Awesome Weekend

It has been so long since I have blogged so I thought I would share some of my thoughts over the past weekend. This weekend I got to celebrate with some friends. Jean got married on Saturday and it was by far one of the most beautiful weddings I have got to witness!! Jean's family is so special. They have this way of when you walk into their home you feel like family! You feel like you belong and you can feel the presence of their Love for each other and the Lord. Steve is one lucky guy to be joining a family so special and to have Jean has his wife. Their love for each other shined throughout the whole day! I am so glad that I got to witness their day!! I didn't think I could afford to go up there but God made it happen!!

I love spending time with Jean & Crystal they refresh my photography brain and encourage me to learn more. They are my teachers! Crystal and I got to go back to where it all began, Turners Falls, MA and remember the Hallmark days! I got to see my landlords and it was cool to be back at the placed I lived for ten months and really grew up! It's hard to believe it was five years ago that I signed that wall in the basement and now here I am! I am so blessed with the opportunities and experiences that I have got to be apart of. The Lord has really shown me a lot in the past five years and my love for him as grown through each struggle, stress, happiness, and with each laugh and tear it has been so worthwhile!! :)

Crystal and I got to drive all over New England! We started out in Hartford, CT. Stayed in Vermont and traveled up to Portsmouth NH (which do not have good signs for highways at all!! Spent an hour circling to find the highway we needed!). They we headed up coast and Kittery, Maine and York, Maine where we got walk on the beach and best of all got to swing while the moon was coming over the ocean!! It was a beautiful to watch God's masterpiece at work! I love the ocean so much, the sound of the waves and the sand in your toes!! I love you, Lord and thanks so much for making this vacation happen! You know I need the rest and good old fashion friends to inspire, encourage, and laugh with! I love you, Lord!

I posted some photos from the trip so mainly tomorrow at work I can show the girls!!! :)

Humble Heart!

In humility humble your heart and soul. Humble yourself and God will lift you up. He has freed us and all we have to do is humble our hearts to the feet of the cross. Get on your knees and truly humble your heart. I have found out that when you drop to your knees and really talk with God it truly brings peace. Try it, and you will find out that when you truly give it all to God you will get the greatest peace. Decrease yourself and lower yourself before the one who created you! Its funny how hard it is to drop to you knees. We so think we can handle it on our own and besides getting on your knees just sounds dumb! Then I tried it and since then I sometimes still find it tough to truly humble myself but when I do I get this greatest since of comfort in knowing that Christ really has in under control.

He knows what is happening tomorrow. He knows what will happen in ten seconds from now. He holds life in his hands and he knows when we will die, but in the mean time we need to be alive in Christ. We should make fools of ourselves for Christ! If you want to dance, dance. If you want to sing, sing. If you want to jump up and down and go crazy, Go For IT! We are young in spirit no matter how old we are. It is ok to be silly and have fun with life. While you are going crazy, do it for Jesus! Whatever you are doing with your life do it for the Jesus! Life's meaning is wrapped in Christ and therefore our lives should show that!! Life may throw you curve balls and seem insane and guess what we might lose some of our battles, but who cares! God is the winner. We might feel like losers, but guess what when we give it all to the Lord, He is the winner and therefore, we are the winners.

Expecting More!

Lately I've been hearing about Pray Big! So I'm giving it a try and so far no results from praying big, but I have been getting more confident in the fact that when I pray big I will get big answers, it might not be the answers I want, but I know and trust in the fact that God is bigger and He is at work. The history has proven over and over again, that God has a bigger plan in store for us. He has this divine work that He is working in each and everyone of us. Lately it seems that I have been getting one more thing to add to my prayer list that I think God is really sick of hearing from me. I'm getting sick of giving him bad news when I know he already knows the outcome. I need to trust in the fact that He has it all under control!!! He has the answers in his hands. As I just wrote that I looked down at my desk and saw the photo of Mason in Mike's hands(which is above), and that is how God sees us. We are so tiny, but he has us in his hand to where we can feel secure and loved. That brought tears to my eyes because right now Mike is having tests done because they found a mass on his kidney and it could be cancerous. Please pray, He just got to meet his beautiful son and now this news and please pray for Deborah that she can be encouraged and strengthened to be there for Mike. I am so sick of cancer!!!! :)

Clouded Head!

I've come to realize that when my brain is in overload, I shut down...everything around me seems like a blur and I can't see. It takes a few days or sometimes weeks for me to see through the fog, well I am finally seeing through the fog. It started the week of the Beth Moore conference when I when I found out a really awesome friend of mine has cancer and then the conference just put my head in overload and it took me awhile to understand, but because of it I am stronger and digging into scripture like I never had before and am finding out amazing stuff.

Here are some of my notes from the conference and some of my own in site as I go through them! :)

There were six statements that Beth Moore went through...

1. Man was created in the image of God
2. The fall of man distorted the image of God, but failed to destroy it
3. Christ IS the image of the invisible God
4. Christ incarnation was not only to redeem man. It was also to redeem the image of God in man.
5. Yielded to His Spirit redeemed man increasingly emanates the image of God
6. The purpose of man's existantance will be complete when he beholds the unveiled image of God.

First off we have to start with Imago Dai which is by definition "image of God" applied uniquely to humans, which denotes the symbolical relation between God and humanity. Genesis 1:27 "God created man in his own image." This totally thrilled and scared me because if we are the image of God and He created us in His image, man I need to get my act together!! :) God is seriously the best artist I've ever known. I mean look at what he created. There is no way all of this could have just appeared. He took his time and he created every fiber of this world and then He created us!! Instead of just saying "let there be human" He took his time and created and sculpted us into His image, and then He actually breathed life into us. His breath made us who we are. He is in us! Just think on that a moment...

He is in us!!! This was God's plan and you know he thought it through! God has a purpose! "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "Plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 We may have fallen short, but God ultimately has it figured it out. Yea sometimes we wonder around confused, but God has the plan and will put us on that path we need to be going in order to fulfill His plan. No matter how hard anyone tries they cannot destroy God's image. They just can't because fact is He created us in His image and we can't change that!

Christ Is the image of the invisible God: Colossaians 1:15(the Message) "We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank of angels-everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it together right up to this moment." You see Jesus was here before it all began because He is God! He knew when He came into this world, He was here to fix it!! He knows we are corrupted and need a Savior. We all have these god images and idols that we hold onto in our lives. I know I sometimes hold onto these things like TV and what people think of me and sometimes they become all I think about. I want to lose myself in a show because I don't want to face reality and in doing so that becomes an idol. Yea, I don't bow down to it, but it does take my time away from making the one who created me famous and takes away my time from studying his word. Isaiah 40:18 "To whom, then will you compare God? What image will compare him to?" What image do you have of God? How do you picture Him? This was a weird concept to me. I don't think I ever sat down and really thought of this. How do I perceive God? Is he this mean guy up in Heaven treating us like puppets or is He this great guy up in Heaven who loves and dotes on us and wants us to have this wonderful relationship with us? He loves us. God is LOVE!!

Hebrews 1 (the Message) "Recently he spoke to us directly through his Son. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will belong to the Son at the end. This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God's nature. He holds everything together by what he says-powerful words!" Jesus is our example for what God is like. Recently I have been studying Jesus The One and Only by Beth Moore, and then at the conference when she said this I thought back to the study and it made me think. God is amazing!! Jesus is amazing!! Jesus loved every one and was always there for anyone who needed him, from the homeless, sick, adulteresses, sinners, everyone! Writing this brings tears to my eyes because Jesus is my best friend! He is always there with comforting and encouraging words. He never puts me down, he laughs at me and with me! If Jesus is the image of the invisible God I cannot wait to someday meet Him!!! Study Luke and you will see Jesus is AMAZING!!!

People ask why did Jesus come as a man? This was an awesome concept as well. Jesus had to be man because we were in God's image. Jesus knew He was sent here to die on a cross because we needed a Savior. We needed someone to take away our disgusting sins and bring back our image. We needed the perfect invisible image of God to come down on earth in man form to save us. And Guess what? Jesus did just that!! He rescued us and when he rescued us we were given the image of God back by the Holy Spirit. Now there is no locked door that can keep Him out!! No matter how destroyed we feel or how insecure or inadequate nothing can keep Him out and He will keep knocking and knocking until that one day you open the door and say "Ok God, I'm ready" and that day will change your entire life. He will knock your socks off! It won't be easy and most of your questions won't be answered until that day at the pearly gate but He will work wonders in your life. When you are in despair He will encourage you. When you feel the tears coming He will wipe them away. When you feel the anger coming on He will listen and when your done will say "Ok, now let's fix it." God loves you so deal with it! :) That was said by the worship leader and I loved it so I wrote it down!

When Jesus died on the cross He unveiled our veiled faces! Ephesians 4:22-24 "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness" He took on our sins and gave us new life! When we give our lives over to Christ we are new people. We say goodbye to our old selves and hello to this new life with the grace of God. You see God forgives when we ask and truly believe in our hearts that we are forgiven! That is amazing peace feeling. Words cannot describe it! God forgives no matter what sin or where we are in our lives, He loves us and wants us to be happy. Sometimes being a Christian feels like nothing goes right because Satan is trying to bring us down, but if we stand up and tell him to shut up and look up to the one who gives us peace, you will be amazed at how strong you really are with God by your side. He is by your side all day and all night! He loves us and give us hope!

This is just some of the incite I've had from the conference and in the past few weeks. It feels really good to go through my notes and study and really reflect what I learned that weekend and remembering standing there praying with my Grandma I'm getting teary eyed remembering that moment because that moment was totally a God moment! I'm so glad I got to go to this conference and then go through the fog afterwards because going through the fog has made me see what I really learned and a reminder of who God really is! My best friend and the one I want to make famous!! :)

Trust and Look Up!

Ok so it is time for me finally blog about my weekend with my Grandma at the Beth Moore conference. It was a very emotional and eye awakening experience. If you have ever been to a Beth Moore conference or have heard her speak, she is very much a very talented teacher. I never really understood the study of Greek and how it relates to the bible, but she opened my eyes to a different viewpoint and now I really want to understand it better. I want to go for it. I want to know what God is truly saying when I read his word. I want my heart to open up and get revelation and spring forth to what He wants to share with me. She spoke on Imago Dai (which means Image of God) and how we were made in His image. How he created us to perfection. I got to talk to a friend of mine who just had a natural birth and I asked her "What was that like?" and she said "It is amazing how God made our bodies to just take over and do what it was meant to do." You see God knows what he is doing. He has a plan and though we sometimes don't see it or understand it, it is His plan! Even when we are sitting there with your heart completely open and giving it all to him, cause you've had enough. This past couple of months it seems like I have been getting one bad news after another, and they just seem to get worse and worse until you get to think "God, seriously when is enough enough?" God's answer is "I'm enough, Trust me I will give you the strength to get through this trial, I will dry your tears when you think they can't stop flowing. I’m enough, I will get you through this and you are not alone, I'm am right next to you thinking of you. Yes, dear one, I'm thinking of you right now in this moment, you are mine, I created you for a purpose, I love you, and I know you are hurting right now, but I'm listening ready to take your fears, worries, and make them into something glorious. Trust me"

Lift your eyes up when you feel you can't lift you head. When you feel like thunder and lightening are pouring down on you, Look up!

Getting Pulled Over….

Today I was driving by someone that just got pulled over and I couldn't help but wonder why did that cop choose her. I mean come on, we all know on the highway there are thousands of us speeding so why did that cop choose that lady out of everyone. Then I got to thinking why did God choose me? There are thousands/millions/billions of people in this whole wide world and yet He still chose me? Have you ever thought that? Why God? I mean I’m so low on the totem pole, I'm just your average girl who tries to live her life the best way I can, and I mess up a lot. Yet, God chose me!! He thinks about me. He is jealous for me. He wants me to be his image-bearer. But that is not the best news…. He chose you as well…whoever is reading this right now God is thinking of you and loving you! This weekend has been a very emotional weekend. But I will write more on that later, lets just say for a girl who usually keeps her emotions in check lost it this weekend! :) Major tear fest! :) I love you, Lord, and again Thanks for the reminder of your plan and that you are in control!!

Agents for Christ

I was once dead in my sin, but Christ gave me life! I needed rescue! Before Christ I was nothing and I now have a savior in him! He is my restorer and rescuer! I want him to be in the center of my life. Truth…does this always happen. No, for you see “There is no one righteous, not even one” Romans 3:10 I am one of those. I’m a sinner and sometimes my heart runs away, but even though I forget to sometimes look up and see my rescuer, He is still there watching over me waiting for my eyes and heart to open again to see him. He never leaves me. Even when I sometimes feel like the seed that fell among the thorns, who hears and knows the word of the Lord, but gets choked up with life’s worries, riches, fears and pleasures Jesus is there to rescue and bring me to my knees and realize he gave the ultimate sacrifice and wants me to just LOOK UP and place my trust in him. To realize He loves and wants to give me all the treasures in the world.

He wants us to do something. He wants us to move into action. Isaiah 58:6 says it all. Read it and then read Romans 3:22-24. It’s simple He wants us to help those who need help and to share His word with the world. He wants us to be the light not the darkness. He wants us to move, not to just sit, but to move into action. He wants the world to not only see and understand his sacrifice, but to put that sacrifice in our hearts!

My goal is for the world (friends, co-workers, family everyone I meet) to see the Lord’s light in my heart! Am I going to be a speaker, a singer, a pastor, a writer, a missionary, a leader, probably not, but I can be a friend, a sister, a daughter, and a co-worker. The Lord wants us to be a light and to shine brightly like the sun for his presence. It’s not an easy road, but with the Lord’s grace and mercy we can all take a stand and say “Yes” to the Lord’s will. He holds the future in his hands all we have to do is trust in him and he will be there. “Here I am” says the Lord.