Getting There.

Is there a God?
Is He involved in my world?

Our belief in God, usually at one point leads to one of the biggest lies Satan can make us believe, "If there is a God then where is He in all the bad?" Satan's plan is to extinguish our faith and our love for God just as He did to Eve.

Don't we all think sometimes God gives us problem for us to solve, and then we slowly realize that we never find the answers. We never solve the problem. The Lord doesn't give us problems for us to solve, the Lord gives us problems to drive us to Him so He can show us who He is, and we can realize He is the solver.

Isaiah 9:6
"For to us a child is born,to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

When I think of a counselor I think of someone who doesn't show you how to deal with your feelings but instead helps you realize what your feelings really are. The Holy Spirit has been my counselor. He is taking me back into my pain and loss and I find myself seeing differently. God is taking me back, back to the 8 year old little girl; fatherless. Even though I love the Lord and strive to have a daily relationship with Him, He is slowly starting to show me this enormous barrier not only to Him but also to myself.

I am beginning to see that my problem is that I have tricked myself into thinking that I have fully accepted my fathers death, and that I don't blame God. When deep down a part of me still hates him. Now as I write this today, this is something the Lord is just starting to show me. I had no idea I was still refusing the loss of my father. But the eight year old little girl in me is still mad, still hurt, and still broken.

Revelation 1:18
“I hold the keys to hell and to death.”

God is showing me that He did take my father, I blame Him and He is guilty. But He is also showing me that if I honestly believe He is good, then I will believe that my father's death was good. Our response to life when things happen, either by man's doing or by satan's, is to believe that God is not really who He says He is, and to believe He isn't good. We will never have the ability to love a God that we believe by any measure will ever not be good, and has never been anything but good to us. We can't trust a God we don't believe is bigger than the pain.

If you know me on a pretty personal level you know that I am extremely hesitant to become close to any man, or a "father figure" and up until today I thought I was so scared something would happen to them just as it did my Dad. But I am realizing it's not the men, its not the fear. It is me not trusting God. It is me going back to the eight year old little girl, abandoned, and thinking God was the one who did it.

Now usually when I write, I have gone through a phase in life and overcome it, this isn't like that. This is process that God is just starting to lead me through. We all have our definition of what we think love is, but my prayer is that I realize the love God has for me is far greater than what I think it is. Because real love is exposing, and that's what the Lord is starting to do in my life. Expose. Not even to others, but first to my self.

Whatever comes into your life, if you will praise quickly, immediately, it is saying, “I believe that God is good and God is sovereign.”

The hardest thing we will ever do is not admit that God is real, or that God loves us for who we are. The hardest thing we will ever do is admit He is Sovereign.

So how do I get there?
I have to Surrender to HIS story that He is writing in my life, and then I have to repent of my belief's that I had, about who He is and what He has done.

"If God is good, my dad dying is good."

I am not there yet, and you might not be either. But that means one thing, God is coming for you; just like He is me and I WILL get there and so can you.

stop being normal.

In this day and age all any teenager wants to do is fit in. To be accepted by someone, anyone. To simply be normal.

Normal: conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern.

Conform literally means to behave according to socially acceptable conventions or standards. But why? Why do teenagers so desperately want to be normal? Why do we feel like we have to? Simple, we aren't letting the Lord tell us who we ARE, but we are letting the world tell us who we HAVE to be. I would love to tell you that I have never fallen into the trap of wanting to be "normal" but I can't. 

I wanted to be normal. I wanted to listen to what everyone else listened to, watch what everyone was watching. I wanted to fit it. But in order for me to fit in I had to conform to the things others were doing that I knew wasn't who I was. I am living the ideal senior year. I go in late. I leave early. I won homecoming queen. I have plenty of friends. But with all this comes a lot of attention, and with a lot of attention come the battle of pride. I struggled. I pushed away people who ultimately where the ones I really needed, and looking back on that I know that only reason I pushed them away is because they knew what I was doing and they would address it and I didn't want that. Now, not saying I went off the deep end. By no means did I go crazy, but I lost sight of what was important. I let it become all about "me" instead of all about "The." 

Christmas day, sitting at home I just realized the Son of God died on the cross for me and then sent the Holy Spirit to live in me, and I deserved none of it. That isn't normal. Ezekiel 36:26-27, the Lord says, “I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my ways.” If not being normal means having the holy spirit live in me, then so be it. If not being normal means having a heavenly Father protect/watch over me at all times, then so be it. Not being normal doesn't mean you don't fit in and you aren't accepted, it simply means you find your acceptance in the Lord.

It's not about me. It's not about what I want to do on the weekends. It's not about what people say about me. It's not about what people tell me what I am suppose to do. It's not about how many friends I have. It's not about how popular I am. It's all Jesus. It always has been and it always will be. Grace is Jesus. Love is Jesus. Forgiveness is Jesus. Acceptance is Jesus. It's all Jesus. Next time someone tells you that you aren't normal, smile and say, "I know." We weren't called to fit into the crowd, we were called to GO out into the crowd and that requires boldness and boldness requires standing out, not fitting in.

So yes, I wanted to be normal. I wanted to fit in. But now all I want is more of Jesus, and the more I have of Him the less normal I become, and I couldn't me more content with that. 

"Set a fire down in my soul, that I can't contain, that I can't control. I want more of you God."