Edible Solar System!

Ok. Browsing some Solar System craft ideas for a work project, and came across this cake. How awesome is this?!?!?! LOVE it!

The rights for this photo go to monizcel

The true definition of ME

What defines you?

Circumstances?

Personality characteristics?

Monetary wealth or lack thereof?

Looks?

Climbing the social ladder?

Family?

Your social status?

Your ability to be liked and well regarded?

Your ability to display your strengths while hiding/minimizing your weaknesses?

Your ability – PERIOD?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, because really at different points in my life, I think I have defined myself by all of these things. By my abilities. By my inabilities. By how I thought others perceived me.

Right now I am at a point in my life where God is growing me to be defined by Him and Him alone. Wholly, completely, fully, without boundaries, limits, or care. This is hard. This is testing me. I will never “arrive”. Despite the painful process of growing, it’s better than the subtle, stagnant approach of getting stuck in a certain life pattern that doesn’t challenge one to be better, to be MORE. God makes it impossible for me to become stagnant. He always challenges me to give more than I think I can, be more than I think I can be, do more than I think I can do, all the while resting in HIS strength, not my own.

It’s coming. Very soon.

It’s coming in a few hours. There were some days when I never thought I would see it. How is that it fills me with partial dread and partial joy. What’s up with that.

It’s my birthday.

picture by www.pinkcakebox.com

And I’m turning 26. Tomorrow.

26.

As in: no longer 25.

How did this birthday get here? How in the world am I now in my late twenties? No way. This can’t be happening. Really??

I’m kind of freaking out about birthday # 26 because in my mind I have list of things that I feel like “I should have accomplished” by this time.

But then I pray and realize that perhaps my “list” and God’s “list” are different.

A very wise person once told me that in certain seasons of your life, you are simply not able to see the fruit of your labor. Yes, true. Thanks Matt. )

On the flip side… I am also so thankful for this birthday. I am so excited to see what God will do in the 26th year of my life!

“Appreciate the small things, for one day you will look back and realize that they were the big things” Robert Brault

So, in my twenty sixth year of life you will find me appreciating the small big things.

God, you are so good.

You knew me when I was young, you know me now, you will know me when I am old and gray. And your love for me never wavers. When others come and go, your love for me is forever constant, never changing. Your guidance is like a strong tower of protection and security.

No matter where I go, what I do, who I’m with, or how old I am, You are always there! Your love will forever remain. You are my constant friend.

 

 

Piles of Deariness

It was filled to the brim. It was running over. It was everywhere. It was incredibly annoying. It was a translucent version of my worst nightmare. It created internal weights of dreariness every time my tired eyes paid attention. It was my closet. It was my bedroom. It was my kitchen. It was my living room. TOO MANY THINGS! I have too many things! My head screams.

Why is it that the more you own, the more it owns you?

And what it is about getting rid of unused things that just gives you such a sense of relief? What is that? I am getting rid of everything I don’t need, and I. can’t. wait.

As Regina Britt says… get rid of anything that is not useful, beautiful, or joyful! Yes! Here we go..

Transparency

Artwork by Deborah Oropallo. I chose this picture because it looks like how transparency makes me feel!

So I have been thinking a lot lately about transparency. Namely, transparency in my own life regarding my weaknesses, areas of deficiency, failures… you get the point. I started thinking about this when I realized that, although I have written many posts, only a few are actually visible to the public. While I was reading some my “private” posts a few days ago, for a brief moment I forgot I was the author and thought to myself… wow.. this girl is really “real”. She is not hiding under a facade. Then I realized that… these are MY posts and they are set on “private”.

But what if I had the courage to tell the world what it was REALLY like to be me? What if you did? What would change for you? Would things get better or worse? Would people love you or hate you? Would you know your true friends or would you have any friends left?

As I was growing up, transparency was neither discouraged or encouraged. It just wasn’t talked about.  As I have gotten older I understand within my own life and within the community of the church, transparency is of supreme importance. Transparency allows the world to see Christians for what they really are – flawed human beings that are only saved through the blood and grace of Jesus Christ.

I want to be transparent even when it is painful, embarrassing, or inconvenient.

I want others to know me for who I really am. I want people to see into the painful, sad, lonely areas of my life for these things are what make me a complete human. No human alive lives in a constant state of dressed-up Sunday best “hey how are you”, surface, polite-at-all-times mentality. We live in a broken world full of broken people. Without seeing the full extent of our brokenness, we are blinded to the full extent of God’s grace upon our lives.

What is it within us that shirks from transparency? What is it within me that does this? A fear of being rejected? A fear of being less than perfect? A fear of vulnerability? Fear. Fear. Fear.

Perfect love casts out fear.

I don’t want to live in fear.

I want the courage of Christ to fill me with the boldness to shed light into the ugly, foul, stench- soaked crooked crevices of me. Now more than ever I am determined that this sort of bold transparency is fundamental to true community and relational intimacy. Isn’t that what I crave? Isn’t that what all people crave?

Contentment

As I have been pondering the true meaning of contentment, a story comes to mind about a young woman who was engaged yet unexpectedly became pregnant with a baby who was not her fiance’s child. Although she had to be scared, she gave birth to the baby and named him “Jesus”. She is Mary, the mother of Christ. On Christmas day I heard the pastor say that “she knew less than we do (about Christ), yet she had more faith than we do”. How true! She was content in being faithful to God in the situation at hand, regardless of how she felt or all the “unknown” factors. Praise God for her simple yet monumental faith and contentment.

Just like Mary, I can rest and be content in God’s plan for my life.

He is Here.

“everything that we can sacrifice He is worth it and more – much more. Our good deeds are mere pennies we’ll never even the score.”

Seconds – I Am Second

Seconds – I Am Second.

A POWERFUL and transparent testimony to the power of CHRIST.

Poetry State of Mind

A Little Poem Dedicated to my friend, the weekend

Happiness, joy, new found freedom in the simple idea of freedom from routine !

Release from pressures

The weekend!

Free to let my hair down, ride in the open wind, dig my toes into the sand and feel like truly, completely, unabashedly, me

Life can get so complicated that its nice to just take this break, don’t we all need  a break?

Weekend-  rest in a deeper sleep than you can imagine, ride the waves of a good time while laughing uncontrollably and unselfconsciously with friends

Thank you, God, for the weekend

Time to kick off my shoes and feel the carpet on my little bare feet!

Dance with uninhibited abandon

Revel in the true beauty of life

Live happily, simply, joyfully.

The weekend.

Sowing Seeds

I heard something yesterday that really inspired me. I will try to paraphrase it.

Do you ever get in a funk? I mean a real, honest-go-goodness, down and dirty funk where you just hit a low point and just feel like its a true battle just to go on? I don’t know about you, but I get like this. If you are reading this and over 5 years old, you have probably been in a funk before as well!

What inspired me yesterday was hearing a woman say that even when we are in the midst of that funk, we can make a decision to go on and keep sowing seeds of kindness, grace, and Christ’s love. If the tears come, let them come. Say to yourself… “I will wet the rows as I sow”, analogous to a farmer sowing seed.

The hard truth about life is that many times we don’t FEEL like doing ________________________ because we are struggling with _____________________.  Let the tears come – but keep sowing seeds. Let the pain come, but keep sowing seeds. Let the bad mood come, but keep sowing seeds.

This is a great lesson for me.

Ephesians 3:17-21 (NLT)

“¹⁷ Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. ¹⁸ And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. ¹⁹ May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. ²⁰ Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. ²¹ Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.”

And what does the Lord require of you?

Micah 6:8 (NIV) “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Man Oh Man. Don’t we make this life hard sometimes? Can’t life be just … so… COMPLICATED? Wow. It will tire you out just thinking about. AND… because my nature tends to lean toward perfectionism, I tend to make life even more complicated than most.

I even complicate my relationship with God. Even though I know the truth of God, I begin believing that He believes things about me that he doesn’t. The truth is that he is FOR me. If I am seeking to “act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with my God”…. this is what the Lord requires. If I am seeking those things, I will be doing what I need to be doing. Take that for being redundant.