Captured.

It comes most often as a quiet whisper, that somehow resounds within the noise of my mind.

His gentle voice, somehow always stronger and louder then any of the others. 

He urges me to look into his face again and again until it's the clearest thing I can see. 

Until everything else is a blur. 

I am in awe. 

I know his Love is solid and fierce, it covers every part of me. 

I become Instantly his once again, 

What once would call my attention away fades under the mist of his words. 

Each word surrounding me like fog until I see only him, I hear only his voice and I feel only his peace. 

As he captures my heart with a single word.

The answer is trust.

There is no trusting God until... 

It's not like we just trust God until we have it sorted or feel like we can handle stuff or until we are past the rough patch.. 

It's an every single day thing.. 

It's in the hard and the easy.

It's in the happy and the sad. 

It's in the good and the bad. 

We live our lives with trusting God as the first answer for every question and situation, and it needs to be not because it's the only option but because it's the best option. 

It's so easy to explain what having faith means to someone who has an amount of it.

It's almost impossible to explain why that is your go to answer for everything to someone who does not understand how to do the same, or why someone would. 

Over the past few weeks that's what I needed to do. 

I had to have someone come and assess who I was as a person and I had to be completely honest. 

Her actual job was to pick apart my life and make a judgement call based on what I told her. 

I needed to have answers to things I had never thought about. 

I had to explain situations and circumstances and how I came to be who I am today. 

I had to answer for future me as to how I would react in certain situations. 

Truth is sometimes I don't know. 

Sometimes I have no idea how God worked in a moment but I just know that he did. 

I have no idea how he will provide for me in the future, I just know that he always has and always will. 

I do not know if when something happens that I do not expect or cannot handle that I will respond in the way that I think I will now. 

I just know it will be ok. 

I don't know how I will trust God in the future or what that will look like. 

I just know that it's what I will do, because it's what has worked.

Because he doesn't fail. 

Because he has a way better idea about things then I do. 

Because he knows what will happen. 

Because he wants the best for me. 

Because he works all things for the good. 

Because he has all the answers and that means I don't need to. 

So the answer is trust. 

My response will be to trust Him. 

I don't know what that will look like In The future but I know it's not the only option I have, but it's the best option I have. 

Grace and Strength.

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (II Corinthians 12:9 NKJV)

We do not like to be weak. 

We don't like it when we are not good at things. 

Often avoiding those things altogether. 

Weakness speaks of being powerless and highlights our lack. 

At best we can just try not to draw too much attention to it. 

To focus on our strengths and do more of what we are good at. 

Jesus can't always work with that. 

It seems that even though we have nothing to prove we keep trying to.

That even though we know He is enough we still do not completely rest in his sufficiency. 

The enemy always wants to throw your weakness in your face. 

He wants you to feel like your not enough. 

He wants you to keep striving in your own strength and then turn away ashamed. 

Ultimately he wants your weakness to drive you away from God. 

Jesus doesn't care about that. 

He covers your weaknesses. 

His Grace is always enough. 

I feel like this verse is here to lift the world off our shoulders when we feel like we are carrying it, even though we don't have to. 

Because if His grace is enough then it means we do not need to be. 

Because if his strength is made perfect in our weakness it mean it's ok if sometimes we are weak. 

As long as we wear His grace. 

As long as we allow his strength to cover our weaknesses. 

Thank you Isaiah!

So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.” (Isaiah 6:5-7 NKJV)

I Love Isaiah! He's one of my favorite prophets in the bible. 

I caught this verse and started reading up on him like crazy. 

He speaks of our saviour years before his arrival. 

He speaks of being cleansed. 

He speaks of being chosen. 

He speaks of being anointed by God and Jesus read verses out of his book in the temple.

But before all this there is this verse, a glimpse of his humility and humanity. Then a glimpse of Gods mercy and power and the moment the coal touches his lips he is cleansed of everything. 

Then in the very next verse God asks him who he should send, not a perfect person just someone who knew he was not worthy without Him. 

And he could have said no. 

He could have held onto his sin. 

He could have stayed in the state of unworthiness. 

But he didn't, he let the coal touch his lips. 

He said yes. 

He changed history forever! 

Welcome new things.

I had a pretty good year. 

I think about that on the first day every year and I always end up with the same conclusion. 

It was good! 

God has had my back this year. 

I'm blessed with a job, great friends, incredible church, somewhere to live and I'm about to step into a dream that I have been working towards for years. 

I went to America for the first time with three of the people I Love most and Got to spend time with one of my first leaders who I admire and love. I went to the beach. We got my Dad a puppy, I spent a lot of time with friends and built good relationships with them and completed foster care training. 

Thing is I could say it was crap if I wanted to, it would be equally as valid. 

Crap stuff happened, I had hard days, things did not go as I planned. 

I lost a job, fought with my friends sometimes, I got sick, at times I hurt and didn't get everything I wanted. 

Of course those points are valid. 

But does that determine the outcome of my year? 

Does that determine the attitude I am taking into this year? 

The point is God wants to do new things. 

He has more for us. 

He has answers to prayers. 

There is growth for us. 

There is challange. 

There is breakthrough. 

As there was last year, there will be new things this year. 

So I'm choosing to have a welcoming attitude to those. 

Trials will come. 

But Welcome the new things. 

My life is well and whole.

"As long as you are still speaking, the devil is loosing"- Joseph Prince 

I tend to panic. 

I don't talk about it often and I don't think I have really written about it properly, but I think I understand it enough to attempt to do so now. 

So I panic right? Before I think about the problem logically.

Before I think about a possible solution.

Before I think about that fact that it will actually be ok, because I know it will. 

When life is chaotic and I'm getting stressed and nothing is going right. 

I know without a shadow of a doubt that it's going to be fine, that God will come through. 

Even still I can't seen to stop myself from first freaking out and going into meltdown mode before I, or a friend, or God snaps me out of it. 

Sometimes I freak out a little, sometimes I freak out ALOT. 

This is a story of when I freaked out a lot. 

So I had one of those weeks where everything started going wrong. 

Just the usual adult life stuff, a few huge bills that I needed to pay, a parking offence that I did not commit, Christmas shopping that I am still yet to start, I writting piece that I needed to pass my foster care assessment that was particularly difficult to edit and then my car broke. So I was slightly stressed but these were all fixable problems and I knew that so I was a little overwhelmed but I was dealing with it so I was only having little freak outs here and there and then moving on from them. 

Then one day I went home after work earlier because when I get stressed I get nauseas. 

I opened a letter that was basically about more money that I did not have and so I called to see what it was about and the second the lady on the phone asked a question I lost it. 

I mean lost it completely and I think I shocked her.

I had a panic attack, on the phone to her!! 

She very quickly and awkwardly gave me another number to call and sort it out. 

So after I hung up I did all the things that everyone tells you to do when this happens, I do them all for about two hours until I am calm again. 

Few days later I am telling someone about this, laughing about it cos it's over and it's not a big deal anymore. 

Next day I get a text "psalm 55 read all of it" 

So I do in every available version and I see this line 

"My life is well and whole, secure in the middle of danger"- verse 17ish MSG 

It makes complete sense to me. 

What happens in a panic attack is something happens and your mind sends all these messages to your body that your in danger and so your body pysically responds as if it's in danger. 

But your not. 

So this verse is just a reminder, that in the middle of chaos my life is well and whole. 

And that in the middle of "danger" real or otherwise I am secure. 

Thing is God comes through and since has come through in do many ways for me and I know that. 

That's what I need to be looking at. 

That's where my focus needs to be. 

And that's what my attention must be on. 

Why having time to myself is the best and worst things for me in this season.

I Love and also Hate having days off. 

I'm always complaining that I need a day off to do nothing! So I can stay in bed all day and not leave the house at all, because it sounds appealing, it really does. 

I have friends that do it often and they talk about how they had the best day doing nothing and I want that day, I want to do nothing.

 The thing is though I can never ever  do just "nothing"

I used to be able to, but now I can't sit still. It sucks a little and so I'm trying to fix it. 

People said things like "you'll be bored after a few hours" and I so wanted to prove them wrong. 

So I had a quiet week, where I worked less and had some time to myself.

Just a few afternoons which makes me think God is trying to ease my into this slowly. 

It was the best and also the worst thing ever, and I only just realized it was because of my own terrible attitude.

I used to be so good and being alone and just entertaining myself, I need time to myself to enjoy spending time with people. 

But for a very long time I forgot to have it. 

I went from work, to one social event, to another and then back to work again. 

I did this day after day week after week for months. 

I was exhausted! 

I was the kind if exhausted that left me unable to stop.

So I just kept being busy until I could not and NEEDED to stop, then I would get busy all over again. 

So when I had time off, I hated it! 

I wanted to Love it, but I instead accidentally slipped into a hole where I felt crap and acted crap simply because of the fact that I had so much that I needed to but I just didn't have anything left in me to do it well. 

So I just didn't do anything. 

At the end of it I still felt physically rested but I wasted a lot of my mental energy on stuff that was not at all worth it. 

So I'm learning there needs to be a balance, a little time to stop but not too much and to stop for the right reasons.