Story Time....

Hi, y'all!

Today, it's story time! Enjoy!

Ava stared up at the sun as it glinted through the trees. This had always been one of her favorite places to come when life overwhelmed her.

She sat down underneath the big oak tree. In the patch of tiny pine trees, the oak stood out. She felt the oak a kindred spirit. She, too, felt an awkward addition to the group she was placed in. At work, she was the only Christian. Her refusal to go along with dishonest bookkeeping had cost her her job.

Work wasn't the only place she felt she didn't belong. She was also the only one of her close friends not yet married. Suzanna, who was two years her junior, had just married "the man of her dreams" last month.

Yes, Ava felt quite convinced that she was like the oak tree. Awkward, out of place, and lost in the sea of uniqueness.

She sighed as she looked up at the tree, its leafy boughs overshadowing her. Its leaves caught in the light, sparkling almost as if they were happy.

But how could one be happy when one stood out as the two of them did?

A Bible verse that she had memorized as a child came to her mind. It was from the Psalms.

“The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks On all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works.” (NKJV)

"He fashions their hearts individually...." Ava thought. "That means...He fashioned my  heart individually. He made me the person He wants me to be for His glory. He put me in the place He would have me to be. He didn't put me in these situations because He hates me; He put me in these situations for His glory and my good."

She smiled as she got up and started towards her house. She paused on the top of the hill, looking back at the oak.

Instead of seeing an out of place oak tree, she now saw a beauteously formed creation of God. A tree with a purpose and a calling: to stand apart from the others and shine forth the glory of God in His unique creation.

The point of the SheSpeaks Conference is to teach women how to help connect the hearts of other women with the heart of God, much as Ava's heart was connected to God's in this story. My heart is focused on serving God and others through whatever capacity God ordains for me to do so. As He leads, I pray that I may follow faithfully and always keep my eyes fixed on Him.

For a scholarship opportunity for the SheSpeaks Conference go here: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2011/03/how-christians-create-art-she-speaks-scholarship/

And you can find out about about the conference here: http://shespeaksconference.com/

In Christ,

Overcoming Fear Through Christ....

Hi, y'all!

Starting Monday, I'm going to implement a new system. On months that have four Mondays, I plan to write four posts relating to the same topic. Months that have more than four Mondays will have four posts related to the same topic, followed by an additional post (either another post of the same topic or a post on another topic).

Today, however, I want to talk about fear. I'm personally afraid of several things. For example, I am extremely afraid of any kind of bug that stings. Seriously, if there's a wasp in the room, I'm outta here!

I'm not really sure where this fear comes from. I was stung by a wasp when I was little, but my fear seems to be a lot worse this year (I love flowers, but don't expect me to go near them unless they're in a vase in my house or it's freezing outside). Maybe it's due to the nest of yellow jackets that lived in our yard last year; we found out that they were in our yard, when the poor guy who mows our lawn was mowing near their nest. They were not happy about that and attacked him. I was inside at the time and still shiver at the thought of that.

Whatever the reason, I have literally been living in fear for most of the past several weeks. The weather's warmer, the flowers are blooming, and the bugs are out. I literally will not go check the mailbox when the mail comes.

Today, the opportunity came for me to take my dogs for a walk. I love my dogs immensely and spending time with them is one of my favorite things to do. I have felt too scared to venture out much with them recently and I really missed them.

I decided it was time to face my fears. No one can overcome your fears for you (not your husband, not your sister, not your mom, not your best friend). You just have to trust God and go for it. So, I prayed and I went. I enjoyed the walk very much, though there were couple of jumpy moments.

There are many Scripture verses about not fearing. Deuteronomy 31:6 is a personal favorite of mine. "Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.” (NKJV)

Did you see that? Not only are we told not to fear, we are given the reason we shouldn't fear!

"for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you." [emphasis mine]

As Christians, the Lord is with us. We don't have to fear anything. Though physical harm may come (everything from bee stings to physical death), spiritual harm can never happen to a Christian (separation from God eternally). Paul discusses this in Romans 8:31-39, another favorite set of verses. :)

Though the fears that we have may be real and though they may seem overwhelming, they can be conquered. Our fears can be conquered because if Christ is our Saviour, what have we to fear?

Sometimes you just have pray and then to go ahead and do whatever it is that you're afraid to do (assuming that it's not sinful). For me that was opening my front door and stepping out without turning around and going back inside immediately. It was running through the yard with my dogs, playing among the flowers. I was scared, but the result of feeling happy that my fears didn't rule my life, the result of feeling like I trusted God a little more than I usually do (I still need to work of the slight paranoia), was completely and totally worth it.

Whatever you do, don't become prideful. If you start thinking, "I'm the one who did this. I'm so great. I did this all on my own," you are completely missing the point. The point is glorifying God, not glorifying yourself. The point is not fearing because God is with us; not being prideful because *I* gained the victory on my own.

Now to figure out how to overcome my fear of sharks...I don't know if shark-diving is quite the thing, but I know I can have victory over that fear in Christ.

Victory is ours in Christ, sisters, let's act like it. Act with faith; act without fear.

In Him,

Favorite Bible Verses

Hey y'all!

One of my best friends suggested that I make a list of favorite verses for my next post. So here they are: two of my favorite verses at this time in my life; the ones that I go back to over and over again for encouragement.

"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 (NIV)

I love Jeremiah 29:11 because it reminds me that God has plans that will work out for my good, no matter how much pain I may be in at the moment. His plan is for my good, whether it involves dying peacefully surrounded by my great-grandchildren or whether it involves dying as a martyr in Africa at age 20.

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.” --John 10:27-30 (NKJV)

This verse is one of the verses that I should read a lot more than I do. It's helpful when I'm struggling against the temptation to believe that something I could do would be so bad that God would let me go. He doesn't work that way. He saves you and you are saved. Nothing that you could do would ever be so bad that it would cause Him to leave you. This doesn't give you an excuse to sin; nothing ever gives you an excuse to sin! It should cause you to live for Christ even more, realizing His love for you and His mercy to you.

I pray that God would bring you encouragement through these verses, as He has used them to encourage me.

I would love to hear what some of your favorite verses are! Do you have a verse that speaks directly to your heart during this time in your life?

Love in Christ,

Focusing on God

Hey, y'all!

I hope you all have been well and flourishing in the Lord since the last time we "met" via blog!

I'm going to open today's post by asking a simple question: Do you have trouble focusing?

I don't mean focusing on your work, your school, or your family; I mean focusing on God. God is to be the primary focus of our lives. As Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us, "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (NKJV) Christ died for us and now we should live for Him. Our love for the Lord should be leading us to focus on loving God and living for the Lord Jesus Christ.

But how can you to tell whether you are focusing on God? Here are some questions to help us evaluate our focus:

When that handsome guy sits next to you in church, are you able to focus on God during the service?
When your daily life seems to involve running in five directions at once, are you able to focus on God during the busyness?
When your boss wants you to turn in more projects by the end of the week than you could possibly handle, are you able to focus on God during the stress?
When your husband is running late, your kids are screaming, and supper still has to be cooked for everyone, are you able to focus on God during the chaos?

Let's stop and think for a minute...all right, how many of us are realizing right now that we don't focus on the Lord as much as we should? No hand-raising is necessary. Just an honest, quiet evaluation of your focus will do just fine (though if you'd like to raise your hand, go ahead). I know I personally don't focus on God enough. Many times, especially those weeks when I have too much to do, I find myself distracted from the real focus of my life. As a result, I stress over everything, I'm physically and mentally exhausted, and worst of all, I'm spiritually off-balance. Last week and this week have been weeks like that for me, and I know y'all can relate. We all go through rough patches in our lives; times when everything seems to get out of hand. It's times like these that we desperately need to remember our focus. If we start to focus on things other than the Lord, we are going to find life hard and the temptations we face overwhelming.

How much easier it would be, if we remembered the focus of our lives. If only we would remember that the Lord works everything for the good of His children! If only we would remember those sweet words, "Be still, and know that I am God..." (Psalm 46:10a, NKJV)! If only we would remember to focus on the One who is meant to be focused on!

This has not only an everyday application, but a special holiday application as well. As we prepare the menus for Thanksgiving and Christmas, as we plan the parties and the celebrations, as we buy the presents and deck the halls, we should keep in mind Who the focus of the holidays is to be. The focus should be on the Lord. He blessed you with the many blessings for which you are being thankful. He took on human form through the Incarnation, so that He could live a sinless life and die on the Cross to atone for the sins of His people. If we take away the true focus of the holidays (and our lives in general), we are robbing God of His proper glory and we are robbing ourselves of the joy of focusing on the One who died for us.

Have a blessed (and focused) week!
Love y'all!

Trust Issues....

Hey, y'all!

Today, I want to talk about a rather uncomfortable issue for me; the issue of trust. Trust issues are something that many people struggle with, including me. Quite honestly, I can't pinpoint why. My family is great, my friends are amazing, my puppies are the most adorable ones in the world, so why do I have trust issues?

Maybe it's because I've given my heart away to several guys when they didn't earn it (and some of them didn't deserve it). Maybe it's because when I was young one of my close friends "abandoned me" (though all she really did was move on). I just don't know why I have problems trusting others.

What I do know is that I wasn't made to live this way; I was not made to live in fear of being hurt. I was not made to live in fear of being ridiculed and embarrassed. I simply have come to my breaking point. I cannot, I will not, go on living in this fearful manner. It's ungodly and damaging to my spiritual life.

It's damaging to my spiritual life because I am essentially saying, "I don't trust God with relationships enough to let Him control what happens to me and what other people do." That is an ungodly attitude, if I've ever heard one! Paul says in Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." (NKJV) Instead of fearing the future, what I should be doing is thanking God for the present and trusting that, because of His goodness and love for me, He will not allow anything that doesn't in the end turn out for my good to happen! Now, this doesn't mean that you will never get hurt. We are all sinners, so even Christians will sometimes hurt other Christians. We may even not mean to hurt each other, but we still do, whether we mean to or not.

The promise of Romans 8:28 also doesn't mean that if your best friend suddenly finds someone else to spend her time with, eventually she will become your best friend again. God does do that, but He doesn't promise to always do that. He promises that no matter what happens, it will be for your good in the end. The circumstances may have changed a big part of your life, but there is always a reason. You will prayerfully grow closer to the Lord through the tough time. And additionally, you may become closer to another friend, whom you never would have gotten to know as well had your best friend not taken a step back.

As human beings, we were made to have relationships with one another. Most of us are not made to stay in a room by ourselves all the time and never see anyone else. I know I can't. I'm a very social person, even though I'm extremely shy, and staying by myself for too long would drive me crazy! Yet oftentimes because of my fear, I am afraid to speak with others or even smile at someone. My personal shyness cuts me off from people; my shyness comes from fear and lack of faith. Fear and lack of faith harm my relationships with God and with other people

Relationships are a blessing from the Lord, but they do involve big steps of faith. Faith that the other person won't betray your trust, and faith that, if they do, God will take care of you, no matter how much the broken relationship hurts. Faith is a gigantic step, but it's a gigantic step in the right direction.

So, no matter how scary it may be to talk to a new person or say yes to that cute guy when he asks you out on a date (assuming he is a Christian, but that's for another post), you should step out in courage. No matter what happens, God is there with you. "The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore." (Psalm 121:7-8, NKJV)

I would love to hear your thoughts on this! God bless you and always remember, "Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6, NKJV)

Love in Christ,

Legalism

Hey, y'all!

I will be able to blog more regularly from now on, Lord willing, because I was able to finish a rather large writing project I had been working on for quite some time.

For a while now, my life has been legalistic. "Do this...don't do that..." and so on. While talking about my struggles with one of my sisters in Christ, I came to realize that the true problem I was having was with my image of God. I was acting as if God was going to condemn me to hell for something as insignificant as choosing sweet tea over soft drink! That may not seem like a major concern, but my life is full of legalism mostly over ridiculous little things like that!

The fact that my view had gotten twisted in the first place was my fault. Legalism is not a godly thing. It's basically doing what you think to be "behaving" because you're afraid that if you don't, God will be mad at you and "let you go."  But God promises in Deuteronomy 31:6, "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." (NIV)

I had at first tried to "fix" my legalism by myself. It didn't occur to me to look up Scripture verses to help me until I was blogging (How far I have to go, Lord!). I hope these verses speak to you, as they have spoken to me.

And several times in Romans 8, God reminds us, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." (Romans 8:1-4, NIV)

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:37-39, NIV)

From now on, I'm going to try to remember this when I begin to think legalistically. I pray that I will think of these verses often, so I may be strengthened in the Lord.

Have a blessed Lord's Day!
Lydia

Blessed Assurance

Hey, y'all!

Hope everyone has been doing well since the last time I posted! Sorry it has been such a long while!

Today, I'm just going to speak straight from the heart. The Lord has been working with me a lot lately. He really has written it on my heart that salvation is by faith Jesus alone. I knew this truth before; I believed it, but now God has applied it to my life beyond salvation to my assurance of salvation.

Let me give you an example of what I mean: If I am struggling with a sin and I commit it, many times the temptation that follows is to think, "How could you be a Christian if you committed that sin so easily?" Thoughts like this have haunted me for a long time. But think about it, Christians still sin. We are not going to be perfected until we die and go to be with the Lord or until He returns. He died for that sin. It's dealt with. Period!

I now learned when I start doubting to think, "It's Christ, not me," to ask God to forgive me for doubting (and committing whatever sin that caused me to doubt), and, if necessary, to preach the Gospel to myself. Girlfriend, I have literally done this. I have said to myself, "I am a sinner and cannot save myself. Jesus became incarnate, lived, died, and rose again. He took the wrath which should be on me. He loves me. His Spirit indwells me. God the Father loves me and has forgiven me through Jesus." It helps me. Don't let people call you crazy. If it helps you, do it! You don't have to say all this out loud, you can think it to yourself.

Also, looking up Scripture verses dealing with what Christ has done for you will help immensely. Some of my personal favorites are 1 John 4:10: "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (NKJV) and Isaiah 61:10: "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." (NKJV)

Christ's love for you is everlasting! Rest upon it!


In His love alone,