day 1

this blog has been in the making in my heart and 'tonight' at 2am i was prompted to get up (i couldn't sleep anyways) and come out to the couch and just begin to share my heart. nothing fancy. just me simply writing about what God has been doing in my life. i know on my mommy blog i mention my beliefs here and there but i know that most of you don't know where that is coming from if you don't know me.

i'll start from the beginning. (and link to this at my {about me} because this will soon get buried)
i don't want to write one of those boring testimonies so i'll make this short and sweet. i grew up in church. i accepted jesus at the age of 4 with my grandpa (who was a pastor). i was taught the basic things. sin. hell. repenting. being good. etc.

then when i was, i think, 14 my grandpa came to the congregation with a new concept on religion. it was a belief, i believe, he carried with him for some time and decided it was time that he share what he really felt as there was another pastor that disagreed. so he shared. there was a tear in the church and it fell apart. there were hurt feelings and sides being taken. this new concept of my grandpa's i hadn't heard before.

he started preaching God's love and because God love's us so much there wasn't a hell. soon other things began to get into the mix. books were turned too instead of the bible.

as a bystander i can see what went wrong where. since he was my grandpa we followed him. he started up a little church of his own with a small group of people that met in the banquet facility of a bar. eventually that got changed because 'sundays were just made by people to be a convenient day to learn about God'. and from there it fizzled out. i think they still meet in a small group.

anyways, in my early teens i thought i knew what there was to know. i wasn't satisfied with it but i figured the bible was pretty basic and that was that. when my grandpa unveiled what he believed i was even more dissatisfied. how could the bible be wrong about hell and God's love and how could people (that could be mentally unstable) be right?

when i was 17 i started going to a church nearby. the pastor was dry and they sang hymns. it was far from what i was used to. however, the youth group was a wonderful bunch of kids. i made some great friends. what intrigued me is that even though their pastor wasn't leading them in the fullness of life, they were happy and content and had a hunger for God that i hadn't seen before. my time at that church didn't last long but will always be remembered.

when i was 18 i started dating my husband and started going to his church. i saw something in him that i hadn't seen before. and in his family. the pastor was ok but the youth group is again what got to me. i helped out in some leadership. my husband (boyfriend at the time) and i led a sophomore group. we loved it. God was using me in people's lives and i began to get really excited about reaching out to other people. that's when i started to dive into my bible. i'd sit for hours at work just writing and reading. i had an e-mail list of some of the teenagers that i'd send encouraging verses to. i felt really good about all of that. it prompted me to begin a devotional for girls. i wrote a couple chapters. i was encouraged. things were going good.

the youth pastor decided that it was time that he moved his family and become a senior pastor for a church in wisconsin. and so, the youth group began to dwindle. we wanted to salvage it but our senior pastor didn't think it'd be right if a dating couple led services. it kind of soured the situation. we eventually stopped going. i started having problems with my family life. and i went into a depression for about 3 months when i was 19. but all through that i knew God was tugging at my heart. i still journaled and read the bible every day because i knew that that was my only way out of my slump.

my husband and i got married and married life took over for a while. we started attending a bigger church. i loved the pastor's messages. they really spoke to me. but we weren't consistent about going to church and my attitude towards serving began to fade. i always stayed connected with God but i just wasn't feeling the serving part.

throughout my life i can see how, even when i didn't realize it, God had me on a path to where i am now. i've always known that i was on a path to somewhere, there were just some times in my life where i didn't care where that path was. at least that's what i told myself. i knew God had something planned for me that might take me out of my comfort zone.

a little over a year ago we started attending a new church. at first i wasn't sure about it. if it was where i wanted to be. my husband felt great about it. we attended and i started getting that hunger back. i went to the bible study. we went every sunday. i was trying to get every bit of information that i could. it was all new to me. nothing i had ever heard before but it finally felt right! i felt like my heart had found a home. not to mention the people that we've met are amazing!

with all this new information and revelation, as a thinker, i was greatly frustrated. i'm not dumb. i could understand what they were teaching but i didn't know how to apply or how to interpret it for my own life.

in december i was really struggling. there were some things in our lives that i thought were supposed to happen and they didn't. i was trying to rely on me too much and was so frustrated because i knew all this great stuff but didn't know what it meant for me. i was trying to figure it out too much. i wasn't just resting in Christ and in the overflow of His grace and love. i was trying to make things happen on my own and became greatly frustrated. finally, in jan., something happened. i don't even really remember when or why but it clicked. i finally could apply all that i'd learned to my own life and it all made sense! all of it. my whole christian life.

and now these past 3 months, i cannot help but burst with the overflow i'm experiencing. there are days where i'm not feeling it and i get discouraged but then i realize it's because i'm relying on myself too much and when my focus changes back on to Him, i find that peace again.

God is doing amazing things in me.

my old bible was highlighted like you wouldn't believe. mostly pieces of verses or chapters that sounded great and were encouraging but really i picked apart the bible to apply it to my life. all that i've learned this past year is between the highlighted parts. all the parts that i use to skim over, because i didn't understand it, are now understood. and more powerful then the bits of verses i use to highlight.

my husband bought me a new bible to start fresh. i keep my old bible with my old journals to remember where i've come from. i can't wait to see where i'm going...