Peace that passes understanding

   It wasn't too long ago that I was finding myself somewhat stressed out. The thought of planning a wedding has been on my mind as well as finances and just typical life situations. I have very high expectations for myself so when I don't meet them, I begin to get frustrated and feel like I'm failing. It's not true but it's an emotion I have to deal with nontheless. So the other day, Corey and I were trying to discuss some future things, that are not so far off in the future, and he could tell I was starting to freak out a bit over stuff I don't normally freak out over. He pointed out that I was not living from PEACE.

   In my Original Design, one of the things is "PEACE to withstand ANY circumstance". I have the capability to have peace no matter the circumstance, but this isn't just for me, this is actually something that Jesus left with us as a command as He left earth and ascended into Heaven....

John 14:27

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

   Then this morning I was listening to Adventures in Odyssey (if you dont know what it is, it's a radio drama I've listened to since I was a kid) and "It is Well" was playing. This episode tells the story of Horatio G. Spafford, the man who wrote the song "It is well with my soul". It tells the story of his life and the tragedies that he endured. He lost his son to sickness, he lost his business to the great Chicago fire, and then he loses his 3 daughters to a ship collision! I can only imagine what his emotions were during that time, but in the midst of it he penned these words, 

"When peace like a river attendeth my way, 

       When sorrows like sea billows roll,

  Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say

       It is well, it is well, with my soul"

    Then it hit me! Not that I didn't know but it was a good reminder for me. Peace is NOT an emotion! It is a CHOICE! His emotions in those times were most likely the furthest thing from peaceful but he writes about how even when he is faced with the decision to have peace or give into his circumstance, God has taught him to choose peace.

 Peace is hard to choose sometimes. Sometimes it's hard to understand how you can choose peace in EVERY circumstance, but one of my favorite Bill Johnson quotes is this, "If you want peace that passes understanding, you have to give up your right to understand". Peace shows trust in God. When you have to choose peace you are choosing to say "God I don't get this, I dont know why this is happening but I trust you." Peace is the result of faith in God, the opposite is despair. Wether you have peace or not will allow you to see where you are placing your faith. God calls us to thrive with whatever hand we are dealt, it's called good stewardship. Even if you only have the breath in your lungs you have something to give the world. What are you going to choose to do with that breath. Complain and grumble and be miserable? That's not what we are called to. We are called to peace in EVERY circumstance. Give up your right to understand, choose peace and you will see miracles happen in your life. To have a miracle you have to have an impossible situation. We often want the miracles, but without the impossible situation. 

    So what it comes down to is a choice. I have to choose to reject self pity, and act from faith which will result in peace. You don't always choose your circumstances, but you can choose how you are going to deal with them. I used to discipline myself that whenever I was in a bad situation that was out of my control or I didn't understand I would sit down at the piano and sing "I dont understand your ways, oh but I will give you my song, give you all of my praise". That should be our response 100% of the time. No excuses. He promised us peace, if we don't have peace it's because we are rejecting it. 

We're Engaged!!!!!!!

   I'm so excited that this gets to be my next blog post. I'm thinking that I may have to just tell our story next time. It's a dramatic story of how God miraculously kept moving Corey and I closer together and even when things looked impossible, He had people praying for us and totally caused all things to work together for our good. I wouldn't change our story at all! I have come to love every aspect of it and am so glad we are here today. But I'm sure you're all dying to hear how he asked me to marry him so let me just tell you....because I am totally excited and pretty sure I was smiling in my sleep last night. ;)

   So about a week and a half ago, Corey told me he wanted to do something special for his brother Elijah's graduation. He was planning on just giving a speech but I suggested we do an Original Design for him instead. For those of you who are unfamiliar, an original design is where you sit down and ask God to show you some things about the person that He created them to be. Corey thought it was a great idea so we took some time to sit down and pray for Elijah. Let me just stop to say that praying with Corey is one of my favorite things to do. I have never met a man who hears God with me so accurately. Whenever we go to God about something, we always come away with the same conclusion. This comes in real handy when we are solving disagreements! So after hearing from God, we typed it up all nice, had it printed out on some fancy paper and put it in a nice frame! He said we would gather everyone up at some point during the party and present it to him because he wanted his dad to record it as well. He also made sure to tell me that he wanted me by his side for the whole ordeal as well.

   So yesterday, June 1st, I went over to the Robert house for Elijah's graduation celebration. I got to meet a bunch of the family from out of state and other family I haven't met as well. It was fun to get to spend time with them and get to know them. Around 4pm Corey decided to gather everyone up so we could give Elijah his gift from us. So everyone piled in the living room, his dad turned on the camera and Corey started his speech about his brother and we presented the gift to him. It was a super sweet moment already. Well we ended it and then Corey starts to say how he just has one more thing to do while he had everyones attention. He started talking about us and our history together and how much of a team we are and how he wants to begin a new chapter together. Before I know it, he turned to me and starts to get down on one knee!!! I was like NO WAY!!!! I was so shocked, I honestly can't even remember what he said but somehow he asked me to marry him and I said yes (which he doesn't remember) and the ring ended up on my hand which was shaking so badly from excitement! It was so special to be able to share such an incredible moment with our family and friends!

So there it is!!! He got me good! I couldn't be happier with the way Corey has asked me to be his wife. I am thrilled to be getting married to my very best friend. I wouldn't want to live without him. God is good! And Romans 8:28 has never been more real to me in my life. God gets all the glory for this one! We wouldn't be where we are without Him. May we always remember how far He's brought us, He is so faithful. :)

Love vs. Lies

  It will never cease to amaze me how God can take this thing called love and make it an endless lesson.  He has made it my life long pursuit and I can honestly say that I don't understand how vast of a subject it really is, but I guess when love is a Man it is a subject that I cannot afford to not chase after every single day of my life.

   A couple years ago I was sitting in my pastors office. I was in a point of my life where I was unsure of what I was doing with it and was struggling with the direction God was taking me. As I sat there trying to explain what I was doing, though not really knowing myself he pointed something out to me that I am so glad he had the guts to say. He told me that I was living a very selfish life. I was pursuing my "ministry" and my "goals" but completely missing relationships in my life. I was focused so much on becoming something that everyone could be proud of instead of caring about the thing that God cares most about. People. My pastor went on to ask me where a husband and kids fit into my picture and what about getting plugged in to a church family. He pointed out that I cannot do what I was trying to do without letting people in and establishing solid deep relationships.

   So here I am, further down the road in life and God has placed a wonderful man of God right in front of me. He is my very best friend and I couldn't imagine doing life with anyone else. God has been so faithful to work all things for good in our relationship but I was so hesitant to be in this relationship. My biggest setbacks about dating Corey were two lies I fell for.....

1. A boy will distract me from my relationship with God
     Now this has the potential to be true if I were to pick a man that is not pursuing God but in this situation that is the biggest lie in the world. I am so grateful for how Corey loves God and pushes me to love God. He is a man of the Word and is always wanting to talk about what God is showing us in our personal quiet times. He has chosen to be consumed by who God is and therefore by being with him, I am forced to be pursuing God as well. But the most amazing thing I have been learning lately is how God uses how Corey loves me to show me how HE wants to love me! As Corey learns to love God, he learns how to love me and it shows me a completely different aspect of God's love for me that I could never learn on my own because the way Corey learns about God's love is different from the way I learn about His love. I also was afraid that I didn't have the capability to love God with everything in me AND a man without it taking away from my love for God. But what I have seen is that I cannot love Corey without loving God first. When we both are passionately pursuing God and continuously learning how to love Him, we have no choice but to learn how to love each other, and let me just say I have had some awesome revelations about God's love from how Corey shows me love and it blows me away! God created marriage and it is not meant to be a distraction from Him but rather a runway TO Him.

2. I have to have MY life completely figured out and put together BEFORE I can date
    Ok, so I totally understand how relationships can be a distraction from pursuing your life goals and what God has for you but I am sick of hearing that you have to wait until you are done high school, college, have your dream job and everything perfectly in place before you can even think about dating. Everyone is different. You cannot put a to do list on life because God's plan is different for everyone. Corey's and my relationship is a total God thing and he's not finished college yet. I still live at home with my mom. By the worlds standards we should technically wait until he's finished college and I need to be living on my own and have my own career before we should even pursue this. But here's the thing, God has strategically moved Corey and I closer and closer together and even gone out of His way to redeem our relationship when it looked completely hopeless. Where we are now is a straight up miracle!!! So why should we ignore what God is doing with us just because we don't have everything checked off the worlds to do list. I know finances are a big deal and wisdom should be used in preparing for marriage but it should NEVER be the reason not to. I have seen God provide money for me and I still cannot explain how I got it so to not be obedient to what God is doing with us would be doubting the faithfulness of God to provide. He is a provider! We have been prayerfully moving forward in this and believe that God is telling us to stop procrastinating. We wasted a year apart, it's time to be serious about His plan for us.
   Then there is the fact that Corey is not finished school. I have been told that it's gonna be hard. I have been told marriage is hard but hey guess what else is hard.....LIFE!!!!! But you don't see people telling me to give up on life because it's hard. There will always be trials in life, they will either shape you or break you but the outcome is always up to you. Relationships are hard, yes, but they are a part of life and they are something God values. God uses relationships to refine us and teach us to love like He does. YWAM was hard, and going to Finland by myself to help lead a school was hard, so was leading an outreach by myself but you never heard people tell me NOT to do any of these things because they were gonna be hard. I came out of these experiences with a deeper relationship with God and a maturity in life. I learned so much from these experiences but I learned BECAUSE they were hard. If things were always easy, we would never grow. If I choose to stay single for the rest of my life (and let me just say there is nothing wrong with this if it's what God has called you to) I would choose to limit what God wants to do in my life.

   Relationships are a good thing. They are a God idea. As long as you pursue God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength He will bring along a person to continue to pursue God with you. God in a person is attractive. You cannot love God and NOT be attractive to someone. Learning to love is a lifelong pursuit. It starts with God and overflows to others, especially that one person that you chose to love God with. The results are a beautiful thing.

Love is a choice, and choosing to love Corey is one of best choices I will ever make.

Clear Mind = Clean Room

       So recently I found myself feeling pretty overwhelmed. My tendency when I feel this way is to shut down so I can function without losing it! Haha, it only works for so long. My problem came when I was so stressed that I just had a meltdown and had no idea why. I had no idea what my emotions were because I was shut down to feeling anything. So I decided to pick up my journal. Someone had prayed over me once and told me to never stop journaling because it was going to be a means for me to help others but honestly, it is more for my own sake then anyone else's. So I sat down and just began to write. It had been almost a month since I had last written and this is coming from the girl that has a suitcase full of 13 completed journals from the time I was 14 to 24. I really didn't know what to write but as I began writing, somehow I began to just fill the pages. It was as if someone pulled the stopper on my mind and everything just started to pour out. Before I started writing I had no idea how I had gotten to where I was at but after I was done and read back over it, I was able to see the complete process and even find the root of where it all began. You know what I found???? It all started from NOT JOURNALING! Go figure.

    I am an outward processor. If I don't find a way to think outside of my head, everything starts to pile up! I forget to do things because I have too many mental lists and I get stressed out and one thing leads to the next and before you know it I am completely shut down because my mind has become so cluttered that I don't even know where to start. So that's what journaling is for me. It's literally a way for me to de-clutter my mind so I can think straight. The crazy part is, if you know me well you can tell when my mind starts to get cluttered. My room becomes cluttered, I'm less productive, I'm more tired, I eat less, and I'm way less creative....it's all a downward spiral that leads to ultimately depression. Thank God I didn't get there. The most important thing I realized though was my conversations with God had died down massively! On a normal day talking to God is like breathing. We just talk throughout the day. He and I have always had that kind of relationship, but when my mind gets cluttered, He goes silent. It's not because He's no longer talking, it's just my mind is talking so much louder then His voice! The best feeling in the world is for my conversations with God to be effortless but in order to keep that I have to maintain my life in such a way that I am open to hearing Him without anything getting in the way.

   As soon as I cleared my thoughts I was able to make a list of priorities that needed to be put in place. I cleaned my room and got rid of the clutter in there, I went grocery shopping and started being more aware of my water intake, and I have had so much more motivation to do creative projects! I also now see a strategy of the enemy. It doesn't seem like not journaling would be that big of a deal (and maybe it's not your way of clearing your head) but for me, it is a trigger that if he can convince me to not journal today, and then tomorrow and then the next day.....all those thoughts that I'm not writing down start to build up inside of me and there goes the process all over again.

     So that being said, I'm taking my journaling more seriously. Clearly it's a big deal! I'm also going to be starting to blog weekly. I find that I only really blog when something big happens, but I'm gonna take this a step further and blog what God is teaching me. God created me to be a writer, so that's what I'm going to do! I also know that people read this ;) So if you're reading this I want feedback! What's your way of keeping your mind clear and de-cluttered so that you can function in who God has created you to be?

Words of Life

   Facebook usually inspires me to write posts I would otherwise not even think about on my own. Obviously there has been a lot of controversy going on today, however the issue at hand is not exactly what I want to focus on.

   God has really been speaking to me about the prophetic, my words, encouragement and why it is so important. I think it was two weeks ago in one of my classes that the teacher was talking about prophecy, what it is and what it isn't. They were talking about it in the sense of leading worship but I want to show it's place in day to day life. This was the example that was used: You're leading a worship service and all of a sudden you start to feel a negative emotion. Now just because you are feeling that emotion doesn't mean you are supposed to address the emotion but it's almost like it's God's way of showing you "hey, this is what's going on in the room. I want you to sing out the opposite". By doing this you aren't bringing attention to the negative, but speaking words that will get rid of the negative and create a positive. A lot of people when they think of prophecy they think of it as for-seeing gloom and doom over a nation. I'm not saying God doesn't show us the negative but I think we often get into "warn the world" mode instead of use what God showed us to change the world. God is really showing me that when I feel something negative, or see something bad to use it to fuel my prayers and speak out the opposite. If I just see the bad and speak out the bad, it will only create more bad.

   So now we come to my point. I cannot stand when people complain about America! I absolutely hate when people complain about our President. That's not to say that I am ignoring the state of our nation or that I agree with our Presidents decisions, but complaining will not change anything. Complaining is the complete opposite of what we should be doing. When we complain, we don't speak words of life over the situation. We actually feed into the situation we say we hate so much! God gave us creative speech. We have the ability to change the world with our words! If that doesn't make you think about what you're saying then I'm not sure what else to say. The Bible says that LIFE and DEATH are in the tongue. Complaining brings death 100% of the time. You cannot complain and expect something to change. It won't. The state of our nation is obvious. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how we are struggling, but one way to start to change the way we think about our nation is to start looking for the GOOD that is going on! Start posting the good things happening all over facebook! Let's speak words of life into our nation. Let's prophecy what we want to see happen! Only then will we see change.

   God spoke the world into existence, lets speak the world into the kingdom of Heaven!