1.29.12

[So, instead of doing my math homework, which is sitting beside me just staring angrily in my face, I find myself here, typing a blog instead. I really hate math. Usually when it's math time I do things like: wash dishes, bake lemon bars, fold laundry, scrub floors, pick up trash outside, write actual letters, make a smoothie, make a second smoothie, call my mom, take a nap.So, if you haven't gotten the idea yet, math is absolutely the most intimidating, frustrating and miserable thing I can think of in life. . . ]

But after that useless rant, I will continue with what I was actually thinking of that I wanted to write about. Although this is a blog that I write about me. . . I really can say whatever I want I guess. . .

Back to relevant points!

I went to Mexico! Haha, really though, that's partially what I want to write about here.
I left on January 11th, which was also my big and exciting 22nd birthday! I arrived in Cancun and I can't tell you how incredible it was to see my dad standing there, tshirt tucked into jeans, wearing a straw hat with a flower ribbon around it. I saw him with his folded Washington Post doing a Suduko and I definitely started crying. I missed my daddy so much! He is SUCH a character and I love him and have never been more proud to be his daughter then on this trip! And of course my brother was there and I was SO blessed to see him.

(We were there to build a church. Totally incredible experience, that I want to blog about at a later time. I really really want to actually dedicate a post to what we did there, because it truly was impacting, worthwhile and life changing for me. But I want to write about something that God did inside of me during this trip.)

So I've been really angry lately. Just super pissed off at everything. It's been like this for me for months actually. And on this trip I found there a person who just had the ability to irritate me out of my mind! I was so miserable the first day of work! Seriously, I was thinking how am I this pissed off, and I'm building a church! Just unacceptable! Ah! So I had a WONDERFUL roommate who took time to just sit and chill, read the Word and just talk to me.

Here is the product of that talk...

Anger - - - I identified the fact that I am incredibly angry. So out of character for me. Things that make me angry--
-lazy people
-losing money because lazy people don't contribute at work
-being bossed around by lazy people
-being patronized
-being insulted by someone who i find to be stupid
-being mocked by someone who has little going for them in life
-idiots
-ghetto people talking down to me

SEE!! I am totally embarrassed to put that list out there! I was shocked at the things that came out of me when we started getting into this. So I was angry. Now the question is WHY?!

I had a couple reasons that I came up with. 

I feel that I'm smarter and better than people.
I think that I work harder than others and want recognition.
I feel that noone has the right to tell me what to do, or to disrespect me.
I HATE feeling disrespected.

Basically what I'm getting to is that somewhere along the way I have accumulated a large, and rather unhealthy ego. I thought about how broken and worthless I had felt even 6 months ago. God has been so good to me, pouring out healing and blessing and favor on my life. However, at some point in this journey I began to feel like I DESERVED God's favor. YES, as His children we are, thru Christ, deserving of His love, but it isn't because of ANYTHING we do!

So yeah. My huge ego wasn't enjoying being trampled on my others constantly. But still, I asked God, show me more! It's such an incredible mix of painful and exciting when God is illuminating parts of yourself that have got to change.

It just hit me suddenly right then. . . . All of the things that made me angry were a result of the fact that I felt someone was imposing on MY RIGHTS. I remember sitting in a seminar with my Mom as a kid. "You don't have rights when you are living your life for Christ. When you follow Him you surrender your rights, and you no longer own or possess them!" I don't think it ever made sense to me until last week.

Christianity is about humility. I have long mistaken humility for low self-esteem. Humility isn't having a low opinion of yourself, it is having a secure sense of your worth in Christ and not needing affirmation from man. So incredible! You can know your own talents, strengths and gifts and still be humble! Humility is giving up your personal rights and understanding that life is about giving to others first.

I thought about Jesus. He was... Well He was God. How else do you explain it?! To say that He was better, above, superior, more excellent, more worthy than anyone He came into contact with here on earth is a joke! We all know that! I then think about the many instances in scripture where He allowed others to talk down to Him, mock Him, lie about Him. . . And He never had anything to say in return. Why would He need to!??!? He already knew He was the Savior of mankind! But beyond that, Jesus left HEAVEN to be here, for what?! To serve. But most of all, to die.

He made himself of no esteem, for us. The One to Who all power, praise, honor and glory are due came to earth to be a Servant.

Amazing. I have never felt so corrected and so loved all at once. I remembered when i first started my job serving. My dad told me this... "You are going to work there until you understand what it truly meas to be a servant." I said oookay dad, whatever. But now I understand what he means. He means that when someone asks me for something for the 123112th time instead of cursing them under my breath I need to bless them and refill their diet coke AGAIN. It means refusing to be angry when I do extra work. It means learning to love others in a way that prefers them above myself.

I had forgotten completely what it means to be a servant of others. To be a servant is God's highest calling. He says, "to be first in My kingdom, learn to be a servant of all". Ahhh!! I am so excited just writing all of this!

Why am I so happy?!

- I have spent the last year asking God to help me make lifestyle, behavior changes, the fact that I am finally at a place in my journey where He is beginning to change my heart is exciting!
-I am excited because I know that the Bible says "from glory to glory He's changing me" our walk is about change, progress and growth
-I finally can stop being angry all the time! I had felt that there was a ceiling between me and God blocking His presence from my life. Obviously He is always present, but because of my anger I was never able to quiet my heart enough to hear His voice

I realize this is incredibly long... But it is honestly just a tiny, tiny piece of what God has done in my life in the past weeks. I am finding myself in this incredible place. A place where my heart is desperate for MORE of Him. I am so aware that He has everything I need, that nothing I could desire compares to the riches He has in store for me. I'm begging Him to show me more, challenge me more, change me more. . . But most of all my prayer is this - Lord prepare me.

<3 Emma

fire [1.4.12]

I can’t stop thinking about fire. Not in like a pyromaniac sort of way, but in what exactly fire symbolizes in my life. I don’t think there is fire in Hell. I really don’t. I think Hell is probably cold. It is void of the Presence of God, so I imagine it is cold and dark and has an empty echo to it, because it is truly eternity alone. No, I don’t imagine there is fire in Hell.

I say this because I think our lives are full of fire already… I know there are different types of fire but I don’t see fire as negatively at the moment. Sure there are the fires of peril. . .

“When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” Isaiah 43:2

That passage has been one of my absolute favorite promises from God in the past few years. I was always telling Him that He promised to bring me through the fires without being harmed. But still I felt like I was always in the midst of something that felt awfully like fire. . .

Then Sunday in church I realized we were singing a song praying “Fire fall down”.  . . Calling for the fire of God to fall down…. I saw visions of flannel graph Sunday school stories . . . Elijah and the false prophets on Mount Carmel, building altars for offering and calling on Heaven to send fire down.  Then I’m 15 again, actually sitting there in Israel on this very same mountain… I remember writing to God, “Consume me, for I will know the true God, because He will answer with fire…” All of those memories went through my head in a flash and I wondered when I forgot about Fire.

I guess that in the midst of my millions of thoughts I heard that still small voice telling me what kind of fire I had been enduring.

 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,  for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:6-9).

God can protect us from fire, he can destroy with fire, but he can also allow it in our lives to refine us.  I love the assumed statement in this passage is that we are looked at as GOLD. The Message translates that verse to say, “Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine.”

When I look at the past few difficult years, I still ask the big WHY. Why did my Father allow me to go through the pain of an assault and then allow me to struggle with my existence and the inability to cope with a trauma that shouldn’t have ever happened? I couldn’t find answers or peace for my heart and made countless self destructive decisions in my quest to control my own world. When I was able to leave West Virginia and move here to Yuma I knew that God was saving my life and giving me a chance to start over. It hasn’t been easy or even a smooth transition in this past year, and I have gone through a spectrum of emotions and thoughts about myself since relocating.

But, finally I feel like I have a tiny glimpse of an answer. I am gold in the eyes of my Creator, my worth is beyond measure and by His grace I have gone through the fire, and come out different. Pure gold becomes proved gold, genuine faith put through suffering comes out proved genuine.

I believe that He is establishing in me a faith that won’t be moved, shaken or destroyed. I believe that He allowed me to be weak so that I could find that apart from Him I couldn’t be strong. I know that when I tried to live my life without Him, I was empty, and it took that time of emptiness to make me hungry again.

 I know that people say that if God was truly good He wouldn’t allow us to experience pain. But I know that that’s bullshit. We live in a broken world and God was gracious enough to give us all freewill. And unfortunately there are some sick and depraved people out there exercising their freewill on others and leaving destruction and pain behind. It is by His grace that this world has a chance of Redemption and this New Year I am choosing to look at my past in a different light. I won’t say I’m thankful for the things that I endured, but I will say I am thankful that God is true to His promises.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

This is a year to see and seek His goodness. We know without darkness we wouldn’t understand the concept of light. We have seen the dark, been through the night, and this year we want to be in the Light. I believe that I am just beginning to see the results of His work in me, and am anticipating more, expecting and believing for more in this New Year.

Love,

Emma