Circles.

Sometimes I feel like I am going in circles in life. Like the Isrealites when they had to go back around the mountain and through the dessert for ages and ages because they missed it. I am not feeling discouraged by this today because I can see so clearly the faithfulness of God to me that he will actually work with me until I actually get something. He won't just leave me as I am. If I need breakthrough in an area of life, He is committed to the process of seeing that breakthrough come to pass in my life. Sometimes I want to rush on through, or I can just feel like I am hitting my head against the same wall I've come up against a thousand times before.

But right now God has my attention.

I am recognizing that I have been here before, in similar circumstances with similar intensities and felt the same reactions in my heart and I am saying, " God, what do you want to speak to me right now? How do I need to respond differently this time? I don't want to miss what you are saying." I just feel that there is something different taking place.

What I am realizing is that God has newness for me; newness in my reactions, newness in my thinking and approaches to things, newness in my attitudes and intentions of my heart in situations, newness in relational depth, newness in my walk with Him, newness in serving. We can hear that 'God is making all things new' a lot in Christian spheres, so much so that we can almost wonder what exactly it means. Well, maybe not you but I have wondered what it means...

I am sensing that this time, for this season and in this location in the Body that I am in right now, God is bringing newness on all of these levels. A refinement of soul and spirit.

What I am trying to say is that
                                                  what has worked in the past is no longer working. 

Any familiar response that I grew accustomed to having before God and before God's people, God is asking me for a more extravagant one, an unfamiliar one, a NEW one. The ways that we have conceptualized God and how the Holy Spirit moves are too narrow for the season we are now in and we have to accept this, we have to see it for ourselves that we NEED NEW THINGS! We NEED MORE OF GOD in ways that we have yet to know, and we will see things we have yet to see.

I am left with a reach in my spirit. There is a reach in my soul.

                                               I am reaching for the more of God the Holy Spirit.

                                                                             I am reaching for the new of God.

gratitude.

i have so much to be grateful for.

this is a super challenging season of life. God is doing a lot in me. I am changing and it's very hard. but i need to keep gratitude on my lips and in my heart.

i started up the biblical counseling program i've been praying about doing for over 2 years now. it's great. i love it. i know God is going to use it in my own life to bring healing as well as equip me to do one of the things i am called to do in this life.

yesterday me and my hubby went shopping for boots and winter coats (it has been years since i've gotten a new winter coat, so, this was kind of exciting;)). i am amazed at the provision of God in our lives that we actually have money in our bank account to go buy the things we need. we are not extravagant people at all but we found ourselves overwhelmed by Gods faithfulness to us as we were in the mall. it sounds cheesy, i know, but Gods provision in our lives is very real and very evident to us and we can't overlook things like buying winter coats and boots! things like food in the kitchen and heat in these walls:) i am so content and so grateful for what our life looks like, even as every season changes. s

this is a bio my hubby wrote about our music. i think it's stellar! we call ourselves ivy thieves.

"Ivy Thieves are a husband and wife duo fusing the sounds of etherial rock with rootsy acoustic folk earthiness. Stories of the sky and stories of the soil are unpacked through the tight harmonies and intricate guitar work of this anglo-american pair. These are stories of life, love, trial and favor; hope, suffering and grace, written from the secret place of the heart. Ivy Thieves are a band who want to connect on more than an an audience/performer level; they want to invite you into their journey through vulnerability and engaging music and leave you with something more than a song. "

i love my husbands ability to write. it is just one of his many gifts that God has given him:) i love working on music with him. it's been pretty stagnant but a few shows are coming up and i so enjoy crafting our sound with him. he is so creative.

super challenging season. i think the last 2 years has taken more of a tole on me than i realised. just yesterday some clarity was brought to my situation. i see very clearly that physical healing and emotional healing are two separate things, especially in regards to a trauma. yeesh.

alright, it's been real. 

over and out.

stirred.

i am feeling very stirred up today. last week was pretty hard for me to get through but i am feeling a renewed sense of freedom coming to my life and God is bringing definition to certain things.

i began to read another book all about being an introvert. i have struggled so much with who i am and why and i felt God speaking to me this weekend that he is taking me on a discovery process and has a lot to reveal to me about myself, things that i have never even known about myself and his intention for my life and my role or function in the earth.

i felt so overwhelmed that God wanted to speak to me about myself. i feel like i have not gone there with Him in such a long time; i've been so bitter and hard in heart for various reasons and the intimacy with God has just been lacking on my part. he has never left me but i have not always wanted to acknowledge that he was there. but why wouldn't God want to speak to me about myself?! He cares about every aspect of my life, every detail and he is sovereign over my life with such care. of course he has a lot to say about me and i ought to
                                    incline my ear to listen.


a few months ago i remember crying out to God to explain to me why he made me the way that he did. i just did not see the benefit of being me, what his intention was in my life, how he wanted to use me, where i fit into my Church body or even my family. you see, the accident spiraled me into the biggest identity crises of my life.

i forgot about asking God to show me these things until last night. then it dawned on me that God is responding to my request, he heard my cry!

there are a few things i want to be sure to clarify: God is not speaking to me about myself to coddle my insecurities or make me feel better about myself; he is not responding to a pity party. He is wanting to speak clearly to me about where true security lies to set me free from the lies i have been believing about myself. God is a God who loves to prove himself and he is coming into my life right now in a deeper way to establish something into my character, to prove that his terms trump all earthly terms and i should listen to him over every other voice. God is more about instilling his character in to my heart than just making me feel better. and with that said, it's time for me to grow up.

i am expecting challenge and growth as God speaks to me. i am expecting gentleness, tender care and loving correction. i am eager for this process to get underway because i know it is good for me. God knows what is best for me.

this season is packed full of riches, i can just feel it. riches in God.

oh me, oh my.

lately. lately i have been pondering a lot of things and acquiring a focus i have lacked for a while. a certain book has been helping me re-evaluate pretty much every facet of my life; time, money, emotions and relationships. i feel a clarity of life-focus coming that i am not sure that i have had before. i have always been ultra intense, passionate and zealous, but that's not what all that is going on right now is about. i cannot just be intense, driven, zealous and passionate. i have to be balanced: i have to be gentle, soft, merciful and humble before God and man. zeal without character does not really impress me anymore and i wonder why i ever thought it impressed God or anyone else, for that matter. of course, back in my zeal i did not know i lacked character.


i was sincere in my love for God but it only looked a certain way in that season: alone-ness, fasting, worship music 24/7, memorizing scripture, reading the word and christian books in every free moment, missions, worship songs,deep introspection, long hours of intercession, depth of burdens for the worlds issues, hunger for God. i was always hungry for more of God. also, depression, anxiety, self-righteousness and judgement of everyone who lived differently than i did or related to God in a 'lesser' way. this is what i once looked like.


God is doing something in me right now, and has been since the accident almost 2 years ago, that will change/is changing how i live my life. i have had such a hard time reconciling how my life has looked these last 2 years since the accident to how it looked before the accident.


i have felt stuck or like an incomplete person with my life looking so different now: i am married now, with a husband who hears God in completely different ways than i do and i have had to learn not to project my ways onto him and trust his walk with God even though it is entirely different. different is not wrong.


my problem is that i will shy away from being all about something if i am not sure that i am 100% right about it; i want to be secure in knowledge before i make a decision and i can just think myself into a corner if i am insecure in my knowledge. also, with the whole knowledge thing, i can think i am better than everyone else, which is pride. so, in this process of searching these things out, wanting to be right and wanting to be humble, i have not been writing or talking much to anyone because there is a re-definition in process and i need to allow God to do this thorough work, uninterrupted by my judgmental thoughts and attitudes. it's been challenging and that's why i have not written much or talked much; i feel my pride being challenged, my way of learning and even my value of knowledge being challenged by God himself. ultimately, i feel humiliated at my approach to things by God; humility comes through humiliation. that is something the pastor at the church i used to attend would always say: humility comes by humiliation. he said it allllll the time and i didn't understand why. now, 6 years later, i think i am beginning to understand.


my approach to life and God before was not wrong, it was just imbalanced and i am seeing that i need other things, like, the church, the people of God speaking into my life and the Word to balance out the way i am wired. i think this is pretty much true for everyone: we need balance and to get balance we need to be around people that are not like us.


this is not succinct or clearly written in my mind, but i feel the same way about this process i have been in for the last 2 years or so. it's a long and messy labor of love. i am glad God is the one overseeing this whole thing because he is the author and perfecter. i actually cannot believe i am going to publish this post because it is so incomplete in my eyes, like this process i am in. but i am learning to have grace for myself in this place as God does.