Casting Crowns Concert

This weekend I went to the Casting Crowns concert. This was my first Christian concert where most of the people were not all the same denomination and lets just say I can't wait to get to Heaven so we can all worship together forever!

Fatherly Love

Lately God has been revealing to me a deeper "Fatherly Love". What I mean by that is He is showing me a even more of how much He loves me as His daughter.

Now I have always felt this love but He is giving me even more of it. This semester I have been focusing on my prayer life. I have been keeping a journal which is something I have tried many times before but have never kept up with it. As I write in this journal I have begun to feel bad/guilty for making request to my Lord. I feel guilty to lift things up to Him because I feel so unworthy to ask Him things. However, He has shown me that He wants me to give Him all my heart and to do that includes asking Him for things that are on my heart. He doesn't care that I don't deserve it...He doesn't care that I fall WAY short EVERYDAY. He WANTS to love me. As I've been reading and in devotions God has pointed out to me that others have asked for their heart's desires. In fact, God sometimes asked them what they wanted.

God has used my relationship with my daddy as a way to reveal His love to me. I have the best dad ever. My dad will do anything for me no matter what. I have done nothing to deserve my daddy's love nor have I always treated him the way I should. However, my dad loves me and wants to give me the things I desire. This is how God is. The difference though is God is the only one powerful enough to be able to give me all the desires of my heart and the only one knowledgeable enough to know what is best for my life.

I know this probably doesn't make too much sense and your probably reading this thinking duh she just realized that, but I have just never felt this deep of a love from God in this way. I feel Him telling me to come to Him...I feel his comfort and peace no matter how busy my day is. I feel so blessed and at the same time so unworthy. I can not put into words how thankful I am that I serve a God who loves me and wants to have a relationship with someone so undeserving.

So lately I have been trying to lift ALL my heart to Him in prayer. After all He already knows my heart and is just waiting on me to give it to Him.

Captivating

After having a ton of people mention the book Captivating to me for the past two years, I finally decided that I should read it! It is a really good book and had some really good points that made a huge impact on me.

The authors talked about how Satan uses certain lies to bring us down and to make us feel as though we are not good enough to do the Lord's work. This really hit me in that I am a very insecure person...always have been and I really never knew why. For awhile I have been praying and trying to give these insecurities to my Father but I haven't been able to. Lately though I have realized that it is Satan feeding me these lies so now I'm learning to say no to him and yes to my Lord in this area of my life. I already feel better, free of some of these insecurities, and closer to my Father...but I also hear satans lies get louder and louder in my head. But I know that as long as I remain strong in God He will take care of me and help me.

Another point that these authors made that really struck me was that instead of praying to be something you were not designed to be you should pray for God to make you more in the image he intended you to be in. I really thought that this was interesting because I know so many times I see a women who is an amazing leader for Christ and I want those traits and I sometimes strive to be like her instead of who God created me to be. Now I'm not saying that God didn't create me to become an amazing Christian women...just that he made me unique and I will posses some of the same but also some different qualities from these women that I admire.

The last point of the book that I have been pondering on is about how the world has hardened my heart to certain things. Now I knew that this happens and have tried to protect my heart on a surface level. However, this book has encouraged me to dig deeper and to really see how hard my heart is. As I find these spots I pray that God will soften them. It has been a very humbling experience and has also helped me see people and situations in a different light but I know I have a LONG ways to go before my heart is completely softened and back to the way God wants my heart to be.

I'm very glad that some of the women in my life have encouraged me to read this book! And am also thankful that God has provided such great mentors in my life.

Back in AR

Yesterday I drove back to Arkansas. I'm excited to be back but at the same time missing being at home. I had a great month at home. I always enjoy going home and seeing everyone. This summer I was around a lot of mothers since I watched kids all summer. It was interesting to hear their conversations about saving for their kids colleges, how schooling is going for their kids, someones child's new little "trick" and so on. I guess this is what I have to look for to when I have my 2.5 kids.

I can not wait til next summer. The week before I left some of the teenage girls came up to me and were bummed out because they really didn't have a place to hang out this summer. Even though they had camp and a mission trip to Honduras they wanted to do things through the other weeks too. Me and another girl told them that next summer we promise that if we came home we would do things with them so they could get a group together with an "adult presence". I use to not like being around middle and high schoolers but now I really enjoy it. It is fun to watch them grow and learn to deal with life. There is a really good group of kids at our church and I pray that they can really grow in the Lord and each other. So hopefully everything will work out and my friend and I can give these girls a chance to hang out together. I'm really looking forward to it!

Well I better go unpack! Tonight we have church and hopefully will have a good group of new people show up. I have to say I'm really excited about this year and being with the UCC group!

Well maybe a car would be nice...

This all started when I went to hang out with some friends I went to high school with. I parked on the street infront of my friends house but was told to move because the neighbors just hit a car parked in that same spot a couple of weeks ago. So i moved it to the location you see here. After a couple of hours of hanging out the girls decide to go get some food because we were tired of watching the guys play guitar hero. As we were walking out a storm hit. We started out toward my car when the winds really picked up. As we were standing in the carport trying to decide if we should go or not the tree fell on my car. We then decided it would be best to wait the storm out.

When we finally got the tree off (thanks to my great friends, the neighbors, and my friends dad) we saw that there were only dents on the fenders and hood. I was lucky that it was just my car! As I drove to the car place to leave my car there was strom damage all around. It is crazy how a ten minute storm can cause so much damage.

I am always amazed at the power of storms. I really do not like them...expecially ones that hit here just because they happen so sudden. However, I do find comfort in these storms because I know that the even though they are powerful my God created them. I figure that if he can create and control such a powerful form of nature He can surly take care of me!

Forget the car...

I'd rather have one of these. I better get over my fear of height first though!

The car I want...

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