Election Deliverance: Be Strong and Take Heart

I don't have magic words to say to take away the fear that this election has instilled.  I don't have explanations and I don't have a great understanding of how we've gotten to this point.  But I do know that this fear only leads to despair, and we can't let that happen.

Take hope, my friends, because our foundation is not in the President of the United States, but in the Creator of the Universe.  What good does fear and despair do now?  Can we change the results by being saddened?  We are only in this world, we are not of it.

Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.  But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.  He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

-2 Corinthians 1:9-11

This entire election season has been a mess, and regardless of which candidate won there would be fear this morning, even from many of the same people who are afraid now.  Some feel that the results of last night are the death sentence that we can relate to this passage with, while others feel that this entire election was the death sentence.  Regardless of what camp you're in, regardless of who you voted for, we must draw our hope from the God who raises the dead and delivers us from evil.  Even if you are among those who are fully contented by this election, Donald Trump is not our savior, Christ is, and therefore we must still recognize that only He is in control.

Despairing in this election, losing hope, puts politics in a place that only God should hold.  It makes an idol of government.  Don't lose hope in God's deliverance.  Don't lose hope that God can and will work through all situations, good and bad.  Be disappointed, be saddened, but do not fear and do not lose hope.  Look to the Lord of all Creation for hope and know that through prayer and conversation with Him we can learn the hope He has given us, and trust His power and His will.

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

-Luke 22:42 

 

Finding Perfect Peace

I started praying about peace in March, after taking a grueling midterm by which I felt trampled.  I've gotten significantly better at not finding my identity in test scores and grades since the start of this blog in middle school, but I am not perfect.  This class was a night class, meaning that we met only once a week on Monday evenings. 

The Thursday after taking the midterm I was walking around the quad, killing some time between lunch and my biology lab, praying about this exam.  I was so panicked, so frustrated, that this would be the black mark on my transcript, and I felt God asking me "So what?  So what if you didn't do well?" and I felt this peace fall over me as I realized that the score I received on that midterm really did not matter.  It did not matter in the sense that it does not define me or change me in God's eyes, and it did not matter in the sense that it would not impact my future unless it was part of God's plan.  If God wants me to be somewhere in the future, a poor midterm grade will not stop Him from bringing me there.

From there on out I saw signs of God's sovereignty and felt His perfect peace countless times, and so when I began a short devotional study that encouraged its readers to choose one word to focus on for a year, God gave me the word "Peace".  At first I thought this was great, I would no longer be filled with anxiety and stress on a regular basis, and I would find my rest in the Lord.  Then I realized that when God wants to change you, it isn't that easy.  It's easy to ask Him to take away worry and replace it with peace, but it isn't easy to find peace in conflict with those around me, or to have peaceful thoughts towards a driver who cuts me off. 

I remember a Bible study, several years ago, in which one of the leaders told my peers and I that she had been praying for more patience.  She shared that she expected God to give her greater patience, but instead God gave her a greater number of frustrating situations.  At first she fell into the frustrations and continuously lost her patience, then she realized that God was giving her these situations to practice being calm and patient.  Prayer and developing as a Christian is not a genie-in-a-bottle-your-wish-is-my-command relationship with God, it's one of continual development, guiding, molding, and shaping.

When I consciously began focusing on peace about a week and a half ago, I expected God to take away my stresses and show me how to find peace in Him, but He is showing me all kinds of ways to express peace, and bringing me into all kinds of situations in which I need to find peace.  Asking God to grow me isn't an easy process, but I am sure that it is worth it.  I had been focusing on Philippians 4:7, "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus," but I needed to look to the verse before it, Philippians 4:6 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."  God provides, but I must turn to Him and do my part as well. 

Peace is not just a feeling, but a way of living, and God is teaching me that through hands-on experiences.  I don't always succeed in these tests, in fact I hardly have thus far.  I don't realize that He's trying to mold me until after the fact, but I will grow, and He will lead me.  Is God calling you to grow in some area?  Choosing a fruit of the spirit to focus on is a great way to start: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).  It won't always be easy, but it will be worth it.

I Love You More

My senior year in high school will be starting in just a few days, and it seems like all of a sudden, there is very little in life, other than trying to plan for college and summer reading. 

The pre-college process is stressful.  I am currently looking at a short list of colleges, all of which are Christian colleges, and there are so many different details and options that have to be weighed when trying to choose the one that I want to go to.  Of course, if you know me, or if you are familiar with this blog, you'll see that I have a constant desire to know the future, to have life planned.  I have this deep urge to be able to plan everything in my life, and right now, not knowing where I'll be living or going to school in a year is quite daunting.  I haven't even visited all of the schools that I'm considering yet, but already I feel like I should have a college picked out. 

I'm so worried that I'll make the wrong choice.  What if my favorite school ends up being the most expensive?  What if I can't tell which school God wants me to be at?  Even worse, what if it really doesn't matter to God which school I go to, so long as I'm still following Him?  And how am I supposed to find extra time to pray about this process with school starting in just a few days, with my most challenging schedule yet?

And then, once I've figured out where I'll go to college, how do I figure out what I'm going to do there?  How am I going to decide what I want to do for the rest of my life?  What if I do what I love, but then I can't get a job?  What if I do what will lead to a lucrative career, but end up hating it?  How do I make all of these decisions before I'm even a legal adult?

On Wednesday, after I had just gotten home from a college visit, and feeling the pressure to know where I'll be in a year, I turned on the radio in the car, and this song came on.  There was an initial peace that fell over me when the song began, and the first verse said "I am with you wherever, and where you go is where I am."  The chorus was another part that really spoke to me.  "I love you more than the sun, and the stars that I taught how to shine, you are mine, and you shine for me too, I love you.  Yesterday, and today, and tomorrow I'll say it again, and again, I love you more."  It was like God telling me to calm down.  If He can set the stars and the sun to shine each day and night, He will surely guide me through this process.  He will guide me to the right decision, whether or not it matters to Him exactly which college I'm learning to use the gifts that He gave me to use in order to shine for Him.  He will also guide me towards finding what exactly it is that He wants me to shine with.  He loves me no matter what, and I am His.

Give It All to God

I've probably written this on here a countless number of times, but I'll say it again, I am a worrier.  I stress myself out, and I get knots in my stomach over the smallest of things.  I've been a worry wart ever since I was a little kid, and I still remember times when my mom would tell me "Just give it all to God."

I worry over things that I can't control, and things that I can't change.  And I'll tell you, this time of year, I worry the most about the logistics for the mission trips that I've been attending with my youth group each year.  I worry about how the group dynamics will affect the trip, I worry about the drama that we'll carry there, start there, and bring back, I worry about who will be in my car and in my work group.  And it gets to a point where I'm just worrying in circles, but you know what?  I can't do anything about it.  Especially before the trip actually begins.

Last year was no different from any other year, and I had completely stressed myself out by the time we got to the trip.  As things played out on the very first day in Boston, I felt the knot in my stomach tighten and loosen multiple times.  And then, on Monday morning during devotions, I felt this overwhelming sense of peace come over me as I spoke to God.

"Lord, I have absolutely no idea what You're doing right now, and frankly, it scares me.  I don't like not knowing.  But what I do know is that You are all-knowing, and You have a plan for all of this.  So I'm just going to have to trust You.  I'm giving this worry to You.  Please, help me."

If I didn't just trust God, I would have let my worry and stress overwhelm me, and take over my trip.  My focus would have been on worrying, not on doing God's work.

I think that that happens a lot, that we let stress, or worry, or guilt, or sadness, or whatever emotion it is, take us over.  We can't do anything but wait and see how things turn out, but still, we frantically obsess. 

1 Peter 5:7 says "Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you."

God is there to take it all from us.  We just need to be willing to give it to Him.  We need to throw up our hands, and say "God, I can't do this without You, and I don't want to.  I need you to take this from me, and I need you to guide me."  God knows what He's doing, and once we get rid of our worries and give them to Him, He's going to do amazing things in our lives.

Faith: We are Never Alone

For a while, things in my life have been going great, which makes me very happy, for obvious reasons, but it seems as though God hasn't been as close as He is during the tough times.  I've prayed, and I've read my Bible, but no matter what I did, I just couldn't find that calming reassurance that has pulled me out of the worst times in my life.  I began to get worried.  I couldn't let this separation happen, just because there aren't many challenges in my life at this moment.

I didn't want bad things to start happening, but I wanted to feel God again,  I didn't want this slow drift apart.  Then, today, Never Alone by Barlow Girl came on when I was listening to music.  At first thought, it seems like it's meant to help during the low points in our life, times when everything seems to be going wrong, when no matter what we do, we are constantly falling down.  Then I thought, no, I can connect to this, even though I've had very little to overcome recently.



It has always been fairly easy for me to have Faith in God, because there have been very few moments when I haven't felt Him, so this has been an extremely odd experience for me.  But, of course, God is still there, and that's what Faith is, isn't it?  Hebrews 11:1 says "Faith is confidence in what we hope for, and assurance in what we do not see."

I'm beginning to learn that having a strong Faith has very little to do with how we respond when we can feel God's presence, but how we respond when we cannot.  Deuteronomy 31:6 says "Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you."  God will never leave us alone.  Never.  Not when we're furious and screaming at Him, not when we've locked ourselves in our bedrooms crying, not when we're filled with nothing but joy.

Our Faith can be tested at any time, not just in our struggles, as I believed until just recently.  So even when it seems as though God has abandoned us, we must trust that He is still with us, still walking through life with us.  When we believe otherwise, we are believing lies.

The Worst Way to Get in Shape

Whenever I'm stressed out, worried, or angry, the muscles in my stomach tighten. I'll walk around for days, sometimes even weeks, with my stomach muscles clenched. You can imagine how this ends up hurting after a while, though I suppose that it is actually really good for my muscles.

The point here is that my internal emotions venture outside of my head and into the physical part of me, even if it's only a little thing causing me to worry. I obsess over even the smallest issue until it's come to a conclusion. And I know that it goes too far when I have to literally try to loosen my muscles.

It's in those moments when I'm trying to force my muscles to let go that I hear God, as odd as it sounds. God tells me that it's okay to worry about things, but not to let them take control of my life. I can't constantly think about issues. Matthew 6:27 says "Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" So as I struggle to loosen the muscles in my stomach, I tell myself that whatever I'm worried about won't last forever, and worrying about it won't do any good, anyway.

I don't know why I worry about things so much, whether it's a personality trait, or something that must be fixed, but either way it isn't good. And though it helps to work my stomach muscles, I'm sure there are much more conventional ways to get in shape than constantly obsessing over issues.

"But" Vs. "God"

A friend shared this video with another friend who posted it on Facebook, and it was like a brick to the head for me, one of those "AHA!" moments that we talked about in Confirmation class.



"God, I'm doing the best I can! But..."
"I'm doing the best I can! But..."
"The best I can! But..."
"But..."

We start with the right intentions, but a few failures will leave us with nothing but ourselves and excuses to quit. When we're left with nothing except "buts" we lose our God-focus, and see imperfection after imperfection, failure after failure.

But what happens when we go the other way?

"God, I'm doing the best I can! But..."
"God, I'm doing the best I can!"
"God, I'm doing the best!"
"God,"

And it's then, when rather than going from the beginning to the "but" that we go from the beginning to the "God" that we have reason to keep on going. No, we are never going to be perfect, that's how it is, but when we focus on the "God" part, rather than the "but" part, we find the strength to continue God's work, rather than the excuses to quit.

He Knows How Much it Hurts

This may not be a new post to some of you, though I'm not sure when the last one started to malfunction, so maybe it's new to all of you. The song that I embedded in the last one would automatically redirect to a new page, so I've switched the link, in hopes that this will cure the issue. I apologize for any issues you may have had in viewing my blog.



"He knows how much it hurts". Every time that we cry out to Jesus, "Why?" remember, that he knows exactly what we're going through. For two reasons...


1) God was human too, we call Him Jesus. Jesus lived on this very Earth, breathed this very air, and had many of these very pains. Jesus has been there, done that. He made it through, now it's our turn, and He is guiding us through it all, not leaving our sides for a single moment. "In this world you will have troubles, but take heart! I have overcome the world." ~John 16:33 and

2)God loves you so, so much, and anything that hurts you, hurts Him just as much. We cry "Lord, why are you letting this happen to me?" and He cries alongside us, knowing that we have to make it through these trials to make us stronger. God doesn't like to see us in pain, He sent his one and only son to take our places on the cross. But that doesn't mean that He's going to take away our pains and aches, because they all have a purpose in our lives. My mom often gives the analogy of an infant getting a shot at the doctor's office. That needle hurts the little baby, and he doesn't understand why his mommy or daddy let this stranger do that to him, but his parents know better. The baby's parents know that without the shot, the infant is at risk for diseases so much worse than the prick of a needle. Does that mean that the parents want to hear those cries of betrayal from their child, that it's easy for them to hear their baby cry? No, of course not, that's ridiculous, right? Right. That's what God is doing for us now. We don't understand it at this moment, but God knows that what is happening is for the better, and He knows that what is happening is better than the alternative, no matter how much it hurts the both of us.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11. Trust in the Lord, give your whole heart to Him, and praise him through the storms in your life. God is never going to let us go, so all that's left is for us to trust in him.

No Matter What...

...Trust in God

You know, I have a lot of friends who look down on me sometimes because of mistakes I've made. Or because of how I look at situations. I am extremely optimistic, that's just how I am. I look to the future and I think big, I dream, I hope. And yes, lot's of times I get let down. But there are many more times when I achieve so much more than I ever could if I wasn't dreaming. It's in those times, when I know that something is a long shot, that I really learn to trust God. I ask Him to help me, to lead me, and to guide me. I know that this world that God has made is beautiful, full of awesome opportunities, and I know that He has a plan for each of us. If I'm always pessimistic, always looking on the bad side of things, how am I ever going to try something new, or see a new opportunity that God has for me?

I can make stupid mistakes sometimes. We all can. Mistakes that we look back on and we laugh at our stupidity. Mistakes that are made in a situation that we probably should've already known what to do in. For example, as a teenager I have adults all around me trying to help me with perspective on situations and the world. A lot of advice that my peers and I have been given lately revolves around dating relationships. We are told that while dating can be fun at our age, the likelihood of these relationships ending in marriage is very low, and that it is silly to think we are in love with a person after knowing them for only days. But sometimes we just need to test that out. We dream big, and sometimes we fall flat on our faces. God, though, is always there to lift us up, telling us to try again, or to try differently.

Think about it. When we are pessimistic all the time, or we let what we are being taught (even if we trust the people teaching us) hold us back, we can't achieve what God wants for us. So sometimes we fail, sometimes we mess up, sometimes we get hurt. And maybe that was in God's plan, and maybe it wasn't. But God always uses everything in our lives for the better, even if we can't see it. We learn lessons that we wouldn't have learned otherwise. Or maybe the bad thing that has happened actually stopped something worse from happening. We may never know. We need to trust that God loves us, though, and that He wants the best for us.

Everyone holds themselves back from things. Everyone. We've all had those little inward battles with ourselves, those fights that happen inside our minds. For instance, there's another student walking down the hall who drops his books.

I know that I should go and help him, I know it, but if I do, I might be late for class. Or maybe he doesn't want my help. What if someone makes fun of me? But then again, what if he just needs someone to be there for him? What if he thinks nobody cares? Plus it's what Jesus would do.

See? You know what I'm talking about. And very often when we have those little fights in our mind, we end up doing the wrong thing. We hold ourselves back from doing God's work in the world. So I guess that my advice to you, and to myself, today is to not hold yourself back. Dream big, pray, and trust in God. When you hear God telling you to do something, take that leap of faith, and do it, no matter what the consequences could be. Let the love of God shine through you.

Stress Fractures

So I'm reading one of the things that one of my friends wrote on facebook. There was a question "Have you ever had your heart broken?" her answer was "cracked, but not broken" and that made me think a lot. How many of us are walking around with cracks in our hearts?

We haven't been completely broken, we haven't been kicked and left behind in the dirt, but we've been hurt. A friend has turned out to be someone we didn't know, a short-term relationship has ended, the truth of a lie surfaces, life moves on, right? Of course it does. But that doesn't mean that we're okay.

I find that a lot of times, it's even more difficult to get over small aches like that. Things that hurt, but that don't completely cause an earthquake in your life, because we don't take the time that we need to heal. We aren't focused on it for a very long time, so months, or even years, later it resurfaces, and we realize that it is still causing us pain. This little, minor detail in our lives can bring us to our knees, weeping, so long afterwards. Okay, so maybe I'm being a little dramatic, even a lot dramatic, but you get my point.

Perhaps you are like me, when something bad happens, something that hurts just enough to affect your life, but not enough to bring you to a stand still, you start working on auto-pilot, speed up, and don't stop for long enough to reflect and heal. Or maybe you are walking around in this life full of small little aches and pains from small bad experiences, added together making you feel miserable. Maybe you are totally different. But no matter what, you haven't taken the time to make yourself feel better.

When these pains resurface months later, we try to push it away again, convincing ourselves that we should have been over this long ago, that we can't possibly still be being affected by it now. But guess what, if you've never dealt with a certain experience, it's not leaving your side until you have, and it's only going to grow into a bigger pain.

These little experiences are like getting a stress fracture in your foot from running too much. If you take the time to allow it to heal, you'll be back up and running in no time at all. But if you don't stop to let your body heal itself, and you keep running, that stress fracture is going to get bigger and bigger, and soon enough it's going to be a full blown broken bone. Your foot is going to hurt a lot more than with just a small stress fracture, and it's going to take a much longer time to heal. Plus, there's no ignoring it this time.

So I have two pieces of advice for you, and for myself. The first one is to those of us who have been bottling our pains up for too long, and now we must deal with a lot more hurt than we thought. Always remember Psalm 34:18 "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit". Give your troubles to God. He loves you, and He wants to always be there for you. And guess what. It is okay to hurt, even after all of this time. There isn't a time limit to brokenheartedness or crushed spirits. So let it all go, and give it all to God.

And the second advice is to those of us who are in the middle of a little ache right now. Deal with it now. Ask God to help you heal right now, don't hold it all in for months and months, only for it to resurface even worse. Even if it doesn't necessarily seem major, God doesn't care. Like I said in my earlier post, He loves you, and He wants to always be there for you. A crisis is a crisis if it's a crisis to you. Don't feel like what you're going through is too small to hurt over. Hurt and heal now, before it gets even worse.

Everyone who is walking around with a cracked heart, take the time to let it heal and let God help you. Don't let your heart break into a million pieces before you turn to God.

April Reflections and True Happiness

For English class we have to write a journal entry at the end of each month. The only guidelines are that these entries have to be at least a page long, grammatically correct, and have evidence of reflection. As I wrote mine for the month of April, I realized that the beginning of it, at least, sounded a lot like my blog posts usually do, and I figured I'd write something of the sort for Abby's Abstracts.

---

It’s funny how as at the end of each month I look back at what has happened, and I’m completely shocked. You’d think that by now I’d be totally used to the unexpected happening, and expect it to happen. Apparently that’s not quite how it works. I wouldn’t say that the month of April has been a bad month, though. Yeah, it’s most definitely been shocking, but not bad, which shocks me in and of itself.

The truth that I've found this month is that true happiness does not come from looking at what we've done and who we've been, true happiness comes from looking forward to our big, bright futures. The past is the past, and whether it's good or bad, we aren't going to be able to change it or relive it. Our memories can make us smile now and then, but dwelling too much on them is only going to cause each of us strife. I've spent the majority of April planning the Summertime fun that I know I'm going to have, and making decisions to be happy, no matter what. No matter how it seems at certain points in time, it's true that we all do have BIG bright futures!

And who knew, all it took was the quickly approaching summer for me to figure that out? This summer I'm going to have an adventure of self-discovery. I'm going to find who I am, and I'm going to be a teenager. I refuse to be punctual and responsible and the as-close-to-perfect-as-possible person I always have tried so hard to be. I'm still going to be me though, and I know my limits. I'm not going to go crazy or anything, so no worries, but my goal is to find who I truly am, and to focus on the good in life. It's going to be a great summer, I can feel it throughout my whole being.

Alright, so I guess this isn't a reflection on April, but it is a reflection. And it at least starts with talking about April. Oh well, hope y'all enjoy!

Perfection

Constantly, I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect. I need to have perfect grades, perfect organization, I can't have fights with my friends, I need to be a good friend to every one of my friends equally. And when I mess up it drives me insane. It's extremely difficult for me take a step back and take a deep breath most of the time, but it's something that really needs to be done.
For a while, I thought that I had everything under control, all of my ducks in a row, but then a lot changed. Suddenly I couldn't stop the wall of perfection that I had built around myself from crashing down, and it was terrible. I used to be the person who when hanging out in a large group of friends and something went wrong, everyone instantly put me in charge, trusting that I knew what to do.
Then, I felt as though everyone was walking on eggshells around me, carefully watching what they said, being cautious so not as to crack the calm facade that we all knew I wore. It was only in the past month or two that I began to fix things. Not necessarily gain the "perfection" that I thought I used to have, but pick up the pieces and start to put them back together. One night, I prayed the same prayer to God that I had been praying for so many weeks, maybe even months.

Why can't I be "That Girl" again? "That Girl" who always had everything together, who was always happy, who could always handle any crisis carefully? Lord, what happened to me? That's the person who you created. Not this.

It was as I sat on my bed that night, that God spoke to me again. He gave an exasperated sigh, and finally the message that He had been sending me throughout my difficulties (as well as my happiness, but it wasn't until life became difficult that I stopped hearing the message) came through loud and clear. It was as if God was saying, "Don't you see, Abby? I love you. There isn't anything that can be done to change that. I love you. I love you just the way you are. Why can't you see yourself clearly?"
And then I did. God opened my eyes up to the girl He sees when He looks at me. God doesn't see that breakout, God doesn't see that my hair isn't sitting exactly right. God doesn't see that mean thought I had anymore, God doesn't see the mistakes that I've made any longer. What God does see, is Perfection.
True Perfection, is not the perfect grades, great friendships, and the ability to know what to do in tough situations that I was striving for. True Perfection is trusting in God, and living for Him. True Perfection cannot be achieved in any other way than through God. God loves us so, so much, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life" John 3:16. You are loved. I am loved. We are loved.
God made each and everyone of us special, just the way He wants us. We need to remember that God does not make junk. During those times when we no longer believe in ourselves, when we no longer love who we are, we must realize that there is absolutely nothing that can pull us away from God's love.
Absolutely nothing.

Running

She smiles softly to herself,
The wind, like fingers, softly caresses her hair.
There is nothing that she has to fear.
A gentle push away from the path,
Tells her to stray from conformity,
And forge her own way through the overbearing world.
The forest surrounds her,
In what seems to be her last chance,
To escape the place that she is lost in,
She begins to sprint,
Green and brown blurring in the sides of her vision.
She stops abruptly,
Everything starts to spin.
In and out, she breathes,
Looking at what surrounds her.
Staring, but not really seeing.
Take a step back,
And once again the world is in perspective.
She can see the path that was not meant for her,
And it is only feet away,
Though it seems as though she was running for hours.
That gentle touch, guides her in the right direction,
Once again.

If Today Was Your Last Day...

I find that very often we all get caught up in the difficulties and stress of life, myself included. We all have different things going on that need our time and attention, things that we need to do, things that we want to do. We are often trying to do what we think is right, most times making mistakes and getting things wrong. I know that when I make mistakes, regardless of how big or small they are, I am constantly stressing over them, constantly trying to figure out how to fix things, even if nothing is broken.
Another issue that I find myself having is constantly looking at the past and wanting it back, but I never realize that it's in the past for a reason, that things are different now for a purpose. I'm sure that I'm not the only one caught up in things that cannot be changed, caught up in memories that cannot be brought back, so I thought that I'd post lyrics to a song by Nickelback. The song is called "If Today Was Your Last Day".

It isn't always a bad thing to think about the good things in your past, it's when your past begins to take over your present and future, begins to make everything seem bad because something has changed. I know this is something that I've struggled to remember, and I know that I'm not alone.

So if today was your last day, would you be able to say that you lived it to the fullest? Would you be able to say that you have no regrets? Would you be able to say that you weren't too busy in living in the past to realize that this could be your last day? To realize that what's done is done, and the only thing we can change now is the present?

Almost Christmas!

So I haven't posted anything for a really long time, even though I meant to. Oh well, those first few posts really helped me put things into perspective. There's so much to be thankful for even when we don't think so. God throws a lot of unexpected things in our way, but He never gives us anything that we can't handle, and that is a lesson that I am still learning. I am still trying to truly trust that. Life isn't always easy, but I know that in the end it will all be worth it, when we are with God for eternity.
A lot of times I let my past haunt me, and that sounds like something really bad happened, but it didn't, quite the opposite really. I have such amazing memories, and oh too often I let my memories keep me hanging on too tightly to my past. We don't want to forget what has happened to us, but we don't want to let it keep us from living our lives now. Things are going to change, and we don't need to like it, but it needs to happen to allow time to go on. It might hurt at first, but once we realize that this is life now, we'll see how amazing it really is. How wonderful everything is, even what seems like the worst.
It's just over a week until Christmas, and I am happy to say that I feel as though I am really in the true spirit of Christmas this year. The Christmas season didn't come a moment too soon, and not a moment too late. It's been wonderful!

On the first day of Christmas I am thankful for...

I knew this would happen. I knew that as soon as I got into the swing of things I would stop writing in this, but I'm still going to try. It's the first day of December, and really time to get into the spirit of giving, and a spirit if happiness and thankfulness.

I am so thankful right now for God's grace. No matter what I do, He still loves me, and will never let me go. Even though I am a sinner, God still wants me, and He still works through me. I have a friend who was going through a tough time, and God has allowed me to hopefully help him. I don't know if he's really alright, but I'm still praying that he is.

I haven't had the best times recently, but I'm learning that maybe I am, and I'm just not seeing it. I'm also learning that God has put people all around me who can help me out in anyway they can. I sometimes have a tough time opening up to people, but I am slowly getting to know that there are people all over my life who I can open up to, who love me and will always be there for me.

I have seen God at work so often in the past month or so, and it amazes me at how much He can show me when I'm not necessarily trying to see anything. He has taught me that I don't even have to try to open people's heart to Him, because I can't, only God can do that, but if I have a Christian attitude all the time, I can do my part without even trying. God has shown me that He loves, and He cares, no matter what happens. My eyes have also been opened by God to the love all around me, and the caring where I thought it would be the least likely to find. I love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, all my soul, and all my mind, and I know that He loves me even more.