Where to begin?

Woooooow! How do you begin to describe the plethora of feelings one has when they are rocked, first by God and what He wants them to do, and dealing with all of the crazy emotions and stress of taking steps toward that, then adding to it the incredible, unbelievable, overwhelming amount of support by their family and friends?

I mean seriously, come on. Who am I to have such amazing friends and family? Who am I to have a workplace jump behind me immediately upon hearing about the World Race? Who am I? Nobody. But that’s not true, is it? And I’m talking to YOU, my blog reader, right now too, because you’re amazing and don’t ever let any single person in your life tell you that you don’t matter, that you don’t have a purpose, that God doesn’t love you as much as He loves everyone else around you. Do not believe it.

God has created you for a distinct purpose. He loves you with an everlasting love! Sure, He’s called me to the World Race for this season of my life. And I’m getting pretty darn excited for it too! I’m still processing this past weekend and the past month and how this has all played out. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever come down from this high I’ve been on…because I’ve realized without a doubt that none of this could have happened with Jesus. Plain and simple. Done. Just walk away. No more words needed. JESUS! Woooow. He deserves ALL of the praise! He draws us close to Him, whispers to us, drenches us in His love. Sit and soak Him in, ask Him to come, and He WILL. He loves YOU. You are precious to Him. I wish I could say that in a stronger way so you could actually tangibly feel His love the way I’m feeling it right now. It’s the love He has for everyone.

Keep after Him. Keep seeking Him. DO NOT give up. Seek His face, and He will come to you. There’s no formula…it’s just humbleness before God. I am nothing Lord, I realize that so obviously…but I can’t help but yearn for You every minute. You are everything my soul desires! I want to feel Your arms around me, holding me tight. I want to trust You more. To not be so wrapped up in this world. Help me to know what it’s like to be truly FREE in You. To let go of my insecurities, my fears and anxieties, and just simply trust in You. To walk forward in what You have placed me in right now, and to keep walking toward the dreams and desires that You have placed in me. I am made for more, for greater, and especially to worship You. Help me to do that! I love You!

This is my prayer for me and you. Thank you for reading my blog, for your promises of support for the World Race, for following me and encouraging me and being such amazing friends to me. I can’t ever express how much it has meant to me and will mean to have you all by my side as I go through this next adventure the Lord has placed before me. Ultimately, this is ALL for Him! To God be the Glory and ALL praise through this and all future generations in ALL nations! Amen and amen (as Pastor Rob would say :D)

Be blessed today. Just soak in Jesus. He IS with you, I promise. Yearning to be close to you. Let Him love on you today 🙂

I need to start fundraising soon. If you would like to support me, click on the link to my World Race blog now on the right side and go to the “Support Me! :)” link. Or just click here. And while you’re at it, sign up for e-mail updates on my WR blog 🙂 I would love to have you follow me on my journey as I prepare and process everything along the way.

Excitement is building

I’m so happy to have my excitement back! I’ve been going through a period of an emotion lull…where I know I should react this way or that to whatever is happening around me…so I give people the responses I know I’m supposed to give, but I just didn’t feel anything.

I’m sure we all go through this to some extent, but it’s very frustrating when there just seems to be no end to it! (Then God shows up in ways that can only be from Him, and all of a sudden it’s like BAM…you’re awake again…you’re actually feeling things again. Only He can do that!) I’m sure I sound crazy, but oh well!

God’s doing some things in my life—big things—that I’ve been dreaming about for a while. I can’t talk about it yet because it’s too soon…sorry…but bear with me ☺ Through all the ups and downs of normal, everyday life lately, despite full-to-the-brim emotions or none at all…I’ve had to keep reminding myself of what God has promised multiple times. That He will never leave me or forsake me, no matter what. (Joshua 1:5, Hebrews 13:5, Deuteronomy 31:8).

Our God is a good God. He has life-giving, cup-overflowing plans for us.

Psalm 23 is amazing…I’ve found myself repeating it day after day. Because it’s truth. God is always with me. He’s always with you. He loves you so deeply that He would lead you beside the freshest, cleanest, purest streams of living water for you to drink; He guides us in paths of righteousness for the glory of His name; He blesses us in front of our enemies; He anoints us, He cleanses us, He loves us. Wow—we are blessed!

Psalm 23
[A psalm of David.]

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

It’s just so exciting, and encouraging, and I hope this encourages you today to be strong in the Lord, be courageous, do not lose heart, because He is with you and will never leave you.

God heart

God is Lord of your heart. He knows your deepest wishes, your biggest dreams, those parts of you that you never show the world because if you did it might call you crazy, or psycho, or just lame. God is a God of the small and the big. Those little dreams you have, however insignificant, are important to Him. He knows the desires of your heart. Wait for Him. Draw near to Him and He’ll draw near to You. Let Him surprise you with how big He is. Enjoy being HIS. Don’t let the world tell you that you have to read your Bible for so many minutes or pray for so many hours a day for Him to hear you and draw near. Those things are good. In fact, they’re necessary and incredible and should be practiced daily, yet…wow…we all mess up. We go for weeks, perhaps months without truly digging into the Word, without spending passionate time in prayer, instead glancing at a verse here and there and praying tiny little prayers about needs and wants, sometimes for others, but if you’d admit it, mostly about you and your struggles and pain and frustrations. That’s a frustrating place to be. Because you know you can be better. And you want to be. But your flesh gets in the way and you give in to it too much, you know this, yet you still do it because it’s comfortable. It is a war against our flesh. But we can let the frustrations and feelings of unworthiness bog us down. Keep fighting. Keep praying.

Let the King of the Universe love you for who you are, not what you do.

Because He’s calling out to you to see Him every day and to hear His voice. He loves you with endless passion. I wonder if we could see the heavenly realm, if we’d be horrified by the extent of the battle fought for us every day. Satan is sneaky. Those feelings that you’re never going to make it, you’ll never be good enough, you’re not pretty enough, you’re insignificant and no one really truly loves you…those are LIES. I am talking to myself just as much as anyone here. Seriously, it’s a battle.

One thing I have really been impressed upon doing lately is just to let myself enjoy being with God.

I don’t have to do anything. Just simply be. Rest. Soak Him in. I don’t think we give Him enough chance to really get through to us in our days. We’re always going, going, going, off to the next thing. Ignoring, truthfully, because we don’t want to have to take the time to focus on Him. It’s such a battle!!!!! But remember, Jesus wins. Truth, love, grace–it triumphs. God is good. He loves you so much. Let Him simply love on you today. Listen to Him. Talk with Him. Rest in Him. He’s waiting.

Confliction

What do you do when your life starts moving in a new, exciting, heart-pounding direction that you’ve been trying to get to for a long time now, yet when it actually starts happening, you’re frozen in your tracks and all of the sudden you aren’t sure at all of what to do, how to react, how to feel, etc? Nothing is bright and shiny, although it should be. Or maybe a better way to say it is I know that God’s behind it, so I think I should be really excited about it, yet something feels very vulnerable, very unworthy, very inadequate, very non-committal, very timid and unsure. I mean, seriously? Shouldn’t I be head over heels excited? Jumping through the roof thrilled? Yet my emotions feel broken. I’ve always struggled with this, and it feels even more of a struggle now that my dreams are peeking over the horizon and I’m stuck…I’ve forced myself to move forward because I know this is what God wants of me…but how is it that I still can remain so emotionless? Does anyone else struggle with this? It’s like my brain and body are going through the motions for my heart, because my heart has been dreaming of this for so long that now that it is close to becoming reality, it can’t move forward…it’s stuck in place, yearning to get out, yet maybe not knowing exactly how. It gets released tiny bit by tiny bit, but it’s nothing like how I think I should feel. Maybe that’s the point. I can’t let my life be run by emotions, but only by what the Holy Spirit tells me…what God shows me to be the next step…and maybe, just maybe, I will always feel like this to an extent. Stuck inside, yet moving forward anyway, because the emotion, the thrill and excitement, will come later and overtake the blah-ness.

Through it all, God is good. I KNOW this…but it is so hard when you don’t feel it.

Hawaii Tales: The Beginning

I just got home this morning from a mother-daughter trip to O‘ahu, Hawai‘i. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Amazing. We looooooved it! First, we really just needed to get away and indulge in a vacation. I felt guilty about it for a while, since it wasn’t a mission trip, but I also felt God speak to me that I was in need of some rest, as well. Okay, I knew He was right, because the past couple months have been incredibly busy, incredibly stressful, incredibly awesome, so I simply just needed a break, and I needed to get away from everything familiar. Well…Hawai‘i is definitely the place to do it! I didn’t do a whole lot of thinking about anything except just enjoying God’s creation, exploring, spending good quality time with my awesome Mom…it was so well needed.

I also learned some more about God and how He speaks to me. He was teaching me to trust Him. You see, I get some pretty cool travel perks through my current job, so I get to fly standby (which means seat availability: if there’s an open seat on the plane, I might be able to get on, depending on how many other people are “standing by” for the flight (thus the term standby) and there are different priorities that people have to beat others onto the plane). It’s very competitive, and the flights are fuller than ever this year, so I knew we could be in for a bit of an adventure. Through it all, I felt very strongly that we were going to get onto our flights, and not to worry about it. I know, I know, it’s just a small thing, and there are so many variables, but to be honest, I don’t need to know the why or the how behind it all…because at the end of the day, God has my back and already knows everything and has it all planned out. Even though I was taking a vacation, He approved of it, chose to bless it, and I believe He made a way for us, since for each flight it always looked impossible to get on, yet somehow we made it. There’s more to the story, and it’s full of time in airports, but it was one of those things where I wasn’t worried about it, because I knew I was in God’s hands. That even though we were taking personal time and I felt slightly guilty about it and “leaving behind” the rest of my friends and family to go to Hawaii, that it really was okay. 🙂

Needless to say, I will write more later to recap our trip, but it was super fun, nice and relaxing yet full of exploring O‘ahu and finally experiencing what Hawai‘i is all about. It’s a totally different change of pace, which was refreshing!

Coming home was a little bit more adventurous, involving a red eye flight and us arriving home an hour before I needed to be at work again…but it was so worth it. God is good, and He has GOOD things in store for us! Believe in that today!

More later. 🙂