Blessed..

Everything happens for a reason. Pain comes and goes, but lessons last a lifetime. God is good. He wants the best for your life. It feels as if the world is righting itself and I can't explain what it feels to completely surrender to God. I feel free.

Last night I stayed up with my friend till 1 o'clock just praising God for who He is and how He works. Some things were said and I want to write them here because they may be just what you need to hear. "I'm healing. I can feel it, I didn't cry today! It will not get easier, but it will get more beautiful. And God says He loves me because I am perfectly flawed. I'm flawed, but one day I'll stand before God flawless...It took me to breakdown and see how weak I really am just to see how beautiful and strong God is and how He has designed the world for me just because He can. I am looking at the world through new eyes and it feels like I am seeing for the first time....It is amazing how life can be so ugly, but the scars when they heal, boy are they going to be beautiful. These scars were touched by God and turned into beauty. He loves our scars because they tell of a time of suffering and a time when God leaned down and touched our lives just because He loves us...We don't like everything that happens, but God has a plan...He wants me and I never understood that. But now I kind of do. He wants me because He desires to pour into me. He wants me because He has more in store for me or you than our brains could imagine. I was selfish to deny Him the privilege and who am I to deny the Creator of the Earth? My life is-and always has been-His and so is yours. He deserves all of us not the broken us."

This is my own personal reflections on how God is blessing me and teaching me to deal with struggles that have arrived in my life. I don't need to reflect on how awful things have been. I need to focus on God and what He is asking of me and He in turn will take care of my problems as long as I trust in Him. I need Him more than anything.

I have decided to devote the next year of my life working on turning my selfish behavior into selfless actions. I want to do more for others than I do for myself. Most of all I desire to help others see how blessed they truly are. It is incredible what happens when you look past yourself.

"Life is worth every second of pain, because every second of pain reminds us that we are still alive."

Heartstrings...

What are heartstrings? Heartstrings can be anything that keep your heart from finding freedom in God. It could be something as simple as tv and music or as hard as a relationship or drugs. There is something keeping most of us from achieving complete and total satisfaction in the Creator of you...yes you. He created you and knows exactly what you truly love. In Matthew 10 it talks about the rich man (otherwise known as Jeffrey) who asked what he had to do to receive eternal life. The rich man continued to tell Jesus all the commandments he had kept and it even says that Jesus loved this man, but when it came to the dirty dirty-the nitty gritty-the man could not give up his riches to follow God. So what is keeping you from following God into eternal life?

What heartstring are you being led to let go of? For me it is a relationship, one that I'm not fully capable of talking about yet. To work on letting go of this heartstring, I have written it down on a cardboard heart with a string attached and I will display it somewhere noticeable that I will see everyday. Everytime I see it, I will continue to pray and ask God to break this heartstring so that I may find  complete surrender in Him. It isn't that I can't have this relationship or a different form of this relationship it only means that it will not keep me from freely living for God. Once I feel that I have broken this heartstring, I will break the string on the cardboard heart and return it to my fellow youth leaders symbolizing freedom from that heartstring.

So again I ask, what is keeping you from living for God? Is eternal life worth giving up that one thing?  If you decide to do something similar please write me and let me know how it works out and what your heartstring is. I would love to pray for you on your journey. Please pray for me as I start mine as well. When it gets tough remember God said: "Be still and know that I am God." He has your best interest at heart.