Spiritual Warfare

Spiritual warfare has never been on my radar. It's never seemed real to me. I really didn't give it much thought until I did work crew at a Young Life camp about 4 summers ago. We were preparing for kids from all over to come to camp and learn about Jesus and an older girl started to talk to me about how much we truly needed to pray for these kids. Such an easy thing to say... "i'm praying for you". But what she said next put an urgency in my heart. She told me to imagine angels and demons fighting in the sky over us. She painted a picture of our God's warriors fighting for us. Loyally. Fighting.
Moving into a house with 50 girls was not something I was looking forward to. In fact i'm still not used to it. I've been dragging my feet and kind of staying out of the fray. But then at church on Sunday the sermon was ended with "Join the fight". Immediately images of Angels and demons popped into my head, I imagined the girls in the sorority house. The girls whose hearts are being fought for. Will I fight for them too? Will I love them enough to put up a fight for them? God has been cultivating my heart to understand love. Love should be unconditional. Love should be brave. Brave enough to put up a fight with the Lord beside me.

My puzzle piece

I have submerged myself into a society that I never thought would be me. I have purposefully joined a club that i'm not always so sure why I really joined it. A sorority. When wanting to escape my high school terrors my brother would tell me, "Join and you'll be stuck with them again." And in a way he's right. But i'm also in a different place. My eyes are more open and I hope my heart is more open as well. I've never been a loud girl and i've never been one to jump up and down and scream when prompted. I've never really been a sorority girl. I've never really fit in with sorority girls. But as I have just moved into my house I am realizing the diversity of a "sorority girl". Some of them are lazy as can be and some of them won't stop working until they are forced to. Some of them are loud and obnoxious and some are quiet and wan't to sneak away and blend into the crowd. Some girls fall in between. Maybe I don't have to fit IN. I just have to some how fit. And maybe that's why God put me here. To fit. My puzzle piece that i've been given in this life doesn't feel normal. It has jagged edges and soft curves, a few wrinkles in the design but I know it belongs somewhere. My time in a sorority would be wasted if it was just to be a sorority girl. I don't think I really am one. But my time is precious if I live in this world for the Lord. My time is precious if he is the one providing the opportunities that he is. I'm looking around at the life that i'm going to live for the next year and i'm realizing... it's all going to be okay. I have the Lord and my time on this earth is only temporary, as is yours. Sometimes it will be stressful and sometimes I will want to pull my hair out. But I am here for a reason. Whether it's for a reason as small as telling someone about breakaway (a really awesome ministry at A&M) and them going and finding God or being able to personally share God, it's something. It's a lost soul finding it's way home. I can't wait for the encounters that this year will bring. I fully expect hard times and I fully expect joyful times. That's life. But I know I have the Lord with me every step of the way and that's where my comfort lies. I know that he created the jagged edges of my puzzle piece for a reason and that the smooth edges were personally smoothed by him. And his work isn't over. There is more smoothing to be done, more wrinkling to do. But I pray that as he works on me that my puzzle piece wouldn't become more and more normal but more and more unique. A reflection of His work in me.

Together, me and God.

All or nothing

TOMORROW'S THE BIG DAY! I move into my new humble abode... and by humble I mean there will be four of us to a room. Not a big room. But I am SO excited. The past few days have been a whirlwind of purpose... i've run more errands than i'd like to admit and actually my back is a little bit sore from packing. That's sad. But I feel so blessed to have a purpose this week. I have been so busy and so happy doing it. I feel very at peace with things... my one struggle is having constant communication with the Lord. I've always thought of it as a "quiet time once a day" deal but i'm realizing it's not... and I love to journal but I can't really carry my journal around with me every where I go and just starting journaling at the hair salon while a man named Stacy cuts my hair. I'm working on the internal dialect that I desire so much. I don't know why it's so difficult for me. Sometimes I just refuse to slow down and think. I feel like I jump from two extremes... over analyzing and not analyzing at all. Except for the moment in my whirlwind day where I stopped and smelled every body wash at Walgreens. I did over analyze that a bit. My point is I seem to be an all or nothing person sometimes. I want to be ALL and I want to be in prayer but I don't want to be bogged down by my thoughts. I think that calls for prayer. Perhaps internally? It's a start!

Heavy Heart

I have a heavy heart. It was a long summer. During a 4 hour car ride full of phone conversations, cds, prayer and Texas heat I did a bit of deep thinking about my heavy heart and why I have it. I think i'm in a funk. In every aspect of my life. The frustrating thing about it is that in trying to get out of my funk i've been over analyzing every aspect about myself. Ranging from my personality to my relationship with God to my relationships with others, I am just so frustrated. I am a deep thinker. What that means is I am an over thinker and I torment my brain. My brother said to me today "You're free, you're always free, live like it". I think I forget that I'm free. I become a slave to school and work and what other people want. As a kid I would do something slightly wrong and put myself under the dining room table before I was even busted just to punish myself. Sadly, this still seems to ring true in my life. I don't know where this need to please came from. I want to suck up. I want to be as less of a person as possible to avoid hassling anyone else. All that results in is an empty stare to the people I come across. Instead of going out and telling people about God I have been hiding behind my own self. I am made up of about 99% guilt and it wears me down. Especially when it comes to my relationship with the Lord. See, I have this idea of what a relationship with God is supposed to look like. Sometimes that idea is extremely generic and when I'm not living up to my expectations I don't know what to do. At this moment I feel like i've lost my independence and freedom in God. I've given it up or misplaced it, i'm not sure. I just don't feel like me. Such an incredibly long summer full of motions and nothing else. The other frustrating thing about being a deep thinker is there really is always something going on. If all is well I think there must be something wrong. I know, irritating. I would hate me too. But lately I just haven't been able to crawl out of my hole. I haven't been able to stand up on my own two feet and shout. That's not who i've always been. Last summer I boarded an airplane to the Galapagos Islands by myself to go meet a group of strangers and explore. This summer the drive to Georgia, three states away from home, was enough to draw tears from my eyes and instill fear in my heart. Who AM I? Why am I letting myself become a mousy little girl without a voice? God? Hello? I am praying for my heart to loosen up. Where is my JOY? But I am also praying that I wouldn't think that I need to be somebody else. I tend to do that. I invite Jesus into my insecurities to wreak havoc. Get rid of it! If it's not about my body, it's about my heart. That's the Devil for ya. I know this isn't inspirational but atleast it's honest. A walk with God isn't always easy... I am blessed that he can take me through adventures with him that are very challenging to me. I am blessed that I hurt.

John 11:35--- "Jesus wept."

I pray that I will keep my walls down and keep weeping until Jesus shines his light on what is hurting me the most and release me.

I have a heavy heart.