random

We're leaving for camp tomorrow! I'm so excited about being in the mountains and getting a week off of work, and of Jacksonville and all the memories that lurk around EVERY CORNER! Woo!

I hope so much that I'll be able to go horseback riding. That would be fabulous, it would make my summer.

I saw Stomp tonight, it was a blast.

I wanna go to UM.

I had a wonderfully blessed day today. The Lord is SO lovely!

Love Song

Ponder this: If God wrote a love song, how would it sound? What would the lyrics be?

You know, I don't think God would write a song to express love; He's so beyond that. He knows my heart, what will make it beat faster. He captures my heart and steals my breath with glory filled sunsets and moonlit lakes. He sings to me in a cool spring breeze; first rustling through the fresh green leaves, then cascading gently over me, lingering just long enough to whisper, "you're beautiful." He woo's me with a peaceful star filled sky, and causes me to fall for Him by making one fall for me. These are God's words of affection, His candlelit dinners, and His long slow dances. These are His firm embraces, gentle kisses, His love song. These are the things that my soul's Lover orchestrates, so that I might know His everlasting love for me.

Time Flies

It's true...the time flew. God is my hearts keeper.

Letter from Kevin

Shi, embrace the moments. I am easily distracted; if I am not careful I will miss the blessing and joy of a happy moment worrying about other stuff. I have struggled most of my life with incorrect focus. Now, I fight to be in the moment.

You don't know the heart of the "T-Rex," only God does, so praise God for the present break up. Listen, trust the Love of Jesus enough to know that your Husband will not only be hand picked by God, but will not be allowed to marry you before the right time. As a child of God you must embrace the process that God takes you through as much as the end result. If you follow God exactly to this point then praise God and celebrate the breakup.

God will either bring the two of you back together or begin a deeper process of preparation for marriage for both of you to someone else. Shi, it’s easier for me to say than for you to hear because I am not emotionally experiencing this process like you are, but it doesn't make this any less true. Remind your flesh daily that your God loves you, and that He will not allow just anyone to marry you because you live each day surrendered to His will.

Shi rejoice in knowing that if God wanted you to be married to the T-Rex, and He believed that the two of you were truly ready for the type of amazing intimacy and respect and passion that your marriage is destined to have, that you would already be married. Knowing God's future plans for you (remember David) is the same thing as waiting patiently for God's timing (remember King Saul).

Here is a simple thing to remember: find the joy in today and embrace it, go beyond that, fight for it. Find the joy and be available to God; in ministering to others, in eating an endless supply of FRUIT :)

The devil wants you saddened by a "possible" future event when God wants you embracing his blessings today.

-Kevin

UMobile

I visited the University of Mobile this weekend. I loved it. It felt like home. I have no clue whether or not I’ll end up there...I'm still prayin.

I was indescribably nervous about traveling down there, and about how awkward it would be. But God is so faithful! I’m glad that things were smoothed over, and that the friendship still remains. Now I’ve just gotta figure out how to remove my heart from the matter, if that’s even possible. Is it wrong for me to hope that God will restore this relationship someday? I know it’s wrong for me to dwell on it, and I believe that with time it will subside. Lord, let the time fly!

My greatest fear is that this will end up being in vain, that I’ll neglect God in thought. “…be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” That’s what I’m so hungry for.

Beauty?

"I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing in all thinking." -George MacDonald

Amen!

Let's talk about this struggle with contentment, this fascination that beauty is society-defined. You see, the world wants me to believe that physical beauty = flawlessness.

This is what God says about it: "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment...instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." -1 Peter 3:3-4

You see, true beauty is the radiance of a life that is captivated by God, and walks in His peace.

The first time I read that verse I thought about the most beautiful women I know, and what it is that makes them so captivating. They all radiate Jesus. Their lives point to Him. Not just your average arm in the air, pointing to the sky with one finger kinda point...these sistas are jumping up and down with both arms raised, and shouting "look at my Jesus!"

Explanation

First, I must clear something up. When I said my trust got redirected, I didn’t mean I stopped trusting in my Savior. I guess the best way to explain it is to just lay it all out there…

I was in an extremely serious relationship (on the verge of engagement. Yes, we had the ring). I placed so much hope in the future marriage. I tried so hard to make sure that God was the center of that relationship, that I neglected the intimacy that I had with God before that guy even came along.

I don’t want this blog to be about him or us…I want it to be a chronicle of my destiny to decrease. "He must become greater; I must become less." -John 3:30

I love so much when God uses the natural to explain the spiritual…like Jesus did with parables. He gives me parables all the time. For example, last night in Bible study we talked about the term “on the fence.” Have you ever known someone who just doesn’t know what they want? I do. But what that person couldn’t figure out was whether or not I was “the one.” One day I heard that “God is confirming to me more and more every day that you are” and two days later it was “I’ve been having doubts for a week, I don’t know if you’re the one. I'll call you when I find out.”

God brought that to mind last night when Nina asked “So how do you think God feels when we’re on the fence about Him, and about the stands He wants us to take in our lives?” It broke my heart to know that so many times my actions void out my words: “Here am I, all of me, take my life, it’s all for Thee.” Have I ever said that and let it be true? Does He really have all of me? I wish I was sure, but my thoughts are so consumed by my present circumstances, that I doubt it. It’s my earnest desire for Him to captivate my every thought and emotion. I want the intimacy that we walked in before.

This is the promise that my faithful Creator gives me:
“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.”

So this is where I am right now...Broken. Confused. Thankful. Blessed. Waiting. Longing for true intimacy with the One who created it.

In Christ Alone...

It's so easy to say "in Christ alone." I wish I could say I put my trust in Him alone...but recently I realized that my trust was misguided for a while.

I may share the details later...