The Motions

A fellow blogger posted yesterday song lyrics of a song that "hits every aspect of what you're going through and feeling". 

I was listening to my iTunes while working on copying recipies for my roommate's Christmas present.  Then this song came on.  And this is my song that "hits every aspect of what you're going through and feeling".   

The Motions
Matthew West

This might hurt, it's not safe

But I know that I've gotta make a change
I don't care if I break
At least I'll be feeling something

‘Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of life
I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
Without Your all consuming passion inside of me

I don't wanna spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything
Instead of going through the motions?

No regrets, not this time
I'm gonna let my heart defeat my mind
Let Your love make me whole
I think I'm finally feeling something

‘Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of this life

‘Cause I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
Without your all consuming passion inside of me

I don't wanna spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything
Instead of going through the motions?

Take me all the way
(Take me all the way)
Take me all the way
(‘Cause I don't wanna go through the motions)

Take me all the way
(Lord, I'm finally feeling something real)
Take me all the way

I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
Without Your all consuming passion inside of me

I don't wanna spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything
Instead of going through the motions?

I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
Without Your all consuming passion inside of me

I don't wanna spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything
Instead of going through the motions?
Take me all the way
(Take me all the way
Take me all the way
(I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go)

Take me all the way
(Through the motions)
Take me all the way

I don't wanna go through the motions

I've been struggling in my spiritual life for a while and I want to break free from that and not feel like I am just going through the motions.  I want to 100% live my life for God. 

Do you have a song that hits the nail on the head for you right now? 

Blessings in Christ,

 

A Desire for a Family

One thing that I have been struggling with lately is giving up my future to God. I so badly want to have a family and it is extremely difficult for me to watch youth younger than me get married and start their families. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to get married and have children. How I have children has always been up in the air :) but nonetheless, I wanted them. I know God is in charge of my life, He is the author and I am just a character in His book. Just like any character in a book, I do not know how the end will turn out only the author does. Since God holds each of our books so close to Him, not even an outsider (or reader) can cheat and read beyond the current page. We all know the last part is that we die, but we cannot read the middle to figure out what the middle of our story holds for ourselves or one another. When I share my age with the other youth at church, I get the impression that I shouldn't be sitting with them or attending the youth sunday school class. That I belong with the women. I understand that I am a bit older than most youth here, but I am not ready to give up on my dream that I will have a husband and children one day.

I know in my head that if God intends for me to meet someone that He will make sure to have our paths cross but yet, to my heart, that is not comforting. I know it should be, but yet it's not. I have been praying so much lately on this, asking God to give me a peaceful-ness and allow me to relinquish control over my future to Him but yet I seem to find a way to focus on this not soon after I have finished praying, wondering if I have missed my chance already.

Blessings in Christ,

Am I living God's Will?

I know I have been realatively quiet for a while now. I have been weighing a pretty hefty decision, my first one really. I have a job that has pretty much been handed to me on a silver platter, but I do not know that it is something God wants me to do. Ever had one of these internal debates with yourself? I hate them... My other option is to move out of the area that I was born and raised in and start over.

I have a friend who has been sort of guiding me through all of this, and she gave me some questions to ask myself. Which I think can be applied to any situation when we start wondering if it is truly God's plan for us or whether we are inserting our own wants in as God's plan for us.

- Does it match up with God's word on what you feel God's calling you to do?
- Do you feel like you'd be at peace within your soul if you did not do it?
- Will doing it draw you closer to God?
- Are you doing what God wants you do to?

Yes these may seem rather general, but keep in mind, "it" would be replaced with whatever you are having an internal struggle with... whether it be dressing modestly, covering, submitting to your husband, moving, etc, etc.

My scripture homework has been helping me. I have now started to go through Psalm 18-48 and highlight all the verses that state "The Lord is..." or "God is..." and write them out. So wonderful to see all the things that God is to us :)

Blessings in Christ,

Crawling...

I have begun to crawl I think, but I may be knocked down again. One friend has been helping to hold me accountable with God. I am all to ready to give up on Him for a time more. I just cannot grasp how He would allow all to happen that is happening right now. She has given me "homework" as she likes to call it :) Writing out specific scripture verses by hand. I know for sure it will help with scripture knowledge, I just am not sure if it will help strengthen my faith again.

I am back to my covering when I am out of the house and in my bedroom. It causes too much "discomfort" for my parents when I cover in their house so I was asked not to. I am doing my best to respect their wishes, but I also feel like I am disobeying God and do not know how to compromise on this. Or do I not compromise? They are blaming my sadness on my covering as well. Seems odd to me because I love my covering. It is everything else in my life that is causing me to be sad and quiet now, but they don't seem to recognize that as the cause.

I am looking forward to this weekend though, I get to go visit my friend :)

I am sharing my struggles to hopefully allow everyone to see that as strong as I may be in my faith at some times, I certainly am not that strong all the time. This time is one that I am definitely struggling. It is certainly not hte first time I have struggled this much and I guarantee you this will not be the last!

Blessings in Christ,

What if I Stumble?

"What if I stumble? What if I fall?
What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble? And what if I fall?"
- DC Talk's "What if I stumble?"

For the past week and a half, I have been stumbling. Both emotionally and in my faith. They are intertwined though. I have been feeling guilty that I did not do enough to help a friend in need, that I helped her but then I left the area and am not there to physically support her. I have been able to work through that feeling for the most part, but then another blow. I felt abandonded. Because the people that are helping her decided I could not visit her for two-three weeks and her and I were both already struggling because we both felt I should be with her and not at home. I felt like I was being abandonded by them and by God. How could God let me sit here feeling so guilty and then add another blow? I gave up on Him for a few days. I have started praying again, but not nearly as much as I was before all this happened. I haven't read my Bible though, well nearly as much as I should be for a time like this. I have a tendancy to do really well with everything spiritually when everything in my life is going well, it is when things are not going so well that I stumble. Odd fact, which seems rather backwards to me, but I read somewhere (not sure where) that more people are good with God in the bad times and forget to rely on Him during the good times as well. Does that seem a little bit backwards to anyone else?

I am also stumbling because I have been wearing a covering in the house and everywhere since I got back from my mini-vacation almost 2 weeks ago (yay!), but it has put up a wall between my parents and I who despise my covering. They say it makes them uncomfortable and I need to think about how I am making others feel before I put it on. Odd? To me that is. They have never once told me to think of other people first before what I am doing for my Lord. However, they do not believe this command is from the Lord, they believe it is from Paul who my mom's pastor calls a "pharisee fanatic".

Those are my stumbling blocks right now, how are you doing in your walk with the Lord? I am slowly starting to crawl again and hope to pick myself back up when I am able.

Blessings in Christ,

They'll know we are Christians by our love

Sound familiar? It might because it is a popular Church song (at least at the Church I grew up in)... "And they'll know we are Christians by our love by our love, yes they'll know we are Christians by our love". Well that's the chorus at least!

I certainly hope the people that I interact with will think that I am a Christian because I truly do my very best to be kind to everyone that I meet. Granted, no matter how hard I try, I may not be as kind as I should. Not only kind, but patient and loving.

Now, the other day I was listening to "What if I Stumble" by dc talk. Yes, it is more of a Rock Christian band, but I like some of their songs :) The beginning of the song is narrative saying "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable".

Am I supposed to be only kind to my unbeliving neighbors? No. I ought to be kind to my Christian neighbors as well. Which sometimes is actually more difficult because they should know what is wrong and what is right, but as we all know, that is not always the case. Anyway, one of my friends has a saying, "don't hate the sinner, hate the sin". I find myself repeating this saying often when I am trying to be friendly to my Christian neighbors, even the ones that do not realize they are sinning or I hate to even say it, but care that they are sinning.

How we approach our unbelieving neighbors will have a lot to do with how we can help them. If we do not be kind and cautious in our approach, we may overwhelm them with the wonderful news of our Lord. If we lead them to believe that we NEVER stumble or have our doubts, how could we gain them as a fellow brother or sister in Christ? I know I definitely have my stumbles and doubts occasionally. But as soon as I immerse myself in the word of our Lord, I am reminded of why I am here and why I will have eternal life, even if not on this world!

I think dc talk did a good job of highlighting the common frets and worries of someone who looks at Christianity. Either we honor our Lord on Sundays alone (or even worse, while we are just at Church) or we act like we are perfect and have no worries or problems.

You may be thinking "Chelsea, what on earth are you going for? You've gone all over the board in this post". Well hopefully I can tie it all up here for ya :) As Christians, our unbelieving neighbors should know we are Christians by the love and kindness we show to them. No matter what might of happened to cause us to not want to love and show kindness. In doing so, we shall teach them about our Lord, but also, we must not be afraid to share our stumbles with our neighbors! We can all learn from other's questions or mistakes :)

Remember in school..."there is no such thing as a silly question except for those left unasked"? That still applies {grins}.

A few questions each of us needs to answer and be truthful with ourselves on.
- How do my neighbors view me? Both believing and unbelieving.
- What kind of Christian AM I?
- What kind of Christian do I WANT to be?
- And finally, what do I need to do to get there?

Blessings in Christ,