Just Keep Holding On!

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: Ecclesiastes 3:1

I didn’t plan to post this and it isn’t my normal posting time but I am walking on clouds right now and just want to take a few moments and share my excitement with you.

You see, during the last 4 years of my life I’ve experienced the hardest times I’ve ever been through. I have felt so much loss, pain, and heartache, it has been almost unbearable. There were times that I wondered how to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Without going into the past, of which I am not allowing myself to speak at the moment, I wanted to share with you how wonderful God has been to me in the present! I have experienced much change in my life and I have witnessed firsthand the healing power of God through these changes. Burdens have been lifted and I feel lighter than I have in a long time.

I am able to look back at the road I’ve traveled and see how He has brought me through. I’ve seen how He has made my paths straight again. I’ve seen how He has been working on the hearts of my precious children. And I am in awe.

I am in awe of His goodness and grace. I am in awe of His love and mercy. I am in awe that He can take situations that seem hopeless and turn them into stepping stones that take us on a glorious journey.

I’ve talked a lot about my struggles and you may have heard me or read about how I’ve been trudging through them, trying to hold on the best I could to the One who could pull me through. Well, today I want to share HOPE not despair with you. I want you to know that no matter what you’re going through, He is there holding onto you, pulling you through. He is there to take whatever it is you’re going through and turn it into GOOD.

Just keep your eyes on Him. I promise it’s worth it and the other side of this situation you’re in is far greater than anything you could have ever imagined!

There are seasons of life. There are times that will be hard and times that will be easier (Life is never easy huh?). No matter what season of life you’re in, hold onto the promise that God is always there. And even if you’re holding on by a thread, just keep holding on!

The Fear That I Will Write Something Wrong

My Word for the year is FEARLESS. Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be writing about different fears I have. This week I am writing about my fear of writing. I hope that you are encouraged to let go of fear in your life so that Christ can truly work in and through you!

I’ve been writing now for about 9 months. I’ve had periods of time where I produced more posts than other times, and periods of time where I did not write a single post. Throughout my experience writing, I have encountered fear. My fear has been that I would write something that was wrong, or that I would write something that other people would talk negatively about. I have battled this fear on various levels.

My goal has been to share tidbits of my life and lessons I have learned in an effort to encourage you, my readers. I want the opportunity to share how Christ can take bad situations and turn them around for more joy and life than ever before. I hope I’ve at least accomplished that to a small degree. My heart is for you to know Christ at a deeper level and be able to see the good that He can bring to your life.

I believe God has encouraged some of you through my writing and I am grateful for His hand in that. I truly give Him all the glory! It is only through Him that I write. It is only through Him that I am where I am today.

God has been good to me and I want to share that with you. But I also want you to understand that I am an imperfect person who may at times share faulty ideas. This is my blog and my feelings but as you hopefully are, I am also working on my relationship with Him and will never be at a place that I do not fail, although I hope and pray that my relentless pursuit of Christ will help me get better and better and that I actually DO relentlessly pursue Him!

I have allowed my fear of what you will think, or of writing something that is not correct, keep me from writing sometimes. And though there is value in desiring that my words be completely of God and sound logic, as a woman working on her relationship with God who has been far from Him for many years, I have to admit I’m just not there.

However, God has still called me to write. He DOES lay on my heart topics to write about and encourages me to encourage you through my stories and thoughts. He is calling me now to stop fearing writing something wrong and just trust Him to give me the words to say. And to trust that He, as well as you, will show me grace when needed.

I love Jesus. And I hope you can read that within the words I write. I hope you can see that I truly desire to honor Him through what I say. And I hope you are encouraged in the process. 

I’m inviting you to journey through this process with me as I seek Him with all my heart. And I pray that you show me grace when I mess up. I also welcome you to gently point out any faulty ideas that I may have, especially if it goes against what the Word of God states. I desire a closer relationship with Him and I hope you desire the same. Let’s work together to draw closer to Him.

I am praying for you and I would appreciate your prayers as well. Until the day that we become perfect through Christ, I will continue to keep striving to serve Him to the best of my ability. And I am vowing to give this area of fear over to Him. What fear are you needing to give to him? Will you lay it down along with me?

 

 

Looking Back No More

“Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:18-19

We were in the car on our way back to church when I asked my husband what he meant when he poked me in the ribs at church that morning. Our pastor had made the comment that we shouldn’t place our identify in our past and apparently my husband thought I should listen up. At first, I was curious. And wanting to learn anything I could that would help me improve as a person. But as the conversation progressed, I just kept getting madder. I have been working so hard on letting go of my past. How dare him call me on this as if I hadn’t put any effort in leaving it behind!

As we worshiped that night, God spoke to me. He showed me that I still am not completely letting go of my past. It’s so frustrating at times! I do give a considerable amount of effort working on this and yet I’m still not where I should be. Even when I think I’ve finally laid it down for good, I continue to pick it back up.

In my strange mind, I feel that I should write or say a disclaimer every time I start to sound “holy.” I want everyone to know that I have messed up big time so that I don’t seem like I think highly of myself. I don’t want to come across as Godly when I haven’t always been. 

So I continually make sure people know how many mistakes I’ve made and the terrible place I’ve been in life. I do this because I want people to know that there can be life found after bad situations and bad decisions but the problem is that every time I share my past, I pick it back up and drag it with me a while. I let it become part of who I am today, again.

These verses state very clearly what I should do. I need to “remember not the former things” and need not even consider them! God is doing a new thing in me. In fact, in the last year, I have been blessed with a new husband and his children, a new church, and a new job. My whole life has been upturned by God in an effort to give me a new and fresh start at life, with HIM at the CENTER of it. He has truly been doing a new thing in me and is molding me into the person He originally created me to be. And He’s laying things in my path to help propel me in that direction.

God is making a way in the wilderness. 

I want my past to be a tool to help others see how God can move in someone’s life. I want it to be used by Him and FOR His glory. For now however, God is calling me to just rest in Him and live for today. He’s calling me to stop dwelling on the past and completely put it behind me. He’s calling me to stop talking about my mistakes and focus on His goodness today!

I know that so much good can come from my story. I know that He can and will use it someday to reach others for Him and to be an encouragement. My intentions have been good in wanting that to happen right now. But He’s showing me that the time will come another day. He’s showing me that right now, He wants me to focus on the present and what He is doing in my life. He wants me to use that and the talents He has given me to reach others for Him.

I need time to heal without breaking the wounds back open again. At the point that I am truly healed, when my past has no hold on me, and my heart is completely and wholly set on Christ and His redeeming power, I will be given the opportunity to talk about my past again. I’ll have the ability to do so without any baggage or self condemnation.

Today, I am FREE in Christ! I am free from the bondage of sin and I will forever praise Him. My identity is found completely in Jesus and I am a beautiful creation! I am from this day until He releases me, going to do my best to not even speak of my past and to give myself a chance to focus solely on my relationship with Him. I will no longer let my past be any part of my identity. It has changed me but it is not WHO I AM.

Are you holding onto any of your past? Are you allowing Satan to use that to keep you in a state of bondage? I encourage you to pray about giving yourself a break and completely letting it go. For me, letting it go means a period of time in which I don’t talk about it. I’ve talked enough. Now it’s time to listen to the Holy Spirit in His prompting to follow Him and His path TODAY.

~Keeping it Real

Angie

One Word for 2015: FEARLESS

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10 ESV

I waited patiently for my husband to answer my question. It’s a question I ask often. In fact, almost every time I have a decision to make. “What should I do?” This morning after he had answered for the third time “whatever you want to do”, I told him I needed to know what he thought. I wanted to know what he would do if it were him. He proceeded to very calmly but firmly inform me that I just needed to make the decision. That there really was no wrong answer and I should be confident and just decide one way or the other depending on what was best for my children and me. And then “own it.”

Then I was reminded of my word. My ONE WORD for this year is Fearless. When I was praying about what God wanted me to focus on in 2015, He spoke clearly to me. I didn’t have to wait long at all. I was in my bedroom and Lance walked in on me tearing up. He asked me what was wrong and I told him absolutely nothing, that God had just revealed to me to focus on being Fearless this year. I immediately understood why and it moved me deeply.

It’s something with which I’ve always struggled. My fear of failure, making the wrong decision, and what other people are going to think. My heart has been judged often and I have let that fact determine the outcome of my decisions too many times. Often, my decision is based on what the majority of other people in my life think I should do. Or even the small amount of people that will cause me the most grief if I happen to make the wrong decision.

Fear can affect my life in many areas but this is the area in which I have had the most trouble letting go. I have spent many years living my life based on what other people tell me I should do instead of seeking God and His Word. I fear making the wrong decision but I more often fear others not agreeing with my decision. I fear my heart and intentions being judged incorrectly.

I also fear failure. I try so hard to be a good Christian, mother, wife, employee, daughter, and friend. But I never achieve the level that I want to be. I always fall short. And I beat myself up over it. But God ‘s presence in my life covers all failures, all sins! I cannot quit and I have to keep trying to be the person He created me to be and fulfill the roles He’s provided me to the very best of my ability. The fear of failure can keep me from trying sometimes but I must keep pushing forward.

God says in Isaiah to FEAR NOT for He is with me. He will strengthen me, help me, and uphold me with His righteous right hand. He is the One I should go to for every decision I make in life. I want to seek Him first, intently, and open heartedly.

This year, 2015, I will make a conscious effort to let God take away my fear. I will daily give my anxiety to Him and I will do my best to completely put my faith and trust in Him. He knows what He’s doing with my life and the lives of those I love. I must trust that it’s in His hands and not fear what may come.

Last year, my ONE WORD was discovery. I spent much of the year learning who God truly created me to be and I came a long way in that journey. I still have some work to do but He has shown me so much this past year.

This year, along with continuing to discover more about myself, I will do my best to not live my life out of fear nor make decisions based on fear. That is my prayer and my word for 2015. What is God calling you to work on? Do you feel Him leading you to a specific word to focus on this year? I’d love to hear it!

The Meaning of “Church” and its Importance

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.   Hebrews 10:24-25

In the dictionary, church is defined as a public building used for Christian worship. We use it in sentences as a noun, a place, such as “Let’s go to church.” However the Biblical definition of church comes from the Greek word ekklesia, which is defined as “an assembly” or “called-out ones.” The root meaning of Church is of people and not the building in which they worship.

Even though it has been hard, I have tried to be very purposeful about not calling the building the “church” but the people. I think it is good to understand this point. It makes attending a building on Sunday morning for worship (or whenever you attend) more meaningful. I am relaxing a bit however because I understand that many people understand this but are just using the English definition of the word to describe the place of worship we attend. It’s not all bad as long as we understand the Biblical definition. Pick our battles, right?

I have been raised in a Christian environment my entire life. I speak “church” language well and usually know all the right things to say. I’ve also grown to understand that many of our traditions are not Biblically based. Many may say that meeting together as a church body is not necessary and is one of these traditions. But our beliefs must be based on a Biblical view and Hebrews 10:25 says otherwise.

Let’s focus on the words “Encourage and warn each other”. On a Sunday morning where I attend services, there is a packed building and we all file in right before it starts, sing some songs, listen to a sermon, and file out like our pants are on fire to make it to the nearest restaurant before the crowd gets there. Am I right? It’s not necessarily a bad thing. But ideally, you come into a room full of people you’ve had the opportunity to get to know at some point, REALLY get to know, and worship Jesus with one voice and a common goal. It’s not Sunday mornings that “encourage and warn each other” usually takes place.

God has much more in store for us than one service a week where we never really get to know anyone. He formed the church as a way to support each other. How are we to “encourage” if we don’t know the needs of those with which we worship? How are we to “warn” if we don’t know the struggles of others in our church family?

This works two ways. We need to be willing to plug into the church family we have decided to be a part of and open ourselves up to them so they know how to encourage us. We also need to do what is so hard for us sometimes and LISTEN to others so that God can speak into our lives ways we might be able to encourage them.

So how do we accomplish this? Being in a new church like I am, I have learned that this is hard. It takes years in our busy lives to form deep meaningful relationships within our church family. But I can guarantee you this, it will not happen attending a service once a week.

The Church as God intended is lived out in restaurants and homes getting to know others, serving together in some capacity, reaching out to the lost and hopeless together, meeting in small groups, having coffee with someone, and even sitting together at ball games. Many of us are missing this very important element! Our lives outside of the church services have nothing to do with the people with which we worship. Many times, we feel as if we have two lives. The one we live on Sunday mornings and the one we live the rest of the week. I have felt like that before. Have you?

I want to be a part of a family. A real family in which we truly know each other. We know our strengths and weaknesses. We defend each other from attack and lovingly warn and encourage if we see each other stumble. I want to share my life with the church, at least a small part of it, and work to meet each other’s needs. God knew we needed each other and set this in place for OUR benefit.

Being the church looks much different than attending “church”. I would love for us to catch the vision of what God truly intended the church to be and start investing in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ. There is nothing we cannot do together if we rise up and join each other in our daily lives!

Have you found a church with which you can belong? Are you BEING the church or are you just going to church? I’d like to challenge you to embrace the Biblical meaning and join the group of people who truly understand the power that can be found within the church that God established. I invite you to consider changing your view of the church as a building to a community of God’s children. Find a group of people where you can be real with others about who you are, your strengths and weaknesses, and invest yourself into being a part of the church God intended. Then on Sunday morning, if you choose to all come together to worship, it’s truly a combined effort to praise our Savior together as family, meeting as one in Christ, and being reminded of the greatness of God, the importance of His Word, and the encouragement that comes when we follow His plan.