Personality

thinking about the new year

David Crowder sings a song called "Wholly Yours". I finally bought it on iTunes. I love that song...the music, the lyrics, the message, everything. Pretty much it's voicing a prayer saying that I want to be holy like He is Holy...that I want to be wholly His. Not all of me except this one area...I want to keep that one, but me in my whole-ness. I'm going to be honest...I haven't let God in every single detail or hole that I have in me. I want to make that my prayer this year as it begins. One of my main "resolutions" is to make Him famous through my life, my actions, my words, and to meet with Him daily. I know that once I do that, the world has no place to go in me. It can't get in, therefore it can't come out! I want to be a better, more Christ-like leader in church, at home, at work...everywhere. I can't do that if I'm not in His Word seeking what it's like to be a leader. Being a leader means serving others. The word "leadership" had been on my heart since the new year began. I want to be a better care group leader to our girls. I want to be a better supervisor at work. One thing that I've learned being a leader at work is that EVERYONE looks up to you whether you're doing something good or bad. People mainly remember you for the bad things you do. I want to turn that around and have people remember me as a Christ-follower...a sinner saved by grace...but still a sinner. It's going to be hard, but if I have the Spirit living in me I can do anything! I already have a not-so-great reputation at work and that's gonna take a long time to turn around. But I am willing. If you read this, please keep me accountable. May you have a blessed day!

fire

ok, i know it's been a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time since i last blogged, but today is something totally worthy of being blogged. today was my niece's birthday party at katy's house. it was great! had good cake, a lot of her friends showed up dressed like princesses, family, etc. i took several pictures (to be posted soon). the last picture i took was of all the girls together. katy had lit two candles on either side of her entertainment center...i was on one side of it trying to take the picture. i leaned back to try to get all the girls in it. next thing i know, i hear all the moms there screaming at me..."YOUR HAIR IS ON FIRE!!!!!" so i flipped my hair over and obviously put it out that way. but my hair caught on fire!! i thought it was kind of funny...no thought of "maybe i could've lost all my hair" or "maybe i could've caught their house on fire"...nothing like that. i just laughed and went outside to brush all the charred hair off my shoulders and back. poor susan...i made her asthma act up MAJORLY! she was outside catching her breath and trying to help me get the char out of my hair. by the way....that's the worst smell EVER!!! it stunk up their house big time. anyway. after that, i went home and washed my hair twice to try to get the smell out of it....it worked. you really can't tell that it has caught fire. i'm going to get janice to look at it tomorrow at church to see if i need to get a trim. i hope you have had a good laugh! i know i did!! oh...did i mention that i had mousse in my hair???

Plates

I heard a quote tonight that got me thinking and is really cool.

"We are the plates that serve the Bread of Life."

It's a really profound, yet simple thing. I am a plate that God uses to serve the living Bread to other people. Yes, sometimes it's dirty and He probably doesn't want to use it, but He still does. Our Middle School pastor, John Steen, told us that he does the dishes in his house. Sometimes when he doesn't get a chance to wash them that night, he does it in the morning. By then all the food, etc. on the plates has had a chance to dry and be crusted and layered on them. They're harder to wash. The same applies to us as Christians. When we don't deal with a matter that the Holy Spirit has laid upon us to deal with, the next morning it'll be harder to get rid of it. We have to deal with the junk in our lives as soon as He lays is on our hearts, or else it will be hard to get rid of. John also talked about "fine china". You usually only get that out to use it like once a decade or something like that. Then you have your everyday china. We don't need to be like the "fine china" as Christians...only used once a decade; we need to be like the everyday china, where God uses us everyday to serve the Bread of Life! This has challenged me. I hope it challenges you!

"Hold Me"

Read the words to this song that I just got done listening to:

"I'm weak. I'm poor. I'm broken, Lord but I am Yours. Hold me now."

How many times do we find ourselves saying that to others?? I know for me it's a lot; but how many times do we actually go to our Heavenly Father and tell that to Him?? Yes, He does already know it, but He WANTS you to tell Him! He wants you to tell Him everything you're going through. I'm weak. I'm somewhat sore from playing ball Monday night, working out, and standing on my feet forever at work. I'm poor. Well, that one is my fault. I haven't FULLY trusted my money with God. I'm still working on that. I'm broken. Why did You have to die for me? I'm only a sinner who still messes up! I know I'm not perfect. It's hard for me to grasp the concept of grace. Lord hold me now. Have you ever wanted to crawl up into His lap, shove your face into His shoulder and just cry?? I know I have on several occasions. Let Him hold you as you cry, as you vent your frustrations to Him. He wants to hear you...He wants to comfort you in only the way He can! Just crawl up in His lap and sit. May you be blessed today!

God's Mercy

Today at church, everything that I heard was pretty much aimed at me...from the worship songs to the sermon to our ladies Sunday school class...it was directed from God to me. These past few weeks I've been struggling with a life I've lived in the past. I thought that God would never forgive me nor take me back because I constantly deal with this. It's one of those things where I do it, repent and not do it for a while, then it comes back. It's a vicious cycle I deal with. This time it seemed, for some reason, worse. I ended up dropping my digital cable and have just the basic cable (channels 2 thru 22, and sometimes ESPN). I also uninstalled my chatting devices. The reason is is because God convicted me of what I was doing. I told a friend of mine that I KNOW that I know that I know that I'm a child of the King because of the strong convictions that I've had these past few weeks. It's amazing. I knew that He loved me, but I honestly turned my back on Him for at least a few days...well for about a week. It breaks my heart now to know that I broke His. I look up to God and ask, "why do you still love me? After all that I've done to you or not done for you, why do you still want me?" Like everything that I heard today at church, it's all about His grace. There's a hymn that we sang this morning:

"Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all our sin."

That's really the only song that I remember singing...and we sang several good ones. But that one in particular stood out to me and what I had gone through. God's grace is bigger than anything I could do or think of doing. It's a gift. We don't deserve it, yet He lavishes it out to us on a daily basis! I know that I am in awe of how much He loves us and cares for our well-being. He only wants the best for us. Did you know that? Even though you think you're going through the toughest thing, it's only going to make you a better person. God has His reasons for what's going on; like I know that He has a plan in what I went through. I didn't really like the fact that I turned my back on Him and did what I did, but honestly, He knew it was going to happen. He knows how to get you through it. You/I have to just trust Him and lean on Him when things get tough. It's hard to do, but if you do it, the results will be awesome!

Deep thoughts...

This morning, I woke up and really didn't want to do anything. So I sat down and started to watch tv. There was really nothing on, so I went to the OnDemand thing and looked to see if there were any good free movies on. I decided to watch a movie called Jack. It's with Robin Williams. The character Robin plays is named Jack. He has a disorder that makes him grow 4x as fast as normal. So like when he was born, his mom was only 2 months pregnant. So by the time he was 10 and in 5th grade, he looked like he was 40. By the time he graduated high school, he looked like he was in his 60s or so. But it got me thinking...technically Jack only really lived 18 years, but he lived it to its fullest! How are we living today? How am I living? Am I living everyday as if it's my last? Am I living like John 10:10 says that I CAN live? Honestly, I don't think I am. I tend to lay around and sleep or watch tv instead of going to the park and walking-taking in the scenery- or cleaning my apartment so that I can invite friends and family over to hang out...it's making me sad to think about all this. Anyway. I just wanted to encourage those that read this to live life to its fullest! Get to know the people that you work with or see or talk to every day. Get to know the One that created us. I'm going to try.