2012 and growing

Wow...3 blogs in one night!  Well, not really.  I wrote one...based off scripture from church today...mainly tonight but with some Brother Harold Noble splashed in there here and there....so basically...I didn't really "write it"...I just copied it from my bible and notes and then threw in a few of my own thoughts.  THEN I found this really old blog I had started but never published.  I didn't even read it...I just published it.  So, now, here I am.  Well, I just read the old blog that I wrote at the beginning of the year and get this...here I am 10 months later and I think I am just about in the same boat as I was in January.  Still searching...still trying to find my place in this place that is not my home.  I have eliminated the thought of working for the church or school full time.  I have applied for a pretty serious position at work....after getting my degree and my experience actually doing that exact same job...I thought well this is so easily being handed to me...it will be a shoe in so this much be what God wants of me.  He wants me in this corporate world....so no...that did not play out the way I thought it would in my head.  I didn't get the job.  It was rough.  It was even more rough when I returned from work after a couple days off only to find out that....everyone I worked with knew everything that had happened.  I was so not cool with that.  Thank to the two people at work that felt it was ok to exploit my experiences for your dramatic entertainment.  So now, here I am again....seeing out what I am all about and what God's goal is for me.  The biggest thing I have learned so far this year, is that although I have known for years to let God control everything I have not let Him do it.  Not even close.  Are you kidding me!....Mrs. Control Freak here!!  So now, here I am, letting him take control.  We're going to put our house on the market in January so we can move to Saginaw in a house that costs next to nothing so we can put more money into God's ministries and our business.  I don't have any help to give me that security I am always use to lining up for my peace of mind.  Trust me...I tried...I was shut down in all areas!  I am sure very much part of God's plan for me to "Let Go and Let God!"  So, if the house sales (Please Lord) then I know God's hand was in it.  If it doesn't (Praise God!) it wasn't in His plan.  And...I'll keep looking, searching....seeking.  Because the Lord says if you seek Him, He will reveal Himself to you.  Do I get a new job...who knows...if the right opportunity reveals itself I'll pursue it.  If it goes through, then Praise God...if not, Praise God!  I'm not in control and I'll follow whatever He brings my way.  Until then, I'm going to seek Him, I'm going to fill my reservoir of truth and do everything I can in my power, but mainly His power, to show the world what it truly means to have a relationship with Christ and how it is like living life seeking Him and following His path versus my path.

At a loss for words...really....(long lost blog lost in the drafts!)

So, I wanted to start this blog...kind of a way to work through my thoughts and emotions.  I usually do this through song and music, but I thought this would be neat....as you can see since my last blog was back in August, I have not done too well.  I will say I have started a new entry on a couple different occassions, but stopped because I didin't really have anything to say.  I know what you are thinking...Angela?  Has nothing to say??  Not possible...but I really wasn't sure what to say.  2011 ended with me on an emotional and spiritual roller coaster...and I'd like to add that the ride is not quite over...meaning....things are still a little fuzzy.  I feel like 2012 is really callenging me already....begging me to find out who I really am.  Who God wants me to be...  I feel like there are going to be a lot of changes for me this year.  I am struggling with time...as usual...but am anticipating that changing in less than 130 days when I finally graduate from college on May 12!!!  So psyched, but a little freaked at teh same time.  I don't really know what I am going to do with it.  Work is super fun right now throwing new projects at me every which way I turn.  I keep thinking ...finally...hard work pays off, but then I think, is this where God wants me.  I have no idea!  I have a struggle between spiritual and world!  I want to spend alll day with my family at church.  This sounds crazy but it seems like life would be so easy if we all lived in one giant community always together doing everything together.  Crazy I know...cult sounding...I KNOW!  BUT what do you do when you just love these people so much...I can't help but want to be around them all the time!  Then I am reminded that God needs us out there in the world to do the one thing we are here to do...tell people about his love.  It is so hard for me to separate the world....I think about the work that I do.  It doesn't have anything to do with God or His works.  The only thing I can find "spiritual" in my work is that in doing it, I show His love and His grace.  That is important and I don't want to make light of how my life could be used to bring someone to Christ, but I get confused so easily because I like work so much.  I could easily be a work-a-holic.  I am so good at it too...for the most part.  I mean, everyone's got their faults and short comings, but I am really good at looking at processes and analyzing them...and I really enjoy doing it.  All this time though I have been working towards MY goals...I wonder if now they are coming to reality to hold me back from something God has for me.  I feel like I have two people living inside me at times because I then think about working in the church full time, doing something businessy or adminish...just being there so much, makes me weep in excitement!  So who am I...Am I successful business woman with a degree and hopefully promising future in the processes I am so engulfed in or am I full time in the church, serving people, serving Christ.  THEN, incorporate Scott in it all...he wants to do his business full time which involves at least 2 other minitstries serving God.  I know some people think we just rent bounce houses, but for Scott....there is so much more to it.  For him it is a ministry to help churches focus on outreach and showing Christ's love to schools and back yard birthday parties.  Then to grow it to extend to servicing churches with their outreach and growing up Christian businesses creating accountability groups....toe ministry ideas just keep growing.  This is exciting to him and me!  To be able to use my business knowledge for my OWN business is awesome and to do it with my husband who I love and respect and admire so much would be awesome (in my singing voice)....anyway....so here I am Jan 2012...wondering what God has in store for me....but I am not seeking it.  I have broken my good Godly habits being too busy, too tired, my foot hurts, wa-wa-wa-wa-wa....I complain, I pout, I whine...and Praise the Lord...He continues to lift me up, talk to me, encourage me....and thank God...convict me.  Last week we started more of a routine with Abigail...come home, do your chores, homework, clean your room...daddy makes dinner; I come home and help finish up, we eat...clean up, get ready for bed, then...spend time with her.  It started because she was getting such a bad attitude and I was pretty sure she was just craving attention.  Today, I want to go even further and want you, all my many many readers lol...all 2 of you....to hold us accountable!  We pray before dinner, Abigail prays, but I want to commit that we will start to take turns.  It is important that our children practice praying but also to hear us and see our example more clearly.  Then instead of just playing games, which is what Abigail usually wants to do as we spend time together, I want to start using this book we bought more consistently.  It is a book with Bible lessons to do as a family.  THEN I want to start praying with her each night.  I was glad to start it today at the alter.  I need to be praying to be a godly woman, and my daughter need to see, hear, and pray for it too.

It's been a long time...but this is important

II Chronicles 5-6
...May you hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place.... (5:20b)
...When the heaves are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray and turn from their sin because you have afflicted them, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel.  Teach them the right way to live... (5:26-27a)
...When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when enemies besiege them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come and when a prayer or plea is made by any of your people Israel -- each one aware of his afflictions and pains, and spreading out his hands toward this temple--then hear from heaven, your dwelling place.  Forgive and deal with each man according to all he does, since you know his heart (for you alone know the hearts of men)...(5:28-30)

Me--So basically when life seems bad and hope is lost...or even when things look good....but I think we all know it is when life is hardest this applies the most....especially if you are reading this and you have never cried out to God...it will be easiest to understand or cry out when life seems hardest...so I digress, when all seems lost and life is hard, the Word of the Lord says that we can pray to Him, Solomon asks that the Lord hears us.  That He forgive and deal with each person who prays to Him.  See....it's important.  It's important to pray to Him, the Almighty, Holiest of Holy, and He WILL hear you....

...so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Istael, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name....(5:33b)
...When they sin against you--for there is no one who does not sin--and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captinve to a land far away or near; and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and pleas with you in the land of their captivity and say, "We have sinned, we have done wrong and acted wickedly; and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their captivity where they were taken, and pray toward the land you gave their fathers, toward the city you have chosen and toward the temple I have built for your Name; then from heave, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their pleas, and uphold their cause.  And forgive your people, who have sinned against you.  (5:36-39)

Me--You see....so despite us...despite America...our chaos, our selfishness...our brattiness...our self-absorbing, sinful attitudes....HE STILL SAVES US!  HE IS STILL THERE FOR US!!!  HE STILL DIED FOR US; HE STILL SAVES US!!!

How can you read these words...these Holy words from God's Book of Life and not see.  Not see who we all really are, how we are ALL like this...no matter where we are in life.  If we are someone who is three to thrive at church Sunday AM, Sunday PM, and Wednesday...or someone who frequently hears them say...Lightning would strike if I walked into a church...it doesn't matter!  We are ALL sinners...and Praise God...we are all SAVED by grace.

Grace-something given freely when undeserved....

...O Lord God, do not reject your anointed one....(6:42)

Me--O Lord our Good, I beg you...please do not reject your anointed one...give me the heart for the lost that you desire me to have.  Give me the reserve of truth so that I have the words necessary to illustrate the love you have for me, for others...that persuades people what being a Christian really is all about.  It's about failing, but leaning on you to help us recover and learn from the failure.  It's about love, true love, for everyone we encounter...even when we don't feel like it.  Or loving them when they don't feel like it.  Oh, Lord, ignite this town, this city, this region, this state, this country!