Faith in Expression

Do you ever find yourself just wanting to SCREAM at God? Yell at him for all of the things that you don't want going on in your life. Or things that aren't working the way you want them to in your life? Or even yelling at him for not being able to hear him? There have been so many times I've just wanted to and have screamed at God. WHY?!? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good people have bad people surround them? Why is the freaking sky blue? WHY?!?! There have been days where I break down, unable to speak and I'm just crying wondering where do I go next, what does this road lead me to? 

The funny thing is, I always know that no matter how hard I scream at him, or yell, or how angry I get, he is ALWAYS there for me. I may not hear him or feel him the same way, but he is ALWAYS there. Whether I want him to be or not. Whether what's going on in my life is what I want it to be or not. HIS plan is always bigger than MY plan. If there's one thing I do gain from screaming at God, it's to know that even when I do scream at him, he's still there. He doesn't abandon me like a friend or neighbor might if I started screaming at them. He doesn't change his love for me because I'm mad at him. It's a constant ever-lasting love that he gives to all of us, no matter how mad we are at him. 

As I get older and gain more experience into the "Christian" world, I see that God doesn't necessarily want us to be constantly happy with him (well, in a way he does, but it just doesn't work out that way). We aren't always going to like the choices that are put before us. It makes us human to be angry. It makes us human to sin when we are angry. Does it mean we're right, No. Does God still love us regardless, Yes. 

When we're happy with God we rejoice him, when we're content we pray, when we're mad we yell, when tragedy happens people can tend to drop out of Christian belief and leave God. We have all of these expressions that we can use towards God and no matter what, he still loves us. 

So is it okay to be angry with God? Well, if you ask me, yes. It is okay. Like I said before, even though God puts us through certain situations in life, we may not like what those situations may be. We've all heard the saying that "Life isn't fair," well you're darn skippy it's not fair. So sometimes we can get mad about that. God can handle it. Scream away. But remember that when good things do come along, praise Him. Show Him your appreciation. The bible says to praise him in ALL things:

I Thessalonians 5:18 – In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.


It's not always the easiest thing to do, especially when we're mad, but praising him for even the simplest of things like an easy ride to work that day is something God sees, and he will continue to bless you with. 

My husband and I have faced a number of challenges over the past 3 years that we have been together. From illness, to deaths in the family, job changes, money changes, we have been riddled with things that could potentially tear our family apart. I think it goes without saying that I have had a fair share in screaming at God through those times, maybe even more than my fair share. Regardless, through every storm we should praise him. 

Casting Crowns wrote a song specific to this post and it has been held dear in my heart over the course of these challenges...some of the lyrics are:

And I'll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I've cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm 

If you've never heard this song and are struggling through storms in your life, I encourage you to listen to this song. Here is the video: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ype1xE0wzsg 

So, in conclusion, scream away. Be mad. Let him know you're angry. God can take it. But always remember to praise him in the storms you face. Have faith that through your praise God will bring good to you. 

Be blessed!  

Faith in Freedom

This weekend marked the 3 year anniversary for me of being a born again Christian. 3 years. It seems crazy to me. To think for the last three years I've given my life to Christ and trusted him with my life. Three years that I've had the thought of "is this real" in my head. This weekend also coincided with a popular American holiday, the Fourth of July, Independence Day. A holiday that marks the freedom for people that are in America, a day that marks independence for our nation. 

Three years ago I attended a church service that BLEW my mind. It was about FREEDOM. The freedom we have in our hearts, our minds, our souls and our decisions to love a God that will always love us in return. I never knew there was something out there like that. I knew God was there. I knew God was a part of the church. What I didn't know is how much and often and far and wide that he loves us. The meaning of an unconditional love. 

Mathew 7:11 reads this...
"If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"

Having kids myself, I can relate to this. I love my children unconditionally, no matter how much they piss me off some days. I still love them. They have the freedom to choose whether they love me back though, whether they accept the love I give them. Just as we have the freedom to choose whether we love Christ back.

How do we reach that freedom though? It took me a long time to allow that love in my heart. To understand what that meant. As the first sermon I experienced explained, you can only allow God into your heart when you have let go of other things in life that you value over God. For instance, drinking. I certainly enjoyed my fair share of drinks in the past, and that's not to say I don't have one now and again today, but it does not control me. I don't live life based around my drinking schedule. Ever since that one part changed over from loving drinking to loving God instead, I saw changes in my life. Major changes. One being the amount of unconditional love I had for my children. My heart let go of that drinking, and had room for the love of my kids and my God. How incredible is that!?!

Once that started, I was able to apply it to other parts of my life. Swearing, smoking, hanging out with the wrong people, paying attention to what I put in my body. All of these holes were happening in my heart allowing God to come in and just completely take over. I had finally felt freedom. Letting go of things and just giving them to God was a challenge, but it was the best thing I have ever done for myself, for my family and of course, for God. 

Childlike Faith

And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.  Mark 10:13-16

I've been wanting to write this post for a long time now. To talk about children and their faith, and how it's so effortless. As adults we ponder and think over every last detail of what the Bible says, but as children faith is just so effortless. 

Through the course of events our family has endured over the last year, my oldest daughter has asked me so many times what Heaven is like, and asked when she can go to be with the people she knows up there and loves. She never questions if it's real, where it is, how it works to "get in" or any other questions that ramble through an adult head when thinking of heaven. Her faith is blind, there is no question she isn't getting to heaven, no question that Jesus isn't real, and no question that people in heaven are watching over her.

Children amaze me with their ability to learn and establish a loving relationship with the Lord early on in their lives, and continue that love for years, throughout their lifetime. I wonder though, HOW does that strong of a faith build? HOW does a child know that they know that they know Jesus is real? The same reason they believe in the tooth fairy, or Santa Clause, or the boogey man. Stories they've been told and the blind faith they have gives them the ability to just simply believe. 

Children depend on us to show them how to act and behave and believe in the world. We are their compasses. God gives us all the incredible talent to be able to lead a child, if we choose to do so that is. I absolutely love talking to my daughter about faith and God, and she loves it too. Without the brain of adult to add in her own reasoning she can believe, or without her own logic, she can believe. 

Whenever I seem to be having a bad day, or thinking doubtful thoughts, I always look to this picture (which hangs at my desk at work): 

This is my daughter. Praising. It is one of the most beautiful pictures I have of her and I remember the day vividly. Although we weren't "Christians" at the time, this was a period where I was starting to make my transition. Watching her dance through the rain and jump in the puddles and just praising what a fun day she was having and saying "thank you" to the rain clouds for still letting the sun shine. Just effortless praise and thanks to things around her. This image is one of my rocks. One of the things that brings me back to having "childlike faith." It's effortless, careless, loving, hopeful, cherished and faithful. 

Sometimes as adults we forget what it's like to be like a child. To think like a child. To throw out the baggage and just believe. Just have FAITH. All that being said, don't be afraid to throw the baggage out. Don't be afraid to just blindly say "OK" and jump in with both feet. I believe it's when we blindly follow our faith that the best outcomes occur.

Faith in the eye of a storm

First and foremost, my prayers are out to Oklahoma. To the families, friends, teachers, spouses, pets and all those in between. The tragedy of such magnitude is unimaginable in my head. My prayers go to those who have lost someone. To those who have lost a home. To those who have lost faith. 

How do you manage to hold onto faith through such a situation? To comprehend why God would do something so horrible? Did he try? Did he aim it straight for you? I'm sure that so many questions arise to those going through the pains they've experienced. 

I do find it incredible to hear of the encouraging stories of those around who give up their time, money, belongings to help those that are in need. The stories of prayers being prayed to help heal and bring the community together. Although a disaster has occurred, God is bringing hearts together all over our nation to life those people up. Does the bible not say "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). 

As you go home tonight, hug your children extra hard. Give them one more kiss than usual. Keep them wrapped in your love. It's times like these we look at our lives and realize what is important, and it not things, but the people and relationships we cherish. 

God bless you all in OK. May your recovery be quick, your love stay strong and your hearts be faithful to the Lord.

To my dear friend, who has lead a path of faith for me...

To a dear dear friend of mine on the week before her wedding...

You lovely spark of awesomeness you. I'm so very proud, happy, excited, giddy, joyful, peaceful and just overall elated for your big day that is coming up this weekend. On top of all of that I feel so very honored and blessed that you have asked me to be a part of it. Your joy with the man of your dreams has just elated me and seeing your dream come true brings my heart to little melting droplets. I just know it's literally going to be a gross explosion of love for you two this weekend and I can't WAIT to see it! Flashback, about a year and a half ago:

You and I at my wedding...ahhh what a day! Was so happy to see and have you there!
Can't wait for those dresses to be reversed! :) hehe

Before YOUR big day, I thought it would be a good idea to say thank you. Thank you for leading me. Thank you for showing me what faith is. Thank you for being there for prayers, love and support when I've needed it. Thank you for showing me that having faith isn't so weird after all. Thank you for being so strong to put up with my craziness and joking about being a bible bumper. Who would have thought all these years later I'd be a Christ follower with ya? So thank you. You have done more than you know, and as I stand back and watch you grow into a new person with your fiance, and shine even more, I can't help but thank GOD for bringing you into my life.You are beautiful. You are inspiring. You are amazing and you are MY FRIEND! I am SO BLESSED to have you in my life. Another flashback: 
 

One of our fun trips to Duluth. Sick kid, cranky kid, cranky us, apples and a fun football game!

Your faith was always a strong suit, something that intrigued me. It has led me to having faith as well and as you know, growing more than either of us could have imagined. You planted a seed, that seed has sprouted and is now growing inside of me, so no matter how far apart we live, how often we talk or how often we see each other, you will always be a part of me that helps plant seeds into others. Your kind heart will always be a reminder of what it is like to be Christ-like, and your joy in life will always be a reminder of the joy you've given me. Ok, one more flash back...hahaha...

21st birthday, yep...it was awesome!

 Through the years of knowing you my dear friend, we have seen and been through many challenges. One thing has never changed, your belief in me in finding Christ. So again, I stop to thank you, for always having that faith that I would walk the walk with you. Speaking of walk, something you once said has always stayed in my mind:  

"By the way, what no one ever told you about this Christian walk – it doesn’t stop the fact that you’re still the same old spitfire on the inside and now you have to act on the spirit, and not the flesh, even when the flesh wants to tell your coworkers where they can go shove it. Kill ‘em with kindness, oh joy." 

So soooo true. So very happy to have another spitfire to walk with (yes, I'm talking about you)! You are so wise my dear, and again, I'm very blessed to have you as my friend!

I SERIOUSLY can't wait for this weekend! Love you always, and looking forward to many many years ahead of us as friends and as bible bumpers :) 

Here's to you and your lover boy, and many years of happiness to follow! xoxoxoxoxoxoxo!!!

Religion vs. Faith

The other night I was sitting with my Alpha group. We just started a new session last week. (I love love love Alpha, and will plug plug plug for it!! It has changed my life, so if I talk a lot about it, it's because it has been a big role playing factor in my faith journey over the course of the last 3 years.) This week's topic was "Who Is Jesus?"  

Hefty question, ay?

As we got into the conversation, the question came up "what's the difference between Religion and Faith?" 

"Ummm. Wow. What a question," I said. 

As the group began to discuss it a little bit, it really got to me, what IS the difference. How does our society look at Religion and Faith?

Let's first define them, by dictionary terms:

Religion:

1. The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.
2. Details of belief as taught or discussed.

Faith:

1. Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
2. Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
 

I think so many times in life people get so caught up in what they think is "Religion." Thinking it's simply Christianity. Not realizing "religion" can mean any religion(s). Buddhism, Atheism, Islam, Scientology, the list goes on. Each of which having their own set of "rules" if you will, organized behaviors, their own "God" or power they believe in. Having religion in your life does not automatically put you into a Christian category. My neighbors, whom I love dearly, are Muslim. I look at them and know for a fact that they have a different religion that I do, practice different prayers and have different holidays.

Religion does not equal Christianity. Neither does faith. 

Faith simply refers to trust. Trust in yourself, in  your neighbors or in a God. Trust that the rules you have are correct, that if you follow them good things will happen, or trust that you will live another day. Having faith does not automatically make you a Christian. Going back to my neighbors, when I look at them, I still know that even though they are Muslim, the do have faith in their God. They have faith in heaven and going there. Their faith leads their lives.

Going through these Alpha courses I've run into so many types of religions and people who are all wondering the same thing. What does it mean to have FAITH IN GOD? To have faith in Christianity. To see the journeys and the questions laid in front of me is humbling. To know these people are in a very similar place that I was just a few short years ago. The journey can be long, exhausting and downright hard sometimes. But other times it's so rewarding to have the FAITH of knowing you eventually will go to heaven, to see loved ones, to see Jesus. How amazing will that day be? 

I guess my point of this post is to try and look outside the box. The words faith and religion get tossed around these days. They're important words with strong meanings, it's important we understand what they mean and how they relate to our own walks and journeys...

Baby Steps

Through the hard times, the good times, the bad times, the happy times, the sad times, the fun times and the crazy times; God was always there for me, and for us. In the smallest of ways, and in the biggest. Whether I felt it or not. He always has and always will be there through every step we take. 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6

"When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you." Isaiah 43:2

It's taken me some time to realize this fact, that God is always with you. I can't say it's something I remember EVERY single day either. It's a tough thing to grasp the fact that someone is always with you when you can't see them. Over the past few years I have had the experience of not only feeling, but hearing Him near me, helping me through some really tough situations. Here are a few of them:

Baby step #1: A little over two years ago, I began experience horrific pain in my left "ovary" if you will. These weren't cramps. It felt like someone was actually stabbing me and twisting this knife. During our Alpha course we had a "weekend retreat", which was only one day. This day was amazing though. This was the day that I figured out some sort of reason WHY I was having all of this pain. The word "Fibromyalgia" came up through the "words of wisdom" our leaders had received from prayers. I knew I didn't have this, but later on I had looked up what it was, what some symptoms were and BOOM! There it was. Big letters staring me in the face, ENDOMETRIOSIS. THANK YOU GOD! Something that made sense. This is then when I went to numerous doctors, pretty much got laughed at until finding the doctor who actually believed me, and eventually did my surgery. 


Baby Step #2: During our time at Alpha, my fiance and I had also started looking at houses together. I swear, we had looked at at least 40 of them so far and put in 5 offers. Each offer was more discouraging than the one before. Either something didn't allow us to qualify, or other bids were put in, or the house suddenly went off the market. My dreams were crushed each time as I mentally moved myself into these places. So here we are sitting at one of our last Alpha nights. I really wanted some private prayer with one of my long-time friends so we went into a private and quiet room and just prayed about the house. As she was praying, she said that a "green door" came to her mind. All these red doors, then finally a green one. At first I was kind of like, ok, yeah I get it, I'll eventually find the one we will buy. Little did I know though a seed had planted. That weekend we had 5 or 6 houses on our docket to look at. House 1, no. House 2, no. House 3, no. House 4, NO! House 5, whooooa, green door, literally. The house had a green door! Go in, HECK NO! Worst of them all! So I'm thinking "oh yeah, green door, good clue there God!" House 6...ANOTHER green door. Ok, ok. Shouldn't have spoke so soon right? Well, we go in and instantly I knew that was our home. That "Green Doored" house, was RIGHT where God wanted us. So, we put in our last and final offer on our search for our home.

Baby Step #3: Getting into the house. Whoo! We loved this house. We put less emotion into it though after the experience we had all the others. Things were moving along. We were getting to the point of having our inspection. My fiance is normally the more "level" headed of the two of us. I'm very frantic at times, and he's usually the one saying "calm down, it will be ok". Not the case this time. He was the one freaking out, getting nervous and making a big deal out of the inspection. We just wanted so much for everything to be good on this house. We were ready to have our own home. I knew I could trust God on this one. Let his will be done. So that day, we had our inspection, after prayer and believing he will do what's best, our inspection was passed with flying colors. God did have it. He had it the whole time. 

Baby Step #4: Closing day on our house. Finally! We had finally reached the point of being able to sign all the paperwork for our new home. No joke, that Friday, I had all of my life unpacked from my two 5x10 foot storage units, and put on a Uhaul, and sitting in front of my home to be. We were ready. As we're sitting there, going through every detail of every page and signing numerous times on the dotted line one of the women working there came and told us "well, we aren't able to get ahold of anyone in NY to approve all of this. You may be signing the paperwork tonight, but there's no guarantee of getting you your key." WHAT?!?! NO!!!! I'm ready to moooove! I was freaking out. Because on top of the moving I wanted to do, I also had surgery the next morning at 6am which put me out of "moving condition" for a few weeks. Sitting at the table, I quietly bowed my head and said a little prayer. I don't remember it exactly, but it went a little something like this:
God. Please. Help me. Get me the key to my house. Please.
That's it. Nothing fancy, nothing immaculate. About what felt like forever and a day later the same woman walked in and says "well, someone got it done, congratulations! Here are the keys to your new home." I walked out of there that day in complete disbelief of what had just happened. No one there knew what my prayer was...just that we NEEDED to get into that house that night. God heard me...and he made it happen. (And Here I am, in front of our new home, the day we signed all the papers :) )

Baby Step #5: Our wedding day. This is a whole blog post in itself. But to sum up my post here, this was a big clincher in showing me God's love and what it can do for you if you just give it all to him. He showed me patience, kindness, goodness, love, everything I needed that day for it to be perfect. So that when the perfect man put the perfect ring on my finger, I knew God had a hand in it. I felt it in my heart. We also did what is called a "Unity Cross" rather than sand or candles. We got so many people who said this was amazing, and they could feel the faith in our relationship. This day showed me a lot. God's power. His love. His patience. His humor. It built one GIANT step on my faith ladder. (Unity Cross is the big cross thing in front of us in the picture below. Comes apart as 6 total pieces. (1) Base, (2) outer "man" portion, (3) inner "woman" portion, (4, 5, 6) and 3 pegs that represent the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that bind the marriage all together.)

God has taken a lot of steps with us. At first they started as baby steps. As we grow into our Faith, religion and values those steps are becoming bigger and making bigger impacts on our lives, our children's lives and the people around us.  

Always know he is with you. He is guiding you. If you need help, don't EVER be afraid to ask. 

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth. 
Psalm 121:1-2