Show me, Lord

Well my friend came back...or at least is starting to. The one that I had been losing for a little while now. She finally sent me a message and explained to me a little bit of what was going on in her life. Without going into specifics, she basically told me what I thought she would say: she didn't think she could talk to me about what she had done and how her life was going because she didn't think I would understand and/or approve. This breaks my heart. It hurts to feel like a closed door. It hurts to hear someone say that I'm perfect and they're not, and that's why they can't talk to me. I tried to argue that I am in no way perfect, but that really didn't fly. I may not have done the same things, made the same mistakes, or sinned the same ways, but I certainly am in need of God's grace every day, multiple times. Why can't people see that? Yes, I am in love with Jesus Christ, believe in His saving power, and have a strong relationship with Him. But that definitely does not mean that I don't fall down and need help.

While talking with my friend tonight, I realized that I am going through this difficult situation as kind of a training session. God is disciplining me and showing me how to love my brothers and sisters in Christ, with love and without judgement. I also realized that I have excellent friends and family to support me in prayer during these difficult times. My roommate Lina is especially wonderful. She always offers a hand to hold, and she pats my back and lets me cry. I love it when we pray together, too. I know that her words are directly from the Lord because they're always exactly what I need to hear. My mom has also been incredibly supportive lately. I stayed a couple nights at home this weekend for work, and my mom did my laundry, made me breakfast before work, packed my lunch for work, and prayed with me when I needed prayer. I called her tonight to update her about my friend, and she really had some great advice. She also offered to pray for me and my friend this week, so I'm grateful for that as well.

Whew. Enough of that. I hope you all had a good Halloween weekend. I dressed up as a golfer (Lina's idea) for the Cru Halloween party on Thursday, and I dressed up as a pirate today for work. I wasn't planning on dressing up for work, but I found a cool pirate costume in my parents' basement toy chest. Who knew?! It was fun seeing my coworkers dressed up too, and I think the Costco members got a kick out of our outfits. :)

Good friends, good words

Tonight I praise God for good friends. I have such wonderful friends that help me through difficult times...and I am so thankful for that. I have friends that smile and tell me everything's going to be alright. I have friends that offer to pray for me when times are tough. I have friends that ask how things are going and offer kind words or good advice. I want to give a special shout out to Meredith and Jennifer tonight. Thanks girls, your friendship really means a lot to me.

As I'm reading Joyce Meyer's Battlefield of the Mind, I am truly convicted by what she says about using spiritual weapons. She writes, "Each time the devil lied to Him, Jesus responded with, 'It is written,' and quoted him the Word." Wow. I want to be like that. Every single time the devil told Jesus something He knew wasn't true, He just threw it back in his face. I would love to be at that point someday...where I had a spiritual truth for every lie from the devil. Lord, help me to know Your words and use them in times of need.

I Want to Want Thee

"O Lord, I have tasted Thy goodness and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.

I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.

I am ashamed of my lack of desire.

O God, the triune God, I want to want Thee.

I long to be filled with longing.

I thirst to be made more thirsty still.

Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed.

Begin in mercy a new work of love within me.

Say to my soul, 'Rise up, my love, my fair one. And come away.'

Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee

Up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long."

- A.W. Tozer (from The Pursuit of God)

That is the prayer of my heart tonight. As I sit here and think of my mixed emotions...how I am sad, happy, terrified, and comforted all at the same time...I realize just how much I need my Father's love and mercy.

Maybe...in the future...you're gonna come back

I had a bit of a rough start to my weekend, but it ended really well. The reason I say it was off to a rough start is because I'm kind of losing a friend right now. I won't name names, but I'll just say that losing her is extremely difficult for me. Our friendship has grown so strong for the past six years, and to have her pushing away just really hurts. Especially because I don't even know why she's pushing away. She won't talk to me, and words cannot express how much that devastates me. She wrote me a letter about a month ago saying she was going through some rough stuff and that she really needed me. I wrote her back right away and I've been praying for her every day since then, but I've gotten no response. I pray that God will bring her back some day. I hope this is only temporary. In the words of Ingrid Michaelson, "Maybe, in the future, you're gonna come back, you're gonna come back around."

On to brighter and better things...I'm really liking my new position at work as cashier assistant. At Costco, that basically means I put stuff in people's carts, give them boxes if they need them, and do "go backs" (take back things people don't want). It doesn't sound that exciting, but after being in the deli for so long, it feels like I've finally broken free. :) No more hair net, hat, smelly clothes, and greasy shoes! On Friday I had a pretty interesting situation at work...one of the Costco members lost her debit card. She was freaking out like no one I've seen before...all worried that someone was going to "wipe her account clean". I sensed her panic and I felt sorry for her. I offered to walk with her as she traced her steps around the warehouse. We didn't find it after the first search. Thankfully someone had turned the card in to the managers, so when I checked with them I was able to give the woman her card back. She was so happy she just about started crying. She was like "Oh my gosh...I'm so relieved! Thank you thank you thank you! Someone could have taken all my money!" And then we noticed this woman standing near us. She said, "Are you the one that lost that debit card? I found it on the ground over there." The woman who lost the card immediately hugged the woman who found it. She just kept saying "Bless you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" It was really strange (and also really touching) to see two complete strangers hugging eachother. And I was really happy that that woman turned the card in. Not everyone does that, so it's always nice to see someone who's honest. I was really happy that both of those women went home in a good mood. :)

I hope you all had a nice weekend. I'm looking forward to this week...it's going to be busy, but I'm excited to see how God works. I've just started reading Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer, so look for an update about that soon! :) God bless!

The Pursuit of God

I just finished the book I was reading, The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer, and it was so so wonderful. After thinking about how I wanted to share what I learned with you all, I have decided that since there are 10 chapters, I will share one or two things I learned from each chapter.

Chapter 1: Following Hard After God
- "God is a Person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires, and suffers as any other person may." I don't usually think of God this way...as a person like me. Sometimes I get caught up in the idea that He's just this big guy up in the sky who tells me how to live my life. That is absolutely not true! I am made in His image...which means all those characteristics I have (thinking, enjoying, feeling, loving, desiring, suffering...) are characteristics of HIM! What a wonderful realization. :)
- "We need not fear that in seeking God only we may narrow our lives or restrict the motions of our expanding hearts. The opposite is true. [...] The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One." I think sometimes I convince myself that if I give my life to God, I'll lose something (or many things) from this world. God says the exact opposite...if I give my life to Him and let Him be my treasure, I will actually gain all things. I'll only lose the things that weren't important in the first place. :)

Chapter 2: The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing
- "Sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul." This chapter talks about how God created many useful and pleasant things for us, but how these things are meant to be external to us. This means that we are not to let these things take over our hearts. Reading this, I consider how much time I spend on Facebook, or how I use my time in ways that do not glorify God. And then I repent.

Chapter 3: Removing the Veil
- "He is omniscient, which means that He knows in one free and effortless act all matter, all spirit, all relationships, all events." Wow. If that's not extremely humbling, I don't know what is. What stands out to me the most, other than the fact that God knows all those things, is that He knows in one free and effortless act. Whew! What do I have to worry about? He's pretty much amazing. Yup.
- "All our lives long we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that might be said of Him." This just makes me smile. The fact that God is just so sweet that we'll never run out of things to say about Him...awesome. :)

Chapter 4: Aprehending God
- "Imagination is not faith. The two are not only different from, but stand in sharp opposition to, each other. Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing; it simply reckons upon that which is already there." I found this really interesting, because it just goes to say that what we believe is not just something we make up. It is pondering and believing in what is already here.

Chapter 5: The Universal Presence
- "If we co-operate with Him in loving obedience God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face." Mmmm...I want that second life. :)

Chapter 6: The Speaking Voice
- "The believing man does not claim to understand. He falls to his knees and whispers, 'God.' The man of the earth kneels also, but not to worship. He kneels to examine, to search, to find the cause and the how of things." This makes me realize how often I can be the man (or woman, really) of the earth. How many times do I try to figure things out for myself, rather than just praising God? :/
- "I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking." I don't have much to say about this, other than that I completely agree, and I like that he says 'religious mists'.

Chapter 7: The Gaze of the Soul
- "As long as Christ sits on the mediatorial throne, every day is a good day and all days are days of salvation." Read that again. I just did, and I was once again reminded that I can have a good day every day if I just keep God on the throne. :) Now, if that were only as easy to do as it is to say...

Chapter 8: Restoring the Creator-Creature Relation
- "Some of the most rapturous moments we know will be those we spend in reverent admiration of the Godhead." The definition of rapturous is this: "full of, feeling, or manifesting ecstatic joy or delight." Need I say more?
- "Millions call themselves by His Name, it is true, and pay some token respect to Him, but a simple test will show how little He is really honored among them. [...] However the man may protest, the proof is in the choices he makes day after day throughout his life." Reading this, I wonder just what my choices prove. Where is God placed among other things in my life?

Chapter 9: Meekness and Rest
- "Pride, arrogance, resentfulness, evil imaginings, malice, greed: these are the sources of more human pain than all the diseases that ever afflicted mortal flesh." This just really teaches me that sin does have a really negative impact on our lives. And not just our spiritual lives, but our physical lives as well.
- "The burden borne by mankind is a heavy and crushing thing. [...] Rest is simply release from that burden." Tozer goes on to examine this burden that we carry...he explains that it attacks our heart and mind. He says that we carry the burden of, among others, pride (or self-love), and we can experience rest, or release from that burden, only through Christ Jesus. Good stuff.

Chapter 10: The Sacrament of Living
- "One of the greatest hindrances to internal peace which the Christian encounters is the common habit of dividing our lives into two areas, the sacred and the secular. [...] Our inner lives tend to break up so that we live a divided instead of a unified life." This really gets me thinking...how much do I divide my life? I really strive to live this unified life, but I know sometimes I get caught in the trap of living a divided life.

Well I'm not going to keep you reading any more, because I know that was a lot. I was just really blessed by this book and I am happy for the opportunity to share it with you. Feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think. :) God bless!

Fly Away

I've been inspired to start blogging again. I blogged every day this past summer (http://140daysofsummer.blogspot.com/) and not only was it rewarding for my readers, but it was a wonderful place for me to record my experiences with God and others. I enjoy reading past blog posts on days when I'm feeling discouraged.

The inspiration for this blog comes from many things...songs, scriptures, experiences with my brothers and sisters in Christ, and just every day happenings. I can't wait to share with you all what God has been doing in my life lately. The title "All Around Me" comes from a song by one of my favorite female Christian artists, JJ Heller. The song is called Fly Away (Google "JJ Heller Fly Away" to listen to the song on iLike), and it's just such a happy, upbeat song about freedom in Christ. She sings, "Beauty all around me, drawing me to the sky. This is life, I can feel it. Bid my lonely days goodbye." Lately these words have really been ringing true in my heart. There really is beauty all around me...and I have only God to thank for that. Praise Him!