Unapologetically and Honestly Loving Others with Reckless Abandon

There are things that happen in life that you can't control and then there are things that happen that you can control. So how do you know when to step in and when to let go? How do you tell your friend that they aren't acting right and when do you leave that up to God? When do you step in to help a friend that is on a downward spiral and when do you let God be their savior and realize you are not? The only answer that I have for that is seek God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and let him lead and guide you! Allow him to show you when to speak and when to remain silent, when to point out things to them and when to refrain. I believe that when you are more attentive to what God wants to do or say to someone, healing can come from that. I know that for me, I have been in situations when I have wanted to share something and yet felt that tug on my heart to remain silent. I can honestly say that I haven't always taken my own advice and remained silent, but when I

"O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago." Isaiah 25:1  How cool is that, that God has things planned so long ago and yet in all the time that passes from planning to now, he remains faithful to you. I love how amazingly faithful God is to us every day. Today I was reminded of that as I was in worship. God showed up, I mean in a new way. It was a really amazing thing to see that since I haven't seen my church walk in that ever. See I believe in the gifts and moving of the Holy Spirit accurately and appropriately. Due to some past hurts and pains that my dad has experienced he is a bit more stand offish about that. I am all about it and desire for us all to move in the gifts but I do realize that there is a maturity that has to be there as well. See about 14 years ago something that was I believe meant to encourage believers came to our church and hurt a lot of peopl

Tough times are apart of us all. Whether we are young and fighting with a friend about a toy or we are older and fighting with the mirror about how we look. I know that things in this day and age are so different than even what our parents had to grow up with and endure at our age. I was talking with a friend the other night about how different our culture is even just from our parents and how much more sex and filth we are bombarded with daily. If it isn't a sleezy billboard, magazine or commercial, its in the clothing stores and on T.V. I am so tired of having to try and compare and compete with those images that guys so easily compare us to. It makes it hard to ever feel beautiful or pretty about yourself ever when the image of beauty portrait is not what I look like or any regular girl in school. I know that alot of my friends struggle with this more than I do but it never makes it easier. I have always believed that God made me exactly this way for a reason and so I need to be

So how can you draw strength from God when you feel like you don't even have the strength to ask? This has been a puzzling question for me lately because not having enough strength to make it to the next breathe, that is something I am learning well. I have thought many times before this day that I was definitely at the end of my rope. Yet I endured more and life went on even when I was in the midst of pain. Then things would be easy for a while and then again, hit with more pain. I would feel at the end of myself again and then again I would still go on. This has been my life cycle for the past few years. When God desires to birth something through you and he desires to allow you to walk out your dreams, you come to the end of yourself ALOT! And I mean ALOT!!! These past few years have truly been a roller coaster that I have many times wanted to halt just to catch my breath but that isn't how life works. You endure something and you have to find the moments in that storm to ca