My First Love

My breath is caught inside my chest.

Words I would speak are lodged in my throat.

My mind is in awe and wonder.

This body longs to dance and embrace, but

these feet remain rooted

for fear of loosing you.

My heart leaps toward yours,

it begs to be with you

for you have touched it.

And now, I know,

it is impossible to return.

Our life is an Example

How often do we honor our parents through prayer or encouragement?

I think we, as young people, get so absorbed with our own lives, that we forget that God wants us to HONOR our parents. Not just through obedience, which we fail at half the time anyway, but through lifting them up in prayer and offering them WORDS of encouragement.

Exodus 20:12 "honor you father and your mother, so it will go well with you and you may have long life in the land (the earth) God has given you."

Do we even know what it means to honor? Thank God for a dictionary cause I knew I needed it when I made a funny face to that question.

To Honor is to: hold someone in high respect; to revere.

They should be completely at the TOP of our prayer list. We need to lift our parent up to God, especially those parents who are struggling with God, because only God can change and mold them. "Do NOT let anyone look down on you because you are young, BUT set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity."

Sometimes I think our parents tend to be our exception to the gossip rule. We go off and talk about everything and all their problems and what we don't like about them to our friends. But Is that Honoring to our parents? Is that honoring to GOD???? How would our attitudes toward our parents change if we were praying for them and their spiritual walk with God.. I wonder?!

Am I stressing enough? How important this is?

How much more honoring is it to be daily lifting them up in prayer? Not praying for selfish wants and desires, but asking God to give them the grace and wisdom in growing with you, Or pray that your parents would discipline and encourage you in a way that will bring you closer to God.

This is so important. I pray that my words will not roll off your shoulders into the dust, but that you would take them and change the world by setting an example with your life!

I'd like to pose these last questions... Do you pray for your parents? Do you offer encouragement to your dad when he is having a rough day? Do you leave a note for your mom on her bathroom mirror telling her she is loved and appreciated? I wish I did when I was near my parents, but It is more difficult being away. I wish I had done more, now that i see how important and how helpful I could have been. But i know God is a professional at making up for lost time and it is never to late to start.

God bless you and teach you in building strong God centered relationships with your parents. And remember, it is NEVER to late!

God is calling...

Slow down!

The world has changed so much since we were first given the instruction to,

"be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

So many things in our technological age fight for our attention,

but this timeless truth is crucial to the welfare of our souls.

Take some time to get to know Me!

Find rest in Me!

Sometimes we get frustrated.

When we go through:

situations that make us tired;

We often don't feel like we are getting the peace that we have read about in scripture;

Or seasons when life feels like we are running after it to catch up!

God tell us in His word:

"...My presence will go with you and I will give you rest." Exodus 33:14

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength..." Isaiah 40:31

He says that He will go with us,

but if we are not waiting on Him to receive His strength and His rest

then we are going to miss it entirely.

It Ok! You have time!

Don't worry!

The things we plan out and think are important in this life time,

do not even compare to what God has planned.

It is easy to latch onto our obligations and fall under the delusion that we have any control over our circumstances.

If we have a death grip on the list of commitments in our lives,

we will be crushed.

"Who of you by worrying can add a single day to his life?" Matthew 6:27

"Do not be anxious about anything but in prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God." Phillipians 4:6

Worry and anxiety are the opposite of trust.

I will carry everything for you.

Trust Me!

Some Heavy Lifting

Have you ever thought of how horrible drowning would be?

If something was pulling you down and down, how far could you stay conscious underwater before you suffocated or inhaled to much water?

Would you feel yourself be crushed by the depths?

It is a sad and painful thought.

How dark and lonely it would be; how lost and hopeless life would be.

How cold and vulnerable you would feel.

How scared and desperate you would become.

Your lungs would burn. Your ears would ring! The water holding you, no way for you to be set free.

The weight of the world becoming heavier... and heavier... and heavier... and heavier... never, not once letting up for one moment!

I was thinking about this and thought, "what could be worse?"

Jesus says in Matthew 18 verses 5-6 "And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me. But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large mill stone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea."

Food for thought.

Growing Pains!

Do you remember when we were young and our bodies were growing? Sometimes our muscles would ache constantly and we would toss and turn at night, or we would run into walls because we had gotten bigger without noticing it. We would pull something out of our drawer and find that it didn't fit us anymore, and have to throw it away. It is an exciting yet painful process sometimes!

Our heart and spirit in our walk with God is something of the same picture. We are constantly growing and striving to be like Christ. It aches and we loose sleep over it sometimes. We run into things we don't understand because our hearts have gotten bigger and we learn to be more careful. We pull things out of our life and look at it and we are faced with a decision: "do i throw it away or keep something that doesn't fit?"

It is an exciting process. Though, some of the things we pull we have become attached to, and we don't want to get rid of it. But if we keep it we create clutter. It might even get in the way or trip us. It is Painful, but we have to toss the bad habits and characteristics that don't fit us anymore.

Let Christ stretch you and make you strong. Let Him clothe you with His robe of love. God Bless!

Home Work: Clean out your dresser ;) I know i have some throwing out to do!

Learning to love Jesus is hard work!

We can sometimes get distracted when it comes to loving. It takes time and hard effort. You might think that love is supposed to be simple, but if you look around, you can see many people who loved eachother once upon a time but have given up because of the choices they made. The exciting rush of joy they felt at the begining has disappeared and the difficult task of loving their partner sets in. If they have no desire to learn about their partner's desires and needs and dont take the time for them that they both need, they end up falling away from one another, not closer! It cant be a one sided relationship either, both have to work at it! Love is patient, it is kind, it is not selfish or boastful. Jesus set the example for true love, he loves you but you cant let it be a onesided relationship with your savior! You have to study his likes and dislikes and passions! You have to learn
to love Him! It is a relationship, you can not give up. God bless

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Mind vs. Heart

Mind: "Stop, you don't know what your doing!"

Heart: "But i must!"

Mind: "No! Can't you see all the possibilities of how it could go wrong?"

Heart: "I do not! I feel the hope of how it is supposed to be!" 

Mind: "Don't pull that feeling stuff on me! Don't you remember what happened and how it felt last time?"

Heart: "Of course, but this is what i was made for, I have to at least make a small effort to see which way it turns!" 

Mind: "If you get hurt, don't you come crawling back to me for comfort, i am not going to be apart of this drama!"   

Heart: " What? Who says it is always going to turn out badly? It Could..."

Mind: "The World! Thats Who! It Has nothing in common with you and wants to crush you to bits? Doesn't that scare you in the slightest?"

...

Heart: "...YES! In fact, that terrifies me!... But that is exactly what the world wants! IT wants to terrify! The world want's it to turn out badly or it doesn't want it to happen at all! But if i am trusting in God to take my fear and then to lead me, in order that i might find success! Then i might have a picture for another poor heart to hope toward!"

Mind: "... You pitiful heart... how do you cary so much? Why do you endure pain to try and gain something that might never be? How can you suffer, over and over and still have hope deep within?"  

Heart: "It is not by any of my own doings that I try again after i have failed? The Purpose that the Lord has for me pulls me up when i have been nocked down!"

Mind: " I wish I had a purpose like you! You make me feel like a pessimistic humbug!"

Heart: "You have a purpose as much as i do! Your supposed to argue and reason with me as we just were! You may think that your suggestions (or more like commands) are discarded and trampled on sometimes, but they influence the way our body act as well!" 

Mind: " Oh... so i should make a suggestion of how to go about this situation as carefully as possible, instead of  throwing the whole thing out the ear? "

Heart: "Yeah... it will work out better, i think, if you are thinking and i am feeling as one! That way we keep each other in check!"

 

Mind: "And keeping God always in our focus?" 

Heart: "Yes! God is our focus!"