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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

To: You, Love: Jesus

Yay for a quick lunch time blog today! I hope you can take a minute to read through the words to a poem that the Lord downloaded in my spirit today. I don't always share what I write in this forum, but felt lead to do so today. Let our ever-present Abba Father consume your heart as you read.




You are worth it, yes you are.
Every tear and every scar.
Even when you feel so far,
you are worth it, yes you are.

I see your hurt, your pain, your fears.
Let me remind you why you are here.

You are here because you are worth it,
I said yes to the cross.
You are here because I paid the price,
my life was the cost.

So, when you feel unworthy,
and start to doubt yourself.
Don't discount your value,
like an item on a shelf.

Instead, let me remind you
about what I went through.
So I could have the chance
to show your worth to you.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

What We Deserve

So, I recently asked for blog topics for my next blog. I got lots of great suggestions as well as some great inbox questions. Looks like I might have to do a blog series so I can cover all these great topics.
This blog will cover pieces of a couple of those topics, but will mainly just be a piece of my heart. My thoughts derive from conversations with others, conversations with God and conversations with myself.
Just a warning, only read ahead if you are okay with truth that is not candy-coated.
So many times in life, we sabotage our friendships, marriages, careers, church experience, relationships and families with these 2 words "I DESERVE". We get to a point in our marriage or our friendship where we stop becoming selfless and start becoming selfish. We decide that we "deserve" better. We start to hold the people around us to a different standard than we hold ourselves. We start to make decisions about our lives based on other peoples faults. Granted, God made us in his image and yes we do deserve the best. But when we start making life decisions based on superficial emotions, we are stabbing holes in our lifeboats! We are often quick to judge a friend or family member, forgetting that we are also not perfect. We expect from our spouses without remembering or making note of our imperfections. We expect a church to be like a hotel or restaurant that we can rate and review. Here is when this mentality becomes dangerous. We start making decisions about life and relationships based on our over-analytic analyses instead of making decisions based on the truth of Gods Word and the rationale of real life. What we deserve? What we deserve? We all deserve to burn in hell forever! Put praise God that because of his mercy, grace and unconditional love, we have the option of escaping that fate. I love when God's Word talks about getting the plank out of your own eye instead of trying to help get the speck of sawdust out of your neighbors eye. I really love the way the Message translation puts it. I think in our "every man for himself" society, the virtue of being humble gets lost.
Part of the problem is that we over-evaluate and find fault in relationships in order to justify pushing people away. We don't want to become vulnerable or exposed in relationships, so we find any reason to push people away. If those people get too close, they might just realize our struggles or our shortcomings. OH NO! Our fear of rejection take over and we reject them first so we don't have to deal with the conflict of it. Remember when we were younger and we used to have fights and disagreements with our best friends and then we would be back to being best friends the next week (or day)?? These days, if friends or family members fight, they may go weeks or years without speaking to each other or resolving things. This is an unhealthy beginning to a very ugly cycle. And this is just the way satan wants it. He wants people to be emotionally shut down. He knows how much easier it is for God to use us if we are not emotionally impaired.    What we deserve? We deserve emotional freedom. We need healthy friendships, healthy family relationships, healthy marriages and our kids deserve for us to teach them how to have the same. If these truths hit home for you, I encourage you to do some self-evaluation. Uncover the ways that the enemy has tried to twist your thinking and your motives. Only you know and only you (with God's help) can change it. Repair relationships, make new friendships, start treating your spouse like royalty, don't judge and over analyze your church. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known unto God (Philippians 4:6). If you have questions or need prayer, feel free to inbox me. I like to make my blogs light and encouraging, but sometimes somebody just needs to share some truth. If you would like to hear some of these truths in a different format, check out this audio download of my recent message at our Faith Church New Milford campus here.



How Are We Doing?

First of all, for everyone who follows me on social media to keep up with our adventure of loving NYC for Jesus...we are doing great. Amazing things are happening every weekend at Faith Church NYC. Since our launch, 180+ people have given their hearts and lives to the Lord. We have a seriously hype team that sets up, so our seriously hype God can show up. Our weekend experience reaches every type of person, with every type of victory and every type of struggle; and we love each of them just the same. My kids love going to the city, trying different restaurants, riding the subway, dancing along to flash mob nonsense in Grand Central Station, buying street food, going shopping and of course helping out at church. Justice tells people he has a job. He is on the set up team for Faith Church NYC. He is so proud. So cute! The kids are both doing great in school. They enjoy doing well and we are so proud to see them excel. I hope that characteristic sticks through their pre-adolescent and adolescent years. Haha. Ashlyn just turned 5 last month and has something to say about EVERYTHING. She is sassy, yet tender-hearted. Justice is a crazy little 6 year old who recently lost his 2 bottom front teeth. Here they are in the car (before losing the teeth).

And my goodness, this child is the messiest eater I have ever seen. Maybe it's his age and his gender. If we have rice for dinner, his place mat looks like a 1 year old just ate there. We are constantly correcting his eating habits, haha. I am sure I am in store for much more fun obstacles with a growing boy and his eating. I have a separate grocery fund already set aside for the teen years :)
 Chris and I are doing well. We enjoyed dinner and pedicures for our Valentine's Day date last month and are excited about celebrating our wedding anniversary this month. Justice asked us where we were going on our honeymoon, haha. He thought you go on a honeymoon for every anniversary-not a bad idea, right??

So to those of you who pray for us, thank you. We are loving our adventure. We are learning and growing everyday. We serve an amazing God who is loving, faithful and completely awesome!