwardly focused, because there are big changes going on, and new things coming that demand my full attention and commitment right now....but a new heart for ministry is also being birthed in me during this process, and it comes around full circle and goes right back to the core of what I believe encompasses full joy in Christ, and that is...

FREEDOM

Keeping it Close

I haven't had much to say lately, and the things I am saying are still not being publicly posted. So for those of you reading right now, thanks, I suppose.

Have you ever gone through those seasons where, for whatever reason, you're just oddly protective of the work God is doing in you?

I'm sooooo there!

On one hand, I want to shout out all the good stuff, on the other, it's still tenuous and new and MINE.

Oh my goodness, I'm getting married to the husband God picked for me (more on that later, probably)...and I'm quitting my job to be a stay at home wife...and oh wow that new thing (Isaiah 43:19) that God whispered into my heart in January, its here...holy moly I prayed so hard for this for months--"Please God send me my husband"--but am I ready for this, please God don't let me screw this up, please make me worthy, maybe I should have been praying for Him to make me a good wife instead?...so I'm addicted to this blog on being an awesome wife, because this is the biggest responsibility/task He's given me yet...but I'm excited and overwhelmed and overjoyed because God is so flipping good to me, the way He responds and loves and answers the desires of my heart....and I'm floored and made speechless by the way that Joshua (Yahweh is salvation), of course is this unbelievable example of Christ-likeness in the way he loves me the way Jesus loves His church...so I pinch myself on a daily basis to make sure I'm not dreaming, but no, I'm doing laundry and vacuuming and changing dirty diapers at work so I couldn't possibly be dreaming...

It's all so new and surreal and amazing, and thanks for letting me ramble it out to you <3

Obedience Brings the Blessing

For four months (probably longer) I whined about my life. Definitely longer...On the eve of my life completely shifting, these were words whispered into my heart. So many times in the recent year I've been asked to let go, release, walk away, relinquish, give up....until the very last thing I was asked to crucify was one of the things I wanted the most. So I stood in the shower (because I have God epiphanies there for some random reason),

crying as I surrendered the last of my will,
fully aware that the ability to let go was beyond my comprehension,
begging for any kind of grace to deal with the death of yet another dream...

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it... (John 12:24-25).

Sometimes the task is more than we know how to accomplish. Whether it's walking away from the life you built, or giving up the plans you made, or or setting aside the dreams you had....the problem in all of those things is that they are all about YOU...you built, you made, you had...the lesson I have learned is that obedience does in fact bring the blessing. While it may seem that the obedience is heart-breaking, and against everything you hold dear at that very moment, the obedience to release your will is necessary for God to impose His...

This is my blessing <3

October 4, 2012

I have a boyfriend. Like, whoa oh my goodness that never happens. But not just any boyfriend...a real manofGodcourtingmewiththeintenttomarry boyfriend.

That brings roses to my job...

And tells me that he loves me, and wants to win my heart, and wants to lead me spiritually, and believes sex is for marriage, and doesn't believe in forever long courtships, and wants to love me like Christ....already DOES love me like that....

I am in awe of how stupendously amazing it is to be drawn into a mountaintop experience with God by the actions of another human being. I always wondered what it would be like...whether or not I would have to divide my heart as women I know have indicated...and the answer is NO!!!!! The answer is that the man that God has selected for you will create an even deeper love, passion, and intimacy in your relationship with God. I am blown away by His provision and the way He always answers the desires of my heart with a greater gift than I could ever imagine.

As I was praying last night, just pouring out my gratitude and surrender, he shared with me that this is the man I'm going to marry. So when he asks me, I'm going to say yes. 

So much love...