In continuation of the last post, apparently there was much for me to learn from this bracelet. Only I need to rearrange the entire bracelet. The last four are Hope, Love, Believe, and Soar. That is with me reading them the way I read them. Only even that is messed up in my mind. I think we need to rearrange them again. In fact, I may take the entire bracelet apart and redo it. First I would put it like this: Believe, Hope, Love, and Soar. It's close, but for me (as per the norm) I think my way is better.
I think when we Believe, only then can we have the Hope in Jesus and His Love so we can Soar. I think the Believing comes first. In fact to take it one step further and to draw from a Beth Moore study I once did I think it's even easier to Believe IN God than it is to Believe God. But I think when you both Believe in God and Believe God and what He says, it gives us Hope to believe in His Love and in that our hearts will Soar.
I have believed in God since I was a young girl. Believing in the existence of the creator of the universe was never the problem for me. In fact, in the existence of a higher power is often times what has gotten me through life. The problem I have always struggled with is believing God. Believing that He would Love me. That as broken and horrible of a person I believe myself to be that God loved me enough to send His Son to die so that I could be with Him one day. That He thought me worthy when I have always been certain of my unworthiness. Of all the things in my life that I am certain of, I believe that is at the top. I have believed always that there is a God and that I am unworthy of His love. The amazing part is that when you start to actually Believe God and not just Believe In God you find that no one is worthy and we all fall short and His Love is So Big and So Full that He wants us anyway. Jesus came for the broken and broken is what I am. By that statement alone, Jesus came for me. In that I find my Hope.
Let me just say that again, in case you flew past that. Jesus came for the broken, I am broken, therefore Jesus came for me. Jesus came for the broken, you are broken, therefore Jesus came for you. In that we find our Hope. When we Believe we can find our Hope in the the ONE who was sent for us. The One that was sent to bind our wounds, tear down our walls or mountains as the case may be, to give us Hope to one day be with our Father. Once we find our Hope, once we fully Believe and have our Hope we can feel the Love of our father.
God Loves you. Above all else I want you to know that. He knows everything about you and He Loves you anyway. He sent His Son to save you. That is Love unlike anything you can imagine. As a parent I love my children. I tell them that no one can love them more than I do except God who created them in His image. Above all else God loves us. I don't know about you but I searched my entire life wanting that kind of Love from my father. Only I looked for ways for my earthly father to love me and it was futile. He loves me. I know he does but he can't love me like my Heavenly Father. No one can. No one on the earth can love you like your Heavenly Father. We can only know that kind of Love from Him. He designed it that way. Once I realized this I stopped looking for it from my earthly father. It isn't fair to him or to me to expect something from him that he is incapable of. That is like looking for a good comfortable pair of shoes in a gas station. Futile and not worth your time.
I Believe in and Believe my God for His promises and in Him I find my Hope, so I feel His Love so my heart can Soar. My heart soars when I feel the Love of my Father in whom I have all Hope and Faith, so I can have Courage to serve Him and bring Him Joy, thereby finding my own Joy. I just love it when things tie up neatly. Quite a lesson from a bracelet I chose to wear to church this morning. Sometimes I guess, God uses a burning bush, other times he uses a bracelet. Either way He tends to get His point across. I get so excited when I get it. I do hope you get it too.
I would love to hear from you. If I can pray for you or if you would like to learn more send me a message. I hope that God's messages have helped you today.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Faith, Courage, & Joy
Soar, Believe, Love, Hope, Faith, Courage, Joy. That is what my bracelet says today only I think I've read them backwards. I think I am supposed to read them in reverse as far as the order they would be when laid out before me. I would have to say I like the way I read it better.
I was contemplating these things at church today while we were in between songs. Mostly the last three were my focus. Faith, Courage, and Joy. I was thinking about how those three are connected. Being the big chicken that I am (as evidenced by the fact that I waited for grey hair to go down a water slide for the first time) I was forced to take stock of the fact that I don't think it is an accident that Faith comes before Courage in this case. In fact, I think that is how it works. I think with great Faith comes great Courage. I'm not sure you can have one without the other.
With GREAT Faith comes Great Courage would be how I think it should be written. I then had to take stock of my own faith. I have faith in my Great God. I believe that He can bring great change in a broken world. I believe that He can move mountains and move hearts. I believe He can bring down mountains that form barriers across hardened hearts. The reason I believe this is that He has done this for me. I have run away, I have hidden away, some may even say that I checked out for a bit. I shut down a couple of times, not knowing that even though I had built up mountains to close off my broken and hardened heart in an effort to never feel pain again; He would come knocking on my door and break down every barrier I had built to teach me to love and feel again.
I'm a person of great faith in my Great Big God but I also am a person that has trouble letting go of fears that have formed so long ago they feel as much a part of me as the two hands that I use to write this message to you today. Just as I was scared to go down a water slide until this year, I wonder how many other things I have feared that I would find out were actually good experiences if given the chance. I am now forced to wonder what else I'm missing out on. How much more God has planned for me if I could have more faith in Him to show me things I am too afraid to give up. What if I gave up on all the fears I have held on to for so long and just trusted that everything would be OK? What if like the water slide I tried it and said "OK, I survived that, let's go again so I can try it knowing what to expect." I went down two different slides but I went down them a combination of seven times.
I don't know why your mountains were built around your heart. Maybe you don't have any. If that is the case, I am so happy for you and I would ask you to find it in you to pray for those of us who have had not only walls built from bricks but entire mountains built around our hearts. It is a terrible tragedy to live in fear of ...life. I don't know any other way to express it. I have not done things and used my age as an excuse not to do them. I'm a great excuse maker. If you need an excuse not to live life to the fullest I'm the girl you want to help you with making that excuse.
And then I read a bracelet. Faith, Courage, Joy. With GREAT Faith come Great Courage. "Courage is not the absence of fear only the realization that something else is more important." That is a quote from the Princess Diaries but I think it applies. If we have Faith in our great big God we can have courage to pursue any path that He lays out for us. Would the God that created you in His image lead you to a path to fulfill His purpose only to let you go it alone? I don't think so, and with that we find the final word in the three, Joy.
When we follow our God and we take that leap we not only bring Joy to our God, we find our own Joy. I found the joy in riding a water slide. I found the joy in experiencing life with my husband and children instead of missing out and reading a book alone. I have found Joy in letting go of another mountain and trusting in God. With GREAT Faith come Great Courage which brings about Great Joy. Isn't that cool?
So maybe for me it's reading a bracelet that gives me pause to wonder. Maybe I'm slow on the uptake and you are already far beyond what I can teach you from what I'm learning. If that is the case that brings me joy too. I hope you will continue on your path with our GREAT Big God and keep me in your prayers as well as I will keep you in mine. I hope if you are learning daily like I am, you will continue to allow God to continue knocking down the mountains and walls to your heart so He can live there and protect it. In God you can put your Faith, With God you can take Courage, In God you will not only find your Joy but you will bring Him Joy as well.
I was contemplating these things at church today while we were in between songs. Mostly the last three were my focus. Faith, Courage, and Joy. I was thinking about how those three are connected. Being the big chicken that I am (as evidenced by the fact that I waited for grey hair to go down a water slide for the first time) I was forced to take stock of the fact that I don't think it is an accident that Faith comes before Courage in this case. In fact, I think that is how it works. I think with great Faith comes great Courage. I'm not sure you can have one without the other.
With GREAT Faith comes Great Courage would be how I think it should be written. I then had to take stock of my own faith. I have faith in my Great God. I believe that He can bring great change in a broken world. I believe that He can move mountains and move hearts. I believe He can bring down mountains that form barriers across hardened hearts. The reason I believe this is that He has done this for me. I have run away, I have hidden away, some may even say that I checked out for a bit. I shut down a couple of times, not knowing that even though I had built up mountains to close off my broken and hardened heart in an effort to never feel pain again; He would come knocking on my door and break down every barrier I had built to teach me to love and feel again.
I'm a person of great faith in my Great Big God but I also am a person that has trouble letting go of fears that have formed so long ago they feel as much a part of me as the two hands that I use to write this message to you today. Just as I was scared to go down a water slide until this year, I wonder how many other things I have feared that I would find out were actually good experiences if given the chance. I am now forced to wonder what else I'm missing out on. How much more God has planned for me if I could have more faith in Him to show me things I am too afraid to give up. What if I gave up on all the fears I have held on to for so long and just trusted that everything would be OK? What if like the water slide I tried it and said "OK, I survived that, let's go again so I can try it knowing what to expect." I went down two different slides but I went down them a combination of seven times.
I don't know why your mountains were built around your heart. Maybe you don't have any. If that is the case, I am so happy for you and I would ask you to find it in you to pray for those of us who have had not only walls built from bricks but entire mountains built around our hearts. It is a terrible tragedy to live in fear of ...life. I don't know any other way to express it. I have not done things and used my age as an excuse not to do them. I'm a great excuse maker. If you need an excuse not to live life to the fullest I'm the girl you want to help you with making that excuse.
And then I read a bracelet. Faith, Courage, Joy. With GREAT Faith come Great Courage. "Courage is not the absence of fear only the realization that something else is more important." That is a quote from the Princess Diaries but I think it applies. If we have Faith in our great big God we can have courage to pursue any path that He lays out for us. Would the God that created you in His image lead you to a path to fulfill His purpose only to let you go it alone? I don't think so, and with that we find the final word in the three, Joy.
When we follow our God and we take that leap we not only bring Joy to our God, we find our own Joy. I found the joy in riding a water slide. I found the joy in experiencing life with my husband and children instead of missing out and reading a book alone. I have found Joy in letting go of another mountain and trusting in God. With GREAT Faith come Great Courage which brings about Great Joy. Isn't that cool?
So maybe for me it's reading a bracelet that gives me pause to wonder. Maybe I'm slow on the uptake and you are already far beyond what I can teach you from what I'm learning. If that is the case that brings me joy too. I hope you will continue on your path with our GREAT Big God and keep me in your prayers as well as I will keep you in mine. I hope if you are learning daily like I am, you will continue to allow God to continue knocking down the mountains and walls to your heart so He can live there and protect it. In God you can put your Faith, With God you can take Courage, In God you will not only find your Joy but you will bring Him Joy as well.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Conquering Fears One Toilet Bowl at a Time
Yesterday I was flushed down the toilet bowl...four times. Now allow me to explain before your imaginations take hold. We went to a water park. I'm not sure the exact number of times we have taken our children to a water park. I can tell you the exact number of times I went to a water park as a child. Zero. I never went to a water park as a child. I couldn't even tell you if they existed when I was a kid although my husband assures me that they did; just not on the scale that they are today. My mother was afraid of the water. We didn't have a pool except for the Scooby Doo pop up pool I had as a child. I didn't learn how to swim until after I was married and my husband put me in swimming lessons. I cannot swim to the bottom of the pool to this day. (human buoy and all) I know just enough to get by in my pool.
So you can see where my fear of water slides could come into play. My children are great swimmers. We own a pool and I put them in swimming lessons as babies. They love the water and love water slides. My husband loves the water and the water slides also. The have a great time going on these water slides while I read a good book and people watch. This year I went on a family water slide. I was terrified. It felt like we were flying a million miles an hour and then something happened. I didn't fall out of the family size tube and I didn't drown. Then even more amazing, I said "Let's do that again!" I then went on the water slide that looked like a toilet bowl with my husband. I rode that one twice with him and twice with my son. Then before we left I rode the family ride with the family one last time. At this point I'm not sure why I was scared.
While on our big family vacation a couple of weeks ago I rode a small roller coaster and three simulated rides. I never ride the rides. I hold everyone's things while they ride the rides. I had a birthday while we were on this vacation. I'm not sure if I am getting braver as I get older or if I am finally starting to loose it faster than ever before. All I know is that I am discovering that I have missed out on a few things that are really fun. I still don't want to go on the big roller coasters but the simulated rides are great. They are both thrilling and yet, in my mind, much safer.
When I was a small child I was afraid to go down my slide on my swing set. I'm not sure why I was afraid and mostly I don't remember it, I just remember my mom telling me the story. I am afraid of heights. I was once afraid of trying sushi and I was a bit apposed to guacamole. Both are things I enjoy now even though I don't eat the sushi that has raw fish in it. I'm getting braver but I'm not trying to get salmonella. (There are reasons why food should be cooked. Am I right?) My point being that I have spent my entire life afraid of things that maybe I shouldn't have been.
I don't know what fear will be next, if any. Cooked spinach that is not in a quiche or some other dish will never be something I will want to conquer. Pees that are not mixed into fried rice will never hold a place in my heart. Perhaps it won't be a food related fear. Maybe it will not involve something that looks like a toilet bowl. But until then...I guess I will consider myself Heather Nestleroad: Conquering fears one toilet bowl at a time. Has a nice ring to it don't you think?
So you can see where my fear of water slides could come into play. My children are great swimmers. We own a pool and I put them in swimming lessons as babies. They love the water and love water slides. My husband loves the water and the water slides also. The have a great time going on these water slides while I read a good book and people watch. This year I went on a family water slide. I was terrified. It felt like we were flying a million miles an hour and then something happened. I didn't fall out of the family size tube and I didn't drown. Then even more amazing, I said "Let's do that again!" I then went on the water slide that looked like a toilet bowl with my husband. I rode that one twice with him and twice with my son. Then before we left I rode the family ride with the family one last time. At this point I'm not sure why I was scared.
While on our big family vacation a couple of weeks ago I rode a small roller coaster and three simulated rides. I never ride the rides. I hold everyone's things while they ride the rides. I had a birthday while we were on this vacation. I'm not sure if I am getting braver as I get older or if I am finally starting to loose it faster than ever before. All I know is that I am discovering that I have missed out on a few things that are really fun. I still don't want to go on the big roller coasters but the simulated rides are great. They are both thrilling and yet, in my mind, much safer.
When I was a small child I was afraid to go down my slide on my swing set. I'm not sure why I was afraid and mostly I don't remember it, I just remember my mom telling me the story. I am afraid of heights. I was once afraid of trying sushi and I was a bit apposed to guacamole. Both are things I enjoy now even though I don't eat the sushi that has raw fish in it. I'm getting braver but I'm not trying to get salmonella. (There are reasons why food should be cooked. Am I right?) My point being that I have spent my entire life afraid of things that maybe I shouldn't have been.
I don't know what fear will be next, if any. Cooked spinach that is not in a quiche or some other dish will never be something I will want to conquer. Pees that are not mixed into fried rice will never hold a place in my heart. Perhaps it won't be a food related fear. Maybe it will not involve something that looks like a toilet bowl. But until then...I guess I will consider myself Heather Nestleroad: Conquering fears one toilet bowl at a time. Has a nice ring to it don't you think?
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