All my heart

 "Love Me with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

Mark 12:30

The other night God lead me into a time of worship with Him. It was late and I went into our office at home and shut the door,

"Should I turn on worship music?"

"No," He said, "Just sing from your heart."

And as i knelt down in the dark, my chin tucked into my chest, a crackly soft voice came from my mouth. and I wouldn't have called it singing, but I tried. And as I continued whispering words- wanting to make them rhyme with no accuracy- I began to see my life in different stages: big smiling little girl, seeking teenager, desperate twenty-something and then

He said, "I've always wanted you to love me from your heart. I never wanted to make you make you love Me, but I was always pursuing you. I love this. I love you."

Lord, I love you too...

this dark office, crackly singing, life stages, and Your words

I love You....

BE

A pit in my lower stomach-slightly sour, tense hands, stiff shoulders, straight neck...gosh why am I on edge? Nothing in my circumstances would warrant this anxiousness.

I was getting the lemons out of the fridge at work on my way to cut them for iced teas I'd serve later that day and I simply asked Him under my breath, "Why am I so anxious?"

And wisdom filled my thoughts, "Because you are always trying to compete. You want to be the best. You're trying to do things that keep you believing that you are the best. The best coworker, sister, leader, wife, friend, daughter. And it's tearing you apart inside trying to keep that together. You are petrified of making a mistake, of looking wrong."

I realized that that fear of looking "wrong" has left me quick to smile, carrying buried opinions and unspoken no's, wishing I could just be.

Jesus...would you continue to help me stop judging all my actions. Lord would You help me believe I'm loved in and through my mistakes.

"And I pray that I , being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:17-19

I like her blog...

I like my friend Bree's blog-it's funny, authentic, and she takes great photos

http://breannemichelle.blogspot.com/


Here is one of my favorite posts of hers:

Says Bree:

Have a Jesus conversation with a complete stranger. That was one of my 30 [things to do before i'm thirty] that i honestly was a bit concerned about because clearly i could choose to be "crazy Jesus girl" and force a conversation about my faith and my Jesus on somebody, but that's just not how i roll, nor do i believe it's the best way. leave it to Jesus to have the person i was talking to go ahead and bring him up in conversation - he would... he's cool like that.

so one of my dearest friends got married last night (yay emily & ed - beyond stoked for you guys!!!)

and what happens after the wedding and dinner? a dance party, of course. i was out on the dance floor, busting my amazing white girl moves with some other young life peeps with amazing white people moves (along with the de la llave family that actually has moves) and started hangin' in a group of cousins visiting from new zealand. now that's a good time.

so... on the dance floor, corona lime in hand at one of my best friends' weddings, one of the kiwi cousins, james asks me point blank,

kiwi cousin: "so what's with you guys and your religious deal?"
me: "what do you mean by "you guys" and "religious deal?"
kiwi cousin: "well, you're drinking a beer, but aren't you guys all religious and work for some organization about Jesus and aren't religious people not supposed to drink?"

at this point i begin to explain to him the difference between a religion and a relationship and that for us it's much more than just subscribing to the "laws" of a religious code so that we can be part of the club. (some of you may disagree with this and that's fine. let's chit chat about it. please.)

it's here that he suggests we move off the dance floor so we can stop yelling and we actually have this 15 minute conversation about Jesus. about how Jesus didn't come to condemn people or not let them be part of a "club" he was starting. he came to include not exclude. he came so that we don't have to live by laws and so we don't. we choose to live a certain way and make certain choices because that's how we feel is the best way to live based on scripture and our individual relationship with Jesus, but you're not "excluded from the cool kid Jesus club" if you don't agree - God didn't create puppets, he created people.

he asked some questions about the difference between what new zealand deems "religion" and what us crazy young life people see as a "relationship" and then explained to me that where they live it's a you're-in-or-you're-out religious society. if you go to church and subscribe to a certain set of rules, you're in. if not, you're out...

and i got to tell him that with Jesus you're never uninvited or "left out," you just have to choose to be in. i got to tell him that we are also church people and that those people probably aren't bad people and they probably really do care, but many of them are just scared to go outside of what they know and have these conversations with people who don't.

and i got to tell him that a life with Jesus brings so much freedom - the freedom to choose whether to have a beer or not and celebrate at a wedding with Jesus-lovin' people, the freedom to have these conversations and walk away with neither of us feeling condemned by the other, the freedom to love people where they're at and respect them for that and the freedom to choose a life that is truly life because we believe there's just a better way to live.

something had made james curious about the way we live. our lives demanded explanation and that's just how it should be if we're livin' for Jesus. maybe it was the golf game earlier that weekend with scott, the YL regional director who he said was one of the most interesting and kind people he'd ever met or maybe it was the way we lived life and celebrated ed and emily with such joy and reckless abandon without needing to drink too much (or not drink at all) to have fun, but he saw something different.

i don't know what God's going to do in james' life but i'm grateful for our dance floor chat and i'm grateful that my having a beer with him while being a Christian was what allowed to feel comfortable enough to bring up the conversation. and mostly, i'm grateful that i got to share the Thing that means the most to me with a perfect stranger.

mission 6 accomplished. thanks for that one, Jesus. 

So small

The other night I was up late watching the American Music Awards, Jason had already gone to bed, and in my head I heard the Lord say, "Turn off the tv and talk with Me." Inside I was like, "Really Lord, but there are like four more performances." And again He said, "No really, I want to share something with you." I couldn't whine after that, so I quickly turned off the tv.

I was sitting alone on my big, black, leather couch in my tv room, blanket in tow, lights on, staring up at the vaulted ceilings. And He said, "Lift up your hands." And as I did, in a cupped like position, He said, "See all the things you want like trips to San Francisco, Paris, a full closet of clothes. Those things are so small compared to what I have for you." And as I lifted up my hands higher into the air, they did look so small against the backdrop of my living room, and He said, "Let those things go, and I will do more through you than you could ever ask for or imagine." And as I sat there releasing my cupped hands, symbolizing my letting go of so many of my desires I let out a whimper, “but Lord I realllly want to go to those places…”And it was as though a daddy with compassion on His little girl scooped me up, winked, gave me a big smile and said, “…I will take you places.”

I will take you places…

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen."Ephesians 3:20-21

Let no man put asunder....

I wanted to write a post about marriage. Growing up I was really scared to get married. To me marriage equaled: divorce, cheating, and unhappiness. I feared that if I willingly walked into marriage, just hoping for the best, that I'd end up with a pile of pictures, moving boxes, and custody battles.

Marriages I'd seen looked nothing like something I'd actually want to choose.

When Jason and I were dating and got serious we had a lot of conversations about my fears. Some of these conversations were heated, some were awkward, some emotional (well all of em were emotional on my end), but they always ended good. We would talk about Jesus being at the center. That when we got married we'd take issues to Him and ask for His help and wisdom. That we'd ask Him to help us grow and change and work on stuff. That we'd ask Him to give us perspective. And as we maneuvered through the dating process and started going to counseling and premarital classes-we continued to grow closer and closer together in the vision of what we wanted from a marriage- our expectations, our hopes of what our marriage would represent... what it would be...

Now two years into my marriage with Jason- God has given us a lot of wisdom, passion, hilariousness,  patience, and tons of help with issues we've brought to Him.

I praise Him that those fears, I had growing up, gave me a passion for marriage instead of continuing to scare me away from what has been the best blessing of my life.

Jason-I love...... loooove being your wife

A tree

So, the last couple of days I've been made very aware of some of my bratty attitudes, evil desires, and bad habits. And each time I'm suddenly conscious of these things I'm like,
"Uhhh...gosh that's part of me. I am so sorry Lord. Please forgive me and help me get rid of that."

So, specifically tonight I was made aware of an evil desire, and I immediately confessed it to Him and said how sorry I was. But then I started feeling kind of gross, and I was like "Gosh, am I ever going to get rid of these things?! I feel frustrated and overwhelmed with how much work needs to be done still."

And then He quickly showed me a picture

It was a picture of me, but as a tree. I had big, bushy leaves and fruit hanging from my branches. And there was this one piece of fruit dangling; it was darker than the rest and had obviously gone bad.

As God showed me that even though I, as a tree, desperately wanted some sort of extremity to reach out and yank that bad fruit off of me-I couldn't.

I couldn't

And then in the picture there was a man, a man who looked like a gardener. This gardener walked up to me, the tree, and picked the bad fruit right from my branch. Just like that.

Jesus says, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."

I was instantly comforted and reminded of the fact that I can't fix myself. I can't make myself better or good. And it only hurts me if I beat myself up or become frustrated at myself, because I'm not who I hoped I'd be by now.

I'm okay...and it's going to be okay...because He is the gardener and I am the tree.