in retrospect...

this is a journal entry from August 16,2008... randomly selected i think it'll be interesting to look back , hopefully it doesn't bite me later. i figure this is a look into how far Christ has brought me and some issues he is still mending...

"it has been almost a week , since i wrote , it's been a week. Since I've been running away still. So ALOT has happened father I feel you now , I have been running away Lord from you + from alone time with you. Father what happens when we know you are the one and run away any way?

I am lying to myself , he will never call. we know what hurts is that i want him to. Father give me the strength. How is it that I still care? Father inside hurts my heart hurts. i know that there are no immediate ways to fix it besides patience. God he's not going call and when he does , he expects me to answer and we can't be friends. sincerely and honestly. i guess i do that to others. I tell them lies and break my promises. I don't want to have to depend on him so I won't. the minute i do , i am saying Christ isn't enough. God it hurts not to be desired. Father it hurts that there will be another that isn't me. Father my heart is broken that I don't want to speak to him and at the same time I do. He can no longer make me happy anymore... there's more to it. Love like me and him had. it's hard to fathom there could be another. hurts to know that there is someone out there for me and even if I got him it would never satisfy me like you. You are the only void filler. Father you are perfect. I know that I am Lazy ... i will not speak to him with expectations that he cares or that he loves me.i will not let him be a security blanket. You have given me such freedom and I don't Know the feeling of that yet. Now it is pain but it will be rejoiced at one point. Father I am weak and I give up ... this can't be my battle I will lose... most indefinitely. God i am lonely and I don't like it quiet. I can't keep running away from this. Please give me the strength dear God. this pain i'm feeling is temporary but you are eternal. Father I am yours and yours alone. "


it is now March 1,2010 and man has things stayed the same and some has drastically changed...
the pain is gone but the scars are still here... looking back has been refreshing...
i'll explain it all this way:

a father once gave his daughter a ring (a plastic ring , you know one from those crackerjack boxes ). she thought it was everything. she loved the ring and never separated from it. finally the dad decides wow i'm going to buy her a real ring ( i'm talking legit gold carats to infinities kind of rings) . she doesn't want to give up the plastic one , she cries and begs and says that its the best ring ever there can never be anything as awesome as that ring. finally after some time she comes up crying , tears in her eyes and she opens her palm (looking away from her dad taking away the ring she thought she loved with her whole heart). he places the new ring in her palm , she realizes that this was the true prize and that tattered ring from the past didn't matter.

this story was told to me and it's the one i recall and bring up often. the Lord knows what I need. I am his. I was in a relationship where I thought there could be nothing better but I was BLIND. and man when i finally came up to the lord , tears streaming from my eyes looking away as he took away what i thought i always needed he replaced it with something much better.

i can't save anyone. and i most certainly am not capable of doing so. but the Lord is and he rescued me from the life that i was headed towards. i was drowning and he did more than threw me a lifesaver but he dived in and took me out himself.  i often look back in awe of what the Lord took me from and all that he has taught me. Lord i am thankful that you would see it fit to protect me, protect me from guilt , protect me from covetousness , protect me from losing my purity , protect me from offering love that wasn't true love , protecting me from giving away all i had for someone it wasn't meant for.

heart of the matter.

who do you serve? who are you attempting to impress ? is your outside appearance great but sin is spewing out of your heart?
do you just smile everything off and know exactly what to say?

the Lord says in  I Samuel 16: 7 that he does not look as we see but he examines the heart...

if the people around you could see your heart and thoughts in this rawest form what would people say? what would the reaction be? i know for me personally i haven't been honest at times and my heart has been rotten. without Christ being the propitiation for our sins there would be no hope of restoration but thankfully there is.

thank God for Christ who is willing to see my heart for as raw as it is and still love me... my heart sometimes yearns for him and at times my heart is selfish. 
thank God for Christ who constantly reminds me that there is a standard... and that i am to follow him , not culture , not society but Christ.
 
i only pray that we as people would be willing to admit that we aren't perfect and attempt to examine our selves... fooling yourself will only have you confused and in the middle of a lie.

God's standard is holy... nothing less than it.. 

J.C. Ryle says something legit in his book a bad heart "Unless you really know the character of your own heart, you will never value the Gospel as you ought; you will never love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity; you will never see how absolutely necessary it was that He should suffer death upon the cross, in order to deliver our souls from hell and bring us unto God."

i think that about sums up where i'm at right now... 






 

hi my name is Stephanie and i'm beautiful....

This week I went to my cousin's baby shower, and while it was a great time I can never seem to take exactly what I packed back home. I'm known for always leaving something behind. Well this time I left my makeup bag! I know you're probably thinking that I'm pretty full of myself and you know I just may be. Beauty is such a weighty subject and I will attempt to decipher the inside franticness that occurred when I realized I left the make up bag...

In Ephesian 6 Paul discusses having the shield of faith to extinguish the darts from the evil one.If this armor is assembled it allows you to have full protection from your adversaries. You can't go out to war without protection , it's practically suicide. Well let me let you in on a sin outta my bag of many. That makeup bag was in one way my shield of self esteem. I don't wear much just a light coat and a minimal amount of eye shadow, topped off with my mascara, but that process does something to me. It gives me "protection". I feel confident and I don't feel like anyone is watching oddly enough i don't feel like I'm noticed with makeup on. The blemishes are covered up (well at least , I think they are) about the age of 12 ACNE started and it has literally affected my life , it just happened! I just got tired of explaining what was happening to my face meanwhile my insides were deteriorating . On some days I loved my face , blemishes and all and on some days I couldn't get out of my room. I will not get into the self esteem issues any further, than the fact that it seeps into and destroys everything. It affects how you view yourself and how you communicate with others.
My issues of self esteem will never cease but one thing that did change it was Christ. These blemishes remind me of my sin and struggles and sometimes its unbearable.I know that I'm beautiful but the times I know beauty is when I'm finding my confidence in Christ. He tells me I'm beautiful in his word he describes me as priceless, bought by the love of Christ. He tells me he knows every hair on my head and that he knew me before I was formed. He provides me with a loving mother and father to support me. It's frustrating that even with that said I find myself still trying to cover it all up. Is he not Enough? I really am marred inside and I constantly need Christ because I am nothing. I really am worthless without Christ. These blemishes have turned into scars , reminders that sometimes I cannot stand to see. I probably can't get my bag for months now. Until then my face will be naked. I will be showing my weakness and give Christ the glory for getting me through it. Even though I don't deserve it all. This is such a trivial subject for such a deep issue. My outside appearance sometimes reflects what's going on inside. I am hoping that God would create in me a new heart and that it would yearn and thirst for him in a way that I would have nothing else to rely on.

assigned seats?

so today i sat in history class and i accidentally well maybe not accidentally but i sat in someone's seat. i mean we're in college  and i always thought you could sit where you wanted. i know that this is trivial and it really doesn't matter which seat someone sits in but i guess territory is the issue. change it scares people. it scares me at times too but when your trust is Christ,  your foundation is never changing and so we should be able to withstand wind and trouble. In the way that life works for me if it's not planned and it happens i'm freaking. which isn't biblical.  i know this has nothing to do with assigned seats but change is scary. it has the ability to turn our worlds upside down and completely. but when we rely on solid rock our seats are in fact assigned. Christs' seat is assigned, no one can take his throne. I guess the franticness that the girl had as she huffed and puffed for me to get out of her seat was in fact truth. Needless to say I got up after sitting down for a while.Once again i was taught another lesson. All that I think I know is really nothing at all. In 1 Corinthians 1:20 where Paul states that no one is wise. And if you think you are wise you probably aren't. [dually noted]. Perceptions, perceptions, perceptions are so deceiving and misleading. The process of getting home is what I'm trying to figure out here. I appreciate these bread crumbs he's dropping on the way attempting to lead me home. We know where we belong. for me it's with the Lord. and anytime someone comes and tries to move me out of my seat it's never a good scene. We know where we need to be and nothing can separate us from that (Romans 8:39)

take care of you...

so i'm back from my weekend at home and well it was an awesome time. you know there's so much we take for granted in this world. it's sorta sickening because we get to a point when we are desynthesized by things that otherwise should be amazing. ARE we that quick to move on to something else? cars for instance - they amaze me. we went from steam to gas? really that has got to be amazing. or planes even, how is it that we get to go through clouds , float like the biggest birds in all of the land and not be amazed? even technology has removed the wonders of the earth.of course when things seem to change they always stay the same. nothing is new under this sun that's for sure but i don't think we take enough time listening to the breaths around us. there is more life than death in this city. i wonder what would happen if just for one day we took time to see the beauty in the sun that warms us, or the water that quenches our thirst , or the cross that bare our sins. man life would indeed be worth living.

so i get home and the amount of love is immeasurable. my parent's relationship seemed tighter than tight. like collagen fibers tight. God has been so abundant in his blessings towards me. life used to be so broken and well now it's in God's hands. I wanna go where he leads me broken or not he's healing me. he's healing me in such a way it's scary.

the one materialistic thing i enjoyed was the food. oh man was it good. i had the most awesomest breakfast banana nut honey cheerios with fresh blueberries and cut strawberries. life is good! the simple things make me smile in life ...you know i speak in fragments because nothing's ever complete to me until Christ makes it complete. i sure can't be the ones to finish my thoughts for you , this broken heart of mine is ever changing...

i keep thinking about philipians 4:8-  Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things...

build me a home

so i am on a bus on my way to orlando.. and i'm thinking man it'll be awesome to go home. and get to see the family i miss so much. but as i'm thinking in this wonderful bus with luxurious seats i'm thinking where's home? location ? is it the house? is it comfortable ? is it the insanity? i'll let u know at the end of this.. man we never know where life is going to take us , which road we'll have to take which detour will be provided. tonight i'm reflecting upon the roads that the sovereign lord allowed me to take. u know some roads i wish weren't dead ends. thank God that Christ is our provision and we don't decide where we are going right? i mean really when i'm in the drivers seat i crash everytime. you know there's always something that i realize is a massive mistake only after. not that i'm expecting to avoid mistakes because i'm not. but it's that 1 john 1:9 effect where  it says in the English Standard Version ^[9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.] isn't that a great thing to have. he is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us. it's like this Jon Foreman song where he says "build me a home inside your scars , build me a home inside your open arms" it's amazing that he gives us a place to live in the love that he shared for us.

you should write a book...

So this is my first of well many attempts at starting up a blog. This time though it feels different. I used to be the first one chastising someone for uploading anything on this world wide web but alas here I am. it has a pull to it, you know the ability to write things down and express your self. So to that one person that I gave so much trouble i apologize....

Now back to this blog. I guess we blog because we think we have something valid to say. oh maybe we blog because we want to see the words come out. maybe if we see them we make them true in some way. So is that us coping? or maybe it's like writing and saying are two different things and we need to write in order to keep ourselves sane? man i have no clue but all i know is that this is  pretty darn awesome and i sure hope to find out something about myself through this.

maybe this will aid in my race towards Christ. Lord knows i'm running but I'm just praying not to make the wrong turn that's all....

Today I read Ruth and I noticed her strength in staying with her mother in law. She could have easily ran and she was given the option but instead she rested in the unknown. She was willing to take a chance on a God she had never known before and venture into a land that she knew not. Man what can we call that?  That's gotta be some kind of election some kind of faith. Not to say that Naomi's other daughter in law Orprah did the wrong thing but she def won't know the full capacity of the lord.  To wait on the Lord to know when to rest or to run. That's a balance I haven't obtained yet. Christ died so that I could rest in him. So that in those scars which he took on that day to pay for my sins I could find his redeeming love. his never ending , unconditional , sacrificial love. I'm def still running. not really sure where to but Home...