The scripture says "Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.” (Matthew 19:26 NLT)". God is into what is the seemingly impossible! I have had more healingds, blessings and Devine encounters with The Holy Spirit then anyone I know, and God is truly into doing the unexplained and "impossible". By our human standards the things God has done in my body and in my life are IMPOSSIBLE things, so why do I continue to not trust him with my whole life?
"The nation of Israel is the vineyard of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. The people of Judah are his pleasant garden. He expected a crop of justice, but instead he found oppression. He expected to find righteousness, but instead he heard cries of violence" (Isaiah 5:7 NLT). This scripture tells me God knows our weakness and limitations and that is why Jesus was the plan all along. Scriptures that show God's disappointment in his beloved people just show me more and more loving mercy and grace character from my God! I don't trust him with my whole life because it goes against human nature. We are flawed and God knows it, but that is his gift to us. WAIT??? Being flawed is a gift? We have limits and learn to condition and train ourselves to overcome those limits by total reliance on our creator, that is a gift! God blesses us, gives to us, adores us and in return all we have to do is give all our trust to him to do what he wants in us. I am learning this lesson slowly but surly. It is so easy to stay in the same place just hoping things will get better, but we know we can't as God wants to do the impossible I'm our lives and to do that it takes faith and trust so we must never give up and keep,choosing to trust.
Do you want a list of all the impossible things God has done in my life? There are many and I might write about them another time, but one major thing is some impossible doors he has opened that I had truly given up on being open. This proves to me God is faithful and can do the IMPOSSIBLE out of thin air. These doors he opens have renewed my faith, inspired me to surrender more and step out in faith more for him to move in a situation.
I am going to change names and places and things for privacy, but I have this cousin; I don't have many and I am not close with many either, but my cousins Oldest, Male Twin and Female Twin are my Aunt's kids...my mom's sister. My cousin Female Twin has been in my heart for a long long time. Since she moved back to Australia to be with an man who left her in the lurch in Canada I have been praying for her. Female Twin moved to Australia in 2009 and met this guy. Female Twin and this guy had a long affair of on again off again romance. He moved to Canada to be with her after a year in Australia and he couldn't hack it and left her high and dry one day out of the blue. Female Twin was devastated and after a while of floundering around Canada she went back to Oz early 2011. In the Canadian summer of 2012 Female Twin finally left this guy and moved to the Yukon to try her hand at finding herself there. She didn't and then moved to Mexico to live with her Father who lives down there. Her father isn't the greatest role model and it just isn't a good place for her to be, as you see Female Twin went from this beautiful soul of a person in 2009 to a hollow shell of nothing at present time. This guy abused her, she started smoking and drinking way too much, and does too many recreational drugs for her own good. Since Female Twin moved to Mexico in October she has been on my heart and in my prayers. Her birthday was on Jan 3 and I think something in her snapped as out of the blue last Tuesday night as she messaged me out of nowhere on Facebook concerned about my teenage sister and her self esteem. I let Female Twin in on a secret that my sister is a teenager and what teenagers do on Facebook and that their lives are soap operas. Anyway, long story short she says "PS: I am moving back to Canada Friday...to Guelph"!!!! This news was OUT OF THE BLUE...seriously out of nowhere...I have been praying for Female Twin and her salvation and healing for a long time and now God has opened a door I thought was impossible to open. At Christmas I felt led to give Female Twin The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and was going to mail it to her. I am glad I didn't as she wouldn't have got it...as she is coming here!!! I know that this is God and not a coincidence as at one of the first Saturday prayer meetings for our time of fasting my Pastor gave us a sheet to focus our Fasting and Prayer time. There are different areas we can fill in on the sheet, like personal needs and brake throughs, missions, salvations, etc. I totally forgot that I put down that I was fasting and praying for Female Twins salvation and healing until I was looking at it the other morning! There is no such thing as a coincidence and God has opened this door. A door I thought could never be opened as the last I heard Female Twin was never ever going to move back to Canada, let alone Ontario, let alone Guelph!
God does impossible things in our lives to show us we can trust him as he knows that doing so goes totally against everything in our human nature. But, we are new creations in Christ and through the power of The Holy Spirit and God's gifts to us we can overcome our own self and step into the impossible! I am excited to see what is next as this is yet another incredible thing God is doing in my life to show me to trust him, with everything...
Monday 14 January 2013
Thursday 10 January 2013
I am weak and proud of it...
Every January my wonderful church starts the year off with a 21 day Fast. Fasting is a great biblical practice that I personally think should be done regularly in each believers life to refocus and achieve breakthrough in personal areas or in ministry. A regular time of pressing in and developing self control through Fasting and Prayer can take you to new levels in your relationship with Jesus, that is beyond our comprehension. I always look forward to January's time if Fasting and Prayer as it starts the year off with a good focus and renewal.
For me and my personal walk I felt God was asking me to go to new levels in fasting I haven't done before, and do a juice only fast. Transparency is the best policy so I will be frank and say that juicing hasn't been going well. I can go for hours and hours without eating solids but at the late evening hours after not having something warm and sustaining in my stomach I can not seem to shake the thoughts of the roasted chicken my parents had for dinner in the fridge upstairs or the frozen pizza's stacked in my freezer that were on sale and stocked up for future use just waiting to be baked, warm and gooy from the oven. Many times, more then I would like to admit, I have given into my flesh and ate solid foods that are Daniel Fast approved. I did decide early on that if I had to I would have a solid meal once a day as it is better to do that then fall off the wagon completely. However, even doing solid meals once in awhile I have been struggling in my fasting. You see I have been craving chocolate, which is truly a rarity as I don't usually unless my hormones are flaring and I know my Aunt Flo is due to visit in the near future. So alas I check my calendar and sure enough this whole fasting time is in the peek of my cycle and denying myself chocolate is becoming more and more difficult to the point I do give myself one small treat in the evening while I am winding down from the day. Does it make me feel better when I give in and have a treat? No..it doesn't, actually the chocolate tastes bitter in my mouth and I feel even worse for giving in.
This whole giving in and making excuses is really something we all struggle with while pressing in. But, lets look at the life of Jesus to help us understand why.
"Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry." (Luke 4:1, 2 NLT)
Jesus was fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. He was preparing to do the will of God the father and the devil got his knickers in a knot and upped his game. Jesus was tempted for 40 days by the devil. During his whole time of pressing in and fasting the enemy of our souls tempted the son of man. Not one day passed he wasn't tempted, but not a day passed that he did not give into his temptation. These feelings are things common to man. What Jesus went through while fasting is exactly what we go through while fasting, so it is no wonder fasting is hard! When we press in the enemy ups his game and tempts us more then if we were just going about our normal lives not working on brake throughs and going to new levels.
According to this verse the only reason we give into our temptation is because our fleshly desires are strong and our spirits are weak. But, we have the same power as Jesus to over come, The Holy Spirit! The same power that helped Jesus overcome and not I give in dwells inside us as believers, the exact same power, so I should be able to resist and not give into my flesh. So then why do I give in? Why can I not over come? Why do I dream of a house full if cheese and crusty warm bread and then give into my flesh and put feta on my salad, when I shouldn't even be having salad in the first place?!?!?!
Then I found this verse and it blew my mind!
"Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. "(2 Corinthians 12:9, 10 NLT)
So maybe it isn't our weakness that makes us fail, but it is our own pride. Paul, in his letter to the church in Corinth, said that it was only by his weakness and lack of reliance on himself that he can overcome. Trying to do it by our strength and not fully relying and looking fully to God for help to overcome is when we fail. It is not by our might but by God's power that we even can come close to overcoming. I have found this true in my walk, as it is when I am not fully weak and pliable like potters clay is when I fall to my temptations.
Through this whole fast and personal growth time thus far God is teaching me trust and humility. I can not under my own power stand strong against the temptations I face, but it is only through the renewing of my mind, full surrender and reliance on The Holy Spirit that I can overcome.
Each day, each moment, is a choice to do the right thing or give into my flesh. Some moments are utterly unbearable, but if I keep meditating on God's promises and choosing to flee from my temptations I will be successful in my fast and the things I am fasting about; for my break troughs in areas I am really struggling in, for my cousins salvation, for the missionaries I am praying for and supporting.
If I don't quit I win because Jesus has already won by His sacrifice. When I admit I am weak and can not do it alone is when my spirit becomes strong and I can overcome my flesh. It is proven! However, I am not Jesus, I am not perfect and it is by his grace and mercy alone that when and if I do fail from here on in I can pick myself back up and continue on in more humility and devotion to press in more. But, in the mean time I am going to hide my chocolate better, and give away my feta so it is more of an effort to actually fall off the preverbal wagon. I won't be likely to give into temptation as in reality it is more practical to physically distance yourself from temptation in the first place...but that is a whole other blog for another time.
Tuesday 8 January 2013
Sticks and Stones...
**this is an entry from my previous blog I feel is important to share here**
"Sticks and stones may brake my bones but words will never hurt me”, this phrase was obviously coined by a mother trying to protect her child from bullies. People are mean and words cut deep, the wounds from a physical beat-down heal but the wounds from words don’t and people carry those hurts around with them, sometimes, forever. As a victim of bullying I can boldly share the power of Jesus’ healing in my life and those deep, deep, deep, life crushing hurts from words are gone.
I have always been a larger person, I was sick as a child and had so many steroids pumped into my body I have never been “small”. I was the fat kid from the very first day of school and it hurt. No one in my grade in elementary school ever made me feel less then wonderful but there were a few girls and a couple boys in other grades that said mean, mean, uncalled for things that gave me such insecurities that I never wanted to be myself…I hated myself. I hated my skin, I hated my hair, my eyes, my personality, my voice…I hated everything about me and I pushed all that hateful emotion down deep until I had on enough of a mask to not feel anymore pain or really have any truth to my life. I would lie and pretend to get people to like me as I really didn’t think they would like me for who I truly was. I hated that people would laugh at me and poke fun so I constantly made fun of myself, if I could laugh at myself then it didn’t feel so bad when others laughed at me because I made a joke of it. This fake life lead to a deep seeded depression all through my high school years, and because I struggled so much to fit in and be something I was not it became “work” to live and put a smile on my face.
On a lighter note I met Jesus for the first time in a real way at a Christian summer camp when I was 16 and I finally felt I could smile for real. However, I still wore my mask and suffered in private. I remember one time at a youth retreat the pain of faking a smile and joy became too much that I excused myself and cut for the first time to just feel something. No one knew what I did and no one knew the hurts I carried around. I had to be loud, fun, off the wall awesome because then people wouldn’t see my hurts and hurt me in return. My walls were so high it was impossible for me to take them down as then people would know my whole life was a lie and the fact I hated myself.
The summer I turned 17 Jesus changed something in me where some of my walls came down. I shared hurts and truths with some people I never shared before, I left camp that summer more confident in myself, a little more caring toward myself and free from cutting. I had people who I was real with, which I had never had up until this point. However, I hadn’t given my whole life to Jesus at this point to heal me, to touch me and make me whole, so when I went to University with some walls down, letting people in I was hurt by some people and all the feelings of worthlessness flooded back. I was more depressed then ever, away from home for the first time and just wanted to make it all go away, so up went the mask again. My roommate found a note I wrote and got worried and called me on my cellphone to make sure I was ok, and I brushed it off as a joke…but in reality I just wanted to end my life. I was so tired of living I just wanted to go home to God the father and be at peace, but I could never follow through with taking my own life because I didn’t want to go to hell as I was told taking my own life was a sin, so to numb the pain I drank and drank and drank until it went away. Drinking, taking pills, cutting to just feel something continued until God said “enough” and reached out and pulled me out of the deepest pit I have ever been in the late summer of 2010.
Because I felt so worthless, and unloved because of years of putting up high walls I looked for love in all the wrong places. In the spring and summer of 2010 I was in a relationship with a sweet man who totally loved me for me. He showed me love, respect and a life I could have only dreamed of, but by then I was so damaged and emotionally wrecked I could never have a healthy relationship. It became to much for my OCD riddled, secretly depressed, baby christian boyfriend to handle and he broke my heart. It broke so hard I tried to kill myself in his house the morning he broke up with me, he stopped me though. thank The Lord, and called my parents. After my parents came I was immediately put into emergency counseling and that was when I was done with the masks and walls. My heart started to pour out years of pain, wounds from words, and I admitted that I had an issue with alcohol and I cut myself (for the last time the morning I tried to kill myself). It wasn’t the first time I tried to end my life because I felt worthless and that there was no way out and no one cared, but it was the last time!
With everything being out in the open I was forced to face my issues, get help and start to heal. That was when God showed up. I said before the guy I was dating at the time was a new christian, he gave me a book called “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren and after we broke up he encouraged me to get back my relationship with God, so I read the book. My life started to really change when I started to let go and let God. I went to church and God spoke to me in a real tangible way. I was 4 weeks out from my suicide attempt, and in church; we are worshiping. I am talking to God during this time asking him if he is real and if he really does love me and if I am worth it to show me. The next thing I know a young girl comes up to me while I am singing and says “I feel God is telling me to tell you he loves you and you are special”. I cried and said, “ok God, we will do this your way”.
From that point on I stopped being two people, I was all for Jesus, 100% surrendered, and my life changed. Jesus healed my hurts, the deep cuts from mean kids. Jesus showed me who I truly was and how to accept that. Jesus has shown me love like I have never had, how to forgive and that I am worth it! I had to let down my walls, feel real pain, let Jesus invade my life, lose friends, forgive everyone who hurt me, turn 180 degrees from the life I was living and totally surrender my life to Him to allow him to bring me out of the pit I was in.
John 15:18,19 says: “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you.” (NLT), people are going to be mean, and words are going to cut deep, but Jesus died to give you life so sticks and stones may brake your bones but words never have to hurt you! Jesus loves you so much, you are worth it, you are wonderful, you are beautiful and God created you for his purpose!
If you find yourself feeling like no one cares and life isn’t worth it, and the bullies never stop and you have to put up walls or cut to make the pain go away or drink or do drugs to numb the pain know you can reach out to people. If you suffer in silence no one knows you hurt, no one knew I hurt my whole life and I am only alive today by the grace of God to share with you my pain and healing so you can have freedom in Christ.
Also if you know someone who is in a depressed state or cuts or hides from who they are tell them you care and be Jesus to them, because all it takes it stoping for one to make the difference. What if that girl didn’t reach out in faith? Where would I be? She stopped for me, she was Jesus to me and it opened my life to the most incredible journey I have ever been on
"Sticks and stones may brake my bones but words will never hurt me”, this phrase was obviously coined by a mother trying to protect her child from bullies. People are mean and words cut deep, the wounds from a physical beat-down heal but the wounds from words don’t and people carry those hurts around with them, sometimes, forever. As a victim of bullying I can boldly share the power of Jesus’ healing in my life and those deep, deep, deep, life crushing hurts from words are gone.
I have always been a larger person, I was sick as a child and had so many steroids pumped into my body I have never been “small”. I was the fat kid from the very first day of school and it hurt. No one in my grade in elementary school ever made me feel less then wonderful but there were a few girls and a couple boys in other grades that said mean, mean, uncalled for things that gave me such insecurities that I never wanted to be myself…I hated myself. I hated my skin, I hated my hair, my eyes, my personality, my voice…I hated everything about me and I pushed all that hateful emotion down deep until I had on enough of a mask to not feel anymore pain or really have any truth to my life. I would lie and pretend to get people to like me as I really didn’t think they would like me for who I truly was. I hated that people would laugh at me and poke fun so I constantly made fun of myself, if I could laugh at myself then it didn’t feel so bad when others laughed at me because I made a joke of it. This fake life lead to a deep seeded depression all through my high school years, and because I struggled so much to fit in and be something I was not it became “work” to live and put a smile on my face.
On a lighter note I met Jesus for the first time in a real way at a Christian summer camp when I was 16 and I finally felt I could smile for real. However, I still wore my mask and suffered in private. I remember one time at a youth retreat the pain of faking a smile and joy became too much that I excused myself and cut for the first time to just feel something. No one knew what I did and no one knew the hurts I carried around. I had to be loud, fun, off the wall awesome because then people wouldn’t see my hurts and hurt me in return. My walls were so high it was impossible for me to take them down as then people would know my whole life was a lie and the fact I hated myself.
The summer I turned 17 Jesus changed something in me where some of my walls came down. I shared hurts and truths with some people I never shared before, I left camp that summer more confident in myself, a little more caring toward myself and free from cutting. I had people who I was real with, which I had never had up until this point. However, I hadn’t given my whole life to Jesus at this point to heal me, to touch me and make me whole, so when I went to University with some walls down, letting people in I was hurt by some people and all the feelings of worthlessness flooded back. I was more depressed then ever, away from home for the first time and just wanted to make it all go away, so up went the mask again. My roommate found a note I wrote and got worried and called me on my cellphone to make sure I was ok, and I brushed it off as a joke…but in reality I just wanted to end my life. I was so tired of living I just wanted to go home to God the father and be at peace, but I could never follow through with taking my own life because I didn’t want to go to hell as I was told taking my own life was a sin, so to numb the pain I drank and drank and drank until it went away. Drinking, taking pills, cutting to just feel something continued until God said “enough” and reached out and pulled me out of the deepest pit I have ever been in the late summer of 2010.
Because I felt so worthless, and unloved because of years of putting up high walls I looked for love in all the wrong places. In the spring and summer of 2010 I was in a relationship with a sweet man who totally loved me for me. He showed me love, respect and a life I could have only dreamed of, but by then I was so damaged and emotionally wrecked I could never have a healthy relationship. It became to much for my OCD riddled, secretly depressed, baby christian boyfriend to handle and he broke my heart. It broke so hard I tried to kill myself in his house the morning he broke up with me, he stopped me though. thank The Lord, and called my parents. After my parents came I was immediately put into emergency counseling and that was when I was done with the masks and walls. My heart started to pour out years of pain, wounds from words, and I admitted that I had an issue with alcohol and I cut myself (for the last time the morning I tried to kill myself). It wasn’t the first time I tried to end my life because I felt worthless and that there was no way out and no one cared, but it was the last time!
With everything being out in the open I was forced to face my issues, get help and start to heal. That was when God showed up. I said before the guy I was dating at the time was a new christian, he gave me a book called “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren and after we broke up he encouraged me to get back my relationship with God, so I read the book. My life started to really change when I started to let go and let God. I went to church and God spoke to me in a real tangible way. I was 4 weeks out from my suicide attempt, and in church; we are worshiping. I am talking to God during this time asking him if he is real and if he really does love me and if I am worth it to show me. The next thing I know a young girl comes up to me while I am singing and says “I feel God is telling me to tell you he loves you and you are special”. I cried and said, “ok God, we will do this your way”.
From that point on I stopped being two people, I was all for Jesus, 100% surrendered, and my life changed. Jesus healed my hurts, the deep cuts from mean kids. Jesus showed me who I truly was and how to accept that. Jesus has shown me love like I have never had, how to forgive and that I am worth it! I had to let down my walls, feel real pain, let Jesus invade my life, lose friends, forgive everyone who hurt me, turn 180 degrees from the life I was living and totally surrender my life to Him to allow him to bring me out of the pit I was in.
John 15:18,19 says: “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you.” (NLT), people are going to be mean, and words are going to cut deep, but Jesus died to give you life so sticks and stones may brake your bones but words never have to hurt you! Jesus loves you so much, you are worth it, you are wonderful, you are beautiful and God created you for his purpose!
If you find yourself feeling like no one cares and life isn’t worth it, and the bullies never stop and you have to put up walls or cut to make the pain go away or drink or do drugs to numb the pain know you can reach out to people. If you suffer in silence no one knows you hurt, no one knew I hurt my whole life and I am only alive today by the grace of God to share with you my pain and healing so you can have freedom in Christ.
Also if you know someone who is in a depressed state or cuts or hides from who they are tell them you care and be Jesus to them, because all it takes it stoping for one to make the difference. What if that girl didn’t reach out in faith? Where would I be? She stopped for me, she was Jesus to me and it opened my life to the most incredible journey I have ever been on
Brake My Heart For What Brakes Yours
Recently I have been reading some of 1Kings…these guys didn’t get it. However there are so many good lessons from it. I told a friend of mine that I was reading Kings and she told me when she was in Sunday School that was pretty much all she learned about; The Kings. Because I was so moved by the stories I read I was shocked that they would teach young people such heavy stories! Talk about guilt tripping young people, there is so much sacrifice and strife, no wonder kids turn away when they start to use their own brain, talk about legalism! However, I am finding I am looking at these stories with a heart of sorrow for God. God gave us stories like the ones in Kings to show us what makes him cry and what makes him smile. there is sorrow but amazing redemption in these stories, it’s good stuff….but super heavy for young people when not used in the proper context.
So because of this my friend didn’t think of it the same way I did as she said she was bored of the Kings, as it was taught so much to her at a young age. How can this be? 1Kings is all about the mistakes; the things that upset God. These Kings had favor, but through sin and hard hearts and selfish power they were harshly punished for their choices. Then 2Kings is all about redemption. the Kings that loved God and did his will; yes they made mistakes but king David was God’s favorite…he redeemed the Kings!
I just finished the story of King Ahab and how he died and then how his descendants lost it all and instead of turning back to God they worshiped a false god named Baal. It is really interesting and there are so many things in that story about many different aspects and levels of God and his unfathomable love for us! The Bible really is all about Jesus and the gospel, we just don’t see it in the Old Testament as we let the “history” and stories get in the way. When we take it out of context and true meaning it loses value.
God loved those Kings so much and gave them so many chances…gave them so many words through prophets, dire warnings…but they just didn’t listen. Knowing God loves us…like really really loves us, and wants us intimate with him, not listening or turning from the things they were doing makes God so sad. We make God sad when we get out of his plan and purpose for us. God weeps for so many people who he loves that are missing purpose and not listening to his loving warnings. We, as devoted believers, need to weep for them too, and share his love with them, so God can delight in them like he delights in us!
I don’t want I make God cry by not breaking my heart for what brakes his. The stories of the Kings are stories that make God cry and then they are stories that make God delight in a joyful way through redemption. There is always hope in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice that we can not be insensitive to what makes God sad, learn from the mistakes of the Kings so we can then make him happy...
So because of this my friend didn’t think of it the same way I did as she said she was bored of the Kings, as it was taught so much to her at a young age. How can this be? 1Kings is all about the mistakes; the things that upset God. These Kings had favor, but through sin and hard hearts and selfish power they were harshly punished for their choices. Then 2Kings is all about redemption. the Kings that loved God and did his will; yes they made mistakes but king David was God’s favorite…he redeemed the Kings!
I just finished the story of King Ahab and how he died and then how his descendants lost it all and instead of turning back to God they worshiped a false god named Baal. It is really interesting and there are so many things in that story about many different aspects and levels of God and his unfathomable love for us! The Bible really is all about Jesus and the gospel, we just don’t see it in the Old Testament as we let the “history” and stories get in the way. When we take it out of context and true meaning it loses value.
God loved those Kings so much and gave them so many chances…gave them so many words through prophets, dire warnings…but they just didn’t listen. Knowing God loves us…like really really loves us, and wants us intimate with him, not listening or turning from the things they were doing makes God so sad. We make God sad when we get out of his plan and purpose for us. God weeps for so many people who he loves that are missing purpose and not listening to his loving warnings. We, as devoted believers, need to weep for them too, and share his love with them, so God can delight in them like he delights in us!
I don’t want I make God cry by not breaking my heart for what brakes his. The stories of the Kings are stories that make God cry and then they are stories that make God delight in a joyful way through redemption. There is always hope in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice that we can not be insensitive to what makes God sad, learn from the mistakes of the Kings so we can then make him happy...
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