A sticky lesson...

I was back at my job today babysitting Abby and Aaron. I love these kids... and I love them even more when God shows me things through them and uses these precious kids in ways they'll never know.


Today I was sitting with Abby while she painted at the kitchen table. Aaron had been eating a piece of toast with honey on it. If anyone knows a small child, you know the aftermath of anything messy... it's as much on their face and body as it is in their stomachs!


Aaron came over to me and climbed into my lap. He was just sitting there chatting away to me about something I didn't understand. All of a sudden he planted his cute, chubby, sticky, lips on mine and gave me a huge kiss. I laughed, which I think encouraged him, and he did it again... making my lips as sticky as his were.


This evening I was walking back from the beach. I have a lot on my mind and feel like my whole life is changing over the next few months. I found myself humming this lyric from a song "... Your name is like honey on my lips..." and then it all made sense.


I've always tried to really understand this song. What does it mean for the Lord to be like honey on my lips.? After Aaron kissed me, the taste of honey was on my lips for awhile. It lingered, it was sweet, it reminded me of that moment. That's what the Lord should be in our lives. You have intimate times with Him... and those times should linger, they should stick, hours later you should still remember what the Lord has done and who He is. Every word that proceeds from your mouth should be spoken with the flavor of honey on your tongue - the flavor of the Lord evident in your life.


The other thing I noticed as I walked back from the beach was that the honey taste was gone and I missed it. I licked my lips hoping the sweetness was still there. How do we keep the sweetness of the Lord in our lives? By maintaining a steady relationship with Him through prayer and His word... because... "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Psalm 119:103

Motives...

"Purify my motives" has been the theme of my prayers of late. So often we get so crazy busy and into so many different things. Life can be exciting and tragic. It can go full speed ahead or be painfully slow... and every step of the way there are decisions to make.

I find I often get caught up in things, opportunities, people, and I'm going full force ahead until I come to a screeching halt usually resulting in me tripping and falling on my face... I look up and realize I'm back at the foot of the cross and I've forgotten to ask my Savior if I was pushing forward in His plan or trying to make my plan be His plan.

Praise the Lord His mercies are new every morning.

The Lord's plan is perfect... He has promised to never leave me or forsake me. He has promised to give me a future and a Hope. The God who spoke light into existence, who breathes power into the wind, and controls the tides of the ocean, looks at me and says: "I love you."

Tonight that took my breath away. I was at the same prayer meeting I've been going to for the last month. With the same people, interceding for a new ministry in Ventura. But I was where I know I need to be be at this moment. And the second I entered into worship, I heard that voice, I felt that calming hand, I knew... I have a Savior who died and rose again for me. He loves me and cares about what I care about... and He is in control. I don't have to force or make anything happen... I just have to be obedient to Him moment by moment. Whom shall I fear? For the Lord, my God, is for me and not against me.

and then... prayer was over.

As I stood up this sweet women of God asked if she could pray for me and the Bible study I am prayerfully starting in September. I of course agreed. She had barely gotten her fist sentence out and I was in struck in awe of how good my Jesus is. Tears of joy flowed down my face because everything she thanked the Lord for in my life were things I had been praying would be so... this very morning I asked the Lord for certain things to be evident in my life and for specific requests, and she covered it all! I sought the Lord, I stopped, I asked for His will to be done, and here He was affirming His work in my life. Wow.

Thank You Jesus. Your will be done... not mine... never mine... here I am Lord... use me that others might glorify Your name... whatever that looks like... here I am.

Going Dark...

Hello Blog friends,
I wanted to let you know I will be a bit absent from Blog world over the next week. I need to go dark and spend a lot of unhindered time with the Lord and not be distracted. I shall return next week, Lord willing, and who knows what stories/pictures/movies I may have for your blog consumption?

Do not worry... All is well with my soul. There has just been so much going on around and in me and I want to be where the Lord wants me to be and make sure my life is about His business and not my own.

Here's a little tidbit to hold you over until I return ;-)

I was studying Psalm 119 this morning
and the Lord gave me some rad insight into verses 2 and 3.

• Our wills need to be captivated by something - ideally the Word of God.
• The Word of God is the testimony to who He is, what He has done, and what He will do.
• If your will is captivated to the Word of God, then your life will be a testimony to who He is, what He has done, and what He will do (Truth, Faithfulness, Love, Justice, Grace, etc.)

Chew on that for a bit... I got lots more.... just wait.

Blowing Dust and My Amazing Lord...

I love that the weather thing on the bottom of my FireFox page says this:

Blowing dust... just to clarify everybody, that is what the weather is today...

Anyways... I just wanted to continue on this random post and share with the world how incredibly amazing the Lord is... If you frequent this blog at all, you know I am dealing with major teeth issues that has resulted in me using all of these every night to tackle the cleansing of my mouth:

And in addition to that, I had hoped to have all my debt payed off by May of this year. Well May is almost over and I am now in deeper debt then I was in the first place. It's been touch and go for awhile
but I have been doing what I can and trusting the Lord.
Sure, it's easy to trust the Lord when everything is great and going your way, but when times are tough, that shows your true colors. And I have honestly had some rough days over these past couple of months.

Over and over again the Lord tells us to "Not Lose Hope".
That is what I have been clinging to although at times
I really did feel like all hope was lost. Friday, I was driving home from Ventura around 6pm. The sun was beginning to set over the ocean, and the coast looked so beautiful. I was suddenly struck with the most amazing, overwhelming sense of peace and control.

I knew - not just with my head, but with my heart and ever fiber of my being - that God was in control. It was as if He was sitting in the seat next to me telling me everything was going to be ok.
It was so beautiful and amazing. I love that the Lord came to me on His time when my heart was ready as I was driving down the 101.

This last weekend the Lord was also ministering to my heart the words of
2 Timothy 1:7 "For God has not given us a spirit of Timidity, but of love, power, and discipline."
So often in my life I have identified and been that timid person. I am shy, I hide, I don't like hard things. But that is NOT what the Lord is calling me to do or be. He has given me a Spirit of Love that I might love others. A spirit of Power, that I might be bold in His name. And a Spirit of Discipline, that I might represent Him in all I do and say and be under His control, not the worlds.

Those two things, in and of themselves, were amazing and I was rejoicing in who my Lord is in my life.

And then...

• Monday: I received my economic stimulus check from the IRS
• Tuesday: I was told by an amazing friend and pastor that half the amount of my 5 crowns was being taken care of and paid for
• Wednesday: The Whites told me they were going to give me a raise for watching their kids next year, but that it would be effective immediately!

I am in utter shock and amazement.
To see the hand of the Lord working so tangibly in my life right now is so sweet. PRAISE JESUS!

Hebrews 12:11

"All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."

Have you ever gone through the amazing and terrifying experience of the Lord completely changing, molding, and reworking your life? That's where I'm at right now. Somewhere between that part in the above verse of sorrowful and righteousness. Everything about me is changing. I tangibly feel the Lord "messing" with my life... in a good way :-) So many nights of me being broken before the Lord, but I know He's taking those broken pieces of me and creating a whole new, clean, and beautiful vessel; fully equipped to serve Him in a brand new way.

My physical looks, my desires, my ministry, my friendships... I almost don't know what to think or say. Everyday someone tells me something like "You're countenance has changed, there's more joy in your eyes". It's totally the Lord. It's amazing the change that occurs when you in your flesh stop trying to perform and do things and stop and let the Lord have full control in your life, no matter how seemingly scary it may be. Obedience is better then sacrifice. (1 Samuel 15:22)

I'm going to have to make some big decisions in the next couple weeks that will affect the next two years of my life. Please be praying for me... I promise to fill my readers in soon when I have more details but it has to do with missions. But I do covet your prayers above all else as I seek the Lord and His plan for my life.

"When blood and water hit the ground,
walls we couldn't move came crashing down..."
~ Phil Wickham: True Love

With an everlasting Love...

The Lord is soooooooo soooooooo sooooooo good to me. I am continually amazed and humbled with how much He loves me, despite my inadequacies, my disobedience, my fallen human nature.

I had a rough day on Saturday. Struggling with my flesh and my past... it's been 6 years, but still the enemy knows when I'm weak and brings up things... sometimes I wish I could just kick him!

Anyways... as I was saying, the Lord continues to redeem me and bless me and it blows my mind!

"I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord."

--Psalm 40: 1-3

I've been searching for a 2nd job for a couple months now... and not finding anything... it's been rather frustrating. Also since I went to the Wycliffe conference, I have been wanting to pursue more missions opportunities with them and I sent in a request to talk to someone more about it... and then I never heard from anyone.

This last Friday I finally got a call back from one of the many places I applied at and went in for the first of 2 interviews. I wasn't too sure after the interview if that was a place I wanted to work because it would be physically and emotionally very demanding, but at this point I was willing to take anything.

Then on Saturday night after I had been struggling, and repenting, and all over the place, I was talking to my friend online who's a manager in the coffee/deli area of a Grocery store in Santa Barbara. She was telling me one of her best employees just quit and she didn't know what she was going to do. I told her I was looking for a job and if my schedule worked, I'd be interested in applying there... and to make a long story short, she called her boss right then and as soon as I fill out the paperwork tomorrow, I'm HIRED!

(side note as I'm typing this she just texted me and gave me the perfect schedule that I need, wow...
ok Lord, THANK YOU!)

And to top it all off, I got a call for an interview for one other job yesterday morning-- just as if the Lord was saying: "See, I told you I'd take care of you and now I've given you 3 options".

And then... yes there's more... yesterday afternoon in a random free hour and a half that I usually do not have between babysitting jobs, Wycliffe called me! The women I talked to could not understand how my original contact to them had gotten lost and why I hadn't heard from anybody yet! But I know... it was the Lord's perfect timing and a lesson about me waiting on Him and Him showing me how much he really does love me. And now I'm on track to continue seeking out an opportunity with Wycliffe called: OneStory.

So now I have a second job to help me in paying off my bills so that I can fully pursue missions with Wycliffe...

and the Lord once again is showering me with
His everlasting and overflowing love.

"Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting. Who can speak of the mighty deeds of the Lord, or can show forth all His praise?"

-- Psalm 106:1-2

oh wow...

We have returned from our long and arduous journey to the Wycliffe conference in Idyllwild...

I have much to share...

The Lord has done much...



........................................ more info to follow (including pictures)

I leave you in suspense :-)