Journal of Faith: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling Philippians 2:12

I am attempting to approach the many hardships in my life with more purposeful actions and responses.  The Lord has blessed me with a decent job and a loving family, but one seems to strain the other constantly.  I know that the Lord gives a time for everything, and my time is running out for me to keep things the way that they are.  Emergencies seem to be my new normal, and I feel the hand of life pushing me into a different direction.  The Lord has something else for me to see, but the place where I seem to be going is strangely familiar.  It is a place of dependence on him and service to loved ones.  For a while I thought I was going to be moving backwards which made me feel a little sad and disappointed, but who am I to be disappointed by the genius working of my Lord and savior.  It turns out that it is a move forward because I can see God winding me through a path to where he really intends for me to be.  I believe that God is going to send ...

It may sound like an immature question for someone who has been a christian for over 10 years, but like most relationships in a woman's life, it always comes back to the question of whether or not the other person really loves them.  I know that God loves me, but what do I have in our relationship that affirms this?  The old stand by is that God showed his love for us all by sending Jesus to die on the cross for all of our sins so that we could have a relationship with him.  That is absolutely true, but it says that he so loved the world not that he so love me?  Sometimes I feel like adoptee number blah blah blah,  but the amazing thing is that so far every time that I have felt this way he showed me how special I really am to him. These are some reasons why I know that God Loves me: #1 God has never broken a promise that he made to me. He has never lied to me. Every time that I have ever acted within the promises of God it has come out just as he said it woul...

The word paradigm floats around my house pretty freely.  This is because it seems that our world views are always in flux.  My experiences have changed a lot about the way that I see my life and my role in God's plan.  Until I was about 16 I didn't see myself as someone who needed God's grace because I had it all together.  I was successful academically, athletically, socially, and I was placed as an example for the other young people in my church.  I don't claim perfection in any way because I was lacking in confidence when it came to how I looked, and I felt self conscious about the fact that I had never had a boyfriend. Looking back on my situation then compared to now, I see that it was God allowing me all of my successes and anything that ever went wrong in my life was because of my bad decision making.  Every good and perfect thing comes from above.  If you are having a good life experience right now you can thank God.  If you are having a b...

It was amazing to me how remembering God's love for me can heal pain so quickly.  I was crying over a hurt this past week, and instead of saying "God why did this happen to me" I consciously chose to say "God thank you that you love me better.  Thank you for not ever making me feel this way".  It was amazing how God began to heal me right there.

I just felt that need to say this today.  I watch my son who is turning two this month, and it is incredible how quickly he can understand things.  For instance he learned the word mine, and he uses it constantly to hold on to what he wants.  He may not have the full understanding of the meaning yet, but he knows enough to try to hold on to things that he says are "his".  Children when they are so young really are like sponges that soak up whatever they can get to.  One of the things that I am proud that my son has soaked up is an understanding of Jesus as a part of our every day lives.  He prays over his food, and he sings christian songs, and he pretends to read the Bible, which would be better if he didn't rip the pages.  I implore you parents out there. Train up a child in the way that they should go and train them up early.  These babies are learning curse words, sexual prowess, violence, and who knows what else as young as they are.  If...

So I have been talking about making my employment and my ministry the same, and I have been wondering how that was going to work with me still needing to finish school and having a job that the Lord told me that I would have to leave with no job prospects, but God is a God who hears and answers the prayers of his people.  I went to church last night and the subject of the service was HELP WANTED.  The pastor was talking about how Jesus was saying this as he was talking to his disciples about there being a lack of laborers in the kingdom of God. The message included descriptions of job requirements, the hours, the pay, and even gave a list of benefits.  It was as if God was saying come put your application in with me, and I'll have a job for you.  It was amazing. This all happened within two days of me talking about my dissatisfaction with my mother and praying about it. Isn't God good? I cried unto the Lord with my voice and he heard me out of his holy hill.  I ...