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!