Psalm 56: 8-11

“You number my wanderings;

Put my tears into Your bottle;

Are they not in Your book?

When I cry out to You,

Then my enemies will turn back;

This I know, because God is for me.

In God (I will praise His word),

In the Lord (I will praise His word),

In God I have put my trust;

I will not be afraid.

What can man do to me?”

Psalm 56: 8-11

God keeps track of all of our tears. He sees what we go through and He understands our trials. Every time we choke back the waterfall just waiting to come out. Every tear shed in the private corners of our room. Every drop that hits our pillow when we lay down to sleep at night. He counts it all.

God is FOR US. He guides and protects us. He promises GOOD for us. When we feel like the whole world is working against us, God is in every essence of where we are; pushing us, pulling us, guiding us, nudging us. Every motion He allows us to make, is just another opportunity for us to see that He is on our side.

NO ONE can harm us. This one is tough. Someone can physically bruise me. Someone can use their words to cut me like a knife. Someone can do something to hurt someone I love, which in turn hurts me…but when God is on my side, the same God who is FOR me and uses all things for His glory and my good…what can man really do to harm me? No man can separate me from my God.

"Guard it Jealously"

I was writing in my journal tonight about things that might be taking my attention away from God. My journal is more of a prayer book to God…a place where I am able to bring everything before Him and lay it all out. I have never been someone who is good at talking…which is a bummer because I love it.

But give me a pen and some paper and I could write for hours…

I do pray out loud as well…but there is just something so freeing about writing my desires/concerns/hopes/fears/praises out to God. It is like…even if I don’t really know what to pray about…just putting the pen to the paper opens this part of me that I regularly overlook otherwise…

So anywho…as I was saying…I was writing in my journal tonight, asking that God would reveal to me the things that keep me from Him, and asking Him to help show me how much He loves me and what I mean to Him.

I have been really insecure lately. I, like any other human girl, typically love to dress up and look cute. Normally, I don’t leave that mirror until I am completely satisfied with the image I see reflecting back at me.

But lately I have not been like that at all. For awhile it was extremely depressing to me…how insecure I had become and how ugly I seemed to feel and look all of the time.

If ever one could FEEL the definition of “pointless” – I had it in every ounce of my body.

And then – I got over the depressing part of it…and just decided to accept it.

“If I am ugly then so what. It is who I am – people can accept it or not.”

It probably seems difficult to believe that I could truly believe these words and not have the “woe-is-me” attitude that they seem to come along with…but really – I just kind of accepted them and moved on. Tired of being depressed. But tired of caring so much and putting so much effort into looking otherwise.

Maybe certain circumstances have brought me to this defeatist attitude. Maybe it is because I do not have someone in my life who tells me on the regular how beautiful I am. But…

does that really matter?

I don’t know why it suddenly popped into my mind…

“Words of affirmation”

If you were ever to visit my house, you would see Bible verses and inspiring quotes taped to and written on my bathroom and bedroom mirrors. I don’t say this to try to bring attention to how “holy” I am. Trust me. It is hard to see the good, or beautiful, on my mirror when I am too busy obsessing over what I have branded to be ugly.

I only say this because…clearly “words of affirmation” are extremely important to me…or why else would I have placed these reminders in places where I know I unavoidably look every day? But there I am…choosing to ignore them – because something else is playing god in my life.

Which brings me to my purpose here…

“Jealously guard your relationship with God.”

My devotional is always a bitter-sweet reminder.

Jealousy...

Why is that word ONLY beautiful when it involves God?

I mean – I have played the ugly jealous girlfriend part all too well. And I have been extremely turned off from jealous boyfriends…

I mean think about it…you’re a girl…or a boy…

How much shame or embarrassment do you feel if/when you are able to think back on a time when you acted like a crazy jealous person over someone you liked? I can’t even count how many times I played that part…hah…oh well…

Now think if anyone has ever acted towards you that way…there are not many things more unattractive to me than a crazy, insecure, jealous boy.

Now think of the song “How He Loves”

“He is jealous for me…”

Right now…I can’t think of anything more beautiful…

God probably has the most powerful and scary and even crazy form of jealousy for us than we will ever know.

Our shallow, insecure, crazy-ex-girlfriend jealousy has NOTHING on Him.

And rooted in a much deeper, truer, and healthier form of passion than we could ever express.

Who cares how I see myself. And who cares how others see me.

Not because I have momentarily allowed the world of vanity to swallow me up and remove any God-given wisdom about how beautiful He has made me…

But because He loves me. And HE is JEALOUS for ME…and He won’t allow me to wander too long or far before He does everything He needs to to bring me back to Him.

Do I become angry when something begins to steal my attention from God? Do I do everything in my power to get rid of that distraction before it even has the chance to knock on my door, let alone take a step inside? I have before, but do I every single time it happens? Clearly not…since I have been struggling with this lately…

Just like He loves and cares for me and is protective over me – I too should be JEALOUS over my relationship with Him, And guard it from all the petty things that try to steal my attention from Him.

“and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great Your affections are for me…”

Enough about me...

I have started several other blogs over the course of the past few weeks…but for some reason…though I have felt the urge to start them…I didn’t ever find the urge to finish any of them.

And it was really bothering me for awhile…because blogging is one of my favorite things to do…

But I think that after sitting here right now, attempting to write yet another blog to post…I have realized why I didn’t have the heart to finish any of them…because they were all about me! And my problems! And what I have been struggling with and going through!

Of course I don’t think anything is wrong with that…but as hard as it is to believe…I am kind of sick of talking about myself for once! And rambling on and on about my trivial struggles isn’t really what is on my heart right now. Sure – it is on my mind…of course…but not really where my heart is lately.

It has occurred to me that I really don’t know too much about you! And I apologize that it has taken me so long to realize this…here you are…making the effort to visit me so often and read up on whatever I have to say…and I just have been going along perfectly fine without ever making the effort to know anything about you!

So here’s the deal.

If you feel comfortable enough – then I would like to know 5 random facts about you…and then I would like to know something that I can pray for you for. Anything and everything that you feel you need prayer for…

I have disabled the comments to my post for the sake of privacy – so instead of publicly posting the above info…please feel free to email me the 5 random facts along with your prayer requests!

My email...

Just so you feel more comfortable…I will go first =]

Five completely random facts about me….

hmm....

1.     I am terrified of large birds. I don’t trust anything that can defy gravity and eat small children.

2.     I love spiders and any bug that looks peculiar or interesting…particularly any creepy crawly that is either green, see through, or can change colors…I don’t really know why…I just do…I don’t want to cuddle with them or anything…I just think they are so interesting to look at and learn about!

3.     I love doing laundry…I mean…I am obsessed with it. If there are no dirty clothes in the hampers to wash then I will just go through my clothes and wash things that haven’t been washed in awhile…I probably need professional help for this…

4.     One time I started freaking out because I didn’t think my belly button was where it was supposed to be…

5.     I used to be right handed, but when I was little I burnt my hand on the fireplace and had to have it wrapped for a awhile while it was healing and I learned to start using my left hand for things. So now – I write with my left hand…and I do everything else as if I were still right handed.

Prayer request: something you could pray for, for me would be, my brother. I probably love him more than anything else in the world and I just want him to know Jesus and live a beautiful life full of God’s grace and love.

Alright – now don’t forget to send me your stuff.

Please and thank you!

Honestly - It's honesty.

So I have written about this in my last few posts quite a bit…and I apologize if I am getting repetitive….but I can’t really help it right now – my heart feels so led to talk about it more…

There is just something about living in the truth. About living a life that is genuine.

No ulterior motives – no false pretenses – no hiding from anything…

I guess I have had several conversations lately, all with different people…about some pretty heartfelt stuff.

Most people say bringing up the past is a bad thing…but I don’t think the past is something we should run from – no matter how much hurt it can bring.

Before I go on…Let me make this clear – DWELLING IN and OBSESSING OVER the past is in NO WAY healthy. The past is the past for a reason. You don’t live in it anymore because you are not meant to. We are meant to heal, grow, and move on – but sometimes…bringing it up again – allows us to do just that.

I know life is not perfect. And we won’t always get “closure” in every circumstance like we would like to. But sometimes we do…and I think those are times where it just all “falls together”

Whether you want Him to be or not – God is in control. He knows every tear you cry.

When people say that God works every thing together for His glory…it also means that He works every thing together for your good.

God heals our heartache and our hurts. He heals them in ways that we could never imagine…

And sometimes He does that by allowing the past to be brought up again…maybe after some time so that you are able to see it from a different perspective or in a different light…maybe so you can finally see something that you never were able to see before…maybe to serve as a reminder for why things happened the way that they did…or just maybe so you can see how far you have come.

Maybe He brings someone else to you to be there for you while you bring up your past…maybe He gives you someone to lean on while you work it all out.

Honestly – it’s honesty.

Sometimes we need to talk to someone about a situation 6 months after the fact to help us process it all. Sometimes we just need to talk and sometimes we just need someone to sit there and act like they are listening.

Sometimes we need to reconnect with someone two years after an incident to apologize for and talk out something that happened.

And sometimes we just need to cry. No matter how long ago it all happened…if we feel like we still have emotions from it…it is best to just be honest with it all and just let it out.

Forgiveness.

It’s being honest and opening up the chance of forgiveness…towards others and ourselves.