Sunday, January 25, 2015

Down

" God is making us spell out our own purpose, it is slow work, so slow that it takes God all time and eternity to make a man and a woman after His own purpose."

How little we know of ourselves. We are wrong to say that we know more of ourselves than anyone else. That no one understands us truly, but ourselves. When in truth, God knocks us down and teaches us who we are. He takes this prideful attitude to teach us the very thing we need to know.
I stand on my little pedestal preaching about humility.. How crucial it is and how vacant it is in the church today...
When I am the least humble of all....and He is quick to remind me of that.

You gossiped about this one...now admit you were wrong and apologize. Let go of grudges and forgive. Why do you think you are better than he? 

Down

You feel enlightened and experienced and then a girl years younger puts you in your place with her example of true humility and devotion.

Down

Down and down again He brings me, teaching me about myself. Emptying myself of this person and filling it with more of Him.

You are so quick to accept praise and so reluctant to be wrong. You never admit to being wrong. Love over resent. Compassion over pride. 

Where is your humility? Where is your compassion? The greatest commandment is love, but it is void in your life. 
Oh, where is your devotion? 
Are you more devoted to your self esteem that the One who gave you life? 
You're selfish, unloving, whiny...

 Down

Knock me down until I am nothing. Fill me up until You see nothing but Christ.

" I thought about my ways and turned my feet to Your testimonies."
                                                          Psalm 119:59

Sunday, January 4, 2015

More of the woman I will be

"At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet
Anxiety is apt to arise from remembering yesterday's"


At the beginning of this new year, I am less of the girl I was and I am more of the woman I will become. 2014 broke me. 2014 made me. 2014 loved me. 2014 hated me. 2014 changed me. All the pieces of the woman I will be.

I started my new year baking in the cricket meadow kitchen, preparing for our reopening. And I thought about, how last year I would've never guessed that this is where I would be at the start of 2015. It wasn't bad...it was just different.
And I thought, what would I have told myself this time last year about 2014....
I would've told myself that the people I hold most important in my life will move on, and so will I. I would tell myself that the people I call my best friends, would stay my best friends, that I would grow in new friendships. That I would work most of the year. That I would miss important moments. That I would realize what being an adult was. That people would go to college. And I'd see some again, but others never again. That I'd work two jobs until I was too exhausted to do anything else and I finally left the deli. That I would get the job I wanted for years.
I'd tell myself a lot more, really. About what 2014 would hold.
But what I needed to know most, was to
Focus on joys, not problems.
To turn my hopes into goals
To love and live humbly
To live for encouragement
To find joy in the simple things like coffee and cats and lipgloss and candles
To bury myself in His word
To let positivity to rule my life
To forgive and let go

That's why my 2015 will be filled with joy.


" our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future."
                Oswald chambers