Thursday thoughts

Are you living up to His reason you walked through whatever you thought you wouldn't? When you find yourself writing those words in your prayer journal as a sentence as God I want to be faithful to the reason I walked through it, Your reason. So many times we think we know His reason and we try to walk that out....and we fail miserably. We apologize for the heart He created inside of us because we compare it to others. Oh how quickly we forget that only God can see the heart. We only see what's on the outside of others and ourselves. If we could all just take a step back and simply respond in love. It's going to hurt...we live in a flesh world. It's going to feel like we are being stepped on at times, but giving was never promised to be easy. We ask Him in our prayer closets to help us love others as He does.....yet do we really know what that means. Transparency is never easy, but it's how we walk in freedom. It's how we say these are my scars, these are my wounds, this is how I'm walking through it, so that when you find yourself on the other side you can help pull/push someone else through it. I'm finding out and it's true...our story isn't ours to keep it to ourselves. There is a voice on the inside of each of us with a story that is waiting to be told.....God's been writing the pages since before you were born, but He's not the one who holds the permission for the audiobook version. You walked through what you did, so you could share His grace, His mercy, and His love with others. He didn't write the words for them to stay only read by you, or seen by you. Your life is a story being written and lived out each and every day. What are the words saying? Are you giving someone else permission to do your audiobook, or is there an audiobook at all? Let that sink in....

God called us to give period. When we give of ourselves, He gives back pressed down, shaken together...and running over. Wondering why you aren't feeling the overflow? Check your giving....I'm not talking about the giving so that someone will notice or give back in return, but that simple giving because He said to. It's giving trusting Him to take care of the feelings, the hurts that may come, and remembering nothing happens to you that He doesn't know about already. God doesn't leave even when we feel like running and things get "rough/tough". He's always got eyes on us even when we don't feel them. We'll talk about the whole choice thing in another blog. Hear my heart on the whole giving thing for just a second....don't get some caught up in giving so much of yourself away to others that you forget to give some to yourself as well. Those things that fill your tank quickly, that make your heart smile, those moments that remind you why you keep running the race with endurance. Wondering what those moments are? Get still and listen to the beat of your heart.....He'll remind you what they are. 

Transparent blog coming in time...when God steps in there is a shift, there is a push towards the reason, the purpose that He created you for.  He saw the punch that thing that knocked you down for a time. He saw the stare when you wanted to tell Him your heart, but you didn't really want to listen to what He wanted to tell you. He saw the motions as you walked through even though you were down. He saw...sometimes we look at only what's on the outside, but it's until we get a chance to really listen to the stories do we start to see the duct tape God's been using to hold the pieces in place. Strength doesn't always mean the one who knows that they can run the race, but the one who doesn't think they can run the race and runs anyway. 

Release and Fill

I'm such a visual person and sometimes the pictures God paints in our time together.....sometimes the pictures are His way of pulling up the glasses of His perspective and letting me see things from His view.

When we release things, when we let things go, when we dig up roots (with His help), there is a hole left. Releasing is just the first part to moving forward.....it's the next step that determines what happens next. Are we covering the holes we just emptied, trying to hold on in some way to the idea of what we let go of? Are we trying to fill those holes with the things from the current season not realizing God has new seed to plant in those holes and the new season is coming? Are we arms up in praising asking Him to fill the holes or are we staying distracted so that we feel the holes but that's about it? The shift is in the atmosphere, the season is changing....don't miss it because your holes are sitting empty waiting to be filled with seed that only He can give. It may seem dark and lonely while the covering takes place, but don't lose hope.....it's a new season coming your way!


I almost typed there are multiple blogs in the works from the last couple of months, but there may even be a book. The layers get pulled back, the truth gets revealed....that's His part, then it comes time for yours. Obedience at this stage in the journey takes more than a checklist, more than a set time each day, it takes desire and pursuit of being whole...knowing that as long as you are not walking in obedience you aren't whole. Knowing that once He speaks a word to you, breathes life into you, paints the picture you asked Him to....it's your turn next. The response looks different because we are all different. God didn't make us all the same and that means we don't show our love the same way to Him either. Some praise with a shout, some with a dance, some with a run, some with a prayer only God can understand, some with hands/feet in motion, and some with just a simple smile. The Creator of the Universe....has the details of our heart engrained on His and He knows just what we need. Oh how we must make not only make Him smile some days but laugh as we try to follow the steps that aren't shaped for our feet or listen for the notes that aren't being played from our hearts. We lose sight of the focus when we look at our this and that from a perspective other than His. We grow frustrated when we forget that what we can see isn't all there is and that the impact/difference we are making goes way past what is seen. As the word says, so we fix our eyes on what is unseen.....

Before you go reading this, going oh great another keep pushing sunshine and roses post. Umm no...the details will come in a later post, but this is the view from the other side. This is the view from realizing the enemy has had my focus on the battles of this level so that I couldn't see the fight I needed to engage in on another level. The wounds happen when we disengage from the battle...and some moments in the battle we are meant to soar sweet readers. We are meant to mount up on the wings of eagles and rise above the distractions of what we can see. It's not easy period. Discouragement is real especially when we are distracted. There are days when the prayer closet is the last place you want to go. There are moments when a gentle kick in the pants reminds you hey get your focus back on My plans for you and My Business. There are moments when that cover you placed over your fire, There are moments when you know the power on the inside of you, yes, but you still feel your way through. But God always gets through.....He always keeps whispering knowing that when the time is right, the heat inside that covered flame is going to get some hot that you will pull the cover back off again. He knows that because He lit the flame and what He starts no one else can touch. He knows because He knows you. He doesn't waste a moment so let your this and that become part of your story and be real with how He spelled it out for you. Be real with where He's brought you, walked you through, and covered you...Be real with the fires and the valleys....Be real because you don't know the holes other people have, the roots God is helping them pull up, and your transparency, your story.....maybe what He uses to fill their hole. Your steps are ordered by the One who wrote your story long before you could read. Your steps are ordered and even though it doesn't make sense....the pieces are His to put in place, He just asks that you stay engaged and focused.

More to come later....

Sunday thoughts

My heart is full and I'm forever in His debt for the shifting today. I sat there decorating my room for VBS this week and had The Bowling sisters CD playing on my Ipad in the process and just had to stop for a minute and think back over the last 17 years of ministry. When it hit me that the room I was in was my very first classroom, it made my heart smile to think back to all of those memories....and God used that moment to dump in a load of grace and push that I honestly had been without for few weeks. It was in that moment thinking back to all of my classes that I have had during that time at more than one church (not to mention my kiddos in Nashville whom will probably always call me MelissaMann) and the lies of discouragement that the enemy had been trying to sow were yanked up by the root yet again. You see....if he can make us operate in our feelings, he wins. Feelings are one of his best weapons of distraction. The enemy knows when we are worn, tired, and our guards are down. I'll leave it at that.....but just because he pushes doesn't mean we have to stay stuck.  Sometimes we just need God to take us back down memory lane to where He's brought us from and to remind us we aren't who we used to be.  The core of our heart is the same, but He's refined it over the years to where for the most part those things that used to matter don't stay in focus so easily anymore. 

So many times we pray for the shift to happen, but we miss it because we are looking for it to happen in the realm we can see and God's shifting things in the realm we can't see. Shifts don't mean that circumstances change, it means we remember the ins and outs of the battle and that we were made for more than "this". Sometimes it's about God opening our eyes to see the journey how He's seen it and remembering that if He's done it before, He will do it again. I don't know your "story" and most of you don't know all of mine...but as I told a friend this week, God didn't do what He did then to quit doing now. If you are feeling the stuck.....get still and let Him remind you of all of the "done befores" and then remember His promises ....The One who calls you is Faithful and He will do it and He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

Make this week what you want it to be...the choice is yours. He never said the tearing down of walls (aka strongholds) would be easy, but the fire is refining you to answer that prayer of Make me More Like You Jesus. He knows our hearts after all He created them ;-)