No More Extra!

I think today I reached my limit.  I'm the one who can always keep my cool.  I always think before I react, and I forever give people the benefit of the doubt.  But you know what?  I think today was my last day.  This could be bad however I am one who can smile in your face and continue to treat you as if I really care after finding out that you've spoken ill of me.  I am the one who is least likely to hold grudges, nevertheless, I will always remember if I've been wronged by someone. 

So today was the last day of my kindness toward a couple of individuals.  One, I never will disrespect because of the position they hold however I will not be entertaining any "extra".  Its either I hold my tongue or catch a quick case of "word vomit" as my co-worker/friend so eloquently described the tongue lashing that might go down.  So I will be quiet and keep my cool.  I will also keep all the "extra" to myself.  Besides why invest that much time when I could really care less.

Rid Yourself of Unwanted Visitors

Over the past year I must admit that I’ve allowed my trials and tribulations to affect me.  They came in the form of unemployment, loss of close friends and family, empty pockets and loneliness.   I opened my door to depression and stress and allowed them to make themselves at home in my dwelling.  Both of these visitors came in and robbed me of my joy, contentment, and my peace of mind.  Those things are very valuable to me therefore I embarked on a mission to take them back, however I couldn’t do it alone.  And once I gathered my possessions back they were mine to keep and those unwelcomed visitors did not have a nice cozy place to dwell in any longer.

Matthew 6:33(NLT): Seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.  This is definitely something I was not doing.  I had my own agenda and was going to follow it regardless of what anyone said.  Needless to say, I’ve learned that my agenda wasn’t the right agenda and just because I had a thought or an idea the played in your mind constantly didn’t mean that it was necessarily a sign from God.  So now I have a new agenda and it’s an agenda designed by God for His purpose and its starts with first seeking Him and living righteously.  Some of you may wonder how I am going about following Matthew 6:33.  The Life Application Bible is an excellent tool and gives you everything you need to know in applying Gods word and principles.  This bible noted 3 key things in order to carry out Matthew 6:33.  First, I had to fill my thoughts with God’s desires.  Notice I didn’t say my desires.  That’s what I was doing at first and I was heading down a very destructive path.  Second, I must take God’s character as my pattern.  I can never be God however I can live a very godly life.  Am I saying that I will never sin again or fall short of His glory, of course not!  Third, I must obey him in everything, not some things but everything.

Depression and Stress has the ability to cause a lot of unwanted issues, however I know someone who is bigger than both of these silent killers and that is God.  But first we have to accept God and welcome Him into our lives.  Not only that, we must establish a relationship with Him.  I can honestly say I have spent a lot of time focusing on relationships with my friends and family more so then my relationship with God. I developed a pattern of unhealthy relationships and at the end of the day there was always a void.  Mark 10: 29-30 (NLT): Yes, Jesus replied, “and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or brother or sisters or mother or father or children or property, for my sake and for the Good News will receive now in return a hundred times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and property – along with persecution.  And in the world to come that person will have eternal life.” I am willing to give up those things in order to follow God and have eternal life.  I can honestly say that accepting the persecution is going to be hard however it’s going to be worth it.  And I know that if nobody else has my back, God does.  At this very moment I have my joy, my contentment, and my peace of mind.  And above all else I have a personal relationship with God and I am working on making it even stronger everyday.  I encourage you to do the same and DO NOT allow your trials and tribulations to defeat you.  Isaiah 54:17: But in the coming day no weapon turned against you will succeed.  You will silence every voice raised up to accuse you.  These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the Lord; their vindication will come from me.  I, the Lord, have spoken. God said it and He will do just what he says.

*** This blog is over a year old however I thought I would post it ***

Run Real Fast Right Now

So many times throughout my life I failed to remember that once I gave my life to Christ I also gave him my body.  Its funny how I can sit here and think of times that I gave myself to someone who not only didn’t deserve me but could care less about me or my well being, and the one person who loves me most of all and who actually owns my body I gave so little.  I’ve been talking with several different people about my struggle with sexual sin and I’ve found that the more I communicated about this on going issue that I’ve been dealing with the more helpful its been in my recovery.  This is probably going to be by far one of the hardest blogs I will ever post simply because I’m allowing the world to see where I am flawed.  Nevertheless, I am also sharing with the world the seriousness of sexual sin and the dangers it will cause if you do not be obedient to God’s word and pull away.  A man once told me when I was sharing my story with him, “Don’t relate to your situation relate to God.”  That is a very powerful statement and I refer to it several times to get me through those though moments.

Before coming to this point in my life I use to make validations for my reasons to continue to in participate in sexual sin.  Some of the things I use to tell myself in order to validate my actions are noted as followed:

• I was introduced to it at a young age
• I’ve already started may as well keep it up
• I need the attention (good or bad)
• It’s an addiction

No matter what my reasons were for participating in such dangerous, destructive, and damaging activities, none of them were worth jeopardizing my salvation, which is exactly what I was doing. I Corinthians 6: 18-20 (NLT) Run from sexual sin!  No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does.  For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.  Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?  You do not belong to yourself, for God brought you with a high price.  So you must honor God with your body. I honestly don’t think it can be simplified any further.  Sex was designed to be a beautiful thing specifically for marriage.  That is the core purpose for it and there is no getting around that fact. I unfortunately will not be able to offer my husband my virginity and it pains me to accept that fact.  However, because of repentance I was given another chance to offer my body to Christ and if any of you reading this are currently dealing with the issue of sexual sin you can also have another chance at offering your body to Christ. Think about this, when you moved out of your parents house and got your own place, if you knew they were coming to visit you made sure your home was clean before they arrived.  Well God is our heavenly father and He not only visits but His holy spirit lives inside of  us, therefore we should make sure that are “house” is always in order.  I attended a membership class this pass Saturday at my new church and we watched the crucifixion scene from The Passion.  When I saw that I immediately reflected back to all of my wrong doing.  Every time we do wrong its like we are there driving the nails in Jesus’ hands ourselves.  I own The Passion and I’ve only watched it once because it really hurts to see what God went through for me.  But you know what hurts worse?  Knowing God suffered on the cross for our pathetic, sinful, flawed selves and we can’t even honor Him by keeping our bodies, His temple, pure.

I Thessalonians 4: 3-4 (NLT) God’s will is for you to be holy so stay away from all sexual sin.  As you can see we were designed to be holy.  This became possible when God sent Jesus to the cross.  The only way for us to live a holy life is to be Christ like and participating in sex, masturbation, porn, or anything of that nature is not living Christ like.  The more you participate in those activities the farther away from God you become.  The more you participate in those activities the more habitual they become and we all know how hard it is to break a bad habit.  I can say this because I’ve been there and done that.  I can even write a book.  That’s just how serious it’s been for me.

I urge you to run.  Run real fast right now and leave the sexual immorality behind you.  Do you like hurting God?  Do you enjoy nailing Him to the cross?  I didn’t that’s why I decided to make a change and allow God to use me more.  I don’t regret anything that I’ve done in my life because I had to endure it to become who I am at this point.  And who I am is a woman on a mission.  I am a woman who has made many mistakes and who will make many more.  However, I am the same woman who is going to use my mistakes as a learning experience for myself and for others.  I want to enjoy the life God has for me and whatever I have to do to get that fulfillment and to feel His presence will be done.  I don’t want to take this journey alone so stand up and walk the path or righteousness with me.

*** I wrote this blog about a year ago.  Needless to say since then I've fallen several times.  I'm human and it happens.  Nevertheless, I do know the danger behind my actions. And maybe one day I will experience complete deliverance from sexual sin***

Life Lessons

Well today was a very uneventful day.  However I did spend a lot of time trying to figure out how I was going to start this wonderful adventrue in blogging.  I am a very unique individual who has experienced a lot of things in my 31 years.  Some of my experiences have been great while others have been not so great however they were lessons learned.

Sometimes I wonder if this is all life is cracked up to be.  Are we suppose to go day to day learning lesson after lesson?  I’m not sure, however I am sure that I don’t want anyone to experience some of the things that I’ve experienced in order to get from point A to point B.   Forrest Gump said it best, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what your gonna get.”  Needless to say even though boxes of chocolates comes with a guide to let you know exactly what piece of candy is in the box and where it is located, every day is a new day with new experiences and new encounters without guides.  There is something that I’ve noticed, many of the things I deal with over and over and over again are very similar situations.  Does that mean I didn’t learn the first time?  Am I suppose to gain more from the situation or what?

One of the things that I’m dealing with right now is the fact that I’m single and very much ready to be in a loving relationship.  I want to be married with a family and it seems to me that I’m running out of time.  So day after day I try to figure out exactly what it is I need to do to become closer to my dream of being a wife and a mother.  I’m not very outgoing however I’m open to all types of people.  I’m not the one to make the first move but I usually follow up really well.   I run into the same problem over and over and over again.  When I meet someone who’s really nice and compatible I always fall into the friend zone what is that about?  Are you not suppose to date someone you consider to be your friend?  How do one stop falling into the friend zone?