Thanks for the music list Jeremy! It’s funny, whenever you send me messages, I can never just read it on my cell-phone, I always have to sit down and pay close attention to what I’m reading because it’s so filled with rich information and scripture and references!! It’s interesting that you say it sounds like a Pilgrimage because I have been considering adding Pilgrim’s Progress from this World…etc to my reading list. I know it’s getting so long but there are SO many good books out there! Do you remember when we were kids and we had the children’s version on tape? I think it was Adventure’s in Odyssey. I loved that tape

I’m not sure how I feel about the whole Arms and Legs thing, only because, what is falling at the feet of Jesus if not completely falling? Perhaps it is a difference in intent, though, I’m not sure. I think you may have really touched on one of the points that has bothered me– because we always say, “without God, I am nothing.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard the converse of that phrase, and I think I always assumed that even with God, I am still nothing.

“I am nothing, God is everything.” I guess it would be sort of hard to go anywhere from that mind-set wouldn’t it? I mean, God is perfect and all-powerful, and he made me. While I certainly don’t mean to imply that he made mistakes or anything, I am a human and I am flawed. That’s because Adam and Eve sinned, I have sinned, and I am imperfect. Without God, I couldn’t breathe or function. So, I do have inherent value because I am a child of God, but I am still nothing without God, and that brings me back to “but WITH God…..?”

Maybe this is something I should really put a lot of thought and prayer into… while I wait for the enormous amount of wisdom I always enjoy from my brother and dad!

Gosh this is just so amazing! I’m getting teary eyed again. It’s like God is saying “okay, vacation’s over, time to get down and dirty, cause we got a lot of laundry to sort through!” I knew this would come. Like Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears!”

As a side note, man, I cannot imagine being Samuel and having to tell news like that to Eli, especially as a little kid. I would have been devastated.

Well, I’m off to read Samuel, and Jonah, and spend some serious quiet time with God! Mata ato de!

I will sing for the meek

Those who pray with their very lives for peace

Though they’re in chains for a higher call

Their mourning will change into laughter

When the nations fall

In spirit poor and mercy rich

They hunger for your righteousness

Their hearts refined in the purity

Lord let me shine for them

Lord let me sing

Lord let me shine for them

Lord let me sing

I can hardly even come up with a way to begin this post. In only 24 hours, the Lord has grabbed my heart and stirred up a commotion so unfathomable within… It is beyond words. He has brought me to my knees. These lyrics come from a song by Caedmon’s Call entitled “I Will Sing/Hope to Carry on [Live].” I listened to the CD while I was at the gym today and I almost had to step off of the treadmill because it so touched my heart. I have spent the entire last two days on the verge of tears, not because of sadness or despair, but due to the powerful movement going on in my heart. I know that revival is temporary and hard times will come—we can’t always be on the hilltops because the spiritual high is so shallow. I need to dig my roots firmly into the Word so I have a foundation to stand on when the spiritual storms come. But I find it hard to resist wishing I could stay on this hilltop forever!

I’m probably taking on too much when it comes to my reading material, but at this point I am pretty much spending all of my free time with God. I am reading “The Love Dare,” and the accompanying book, “Night Light” by Jim Dobson (?), Spurgeon’s “Morning and Evening,” John Bunyan’s “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,” and S. Thomas Aquinas “On Prayer and the Contemplative Life,” and of course, the Bible. That’s quite a load, lol. And let me tell you, that Love Dare book really hit’s hot issues. The very first day dealt with patience. They just jumped right in there, lol. The dare was “For the next day, resolve to demonstrate patience and to say nothing negative to your spouse at all. If the temptation arises, choose not to say anything. It is better to hold your tongue than to say something you’ll regret. (James 1:19)”

Boy was that hard!! It’s easy to not even notice the little demeaning things you might say or think of your wife or husband. Of course I didn’t just wake up and start cursing Arron out today, but even little things like getting angry when he was rushing me out the door to go to the gym, or refraining from saying “honey can you not put trash in the sink?” or “baby please don’t pick the cat up and throw him across the room just because his meowing is getting on your nerves.” Nothing negative AT ALL. That can get really hard!! But it is so rewarding because it teaches you to pick and choose your battles which is inVALuable in a deep and fulfilling marriage! Now obviously, later on, throwing the cat will probably be a battle I do choose to fight, but gently tossing the cat, no. Kitteh’s are pretty tough. But trash in the sink? Not worth my marriage. And that’s a phrase I’ve come to repeat over and over again: “is it worth your marriage?” 99% of the time, no it’s not worth my marriage.

I’m so excited too, because 1 or 2 times Arron has shown interest in what I was reading. I’m trying to not shove this whole thing down his throat, but sometimes I just get SO excited and I just have to share what I’m learning with SOMEONE, and he’s right there! The first day of Night Light was so sweet and heart wrenching today, and he read it with me. Now we say “Shmily” to each other J

Well, today has been quite a day, filled with God-hugs, and I am ready to hit the hay. Though I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep tonight due to excitement about what amazing things the Lord will teach me tomorrow!

my dad did it, i’m pretty sure my brother did it, and now i’m joining the family habit and changing the voice of my blog. i’ve been thinking about why i seem to have so much trouble with having any sort of a desire to post, and i’ve realized that it’s because i’ve been avoiding talking about the things that are really on my heart. the heavy stuff. i’ve been trying to keep this blog light-hearted, casual and sometimes funny. i will still talk about ants in the kitchen, construction in the backyard, that poor woman with the wolf-rats, and the towers flooding. but i will now also talk about the changes that will be going on in my heart.

let’s start with a little history. when i was a little girl, my mom told me something that i was determined to make come true. she said that she believed that God had a plan for me and that i was destined for great things. of course, every mother tells her children that–it’s like saying “you’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” or “you’re the best daughter ever!” or “sure honey, you have a wonderful voice….” it’s just what you’re supposed to say to your children. i was raised in the church and became a christian at a very young age. Immediately God began working on me. Let’s be honest, when God works on a person’s heart, he does not play around. Being an all-knowing Creator, he knows all the right buttons to push.

I am a very critically-minded person. I analyze everything. I break things down, look at them from every angle, and because of this, I usually avoid making a move because I feel that the “thinking about it” part is never complete. I don’t want to act because what if I missed something or didn’t think about something? I’m afraid of making the wrong choice. What my mom told me has affected every decision I have—or should I say “haven’t”—made. I have been afraid to pick a degree because what if I don’t pick the degree that God was going to use for His Kingdom?

I have tried SO hard to make sure that I was doing what God wanted me to do, that I have ended up spinning my wheels practically my entire life. I’ve known the entire time that I’m doing this, and many times I have gotten on my knees and said “I’m giving it up to you, God. Do with me what you will, guide my hands, my heart.” But saying that doesn’t make it come true. That’s only half of the equation.

And that’s where the true problem comes in. I have been relying on my faith in faith more than my faith in GOD HIMSELF. My faith in the church, my faith in the pastor, my faith in my parent’s faith and my brother’s faith. All the while, my own faith has been stagnant and lukewarm. My belief in God is passionate and true, my desire to pursue him as well. but my actual pursuit has been fumble after fumble. I want to know Him so badly, and to follow Him, I want Him to completely fill my heart and soul, to take complete control over my life and my mind and everything that I do and touch, but my actions to not follow my desires and I don’t understand why it is so hard for me to just sit down and meditate on Christ. My own walk with God is similar to an infant giraffe making desperate attempts to walk…for 20 years. One could argue, “well if you aren’t truly pursuing God, then you must not truly have the passion for Him that you say you have?”

My response would be “oh, well now that we got that cleared up, oh look we’re right where we started, and I still want to know God more.”

I don’t believe that you can rely on any person to help you with your walk in Christ because A) only God can bring you closer to Him and B) people don’t really know….anything. As much as any one person pursues Christ, no one directly knows how God works or what His plan is for the future outside of what He has allowed us to know in just about the most general terms possible. No one knows what is in any other person’s heart. I guess I always assumed that, like Moses, Noah, and Jonah, at some point God would just miraculously reveal himself to me and make it all clear—give me a check-off list and a map, “Go here, do this, then go here, pick up this, take it here, give it to this person, and grab me a burger and a milkshake while you’re there. K thanks bye.” But even for Moses, Noah and Jonah, it wasn’t that easy and it wasn’t that clear. Moses wandered blindly in the desert for 40 years, Noah was willing to look like an idiot building this giant boat for some reason (I’m pretty sure he didn’t even know what rain was, much less a flood) and Jonah was terrified of the difficult things God was telling him to do and tried to run. He was about 120% sure God was sending him to his death.  (***edit- Jonah wasn’t scared, he knew that God would be gracious with them and he didn’t want them to be saved, he wanted them to be destroyed–thanks Dad!***)

Me, I can’t explain how my brain is working. It’s not that I don’t have faith in God, it’s that I don’t have faith in myself, even though that’s essentially the same thing as not having faith in God because God MADE me, and relying on God means believe that God will get me through whatever path I put my faith in him leading me through. Say that five times fast.

SO. For the next God-set appointed amount of time, I am going to be on my knees. I believe that part of the reason we are in Japan is because, while I was in Charleston, I was mostly relying on Pastor Buster’s faith. It’s really easy to accidently start having faith in Buster’s amazing walk with Christ because the man is just absolutely blessed. It’s sometimes hard to imagine him ever stumbling. Being here, I can’t be dependent on a pastor. The churches out here are either completely opposite to what I believe, some convoluted version of Buddhism or Unitarianism, or the on-base church which is basically a “God is really nice, and you should be mostly nice too” kind of church.  I will still listen to Buster’s sermons on podcast and try to get to church here as much as Arron’s work schedule allows, but I am going to be earnestly on my knees and in my Bible every single day, and recording my thoughts and light-bulb moments in my blog.

Some of the changes I am starting with are pretty standard “revival of the heart” changes:

1. Posting little Bible verses on my mirror and fridge, and all throughout the house.
2. Avoiding television and spending most of my time in silence, accept for
3. Ditching secular music and only breaking the silence with Christian music like Kathryn Scott and Caedmon’s Call—THANKS MOM AND DAD FOR SENDING ME THAT MUSIC!!!
4. Spending every day in the word.
5. And learning how to meditate.

Simultaneously, I am also trying to purify my body of junk food. I am drinking a slim fast for breakfast and lunch, having 2-3 100cal snacks a day, such as those little 100cal fruit cups, or crackers with those tuna creations packets, and then a reasonably healthy dinner, usually involving grilled chicken and two types of veggies. I’m on day three of my diet and I’m definitely starting to notice “changes.” I spend a little bit of time hungry just because I’m used to just pigging out when I’m hungry. Now when I get hungry, I only eat a little bit, and it’s something healthy, not a Twix or ice cream or cookies. Don’t get me wrong I’m not fat, I’m not even really overweight, I weigh about 125-130 and I’m 5’7”. I’d like to lose about 10 lbs or so, and get tone. I want to be HEALTHY healthy, not just “ok technically you’re healthy for your height.”

SO, these are the changes, and this is the plan. For those of you reading this who do pray, I would certainly appreciate your prayers and support in my new adventure. My greatest fear at this point is that I will, like most projects, leave this one unfinished. That I will become distracted, burned out, frustrated, and give up. But this is of all projects the single most important of my life. This one is not just “I want to give it a try and see how it goes.” This one is mandatory, critical and giving up is out of the question. And of course, I can’t do it by myself and no one can do it for me. I have to rely on God. At this point, I don’t even have legs or arms. I must rely on god to be my wheel chair and my grabber. >.<