5 months of eternity, and the patience to face it!

When I was younger, I used to think that after engagement, the time till the wedding would fly because of how excited and swept away I would be! But now here I am, 5 and a half months from me and my fiance's wedding, and its torture!
Everyday is a test of patience and faith! I find myself saying, it'll come sooner than I think, and then again it won't, but then again it will! Ha Ha!
My mind keeps going over, "Stand still, and wait upon the Lord." We both have waited so long for the one person we were meant to spend the rest of our lives with, so why now, when we have finally found them, do our patience fail us?! But I think I have found that the Lord is showing me personally, that I have yet more time to dedicate to patience! I couldn't be more thankful that the Lord has brought Daniel to me, but I am not yet patient enough! Sometimes the time needed to dedicate to practicing true patience is given to us in a time and place that seems unnecessary! But what better time to practice patience then before marriage?!
Every day, the Lord shows me how he knows best, and to just trust him, and wait! I am so thankful the Lord hasn't given up on me, and that he still stands by me, leading me and teaching me as his child! In the end it comes down to, "Are you going to trust God? Or are you going to take your life into your own hands again, and speed things up?!" Christian, we must also remember that the Lord's timing is perfect, I know that from past experience! Trying to speed up God's plan is like ordering a three course meal all blended together into a food smoothie! The end result in both pictures are messy and unappetizing!
The Lord wasn't kidding when he labeled patience as being a virtue! It is one fruit of the spirit that comes slowly for me! But I want so much to be a patient person, and in the end, the only way I will succeed is to pray, and give it to God, and he will do the rest!
Remember Christian, the Lord has all the patience you will ever need, plus a million times over! Be thankful that he is patient, cause had he given us what we deserved, we are eternally lost! But for some reason, he chooses to be merciful! He loves us more than any spouse, friend, or family member! We are his cherished creation, and through his grace do we thrive! Live your life day to day at the feet of God! I post this under the knowledge, I have yet to be truly patient! I have no desire to be a big talker, little doer! But I pray that through my sinful mistakes, you might catch on before you pay the consequences! Thanks for reading my fellow bloggers! Take care and God bless!

Rachel, will you marry me?

Thursday evening, the unexpected happened! I got a call from my courting mate Daniel, and he sounded like he had something heavy on his heart! But no amount of preparing could have caused my heart to be ready for what he did say in the end!
He asked me what was on my heart, and that he really needed to know! So I told him everything that had been on my heart for the past several weeks, not leaving anything out, hoping it would put his mind to rest! I heard him sigh when I was finished, and he said, "Rachel, can I call you back in a few minutes?" I said sure, and he hung up! I sat there wondering what I had said to upset him, sure I had just caused him to struggle with all I had said! For 20 minutes, I wondered and worried, so unaware that he was using that 20 minutes to call his parents, and my parents!
After what seemed like forever he finally called back, and he sounded humbled and excited! I didn't have any idea what I was about to hear! He took a deep breath and said, " I sent you an email, you can open it now." As I opened the email, the picture which I have attached to this post popped up! I was speechless, but Daniel wasn't! Because as I looked at the picture, he said in a voice so tender,"Rachel, will you marry me?" I am pretty sure my heart stopped beating for a split second! As soon as I could breath again, I said, "What else can I say, YES YES!" Right after that, I heard my parents laugh outside the door! Then I knew what had gone on during that 20 minutes! The rest of our conversation consisted of telling each other how much we love each other, and how thankful we are that we are finally engaged! It is the strangest thing to think that in a few months, I will be married, and start a new life with the man who the Lord brought to me! I also thought of the title of this blog, and how underneath it says, "My search for my true love." I have truly found my earthly true love! I am so thankful, and my heart is so full of rejoicing and gladness!
I love Daniel so much, and the best part about it is, I had nothing to do with his coming into my life, it was all of the Lord! Now I just look forward to being the help meet God created me to be, and learning to be a loving wife with the Lord's help! You fellow bloggers have been such a blessing and support, and its my great joy to share my happy news with you! God bless you all and thanks for reading!

Music....it was God's idea!

Music is a powerful tool, and can be used for either a good or bad message! Today, we can say that most music has become corrupt, and people like music for all the wrong reasons!

Music was made to be enjoyed! And it was God's idea! The Bible tells us to sing to ourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, Singing and making melody in our hearts! The Lord loves music, evident by his creation, even the birds have song! We were made to serve and praise the Lord! We praise the Lord through music!

So how heartbreaking to think we no longer sing for our God, but just for ourselves!

I love to sing, it lifts my spirits, and makes me smile when I am having a ruff day! But how much better is it to sing from the heart for our Lord? Make a joyful noise unto the Lord! I want the music I listen to to praise God, and to honor him! It is so important to present the Lord in every aspect of our lives! If we claim to be a Christian, and yet listen to demonic music, what kind of a message are we sending to the unsaved souls of this world?! Search your heart, and your music Christian, are you presenting a good message for the Lord? Just remember, music was God's idea! Thanks for reading and God bless you!

Simple life, not of situation, but of belief!

The choices we make in life often dictate our situation! And depending on whether or not our situation is good or bad, we are happy or sad. That is an ordinary life style! And we make choices every day of our lives, all day long! Sometimes the simplest choices we make can affect us in a bad way! There is one choice I made several years ago, that doesn't dictate my situation, but sets me up for the future, whatever that may be! Accepting Christ into my life, and giving him my heart was a hard struggle against my sinful pride and Independence, but the Lord knew that my heart would break easily, and that I needed him more than anything in this world, so he sent trials my way, and set me up to go back to him!

Every choice you make dictates who you are, whether your responsible, immature, irresponsible, or mature! The choice to follow Christ says this, I am a child of God, and under his protection I will live for the rest of my life! And no matter what, I will never leave my heavenly Father!

I live a happy life, not because its easy, my family struggles everyday, but we are happy, because our hearts belong to God, and he provides everyday for our needs, and is the fulfilment of our lives!

What shall I fear, with God on my side, walking with me every step of the way? Shall I run and hide when he protects me from the wicked one? No Christian, with God, I am complete! He alone awakens the needs and desires that I truly need! He recently presented the fact that I need a help mate, and I am anxiously awaiting the day we will be joined together, but for now, the Lord is my comfort, my father, my match maker! And I will never doubt him, even when I don't understand, because he does, and that is all I need to know, until the Lord sees fit to reveal his plan to me! Just believe in him Christian, simply believe! God bless you all and thanks for reading!

Beautiful Change, Wonderful Joy, Unbelievable Blessing!

With as much as I love to express my life lessons and joys, you would think I would have written alot more than I have! Its been over 2 months since I have written! Not good! So I will try to fill my bloggers in as good as I can!

The Lord has shown me, that the way I dress and act really tells the story of my heart! Before giving my life over to the Lord, the way I acted and dressed was spiritually and physically not modest! I am so thankful that the Lord walked with me every step of the way, even when my heart was far from him, he protected me!

In March of this year, I gave everything to the Lord! It was a true struggle to give up any control I thought I had over my life, and turn my future, and my hopes all over into the Lord's perfect care! How silly you might say, that it would be such a struggle! But every one of us wish to have control over our life, but in reality, the Lord has control! But if we willing submit to him our lives, he carries our burdens, and makes it lighter! Sure, life will never be easy, but with the knowledge that the Lord is in control, we will be greeting our struggles in life with a smile, and a joy that is unlike anything you have ever experienced! Sure right now you say you are happy, and life is not all that bad, but when all your worries and cares are finally passed over to the one who so longs and desires for you to trust HIM, you will find a new joy!

And my God has blessed me with my beloved Daniel! Today is our 2 month courting anniversary! We have grown to love eachother very deeply, and I thank the Lord daily for this unexpected blessing in my life! Whenever I talk with him, my heart beats fast with praise and love for the Lord, and love for Daniel! And everytime I stop and pray, thanks and heart felt gratitude are on my lips! The Lord just recently blessed me with a working car for a great deal, right in our time of need when cars is something our family is short on! And then the Lord blesses me with extra hours at work when money is something I need to help my family! We serve an amazing God! And none of these blessings are because of me, they are because the Lord has chosen to bless me! But these blessings didn't happen until I gave over my needs to the Lord! And he provided 3 wonderful blessings! What an amazing God we serve!

My dear fellow bloggers, God loves you so much he isn't satisfied until he has our whole heart, until he has our full attention! Change of the heart doesn't happen until the Lord is the one filling our hearts! I love you all so much, your prayers for me and Daniel and my family are greatly appreciated! God bless you all and thanks for reading!

Commitment....knowing and doing are two different things!

My heart is overflowing, I am so full of joy, its hard to hold it in! Before getting to my point, I just want to personally thank all of my dear bloggers for praying for me and Daniel! Our relationship has thus far been a very blessed experience, and the Lord is helping us grow in our love and respect of each other!

We all know what is right and what is wrong, thanks to the Lord for blessing us with a conscience! But do we always do what is right? Not at all! Knowing what is right, and doing what is right, are two completely different things! You can know what is right all you want to, but unless you follow through with your actions, it is meaningless! I made a commitment to the Lord to love my siblings, no matter what! And the Lord has helped me over come so much, and now, my siblings love to be with me, What a blessing!

I made the commitment to wait on the Lord to bring me the man he had for me! I committed my life to the Lord, and gave him everything! Was it an easy task? No, not in the least! But it was well worth the struggle! The Lord brought me Daniel! The Lord has used me as a tool to reach others! My heart is filled with the secret joy of the Lord, and even on gray days, I can't help but smile in the light of the Lord's love and blessing!

I am far from perfect, and I deserve death! But I have been forgiven! Have you given the Lord your commitment? Or do you just know its the right thing to do? Knowing and doing are two different things, and yet, they do walk hand in hand! Because you can't make a commitment unless you intend to follow through, and you can't make a commitment without knowing why!

The commitments in my life mean alot to me, and these are the commitments that are extra special! I commit to love my God, to love Daniel, to love my family, and to be a witness to the world! Humanly impossible? Maybe, but with the Lord, all things are possible! I encourage you to search your heart, and if you haven't, go from knowing, to doing! God bless you and thanks for reading!

Learning and Listening walk hand in hand!

Just spent the past 2 and a half hours having a blessed time listening to Daniel read from a book we are reading together and from the Bible!

It was wonderful just listening, and learning! Which brings about the reason I am writing this post! If we don't listen, we won't learn! Cause if we just assume we know something, we shut out any new information we might have been able to retain!

I love the little story presented in Joshua Harris' book Boy meets Girl, where he talks about how a little boy was fascinated when his father told him the reason we have 2 ears and one mouth is because the Lord wants us to listen twice as much as we talk! It blew the little boys mind, and he was so fascinated by it that he began always greeting people by asking, "Do you know why you have 2 ears and one mouth? Not only is it a cute story, but it has a good teaching in it! For those of you who don't know me, I am a talker! I can talk to the point that no one can get a word in except me! But it was wonderful to me to listen to Daniel read tonight because, I didn't need to talk, just listen! And I learned so much, just by listening!

The sad thing is alot of us only care about what we think, and how smart we will sound if we explain something a certain way, and whenever someone else starts talking, we are impatient in waiting for us to speak again because we like to listen to ourselves talk! But when we actually dedicate some time to listening, and not worrying about we are going to say next, you will find that you can retain alot more information, and it'll probably be something you didn't know before! So, Learning and Listening really do walk hand in hand! Because we won't learn unless we listen, and no one will want to learn from us by listening unless we first learn what we need to say!

So, I put before you Christian, the next time you find yourself talking a great deal, silence yourself, and listen! You will be amazed at how much you can learn through another brother or sister in Christ! And remember, You have 2 ears and one mouth because the Lord wants you to listen twice as much as you talk! Thank you for reading, and God bless!

Stand Still, and wait upon the Lord!

Ever found yourself mid step and all of a sudden get scolded and you literally fall on your face from the shock of being yelled at?! Well for me, I have been there done that! But have you ever found yourself doing this with the Lord? Have you thought you were doing the Lord's will, and suddenly he shuts the door in your face?!

I tell you Christian, the Lord has a purpose for everything he does! And there are some things we really need to discover and through the Lord's grace we will get the message!

So today I present you with this phrase, "Stand still and wait upon the Lord!" In our impatience we can miss something that the Lord is trying to teach us, and in our hurry, run into a dead end, like a marathon runner who was running so fast that as he turned the corner he didn't have time to stop by the time he saw the brick wall in front of him and then smacked right into it!

Sure the image paints a funny picture and makes you wanna laugh, but Christian, that embarrassed and hurt marathon runner is us! Like us he may have assumed that his path was cleared and instead found an obstruction! I am not saying that enthusiasm is something we don't need, but the Lord is the one calling the shots, and if you are in too much of a hurry, you will miss his warning! Since the Lord brought this to my mind I have been tempted to say to someone, "So, you didn't here your couch in time did you?" But Christian, we really need to realize that we are all in the same boat! Right now I am having one of those" I don't wanna wait moments"! Since me and my partner started courting, I have found myself struggling with the prospect of standing still and waiting for the Lord to tell us when its time for us to marry! And your thinking, whats the hurry? Wait until its your turn to wait before the Lord, and you will know what I mean! But does this mean that I should stop waiting just because I can't stand waiting any more? Absolutely not, because unlike us, God's timing is always perfect, even when we don't see it, he is never off!

Cause like the marathon runner, their couch is the one holding the stop watch! We are only guessing at how long we have been running! But he knows exactly, cause he has been keeping track!

So even though I can't stand the prospect of waiting, I am at peace knowing the the Lord knows best! So even though we can't stand our situation, knowing that the Lord is there should be a HUGE encouragement to us!

Sure, we also have those moments when we thought the Lord said go ahead, and then ran into resistance! And then stood there going, "Lord you said it was time." And he is up there shaking his head in fondness, saying, " You have been hearing things." When I think about this, it makes me smile! The Lord takes pleasure in being a big part of our lives, if we allow him!

To come to my point, the next time you find yourself hitting a brick wall stand back and search your heart! And if you find out you were mistaken, be willing to "Stand still and wait upon the Lord." Cause the more often we stop and think, and wait for the Lord's guidance, the less likely the possibility of us running into a brick wall with the word "NO" painted on it! None of us are perfect, thank the Lord he is the only one that is perfect, and he wants to always be a part of your life, a big part! Thanks for reading and God Bless!

Start your day with yourself or God?!

How do you start your day? What is the first thing you do when you get up, or better yet, the first thing you think about when you get up?

Is God the first thing you think about? Or is it yourself? Or maybe a boyfriend or girlfriend? Or the fact you have work today? What is your top priority?

In my first relationship, the first thing I thought about, the only thing I thought about was myself, and my boyfriend! It was a constant chain that connected with everything I did, even in prayer! So I put to you this day Christian, where do your thoughts lay? What holds your mind captive? Is it the Lord? Or is it yourself? If I had asked myself this question 2 years ago, the answer without a doubt for me, would be myself! I was a very selfish proud girl, and still am sometimes, even as a young woman!

The Lord really opened my eyes when he put me through my trial! I saw what I had become, and what had taken the place of the Lord! I had idolized a human being and put them in the place of God! I thank the Lord that I now start and end my day with the Lord! He is the first thing I think about in the morning, and the last thing I think about at night!

If we love the Lord, and truly have a desire to show him our love in our service to him, why are we not putting him first in our lives?! I discovered that when I start my day with myself, my day becomes a horrible mess, and no one wants to be near me, or help me in any way!

But when I started my day with the Lord, my day was blessed! Notice I say blessed and not perfect! I have my day to day struggles, but every time I am confronted by it, I pray to the Lord for strength!

My challenge to you Christian is to search your heart! Where do you stand? Yourself? Or God? Which one sounds better? Which one do you consider easier? If you want you can post your answers in a comment! I hope that this caused you to think hard, and if need be, start a new great habit, and maybe break a nasty one! I pray this will be a good teaching tool for all of you! Thanks for reading and God bless!

Pray for me!

Well alot happened in the past week and a half, and I am sorry I haven't posted in so long! The young man, who before the Lord I care about dearly came and spent a week with me and my family along with another good friend of mine. The Lord blessed the week to the full! And on Lord's day of last week, my father gave his blessing to Daniel to ask me if he could court me! So I experienced the most wonderful Lord's day of my life, when the man who I never thought would be brought to me asked for my hand in courtship!

The conversation we had afterward was wonderful, and I loved every minute of it, and I don't think we stopped smiling for a long time! Then on Monday of last week Daniel and I and my Mom and Dad when out for breakfast, and there the Lord blessed us yet more! My parents gave their full blessing to us, and promised their support whenever the Lord led us to marry! This is all of the Lord, I so don't deserve such a blessing! But I do know that I love this young man dearly! The Lord has caused my cup to overflow, and it wasn't until after I gave it all over to the Lord, that this all started happening! Almost right away, 2 weeks after I gave it over, I met him! Who would have known that the Lord would cause us to want to talk, or that in 4 months we would grow to love each other, and that 1 month after that that we would be courting! The Lord has given us so much to be thankful for, and we must keep reminding ourselves that we don't deserve it!

I want to personally thank all of my blogger friends for your support and your prayers, I love you all very dearly and I hope to continue to get comments and tips for my blog and my posts if you have any! Thank you for reading, and I hope before the Lord that he can use my story for others! God bless!

I am just happy!!!!!!!!!

That's all I can say, the Lord has filled my life with joy, and I am just overflowing with it! I can't wait for the next day, and on and on, cause my day will always start with the Lord, and that is the way it should be, and second to my God, is my love for my family, friends, and that special someone! All I can say Christian, is the sooner you give your life over to the Lord, the sooner a huge weight will be lifted from your shoulders! Thanks for reading and God bless!

Some things don't change!

Sometimes change is a scary thought, like moving to a new place, or getting married! There are some things that don't change no matter what!

Like when a loved one is away from home, the fact that you love them doesn't change, or when that night you both look at the same sky, and see the same moon, that will never change either! Or that you love your God, that will never change! When you have given your heart to the Lord, nothing will tear you from him, cause he is the one constant that sticks with you!

I like to think that the one I love can see the same sky I can from my house's drive way! Even when I wish he was here with me, I know the Lord is blessing us with an awesome sight! I am thankful for change in my life, that my heart has change, that my thoughts have changed for the better! My feelings for my family have changed for the better, and the Lord has brought someone to love me, that I just don't deserve! And that the Lord has given me a stronger conscience! This is change that is a wonderful thing that the Lord brings about!

And there are some things that you wish didn't change, but trust me, change is important! But so are those things in our life that won't change! I like to think that the Lord takes pleasure in seeing me, and the man he brought to me, looking at the same sky, and just having our breath taken away by his creation! That we dedicate our life to his service, and never want to be apart from him! This is the unchanging things that make life full of meaning! What would we do without the Lord's love, or the evidence of his majesty in his creation! What a blessing! Christian, my word to you is, change for the glory of God, and revel in the things that are unchanging! God bless you and thanks for reading!