Clarity

I have, at a moment of discontentment and fog, believed that perhaps the God of this world and my heart would have little to do with the beautiful details of my life. Like perhaps what clothes I put on in the morning had little to do with God who calls the waves forth by the rising of the moon day after day. As if my God had more important things to do (lives to save) than count day after day the choices I make for His glory. 

How wrong I was. And the moon rises still, night after night, faithful as her Creator.

Every choice I make goes toward His glory. Isn't that the meaning of a set apart life? I will honor God with the details of my clothes, as the lilies of the field honor Him with their beauty. Does He not delight in His creation?

I will be anxious for nothing, and in all things honor Him. Oh help me Lord.

Ready to worship the King of Kings! There is no better way to spend a Tuesday evening. So blessed and thankful for my life and those in it!

The Cathy Family

Why should Dan Cathy's expressed belief in traditional marriage come as a shock? The Cathy family and Chic-Fila have proven time and time again to be representative of Christ, and for the Truth of Biblical teaching. Even in an ever-changing, fast paced culture that deviates further from the Truth each day, the Cathy family has held firmly to the belief in resting on the Sabbath. What makes this any different? The Cathy family was and are for the Bible. The whole Bible. Not just the chapters that may or may not be deemed "politically correct". This is not and never was, to the believer, a hate issue. This is a sin issue.

Thank you Lord for 27 years.

My dear friend Hannah and I would read this book to each other in a garden of roses in the spring of 2010. Or perhaps I'm remembering wrong and mostly, she'd read it to me. It aided in beginning in me a purging process of worldly entertainment which had taken my time and attention from my King for 20 years.

Finally, two years later, I've bought the book for myself and those 2 year old seeds grow in to beautiful flowers each day I turn the pages. Every young or older single woman should read Set Apart Femininity by Leslie Ludy. Ask the Lord to prepare your heart with good soil. It shouts of radical yet realistic abandonment to Jesus Christ, though culture would try to drown the truth every moment of every day.

It stirs a love and passion for devotion to the King of Kings. Learn God's sacred intent for every woman.

I am second. Third even. No. Last.

These people.

There is a feeling I get in the depths of my stomach, and I should think it tells of ache and desire. I know it's real because I feel it in my flesh, corresponding rightly with the longing in my heart. And my response has usually been to seek what I could to calm it. This time its being pulled by thoughts of past relationships and friendships, and knowing that they will never be what they were.

I should know, that in the refuge of God's plan, no greater joy could be found apart from it. Not even in the comforts of a friend. But my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams. When will I stop putting hope in man, whose breathe are in his nostrils.

Oh God I will rejoice in you! Make glad my heart.

Oh where could I go, if not for you.

I was blessed to spend Easter Sunday with sisters in Christ, devoted to the call of bringing glory and remembrance to His name.

I rejoice in Him in all things. Jesus Christ, the hope of man. He is risen and I am His. He comes in power. He is victorious.

My God is a good God who forgives, showers mercy like sunshine's first kiss on a frostbitten heart.

A lily white handkerchief sealed in a precious box, handcrafted by You and especially for me. Sealed not to be opened before it's purposed time, oh Lord forgive me for tampering with it's lock. Sealed and you will see it through to it's purpose. Until then, into Your hands I offer my heart.

Teen Challenge staff and a Japanese restraunt, photos in the bathroom, and precious time.

We are, everyone of us, purposed for eternity and like those we admire and consider in God's word, written about and detailed by the breathe of God Himself, we too have a paragraph or two in the pages of the book of Life. To consider that this life He gave you is part of His purpose is hard and simple to think about until it sinks in and then you might realize that you were purposed before you even started living, for something far greater than you could've known. Could it be, that God is watching as eternity unfolds, and intervening in our lives for the sake of Love and fulfilling some ultimate Destiny that had been knitted together with the meaning in our hearts since the beginning of time? That's romantic.

Sometimes I go overboard on writing all my thoughts at once and then most times I don't write at all but I suppose that's the beauty in life, the dance of finding truth in being over and underwhelmed, but my Lord calls me to stand firm and still and wait for Him so that's exactly what I'll do.

I write run on sentences too but I don't know how to find beauty in this truth so I'll leave it at that.

Once I heard the Lord tell me I'd have a beautiful romance and I trusted Him for the first time maybe, with everything I had, with the only thing I knew I could cling to. It was all I had left and I felt evil try to take it away. It felt like I was suffocating and losing my mind and I couldn't remember what truth was. But that was a long time ago and today is a new day. My faith stands and He will build it all the days of my life because I trust He will.

Aren't we all on a search for beautiful things? That's how it started and I found He who made beauty itself. The Beautiful One. He captivated my heart and conquered it with gentle passion that burned until it raged and now I seek to see Him all my days. Ill go to work and hope I don't fall prey to the mundane things that would creep in and distract me from His heart. I'll ask for divine appointments and meaning and faith and beauty, and freely He will give.

I am waiting for you and you can't possibly know it.

The Lord is faithful and my Hope lies only in He who was and is and is to come.

I will have my fairy tale, written by the Author of life. You'll see.

White picnic tables and Alabama heat, church on a Wednesday and family style dinner with little broken ladies.

It was for freedom.

Oh reader, can you recall a moment when the weight of the entire world and all the dominions that reign evil were loosed by some force much stronger than itself; loosed from your shoulders and your back, loosed from your mind and your heart, and the freedom that had waited for so long to call itself yours cried Holy Holy Holy is the Son who came for freedom. Holy Holy Holy is He who gave Himself over to set me free. Tears would spill out, tears that had been coming forth for years only couldn't yet be released. And Joy overwhelmed the soul. Joy that couldn't help but to spill out of the heart and on to the ground and in to the ears of all those around.

I remember the moment when a few words were spoken and the cords that would bind were loosed both on earth and in Heaven, and freedom in the man, Jesus Christ, came to set me free. He had used Hannah, my dearest friend, to speak those words in an apartment that He shared with me, in a way so supernatural that it had to be for freedom that He chose to use it.

After that I thought I'd spend my entire life devoted to the pursuit of bringing Him glory and of giving Him the only thing I knew I could offer. Me. And I spoke the words Use me Lord, Use me.

Oh and He answered when I called. The heart cry was to serve, and now I sit in an office where many have sat before me, used by He who heals and frees. And I talk with deeply wounded girls all the hours of my day. Girls the world would look at and shun. Girls the world would look at and despise. Girls that He looks at and loves deeply. I sit in a chair that was ordained for me long before I had asked. I sit in a chair that I offer to Him first. I sit in a chair and ask that He would do His work, that He would heal and free. There is no greater joy, reader, than to be set free, and then to minister in His name by and through Him to see them who are bound freed.

It was for freedom that He set us free. May we never forget the cause. May we never forget He who ordains freedom. May we never forget that He is worthy of all the glory we could muster up. May we never forget He moves in those who are willing, in spite of ourselves.

Holy Holy Holy is the lamb.

It's funny and tragic all at once upon realizing that the fire in the heart of your hearts has grown dim. And all the while you know the heart of your King will not be satisfied until he sets all that should burn a kindle until it catches and never burns out. I've been resting on kindle for too long. Falling custom to the routine of life as man might know it, but not life through the eyes of Christ. Awake oh my heart, he whispered sweetly to me.

All this time i had succeeded in convincing myself that the Lord should not want to rest His presence by a fire made of kindling. The fire of wood stubble and hay long put out, only ashes remain. Until the cold air February blows reminded me of His jealousy even for a heart such as mine. The ashes are not in vain, for the beauty He causes to rise from the sacrifice are of a fragrant offering unto Himself.

He offers me rubies and gems, the precious stones that will never burn dim.