Digging Out the Hurt

So often times we go through life and we beat ourselves down putting “standards”, burdens, our past, our failure all on top of us and we bury the very person God designed us to be.

All of these things we are not suppose to even carry let alone have it bury us so down that we we lose all sight of hope. We begin to believe our shortfalls our what defines us, our failures are the only thing people see, and that life is pointless because no one sees you, hears you, understands you, or even loves you. So we turn to outside sources to fill the void, to make us feel something or even make us feel nothing. It can be anything, that gives us that feeling. We find it somewhere. It allows us not to feel invincible or hurt for a small window of time.

These are only temporary solutions that will not last. They will only bury us further and further down and it starts a cycle of needing that “high” because it feels that void. Some will lose their life fighting a battle against things they never were meant to battle let alone battle alone. This void we feel is found in God. , people often refer to it as “The God size hole in your heart” and how we fill it determine how we go through our life, day by day, step by step.

Hope, grace, and freedom can be found regardless how bad the situation or past may be.

Hope is found in God. Hope is the last thing we hold on to and the first twinkle we see in our road to healing. Hope is found everywhere. Hope can be found in a smile of a little kids face, or a cry of a baby. It can be a friend reaching out to you, or a mentor to tell you to hold on, it can be just someone finally getting you to see that hope isn’t lost, hope is just buried inside.

Grace is found when we surrender it ALL. It’s confessing every sin and every time you hear and feel the voice of God in conviction and you turn the other cheek. It allowing God into the areas of our life that we keep private in a dark closet in the basement, it’s allowing God in to everything he already knows but confessing it with our lips and on our knees in repentance.

Freedom is found after laying everything down at the foot of the cross. After putting EVERYTHING and surrendering EVERYTHING to God. It’s letting go of the control we think we have in our lives and giving the keys to God. It’s putting Gods hand back on your shoulder and allowing God to lead you. It’s the feeling of a heavy weight coming off your chest. It’s the first breathe of air after feeling trapped for so long.

Life isn’t about the temporary. It’s about the eternal. We either live a life trying to figure out which way to go or we live a life surrendered to God, prayerfully connected, confessing when we need to confess and staying in tuned to the frequency of God.

We all are buried to some extent. It just depends on how we try to unbury ourselves that determines the future God has in store.

God’s Birthday Card

I went around this weekend, thinking that I would not have any friends come around me just be with me on my birthday. I thought no one cared, that no one wanted to celebrate that God brought me into this world 28 years ago. 

I have never been giving a birthday party because my birthday feel awkwardly at the beginning of the school year, so I never knew anyone. As a little girl, I got used to my birthday just being the family being together, and maybe going next door to that other girls birthday party next door, who shared my same birthday, just a few years older.  I never knew what it was like to be the “Birthday Girl”.

I felt down all week because I didn’t have anyone to celebrate with. I felt like no one is even going to notice.  But they did, God did. My heavenly father told me “Happy Birthday” 

Do you know when you get a card for your birthday about a past memory? Well I got God’s birthday card today.

God took me back to not exactly two year ago, but pretty close. The day this lost soul stepped in the doors to Captivate. He had me go in when normal guests would arrive, he had me greeted as if I was a guest, he had hugs to be given out, he had his worship play a song that they sang two years ago. A song this girl didn’t know and didn’t want to sing and had no idea what the definition of worship was. A song that today, I sang my whole heart out and tears ran down my cheeks because God just took me back to remind me where I came from and how far I have grown in him and how lost I was without him and just to show me how much he loves me. He just took my heart and made it his and took my life and just put in his hand.  

Tonight I celebrated my birthday with my new family that I met two years ago. It may have just been a song and a cake that was sang but it  went from 5 people singing “Happy Birthday” to two times that singing it tonight. I was embraced, but honored and loved. God wanted to show me that I am never alone, that these people are beside me and are here for me. I love my family. 

My Father created me to serve him, to worship him, to do his will and not my own. If I go around celebrating my birthday without celebrating him then it’s a wasted birthday because I didn’t honor my creator. Today I walked in to church thinking “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!” to “It’s my birthday because he has a plan for me and he decided that I am still worth it”. 

Thank you God.

God’s Path

James 4:15 “Instead yo ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that”

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths”

God’s will. Our paths he chose for us.

Christians, non-Christians, regardless of who you are we have no control of any given situation. Yet we live our lives like we do. We put burdens and stresses on our shoulders and it impacts everything we do and how we act. It affects your family, your kids, and everyone around you. Non-Christians believe that it’s their will and it will be done, therefore they put all effort and energy into doing things to get things done. Yet, Christians will say “But if it’s God’s will…” but we do not practice those very words. We act like we have control of the outcome. The only control that we have is the control of ourselves praying, but yet many of us still do not pray.  As Christians we should be full of joy not stresses and burdens. 

Last week, I was beyond stressed, I was sick, but I don’t know what came first. Was I sick because I was stressed out? or Was I actually sick and it enhanced my stress? I have no idea. But what I do know is that today, I am not sick, I am not stressed, the burdens are no longer there. Why? Because I gave up my ability to control the situation. I gave it back to God who had it to begin with. I was foolish. I was not being a true Christ follower. I was being a selfish person who thought she could control her own life, and I look back at last week and all my days before that and I think, God did everything, and I did nothing. That time I got into college when I didn’t even hit the “Submit” button on the online application, God hit it for me.  

There are things in our lives that we just need to give it over to God. We may think we have control, but we do not. He makes our paths, we just build the trenches, that keep us from going forward down that path.

Gods Butterfly

A butterfly flew into my car today. First off, it was a gorgeous day outside so I had the windows rolled down. It flew in at a stop light it was a small young one, but beautiful. I flicked it off and it landed on the car beside me. That didn’t stop it, it flew right back in and stayed on my door till I arrived at my destination. It didn’t fly away either, it gracefully walked up my door to my roof, I could’ve held it. It wasn’t moving away from my car. What does this have to do with anything?

Well it maybe a butterfly but it taught me something. God’s love does not go away even if you think you can get rid of it. You simple cannot. You can turn you’re back but he will still speak into your life and try to get you back to him. He will never give up on you, he will never let you go! Even if you do not see it, God is always there! He loves you too much!

That butterfly was not afraid of me, he knew I was not going to hurt him even though I hurt him in past. I may have grown up a nonbeliever, a outcast, a rebel, I have cursed his name in vein but he knows I love him. He knows me and he knows me heart today. For it is he who changed me.

A butterfly is a symbol of resurrection, for it dies and rises again. It is the story of my life. I may not have physically died but my heart and soul had no meaning until I found Jesus. Jesus is not only the guy who voluntarily got up on the cross and died for me for my sins to be forgiven, but he is also the person who loves me and encourages me to be the person I am becoming.