Hey look I can speak!

Have you ever thought about how special it is to be able to make a sound that makes sense? The ability to communicate is so special, and we use it every day, and take it for granted that we can speak!
God created the vocal cords so that we could make a noise, to sing and speak, and he made the tongue so we could form words and make them come out clearly. How special it is to sing praise hymns to God! How special it is to speak to God in prayer!
If we just lost the ability to speak, would our life be easier even with everything else? No it would be worse! We wouldn't be able to call for help when we are in trouble, we wouldn't be able to tell someone that we love them! And the parents wouldn't be able to scold the kids!!! At this point some of the younger generation is thinking....hmmm maybe we should try that sometime!
But truly, the ability to speak is a special gift God gave us, as part of being different from the animal race. So the next time you speak to someone, bless them with that voice that God gave you! Everyone needs to know that using speech to cause pain, is the worst way to use it! And just for fun, when you do talk to someone, just randomly say, Hey look I can speak! Cause we really are blessed with the ability of speech! Thanks for reading and God bless!

Who will love me?

What is this I see?
The mother from whom I came,
She is angry with me,
And it puts my heart to shame!

Who will love me?
The wrong which I have done,
Makes me an evil thing to see,
And for this I have been shunned,
So who, I ask you, will love me?

I am not what she wants me to be,
Pure, proper, and a lovely thing indeed,
She does not see these things in me,
But someone of bad report, in ugly character and deed.

Who will love me?
The wrong which I have done,
Makes me an evil thing to see,
And for this I have been shunned,
So who, I ask you, will love me?

I see HIM, HE who loves me!
HE hangs there on a tree,
And HE takes all the blame for me!
So now someone loves me!

I know HE loves me!
And no matter what wrong I have done,
HE will make me clean and beautiful for all to see!
And I know that HE will never leave me alone,
For HE, I know, loves me!

Written by,
Shotgun Girl

To be Unloved!

Does somebody love you? Well I would sure hope so! There are very few people I know who claim they are not loved by someone. And most of the time the people I do know that claim to be unloved, are unsaved!

God loves us no matter what, and he loves everyone in the world, even the unsaved! But still, what do you think if would be like to be unloved?! Probably more horrible than words could tell! There are so many people that I love and cherish, and I can't imagine not having God and my friends and family in my life, all of who love me I believe!

But what about the so called unloved ones? What must we do for them? That's easy, direct them to the one who does love them, Jesus Christ! For he is the one who loves unconditionally, unlike the rest of the world! I hope that you always assure people of God's affection for them, and the affections of you to other people! It may not seem mandatory, but trust me, everyone in the world LOVES to hear the words I love you from the people they care about! Remember that no matter what you have done, or what someone else may have done, God loves you both, just the same!

Jesus experienced being HATED by his own father, he saw the disgust of God as he looked at the sin that covered him, and felt how it feels to truly be unloved! Rejected and in pain, Jesus paid the ultimate price for us, and for that we should always be grateful, and give our love to Christ, and the people around us! My message to you, never leave an unloved soul behind! God Bless and thanks for reading!

A sinner of one, a sinner of ALL!

Have you ever sinned in your life?! Well of course who hasn't?! Are you guilty?! The answer is, ABSOLUTELY! We all deserve the death sentence, but we aren't getting it, why? Jesus Christ died for us! In James 2:10 we are told that if we keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, we are guilty of all! That means, we break one law, and we are guilty of the rest! And everyone of us are guilty!
That is why we need Christ, without him we are lost! He is the one who makes our sin sheet blank. And we need him everyday of our lives, as we struggle to avoid the sins of this world. And we are not always going to succeed, we will inevitably fall into sin, and when we do, God is there for us to go to him in prayer, to ask him to cleanse us and make us whole once more. Just because you excepted Christ does not make you void of sin does it? NO, NOT AT ALL! We still sin, with our words, actions, and thoughts! None of us are without sin ever, cause if we were without sin, we would obey God in everything, and we would be another Jesus! And that is not possible! There is only one good, and that is GOD! 1 John 2:4 tells us that if someone says I know God, and doesn't keep his commandments, the truth is not in him! Well that pretty much sums it up right there.
It doesn't matter how many good things you have done, you can outweigh the bad! Only God can take the sin in your life and cleanse your soul! We are all sinners, but one thing makes us different from the rest of the world, we have Christ! Praise God that he loves us, and was willing to suffer for us in order that we might live! It makes me cry to imagine the perfect lamb of God hanging on a cross! He is unlike any other, and we don't deserve one thing that God has done for us!
If we are a sinner of one, we are a sinner of ALL! And the only thing we can do is repent and live for Christ! 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So never let the thought cross your mind that you are perfect once you receive Christ, cause if we are perfect once we receive him, why turn to him at all? Be humble in spirit, and kind in words and actions, and live with God's help, the life he intended! God Bless and thanks for reading!

The True Sacrifice

If you saw that your best friend, or your sibling, or just anyone that you loved was about to be hit by a car, what would you do? What would you give to insure that persons safety? Your money, your possessions, your life?!
For me, just imagining that someone I loved died makes me cry! In that moment I would do anything for them, even if it meant, dieing in their place! But what about a complete stranger? Would you give your life for them? My first reaction would be no, I don't know them and they are not my responsibility. WRONG! You are here on this earth to tell others about Christ, not to stand by and watch them perish! What if that stranger didn't know Christ, they are going to hell! That should shake us to the core! By giving your life for others, you give them a second chance, the chance that you already took advantage of, you accepted Christ, and in our heart we long to go home, so why not go home in the act of saving souls?!
You see Christian, God died for everyone, cause he is capable of loving everyone! If we loved like God loves, we would not sleep for fear of missing a witnessing opportunity! Christ hung on a cross, in agony, suffering for us all, when we didn't even deserve it! Its so humbling to think of the God of us all, hanging there just for us, when we don't deserve such love! The least we can do is save as many as we can for the God who loves them! God wants to use us so badly for his tools of salvation, but we have been sitting in our church seats, listening to our paster instead, we only pray for the unsaved, but don't put actions to our prayers! When ever you see someone in trouble, look at them as someone lost and in desperate need of your help, and God's love! If we are willing to go into the very fires of hell for our loved ones, how are the unsaved any different?!
I write this post with the simple message, are you going to honour the sacrifice of Christ?! If so Christian, go to the battle field and save the wounded and lost, just like Christ told us to do in his word! Don't just believe in the True Sacrifice, be a true sacrifice! God bless and thanks for reading!

Guarding your Heart

There is alot that we need to guard our hearts from, one of them being, when you believe what your heart is telling you, instead of what God is telling you. We all have a tendency to do that, especially when it comes to feelings and love. We can all say, I have felt it, I know what love is, but really you know what lust is. Love is not a feeling, as I have said several times, it is a decision, and it is back up by your actions.
If you truly love someone, you will do whats best for them, not what is best for you in your mind.
Part of guarding the heart is making sure we don't go diving after our so called feelings. Without God telling us what to do, we shouldn't so much as think about what we think would be what God would have us do until he has given us clear instruction! Sometimes guarding your heart requires alot more than just, "I am not going to do that."
You may have to avoid certain people, or certain places in order to guard your heart. Yes people can sometimes get hurt when doing what is necessary, but they won't get hurt as much as when your unguarded heart does a hair pin and leaves someone devastated and the other one confused. I learned alot from my first relationship, and now my heart is guarded well, but only after me and that other person were hurt, and parents were struck with responsibility on the part of protection.
I am alone, but I am actually in a relationship that matters the most, my relationship with God! And while my eyes are focused on God and his love for me, I have no time to search for my love mate. Yes, every young heart yearns for love, but as long as we have God, the rest will happen at God's appointed time. I do truly want to guard my heart, and wait patiently for the one of God's choosing, and that God would always be at the center. I know I speak on love and God alot, and to be quite honest, without those two things, life would have nothing of value! And to be honest to you my readers, God and Love are the two things that are always in my thoughts.
I hope one day that you to will find a love in God that surpasses any earthly relationship. I also pray that while you are waiting for the special someone, you will guard your heart, and give your love and obedience to someone who loved you before you were born, Jesus Christ! God Bless you and thanks for reading!

A Vacation Dream!

After a whole year of planning and waiting, my brother and I were finally able to go down to North Carolina to spend a vacation with our dear friends! The whole time I was there it felt like a dream, and now I am awake again, back home up north once more. I wish the dream would've lasted longer!

We made new friends, and enjoyed time with old ones. God has truly blessed us with many brothers and sisters in Christ down there! It felt wonderful to finally feel apart of the crowd in a right way, instead of being surrounded by unbelievers and mockery. It was especially nice to see the Neumanns, McDonalds, Bassetts, and the Sands. These families have been great friends to us, and to see them all after 8 years was a wonderful blessing. We did several activities down there including volleyball, skating, hiking,going to the beach, bible studies, and going out to eat and spend time in fellowship.

Even though I got a sunburn, and really sore muscles, I enjoyed every minute of my time down there, which is probably why the time went by so quickly.

To get to the point of this post, a vacation is allot like life. Your born and the vacation begins, and depending on whether or not you spend your vacation in the right way, will either make the vacation seem longer or shorter. But sooner or later you have to go home! Life is too short to waste, and God planned your "vacation" long before you were conceived. The way we can spend our "vacation time" wisely is to do what our "vacation planner" told us to do. The Bible tells us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. That is the right way to spend our vacation here on earth. But if we spend our time doing as we please, life will be very short indeed! Because when a sinner's vacation ends, eternal hell fire waits for them! That is why Christian, our time here on earth needs to be spent in the right way, winning souls for Christ!

Yes it is true that the sinners of this world seem to have the "first class" ticket in life, but in reality, they are falling without a parachute! Jesus is our parachute, the one thing that saves us from eternal death! The more parachutes we give out the better, because as we have said, our vacation time is short! So Christian, my final word to you on this matter is this.....live the right vacation life, because just like a real vacation, you don't know when it will come to a sudden end! Thank you for reading and God bless!

Reaching Forth!

Hello my fellow followers! It just struck me as odd to think that in a year and a half, I will be hitting my 20th year of life! I feel like a child in a sea of adults in Christ! I have learned so much this year, and my life might have finally turned torward that blooming stage!
I am a child at heart as well, loving to pull jokes and laugh whole heartily, uncaring on whether I come across as crazy and scary....sometimes! The reason I write this post is leaning torward what my grandma is doing with me and my family! For the past week my grandma has be coming over for a "Huddle Team Bible Study" or as my sister Sarah refers to it, a "Huggle"! One of our team verses is Philippians 3:13-14 " Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Life is like a marathon! Life isn't a video game, there is no "pauses, extra lives, skipping levels, or restarts." Like a marathon, its all of it or none of it! If we don't study and exercise our life book (the Bible) we start our marathon of life in bad shape, and we fall behind! With each new hardship or trial, our feet feel heavier and we seem to be getting no where! Only when we train under our schoolmaster Jesus Christ, will we be able to run the race, fight the good fight, live the good life! As a dear friend of mine pointed out, life is to short to waste on those things that don't matter! Until we start running our marathon on the straight path of God's word, we are like a turtle in a bucket, going around in circles with no realization of how sadly pathetic we look!
I have been having my "turtle" moments and not until lately do I realize how silly I have been, when I have God on my side, I should be walking like, talking like, living like God is there! Its not something to say just to make people think you are a good person! If that is what you are doing, shame on you, you hypocrite! Start living like you mean it, or every minute of your life marathon is a waste of your very short period of time!
Trust me Christian, I am sad to say I was a hypocrite, but now God has opened my eyes! And I pray that this post opens your eyes as well, life is short, how are you going to run it?!
I am saving up for Bible college right now, cause I want to become learned in the word of God, not the word of man! I know God will provide the money I need, and the job I need later on in life, but for now, I am in the now! But at the same time, I am REACHING FORTH! I am stirring the waters of a ministry, waiting for what God will do with my life! But for now, you can just read my thoughts and prayers in this blog, which I have grown to love, a place of quiet and remembrance! And my writing abilities, its all God's doing, just me as a person, I could never write like this, only God can take a cabbage and turn it into a rose! So Christian, start reaching forth, and live the Marathon of Life! Time is short, so the sooner the better! Thanks for reading, and God bless you!

Purity.....o so clean!

Purity is a foreign word in today's world. Today young men and women lose their purity as young as the age of 12. And some don't even know what purity means!
Well the root word "pure" simply means clean, very very clean! Meaning there is no dirt or evil thing on it, it is pure! At the age of 12 I was taken on a vacation with my mother, and she taught me about purity, and how important it really is! Purity is not just for women either, its for men too! It is hard to remain pure, it is probably harder to remain mentally pure than physically in many ways, seeing as we can imagine just about anything in our minds! I can honestly say that I am not mentally pure, so God has had to cleanse my mind many times!
Purity comes in many forms, Sexually, Mentally, Actions, and words. 1 Timothy 4:12 tells us that we are to be an example to the believers, one of the examples being, you guessed it, Purity! God wants us to be pure, set apart from the men and women in this world, who do not strive for purity, but for pleasure! Cause as the Bible tells us in Hebrew 11:24-25, Moses would rather suffer the afflictions of being a Christian, rather than sinning for a season!
What I hope you get from this Christian, is that we need to strive to be pure! When we say something ask ourselves, is this pure? When we do something, ask ourselves, is this pure? When we think about something, again, ask ourselves, is this pure? It is true Christian, that we are far from perfect, and we struggle with purity! But God is there, watching us, hoping that we strive for purity, even when we are tempted beyond any other! So Christian, think pure,feel pure, look pure, and remember what Jesus did for you, so that you might live! God Bless and thanks for reading!

A Blessing or a problem?!

At some point in time we need to wake up and ask ourselves the question, are we being a true blessing to the people around us?! Cause Christian, anyone can talk the talk, but can we walk the walk?! On days when I seem to have friction with everyone I come into contact with, I have to ask myself, Am I becoming more of a problem than a blessing? The truth is we all have our short comings, and praise be that God is patient! But we can't stand by thinking that all of man kind can be patient, while we try their patience!
I know for a fact that I am not always a blessing to my family, and trust me Christian, it hurts to know the truth about yourself, especially when it comes to the regard of the people you love! If God is truly in us, what is with all this fighting and impatience amongst ourselves?!
Don't panic, God is there, but Christian, for being children of God, we really need to shape up and show it! Or more exact, I need to shape up! I am not about to judge what I am not worthy to judge! The beam in my eye is great compared to the moat in someone elses eye!
The choices we make in life are one of two, good or bad! When I wake up in the morning, I should be able to get up in the morning and make a decision to be a blessing to the people in my life! I am a child of God, let us show it for once, and love with our actions!
I write this in the hopes that one day I can say that I am a blessing to my loved ones, instead of a problem! I am not here to fix you, in fact I am not here to fix myself, at least not without God! Cause without God Christian, our shots at being a "good person" are all in vain! But again, we are not a hopeless case! God is willing to stand by and wait....are we willing to give in and go to him?! I choose right now to strive to be a blessing instead of a problem! What is your choice?! Thank you for reading my friend, and God bless!

Healing Rain!

The snow is finally melting, rain is falling, washing the world clean after months of dirt, snow and tracks. And finally we can see the grass, and the sun, and the blue skies!
Just like the healing rain of God, that falls on us in times of sorrow, so the rain of spring wakes up the earth, and brings forth the abundance of green things. And Christian, just like nothing will grow with out rain, so we won't grow without God!
It is true, life isn't fair, and never will be, but God makes our life stand out among the rest, like a mountain among stones. Cause with God anything is possible! He cries with us when we cry, he struggles with us when we struggle, and he died for us so that we can live! Christian we owe everything to God, the least we an do is give him our heart! He is like an impatient groom waiting for his bride, a mother waiting for the arrival of her child, and like a rain waiting to fall on a dry lifeless ground! God loves us, and wants nothing more than to care for us like a father, cause in the end Christian, we will spend the rest of our lives with this loving father! I know its hard to give yourself over to God's hands, especially when we don't feel the humble spirit that should be ever present in us! We are proud, but, as God has pointed out to us, we are not a hopeless case! He is waiting...just waiting! And every time we refuse to let him in, its like a crop refusing the life giving rain that it needs to survive! Christian, God only ever wants what is best for us....I mean look around, have you ever not seen how beautiful the world is, how wonderful your friends are, or how loving your family is?! God has given you everything, in return, you need to let him be the one constant in your life, because without him ,it is only ever a down hill movement!
The reason I called this post Healing Rain, is because I love rain, and rain is a sign of renewal, and regrowth, and just like the snow is melting outside, so our pride should be melting away from our hearts, and give place to God, the thing that can fill that hole in your heart! So the next time you feel that pride drying up your heart, be ready to receive that thirst quenching, life giving, healing rain that God sends to us in our times of trouble!
And just a tip to people who love natural beauty, the next time a thunderstorm rolls your way, bring a couple lawn chairs into your garage and watch the rain and the thunder and the lighting! It is so beautiful, and if you watch it with someone you love, it makes it even more special! Thank you all for continuing to read my blog! I hope I am giving you what you need! Keep commenting! God bless you, and thanks!

This is NOW!

Ever have your mind just run away with you? All those things your going to do, be it next week, next month, or next year, your mind is always on those future things!
I always was looking forward to future things, or imagining the possibilities of where a situation might lead....but only to have those thoughts be shattered by some unseen prevention! Like when I started throwing up the day I was going to leave for a trip, or when I lost someone I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with! Christian, only God knows what is coming next...and really, making plans is a pain, and any planner will tell you that anything you plan, is never set in stone! How many times have I found myself wishing that I could make things certain?! More than I like to recall! You see Christian, it would be so boring if we knew what was coming! We would never be surprised again, be a happy surprise or a sad one!
I believe that focusing on the present, is the philosophy we need to execute in our everyday life! The future is uncertain, so leaning on the stable fact of the present, what going on right now is all that is definitely certain! Sure, we all know that someday in the future God will return and we will be gathered in his presence forever! What a wonderful future, but Christian, the rest of our life is made of choices, the choice of wrong or right! The right being obeying the voice of God, and the wrong being anything outside of God's Commands! We can't choose who we meet, or who dies, or what boss we end up with, or any other number of things! We are powerless!
Christian, we need to focus on the NOW! Cause the future can be taken away, mostly by that one thing that most people fear....death! The same applies to unsaved friends, we are only certain about the now, but the future is not at all certain, that person could die that night, or even 10 minutes after your conversation! Believe me, I am not good at this subject, I wish more than anything that my future plans were set in stone! But I know that those plans, Marriage, family, a good career, staying out of dept, all that is uncertain! All I can rely on is the fact I am alive right NOW, I am a Christian right NOW, and I love my God and my family and my friends right NOW! Christian, be certain that your future holds salvation, but being sure that you are not a false convert, and if you are one, you can fix that, RIGHT NOW! Focus on the NOW, and God will hold your FUTURE for you! Thank you for reading, and God Bless!