fly me to the moon.

While every sign points to celebration of this new time in my life, all i want to do is fly away. I turned 29 in the most wonderful city NYC...and boy did i need to go away. Whether it be fly to New York, or Laguna Beach and sit and think, or fly away in my dreams in my cozy bed...i need to get away sometimes. Its been difficult to relish in this great moment, the calm after the storm of August, waiting for the sunshine. Waiting on the blessing. Its on the other side. As I write that i realize how many times I have written those words "its on the other side"... but im not on the other side yet? why?

Sometimes I think I've missed it? Have you ever thought you missed Gods blessing? I have. I don't frequent that thought, But I do sit and think: have i been thinking too much about life to live it. Have I been flying around the world escaping the lessons God has been trying teaching me? How many times do we run when it gets too hard? How many times do you UNSPEAK about a problem or an issue in our lives. How many times do we sever relationship so that we don't feel the burden of change or boundaries? I want to fly away. right now. you can fly me to the moon and back, but thing is, everything will be right where i left it. God will get His. He will get his point across whether I fly away or not. So i'm done flying. I'm grounded. Here in Orange County, this 29 year old is not waiting for another year to see whats on the other side. I'm staying. I'm living. Its here.

How about you? Just remember, you may not be where you want to be, but you aren't where you used to be. So come back to earth. Its all good in the hood.

Fall

I love fall. Everything about it. Living in California, we don't get all 4 vivid seasons. But I just got back from New York where i experienced the fall leaves in Central Park and i was in awe! They had YELLOW and ORANGE and BROWN leaves and the air was crisp and the wardrobes are cozy and classy. I just love the fall. I love that the time changes even though most people hate it, I love the darker evenings snuggling at home and cooking in a warm kitchen.

I love that my brithday is in the fall. I love that tomorrow is THANKSGIVING one of my very favorite Holidays! I love the smell in my house. I love the hustle and bustle of getting dinner ready. I love playing games with my family. The card games, the video games, the constant "Remember whens...?" I love being thankful. I get to reflect and think, and re focus on the important things in my life.

I feel as though i get to fall back on my year and be sustained by the grace of God it took for me to get here. I fall back on all the lessons, all the pain all the struggle and all the purpose behind the year in the fall.

I get to fall back in Him.

I hope you do as well. I hope you fall back on all the blessings you have and all the preparations God has been making for your next season. If your answer hasn't come, fall back, relax, and just wait in the warmth of your family, your friends, and your God this fall. I positively can not wait to see what God has in store for me in the Spring when we spring forward!

Sometimes it takes rain to answer the prayer.

Its been crazy rainy lately. Perfect setting for writing. I drove home last night in the rain, observing the dark rain clouds over the city, it put me in a gloomy mood and reminded me of the change of weather in my life. On my way home i took this picture...and i realized that the sun had been shining all day....while it may be raining, the sun still shines. It may look dark and stormy over my head, but the sun never ceases to come out.

In the last couple of months, my heart has been heavy. I have been in transition. I guess you can say i asked for it. I asked God to change my heart. I asked God to remove people in my life that weren't supposed to be there. I was asking for a change of weather.... But I don't think i really wanted Him to make it rain. I wanted a warning at least, a forecast on how to prepare.(even though, looking back now, i got ample warning in the actions of people, but thats another post...) To me, instead it just began to rain, and the clouds lingered, and became darker and darker. Just when i was about to give in to the gloom, I was reminded that He is still there. On the other side of the gloom. Smiling. Waiting. Loving me. I came to KNOW Psalm 30:5...

For his anger is but for a moment; His favor is for a life-time: Weeping may tarry for the night, But joy cometh in the morning.

Did you catch that? His favor is for a lifetime? That means that regardless of how it seems, His favor, His sunshine is constant. I am coming forth to my morning. I am expecting the warmth of His smile, soon. Its there, its never left. Its peeking through the clouds. I still have His favor, its just raining right now.

Even though its scary, and unnerving to ask God for change. He supplies us with the faith in the promise that while it may take rain to answer our prayer, sunshine doesn't fail to shine. the answer is on the other side of your change.

Have you ever asked God for change? How and what was on the other side of your change of weather?

i want it to show.

i found IT on the top of my head this morning!....unfortunately it was not the first one i have found...and in times past i have plucked that bad boy out of my head swiftly almost as soon as it grew...Not today. I left it to glow beside my darker roots of hair. I left it and watched it Beaming at me....yes, a gray hair! I chuckled and suggested something to myself. "Is it not a sign of maturity?" "a sign of age?" I think its funny how much we hate the "signs" of age, but we want all the benefits of it...we want the responsibility, success, experience, we want the power, we want the access to the world we were neglected in our teen years and early twenties...but we don't want the evidence of our aging...the wrinkles, the grays?

...as im approaching the end of my twenties. And as i look at the very evident sign, my gray hair, I am EMBRACING what is coming....because I do want ALL that age has to offer because I want people to know that with my age comes a lot of wisdom...

I cant wait to wake up one day, gray haired, slip into my robe, go downstairs, to find my early morning hubby making us coffee, sitting at the breakfast nook...giddy.... while we wait for our grandkids.. we will feel like children at Christmas only it will be because we will realize the precious gifts our children have been to us, and what a legacy the both of us gray haired individuals have to look back on. We wont be able hold back tears remembering the 30 years we spent learning about ourselves without each other and now seeing the fruit of our lives together....I want THAT age to show...the best thing for me will be that I wont be able to keep the secrets of all the shopping i had done for my grandkids ( because THAT will never change =)!

In the pursuit of that, i want all the wisdom acquired through years of seeking God through His word, through books, blogs, sunday sermons, conferences, and a life chalk full of failures, victories, heartbreaks, truth, love, anger, risks and embarrassing moments, painful realities and like today, the looks in the mirror finding new signs of maturity in a gray hair.

I want all that friendships offer, I want to embrace all the wisdom learned when change made me surrender all i thought i knew, I want the legacy that family has left me, more than anything, i want what God wants me to have in this lifetime...because if having it all means more grays and more aches, then i want it all. And I want it to show.....

I welcome you age. I welcome you grays. I welcome you wisdom.

squeeze in there is room...

I had a whiny day today. I whined about being single. I down right got negative about it and vowed that it was too much work to give love. I whined about my how much my parents loved me cuz it was causing me work to accept. I didn't want to fit it any of it in cuz i was tired and busy. I whined about doing devotion and reading the word cuz i had been reading all day and thinking all day. In that thought, God squeezed Himself in and said, "Hey, I still fit...cuz I never left being IN you..." I love the moments when I'm the most tired, trying to work against fatigue thinking there is nothing more i can think or do right now and God squeezes himself in me and overwhelms, arrests, and takes over my thoughts...

I love that He is so sovereign that He gently imposes on my day. He is such a gentleman, but He knows just what I need and is adamant about His daughter being taken care of. These are the times when I know that no mother, no father no sister no brother ,no friend, or lover can ever come close to the friendship I have with my Jesus. While all this seems sappy and weird and intimate, its so real and I am so complete. I'm just sayin. I had a moment. I thought id share it with you. Sometimes you feel loneliest when we are the most busy and overwhelmed and sometimes surrounded by people. But it doesn't matter how big the crowds are,He still squeezes in because He never left you. ....=)

the rear view mirror

One day in Masters I opened a gift from one of my leaders with a rusted rear view mirror in it...and he spoke to me and said, " you can spend your life driving forward but looking back in the rear view, but sooner or later you are gonna miss something ahead of you" I almost fell out of my chair! I was like dang! Ain't that the truth! Ive been looking at my past so much that I forgot that i was driving forward towards something better!

One of my Pastors spoke about this last night...he used the exact same illustration...and it hit me like a ton of bricks that my relationship with God and with the people in my life is ever growing...and just like a hurtful past or pain can keep you from your future, like it kept me from mine before... so can not growing in God and in your relationships now...I don't want to live with the same stagnant walk with God and get to heaven and have to think long and hard about the last time God changed me and spoke to me!!!! I dont want to have the same routine relationships that get us no where, dont keep us honest, never challenge us, or keep us accounatable for our actions...the bible says we should sharpen each other how iron sharpens iron and it also says we should go from Glory to Glory in Christ! So come on stop looking back in your rear view mirror at the bad or at the GOOD!, Move on towards BETTER...using each mile gained as a compass and as a staircase towards what God has in store for us!

Siamese Twin syndrome...

This is a simple revelation. Nothing too deep. But relationships are blinding sometimes. Friends, Family we become so connected to them that sometimes we forget they are people. Created at a different time for a different purpose. We treat them as Siamese twins of emotions..."if i feel like this then you must feel the same way!" "If you are my friend you have to agree with me!" or how many times have we prayed for our family and tried to manipulate God to get them to do something in our favor? Its like "If you give my parents $5million dollars they could buy me something cuz they love me... and I sure do need new car!"

The thing is we are all a different people going a million of directions, light speed at the same time, created for entirely different purposes (1 Chor 1-30). Just because we are in relationship, doesn't make them our Siamese twin. So if you are gonna pray for someone, especially an intimate prayer, pray for them as people and not as your mom, dad, sister, husband, wife...pray for them as children of God...think of their best interest not yours...and watch God spill over their blessings to you if they are intended....this is a quick way of making you selfless and pointing the eyes of the people we love back to where and who they belong...

blissful backfire....

Love life. its tough. Trying to come up with a way to justify what we want. What we feel we deserve. What we think it will be like when we get to that point of total bliss and someone will take our breath away and nurture our heart. I spent a lot of time praying that God will send me the man to love me and make my dreams come true..and most of all i spent hours groveling, begging God to please, please, please never let anyone break my heart! Oh NO! For the love of all that is good, God please not MY heart i cant take it! And i would go on and on like a whiny 5 yr old throwing fits of poutty woes at God...it all made sense to my heart, it was the only way to pray for a mate...and carefully guard my heart 

Until one day on my way to San Diego, to meet up with a date in Carlsbad, I gripped the wheel and pulled over. Hazards on, on the right side of the road I felt the weight of my prayers about my heart fall back on top of my heart. I realized that at that same moment, a single, independent, God fearing man was praying the same prayer and it could possibly be intended towards ME! It was as if my own prayer back fired on me! How could this be Lord? What I'm asking for is expected of me too? And so the shoe was on the other foot, and I had desires of love and the expectancy of my heart...but without the willingness to serve and give that back. I received the peace that as long as I pray for the heart of my future mate, God will make sure to remember my desires. Sigh. What a relief right? The only thing left to do is to be ready to be that and more to someone else....i was sure ready to be swept off my feet...but was I ready to sweep someone off theres? not at all...its funny the years we spend working on our list, countless chick flicks, sappy weddings, even the talks with friends about bad relationships and the "i know what DONT want" lists...but how often do we think about who we want to be in a relationship? Who did God intend for us to be for someone elses tall order of desires?

I understood at that moment off to the side of the rode, with my hazards on, that i was in no shape or form ready to be back on the road towards blissful love...i was a hazard and my prayer was a blissful backfire! I took another road trip alone to Phoenix, in the 6 hour car ride i prayed for my future husband in a different way, i encourage you to allow God to make your prayers for a mate, your desires of your heart completely backfire on you so that you can experience the bliss He intends for the two of you....
(i use girl vocab, if you're a male adjust accordingly =)

Heavenly Father please forgive my selfishness for pretending to ignore the precious gift that my husband will be to me. I want to be what he is praying for God. Whisper to him tonight that you have him taken care of as you transforn me each day Lord.

God I pray you trust ME with his heart. Help me hold it in the highest regard and care so that I dont break it. Help me not to take advantage his heart and kindness.Help me be thankful and appreciative of all that he gives me in return. Allow me the privilege to be the desires of his heart and the woman he prays for. .. God give me the touch he needs to feel special, wanted and loved. Give me the grace in my words to make him feel Honored, Respected, Celebrated. Allow me to challenge him in You and help me compliment the work you have begun in Him. Help me hear his concerns and understand his needs. Give me favor and allow me to give him counsel, encouragement and strength in his time of need. Make me an Abigail wife (1 Samuel 25), one who seeks you first with instructions on how to love him, A wife who takes care of his needs before my own, one who directs his eyes back to You God and one who rests in the provision of my first love Jesus Christ the source of all desire above all things here on earth.

Amen.

"...until they dont"

Its the cliche everyone says it, its like framed in a plaque above every therapists door..."honesty is the best policy" "Without trust you have nothing" its like a proverb in every religion...we get it...The key to every relationship is honesty and trust..blah blah...

What about that old fable "the boy who cried wolf" He liked the feeling of getting the townspeople in a commotion about what he was saying! They believed him until they didnt...and when the wolf actually became reality...no one believed it. Not only is honesty important for others to trust you its important because relationships do not exist if one or the other cant believe you. Half a truth is half a lie, and while the boy cried wolf with the intention of it being true one day, that half a lie became the only thing the townspeople saw. We are gullible creatures. We expect truth from the moment we are born, but as soon as we figure out what a lie is, we believe until we dont believe.

To start being honest with people, we have to be honest with ourselves. No one will believe what we say until we believe what we say.

"Character may be manifested in the great moments,

but it is made in the small ones."Phillip Brooks

Choosing to be honest can cost you your reputation, your family, your relationships....but most of all your character. And character is all that is left when all other things are gone. People will believe you until they dont. Dont let the cause of not being honest with ONE person, be the reason a whole townspeople or the one you love...believe until they dont....

ICKY...

Sick, weird, awkward feelings in the pit of your stomach. Racing thoughts, overwhelming judgement, blurry views...and most of all endless questions. And that is all in one morning yawn. How do you continue with the day ahead. How can you think with this annoying emotion of ICK? Well, take it from me, you probably cant. Its worse when you just dont know where this is all coming from...I realized that if you're offended, or hurt, or jeolous, or mad, or angry and upset at another person, sometimes you dont even know who or why...it just creeps up on you...the answer is "i should pray for you more" I didnt realize that not speaking life into someone can be just as bad as speaking death into them....and that is what makes you ICKY. The power of your thoughts turn into actions and while actions may not always be physical, actions are actions and they can hurt when harmful thoughts are behind them. They may not even hurt anyone else, but they will come back and hurt you... (Proverbs 18:21)

So in the midst of all my ICK, I prayed for you more. I prayed for people I dont pray for enough. I prayed for things that are great and things that arent great, I even prayed for things that were unknown. I just prayed. with no specific purpose or intention, but on purpose... And i said God im sorry for lugging around this crap i picked up somewhere down the road. Its messing me up and I need you to fix it. And just like that that ICK was gone. (Ephesians 4:31)

priority

have you ever sat down an wrote a to do list before you went about your day? I do it on my blackberry now, but as im punching in the tasks after a couple of minutes i start getting thumb craps! there is just so much to do all the time...and it extends into other days of my week...so it just becomes a governing looming never ending to do list that dictates how much fun i can have, how much sleep i can have, who i can have hour long talks with or who I have to rush of the phone with or God forbid never even talk to just TEXT! Geez...when did my life become a to do list instead of a TO WHO list?

God checked me the other day as i was typing my endless tasks into my blackberrry in the doctors office waiting for my results of a kidney infection caused by you guessed it...stress...yep..my to do list lacked the words Sleep, Eat right, Pray more, drink water...and i started thinking of all the things on that list that were important to me, and even tried to delete a few that werent... i deleted (Go to Target) my need for toothpaste could wait! But just because they are important in this LIFE doesnt mean they are a priority eternally. God only tell us to have ONE priority and that is to Love HIM and SEEK Him...He said that if we seek Him first and His righteosness, all other things will fall into place ( be added unto you...Matt 6:33) so my to do list every time should start with

1. Go to GOD

And He said that all other things will fall into place. We try to fit God in to our To Do list somewhere somehow but most of the time we just end up deleting Him completely! The world and everyone in it will teach you to go after the things that will make you better, bring you more success, more money, but i realized that none of that will even matter if im in the Doctors office with a stress induced kidney infection forcing me to stop everything anyway....just sayin...to do lists can fill your days up quickly but they shouldnt fill your life up, they shouldnt extend into your entire week like mine....i learned that keeping my priorities straight, really only meant keeping one priority first....So today i pray God, give me the grace and capacity to do what you have me do TODAY, not tommorrow, Can I please have todays blessing today? I dont want to miss my today....

moving forward....

...I'm not going back I'm moving ahead

Here to declare to you My past is over in You All things are made new

Surrendered my life to Christ I'm moving moving forward...

These are lyrics to a very powerful song by Israel Houghton. Everytime i worship to this song, i cringe, because i start focusing on the line..."my past is over..." and i cant get past that line. Which makes me cringe even more because if I cant get past a line in a song, how the heck can i get past my past! Until one night, in my car I was having a pull over I cant see through my tears moment, and this song came on. I sang the lyrics, I cringed, but I moved on. I continued and sang ..."my past is over in you all things are made new..."and i realized, that the line is all one line...its all inclusive, my past is over in you, all things are made new.... IN Christ my past is over, (so that means if im in Christ then He is in me so that means that TO Christ my past is over, He doesnt see it anymore) ...BUT i still see it. I still feel it. I still cringed at the thought of it.

What made me move on, was the fact that HE is IN me and IN Him all things are made new. Staying in Him allows me to cringe at my past but be safe moving forward in Him.

Moving on is more than just forgetting the past, its accepting it while you still remember it...Trusting God for the healing each step you put behind you.

Each time i cringe, i move on, trusting God that He sees me cringe...and heals me. Because as I sing that song, i trust God that in that moment, my past is over, in Him, all things are made new. I accept my past. and while i still remember it, i trust God that He doesnt. Pretty soon all things will be made new and i will move forward. But now, today, i can still cringe at some of my past, but....

...im not going back im moving ahead

Im here to declare to you my past is over in you all things are made new

Surrender my life to Christ, im moving, moving forward....

The Economics of Relationship....

I just took and survived a stats class. And if you know me you know how petrified i am of numbers and anything that contain, or resemble numbers or logic....but this entire weekend something clicked that if i said stats or economics didnt teach me anything id be wrong...and quite stupid... because it has taught me the value of time over investement...not in money in life...Assets are what you own that hold value, what you earned that can be turned into something else, most of the time its liquid assets that are most popular...CASH! But im talking about life assets... like friends, family,health etc...the things that are priceless, and cant be converted into anything other than what it is yet they are still valuable.

The older you get, the more life assets you have, therefore the more value is placed on them.
I have come to evaluate a couple of points in my life thus far about the economics of relationships:

1. My life assets are rich. However, relationships and friendships are ever changing as i change. My desires change, my expectancy changes. The more time that passes, the more investment is put into relationship. And that investment is costly. I have to ask myself, what is this relationship costing me? what investment do i have in this and what am i getting in return. and answer of zero equals letting go. This is not fun but necessary.


2. The LESS i spend time with God the more i want to fill it with nonsense drama...this is NOT awesome and is NOT valued... its simply entertainment and in fact in robs me of value...and could cost me assests ive invested in...WOW!


3. The older i get the more i have to offer, but i have less time available to give it. This is the part that hurts. But this is also the part that makes it easy to let go of nonsense...


4. The MORE i press in to Gods call, the more i just want more of Him and what He wants, however allowing Him to do this means He is taking more of me...this is awesome...

Ive had to ask myself some pretty serious questions...i think i started asking these at age 25. At 25 something "clicked" and i started doing away with some nonsense. One of the things i learned was the value of saying NO and the Risk of saying YES...i started to count the cost of these answers by the assets i already had in my life...this is what i asked myself:

• Who or what is taking from me?


• Is this an investement or is it a gift?


• How much time will i have to Give or put in this?


• Is what I am giving being given back to GOD or to the World?


• Is this going to become an asset in my life now or in heaven or BOTH? (this is an amazing question btw, ask this with caution because if its NO, then you pretty much answered a whole lot of questions for you and someone else...

This is life economics. these questions are the equations for change over time...the earlier we ask these questions, the faster we can move forward gaining the biggest return on our investments...

What are we getting in return, and what are we doing with it?