A little bit of honesty.

In an effort to be more transparent in my struggles. . .

It's time for some serious honesty here. . .
I love the Lord with my whole heart, but I just don't understand Him. His ways are so confusing to me, and although I talk to Him about this often, I just don't know what to do. I have been waiting patiently for His glory to shine through the crappy situation that I'm in, and it's not happening yet. And it's killing me. Don't get me wrong, I'm staying strong and remembering all of the wonderful promises that God has given me and I still worship with the same passion and talk to Him with the same reverence, but this is hard. I usually thrive in challenges, but this is worse than anything I've been through before.

But, alas, I know that I will be okay. Because I do know that God's glory will be found and He will find a way to be known in this. In a great way.

And until then I will just be waiting. Pray with me, please?

We really are more than conquerors.

When I was in the 1st grade there was a boy in my class, his name was B.J.. He really liked me. Every day at recess, without fail, he would chase me around the track saying that if he caught me he was going to kiss me. I spent a lot of recesses either running from, or hiding from him. Needless to say, I wasn't a huge fan of him. It wasn't until a couple of years later that I realized that I shouldn't have run from him. Not because I wanted a kiss, but because he never would have done it. Without a doubt he would have cowered away. I was popular, and I had a lot of friends (All 6 year olds do. . . ) that didn't want him anywhere near me. When I realized that, I was pretty annoyed that a year of my recesses were wasted because of my failure to stand up for myself. Don't worry. . . I'm going somewhere with this.

This past month I've been running from the enemy. Running and running and running. He's been after me for days. Weeks, even. In hot pursuit. More so than usual, because there are things going on in my life that are very hard, and he knows it. He is after me. So I've been running, and not looking back. Yesterday he was on my heels. I was out of breath, and I felt weak, and he was about to take me out when it hit me - I don't have to run. - So I stopped. I turned around, looked him square in the eye, and I said "Stop. I'm stronger than you because I have a God who loves me. He loves me and he cares for me, and he is my strength and my deliverer. You are nothing. You cannot take me down. So you can turn your sorry self around, and leave me alone." And that's what he did. Since then I have felt a peace that I haven't experienced in weeks. God is showing me things I have never seen before. My attitude is totally different about everything going on in my life and everything that I was in tears about 2 days ago. By the way, this isn't to say that we are not to stay away from the enemy, but we don't have to run from him in a way that we are scared and tired. My God is powerful. He picks us up when we are too weak to walk, and all we have to do is ask Him. He is there, always there. What a beautiful love that is. And although I continue to struggle here and there, which is to be expected in hard times, I now know that I am strong, and I am courageous. More so than I thought, because I have Him. We have Him - And because of that, we don't have to run.