Zechariah...

I miss my nephew.

End of story.

People watching.

I love to people watching.

It intrigues me.

It breaks my heart.

Issues.

I have a lot of issues.

I am so blessed that God is so patient with me.

Deuteronomy 23:5

Last night at Watershed Beth Moore had an amazing talk. There were a couple scripture that penetrated my heart. Deuteronomy 23:5 was one of them. It says, "But the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam; instead the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the LORD your God loved you." This really hit me for many reasons. First of all when I first read it I had to catch my breath reading the last line, "because the LORD your God loved you." I mean I know God loves me. But sometimes it just entirely takes me breath away, leaves me speechless, bewildered, humbled and joyful. My God loves me. Loves me. I also loved that God was referred to as "the LORD your God" three different times in just one sentence. I don't think that this repetition was just because God didn't have another way to refer to himself... Satan tried with everything he had to make Jon and my break up into a curse for me. But praise God for the blessing that has come from it. God is good. God is so good.

Last night God revealed a lot to me. He spoke to my heart so gently and lovingly, yet in some cases very sternly. For a solid five minutes I just spoke out apologies to God as I was driving home. There are ways in which I live sometimes I just wonder how in the world I am so blind to the detrimental nature of them. Thank the LORD your God for forgiveness, grace, mercy and a clean start.

Beth Moore said something last night. It struck me so deeply.

"We want God to give us strength from our vein imaginations."

That is me right now. That epitomizes me this past month and I pray that I cannot say that a week from now.

I am going to embark on a study called "Me, Myself and Lies" that my cousin is letting me borrow. I am making my heart as vulnerable as possible with God and am going to try to allow him to do so much work and shaping no matter how much it may hurt me. I just have to get myself out of the way and let God loose in my heart. The scariest prayer that I can pray but am forcing myself to pray numerous times a day is "LORD, have your way."

"Jesus my heart must know I'm pleasing to you"

I have probably blogged about this song time and time again.

But every time we sing it I never fail to be moved, to be drastically moved.

VERSE 1
Sanctify me
Clean out my closet
Take away anything
That is not pleasing to You

Purify me
Destroy all my anger
Wash away everything
That is not pleasing to You

CHORUS
I will be white as snow
I will be pure as gold
Jesus my heart must know
I'm pleasing to You

I give my life my all
Taking the cross I will follow
Jesus my heart must know
I'm pleasing to You

VERSE 2
Sanctify me
You are the light to guide me
To the place where I am
Only pleasing to You

Oh come and Purify me Lord
I need your light inside me
So the darkness flees
And I can be pleasing to You

I always am thrown into a time of deep mediation and self-assessment as we sing that song.

And I am always brought so humbly to me knees.

Nothing about me should be pleasing to Jesus.

There's always one prevalent area of my heart that God is working on because it is disgusting and not in line with who he is. And then there are all of the other parts that God is not working on yet because he knows I cannot handle it all at one time. There will never be a time I can seriously test my heart and claim that it is pleasing to Jesus. Time and time again I have to face the daunting reality that I am a poor miserable sinner dying without the blood of Jesus. But praise God, I have been covered by his blood and I do have life. In times where we are testing our own hearts Satan definitely tries to jump in and from the truths we find about how short we fall of the glory of God, he tries to manipulate them into lies that God's love is in some way conditional on how we act. It is the victory of Jesus Christ that we have to claim, and when we do we can walk restored and beaming with the light of Christ.

They are on the plane now.

http://denisebickel.theworldrace.org/

http://michaelmurphy.theworldrace.org/

And they are officially world racers...

My parent's house.

I am at my parent's house now...

not my house, my parents.

Weird.

I have internet.

I want to blog.

I have nothing to say.

Denise and Mike leave tomorrow and I promised Denise I would not be sappy when I say goodbye.

So if I blog about them my heart will get sappy and I'll cry therefore I will not be able to just goof around with her when we say goodbye like she wants me too.

So I am lame.

This is the worst blog ever.

But I would feel like a horrible person not blogging in five days.

This is the end.

If you made it to the end reading this I apologize that nothing good came from it.

Magnetic Poetry.

Goldfish has a magnetic poetry board filled with random words.

A couple months ago Jaime and I began our endeavor of proclaiming the Gospel on this board every time we come in. The other day we came in just so Jaime could pee and I put together, "He will always be light in the storm." When we have more time we put together more. I have decided to keep track of everything we do so I am going to put them up on here too.

This is the one I just spent the last half hour doing.

by the blood

true love is near

say yes to him

he will never lie or leave you

he sees your delicate beauty and sings over you

sky and sun show he is power

light wind whispers worship

sour beneath the shadow of his arm

live in moments when time is a gift

to tell of his death and our life together

Royal Oak Residents.

So Jaime and I are officially moved into our 300 sq. ft apartment in Royal Oak. I could not be more excited for what this entails. I know that through our living together and what he is doing in each of our lives he has huge things in store for us here. I could not be more excited for the future than I am at this point in my life. We don't have internet at our place which after this weekend I have found to be a huge blessing from God. There are plenty of places that have free wireless internet, the best being Goldfish Tea (as I am interrupted by the owner and given a card asked to vote for them on clickondetroit.com/4thebest, I obviously did since I had just typed that they were the best). If I am going to choose to walk somewhere to use internet it always makes me think twice if it's truly worth the walk to just check my facebook real quick. I have found most times it is not and instead I stay and spend more time in the word or singing to Jesus. Such a better way to spend my time.

We have also officially begun our P90X workout. Today I did an hour of plyometrics which is a mostly squat and jumping exercises (which let me tell you is fun to do in an apartment where the ceiling is only a few inches above your head c: ) and a sixteen minute Ab Ripper workout. By the end my shirt did not have a single dry spot. Such joy.

Working a four hour shift in the middle of the afternoon usually bugs me. What with a half an hour drive both ways and missing the entire morning which is when all of the meat happens makes it just kind of dreary. But today, I am all about it for some reason. I slept in until 8:25, talked with Jaime for a bit before she headed off to school, worked out, showered, cleaned, organized, and here I sit enjoying a mixed berry with black tea powder smoothie. After work I have Watershed Bible study which I missed last week and am so eager to go to tonight. I could not imagine together a more relaxing and exciting day. It is so great how God knows exactly what we need. If I had to pick the perfect day this would not be it, but right now, in this moment, it's perfect. God is so good.

I need to be responsible and do my whole change of address deal.

How long can I procrastinate on that?

Contingency.

The fact that the Love Jesus has for me is not based on my actions, what I say or what I don't say is beautiful. The fact that it doesn't matter how much I screw up Jesus loves me with such a deep and intimate love that he chooses to forgive me and give me yet another chance gives me goosebumps and makes my heart flutter.

The other day my dad was telling me that his love for my mom is not based on what she has done that day or his particular feelings towards her. She is not the perfect wife and makes mistakes, yet his love for her is ever growing. These past few years especially I have seen that mutual love between them. I cannot even imagine one without the other. They just go.

Call me crazy, old school or unrealistic but one day I am going to be with a man who can love me like that. One day I will be with a man who will fight with everything he has to win my heart and then keep and cherish it like it is the most precious thing he has ever had. One day I will be with someone who will see beauty in my imperfections, who will feel pain in his heart over a single tear in my eye, whether it is his doing or not at all. There will be someone one day who will feel so blessed to spend a mere five minutes with me or be able to talk to me on the phone.

I know that no one can be Christ, but they can try. I have been overwhelmed with the love of Christ and if he thinks I am worth dying for, then I am not going to question if I am worth loving.

"And in order to ever pursue a relationship with anyone in the physical realm, I must first have a relationship with the creator, molder, and perfecter of all good things. And stop making excuses."