Freedom In Jesus

Growing up under a Pentecostal pew and hearing some of the most powerful men and women of God, I always thought myself better than sin, untouchable and safe from all the devils wily ways. High school happened and I soon found that to be far from the truth. I did my best my sophomore almost through my senior year to live for God and love Him in spirit and truth and do all the things I was supposed to do.

The old saying “the devil will take you farther than you ever planned to go, and keep you longer than you ever planned to stay” has never been more true.
When you stop seeing yourself the way God sees you, instantly you are more vulnerable to being lied to and manipulated by people and the devil himself.

This is absolutely where I found myself. I didn’t realize it until it was almost to late. Thinking I was ‘in control’ and ‘being my own person’ and ‘spreading my wings’ I found myself slowly desensitized to the point where I did not hear God.

I came to a place where I was so broken, that I thought I could never go back to purity or real, Godly, love. All of the love I had experienced on a romantic level was corrupt, controlling and cruel. I allowed the awful  things I HAD experienced, and that would be for any person very real and painful, to affect my life-glasses. I saw myself and the world exactly how the Devil wanted me to.
That I was unworthy, irreparably broken, and all I could do was live for today and get what I could because there wasn’t anything better out there for someone as messed up as me.

But every part of this was a LIE! The devil is a LIAR and the truth is NOT in him!

We do NOT have to allow the devil to manipulate our thoughts and how we react to the awful things that do exist in the world today! I am not trying to pretend that awful, horrible things don’t happen. It rains on the just and the unjust. I am simply sharing with you today, that ‘Thanks be to God who giveth us VICTORY through our Lord Jesus Christ'(1 Corinthians 15:57)  and that there is HOPE even in the darkest of moments!!

How can I say all of this, you may ask? Because I have been there, done that, and got the t-shirt, coffee mug and key chain!! I have been so broken and desperate for someone to give me the love and fulfillment I needed to find in God, that I turned anything and everything to try and numb the pain.  Running to anyone who would find me attractive and make me feel I had ‘worth’, when really I was just allowing them to use me. I desperately needed true intimacy with God. But my lifestyle and bitter heart had put walls as strong as Jericho’s between He and I.
No one knew my secret struggle. I would go to church and cry in the alter every service because I felt nothing but pain and oppression. I was in a deep, dark hole and had nowhere to turn.

College was the straw that broke the camels back, I found a whole new world of sin and numbness to submerge myself in. I found myself in a relationship with a man who simply drug me deeper into the filth. And eventually started avoiding church and when I was in church, I just didn’t listen. I gave up and figured there was no hope for me anymore. I knew my Bible and had heard all about how God turned King Saul, who was once God’s anointed, over to evil spirits that GOD sent. I figured that God had given up on me.

Finally, my parents had enough of my downward spiral and sent me to visit my grandparents and have some ‘me time’.

A week turned into two.. and all the while my heart grew more and more tender. After a very firm conversation, full of great, biblical and practical advice, with a wonderful lady of god, sitting in her little black car in my grandparents driveway; around midnight I walked in the house, got my pillow and blanket, and went to the lowest level of the house. I made an altar right there in the floor of a big room with no furniture, right beside the treadmill. I fell on my face before God and started to cry, then sob and spill my heart and all it’s anger at the people who had used and abused me, and at God, for seemingly allowing it to happen. I vividly remember, as my pillow was soaked with tears, I shouted into my pillow, after rambling around and blaming everyone but myself for my problems, I came to the root.
“God I am ANGRY at YOU! Why didn’t you protect me if you love your children??” I continued to cry and pray that God would free me from this deep pain. That He would take this heavy burden and give me His light burden and easy yolk.  I came to a quiet moment in my spirit and struggled to say these words out loud that I had heard preached over the summer.
“God, I forgive so-and-so, and even though I know what they did to me was wrong and horrible, please don’t hold it against them on judgement day. And God, I forgive you, even though I know You are innocent in this. Help me to love You again.”

Something inside of me broke in that moment, a deep peace and warmth wrapped around me and held me the way no human arms could. The hands of God, in that moment, tenderly held my fragile, fragment of a heart.
I heard the words “My Princess, my daughter… don’t you know the love I have for you??”

I fell into a deep, sweet sleep that I had not experienced in what felt like forever. My soul was safe, sheltered in the arms of God.

I woke the next morning, so full of peace. I knew I had made the connection I needed to. I had found the closeness I was REALLY looking for all that time. I was redeemed, restored and washed white as snow. I felt better! I looked in the mirror and there was a rosy glow to my cheeks and a smile in my eyes that had not been there in a long time. Like the prayer David prayed ‘give me clean hands and a pure heart’ , God had done just that!

In the subsequent weeks, God took my ashes and gave me beautiful garments of praise.
I was blessed with a full time job, with paid holidays. An apartment in the basement of my grandparents home. Loyal friends and even more strong, spiritual leaders. I began to dig my way back into a prayer life. And the more I prayed, the more things fell into place!

This 180 transformation could have only been God’s work! I am no longer the same! I am stronger. I have found a deeper love for God and the people around me. I learned humility and patience (whether I liked it in the moment or not!).

And today, 3/15/16, over a year since I posted this blog post, I have come yet further.  There have been hard times, and heart breaks that come with the folly of youthful love. But every day, each moment. I choose to grow. To learn. To trust God.
He truly is faithful and worthy of my praise!
I am now back home with my family, in college full time and working towards my goal of a Masters in Divinity with hopes of teaching at a college level.

So, in sharing my little testimony, I hope it encourages someone! If you ever are to look at me and wonder why I am so radically %110 sold out, It’s because you’re looking at a miracle. and I KNOW, that if God can turn my life around and take all of the bad and turn it into something absolutely beautiful and full of joy and peace, then He truly can do ALL THINGS!

Revelation Song.

Hey guys! I have been out of town all last week and life has been crazy!! I start as a nanny here in STL next week! super pumped!

Anyway! I made a new youtube video! 🙂
Yall check it out here!

El Shaddai- The All Sufficient God

Genesis 1:7 “I am El Shaddai, walk before me and be perfect.”

It is difficult for any descriptive name to be all-inclusive. I am a woman, a daughter, a sister, a student, a girlfriend, and a musician all at the same time. No one of those descriptive names would completely describe me. Even these do not fully describe me! In the same way, the scriptures describe God in many different ways, so that all the titles and names may begin to convey some of His qualities.

In Hebrew the word ‘shad’ means breast, indicating sufficiency and nourishment, a supplying of needs as a mother would her child. In this case the name might derive from the contraction of Sha (‘who’) and Dai (‘enough’). El being the word for God: in other words ‘God who is enough’.

Very often the promises of God’s Word are all that the believer has.  In difficult times we turn in faith to the promises of God’s Word and they give us strength to persevere.  That is because the promises of God’s Word are guarantees from the unchanging, sovereign, covenant God to His people.  God’s promises are not ‘maybes,’ they are not simply possibilities.  No, when God makes a promise, He follows through.  He fulfills His word.  That is because He is a God who cannot lie and who never changes.

Job says, “He knoweth the way I take” (23:10).  He knows it because He totally decreed it, but also because He traveled it Himself.  When Jesus came to earth, He bore every grief; He carried every sorrow; He faced every temptation; He knew every disappointment that you or I might experience.  We have a Savior who was tempted and tried in every point just as we are.  One who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities.  He really knows.  He really sympathizes with His people in whatever their suffering.

And if you consider what your life is, that is so important.  God has laid out, He has planned, He has prepared every aspect and moment of your life.  Because He is familiar with it, He is the perfect guide. 

This idea has the ability to revolutionize our walk with God. If we truly understand the God is all we need, that anything we have want for He can provide. If we are willing to radically trust Him as the perfect Father, and believe that He walks with us on this journey, a peace beyond human understanding is found.

Strong’s Concordance- 5 Stars!!

So I finally gave in to buying a Strong’s Concordance + Hebrew/Greek translations and I am officially in love with this thing. It’s HUGE and the print is teensy tiny but I don’t mind! So worth the money! Check it out on Amazon. 

Jehovah-Tsidkenu. ‘The God Who is Our Righteousness’.

Wow. It has been almost a whole year since I wrote last. To be honest I didn’t have much to write that would be even close to uplifting. It was quite the rough spot. But you know what they say, ‘When you go through Hell, you’ll come out on fire!’

The thing that has really been on my heart is one of the many names for God, Jehovah-Tsidkenu. It translates to English as ‘The God Who is Our Righteousness’.

When you hear the word righteousness, what immediately comes to mind?

Is it something like this? ‘be right. do right. talk right. dress right. think right. right. right. right.’?

A striving for perfection?

Now there is nothing wrong with wanting to be perfect in God’s sight. He calls us to be holy as he is holy (1 Peter 1:16). But where we, and I myself, mess up in big ways is when we try to strive for perfection on our own strength and bullheadedness. We are not created to be creatures isolated from our Creator. He calls us to lean on Him and trust Him with our weak and wounded places.
See these next few verses:

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Isaiah 40:29

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

Isaiah 40:31

but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

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He is the perfect father, and goes to the corners of the earth seeking the lost, the broken, the weak. We don’t have to be perfect on our own because (Jeremiah 23:6) The Lord is our righteousness! When we are full of the Holy Spirit that was first put on the earth and in the hearts of man on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), The Living God dwells within our hearts! We are given strength and power through His spirit and His word. As the Psalmist put it:

“The statutes [law] of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” (Psalm 19:8)

This verse in itself is a whole ‘nother can of worms. But to touch on this topic just for a moment, the modern day church has to take the Bible seriously. It is not just another book written by a bunch of dead guys. It is not just a historical document of the Jewish people and their God. It is the word of GOD! It guides, encourages, restores and heals! ” He sent out his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave” (Psalm 107:20)

I encourage anyone who reads this to dig deep in the Word! Don’t just read it to say you read it. Study it. Seek out the answers to the questions you have! They are within your reach.

 

Until next time. CC

John Adams

So I am reading this book.

For if we can remove the turbulent gallics, out people according to exactest computations, will in anther century, become more numerous than England itself… Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us. Divide et impera.

-John Adams (1755)

Crazy how pretty much everything he said came to pass.

It is so important to understand the past, so that we may prevent history from repeating itself in monarchy and totalitarian dictatorship. That freedom would be for every man, woman and child. Of every race.
That gods heart for justice would Resound around the world.

Random thoughts about “A Lesson Before Dying”

So I have to read “a lesson before dying” for English. It’s a decent book if a little depressing (as the title may suggest).
I’m about half way through it and I have come to a conclusion about the main character, a teacher in the black community before the civil rights movement of the 60s.
Both him and his predecessor are so…. Hopeless. And full of contempt of self.
The more I read, the surer I become (unless the author throws a crazy, curveball plot twist.), that if we allow ourselves to be defined by others. If we let other people decide our identity and worth. We give over all control over our hopes, goals and strengths to someone who has no care for who or what we become.

This is awesome.

This has been the biggest thing god has revealed to me lately. The extent of my human fallibility and brokenness. And the deep waters of grace!!
Paul’s words resonate in my heart “I the wretched (wo)man that I am!”. My flesh wars against my spirit. Yet I know one thing in all of this chaos… God equips the called! And He will prevail and have the glory!!

For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:22-25 NKJV)

Thoughts from 2nd Timothy 3

So my random verse for the day came from bibledice.com which is a great resource I use in my studies. This one really hit home.

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—”

What hits home in this section is when I look at this list, it’s all things one sees day to day in our society. Common things that many see as permissible.
Scary!

“having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

That last line is our world to a T.
We have so much information at the tip of our fingers yet, more and more people drop out of school. More and more people are uneducated in basic life skills! most and worst of all, people are uneducated on who God REALLY is and his heart for us.
This quite possibly could be the downfall of our nation.

“You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”(2 Timothy 3:1-7, 10-13, 16, 17 NIV)

I love how this is sort of summed up in how then shall we live. That yes there will be difficult times. and yes people will not always like you for what you believe. But when we throw our hearts into the Word and delve deep into Gods heart, searching for understanding; Which He gives when we genuinely ask for it! One will find the most satisfying peace and inner strength that can be humanly experienced. Also you are prepared for whatever circumstances come your way, good or bad, you have the knowledge to maneuver through them. 🙂

God Talk :)

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few days. Wednesday was my birthday! So I’ve been super busy!
Had a wonderful time at Paul Manno’s here in Saint Louis. They have amazing food. The scallops in creme sauce are to die for! Great service and atmosphere as well.

What has really been on my heart the past few days is this.
I summed up it up for the most part, in a Facebook post… Gotta love this modern era. The way we can share information is stunning.

God breaks chains. ‘we were not born into a spirit of fear but a spirit of adoption through Jesus Christ’ (paraphrased). That no matter the bondage you are under at the moment, god has the power to break it!
He sets the captive free and releases the slave! “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world!”