Speeds

February 24th

My pace has changed.

Maybe it's just for today. I might [actually, will] be thrown into a crazy schedule tomorrow, but for today I will keep this peace I have.

I'm not sure what it is, but I woke up with this something that I can't describe. I feel so slow and so relaxed...it's crazy. Almost like I have a less aware sense of time right now.

The thing is, the day hasn't gone any slower--I have.

As long as it is taking me to figure out the words for this post, I realize that I must integrate this into my lifestyle. I look around me today and people are so hurry hurry hurry......even if they don't know it. Do you ever just sit at your chair for a minute after class? After a meal? I see so many people just get up and go and leave....

I don't want to be that person who is so distracted by time that I don't have time for the important things in life--people. And sometimes it takes a slow pace and many conversations to help you know this...and sometimes you just wake up and go about your normal routine without stopping to think, maybe my day shouldn't be normal...work smarter not harder, read, live, love pray....

 

 

February 27th

 

It has been a long time since I have had a day as jam-packed as today. Lots of stuff, back to back to back to back. It's all really neat things (except maybe my math class, math test and world civ class....) its just hard when you are missing an hour of sleep and are supposed to be working on ten other things right now instead of typing this post. This is such a stark contrast to Monday, as the paragraphs above re-account. Days like these are challenges--to lean on the Lord, ask Him for His strength, because I know today I have run out of mine. It's also about priorities, as I keep reiterating--make that quiet time a necessity (it is...or should be...)--and challenge yourself to make sure your priorities can interrupt your life.

 

I feel like you can be busy, but it's become detrimental when your soul is hurried. I had a hard time stopping today, even if I did have a short break. You need your heart to be quiet so that you can receive and listen and hear and learn and teach and give, love, and give love....when it's not--you're stuck. This business is showing me that I must slow down intentionally, even if it sometimes feels like when a super hero is stopping a train just by pushing up against the front of it only you're doing the same thing except you don't have super strength.....

 

The trick I'm learning is to maintain a heart and soul that is focused completely on God so that I can stay in this non-hurried state in the midst of and in spite of the craziness that threatens to drown me, because as soon as I take my eyes off of Him, I sink.

 

 

 

In it to End it

 

Modern Slavery:

 

30 million slaves world wide.

 

200,000 of them in America.

 

80% of them women.

 

50% of them children.

 

Whose the number one country in sex-trafficking?

 

The U.S.A.

 

Us.

 

 

Now, what are you going to about it when you walk way from this post?

 

 

Raise prayers.

 

 

Raise awareness.

 

 

Donate.

 

 

Put a red "X" on your hand to raise awareness...you don't even have to do it today. The many different types of slavery are not waiting on you--they keep going on.

 

 

More info at:

http://enditmovement.com/

 

 

Winter

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

When I Find Uncertainty

With some things anymore I just give up before it starts. No longer do I feel I have to have control, or really even want that. My God is enough, as He has clearly shown me lately. Now though, I have found myself again in an uncertain situation. I take a deep breath, think for a second, and for the first time in a long time--maybe the first time ever, who knows?--I just prayed. Maybe it was still tinged with some desperation, but PEACE was the one common theme. God has more than proven Himself to me (not like He has to anyway, you know...), He has gone beyond all that I could imagine, just like He does. This time is no different. Am I still slightly confused and tired of it all? Sure I am. But a verse I read this morning, Psalms 27:8, really allowed me to put things into perspective and is helping me learn patience. Not just normal patience though, the spiritual kind--the spiritual fruit.

 

"Wait for the Lord;
    be strong, and let your heart take courage;
    wait for the Lord!"

Psalms 27:8

 

 Break me down with your mercy

 

My God He's always going to be

Oh your cross, it changes everything

I am not skilled to know what God has willed what God has planned

Peace Rachel, peace, He says to me.

I will wait for Him.

 

The State of Your Soul

So the other day, I found out something else about prayer. I'm sure it has been said before, but I can't think of another way to say it--prayer is a state of the soul. It was early one morning as I was going to prayer meeting, where we pray, and I asked God to prepare me for this time. It was a prayer just said, nothing utterly super profound about it, and I'm not really sure what I was expecting.

The more you pray though, the more your belief increases. You just feel this close communion that you can't describe any other way. Well, it's one of those moments when your soul gets quiet. It is still. Resting in the present, where you are, with who you are. This is the time for prayer. When all the noise has gone out of you--when you are focused and can hear God speak, speak to your heart. It was then in that peace that I realized God had answered my prayer, one said only a few moments before. I never even realized how much I needed it too--the preparation to have a heart and soul of serious, wonderful prayer.

I also learned that prayer is supposed to be long. Long and all consuming...not that it can't be short, but a long prayer is a good prayer. One where your soul dives deep into the words in the Word and God's love and grace and protection.

Take this time you have after reading--I know you have some, it's just how you manage it--or another time this day to pray for a long time. As much as you want to--more than you want to. Just be able to sit in the presence of God, the Glorious One, and wait and be still and quiet.


"Instead, I am content and at peace. As a child lies quietly in its mother's arms, so my heart is quiet within me."
Psalms 131:2

Dgroup

Certain things are just clearly answers to prayers.


I was praying for something that would help to grow and fill me spiritually in the certain way in which I was feeling I needed. Really needed.

And you know what came along?

A dgroup.

I now have a discipleship group--girls my age who grow closer to God together.

It was an answer to one of my prayers that came on God's beautiful timing that is so far better than my own!


I really admire the seriousness they have about their faith and the bright smiles on their faces. They reminded me of the daily commitment that my faith--my Lord--demands of me.



Now, I've only technically meet with them for Bible study/group once, but it really doesn't take that long to understand a clear answer to prayer.


And you know, I had to wait for this group for a whole semester because of scheduling issues, but I also believe that it was God's timing--sometimes good things at the wrong time can turn out bad.

With this group of precious girls, although I had to do some waiting, I'm now ready for this level of intimacy with people and the Lord. In fact, I crave it. A few months ago, this would have come at a disjointed time.

A lot of things come at God's perfect timing, more than we probably think.

It just takes keeping an open eye and an open and seeking heart.



*And yes, I do love taking pictures of everything. You have no idea how much self control it takes not to post every good one of the many that I take.

Thrive

Thrive

By Casting Crowns

Here in this worn and weary land
Where many a dream has died

 Like a tree planted by the water
We never will run dry

So living water flowing through
God we thirst for more of You
Fill our hearts and flood our souls
With one desire

Just to know You and
To make You known
We left Your name on High
Shine like the sun made darkness run and hide
We know we were made for so much more
Than ordinary lives
It's time for us to more than just survive
We were made to thrive

Into Your word we're digging deep
To know our Father's heart

 Into the world we're reaching out
To show them who You are

So living water flowing through
God we thirst for more of You
Fill our hearts and flood our souls
With one desire

Just to know You and
To make You known
We left Your name on High
Shine like the sun made darkness run and hide
We know we were made for so much more
Than ordinary lives
It's time for us to more than just survive
We were made to thrive

 Joy Unspeakable, Faith Unsinkable, Love Unstoppable, Anything is possible
Joy Unspeakable, Faith Unsinkable, Love Unstoppable, Anything is possible
Joy Unspeakable, Faith Unsinkable, Love Unstoppable, Anything is possible
Joy Unspeakable, Faith Unsinkable, Love Unstoppable, Anything is possible

Just to know You and
To make You known
We left Your name on High
Shine like the sun made darkness run and hide
We know we were made for so much more
Than ordinary lives
It's time for us to more than just survive
We were made to thrive

Hey!

We were made to Thrive