What a ridiculous day… this morning I woke up with such anxiety I didn’t know what to do with myself…if anything it pushed me more to make it to church on time. As I was getting ready and driving the 20 minutes into Willmar thoughts and fears came flooding into me… thoughts of shame, embarrassing moments and situations that made me question my salvation…Hurts from different relationships, fears of such inadequacy I felt like I was going to break down and cry before I even made it to church. I dont know where this was coming from this fear, this anxiousness, this regret and shame, and doubt.

It was there taunting me as I tried to find a place to sit in the movie theater like seating in the massive church without interupting everyone else standing and worshiping… it was there through out worship as I prayed and tried to focus on the words that I was singing and the presence of Christ that I knew was there… and yet still throughout the message I was distracted with lies and lack of self confidence… truly my confidence was shot… I was so at loss with myself I was shaking and ready to cry. I was able to have a brief conversation with my mentor and give her a hug and receive an encouraging and friendly words from her that for a moment uplifted me and gave me hope.

I didnt know what was wrong with me… I’m heading off to work at a bible camp and some of the many lies and doubts and fears stemmed from this adventure i am about to embark on… especially the feeling of inadequacy… Maybe Satan has been trying to take me down before I leave for a beautiful Summer all for God… I dont know… I do know I couldn’t breathe most of the morning until I started reading Ephesians. I have been terrible at reading the bible… and its crucial to my every day, especially since I will soon be off to minister to young girls at a Christian Camp… I REALLY need to be in the word!

Mmmm beautiful beautiful passages in Ephesians, then again everything in Scripture is beautiful. But I found strength and hope while reading.

Wow, Ephesians is thick with so much nutrients… that I needed this morning. As I was reading I was encouraged by Chapter 1 right away. Ok Seriously ALL of Ephesians was encouraging!!! I really want to memorize the whole book haha…

Ephesians 1:4-5
“For he chose us in him before creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons and daughters through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will –“

Wow! He chose me before creation…in love he adopted me as His daughter by sending his Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross and reconcile me with God… and in all of this, it is in accordance to the Lord’s pleasure and Will! He took pleasure in adopting me as His daughter…

Ephesians 2:10

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

I LOVE this verse! For one, it shows (to me anyways) that God is an Artist =) and that I am one of His works of Art… I love art, the creativity, the thought, and talent of the artist, the heart that is put into a piece, then to display it, to share it with others to see… for an artist to make a piece of art, they kind of have to want to make something (not including commissions…) No one commissioned God in creating us. No one payed God to make me… God wanted to create this piece of art because He finds joy… he wanted to create me… He finds Joy in me! Also God has prepared good works in advance for me to do… such as He has prepared me to work at Camp Shamineau as a counselor this summer… otherwise I would not have gotten accepted to be hired. So in this I take great hope and encouragement… and thank my Abba Father for loving me so much to think about me before he even made the earth, and for preparing good works for me to do in His name!

Ephesians 3: A prayer for the Ephesians

¹⁴For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵from whom his whole family^[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

²⁰Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Where to begin! Wow… yes i want to KNOW this LOVE that Surpasses knowledge!!!  And to be filled to the measure of ALL the fullness of God! Oh how my entire being yearns for this…

Ephesians 4:32

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ God forgave you.”

For me this was convicting… I am not always kind or compassionate… especially to strangers… But also being called to forgive one another just as Christ forgave me… something I am struggling with right now… I feel I make it so complicated but its simply stated here, “forgive each other, just as Christ God forgave you” so i pray may God help me to simply forgive those that hurt me just as He has forgiven me…

Ephesians 5:1-2

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children ²and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

This following the last verse I quoted also continues to convict me. I want to live a life of love just as Christ came down and showed us through His love… I want my life to be a fragrant offering and sacrifice for my Heavenly Father

So many things in Ephesians got me thinking, convicting, and encouraging me…

¹⁶All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

How crazy amazing is it that our God created no two finger prints to be the same . No two people have the same finger prints, not one! And add to that no two snowflakes are the same either! I love looking on my mittens when theres a soft snowfall and just examining the intricate details of the different snowflakes. If God put that much detail and creativity in simple snowflakes that will only melt away, how much more detail and thought He put into creating each of us! Wow! Gosh what an amazing creative God we have!

Someday soon I will be able to laugh easily

Someday soon I will be consumed with joy every day

Someday soon I will never let my hand leave my Lords

Until that day I will continue to push forward towards the goal

I will continue to repent and go back to my Father

I will sit and listen as I rest with Him

I will continue to fight the battle

Until then, I wont give up

For He is mine

And I am His

And Nothing will ever change that

Father… I am coming…

I am running back to you

To the only place I ever want to be,

Your arms…

God, cut me open and replace my destroyed soul.

My interior of my being is blackend

Viscous, Dark, thick,

Like a smoker with lung cancer

I am tainted, tarred, destroyed

Heal me Lord?

Come into me Father and chip at my heart

I ache so terribly

Yet am so numb.

Father unthaw me Lord

I long for Joy

I long for peace

I long for you

Renew my mind oh Lord

Replace my anger and bitterness

With joy and peace.

Father, I pray that I may love you again.

With the strength that you gave me,

I will seek you as best I can.

Father, I come to you to ask for healing

Father, will you heal this broken girl

Curled on the floor?

The place where I have taken up as home

For I fight with darkness every day

And foolishly allow myself to lose the battle

time and time again.

Lord, may you be faithful

Father may I have faith

I call to you in the silence,

From my tormenting thoughts

That scream so violently in my head

Rescue me Father

Please

I give you these burdens

Please take my yoke father

I can’t continue much longer

On my own

Calm my heart:

crashing waves of hurt, anger, bitterness, and fear

Will you make me new again?

I am nothing

I am nothing

I am nothing with out you

May I only rely on you and your strength

May I only allow you to be my doctor who will heal me

Fix me

Make me whole

To put these broken jagged pieces of me

Back together again

Father please,

I cry out to you again and again

Will you come and rescue me?

From myself…

May I be ready to let you in…

Let the transformation begin

The history of our past strewn around us
The present beside me
The future below us

Filled with curiosity and excitement
Trust radiates from within them
I am blinded
Future continues on the journey into the past

The cold hard stone beneath me
The sun’s warmth above me
A brother beside me
You speaking within me

His words pour out
Every sentence with
A note of passion
Singing to my heart

The cold hard stone beneath me
The sun’s warmth above me
My brother beside me
You singing with in me

Comfort floods over the walls that barricade my heart
Walls not to protect
But to imprison
Suppressing the light
Inhibiting truth

The cold hard stone beneath me
Your warmth surrounding me
A friend beside me
You proclaiming to my Heart

A time in a cemetery with you…

Racing mind

Catch of my breath

Anxiety creeping

Breeched walls

Of my mind

Outside in:

Short responses

Tense mood

Unreadable tone

Thoughts stampeding

Doors broken

Mind consumed

Fighting

Compressed chest

Body tense

Jaw clenched

Eyes shut

A plea leaking

From my lips

“Help me Lord”

Struggling

Fighting lies

Shallow breath

Shacking, quivering

Ready to run

Can’t escape

Losing hope

Breaking

The War within Rages on…

Just the other day I was talking with my wonderful friend Beth. We ran into each other at the the groceries store and I hadn’t seen her in ages! I was in the produce section looking for a pomegranate and there she was by the lettuce! =) Thank you for blessing my day with that time with her. For her to be able to be honest and express openly about her life and her new relationship with her boyfriend, I treasure that sooo much! Just for someone to be that real and open with me is such a gift to me! Lord every time I am with her, she speaks truth courageously and confidently…she knows you and who she is in you. She is truly a light in my life! Her experience with a friend of hers opened up my eyes to the things that I chose not to see, the path I chose not to grasp onto.

Oh Lord…through giving up something…someone…I didn’t completely give it to you, I held on to any little piece that I could, and I grasped on with all I had…causing me to fight and struggle against you and not hand it all over into your welcoming and trusting hands. I was so scared…terrified of what I was losing…I didn’t believe that you were doing this for my good. I saw it as only a punishment for my mistakes, for my compromises, for my weakness of not staying focused on you. I was so lost in myself and who I thought I was, and was supposed to be…I placed my identity in someone other than you…And through that you saw that I need to give that up…In order to truly rescue me and answer my pray that I would find myself, my identity, who I am meant to be in you; in order to truly show me….You had to show me the one and only option, the only way for me to truly come to you and to truly allow you to be my only one, my only one in which I go to for comfort, for strength, for wisdom, for encouragement, the only one in which shows me who I am . This i take full responsibility for, and come to you broken and ready to face my mistakes, to face you, to come to you and ask you to forgive me…and to TRULY truly offer up this weight of heaviness to you…Every day you show me God the reason of those events. And finally I am turning to them with open arms rather then turning away in anger and bitterness. I need to remember that what I had to do, only caused me to Glorify you!

It wasn’t necessarily the loss of this person that cause all of this turmoil…(though losing a best friend isn’t ideal…) but the loss of myself and this stable relationship that I thought I had with You truly turned my around. Because of my reaction of anger and resentment toward the outcome of my choice and where I felt you calling me, it only caused me to fall farther away from you. It caused walls to be built and defenses to go up. I was so completely blinded by my own pain, (the pain I chose to hold onto) in which i didn’t see your goodness and trusting hands reaching for me. I turned you down for help so many times! I got too comfortable with my pain and my anger. Just how the book, that was given by my amazing friend,explained that we need to step over such things.

“The Dance of Life”

Negativity
Sometimes we have to “step over” our anger, our jelousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there. Then we become the “offended one,” the “forgotten one,” or the “discarded one,” Yes, we can get attached to these negative identities and even take morbid pleasure in them. It might be good to have a look at these dark feelings and explore where they come from, but there comes a moment to step over them, leave them behind and travel on.
Henri J.M. Nouwen

I just could not get myself to step over them, I could not see any good out of this! Any at all…it just hurt, I hurt so much, I was so confused and so lost…soon lost hope, and without hope there is no faith. “Now Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1 “And with out faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Hebrews 11:6

Now because of this anger, this distrust, this fear towards you Father, you know that soon enough I was only allowing satan to get in and distort my thinking. I only saw the bad, the horrible! I only saw what seemed like everything and everyone was out to get me. You, my friends, my school. I was being punished.

But you don’t punish, you only direct. You Test. You guide. You love. Through my two roommates, my soul sisters, your disciples, these gifts given by you, did I start to slowly understand your love. Sometimes bold, blunt, true, sometimes comforting and warm. Always forgiving and loving. No matter which is it, it all is that same! You never change!

Father Captivate me! Lord God I want to Love you with all I have! Father you have shown me over and over again that You are Faithful! And you will never leave me, forget me, move on from me! You will always love me! You will never let me down! It is now my turn to trust you and surrender all of my hurts and pains, all my sin and shame to you!

Its yours! I am yours!

Your Daughter,
Who wants nothing More
Then Your attention and affection,
Your forgiveness and Grace,
You Everlasting Love
You Are

Written on New Years Eve, Finished on the 16th. Still so much more though…