~

To live my life pure in Your eyes. To sacrifice all I have. To love You more each day. To give all I have to give away. To follow Your path and Your desires. To be who You created me to be.

I want to live my life loving Him more and more each day. Sometimes I feel like I just don't know how, its in those times I just seem to find my way.

Lost Identity

"If you try to find intimacy with another person before achieving a sense of identity on your own, all your relationships become an attempt to compete yourself."

A course at Seattle Pacific U taught by Dr Les & Leslie Parrott is always started with that statement.

Take a moment and think about that. Think about moments you've tried to be complete in someone else. When someone else is in need of you, your services, desires you...you then feel complete, right?

As humans we constantly are searching and trying to find fulfillment in something, someone or somewhere other than ourselves...or rather, Christ inside of us.

I have a friend who has had a rough past year. Over the last year they have gone from a serious relationship - 5 years together + engagement - to calling off the wedding two months out, breaking off the relationship completely, trying not to face the heartbreak, dating 3 or 4 people at a time to now dating someone they never would have considered dating and have now begun to consider getting engaged to this new person. What does that look like to you? Someone who is searching, looking for something to fill a void in their life.

I truly think when a seriously relationship is ended, you need time to find out who you are again, time to regain a sense of stability in yourself and who you are in Christ. Granted, this shouldn't be lost in a relationship, but you have begun to walk in sync with the person you are dating. Now you must be just you once again (which is a good thign). There is this time and need not to be in a relationship. Otherwise you are going to begin to jump from relationship to relationship, one person to the next... Rebound. Cough, cough. Its amazing how real that silly little term is. We've all heard it whispered, discussed, laughed about or even cried about - rebound. But just how real it is, is heartbreaking.

When you've lost (or even never had gained) the identity of YOU and put any identity you own into a relationship - you can't be complete enough to handle a healthy relationship. You can't be real enough for someone to love you, fully love YOU. Then you've begun to try to complete yourself in that person's love for you, need for you, caring for you... Women begin to clean house and nest, men begin to make more money, be more macho. Its human nature to want the feeling of being needed.

Now there's a healthy balance to being needed; a healthy equal between being needed and being stable in who you are.

Think about that statement one more time - how are you finding stability in Christ and who Christ has made you....JUST you.

"If you try to find intimacy with another person before achieving a sense of identity on your own, all your relationships become an attempt to compete yourself."

Do I Measure Up?

I've come to realize I may never be good enough. I just may not measure up. What if all I have to give you, isn't enough? What if you tire of who I am, tire of "us"? Two people loving each other, a relationship does not make. I'm afraid you'll say goodbye and walk away. I'm afraid you'll find me a bore, silly, ridiculous or what you never bargained for. Yes, I can be quite worse than each of those.

But all in all, I'm afraid I'll fail. I'm afraid I won't be able to stick things out, to follow through. I'm afraid I won't know just how to love you. I'm afraid to let go and be 100 % in this, as much as I should. My heavy heart sinks down knowing that you are amazing and I fall more than just shy of perfect. I'm this broken, slightly ruined person just trying to piece my life together with some sort of semblence it should hold. I try and try to be your match, to help you be who you are supposed to be...but some how, some way I feel as though I fail in each and every way.

Post Secret

What is your deepest darkest secret?

What would you only share with a stranger...someone who would not judge you? Someone who would just listen and not talk? What are you afraid of the world knowing about you?

This weekend for a Young Life project the leaders shared their deepest secrets. Its amazing what people would love to get out, just get off their chest - if they are given the opportunity. Have you taken the time to trust someone enough to pour your soul out for them? To give them the ability to love you - the real you.

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/2008/02/sunday-secrets_17.html
http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2510394290074606470BHdZJm

Assuming...

...only makes an, well we know the saying, out of ...you. Not me. Once you've assumed and come to conclusions, you don't seem to care to know the truth. You've got your theories and ideas, you've written a novel and suggestions of what it may be. But its not. Its not the truth at all, you have conjured up quite the story inside your head. Your idea of the truth is, sadly, far past misconstrued. I fear that you've let what others said, the lies and deception they played, find a place inside your head. Now your heart has followed, you begun to live the life of "taking the high road" when it was never the low road to begin with. Its amazing all they've told ME, thinking I would want to know; continuing the gossip and angry things they said. Your friends, they said once they were; now they come running, wanting me to know the "truth". First thought in my head, I don't have a concern with what you've spoken. My life I live, my own to keep or ruin, to live aware or broken. I fear for you, for the place you've arrived at - living with the lies. I tried to stop it - I warned him of HIS own words. Now you've become angry, quite revengeful and bitter.


But the best part of it all...you're a better Christian. Such a great person. Good thing I have Christ to save me, right?

Or rather -It is a good thing I am open and honest before my Christ, knowing He sees the good in me and my potential. But mostly, that He loves the bad and corrects the things I need to change. That I allow Him to have full reign...

The More I Seek You

The more I seek You,

the more I find You...

The more I find You,

the more I love You.

I wanna sit at Your feet,

drink from the cup in Your hand,

Lean back against You and breathe,

feel Your heartbeat...

This love is so deep...

It's more than I can stand...

I melt in Your peace...

It's overwhelming.

This is what my heart screams and begs for. I just want Him to be there...I just want to feel that He is a part of me, a part of my every day life. Yet, so often I run in the other direction. Fear, my lack of abilities and my flesh run. They take over where my spirit should be in charge. They take over and make me feel in capable. Yet, each day I will strive to be better.

"My flesh is slave

My soul is servant

My spirit is King

We are spirit beings with souls that live in a body. Which is controlling your life?"

~Phillip Baker

Si Se Puede

But what if I can't? What if I don't win? What if I don't get the job? What if this all fails and I am only left with me?

Will it be quite enough to have Jesus? What a struggle it is to find the balance of striving for more and knowing that Jesus is quite enough...


no matter what

My Boyfriend...he's fantastic.

When I have a bad day...and my boyfriend is out of town, he still makes me smile. Really, he's fantastic...

Falling From the Mountain

Have you ever had a day where it felt like everything was just falling apart. As if you were standing upon a mountain top and the snow beneath you begins to fall. It never starts as this huge collapse - it starts with a few snowballs, pieces of snow cascade down the mountain. Then it turns into sheets of snow. Like silk white sheets of the mountain bed slowly sliding to the valley floor beneath, slipping slowly at first and then crumbling all together in one mass. Slipping off like water falling through the cracks of the mountain. You're standing there, upon this mountain that rises with eminence; great wonder and power of the bluff envelopes you. And there you feel so small, just watching this snowfall beneath your feet waiting for the ground beneath you to move. Anticipating the inevitable. You can feel the terrain you're upon trembling...it begins to slip and you begin to fall.
Have you felt like your life was falling apart like that? These little things become awry and then it seems as if large parts follow right with it. It all seems to come to shambles at one time. As if life and the world we live in is set to self destruct in unison. WE can't even life in unison, only the 'bad' can. It works together trying to pick at and destroy your life, destroy who you are.
Then, then what do you do? Fight back? Walk away? Give up? Turn to someone else?

Life's Effects

Its amazing how those instants of pain, aggrevaition, humiliation, fear and anxiety have created who I am today. Who I am in this relationship. It was the traces of time where love came in, that made me a better person. Its all these things combined, who cause me to be who I am. Those things make me love stronger, fear deeper and hold back harder. Those moments of pain and such...made me afraid to let go and give 100%. But maybe, just maybe...those small moments of love...will help me to give just a bit more today, and a bit more tomorrow and a bit more...

Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace

Sitting in silence...he feels the room is screaming. No understanding of why it can be so calm around him, yet the echos inside his mind are rivals for attention. The thoughts he's had, the hurt he's felt, the love he's tried to give...all bouncing around pushing each other further and further into the noise he hears. These echos of noise, these echos of joys, pains, regrets, fears. In silence, is how he lives to ward off the chaos he feels. Patience is what grips him. He has become it's slave; patience always his master. Following patience around like a dog to master, not understanding how it could truly bring a return to him. Waiting, hoping and yearning for answers he sits. Sits in silence. Surrounded by noise he hears inside. Questions run rampid through him; wondering why? Wondering when? Wondering how this all has become.

Then that moment comes where it enters. It is if a royal trumpet sounds, a gasp can be heard throughout the room, everyone is taken back, purple velvet is flowing, the crowd stands upon their feet then bows low to the ground, eyes averted in reverence...and then....and then!

Grace enters. Grace upon his life. Grace upon the choices he's made. Grace upon the questions and fears inside of his head. Grace for the hurt and pain he has felt. Grace for every mistake he has made. Grace for understanding. Grace for the patience he needs to survive.

Cascade

I'm falling in love. And for some reason, this time is feels so different. Its quite scarier than it ever has been. And strangely, I want this more than I ever have before. It feels...different. Maybe because I feel like I can't stop it, I can't stop myself.



And maybe because it feels right.