Cracking Up at a Crosswalk...

      So this past weekend I was privileged to be able to travel to Savannah, GA for a childhood friend's wedding . :-) It was beautiful as always, but I was especially stoked about the fact that Mom and Dad were kind enough to go over to Tybee Island with me so that I could spend a few hours on the beach!!  (Since I didn't get to go with them this past summer because I was out in Seattle working.) However, one of the most meaningful parts of the weekend for me was Saturday evening as we were walking from where the wedding had been held to the restaurant where the reception was going to be. It was just a couple blocks away, but there was this one major intersection that we had to cross to get there, so a bunch of us all ended up standing there on the corner together. So let me paint the picture of this for you-- you know how when you are standing at a crosswalk, they have the WALK and DON'T WALK symbols as well as the button that you press to let it know that you are waiting to cross? Ok, Well this one not only had all that, but it spoke too....Oh yes! We are standing there when suddenly, I realize that I am hearing this voice coming from the crosswalk box. And it says, "Wait.....wait.....wait.....wait.....wait.....wait.....wait.....wait.....wait...." and all of a sudden I realize, you know what??? This is the exact perfect illustration of my life right now!! Then I just started cracking up, laughing out loud at the fact that God had just spoken to me using crosswalk box. Hahaha. I just love how God breaks out into the ordinariness of our lives to speak to us in memorable and extraordinarily creative ways!! :-) HE IS JUST THE COOLEST EVER!! I love you, Jesus!! :-) Thanks for always being there for me! Help me to continue to delight in Your Presence...You are so amazing, full of glory, and worthy of honor. It is in You that we live and move and have our being. Continually draw us towards You and Your love. Guide us, teach us, lead us. It's in Your Precious Holy Name that we pray this. Amen. :-)

Doubts & Reassurance

"I remind myself of all that you've done, and the life I've had because of Your Son. Love came down and rescued me, Love came down and set me free, I am Yours, I am forever Yours. Mountains high, Valley low, I sing out and remind my soul that I am Yours, I am forever Yours. I am Yours, I am Yours, all my days, Jesus, I am Yours." ~Kari Jobe

"I know that You are for me, I know that You are for me, I know that You will never forsake me in my weaknesses, I know that You have come down, even if to write upon my heart, to remind me of who You are." ~Kari Jobe

          If we are consistently finding ourselves in a place of doubt or worry and needing reassurance, we need only to return our focus to Jesus, to reflect on who scripture says that He is as well as  to look back on what He has done in our own lives up to this point. He has been faithful, He is faithful, and He will continue to be Faithful. He's got it, so I don't need to. He'll work it out if it's meant to be worked out, otherwise all the manipulating in the world won't change the outcome and oftentimes will just make it worse by our meddling. I have really had to rely on the Spirit's strength inside of me lately for this very thing because I am such an initiative, take charge type of person that I often run ahead of everyone else involved including God. Again, this goes back to that whole learning to see the beauty in the process. That is definitely the major theme in my life lately. The first 3 months of the year, it was seeing life's interruptions as divine interventions and learning to be obedient and submissive in that, and now it seems that we have moved into this new theme of not just seeing, but enjoying the beauty of the process. Anyway, God gave me this really cool vision/picture in my head as I was having one my own little "I need to be in control" freak-outs. Well, not quite a freak out, but hopefully you get my drift... ;-)
      In this vision, I could see myself sitting in my car and I'm driving around without a GPS and in a strange and unfamiliar place that I have not been in before without the slightest clue of where I am, where I am going, or how to get there. And God is sitting there next to me saying, "Julia, you seem to really like pressing that gas pedal, but it's not doing you any good, because you do not know where you are going. Let me help you. First, I need you to put your foot on the brake, put the car in park, get out and switch sides with me. I know exactly where you are going, what route you need to take, what stops need to be made on the way, etc. I don't need a GPS, but I planned this route out for you long before you were born, and while I may not always drive the speed that you would like me to go, I promise that for each portion of our trip together, it will be the exactly right speed that you need, so that  you will arrive exactly when you are supposed to, not too soon and not too late either. Also, go ahead and enjoy the journey and the scenery. Appreciate the beauty of the process." The great part about these pictures that He gives me is that I can sit there in my mind and visualize stopping the car, getting out, and going around to sit in the passenger seat. It's a visual surrender that says, "God, I am choosing to trust You in this, please guide in the path that You have laid out for me." (So hard, but so worth it.) :-)

Waiting.

      You know how when you've been waiting on something for so long that as long as it's still somewhere off in the indefinable distance you are perfectly fine to wait, but as soon as it seems as it might be coming nearer and possibly somewhat attainable you lose all semblance of patience and find yourself wanting to imitate a Nascar driver? Pedal to the medal, baby!! Bring it on! Yet in the midst of me wanting to slam that gas pedal to the floor, God is saying to me, "Hold on there, beloved. I still have things that I want to teach you and show you about yourself in this season...This isn't a free-for-all and you're not on the autobahn, so just slow back down and keep your eyes on me. I've brought you this far, I'm going to abandon you mid-ship. After all, I am faithful and true and I will never leave you or forsake you. Rest in me and I will see you through."
Again, it all comes down to TRUST. So, Jesus, once again, I am choosing to trust in You, in Your plans, in Your faithfulness, in Your love for me. Thank you for your grace, mercy, and never-ending patience. You are worthy God, Thank You. Help me continue to know and love you more each day. In Your Precious Holy Name, Amen.

The Beauty of the Process...

     So I just finished doing Beth Moore's new Bible study on James and let me just tell you, it is phenomenal!! If you have to chance to be able to do it, I would highly recommend it! I feel like I could spend a whole week just talking about everything that I learned/God taught me through those 10 or so weeks. :-) However, there's a phrase from her last video session that I wanted to mention today. As she's tying up the study, she mentions how we need to be able to slow down and enjoy "the beauty of the process." She then goes on to talk about how she knew at 18 that God was calling her into some kind of ministry, but that it wasn't until she 34 that God led her to what she is doing now. I found this greatly encouraging, since as a 25 year old, 3 years out of college, I had been feeling frustrated and somewhat like a failure lately because I could not seem to figure out what it was that God was preparing me for in my life. Little did I know that this phrase was to become the describing phrase of my life lately. God seems determined to get me to sit down, take my hands off any and every situation, and just enjoy the beauty of the process...Although I have to say that I haven't been particularly enjoying it, I know that He is sure is teaching me quite about myself through this all.
       And what have I learned about myself? Well, for one, I don't particularly care to step back and enjoy the beauty of the process when there is an unknown outcome involved. I like to have a plan and everything thought out and planned out ahead of time. I came to realize this as I was pondering why I love the beauty of the process when it comes to sight-seeing, but any other time it drives me crazy. It's because when I am sight-seeing, I am in charge, and I will have a map, a plan/route, and a destination. I can relax and enjoy the journey because I know where it is taking me and where I'm going to end up eventually. The ironic part? There are a great many similarities between what I just described about sight-seeing and how life really is, the only difference is that God is the only one that knows the plan, the directions, the details, and the destination. While this is greatly reassuring, it can also be greatly frustrating because He only shares information on a need-to-know-as-you-go-one-step-at-a-time basis. At times, I am grateful for this, other times not so much. (This is probably also why I prefer to read novels that are written in 3rd person omniscient because then I am not left wondering what someone is thinking, because I already know.) I like details. I want to know details. 
    But thank the Lord for His goodness in not telling me details most of the time and protecting me from myself. It may be driving me crazy now, but I know that when I look back on this, I will be so thankful that I only knew what I needed to know, and that I didn't know everything that I wanted to know. I guess that that's really what learning to enjoy the beauty of the process is all about...it's about recognizing that I don't need to know everything beforehand and that it IS ok to just let go and wait and see what God does with it all. It is then that I realize that perhaps I am not quite as patient as I would like to think I am. But that is a post for next time... ;-)

Update: I just found this as I was scrolling through my fb page, it's from earlier in the study, but it definitely fits so well here- "...try as you may, you can't rush training. Really, what I meant to say was this: you can't rush God. You can't push Him. You can't pull Him. You can't tug Him or taunt Him. If He has a mind to linger right where He is you can't budge Him one inch. You can, however, try to go without Him; but chances are, you'll come back because, if you really have a heart for God, you'll be miserable beyond His blessing."

"Why do you look for the living among the dead?"

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!! :-) He is RISEN! He is risen INDEED! I hope that y'all had a fantastic day! I don't know about you, but wow, I have been so enjoying the incredible weather this weekend! What a wonderful gift from God! :-) Anyway, I just wanted to share a couple Easter things with you. First was that church today was AWESOME!! :-) Not only was the music and the message great, but they had this awesome video that pretty much tells the Easter story as if you were watching it happen on Twitter. It's pretty cool and refreshing and relevant way to get the message of the Easter story out there to those who don't know/understand why we celebrate this super important holiday. The movie is called Follow. Second of all, I got to make Easter baskets for my brother Chris and my sister Rachel and I thought that they turned out super cute, so here's the pics to see for yourselves:

haha! Awesomness!! :-)

Feeling a lot like Mary...

"But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart" ~Luke 2:19

I'm sure that most everyone who has heard the Christmas story read out of Luke recognizes this verse, you may even pretty much have it memorized because you have heard it so many times over the years. But do you really understand what it is that it is saying? I know that up until recently, I didn't. For many years it was just one of those verses that I sort of got, but at the same time, I was never really sure what exactly Luke was saying either. Then one day back about month and half or two months ago, I was talking to a friend and trying to explain to her everything that God had been doing in my life and in my heart, but I just couldn't seem to find the words to convey exactly what it was that I wanted to say. It was quite frustrating to say the least, but as I was thinking about it later, I realized that I was never fully going to be able to convey the depth of the change that God had been bringing about in me, b/c it was all inner heart stuff. So, for that person to even begin to understand where I was coming from, they would've had to pretty much become a part of me so that they could know my heart in the way that no one else besides you and God does. (which is obviously not possible.) Then all of a sudden, it hit me! BAM! Right upside the head. "This must be what the Bible is talking about when it says that Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in heart." After all, when God is doing some major heart work on you, there is so much going on inside of you that most of the time all that you can do is to treasure it up and ponder it in your heart. So that is what I have spent most of the first part of this year doing, being stretched, taught, challenged, humbled, convicted, blessed, and then treasuring up all these lessons and pondering them in my heart. It's been an absolutely extraordinary time, and I know that I will never be the same b/c of it. Has it been hard and at times, exhausting? Yes. But has it been totally worth it? Definitely YES. :-)

 

Where do I even begin??

       Wow! It has been so long and so much has happened since I was last on here, I don't even know if I know where to begin...I guess first of all, I should say that I am back living in the United States and have been since a week after my last blog post. Wow...when I posted that one, I had absolutely no idea what was to come my way in those next few days! What happened was that I was suddenly and unexpectedly faced with the crisis of not having anywhere to live after the middle of January and after crying out desperately out to God asking Him what on earth it was that He was wanting me to do, I heard Him speak more clearly to me than I had ever heard Him speak before. The only problem?? It wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear. Actually, to tell the truth, it was really the opposite of the answer that I was looking for. (Funny how that works, isn't it? We cry out, begging to hear from God and yet when He answers, we oftentimes get mad b/c it wasn't the answer that we were wanting to hear/had already scripted for Him to say.) So what was His answer? TWO WORDS. Two little words. "GO BACK." And that was it. No explanation, no room for budging, no anything. Just "go back." So now I was faced with a choice, was I going to obey or was I going to fight it? Well, as much as everything in me wanted to fight it, I knew that I had to obey. After all, living in another country trying to do ministry without God's blessing on me seemed about the dumbest thing to ever to try and attempt. So instead of packing up my Christmas presents and a week's worth of clothes into a suitcase to go home for a quick visit,  I had to make what has had to have been one of the (if not the most) hardest decisions of my life AND I had to try and fit ALL of my clothes and stuff PLUS all my Christmas presents into 50lbs or less of luggage and drag it all home with me. Joy. It was definitely not the way that I was wanting to start the holidays, that is for sure. However, even in the midst of my obedient misery, it was neat to be able to see the progress that I had made, even over the past few months in my walk with God. The fact that I had decided to obey, rather than fighting/arguing about it before I was forced into obeying was a big step forward for me. And I can still say now what I said then: "It was definitely the right decision to make. Insanely hard, but definitely right." God has worked in me and spoken to me so much through the past few months that it has just been absolutely incredible. Incredibly exhausting at times, but still incredible. Super hard at times, but still super good. Do I miss England and all my friends there? Absolutely. However, I know that I am where God has placed me and I am learning to be content in that. :-) God is enough, in fact, He is more than enough, it's just a matter of us continually remembering that fact and resting in His presence. More stories to come! :-)