Deliverance Bible Church

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUlWs7gHzfw
This is the link to *THE* video that convinced me I was meant to be a youth minister. I knew that I had a calling from God, but I felt really concerned when I couldn't find a local-ish seminary that was okay with my tattoos and piercings. I posted on http://www.christianforums.com in the youth ministry section asking people what they thought of the whole youth ministry to the alternative community. Some comments were negative, others were...even more negative. But there were a few lights in the fog that told me that they liked the idea and then there was one...the one who kept me positive about things...

I don't know what his username on there is now because I know he changed it, but it was Jester back then. He was a disabled youth minister and he posted a link to the above video. My life was changed.

Watch it. Take it in. Pass it on.

New Years Resolutions

New Years is always an interesting time.

People reflect on the past year and make resolutions to improve in the new one. I'm happy to say I have always kept my resolutions, but part of that is that I always make ones that I'm extremely confident that I can keep. I also make ones that are specific, because it's easier to keep track of ones like that compared to ones that are broad and somewhat open-ended. I have to say that most people I know don't keep their resolutions. Everyone goes into the year with good intentions, but there's always a reason that they don't pan out. Part of that is that you have be realistic and learn to forgive yourself. I feel like being realistic with yourself and your resolutions is key to keeping them.

Be realistic.
Are you actually going to the gym enough times every week/month of the year to justify that gym membership you're going to paying for?
Are you actually going to give up 100% of sweets? You're not going to sneak a peanut butter cup even ONCE?
Are you actually going to read the Bible every single day? EVERY.SINGLE.DAY?

Probably not.
But that doesn't mean that the moment you mess up that you should give up your resolution completely. That's right, I'm calling people out here. Most people I know who give up on resolutions do so because they messed up one time...
"I missed going to the gym the past two days, I should just stay home today too."
"Well, I ate a piece of candy...might as well go buy a whole bag and pig out."
"I haven't read my Bible in like two weeks...screw it."

If you want to keep resolutions, you can't beat yourself when you mess up. The point of a resolution isn't to obtain perfection. The point of a resolution is to make a conscious effort to better yourself about something you feel you need to work on. Here's something you have to just accept: At some point you are probably going to do something you made a resolution you wouldn't do.

Remember how I said I always keep my resolutions? That doesn't mean that every second of every day I lived up to them. It means that at the end of the year I felt that I accomplished my goal of doing better with "x" and that I felt I created good habits that I can keep in the long term. "Keeping" a resolution is a personal thing. Maybe you didn't go to the gym like you wanted...but you lost 15 pounds and gained some muscle definition. Sure you didn't "keep" your resolution to about going to the gym, but you achieved your goal for going to the gym. You kept your resolution. If you made a goal to go to the gym and eat better you were more than likely trying to lose weight or gain muscle/muscle definition. Maybe that's not what you wrote down, but it was your real objective.

I don't know, I guess my point is to not be too hard on yourself this upcoming year.

That's my personal resolution, not to be too hard on myself. Sometimes I won't keep up with my devotionals the way I want to. Sometimes I'm not going to eat the healthiest or exercise. Sometimes I'm not going to have the clearest complexion. Sometimes I'm going to make an absolute fool of myself in public. And sometimes I'm going to want to be so self-critical that in the past I would have ended the day in tears.

But that was in the past.
This year, I resolve to not be so hard on myself!
What's your resolution?

Comment to this...

Just earlier I mentioned that I have had more and more people checking out my blog, and I'm happy (and taken back) to say that since that post this blog has exceeded 200 hits! You guys are amazing.

To mark this milestone, I want to pose a question to anyone who reads this...
What is it that draws you in to read this?

I'm wanting some honest input and feedback on this. Even if you're reading because of a potentially negative reason, I want to hear about it. I have changed it so that people seeing this may comment anonymously...so feel free to say whatever is on your mind. Also, if you would like me to continue to leave anonymous commenting on so that you can leave comments on future posts, let me know that :). I'm completely comfortable with that as long as no one abuses that and is downright mean on here.

Thanks everyone!!


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EDIT:
Thank you for the messages I got on Facebook. No one commented here, but I got a couple of public comments and a couple of PMs on FB :)

Details Details Details

I want to take a moment out at the beginning of this post to say Thank You to those of you who are reading this. I have no idea who most of you are, but I know that I went from hitting one hundred views after having this almost a month to having almost another one hundred in just the past week or so. Viewing is growing exponentially and that's thanks to YOU. I'm sure some of you are friends, and I love you all so much!!!

Now onto the promised details of my wedding :).

PJ and I have discussed it and we will be having a ceremony on September 13th of this upcoming year. The assistant pastor at my church, who I lovingly refer to as Miss Tracey, has already told us that she can head over that ceremony. I'm really hoping that our church that is being built will be up and running before then (it's supposed to be up around August) so that we can have our ceremony at the church. We don't know many details yet, but at least we already have a date set so we know how long we have to plan. I don't think either of us want anything super extravagant, just something small and geeky will do great for us haha. That's right, geeky! We really want to be able to put that element of ourselves into the wedding. We have a few ideas up our sleeves, but nothing on that is final since we're obviously in the very early stages of planning. We may still end up having the wedding in Jacksonville, but we really do adore Boone and this is where our home church is...so we'll see how this all ends up panning out lol. Look forward in the upcoming months for us setting up a wedding website on http://www.ewedding.com to keep everyone up to date with our plans. September seems so close, but at the same time seems so far in the distance. I'm so excited!!! I love him so much, and I'm happy we're taking this step in our relationship to have a ceremony our friends and family can share with us to celebrate that love. It's going to be epic haha.

In other news in my life, I wanted to bring up that I found my dad! For anyone who is unfamiliar with the situation...

My dad and I have been kind of off and on over the course of my life. I've lived with him a couple of times, but we always end up somehow losing contact. One time it was because I chose to not speak to him, for personal reasons I'd rather not discuss here, and then this most recent time was because he moved and I lost the only phone number I had for him. By "lost" I mean that I broke my cell phone and the number was in it. I missed him, my brother, and my step-mother dearly (technically my ex-step-mom, but I love her just the same as if they had never divorced) and I had searched for my brother on facebook multiple times. Well, somehow in that I managed to miss seeing his profile. He's had it since August, but I never saw it! I swear I looked up his name at least once every other week and just didn't find the profile. The good news is though, that I found him! In fact, I found him on Christmas Day (the day before his 18th birthday)...What an amazing Christmas I had!!! Now we're texting every day and staying in close contact. I can't wait to see him again and also to meet his lovely girlfriend. I haven't heard all that much about her, but he has been with her almost two years and they're very in love from what I can tell. I'm so happy for him :).

Whew, so I'm going to go and watch PJ play some video games and just relax. I hope you all have a great day!!!

Getting Married/Getting Back on Track/Silence

First things first:
Guess who's getting MARRIED?! *jumps up and down* ME ME ME! PJ proposed to me on Christmas!! More to come on that subject, but I have something on my heart I want to share...

Things have been kind of here and there for the past few weeks. I haven't been doing my devotionals, and because of either snow or being out of town I also haven't been at church. The first thing that made me realize I need to get my behind back on track was a couple of weeks or so ago when PJ and I were eating lunch. I don't know what sparked it, but out of nowhere he looked at me and asked, "Have you been doing your devotionals?" I did a kind of timid looking face and admitted that no, I hadn't. "Well...you need to get on that." Since he doesn't do devotionals I wasn't sure why it seemed like such a big deal until I asked why. "Doing them made you happy, and I want you to be happy." He was right, as he almost always is. So that's what I'm starting with as soon as we can get back to the house (we were having electrical issues so we stayed at a friend's house tonight). Back to devotionals and *thank God* back to church. I've missed church, I haven't been skipping it because of wanting to. I've been skipping it because I've not been anywhere I could go. For two Sundays we were snowed into our house, and then we were with his family in Jacksonville and I was just so engrossed in being with family that I didn't go. Plus I found out some unsettling things about the church we attended the last time we were there...but that's not something I need to go into right now.

Anyways so tomorrow it's back to devotionals. I've also been praying about the silence I'm feeling I need in my life. So far my plan is that January 3rd through January 8th I will be taking my silent time. That is from a Monday until a Saturday. Here will be the exceptions to the silence:

1 - I can speak while out job hunting, because I really need to find work.

2 - I can speak with my fiancée for one hour during the morning, and one hour at night, this has a condition of if something is extremely important that needs to be discussed.

3 - I will not be using the internet *or* answering the phone/text messages. The exception is if the number that is calling is one I don't recognize and therefore may be something related to getting a job. I haven't decided yet, but I may allow myself to check voicemails once at night...I'm still praying over that one.

4 - I may or may not also be choosing to not watch any TV/movies, and instead opt to read. I'm leaning towards doing this (no TV), another one I'm praying about.

I think that's about it. I'm still praying about it and will be up until the time it begins. I can't believe I'm doing this, and I've had two people say so far that basically they don't think I'm going to be able to do it. But that's half of the point, doing something that's hard and working my way through it. The other half is learning to enjoy the silence (not always feel a need to fill it), learning to enjoy time without technology, and having time with God.

Whew.

So next post, hopefully tomorrow...if I'm around a computer, will be some more details about my very recent engagement (^_^).

Later folks!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Looking at yourself is the hard part.

Looking at yourself in the eyes of someone else can be a hard task. Today I learned that it may be easier to just ask those people their honest opinion of you, and if you believe that they can...for them to hold you accountable. Earlier today I was talking to PJ's mom and long story short, something about it being hypocritical to go to church and then curse outside of there got brought up by her. I admit that I sometimes have a sailor mouth, but I've always tried to only talk that way in front of what I considered "appropriate adult company." When she said this I, at first, felt hurt. I felt that I was being called a hypocrite and I got extremely upset. However, it was the moments I had by myself after the conversation that got me the most upset. I was laying in the bed, almost in tears, and then it hit me...I'm being hypocritical. There, I said it and it gets easier to say each time. I think that everyone has their faults, everyone has their sin that they choose to justify in some way or another. Sadly, that's human nature. That doesn't mean that we should just let it go though, we should always be striving to be the best people that we can be. I'm not saying that everyone who curses is a bad person. I'm not saying everyone who does this thing or that one is a bad person, because I believe that deep down everyone is GOOD. However, I don't want to be a hypocrite. Here I am, trying to live the best life that I can and trying to work on being more Christ-like (since that's the definition of being a Christian), I'm trying to become a youth minister. Yet I couldn't even see my own fault, it took someone else bringing it up.

I want to live a life that makes others see the renewel of myself and my spirit that I've found through following God. Today I realized that there is yet another thing that I could be doing better with in my life, and that means that it's yet another thing I'm going to strive to change. I can do all things through Christ, right? This is just another one of those things. I especially feel bad about this one though since I'm (still) reading the book UnChristian which goes over this very same situation...being a hypocrite. I need to finish this book already (>_<)

I'd also like to bring up something that has been on my heart the past two or three days. Something I read in UnChristian is that one of the first things that should be transformed in a life following Christ is our thoughts. Thoughts encourage actions, so bad thoughts encourage bad actions. I had never really...well...thought about that until I read it. My thought process is very different than it was before I recommitted my life to God, but I know some things that I could change with that. I think that part of what makes it hard is that most people, myself included, don't spend enough time with just their thoughts on a daily basis. Not just not talking, but just...having quiet. No computers, no cell phones, no...anything.

With this I am feeling more and more compelled to take a temporary vow of silence so that I can spend that time with my thoughts. It may sound extreme, and it's definitely nothing I can honestly say I want to do, but it's something that I think I may need to do. When I say temporary I mean for maybe 3 days or so. I'm thinking it may be better to go for a week, but I'm going to pray about it and see what God speaks to my heart. I need to work on getting another job while my other one reopens (we're changing locations) so I can't do anything too long term because I can't let it effect my job search. Right now I'm really being led to three days. Three days with no talking, no computer, no cell phones. I may have an hour or so everyday that I let myself have "off" so that I can spend time talking with PJ about anything and everything...like how much I love him...but that's about it :).

We'll see I guess...
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!
You all have a blessed day tomorrow :)

Thanking God for picking us back up.

The other night I woke up to the sound of my daughter crying. We're out of town visiting family so we were sleeping in the same bed...so I started looking for her. I quickly realized that the sounds I heard were coming from the floor next to the bed. I reached down and picked her up from where she had fallen onto the floor, held her close and laid her back in the bed. Then I handed her cup back to her and heard, "Thank you," followed by me handing her sock monkey back to her. I was met with another, "Thank you." It made me think a lot the next morning. That situation reminded me of the relationship that we all sometimes have with God. Sometimes, without any warning we find that we have fallen. The good thing is that God is always there to pick us back up and hold us close to him. After that he gives us back the things we were missing...faith and hope. The only problem is that many times we all forget the last part...saying Thank You.

Too many people only seem to give thanks on Thanksgiving Day. Are you one of those people? Take out time today (and every day) to thank God for all the blessings in your life. Spend time thinking in depth about things that may have been blessing in disguise, and even thank him for the hard times and for him helping you with courage to get through them. Every moment is a blessing, even the ones that hurt.

ATTENTION ATTENTION

Okay everyone, I just wanted to give a quick headsup. I swithced e-mail addresses and have done what I know to do to have this switched over to the other one that I use. Hopefully it all goes smoothly, but if you encounter any errors when attempting to read this blog please e-mail me at kyra.prays@gmail.com

Thanks!! A real update to come tomorrow :)

Youth Ministry and Clearing My Head

First things first, I want to share something I haven't really shared with anyone...not even Patrick...at this point.  I had a breakdown over Thanksgiving vacation.  I should have talked to Patrick about it, but I just haven't been in the right mental state to be able to discuss it without getting emotional...I'm not good at being that emotional in front of people.  It's a fault, and I recognize it.  Anyways so him and I were having an argument.  Details in this aren't important and I don't need to air our dirty laundry on the internet.  The point is that I was sleeping in the bed at his parent's house and he was in the living room.  We were both brooding and texting each other.  At that point I'm not even sure what happened, but I broke down crying and just couldn't stop.  I had all these bad thoughts...that I'm going to be a horrible wife, that I'm a bad mother...and they just kept escalating until I was hyperventilating and worrying over things like, "When we have kids, he's going to leave me and take the kids."  Which with my past situation, which some of you are aware of, is a legitimate fear.  I've relayed these fears to Patrick in the past and he's promised me that would never happen.  He's seen the pain that I have from the situation with the kids and he swears he would never do that to me.  But it doesn't change that I have the fear.  All of this continued to get worse and worse until I almost couldn't breathe and out of nowhere came the biggest repenting session I've ever had in my entire life.  I laid there just staring up at the ceiling with tears rolling down my face asking God to forgive me for everything I've ever done against him.  I literally kept crying out (in a 'whisper yell') "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!" and it just kept going.  I continued texting Patrick through all of this, not even sure how I had the strength to use my fingers at that point.

Suddenly I felt a weight lifted and I just felt...better.  I continued to pray and just have a little one-on-one time with God until Patrick came in and we made up.  We both apologized for the fight and held each other and moved on.  Life continued on...

...but for once it hasn't continued on in the "same old same old" kind of way.  My mind feels completely transformed.  The night after this we were back in Boone and I was all hopped up on energy drinks from driving home from the beach.  While Patrick slept I laid there with my eyes open praying...no, not praying...talking to God.  I laid there for about two hours just talking.  Venting, laughing, even just telling him how my day went.  I talked to God as if I was literally looking right into his eyes and having a conversation.  I've learned...this is the way that praying works best for me.  I had never really tried praying that way, and not sure why, but it was amazing for me.  Some people do better, as pastor Marianne said, heads bowed and eyes closed.  I'm learning that I'm not one of those people.  I already have realized that God speaks to me through music and now I know that for me, praying works better as just relaxed conversation.  During my talk with God that night I told him how I have so many fears about the whole youth pastor thing.  I told him that I know it's what he wants me to do and that I know I've been putting it on the back burner, but that I'm scared.

It was the very next day that I got on the phone with the assistant pastor, Tracey.  I told her that I wanted to talk to her about youth ministry.  I went in to the church office and began helping her with the food pantry.  I haven't volunteered much in church since The Rock because until this new church I hadn't felt connected to a church on a deeper level.  But volunteering with the food pantry quickly seemed like second nature and the hour and a half I was there went by quickly.  Then I sat down with her.

Very long story short, she put me in touch with Kyle who is the youth minister at Faithbridge.  He has invited me to a lunch on Sunday after church with him and others from the ministry team.  Tracey wants me to spend time working alongside him and learning.  It's a chance to gain experience and follow my calling from God.  I'm so excited, but at the same time so extremely nervous.  I never thought that the day I finally pursued ministry would be the day that it actually started the wheels turning and got the bus moving...but when you're called to something from God it's only inevitable that you're going to end up on that path lol.  Anyways so that means that I now have an extremely full Sunday.  I will be taking a class on spiritual disciplines taught by Tracey before church, then I have church, then the lunch, then at five I was going to go to an event I saw Jonathan Fawcett post about on Facebook that's at Legends.  That is unless I need to go to the youth meeting that night to work with Kyle.  Sadly the love of my life won't be joining me for a lot of this because I had forgotten he has a benefit airsoft game that day.  They're collecting toys for children for Christmas :).  I wish him so much luck with that!!

Hmmm so now onto the "clearing my head."
I realize more and more everyday that I've gotten over my feelings for my ex-husband, and that I'm able to move on with my life but still wish him well in his.  It took me a while to not have feelings for him, but once I was able to get over that I still can admit to having some hatred in my heart.  I didn't love him, but instead I had replaced it with hate.  And hate is always taxing on your emotions, it's never a good thing.  Now though, I've gotten rid of that too.  I knew it for certain when I went to his mother's facebook page.  Yes, I admit it...sometimes I check out the pages of his family.  It's not because I'm hanging onto anything, it's because I care about how their life is going and wish that I had a way to be updated on it.  Sadly I was met with seeing her posts about surgeries.  I immediately felt panicked and worried.  As much as her and I never got along, I never would want her to have to go through anything bad.  I looked back through months of posts and couldn't figure out what was going on so I texted Alex's fiance.  She told me that his mother had her gallbladder removed and now something is "still wrong" but no one has been able to figure out what it is.
I knew after reading that that I am over the hate in my heart for him and anyone in his family...though I never really felt any bad feelings towards his dad or his grandparents.  I have moved on from those ill feelings and I'm happy about it.


Now though, I need some prayers for some things if anyone reads this and wants to jump in.
First, my friend Robbie's grandmother is in the hospital.  She originally went in for fluid on her lungs but now is having issues with her heart.  They're taking her to Charlotte on Monday, so keep her in your thoughts.
And otherwise I want prayers for Sandy Hawkins, that's Alex's mom.  I still don't know all the details, but she is definitely in need of them figuring out what exactly is still going wrong.

Thanks everyone!!!!

Christianity should be about faith, not religion.

This goes for just about everything in general dealing with "religion"...it should be about faith.  It really upsets me how much we as Christians fight over all the things we don't have in common instead of focusing on all the great things that we share.  I remember talking to a friend who went with her church on a missions trip and her church wouldn't let another church there work with them just because that church wasn't Baptist and instead was a Non-Denominational Church.  Really?

Really?


In the end we all, for the most part, are united on two things:
1. A belief in God.
2. A belief in Jesus Christ as our savior.

Why do dwell on all the things that we don't agree on?  Part of it is our human nature to want to be "right."  Every individual person has to be "right" as often as possible, and if someone's opinion differs from our own (even very slightly) then they are labeled as wrong.  Sure, we can all have very strong faith in what we believe is the truth about Christianity and the Bible...but when you think about it in a realistic way you should be able to admit that everything we believe is just an opinion.  Some people have the opinion that the Bible is the be all end all of our religion.  Others believe it was written by man, translated by man, etc and because of our free will it could be flawed.  And still even another group doesn't put much faith in it as a religious text whatsoever.  As the love of my life Patrick said, yesterday I think, "Everyone is just as sure that their belief is right that you believe that yours is, how passionate you are is just how passionate they may be."  Or as I've heard it said before, "Opinions are like buttholes, we all have them and they all stink."  As much as I may believe one way and think it's right (because again, it's human nature) another person may believe the exact opposite thing and have just as much certainty that they are right.

In the end when you  just constantly bring up all those differences in opinions, our religion begins to divide.  You end up with separate sects of Christianity...Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal.  There is a group who tries to get themselves out of those labels and call themselves non-denominational.  For years I've been a part of that following and have enjoyed it thoroughly, yet I still see that they preach on what they believe to be right and there seems to be only a bit more wiggle room there when compared to other more strict sects.  I really want a movement to start in Christianity.  That movement is about bringing back the relationship of people to Christ and bringing up the common points instead of focusing on differences.

For years now I've been called into youth ministry, but haven't actually made much effort in following that calling.  At first I ignored it because I didn't think that my ex-husband would go along for the ride (while we were married obviously).  My next excuse was that I was scared, I had a spirit full of fear of the unknown.  Thankfully that one went away when I was watching a Hillsong United DVD and one of their youth pastors talked about her initial fear in entering ministry.  After that it was pure laziness that put me off.  But no more.  You can only ignore what God puts on your heart before you give in and realize, "This is what I was made for."  I'm not sure how this whole thing will unfold, but I do know that God will be beside me every single step of the way...and if God is with you, you're covered.  I am contacting the leader of the local Young Life chapter tomorrow to talk about working as a youth leader with them.  Here's the thing, it's about gaining experience and knowledge.  I want to get to know what it's like to lead the youth before I work on my ultimate calling of working to unite people by faith as I mention above.  I think youth ministry is the first step, that's my "original calling," but over this time I've realized that in the end it's about uniting people for the cause of Heaven and working to break the barriers that divide us.

Anyways, I'll have another post (probably similar in nature) tomorrow...but for now I need to continue working lol.  Keep safe everyone, and don't be blinded by those divisions.

Small things are just as awesome.

God always provides all that I need, and lots of what I want.  I was so worried about finances, but I've done the math and we're going to be fine.  That includes tithing, bills, rent, car payment, insurance payment, gas to get the kids, etc.  Thank God for providing, and that's just with me UNDERESTIMATING my pay (^_^).  Anyways God came through on something small today.  Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe not, but I'm just going to thank God either way.  We've had major issues with our computer.  Major.  Everytime we get it fixed within two days we get the blue screen of death and aren't able to get Windows to start again.  We've had to get it fixed three or four times now.  Anyways so we got the blue screen of death earlier...again.  I was obviously not too happy about seeing it again, but I trusted.  I prayed and said that I knew I had been behind on devotionals and my blog and that I needed the computer to be able to write that blog and share my views on God.  Then I remembered a sermon I heard about how powerful words are...positive as well as negative.  So I breathed in, calmed down, and wrote "I WILL WORK" on a post-it note and stuck it to the screen and kept on praying.

And for the first time...this computer recovered from blue screen syndrome.  So thanks to that, I'm able to update you guys :).  I'm not writing as much as I'd like, but I'm also at work and need to be you know...working.

Will update again soon!

Sorry I haven't updated for a few days ladys and gents, more updates coming soon I promise :)

The computer is working again.

We've not had the best of luck recently with the computer, so I'm happy to say that thanks to our awesome friend Twitch...it's currently working again.  I say currently because it's messed up a few times after being fixed haha.  Anyways so onto today's entry...

So far getting back into the swing of devotionals has been fairly easy.  I'm really liking the format of this book of devotionals, it makes it so much easier!  I'm going to go over what I've done for the past two days (yesterday and the day before).  I'm writing all of this down in a notebook, and I won't be sharing them here every day I do a devotional.  But I think that recalling my devotional multiple times a day really helps them sink in.

November 11th, 2010
Passage - Genesis 3:1-10
Read - check
Think - "How does this passage speak to your situation today?"
I'm reading this passage multiple times to try and get a grasp on it and trying to figure out how it speaks of my situation today.  I don't necessarily think anything pertains to today, other than  maybe that this passage talks about Eve and Adam eating from the tree of knowledge and knowing good and evil.  I've known a lot of both of those things in my life, but my conscious choice to begin devotionals again today is showing me that I'm capable of being "good" and working to deny evil any part of my life.  This is part of God's plan to better my life.
Pray - "Take some time to confess those areas where you have deliberately rebelled against God."
This section is about praying, but I think it will be beneficial to me to write my thoughts and prayers down before I verbally pray so here goes...
Lord,
I've never been comfortable praying with other people around, at least not out loud.  I'm not sure why I wanted to tell you that, but I did.  I'm praying to confess things I know I've done that weren't what you wanted for me, but admitting to doing something wrong is hard.  I've learned that a lot this past week when I've been sending out apologies to people.  So, I'm getting more used to this "confessing" business.
The first thing that came to mind was cheating and adultery.  When Alex and I first separated, I dated around.  I kept saying that we were divorced "in my heart" and so it was okay.  Though I do believe that divorce is a matter of the heart and not of the law, I wasn't feeling that way in my heart.  I got with other guys because I felt alone, hurt, and abandoned and I still loved him.  I consider myself an adulterer because of that.  I'm sorry.  I don't think it's any coincidence that I wasn't able to find my soul mate until after the divorce was final in my heart AND legally.
Sadly, there are so many other times I've rebelled and done things in my lifetime that I know you wouldn't want for me.  Drinking excessively, drugs, badmouthing people...even loved ones, and falling away from you and choosing other religions when I was a teenager.  But I offer all of these things up to you and ask for your forgiveness.  You sent your son to die for my sins and I refuse to let it have all been for nothing.  In Jesus' name I pray, AMEN.
Live - "Knowing you [...] have rebelled against God, what do you feel?"
Well, for one I feel not so alone.  I don't feel that spiritual perfection is reached by many people so I shouldn't feel like a failure when I mess up.
"How does this affect the way you live your life?"
It reminds me that I can be forgiven, so I can (and should) admit to my faults and ask for forgiveness...whether it be from God or friends/family/etc.
"If God knows everything, why did He call out Adam asking 'Where are you?'"
He wants us to be able to admit to our faults and wrongdoing, He doesn't want to force it.
"When are you most tempted to hide?"
Anytime I've done something I know God doesn't want me to do.  When I do things to other people that they don't deserve...or things they may "deserve" in my eyes.

===============================
I don't want to type out all of yesterday's but I'll give an overview.
The passage was Genesis 32:22-32 with the extended passage being all of Genesis 32, though I also read 31 and 33.  It was the story of Jacob and when his name was made Israel.  Anyways so one thing I loved is that I write my prayers down and this "pray" section actually brought up writing them down so that you don't get distracted, love love LOVED that!  I prayed about I desperately want from God.  Some things I mentioned were a better understanding of yesterday's devotional because there was one question that I couldn't really "get", wanting to know God better because I feel like I'm only in the beginning stages of my faith because of "starting over" after Alex.  He jaded me on religion the same way that one of my mom's ex-husbands did.  I said that I desperately want more understanding of God, to be blessed in all aspects of my life, to be happy in this life as well as my afterlife.  That I desperately long to have the spiritual life I feel I need, to be more comfortable with my spiritual side.  And then some mushy things dealing with the love of my life Patrick.

There's my overview (^_^).
There is still some time tonight before bed, especially when there isn't anyone here in the house except me and the kids so it's about devotional time again...g'night!!!

Starting my devotionals.

Tomorrow I will be starting my devotionals.  I had planned to start today, but had a weird night where I only got an hour or so of sleep and had to wake up this morning to get a new car.  It's been super busy, but I need to get on top of that tomorrow.

Edit:
I need to remind myself that I should never be too busy to have God in my life.  This past Sunday's message was about not being too busy to take care of your spirit, I need to keep that in mind.

Taking steps in the right direction.

Forgiveness isn't always the easiest thing to have towards people, nor is it the easiest thing to ask from people.  I'm taking time out of my life right now to contact people I think I've wronged in the past and ask forgiveness.  I gotta tell you, it takes a lot out of you!  I wrote a couple of people from The Rock who I thought I wrongfully cut out of my life and apologized, I explained what I think I did wrong.  The end of each one made it clear that they didn't have to contact me back, but that either way I wanted to ask their forgiveness.  So far none of those have written me back, but that's okay.  Even if they don't forgive me, asking for forgiveness has started clearing the negative emotions out of my heart and I'm able to forgive myself much easier for things I've done in my past.  The most recent apology was given to my ex-husband.  I didn't apologize for feeling hurt by the way I was treated, I didn't apologize for leaving the relationship...those are things I still feel justified in and have no guilty conscious over.  I did, however, apologize for not always being a good wife and for the hurt I gave him during the relationship.  I also told him to please tell his parents that I apologize to them.  For sometimes taking advantage of his father's good nature, because his father is an amazing man and never deserved one bit of it.  ...and I told him to tell his mom I apologize because I said some pretty nasty things in an e-mail that I sent to her.  I will admit that she also wasn't very nice to me prior to that, but I forgive her for that and I'm not going to hold it against her.  Just because someone doesn't treat you how you think they should, doesn't give you the right to hold it over them and say things back to them out of anger...which is what I did.

All in all this apologizing thing is going well, and that's what matters.  I have a lot more people I want to write to, I just have to pace myself.  Like I said, it may be a nice thing to do and it gets some weight off your shoulders but at the same time it's a hard thing to do and it takes more energy than I had originally thought it would.

I don't think many people read this, but for anyone who does...I have one request.  At some point this week, take a few minutes out to apologize to someone in your life that you've hurt.  You'll brighten their spirit at the same time you brighten your own <3

Post from The Rock Church's page

I saw this on the dynamic blog of The Rock Church and wanted to share it because I think it's something that can benefit just about everyone.

From : http://www.rockofasheville.com

Receiving Grace to Overcome Bitterness

Hebrews 12:15 

The two greatest needs in life are to love and to be loved.  God made us to be relational!

In every relationship - no matter how distant or intimate - there exists the possibility (and the probability) of being hurt.
  
How you process those hurts is going to make all the difference in the world.

You can't stop hurt from coming - but you can decide how you will deal with it.

Bitterness is the result of unresolved hurts of the past.

When something is bitter – it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.  When you've got a bad taste in your mouth – nothing tastes good.  Even good things don’t taste good!

The root of bitterness is unresolved offenses.  

1. Offenses must come.  

Matthew 18:7 

You must learn to deal with them because they WILL come.

Never let your heart get set on a person until you see how they deal with an offense.  Eventually they will have to deal with being offended at you.

Determine to walk in a spirit of forgiveness.  If you don’t learn to do this - you will ruin or lose every relationship in your life.

I’ve learned this in life:  You can either be right or you can have relationships.

2. Offenses blind. 

Once you get offended with someone you become blind to anything that is good about them.  You begin to see through the eyes of offense rather than through the eyes of love.

You begin to build a case to justify your offense.

Philippians 1:9-10 

Proper approval springs out of love - not criticism.

Of course there are things wrong with that person.  There are things wrong with YOU, with ME – with all of us!  It’s a given!

3. Bitterness from unresolved offense spreads. 

Hebrews 12:15

Offense loves to gather people who share your offense - allowing you to validate your offense by rehearsing it over and over.

Forgiveness is the key to resolving bitterness.

Forgiveness releases them, and most importantly – it releases you from them!

Not forgiving is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

When we carry the hurts of the past, we are binding ourselves to the past.

How do we find the strength to forgive?  By the grace of God.

The grace we receive is the grace we give.  

When I receive grace – I recognize that my debt is paid.  Then I can release grace – and recognize that your debt is paid too.

When we realize what we owe to God is far greater than what anyone could owe to us - we can release them.

Matthew 18:21-35 

The grace of God doesn't say "You didn't do anything wrong".  It just releases the debt, based on Jesus paying the price.

When we forgive, we're not saying "They didn't do wrong".  We're just releasing the debt, based on Jesus paying the price.

Colossians 3:13

How do you find the grace to forgive?  Receive the grace to forgive.

Luke 6:28

I’ve been making myself speak a blessing over the people who have hurt me.  Let's face it – When we get hurt, emotions are involved.  Emotions are like a big ship, turned by many small turns.

It takes many choices to forgive – and these small choices will turn your emotions.

God is not hard-hearted with this.  He is not saying “All right, just forgive and get on with your life.”

Isaiah 61:1-3 
Isaiah 42:1-3. 

The Holy Spirit's special concern is the broken-hearted.  If you've been bruised by hurts, if your fire is almost out - God is near to you.

God is the source of the grace you need to forgive others!   

Published on Monday, October 11, 2010 @ 5:59 PM CDT

It's not my place to judge.

"What the Bible Says About Healthy Living" by Rex Russell
I usually refrain from reading more than one thing at once unless it's a graphic novel, but I forgot the book mentioned in my last post (unChristian) at my house by accident so I grabbed a different one from the car.  I got this book a while ago at the used book store, but hadn't gotten a chance to read it yet.  I haven't gotten far into it yet, but so far it's a great book.  It talks about eating things as close as they come from nature, seasonal, and certain things for certain health issues.  I'm going to give a better analysis of it once I finish it, though that may be a while since I'm very into unChristian right now!

In other news, things have been amazing.  I told Patrick today that I'm okay with us trying to have his ex-girlfriend Lisa as a part of our lives.  Not necessarily as a good friend or anything (though I don't disregard that possibility whatsoever), but I don't mind her being around sometimes.  I thought today about how she seems to be really trying to salvage a friendship with him, and she seems really happy and happy for us.  I told him that the other day when she started texting I had a feeling in my heart that I should invite her to come to church with us, but I didn't say anything to him about it at the time because I was content in my dislike of her.  Then I thought about how I haven't really met her one-on-one and have no reason to pass judgement on her other than the fact that she's his ex makes me uncomfortable.  But having some of my exes as friends means that I was being an absolute hypocrite.  I don't want to be like that.  So at this point I've told him that I'd really like to get to know her some before we all hang out.  I am hoping she'll either call me, text me, or unblock me on Facebook so that we can talk through messaging.  He's going to bring it up to her.  I just think that if she's trying to be his friend, I shouldn't push her out of his life.  At the least she deserves for me to get to know her. So we'll see how this goes.  I especially want to do this because apparently her new boyfriend is a Christian and she told Patrick that she's praying and has been getting close to God and well, I don't want to push away someone who is trying to have God in their lives (not that I'd push away people who weren't lol).

Well honestly for right now that's about it, maybe I'll have more to say tomorrow :)

unChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons

I was in Walden Books earlier today and decided to look for a book called unChristian.  Pastor Chris Stapleton from The Rock Church talked about it once in a sermon.  I couldn't find it, though I did find another book by Gabe Lyons.  Anyways so off to Cornerstone books I went!  Not only did I find this book, but I also left there with a new devotional that is based around The Message bible.  It's called The Message Remix Solo.  It may be the best devotional I've ever owned and I really can't wait to get started on it!  But back to this book.  In unChristian they at one point poll groups of non-Christians and ask for the opinions on Christians.  One of the things I remember specifically was along the lines of, "What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of Christians?"  The two top answers, again...if I remember correctly, were "Hypocrisy" and "Hating homosexuals."  It's terrible that the two first things that non-believers think of Christians are bad things.  Sadly I believe that many Christians give our entire religion a bad name and it's worse because the media coverage of said Christians is thrice that of those of us who are trying to live our lives right!  Okay I admit it...I just wanted to use the word "Thrice." :)

Another question, again I'm trying to recall this from a sermon probably 2 almost 3 years ago, that was asked was if those non-believers knew any Christians and if those Christians acted different than the ones who weren't Christians.  Sorry if that was all smushed and sounded confusing, but I think you get the point.  The answers were astounding, again.  Almost all of those people polled said that they didn't see any difference.  Listen, I'm not saying that we should be all holier-than-thou because that just turns people away and is a terrible idea in general.  What I am saying is that we should live by example.

...and I hate to end there, but I have some things I really need to accomplish today.  I just wanted to make sure I got a blogpost in :).


List for November 8, 2010
_x_1. Deposit money in the bank
_x_2. Look for new devotional
_x_3. Find book "unChristian"
_x_4. Finish closing duties from work last night
_x_5. Work at 4.
_x_6. Contact Teena about cleaning tomorrow
__7. Figure out flat tire situation
__8. Talk to Jesse about one day off per week
_x_9. Pray about what to do about hookah

I've found a new home church.

This morning I attended a new church.  The mom of one of my friends is an assistant pastor there and has been asking me for a bit to try and stop by and told me that I would like it.  This past Sunday I decided to check it out.  It's name is Faithbridge Methodist and you can find them online at http://www.faithbridgeumc.org/

I'm very happy to say that I not only enjoyed this church, but I think I've found my new home church.  It's been hard for me trying to find a new church after leaving Asheville and thereby no longer attending The Rock Church.  That church was the first I had ever felt at home at, and replacing it has proven to be quite the task.  I tried a lot of churches in Boone...Cornerstone Summit, Alliance Bible Fellowship, Living Water...and I did really enjoy the last one (Living Water).  I went there a lot and tried to be active, but in the end it still didn't feel "right."  It didn't feel like home.  I still hold Living Water and the others, as well as The Rock Church, very dear to my heart but I definitely feel that Faithbridge is where I'm meant to be here in Boone.

The sermon was about how busy life is these days and how everyone basically needs to slow down and not be so hurried all the time.  One thing she brought up that especially spoke to my heart was having a day of rest for the Sabbath.  She mentioned that this day of rest doesn't need to be on a Sunday, but our bodies will thrive and our souls with thrive if we give them the rest needed for them to be at their best.  One of my new goals is now going to be to have one day of rest.  This is a day where I will just spend time with God and be at peace.  No electronics, No social networking, No talking about work or going to work.  One day of rest.  I'm going to talk to my boss about this in the next couple of days and ask for a certain day off each week to have the ability to do this.  The only things that will be allowed in my world at that time besides God are my children and Patrick.  Period, done deal.

I had a great night at the lounge with Patrick.  We talked about religion and I was informed that he is in fact religious, he's just more about a one-on-one relationship with God than feeling the need to attend church and have fellowship with other Christians.  He talked to me about the meaning behind the cross tattoo on his back, and we cuddled and listened to Christian music over the speakers.  There was some major spiritual connecting with him on my part, and I hope that he felt the same connecting on his end.  All in all, it was a good night :).

Let's see Let's see...
Oh, I didn't do so well with the smoking today.  I know that it's not something I'll do forever, but quitting is really hard.  Not because of the nicotine, it's actually not something I feel any addiction to at this point.  I think my addiction is to the practice of smoking hookah and also the social aspect of it.  I work at a hookah lounge and in my free time what have I always done?  Sat down with friends and smoked a hookah.  It has been my life for about a year now, though I've only been working there a few months...I was smoking at the lounge prior to that.  The times that I miss smoking hookah aren't as much when I'm alone as when I have people around and I'm sitting at the lounge with nothing to do.  I just want to sit with them and enjoy.
Right now I'm going to sit down and really decide what I want to do about this, and hardcore pray about it.  I need to figure out not just what's best for me, but what does God feel is right in this situation...?  Anyone who reads this just keep me in your prayers and pray for me to be shown the right path.


List for November 7, 2010
_x_1. Attend church at Faithbridge

__2. Don't smoke hookah **didn't accomplish**

_x_3. Figure out this months budget/bills
_x_4. Talk with PJ about religion
_x_5. Pray before bed, at the least

Today is the start of something wonderful and beautiful.

I wrote the love of my life a letter last night and told him that I wanted to be able to share my faith with him.  The long story short is that I used to be very active in church, strong in my faith, and that was a very happy time in my life.  Then things went south, I fell away from God and went down a road I wish I hadn't went down.  I associated myself with people who didn't uplift me, instead they brought me down and took me down the wrong path.  I want to make something clear, it wasn't that they weren't religious.  In fact, some of the most loving and uplifting people I have in my life aren't religious (such as Robbie, who is an atheist) and some of the ones who have brought me down the most have called themselves Christians (a particular woman comes to mind, but I have forgiven her in my heart now and so I won't name names).

No, it wasn't that they had a lack of faith, it was a myriad of other reasons.  Some "friends" wanted to do nothing around me but talk negatively about others, some wanted me to participate in things that were against my personal code of ethics, and others were just...well, not the kind of people I needed to be around.  The sad thing is that when you begin to fall away from God, all of these things begin to seem "not that bad" and before you know it you are so far away from the right direction that you don't even know up from down anymore.  The next thing I know I was doing all kinds of things, even the smallest of things that wouldn't matter to others, that I didn't want to do.  I was eating fast food every other meal if not every meal, I was further neglecting my health by smoking tobacco in the form of hookah/shisha, I was back to cursing like a sailor (I'm not against cursing by the way, will go into that at a later date), I was drinking, I was being a total bitch, and on top of that there were many other things going wrong that I don't even want to get into publicly.  My life was in shambles.  It never dawned on me that maybe my loss of faith was to blame for all of things paired with my not having a job nor a steady home.  In fact, I should say that the thought did in fact cross my mind...but I was so far gone that I just pushed it away and considered it silly.

At one point I really tried getting back into the swing of things.  I was back in church, at the awesome Living Water Christian Fellowship, and things were looking up.  I had a very part-time job, but a job nonetheless, and was living with my mom.  It wasn't the best life ever, but it was better than what I head previously.  I even put my faith in something I was weary of and God showed me a little instant gratification (which He's not always known for lol).  I remember walking into Living Water, back before the renovations, and after worship an older lady began talking to me.  She had seen me crying while I was singing and just smiled at me and asked, "So...what's your story?"  I smiled through tears and began venting.  I told her about how my ex-husband was abusive towards me and about the entire custody situation (I'll go into that also at a later date) and how I just couldn't catch a break.  She gave me a hug and promised me that things would look up for me.   Soon after that it was time for the offering/tithe.  I immediately had a thought run through my head, it was a sermon I had heard at The Rock Church in Asheville.  I remembered the verse Malachi 3:10...

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.  Test me in this," says the LORD almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have enough room for it.


I sat there, with the only five dollars I had to my name clutched in my hand.  I remember it vividly because I can recall that it seemed like forever that I sat there contemplating my next move.  Should I keep the five dollars and use it for important things like food?  Or should I put faith in one of the only times He straight up says, "Test me in this," and just give me last five dollars and know that He will provide the rest?  Finally when the basket came by, I took a long deep breath and put in the five dollars.  The next thing that happened will be chalked up to many as being just a coincidence, but I don't.  Not with every other "coincidence" that has been God related in my life.  Anyways so I sat there, almost crying, because I was just thinking, "Oh gosh what did I just do?!" and then it happened.  The service let out and the old lady who I had talked to came up and gave me a huge hug.  She told me how it was her last Sunday at Living Water because she was moving out of state.  She thanked me for talking to her and told me to just always remember that God is in my corner.  Right before she walked out of the door she shook my hand and slipped me a twenty dollar bill.

Instant gratification.  I put my faith, my full faith, in the Lord and I was met with him giving me a sign that it was the right choice.

Whew so anyways I swear there was a point to this other than my rambling.
Ah, well I guess I'll get back to my original point.  I've realized at this time in my life that God brought Patrick (PJ) to me.  He's an amazing man and my soul mate.  I believe that he was put on this earth for me, and I was put on this earth for him.  I've also spent time thinking about and noticing that there's no other way to put it...he's the other half of my spirit.  That being said, yesterday his ex- wrote him a text and talked about how she had a boyfriend now that she loves who prays with her and prays over her life.  It inspired me.  I wanted to make sure that Patrick knew that I do the same for him.  I wake up every day and thank God for him, thank God for my children, and pray over our lives because I want to show my appreciation for him every single day.  I brought up to him yesterday that I'm sad over how my life has gone in the almost year before I met him.  Sure I tried to get back to God, but it just didn't happen.  But then yesterday it hit me that I no longer want to be this stray sheep I've been.  I want to be back in the arms of God and loved for all of eternity!!  And I want to share that with Patrick.

I've told him now that I want to continue my past pursuit of becoming a youth pastor.  Sure, going to school for computer programming may seem more "realistic" but God has had this calling for my life for as long as I can remember and I want to follow the path I believe I was meant to follow.  I want to begin being active in church again the way I was at The Rock church.  I want to volunteer, I want to go on  mission trips, I want to be immersed in the Spirit every minute of EVERY DAY!!!

Now for anyone who doesn't know me, this may seem a little off kilter from my personality.  What most people don't realize is that even when I fell away from God I still believed in Him, I was still a Christian...I had just gone astray.  Yes I have pink hair, yes I have piercings and tattoos...but those are the very same things that I feel will be an advantage for me as a youth pastor.  I want to be myself and show people that no matter who you are and what you look like, GOD LOVES YOU.  He loves every dot of ink, He loves every piece of metal, He loves your mohawk....your bihawk...heck, even your trihawk haha.  He loves every single person for who they are as individuals.  And even though this is a hot button issue: He loves you if you're gay. He loves your boyfriend, He loves your girlfriend.  I don't care if people want to think I'm some terrible Christian because I'm not against homosexuality, because I don't think I'm going to heaven and having God say, "sorry, you're going to hell because you thought I loved too much."  Nope, just can't believe it :).  My God, your God, loves every single person on the face of this entire earth and you know what?  If there are aliens I bet He loves them too.

Again with the rambling, Gosh this is a long blog entry!
The end of this entry will be like the end of many entries.  I am going to make a list of things I want to do or work on not doing today.  Things to better myself as a person and as a Christian, because I feel like everyday should be used in a positive way.

List for November 6, 2010
_x_1. I will read Genesis Chapters 1-5.
_x_2. I will find my devotional and do the one for today. (Found a devotional online at upperroom.org and did that one)
_x_3. My devotional should be almost finished, so look for a new one online.
_x_4. I will treat Patrick as my equal and my soul mate.
_x_5. I will not smoke hookah.
_x_6. I reiterate: I WILL NOT SMOKE HOOKAH.
_x_7. I won't eat out, I will cook all of my meals.
_x_8. I will do my job today as best I can, because keeping a job entails working hard at it.
_x_9. I will pray before bed, at the least.