You Rule

I kneel here in silence
Awaiting Your command
Slowly I feel You
Give me the strength to stand
You whisper lightly
Beckon me to move
Pushing me slightly
Past all my moods

Chorus:
I'm done with doubt
Lonliness and despair
Remind me, Oh God
That You rule everywhere
I'll do what You ask
And prove You are real
To the world around me
Who disbelieves still.

I stand here in silence
In the midst of the battle
But I feel Your guidence
Through all of the madness
The war keeps on raging
And inside my heart
I know its the tip of the iceburg
This is only the start.

Chorus:
I'm done with doubt
Lonliness and despair
Remind me, Oh God,
That You rule everywhere
I'll do what You ask
And prove You are real
To the world around me
Who disbelieves still

In good times or bad times
You were there from the start
You keep on reminding
That You created this part
Of me that feeds on madness,
Doom, and despair
But I praise You, Jesus
Cuz You rule everywhere

Repeat Chorus x2

(Note: verse located on the bottom of the page where the 1st verse, chorus, and 2nd verse was written- "Many blessings are given to those you trust the Lord..." Psalm 40:4 TLB; on the page where the last verse was written, the verse says- "...He knows every detail of what is happening to me..." Job 23:10 TLB)

A Prayer

Dear God:

I know you know my situation now, and how I feel like I'm drowning in a mess of my own creation. But you told her to tell me that it all isn't my fault! And I praise you for that! Its a mess created by four generations of heavy-laden sin in my family, and I have to banish it. I'm just waiting for further instruction. I just don't want to do it wrong.

But for now, while I'm waiting on the instructions and the verses for me to study on this, help me. Give me strength. I feel like I could die under the weight of the depression I battle every second of every day. And my family doesn't help. They have a long history of ignoring the things that are right in front of their faces and making them worse. My mom and dad haven't sought your will for me. If they had, then they'd know that I'm not supposed to be looking for another job. I'd kind of suspected it and then you gave me double confirmation that I'm not. But they don't seem to care what you want. They are pushing me to find a job. Well, I mean, it's not like I'm not working and just sitting at home mooching off them. I have a job. I don't like it much, but I know that its where you need me to be right now. I don't know why, and I don't really need to know. I guess I've said all this to say, Lord, please make Mom and Dad leave me alone about finding a job. I just feel like even looking right now goes against your will and I don't want to sin in this. I'm trying to hold on to you, but they don't understand. And they are Christians! I realized a long time ago that I trust you more than they do, but I didn't realize that it was this...what's the word?...bad, I guess.

I'm scared. I want more than anything to move out on my own, but you haven't given me an answer on that. Not a solid one anyway. Nothing more than "Wait, and see." I'm trying, I really am! Daddy, help. Give me peace. I need it so bad right now. I need freedom, and just quiet in this place. I am in your sight and in your hands. I'm yours.

I keep clinging to the vision you gave me Wednesday. This ministry is about to explode into something so much greater than anything I could have imagined, Lord. Our desire to be your hands and heal the broken is about to kick into high gear. I just need clarity, and to be constantly reminded of the vision you gave to me: The four of us that are to come together to start this are kneeling before you and you have anointed us and given us the weapons we need for this fight. I am saying now for everyone in the world to see that I trust you and you are in control and you will protect me in the fight to come! I just keep coming back to Jeremiah 46:3-5, 10. You gave me this word in December, and it still holds so true! "Prepare your sheilds, both large and small, and march out for battle! Harness the horses, mount the steeds! Take your positions with helmets on! Polish your spears, put on your armor! What do I see? They are terrified, they are retreating, their warriors are defeated. They flee in haste without looking back, and there is terror on every side," declares the Lord...But that day belongs to the Lord, the Lord Almighty--a day of vengeance, for vengeance on His foes. The sword will devour till it is satisfied, till it has quenched its thirst with blood. For the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will offer sacrifice in the land of the north by the River Euphrates. Its so good to know that You are going to fight for us. All we have to do is wear your armor and stand back to back, ready and willing to fight when charged!

I've cried more tears than I can count lately. I'm so down on myself and so lonely all the time. Satan wants that. I rebuke it everyday and choose to live and seek you instead of falling into the pit-trap the enemy has sprung. These tears are far from in vain. You will use them to your glory. You always do. This will use each one of them as a building block for our ministry to grow upon. I won't give up!

I love you and praise you for the wonders you are working in us. In Keil, Jen, and I. In the brother or sister that is to help us that we haven't met yet that is going to come to us soon. Weave us tighter together so that we won't be separated, as the enemy is going to try to do. We seek your face! We seek to bring you pleasure and to do the work laid out for us! Use us! We are yours! You called us to a ministry described in Isaiah 43:1-10, and we are more than willing. We are eager! Continue to prepare us! Father, I know this peace over me is nothing but the intense, beautiful work of your hands, and I know it is just reassuring my self doubt and saying that I did hear you right and that I am in your hands. You hold this situation and the demons of Hell at bay for a little while so that I may be at rest. I love you! Be with me this day as I go to care for residents who so desperately need someone to show them your love. Pour your love out of my face and heart and hands as I try to bring a touch of light into the darkness of that place. Help me never to waver in this resolve. I love you, I love you, I love you! I am yours and you are mine, O lover of my soul!

I Will Stand

I Will Stand

I feel Your glory warm my face
As You lightly touch my hair
Chills always flow when You are there
And I am wrapped in Your embrace.
It is in You, My Lord, I rest
As You move in mighty ways
Lovingly growing my faith
Putting all works to the test.

But I will stand for You
When life is raging
Slinging chaos in my wake
Darkness hates my love for You
And always causes pain
Satan begs me to play
A victim but
I will stand for You

I can’t deny my imperfections
And flaws within my heart
Everchanging since the start
But I thrive on Your affection
Pour down Your grace and blessing
Wash me free from my transgression
I want to be a projection
Of Your purpose ever glorious.

But I will stand for You
When life is raging
Slinging chaos in my wake
Darkness hates my love for You
And always causes pain
Satan begs me to play
A victim but
I will stand for You

I am high upon a mountain now
But I know the valley is to come
And I may not know the why or how
But I’ve fallen in Your love. (Repeat x1)

Change

Change has come
I'm shifting gears
Saying goodbye
To all of my tears
Love now has come
And healed my rips
Now fear won't keep me
Within its grips
So, I'm...

Screaming
Shouting
Dancing for my Lord
Praising
I worship
Living out His Word
Trusting
Walking
So blind eyes will see
I'm not
Perfect
But He's changing me.

A ministry is rising
Out of our midst
Who would have predicted
This from such misfits?
Temperature is rising
Lord, you must be in this
Cuz Satan's picked a battle
But we know he can't win
So we will keep...

Screaming
Shouting
Dancing for our Lord
Praising
We'll worship
Living out His Word
Trusting
Walking
So blind eyes will see
That we're not
Perfect
But He's changing each.

Guided by the Holy Spirit!

Galatians 5:16-18

So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing

what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which

is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Sprit gives us desires

which are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires.

These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not

free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by

the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. (NLT)

I have really been meditating on these verses. Really thinking about spiritual warfare and how easily the shackles come back on me. I have spent time this week asking God to help me understand and break a pattern I seem stuck in. This was what He showed me. Realize that the pattern is your sinful nature and the Holy spirit fighting each other. Let go so you may be live and be guided by the Holy Spirit. I keep thinking "How, God? How?" How do I let go? How do I stop this destructive pattern? How do I protect my heart yet keep it open for you, Father? How do I hope in the Lord, not in other things? I have been contemplating this for the past few days and am still contemplating on exactly what it means to hope in the Lord. I so desire to hope only in Him, yet I find myself hoping for a husband. Hoping so much I'm looking around every corner for him. Taking my focus off Jesus. I don't want to give into my sinful nature and it is sinful for me to idolize the idea of a husband. I am taking my attention of God. I only want to hope in Him....but how? I keep praying and asking and God is showing me, I am slowly picking it up. I know that I have a tendency to pick things up fast, but this is one concept, for some strange reason, I am having a hard time to grasp. I want to hope that my life will get better. That I will meet the man God has chosen for me but at what point does it become more than hope and turns into an obsession.

I realize that I am a very selfish girl. I keep thinking about myself, my desires, and even if I would like to think it is not true, they are worldly desires. I have asked God to help me repent of my selfishness. I spend so much time groveling in my own self pity, my own loneliness that I forget the bigger picture. I miss out on opportunities to praise God in a most amazing way. Serving Him. Helping His children. God is revealing so much to me lately. A new hope has entered my heart as I have begun to really look at myself. And much of what I have seen is not pretty, but with God's help, correction, love, and guidance can begin to be turned around. I tend to feel I am a victim. I have to let go of that sentiment. I am not a victim. I am a child of God! He will use and has used all bad and turned it around for good. (Romans 8:28) God is most amazing. I thank Him for using others to show me things about myself so I can change, truly transform now that Christ is in me! It is all in God's time. God has performed miracles in many aspects of my life lately and in the lives around me that I would be dumb not to see them. Only God could do what I have seen.

God has given me a vision. A shared vision with some other amazing people! I pray that with the hope planted in me of this vision that we all follow His will in this. That we are patient and listen and follow His plan as He has destined it. I am learning that God has great plans to use me. I choose to be a servant and living sacrifice. I love God! I want to serve God. (Romans 12:1-2) And I realize as I choose to sacrifice my body to Christ that my sinful nature, the ways of the world around me fight to pull me back in. God promised me in a dream this past week that He will set me free from the captivity of my sinful nature and this pattern I seem to have gotten caught in. He promised me that once and for all, through Christ that pattern is now broken! (Phil. 4:13).

What an amazing, beautiful promise! A promise that has filled me full of a hope I have not felt since the night I chose to accept Christ. I thank the Lord for always hearing my prayers and answering them in His time not mine. I know just a couple of months ago, I would not have been ready to face some of the truths God has shown me about my darker side this week. I am grateful for His mercy and grace! I trust in the Lord completely! (Proverbs 3:5-6). He has a plan for me and it is a perfect plan for me. I must sit back and wait on him to show me as is necessary. Sometimes, I only need to know just enough to take the next step!! (Jeremiah 29:11, Psalm 27:14, Psalm 37:7, Ruth 3:18) There are so many more! God is my fortress! I will hide beneath His wings. Oh Father! Thank you!

I praise you from the very depths of my soul and heart! I love you! And I ask you to help me do the hardest thing of all. Look at myself!

New Song

This song doesn't have a name nor may not be finished, but here it is anyway! I love you, Jen!!!


I’m pausing by the doorway
Of consciousness
And trusting that He knows
The way to go.
The freedom I should feel
Is lying dormant
And I am clinging to the peace
That He is promised.

The chaos in my heart is
Ever flowing
Nonsense fighting hard
To take me over.
Fear of futures unknown
And waves of anxiety
I can’t battle anymore
Lord, set me free.

I feel just like I should
Keep everything in me inside
Stay locked up tight
Anybody that I’ve ever tried to trust
Hurts me and makes me cry
Lord, you’re the only
Stable thing within my life
Be with me and hold my hand tonight.

Enoch

So, this morning when I was doing my devotion, I turned to the place in Job where I left off, and the Lord said, "NO!" It was loud and resounding, so I closed it and said, "okay, Lord. Where'm I going today?" And that's how I ended up in Genesis; and I was lead to Chapter 5.

For those of you who don't know, chapter 5 of Genesis is the geneology of Adam. It goes from Adam all the way through the birth of Noah and then Noah's sons. At first, I couldn't understand the Lord's thoughts, but then I realized around verse 21. This was one of my favorite Bible stories, and it had been so long since I looked at it that I had forgotten where it was. Verses 21-24 are all of the mention we have of Enoch, but he is so incredible. "Enoch lived lived 65 years, and begot Methuselah. After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him."

When I read this as an adult, it struck me in a much different way than it had as a child. Enoch lived 365 years, and as a kid, that's what hit me the hardest. But now, "for God took him." I mean, we know that he walked with God. He and God were crazy tight. So tight that God didn't want him to die. Now from what I can tell from previous studying into it and the teachings of the pastor from my childhood (and if there are Bible scholars reading, feel free to email and correct me), before Jesus came and died, the people who died were taken to a sort of holding place. And in that holding place, there was 2 sections reserved: one for those who walked with God and followed Him, and one for those who didn't. When Jesus came and died, during the three days he was dead, he went to hell, got the keys, then went to the holding place and sent the people to their perspective afterlives. When Genesis says that "Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him," that screamed to me that the Lord was so close to Enoch that He didn't want to be separate from him long enough for Jesus to come. It blew my mind. I want to be so close to the Lord that He just decides to take me! Its an incredible thought that the Lord could do this.

Upon closer examining, though, that is exactly what Jesus did. God couldn't bear to be without us any longer. So He came to earth, died, went to Hell for us, so that He can be with us forever. Now, He doesn't have to "take" us; we just have to learn to rely more fully on Him. Its kind of cool what you can get from 4 little verses in Genesis!!