Sweet Mornings

This morning I was woken out of my sleep around 6:58 am, by the incessant alarm of my carbon monoxide detector. The sound prompted me to figure out what was causing the alarm: the battery needing to be changed or truly carbon monoxide. As I proceeded to call the necessary people to ensure that my apartment was free of poisonous gases I headed outside on the balcony.

 The sun was just coloring the horizon and spreading warmth across the city, slowly easing out the lingering coolness. The air was still and full of silence, being pierced here or there with the rumble of a car engine or the delicate chirping of bird. Morning was slowly emerging from the darkness of night and was tranquil yet expectant of what was to come. Creating wide-open spaces, ready to capture whatever might spill from my lips or the thoughts of my heart.

Although my body wished I were still snuggled inside of my bed in the comfort of my cozy apartment, the spirit within knew that a morning of stillness was the “coffee” I needed to energize my day. Mornings of stillness give me space and more importantly time to commune with God. To ask God to help #getmylife before the world attempts to knock me off course and drag me into territories I wasn’t meant for. It’s a time where I can level set and begin the process of tearing down my flesh by slipping on the word.

 

My view midmorning 

Morning: a time for some that is full of grogginess and bouts of sleepiness, is time of meditation and spiritual awakening for me. A time where life’s anxieties and worries aren’t crowding my mind and I can breathe out my thankfulness and draw in the presence of God.

When is your "morning"?

What time do you have throughout the day where you can awaken spiritually and escape from the noise of the world? Is it on your back porch when the sky is encrusted with twinkling lights and crickets create a steady background rhythm? Is it your mid-day run or walk where your eyes can drink in the beauties that blanket the grounds and clutter the sky? Or maybe it’s in the afternoon while resting in a quaint coffee shop swollen with rich aromas.

I encourage you to find that time whenever it is, and protect it. Guard it; ensure that you spend that time with God. He desires to communicate with you, and he cant do that unless its you make time for him.

I've stepped away

I’ve stepped away…

Stepped away from the pad and the pencil that I used to sketch the details of my future

Details that when reviewed look like mere stick figures compared to the intricate work my Savior has created

His breath has created lasting brushstrokes sweeping colorful hues across the years of my life

Hues that can only come from heaven’s paintbrush

A paintbrush where vibrant colors drip into the days, weeks, and years of my life

Dripping into the crevices that I thought would never see color, never see light

But now has been stained with God’s beauty

A beauty mark that will never fade, never diminish

And I’m left captivated

Captivated by where his hands can take me, and the light that floods my eyes

Purging me of old habits and thoughts that once held me captive

And I’m set free

Free to love God’s way

Free to see God’s way

Free to live God’s way… In Christ

All because I stepped away…

Step away today from your pad and pencil and let God write the story of your life.

Direction

This is a mass of jumbled thoughts that I poured out some weeks ago. Hope that it in someway helps you.

“I may not know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”  This quote by Carl Sanderburg describes me perfectly. I have no idea where I’m going in life, but I’m moving forward. I don’t like that though. I don’t like the idea that I am wondering aimlessly across my life. With no sense of direction, no direct goals, and just placing myself in situations as they come up. I don’t want to be one of those people who is lost in a whirlwind of decisions, and so caught up in life that I lose myself. You know the type right, so involved in living the “American Dream’ that they lose sight of their dreams and goals. Too scared to take a risk… scared to lose the freedom that comes along with wandering.

 It’s like I haven’t identified what it is that I want, because I’m being flung to & fro in a pinball machine of others dreams, accomplishments, and goals. I’ve yet to settle into my life, settle into what I want to become. It’s nauseating. It’s scary, what if I never make it?  What if I morph into the people around me, absorbing their dreams, accomplishments, and goals? Never being bold enough to step out into what I desire to accomplish, or set goals that will lead me into the direction that I want to go. Maybe that’s just it. I don’t know where I want to go. I’m at a crossroads faced with many roads that seem pleasing to me, and I’m trying to go down all of them at once. Lugging all the baggage for each trip on my shoulders, and never analyzing which route(s) I should take first, combine, or eliminate.

I want to further my education, I want to succeed in my career, and I most definitely want to advance the kingdom through the ministries God has planted in my head. Can I do it all at once without giving something up: Probably not. And that’s what worries me.

Priorities...Balance…Words that I vaguely know keep flooding my head.  I’m the girl juggling ten things, but maybe only a couple successfully. Gosh, how do people live? How do we get through this web we weave of goals & desires, without getting stuck on something that glimmered in the rain. Is it a straight shot, where I will check off my goals one by one, or will I find that life will take me on a journey that I haven’t planned? Where I’ll seem like a disorganized person from close up, but from afar I’ll be full steam ahead…tackling goals, desires, and dreams as they make themselves evident on the path set before me.

So, “I may not know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.” 

So maybe all the paths lead to one grand path. Maybe I am at a crossroads where the first big decision will feel like I’m stepping off a cliff in the Grand Canyon. Maybe I do know where I’m going I just don’t know how to get there. Confused at how everything will flow into one another. But I know one thing, I want to be my own boss, set my own schedule, make a difference in this world, and leave behind a legacy.

So again the mass jumble of thoughts in my head must be spilled out on paper for me to see the connecting points. Yet this still does not eliminate the fear that is swelling at the pit of my stomach or stops the anxiousness that is trying “beat” the clock of life. You see this clock tells me that my time is up once I get out of my twenties. Crazy, right? It whispers that once I get out of my twenties I’ll be average, and ev eryone will be doing what I’m doing. You see I want to be this kind of young prodigy…who blows the odds and does wonderful things at such a young age. So I guess that my mind is telling me that once I step out of my twenties I will have failed. A complete face plant fail.

But I know that is not the case, I just have to somehow signal to my flesh and my brain that there is no ultimate finish line at the end of my twenties that prevents me from creating beautiful tapestries from the spools of thread God has placed in my hands . Unlike Forest Gump I won’t stop running…I will keep running with such fervor such determination, that my legs won’t want to stop. My legs strengthen from the marathons I ran in my twenties, will carry me forward, propelling me into the depths of my future and my hope in Christ.

So, “I may not know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”  I’m on my way to MY future that will look exactly how God planned it and will probably look nothing like the visions my eyes have cast upon the screen of my life; eyes that have drunk everyone else’s dreams & visions, sucking them down into my belly causing me to slowly settle in a shock of hurried anticipation.

But now I breathe those out, releasing and making room for my visions to be nurtured and nourished in the cradle of my belly.  Giving them room to expand, while they bring upon characteristics that change the way I walk, the words that feed me, and my belly… that will be round and full and ready to birth the great seeds that have been planted within me.

So, “I may not know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”   Pregnant with full expectations of what is yet to come.

Pursued

Hi ladies!! I have some very exciting news! I have started writing devotionals for Pursued, local women's ministry in Charlotte NC! Pursued is a women's ministry whose heart is "help women live lives reflective of the God we serve". It is open to woman (18+) who are waiting to be pursued, being pursued, or have already been pursued! 

I am so excited to join this journey, and to shine my light for God's glory. Please head over to the website (you can click the icon to the right), and subscribe so that you can be a part of this ministry even if you are not in the local area!

Remember God's pursuit of you never ends…fly closer ladies xoxo

Thoughts: This Easter

"5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his,we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his"

Romans (6:5) 

I think this is the first Easter that it has clicked. My vision, a little less blurred, is able to take in the sight of Christ…his death…his resurrection.

The light that emerged from the tomb he exited is upon me, revealing the truth that is unlocking doors, reviving my spirit, and indeed raising me to life as well. Its like Christ is pushing me forward. Im standing on the Grand Canyon of my own faith, and he's pushing me closer to the edge. To fall…not into the depths of the earth, but into his life…his faith. Losing my life for the sake of gaining his.

My heart is overwhelmed at the glory that comes with his death and resurrection. As Christ was placed upon a tree and nails were drove into his hands and feet, those same nails were being drove into my sins, my earthly desires, my life. It was my sins that was cloaked upon him that day, and it was my life that died with him as he breathed his last. "It is finished." No longer do my sins chain me to this earthly world, for they have died and were buried.

"6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin."

(Romans 6:6) 

And with his death came resurrection. Christ didn't only die, taking our sins with him in the tomb, but he rose to give us life. A new life…not a re-embodiement of our old life in a new form, but a life that has emerged out of the fresh placid waters of Christ. A life that isn't alive in the world, but alive in Christ.

"7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death that he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus."

(Romans 6:7-11)

(Photo Credit: Proverbs 31 Ministries) 

The truth that he died to inject within us is not found nestled under a tree within a easter egg, or tucked away in a brightly assembled easter basket…it is found in him. Which is in us. As my pastor brought to my attention: "The hope of glory- Christ in you- is alive!" (Colossians 1:27)

Christ did not ascend just to sit at the right hand of God, but he also is sitting within us.

Take a few moments today and embrace what Christ has done & is still doing for us. Reflect on each piece of the journey that has brought us to where we are as of now. His death…his resurrection…his life that has settled upon us.

This Easter I encourage you to go deeper!

Love you all ladies…fly closer today!

Surrendering Your All

This is a post I wrote for Whole Magazine back in September of 2013. I wanted to share with my loves on my own site. Here's the link to the blog over at Whole Magazine. "Surrendering Your All" You can also click on the picture to the right, and it will take you to the Whole Magazine Site. Enjoy ladies. 


There is a song by Deitrick Haddon titled “Have Your Way” and just as the title suggests, the song invites the Lord to have his way concerning our entire being. The lyrics seem as though they are lifted right out of my soul; they explain that after all of the trying, rebellion, and sin that has widened the gap between us and our savior, we no longer desire that way of life. We simply want the Lord to have His way in us. We have arrived at the point where we have had enough and we surrender. These words are used to form a prayer I share with my Abba, but sadly have sparked no real change in any of my actions.

This last time the song came on, God made me think, “Do I really mean the words I sing, do I know what it means to surrender?” The words that flowed out of my mouth were real and I can honestly say each time I cried out to God, it was from the heart. However, once the worship was over and life began, my actions did not align with those surrendering words. We must ask ourselves do our actions align with our worship, or do we merely want God to transform us because we tell Him to, without giving our all to Him?

Merriam-Webster defines surrender as: To give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another.

The Free Dictionary defines it as: To give up or give back (something that has been granted).

Both definitions suggest that in order to surrender we must give all of ourselves. The Free Dictionary also provides an excellent point that we are not giving up something that is ours, but essentially when we surrender to God, we are giving Him what is rightfully His. How would we feel if someone only gave us back only half of what was ours? We shouldn’t only give God the areas we want fixed or won’t affect us, if we make the decision to surrender we must know God deserves all of us.

Surrendering means trusting God, humbling ourselves, and being ready and willing to do whatever He asks us to do. We will make mistakes, and will not always get everything right, but our mindset should be that no matter what we will keep dying to our flesh and letting God use us.

We all want to let God use us and to be more like Him, and I know I gloss over what it really means and imagine the blessings that will come forth. However without sacrifice, obedience, and suffering we will fall short of becoming more like Him. The absence of those will actually prevent us from allowing God to have His way within us. Surrendering means choosing God over my emotions, and denying my flesh when I want to sleep instead of spending time with Him. It means being bold and audacious, and inviting Him into every area of my life. Let us not be afraid of giving ourselves completely to God, and losing our life for Him. Know that once we let go we will find ourselves in a better place.  

 Matthew 16: 24-26, “24Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If any one would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be of a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?’”

Thoughts: Hard Days

The below was written previously, but it is adhering to me presently. Hard days. Days like today where I poured out my heart to Christ in worship, and now Im empty. Empty to the point where I have no energy left to recharge, and I want to wallow in self-pity. With each passing minute I find it harder to get up…its comforting here. My body is use to this. Use to trudging along in an atmosphere of despondency until something in my environment kicks me out of it. Or until I reach the point where I can't take it any longer. But I am slowly learning that this war doesn't have to wage on as it does now. God has granted me the power to overcome & placed his Word at my grasp to nourish me. He whispers for me to move, to worship, to talk….its hard. Oh the strength that it takes to move forward out of what seems natural, but it is not mine, but his strength that is running through my veins. He meets me here…right here at my dining room table. He will meet you…Take a deep breathe, and blow out the strongholds that are weighing down your spirit. Fly closer ladies...

Hard days. Yesterday was one of those days. A day filled with a tug-of-war game that I didn’t have the strength to play.  Tonight is one of those nights. Nights where emotions are choking and rising up in my throat.  Days & nights where I am glad that God can meet me where I am. I don’t have to run miles, or say extensive prayers in order for God to be at my reach. Thankful that when I don’t have the words to communicate to others (or even myself), He knows.  He knows when I cant complete sentences, when I’m blubbering in my tears, and when my chest feels like its about to explode. He meets me in those moments. For that I am thankful for my God.  He met me today at church, and I know He will meet me again tonight.