Heart Burn

I have "heart burn" and not the kind that is cured with Tums. I am laying here on top of my bed looking at all of the unpacking that I still need to do and processing my life over the past week.

I am so happy that I feel tears welling up in my eyes...my heart is pounding and it is burning. Have you ever felt this alive? I am not sure that I have. I have been digging myself out of snow for the past week and I am enamored by it every time. I am more amazed that I am enamored by it. I am a new creature. I can see it in my actions and reactions.

How can a God love me so much?

Christmas is just around the bend and my heart burns with love at the thought of Mary pregnant with the Christ. I swell with admiration at the obedience of Joseph. I sit in awesome wonder at what the shepherds may have felt when seeing baby Jesus so newly entered into this world. Oh what a glorious sight that had to be. The world would never be the same.

Everything in life, at that point, was leading to the cross and everything since looks back to the cross.

Yet, those shepherds, the wise men and even Mary and Joseph likely didn't comprehend the magnitude of the impact that Christ would have on the world. Do I even comprehend it? I think not. I think so finite and God is so infinite.

I see Him here. I see His radiance shining through in every star in the sky, in the shimmer off the snow, in the elk running free. I see it in Oscar as he looks like a puppy bouncing through the snow. Where I haven't yet seen Him prevalent is in the people.

There is work to be done. I feel like Jonah right now...I don't want to run the other way...but I am certainly initimidated by a people that have somehow forgotten God.

I have heart burn right now...with amazement of a majestic King and a pain of a lost people.

Heart burn that cannot be cured by Tums.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

I am going to be very see-through in today's writing. Why? Because I need to be honest. VERY honest. I have a story, more like stories, to tell about a God that is bigger than me. He chases after me with a passion unlike anything I have ever known.

Let's take a look back to June...I could not rid myself of this question..."Mirror, mirror on the wall...who is the biggest fake of them all?" As I would look in my reflection the answer would come screaming back at me, "YOU!" I had lived most of my adult life looking into a mirror and not liking what I saw. I don't mean my hair, my body, my smile, etc. I mean my eyes, and I don't mean the color of them...I mean the lies that they held, the buried secrets, the need for anonymity. I LOVED lots of people to be around me, and I mean a lot. I hid well in a lot of people. My "personality" could be unleashed and I could make people belly laugh at a moments notice. Very few get to see me one on one. That was far too intimate for me. That might have required baring myself to them. That could have produced pain.

I hated looking in the mirror. I saw a coward for many years. I KNEW God had plans for me, yet I constantly told Him no. I would then become so disenchanted with Him when I wasn't happy, joyful, or just not getting my way. I knew bondage and obligation and guilt. I knew it well.

I NEVER want to forget where I once was...I ALWAYS want to remember. Not in order to LIVE in the past...but to be constantly aware of it and to be constantly reminded that life outside of Jesus is no life at all.

I have recently surrendered all. I can honestly say wherever He leads I will follow, when He waits, I will wait and when He moves, I will move.

Now, when I look into the mirror...I don't have to wonder what I am looking at...who that person really is...whether I will be "found out". What I see is a beautiful child of God surrendered to the love of her life, I see a life changed, I can honestly say out loud to myself, "you are different. You are different because of Him." I am forgiven and I am moving forward, with Him...IN Him.

God has revealed to me a great love living inside of me; the Holy Spirit. Thank you Jesus for your wholly broken body; for your sacrifice. It is truly Amazing Grace that set me free. AND I do mean TRULY free...I am FREE...Free Indeed!

For ME

"Sweet Girl, I delivered you for Me." Words that I found very disappointing initially.

I have had so many things going through my head, heart, and soul over the past several months. They are  culminating into something pretty wonderful! I will say when I sat down with pen to paper asking God to clearly put the words in my head that He was trying to tell me...I asked Him specifically, "Lord, why did you deliver me?" "what is it that you require from me?" "what do you want me to do with that deliverance?" "Where do I need to go, what do I need to do?"

I felt a welling up in my chest and I just KNEW He was about to spill a tons of words out onto that page through my fingers and pen. Then he had me write, "Sweet Girl, I delivered you for Me." Then that feeling that He was going to continue to speak to me was over, I had peace and I knew He was finished talking. I received that words I had asked for from God, but I felt short-changed. I was looking for some great detailed, mapped-out explanation of what I was going to do with all of this "deliverance". Yet, all I received was "Sweet Girl, I delivered you for Me."

Really? That is all I got? I knew I felt more peaceful...but I certainly did NOT know why. It seemed too simple. Too elementary of a statement to me.

But, was it? Certainly not. It took this thick-headed believer almost a week for her proverbial light bulb to go off in her head. HE DELIVERED ME FOR HIM! That's it! He doesn't NEED me to do anything but be with Him. He took all of my pressure off of me...he granted me true rest, true freedom and released any expectation that I may fail at whatever He was asking of me!

I realize that some of you will say, "Duh!". But, this was more profound to me than that. I have been a worker bee my entire life and I learned the freedom of complete surrender in August...but I had not yet realized that He truly just wants me to be with Him. That's it. He wants me to love Him. That's it. He wants me to be in a relationship with Him. That's it.

Everything else is purely a blessing. No strings attached, no room for failure, no expectations. As long as I am focused on my relationship with Him, everything else will happen as He wants it to.

What an amazing statement He made to me! I could write a 10 page explanation of what that one sentence now means to me.

I love you God, more and more every minute!

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."
Galations 5:1 (NIV)

Dreaming Out Loud

I had terrible dreams two nights ago...I don't know why my mind often meanders into darkness while sleeping. My dreams are often filled with people doing wrong to people. I use to be very afraid in them, waking to a racing heartbeat and hopes that it was, indeed, just a dream.

However, lately, I have not been as much afraid. Instead, I find myself assisting those that are being wronged. Whether it is trying to save someone from a murderer, kidnapper, etc. I have a clear mind, clear goal and understanding of what needs to be done in order to assist their freedom. I am not necessarily the one saving them, but I am clearly guiding them to the place of rescue. At the exact same time, I find myself fending off the proverbial "bad guys" as well. I don't feel that I can be harmed by them in the manner that they could harm the others; yet, I do sense danger. They tend to be more of a nuisance to me trying to assist others.

When thinking through my dreams, I have wondered if this is my subconscious acting out the desires of my heart. I find myself wanting to lead others to the Light in every day and every way. I am IN the Light, so I am safe; but I know that others aren't.

Just me thinking out loud.

God is so good to me. There is no greater freedom than that which comes when one is fully obedient to God. <3

³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39 (ESV)

I am amazed at the difference one day can make...actually one hour...let's take it down to one minute. I have been unsettled for over a week. VERY unsettled. I am making big changes. HUGE changes! I had been set free from the anxiety of those changes until last week.

I took my eyes off of God. I starting sinking in the water. I was in the middle of the storm walking freely on water and I took my eyes off of Jesus. WoW! What a panic! As I was wailing around in the water trying to keep from drowning, I would glance at Jesus, but not affix my eyes to Him. Then Monday night; He SET His eyes on me. I knew I was immediately safe. I felt immediate peace. I felt immediate excitement again!

I don't want to be like the Israelites in Exodus and not trust God's best for me. I don't want to wander around in the desert any longer. I want to be like Joshua and KNOW that God can deliver me to the land He has chosen me for. I want to focus on Deuteronomy and the "Words" God so clearly spoke to His children (ME!).

May I cling to these "Words" as I start my journey into the unknown with my both of my feet planted firmly in His will for me. May I grow stronger in who He is and who I am IN Him.

WoW! What a difference a day can make!

I was completely minding my own business...charging forth in life trying to do what would make me happy. "Happy" always seemed to escape me. It never held down roots, it was there and then it was gone, then it was there again, then gone. It did not seem to matter how many friends I had, how much money I made, how many places in the world I saw..."happy" escaped me like a wreckless jester mocking me in the wind.
Here is my life, my story, in the raw. I have not exactly found "Happy", but what has found me is "radical contentment", "radical joy", "radical peace."
DOB - 7/3/73  RU - 8/17/12