Inside my Life

fully convinced.

2010-07-07T15:36:00.001-07:00

i'm so overwhelmed lately by His love. i think, maybe, that's what growing in Christ can be defined as... becoming increasing overwhelmed/shocked/awed year after year at the goodness of His grace, at the goodness of what He has done. that's growth. being overwhelmed in increasing measures each year.

i turn twenty in a few weeks. i know that i feel more loved by Him as an almost-twenty year old than i did as an almost-nineteen year old. this is not because i have done more to be loved by Him. this is not because i have become smarter or wiser. this is simply because He keeps revealing His love to me. through His word, through vacations and travels and sunrises and rainy days and dreams of the future, i'm learning to see Him everywhere. His hand is in it all. His hand is in this life. my life. your life.

i absolutely love the book of Romans. it gets me so pumped up. i've been listening to a lot of sermons by judah smith. i'm such a huge fan of his ministry. i love his preaching about the law & his preaching about the grace we've found as Christians through Jesus' death. i think it's hit me in a new way over the past year. this nineteenth year of my life. we are justified SOLELY by the death of Jesus. through His death, we have abundant joy, incomprehensible peace, life to the full, more blessings than we can imagine, family, great friends, thriving businesses, great marriages. through His death, we live. because of His death, we live.

i have permission to dream. i have permission to be anything BUT ordinary. i have permission to be successful in everything i put my hand to, because it is not I who works, but Christ who works in me for His purposes. i'm a firm believer that the most successful businesses, the most creative artists, the most effective teachers, the most talented musicians: should be Christians. every now and then it hits me. every ounce of creativity found on this Earth is created by HIS hands. we, being children of Him, have access to this creativity. doesn't that make you SO excited? makes me excited. makes me want to create.

No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness." But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. :: Romans 4:20-25

my retreat.

2010-04-02T13:28:00.000-07:00

Last week I blogged a quick little "see you soon" post. I wrote it on Thursday. The next week I had a couple of friends (who had read my blog) ask me how I was doing. You know--not a "How are you?" but a "How ARE you? No. Seriously. How ARE you?" They knew something was up with me. And it was. I've been trying to figure out how to blog about this--I do live a lot of my life online. I'm transparent. I feel like God has given me a platform to speak... and for some reason people like to listen, they like to hear what's up in my life. I'm forever amazed and grateful for that. I don't feel like my business blog is the place to write all this, however. So I ended up here.

God stopped me last Wednesday night. I was feeling sick all day which wasn't a helpful factor when added to a couple stressful conflicts and a growing exhaustion level. I stopped. Translation: cried. Haha! I was supposed to leave the next morning for the GC Conference in Seattle for two days as a youth leader with our youth group. As I cried with my friend Shauneille late Wednesday night, I knew I wasn't supposed to go. There's no way to express how I was feeling besides a craving for the Lord.

I want more of Him, I need more of Him. I look at my life: my business, my friends, my family, my savings account, my travel, my "following"--it means NOTHING compared to the joy of knowing my Lord Jesus Christ. For some reason, God chose last week to say, "Hey. Jamie. I want you to know more about me. I want you to spend more time with me. Twenty minutes each morning and faithful church attendance isn't enough. I made you. I want to know you." He was calling. I didn't go away that weekend. I woke up Thursday morning, wrote that blog post about "seeing you soon" and I retreated.

There were so many things that I came to God with... wrestled with Him about. What does it look like to live my entire life for Him? When it comes down to it, all I want, all I want, ALL I want, is for people to fall in love with Jesus. I don't want fame, money, success, popularity--I want to see the world changed by His love. But: I have a business. I have friends. I have family. I have church responsibilities. I need to fit in time to exercise. It can feel so mundane, so routine. I want to BE His hands and His feet to those around me. I struggled with the purpose of my day-to-day life--I don't want time to keep passing me by. Going through life, oblivious of the hundreds of people around me each day that are craving His love without even knowing it.

I spent three days reading, praying, resting with Him. One day I took a drive across a new bridge in my area... and kept driving until I saw a sign for a lake and thought, Okay. I'll drive there. I love the outdoors. God's so creative. Then I went to a coffeeshop and read. I didn't see any friends all weekend, I didn't text anybody and hey, guess what, I only checked email/twitter 2-3x a day. (I'm not kidding you: that was a huge deal. HAHA! So pathetic.)

I've been desiring to hear from God and He spoke to me through his Word. So many great things were learned and discovered this past weekend. Questions about life direction and purpose and ministry and calling. Here are a few things that I wrote down.

1. Everything in our lives is for HIS name's sake. Everything. Even our sins being forgiven--that's not for us, but for Him. "Because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake." (1 John 2:12)

2. Reading in Haggai 1... "Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew and the earth withholds its fruit." (Haggai 1:9-10) -- MESSED UP priorities. When the people came and began to repair and built the Lord's house God spoke, "From this day I will bless you." (Haggai 2:19.) Seek first His Kingdom.

3. "Those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing." (Psalm 34:10)

4. In Deuteronomy 8, the Lord led his people into the wilderness. To humble them and to test them, to discover what was in their hearts--to see if they would still follow Him. I felt like I was in that place last week. We are not called to live by bread alone but "by every word that proceeds out of the Lord's mouth." Sweet. I love that.

As well as a lot of the Bible, I also read some sweet books:
Understanding God's Will by Kyle Lake.
Perfect book for me in this time in my life. PERFECT. What a great book.

The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne.
A little emergent-churchy, but you can't deny the simple truth of how we are called to LOVE. This book shook me up. I found myself so challenged by the last page.

In Kyle Lake's book, there was a great quote by Oswald Chambers.

"We have the idea that God is leading us towards a particular end of a desired goal, but He is not... What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the GOAL itself. His purpose is the process."

I find that comforting. All the questioning, the searching, the seeking--that's His plan. His plan isn't that we accomplish exactly "X" but that we learn A, B, and C on the way to Accomplishment X.

On Sunday, I eased back into my life and... talking to other human beings besides my parents in the hall. Hah! It was a weird experience though. Sunday was incredibly emotionally exhausting for me: church, lunch, coffee date with a friend, birthday party at night. To go from being alone for three days to that much talking? It makes me realize no wonder I arrived at a place of burn-out. I need to seek out alone time more often. By Monday night I was feeling back to my normal self and back to work and emails and friends and my Google calendar. That weekend honestly feels like months ago: even though it was just last week. Weird how life creeps back in on ya.

But. I'm changed. In such a good way.
I walked away from this weekend:
1. Refreshed by His presence.
2. With a greater desire to know Him.
3. Blessed by the assurance that as long as I desire to follow His will in all that I do, I don't need to worry about whether I turn left or right. He will be there with me.
4. Challenged to start taking one full day off (or at least a half day: 8AM - noon or something) a week to spend with Him. I'm blessed by a flexible schedule and I feel SO strongly the calling of the Lord upon me to just spend TIME with Him. I'm so selfish with my time. Jesus gave up his life for a bunch of people who didn't deserve it ONE BIT. I'm pretty sure I can give up my time to the creator of the entire world--who deserves it beyond all comprehension.

Woo, boy. Thanks for reading. God is so good and I'm so excited to walk with Him today and tomorrow and the rest of my teenage years and into my 20s and all the days of my life.

Generous Givers

2010-01-13T20:40:00.000-08:00

I love how God works. Today was a crazy day for me. Just busy. Started with a long run in the morning (my training is getting really hard and intense and somedays I just feel like complaining about it) and then rushing around to coffee dates and lunch dates and errands and driving all across the world and ending back home at dinnertime to voicemails and emails and the whole world wanting my attention. I get into these crazy modes of work, work, work. It's so hard to escape.

As I mentioned before, my church is in 31 days of prayer. I didn't go today. Because, quite honestly, I couldn't concentrate with all this stuff I needed to do. My parents went ahead and I made a plan to pray with them for the last half hour at home from 7 - 7:30PM. I'm working away and the internet connection starts giving me a ton of trouble around 6:55PM. It does this a lot. But it just WOULDN'T come back. And I thought oh, yeah. It's 6:58PM. I said I was going to pray but if this stinking internet would start working I'd just keep working on my to-do list. I tried for another few minutes and then shut it off and went downstairs with my Bible. I was laughing on the walk down: that is SO like God. It'll take a failed internet connection to get me to listen sometimes.

I'm so blessed by His Word lately. This morning I read (amongst other things) Psalm 37 - 40. Tonight, I went through and read all of those aloud. I found myself drawn to completely different verses and found some amazing promises. Especially in light of the recent Haiti disaster. I watched some footage this afternoon and reading these verses now brings a lot more meaning. I pray you've been considering donating to the cause if you haven't already. God gives us so much. Give back. He will bless you so abundantly. He's proven this in my life multiple times… ridiculous giver, our God!

"But as for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord is thinking about me right now." Psalm 40:17a

"The godly are generous givers." Psalm 37:21b

On Prayer.

2010-01-09T19:30:00.000-08:00

"Why are you sleeping?" he asked. "Get up and pray. Otherwise temptation will overpower you." Luke 22:46.

Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly. Psalm 5:3.

My church is in a season of prayer right now. 31 days of it to be exact. 3 prayer meetings a day, for 31 days. I'm doing my best to make it out to every one that I can. Setting aside the time to seek Him and His will for my life. It's awesome to do that at a beginning of the new year. A fresh start. I'm thankful for a God whose mercies are new each morning.

Cling To Him.

2009-11-23T09:04:00.000-08:00

Reading through Deuteronomy as of late in the mornings. Just loving it. I'm so thankful for a God who wrote words for me to read, thousands of years ago, TODAY. Woah. I read Deut 27 - 30 this morning, and... you should probably pick up your Bible and do the same.

"Choose life... that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him for He is your life and the length of your days, and that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers." - Deut 30:29

I want to make that personal.

"I WILL choose life... that I may love the Lord my God, that I may obey His voice, and that I may cling to Him for He is MY life and the length of MY days, and that I may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to MY fathers."

CLING.
to him.

Cling: to be in close contact with, stick or hold together, to resist separation.

I Resist the fact that I'm too busy to read my bible. I Resist the fact that my mind wanders a lot when I pray. I Resist the fact that often I sooo badly want my will for my life and not His. Instead, I Cling to His refreshing presence. I Cling to His available Word. I Cling to His incredible promises. I Cling to His life.

So Of Course He Loves Old Ordinary Me.

2009-11-03T16:33:00.001-08:00

I started this blog really wanted to write it in regularly. Every now and then I get inspired in my morning journallings with Jesus. I often think I should jot a few notes down online--but I write verses or thoughts out in my journal and don't think to blog after that. Silly me. A lot's been going on in my mind the past few weeks... About life and priorities and what really matters when you strip it all away. Jesus. He's what matters.

If my main priority in life isn't to glorify His name and live to get to know Him better each and every day that I live, I'm a little screwed up. Just gotta be blunt. And some days: I'm screwed up. He's not the first thing on my mind. Sometimes He's the last thing on my mind. Business usually takes #1 in my mind. Me goes #2. Family becomes #3 and friends are thrown in there somewhere. That's my natural order of priorities: and it's RIDICULOUS. What a ridiculous human being I am. Absurd.

I'm learning more and more each day about the love of Jesus. Sometimes I'll be listening to a song and just start crying. And I'll cry as I realize how much He loves us. How much He's blessed us. How excited I am for Heaven. It's so overwhelming. I recently finished reading "Traveling Mercies" by Anne Lamott (she's got some wonky theology but she's a beautiful writer and has some great imagery) & here is one of my favourite quotes:

"The mystery of God's love as I understand it is that God loves the man who was being mean to his dog just as much as he loves babies; God love Susan Smith, who drowned her two sons, as much as he loves Desmond Tutu. And he loved her just as much while she was releasing the handbrake of her car that sent her boys into the river as he did when she first nursed them. So of course He loves old ordinary me, even or especially at my most scared and petty and mean and obsessive. Loves me; CHOOSES me."

What a great God we worship.

The Thessalonians' Faith

2009-06-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

Reading a passage in the Word today out of 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 2 and 3.

"We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."

Work: produced by faith.
Labor: prompted by love.
Endurance: inspired by hope in Jesus.

I love that. Even though Saturday mornings are hectic when I'm shooting a wedding, I try to make it a priority to read my bible and pray even if it's for five minutes, and not the usual 20-30. Last wedding day, I was staring an 11 hour day in the face and praying for strength and protection throughout each hour! I came across this verse and it inspired me to face the day giving 100% of what I had to give!

Romans 12:11: Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically.

I've also been making a determined effort to work out more regularly as of late. Worship music (Hillsong, Christian City Church, JesusCulture) has always been my favourite genre to run to. Especially when it gets to the chorus or the bridge and God's love is being proclaimed with such energy it makes me want to run SO much faster! If God is the God of the impossible, the God who does great things, the God who does only wondrous things, pretty sure he can give me the strength to finish this 3 mile run. I love it and He is my strength during a lot of my workouts! Makes me smile.

Isaiah 58

2009-03-07T11:04:00.001-08:00

They seek Me daily,
And delight to know My ways,
As a nation that did righteousness,
And did not forsake the ordinance of their God.
They ask of me the ordinances of justice;
They take delight in approaching God.
- Isaiah 58:2

Isaiah is one of my favourite books. I always find myself coming back to it, again and again. A couple of weeks ago I was reading Isaiah 58 and found a whole bunch of cool promises from God.

Paraphrasing Isaiah 58:7-12
If we feed the hungry and clothe the naked then: (7)
- our "light shall break forth like the morning" (8)
- our "healing shall spring forth" (8)
- righteousness "shall go before" me (8)
- "the glory of the Lord" will be my rear guard (8)
- when we call, He'll answer (9)
- our light shall "dawn in the darkness" (10)
- the "Lord will guide [us] continually" satisfying our soul, sterngthing our bones (11)
- we will "raise up the foundations of many generations" (12)

I love that. I find I do this a lot in my journaling; I'll find a passage, and while I'm reading it I can just picture it as point-form notes and I always find it easier to break it down this way!

Waiting

2009-02-09T09:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted and I was just going over my prayer journal looking at a few of the verses I wrote down on three consecutive days in January. I didn't even realize it until this morning but they all have to do with waiting and patience while we wait and pray for God to move!

Isaiah 26:8-9

"O Lord, we have waited for you: The desire of our soul is for Your name, and for the remembrance of You. With my soul I have desired You in the night. Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek you early."

Psalm 25:21

"Let integrity and righteousness preserve me, for I wait for You."

Ecclesiastes 7:8

"The end of a thing is better than its beginning. The patient in spirit are better than the proud in spirit."

Learning to wait on God.

waiting for answers to prayer,

waiting for new business opportunities,

waiting for deeper friendships,

waiting for more opportunities to reach out,

waiting to witness miracles,

waiting to see what He has planned.

I was thinking about what it means to "wait" on the Lord and a few things came to mind:

- to sit in His presence without hurrying or rushing.

- to pray wholeheartedly without worrying or anxiousness.

- to trust in His good plan.

- to minister to those around us who are waiting (at the same figurative bus stop?) as well.

Have a wonderful week!

Wondrous Things

2009-01-26T09:07:00.001-08:00

Two mornings ago, I was reading Psalm 72: 17-19. Check it out.

"His name shall endure forever,
His name shall continue as long as the sun.
And men shall be blessed in Him.
All nations shall call Him blessed.

Blessed be the Lord God,
the God of Israel,
who only does wondrous things!
And blessed be His glorious name forever!
And let the whole earth
be filled with His glory.
Amen and amen."

The phrases "wondrous things" jumped off the page and into my journal. ;) Not only does God do wondrous things, even better than that is, he only does wondrous things. How amazing that the God we have the opportunity to come to, and to lay down our lives daily before, is a God of only miracles. God is not in the business of blessings that are...kinda good, kinda positive, will kinda make this day better. Wondrous is remarkably extraordinary. I want that.

Our God is able.
Our God is miraculous.
Our God is good.
Our God gives life.
Our God releases.
Our God only does Wondrous Things.

Take the promise from His Word and come to Him expecting to receive. He loves it.

Monday Night Drives

2009-01-19T22:03:00.000-08:00

God meets me a lot in the car. It seems to be "our" place. It's a time where I'm alone, with nothing to do except for keeping my eyes on the road. 80% of the time I'm listening to worship music and just enjoying soaking up the words and the scripture that's sung. One of my favourite things to do: driving with worship music. More times than I can count, certain songs will come on my Ipod and I will just be overwhelmed and start to cry. Sometimes it'll be quiet tears, sometimes I'll be smiling while I'm crying, sometimes I'll be laughing that I am crying.

Tonight I just began to sob.

The song was "Holy Spirit Come" by Planetshakers. I can't find a video, but the lyrics are below:

Take me to the place Lord
Where there’s nothing else but me and You
Longing for Your presence
I know that You are calling me to You

Here I stand
And long for Your embrace
Nothing else
Could ever take Your place

Come Holy Spirit
Fall in this place
I need more and more of You
Fill me again with the power of Your Spirit
Lord I’m crying out for
More and more of You

Lord I’m crying out for
More and more of You (oh)

I had just spent the evening with a group of beautiful fourteen and fifteen year old girls; a youth lifegroup I've begun to help out at as a leader-in-training at my church. I have such a heart for this age. I was talking with the two leaders tonight about how my (and their) early teen years were such a time of spiritual highs and lows, ups and downs, belief and doubt, all this back and forth questioning and desiring something real but not "feeling" it. I remember so many dry spots in my life. So many. There was an altar call at our Friday night youth service last week. Our youth pastor called upon those that felt dry, that needed a real touch from God. About 80% of the kids went to the front. Amazing to see. As we discussed the previous week, us three women were reflecting back on those early teen years and remarking how beautiful it is to know and grow deeper with God. To just come to that place where you've built the foundation, as a friend put it, and even though there are highs and lows there aren't huge valleys of doubt--because it's just real. Though life can fall apart, God is SO real. I want everybody I meet to feel that; I want every girl I talk to to know His joy and His love and His peace.

I think it was just a combination of things that made me weep. I literally started to sob and tears were streaming down my face as I prayed for God's Holy Spirit to come to these girls. To fall in their lives. To guide their days. To speak to them in a real way. To show them that Jesus is relevant, Jesus is for today, Jesus is life. I cried for Him to come to me again and again and again and again. Everyday. Everyday I want more. I cried for those years: the years of discovery and of wanting to fit in and of self-loathing and of desiring to be what those around you want you to be, not what you actually are called to be by your personal Saviour. I cried in thankfulness that God brought me through that and calls me His child and desires me to be in communication with Him and for me to rest in Him.

Crying feels so good. Release.

Psalm 119

2009-01-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

Psalm 119 is the longest psalm in the Bible, but for some reason, it's always been my favourite! I usually had a goal to read 5 Psalms a Day, but on the days I read Psalm 119 it was the only psalm I read because it was so long--maybe that's why I've always loved it. ;) In Grade 9, I set out to memorize it because I liked it so much. I remember I had the first twenty-five verses or so, all written out on cue cards and then it was so overwhelming that I stopped trying. How's that for perserverence? Sheesh. It's written in such a simple way, which I love and for some reason I turned to it again this morning and read all 170 verses.

At my church, we're in the middle of a week of "7 Nights of Prayer" from January 1st to January 7th. It's an awesome way to start off the new year and this is the third year in a row our church has had this week of prayer. Yesterday morning our pastor preached an awesome, awesome sermon--just really stirring up the church about the message of God and his power! Do we believe that God can do the things He did in the early church in our churches right now? Because, honestly, if we don't, why are we here? Why do we go to church if it's not to get inspired and filled up and refreshed so we can then go out and change lives and impact hearts and see people healed and blessed and made whole? The Holy Spirit has done such an incredible work in me even in the last ten weeks or so and my faith has been stirred to a place where I know, in my heart of hearts, that God wants to heal. He wants to heal lives, bodies, minds, self-esteems, broken marriages and relationships, friendships. He wants to move in a big way. God is the same, all the time; He doesn't change. What is the variable then between some of the miracles the early church saw and churches today? US! We are the variable! We are the ones that need to stand up and faith and know so assuredly that He is able to do all things. We need to seek His face early in the morning, read His word and rest in His presence and hear the things He would speak to us! We need to get plugged into a church and have fellowship with other believers. (Luke 4:8) We are the ones who need to draw near to God, and He will Draw near to us!

I saw this amazing desperation in the psalmist in Psalm 119. The writer talks a lot about God's commands and demands and how he loves to follow God's heart in his life. One of my favourite parts was in verse 131 when the author writes, "I am nearly out of breath. I really want to learn your commands." As someone who talks a lot, and talks at a pretty fast rate, I know this feeling! I get out of breath when I am talking about something I am SO excited about, SO anticipating, or SO desiring to see! This is what the Psalmist is talking about! 130 verses after he begins, he's talking so fast and so desperate for an encounter with God that he's out of breath. This desire to see his generation follow God with all of their hearts overwhelsm him in verse 136 as "Tears stream from [his] eyes, because people do not obey Your teachings."

How I would love to be so moved and captured by the heart of God that it would move me to tears when I think about our generation.

Theme Verse of 2009

2009-01-03T08:42:00.001-08:00

I grew up in a private Christian school, and every new school year they'd have a "theme verse." One year it was something about building foundations, so then all the announcement boards and the cover of the yearbook would have a building theme with hammers and nails and saws. I used to roll my eyes--rolling your eyes at things when you are in a Christian school is really popular. ;) I've never had a verse for the year before--however, I feel like God has given me a life verse, which is Psalm 37:4, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." I loved this verse since it was first brought to my attention when I was about 13 or 14. Being the Dreamer that I am, it amazed me that Jesus really desired to give us the desires of our heart and I'm seeing that more and more! I desired to be in a creative career (turns out it was photography!), I desired to learn (I got to attend University and I learn continually through other photographers as well as my own personal library of business books!), I desired a family (this isn't here yet, but hey, I'm in no rush, I got things to accomplish before I have four kids climbing all over me and a husband to cook for!), and I desired a job that I could handle while raising kids (photography is mainly at home in my office; perfect.) Jesus saw all these things I needed and wanted and had them in His plan. I love that.

I started 2009 by praying early in the morning on January 1st. I wrote down a bunch of things, including my "prayer list" for 2009, a dream list and some goals. While I was reading in 1 Thessalonians I came across this passage, and I knew this would be my theme for 2009.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-19
"Always be joyful. Pray continually, and give thanks whatever happens. That is what God wants for you in Christ Jesus. Do not hold back the work of the Holy Spirit."

Then God just gave me this prayer from these four verses, which perfectly sums up what I desire this year: God, I pray that I experience great joy. I desire to continually be in a state of prayer and to worship You throughout my day, for this is what You desire. I pray that the Holy Spirit will work in me freely, for the glory of your name.

If you haven't found a verse for your 2009, pray about it! He'll answer.

Child of God

2008-12-30T15:29:00.000-08:00

One of my dearest loveliest friends Jess introduced me to this quote via her facebook profile a few years ago:

"We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us, ALL OF US. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- From A Return to Love: Reflections On The Principles of A Course In Miracles by Marianne Williamson.

I definitely struggled with some intense self-esteem issues in my earlier teenage years and I can only think of where I was a few years ago when I read this. I remember "kind of" believing what Marianne was saying, but at the same time doubting myself and also dealing with the idea of humility and how it applies to something like the quote above. God has lead me into a greater acceptance of who I am, what I look like, my talent/abilities over the past years and His amazing plan and purpose for my life. Let me try to explain how I see this quote now as it applies to humility. The Bible declares that we are called to live with humility:

1 Peter 5:5 - "All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'"

2 Chronicles 7:14 - "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Matthew 23:12 - "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

However, God seems to be calling us to be humble about our own abilities and our own strength. We should be humble as human beings, but boastful in our callings as children of Jesus. Without Him we are truly nothing and our boasting comes from God alone! Jeremiah 9:24 says:

"Let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD.

God has placed us on this earth for a purpose and a plan--He has our days numbered and has written out our stories before we walk in them! How cool is that? Lately I have been grabbing a hold of all of His promises and truly letting it sink in that we are "Children of God" (John 1:12 - Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.) Our lives cannot be spent in mediocrity! God has been pushing me more and more to dream huge, big, scary, overwhelming dreams. No, I can't do by myself. No, it's not by my own abilities, but it's by Jesus Christ that I can do all things! I think leading a Christian life is the most thrilling, exciting adventure when we actually start believing the worlds that Jesus spoke. My church has been walking through a sermon series the past few months based on John 14:12 (NIV) called Even Greater Things. -- "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."

John 14:11-14 in the Message:
"Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can't believe that, believe what you see—these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I'm doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I've been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I'll do it. That's how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I'll do."

It's GOD's power and His might and His strength and His spirit in us that should cause us to boast! We should not be living ordinary, ho-hum lives. Our lives are called to be examples to those around us; by continually pressing ahead we will be bringing others alongside and encouraging them as well. I encourage you to grab a hold of this quote and truly live like a son or daughter of the King. We walk with His spirit and have the ability to do "even greater works" than Jesus did during his short ministry here on Earth, according to John 14:12.

I Lose Everything

2008-12-29T23:07:00.000-08:00

One of my biggest pet peeves is losing things. It's SUCH a pain. I hate spending time just running around every room in my house searching in drawers, cupboards and under beds for something. In my perfect world, I would remember where everything was and I would never be late because I couldn't find my wallet or my cell phone and I would never misplace anything. Ever. But unfortunately I keep losing things. Go figure. Today was no different. My beautiful friend Bekah is leaving for YWAM in Australia in two days and tonight was her "going away" party. I gave her a journal to record everything she was going to experience and everything God would speak to her for the next 6 months. With the journal I had also written out a little handwritten letter for her! And I went to find it to bring to the car and it was nowhere. I couldn't find it. I search for about twenty minutes the whole time thinking, "How frustrating is this! What a waste of time! I hate when I lose things! Where IS this!?"

I gave up for a while and came back to re-searching all the places I had looked twenty minutes before when I just stopped. I totally felt God tug on my heart and say, "Why aren't you asking me?" I'm learning more and more that God wants and more than wants, deeply DESIRES to be a part of our everyday, waking life. No detail is too "insignificant" for Him. In the past I've had a hard time asking God for the little things, but today I just said, "God. I'm sorry for not even thinking about asking for your help. I really, really need to find this letter I had prepared and don't know where else to look. Thank you that you know where this letter is, and Thank you for helping me find it." A few minutes later, I found it in my car (where I had already looked twice) and couldn't help but smile and say, "Thank you Jesus!" right aloud.

It hit me for the first time this evening that maybe God uses opportunities like lost cellphones or keys or wallets or letters to stop us in our tracks and give us a little wave. "Hello, I'm still here. We haven't talked since 8AM this morning. Don't keep me in your 30 minutes each day; I want to be in all of it. Talk to me. Tell me how you're doing. What's new with you?" Hah, it just makes me laugh how God works sometimes and how much our lives can change when we let Him in.

Oh, hello.

2008-12-29T22:36:00.000-08:00

Oh hello. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a hot cup of green tea in your hands, because in my experience, that's the only way to read blogs. Nevertheless...

I've been a thinker my whole life. A thinker and a dreamer and an analyzer and an over-analyzer and an analyzer-until-it-cannot-be-analyzed-anymore and then an analyzer questioning "can something ever be analyzed too much? Maybe there is a different angle here." That's just me. I've been a frantic, emotional, immature (and every now and then a little glimmer of insightful) journaller since I turned 13. I have about four or five completed journals that hold my life, my dreams, every little thought in my head since I started this crazy phase called the "Teenage Years." These journals are some of my most prized possessions, without a doubt. I hope to someday share these journals with my daughters as they walk through similar struggles: from self-esteem and eating disorders to faith issues to boys to sibling troubles to family relationships. A journal is such a frank, raw expression of yourself. Sometimes I've felt like ripping out pages and probably on only one occasion I have gone through entries with a big black pen, marking out sentences that I never wanted read. I'll probably regret that someday, and now I just choose to leave it all in there. The good and the bad. It's a part of me and my growing up years and I'm not going to hide who I was and who I'm becoming.

I've always had this itching desire to write. To write anything. I loved writing in the first few years of high school and seriously considered going for my Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Books have been a part of my life since I was a toddler and the written word is something that continues to inspire me! When photography found me, a career I am so incredibly thankful for, writing also found me on my photography blog. I'm a fairly open, transparent person (or I try to be at all times) and my photo blog is full of personal entries about my faith and my life and my thoughts. Sometimes I feel like I'd like a little more of a quiet place to spill some of my thoughts though; with just my words. No photos, no fancy blog designs, just these words. On the page. Or the computer screen. Y'know.

Sometimes I drive my mom up the wall because I just have a lot of things to say about a lot of things, if you know what I'm talking about! Quite a bit of my "schooling" life in elementary, middle and high school was spent purposely observing those around me. I love to watch how people interact, what makes them tick, why they act like they act--it's fascinating to me. Sometimes I would open up a word document and just write, write, write about two pages worth of things I thought about that day. Usually I'd delete them. As I'm growing older and basically approaching whatever this "adulthood" thing is all about, God is revealing so much about His glory and His love and HIs power in my everyday. I've started keeping a prayer journal and really seeking Him in an active way for guidance and direction in my life and of course, He is drawing near as I draw near to Him. God has lead me through a lot of amazing and hard things in the last six years of my life and I hope I can maybe even dig deep into some old journal entries and share some of them here, namely about some of my self-esteem struggles. I'm hoping this blog will just be a plain, uncluttered quiet-but-public place for me to be super honest and open about His guidance in my life. See you soon.