I Love Blogs!

I love blogs. I love the brute honesty that is trickled in them. I love that people are open to share their struggles, joys, “moments” (we know the ones I mean) and mainly, how they live through each of them.

I recently read a blog from an old friend from back home. What an inspiration she has been to me, and yet she has no idea =D. She reminded me of something that I have been struggling with for months now. Mainly impatience. I want so much stuff right now. I want a house, if I have a house then I can have kids, if I have kids then I can be a Mommy, and I’ve wanted that for a long time. Unfortunately, it seems God has something else in mind for me and my husband. That would be:  time. Right now is what we need and what is best for us. I ‘know’ this. I know that we would be so much better off if we waited until Zech was done with school, and I know that it’d be better if we waited until we could actually afford a house. But I just can’t let it go! 

You must understand…I am SO frustrated. I know all this stuff, but why?! Why can I NOT be content with it??? I’ve done the same thing for months, I’ll be bummed out and whiny about all the things I want, and then am like “its ok! God has us where we are for a reason, and I will enjoy what I have right now”. Then a couple weeks later, I’m back at my bummed out, whiny phase. What.the.crap. URGH. 

I am tired of being told that God has everything in control, and in time what I need will come, and I will “grow” from where I am now, blah blah. I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW!!! And here is where my stubborn, prideful flesh goes down and my heart really comes out: Why can’t I apply what I know? Why can’t I accept it for what it is? Why can’t I just be content? Why am I struggling so much when I’m trying to lean on God so much? What am I missing? I hear when mom’s mess up with their kids and they say “I must be a bad mom”…well I feel like a bad daughter, to my heavenly Father. 

Though I know no one can give these answers, for I believe to truly grasp them it has to happen in me. Clearly I’m missing something, clearly I’m not as in tune as I think I am, clearly I need a “God-Check” (instead of reality-check).

Here marks my “God-Check”. I need to weed out what is hindering me and my relationship with my Father. What is my main frustration? Wanting what I cannot have. What is my main source for that? … Pinterest. I love it so much. I see so much that I want, no NEED…no…want. It needs to go. It needs to be out of my life until I can get my heart in the right spot. What I have found to work when I go through these times where I am far from God, is weeding out the world. This means: Facebook, Movies, Secular Music…even secular literature. This leaves me focusing on God day in and day out. It works for usually quite some time, but then I always fall back to my fleshly self. We’ll see how a month goes for now, maybe I’ll even enjoy NOT having all the media and entertainment taking up my time and life and keep it out =D

I will hopefully keep blogging, opening up my heart to those who may read. My secret hope is that someone will read my blog and find the same encouragement that I have found in so many other blogs.

Today: October 21, 2011. Day 1 of Operation….uhhhh….Ok, I’ll make an awesomely cool title sometime in the next month!

How Did I Get Here?

Here it is, Saturday morning. Its 9:30 and I am not even dressed. I just ate breakfast and now am sipping some amazing coffee. I’m thinking about my husband far off in Turlock attending an 8 hour class. I’m looking around me and wondering, “How did I get here?” I have an apartment, more than fully furnished. I have the most amazing man as a husband. I have a huge family that loves me very much. Most importantly, I have this close relationship with my Lord. How did I get here, when not even 2 years ago everyday was a struggle to get through?

Well we all know the story of my struggle, if you are a new reader check out my way earlier posts. The answer is very clear. I got here because this is where the Lord has taken me. He DID have bigger plans for me. He still has bigger plans for me. At this thought, I smile.

When I first moved to California, I was blessed in so many ways. I pretty much had it easy when it comes to my relationship with God. I was forced to lean on Him when I was struggling. Not because anyone “forced” me to do it, but because I knew He is taking care of me and I had no one else to fall back on. I called that period my “Refining Period”. (Maybe one day I’ll write a blog about my entire life chopped out between eras and periods). I knew God was always there, and I knew God was taking care of me. God put things in my life to push me a little in one area one day, and then I’d lean on Him more. Then He’d push me a little in another area, and I’d lean on Him more. Once I truly got the hang of that and got to the point where it was so much easier to instinctively lean on God for anything and everything, my world changed to my “Unnamed Period” (I don’t know a good name for this just yet, suggestions welcome). This Period is where I met my now husband, Zechariah. I was leery at first. I prayed about the relationship and if this was where God was leading my life now. Indeed it was. It was very blissful. I loved him, he loved me, and we both loved the Lord. 

Somewhere between that time in my life and now (over a year later) I got to the point where I snuffed God again. Sure I would trust God with the big things, but I was nowhere close to where I was with God when I started dating Zech. I slowly started to turn toward Zechariah instead of God; just enough to where I could still “see” God if I turned my head slightly. The song “Slow Fade” by Casting Crowns reminds me of what happened. I don’t know when I made the turn, all I know is that I did and I’ve been struggling to turn back.

Fortunately I still have hope! The last couple weeks I’ve gotten to the point where I NEED change. I need to lean on God. Boy, it sure is easy to say that, but sometimes so hard to do it! I think I was trying for a couple weeks to “say” it. If I thought about God enough, if I listened to Christian music enough, if I focused really hard in church on Sunday’s it’d just click and I’d be fixed! If you didn’t guess it already it didn’t work!! I was beginning to be frustrated with the whole situation.

(Insert break to go heat my coffee up…)

Finally! Something just…clicked! I was at the College & Career Sunday school and Kevin Bertram was leading it. The message was about “Identity In Christ”. Basic stuff, right? We all learn this somewhere along the way. The Lord used Kevin’s message to get me, and it got to me good! Kevin spoke about the things that our “identity” is based off of, such as: Fashion, Friends, Media, and Family (plus many more). We visually see something that others view as “cool” and we base our style off of that. It hit me. I make my husband what I live for. I don’t live for God anymore. I live for Zechariah Keenan. I will do anything for that man because I love him so very much. Granted, I do not personally feel that is wrong. But when I make my identity based off of Zech; that is wrong. I am sinning against my Lord and Savior. How dare I! So I thought long and hard about it; for DAYS.

Fortunately, God is so amazing. He doesn’t just halfway show me things. He says “That’s the first step, here is step two”.  Step two is the book Behold Your God by Myrna Alexander. It is a study book for woman. It goes through the attributes of God. The same week Kevin spoke at Sunday School, was the week I was in the middle of Chapter 1 of Behold Your God. This first chapter was the Introduction chapter. What would a book be without one of those! This chapter explained why we need to know who God is. I don’t just mean “God is my Lord and Savior who sent His Son to die for my sins.” I mean who is GOD! His characteristics, what makes God, God! Alexander shares how when we view our husbands, or anyone else for that matter, we view them as a complete person, not just a list of characteristics (kind, patient, loving). But when someone asks “What are they like?” that’s what we list to let them know pieces of their character, though if you have ever done this and tried to explain someone (for me it was Zechariah) you know that those words do not even come close to explaining really who they are. So reading through this chapter and answering the questions that came with it, I can see that God is so much more than just a list of words and Bible Stories. 

One of the questions where: “How do you view God today?” I thought long and hard on this one. Ashamed I wrote the few things I could list as things I truly viewed God as. My list was very very small, and I realized that I am not viewing God in the near capacity I should be. Though I don’t think anyone will ever really knows fully “who God is” until we see Him in heaven, I think we can all continually be growing and knowing who He is more and more throughout our lives though. I’ve always been told that God chooses to reveal certain things to us at certain times. God has shown me recently how much more He is than I see. 

Through the last couple days I have been striving to get closer to God, to let Him get closer to me. It’s been a delightful last couple days. If you don’t mind, could you keep me in your prayers? That I would continue to place my Identity in Christ, not in my husband or anything else, that I would continually grow closer to the Lord and learn more and more about His attributes. Thank you!!

Lunch Break!!

It's Lunch time! I can’t shut my brain off to relax, mainly because I know once it's off, it’s off! There will be no turning it back on after lunch, meaning no productive work during work =D

Yesterday was Sunday and we had such an amazing sermon by Pastor Shirk. He taught out of 1 John 5: 

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. 9 If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. 11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

What a slap in the face this was to hear. Of course as a Believer I all know this to be true, so why do I not act like it? Why do I find myself so easily bringing other Believers down and just flat out being rude and unloving. My favorite part about the sermon was when Pastor Shirk listed off things that we can do to achieve the two greatest commandments. One was to Not talk bad about something that one did “wrong” to others, even if it’s true. What difference does it make if it's true or not? Sinning is sinning. God does not weigh each sin, they are all the same and they all break His heart. If ‘it’ is true, we should be discussing how to help them and bring it to their attention in love.

From this point forward Zechariah and I have promised to keep each other accountable to love even those “worst” people and even the non-Christians. Isn’t that what Christ did? 

Not 15 minutes after our promise was made, I found myself talking about the SaveMart check out lady that yelled loudly at me to give me a coupon. I was stating how I didn’t even want the coupon and she didn’t need to yell so loudly about it. My amazing husband peacefully said “Maybe she would have gotten in trouble if she didn’t give you the coupon”. I had my doubts and started to share them. I saw his face and I instantly knew he was keeping my accountable. I then submitted to the idea that she was just doing her job.

I pray that as the days go by I will have Zechariah there to keep me accountable and it will become easy for me to instantly think on the positive side of every situation.

This is step one of my “Grow Closer to God” adventure. This week my mother and sister in-law and I are going to be going through “Behold Your God” by Myrna Alexander. It is a devotional/study book that goes through some of the attributes of God. - I STRONGLY encourage everyone who wants a deep study to get this book.http://amzn.com/0310371317- The first attribute: Love. I have a feeling God will definitely show me a lot of flaws in my life and things that I need to change in order to fully glorify Him. I am extremely excited about this (as I’ve heard before) cocoon I’m about to enter. And once I’m “Done” I will come out a prettier butterfly. And then after the next cocoon…and even pretty one!