2013: My life in review

2 days left in 2013. WOW! Where has the time gone? More importantly, what did you learn in this year? For me, from the very start - the first weekend of 2013, in fact - it has been an incredible year of changes and growth. Both for the better. I am not the same person leaving this year as I was coming into it, and for that I am very thankful.

I have made incredible friends for life, some of whom I've only met once or a handful of times, but the blessing of the internet is that we can keep up daily across the miles. Some whom I reconnected with, whether online or in person. Friends who are of a like mind, friends who encourage, support and speak life over others. Friends who have prayed for and over me. Friends who have listened and encouraged the growth in my life, and have been part of the catalyst of that growth.

One of the biggest changes - and best - is becoming a work from home mom. Being able to be there for my kids has made all the difference in the home atmosphere regarding attitude. It has been a tremendous blessing! The biggest one. It has helped me to become closer to them in ways I couldn't have imagined prior to working at stressful 45+ hour work week elsewhere. It has deepened my relationship with them as I am able to be there for celebrations and parties, milestones and games. To pick Em up "early" - now meaning as soon as school ends - and stay late with Nate when I drop him off.

I am thankful for the incredible spiritual truths that have been brought to me this past year. Truths that have opened my eyes and changed my life. Thankful for an amazing group of women who have seen the transformation in my life and have believed in and encouraged me and spoken life and truth over me. Not a day goes by where I and my family aren't thankful for their existence in my life and the truths that have been so much of the catalyst for the change in me.

I still have much to work on, but then again, we are all works in progress, are we not?

I am excited for what 2014 has to offer, because as good as 2013 has been, it can and will be better. 2014 will be a year of many dreams and accomplishments realized, goals reached and milestones crossed off my list. It will be a year of even deeper spiritual growth and understanding and I know it will be a year of blessings and wonderful surprises because God has never failed me or let me down and He won't start now. I have promises from Him that will come in His timing. Not mine.

That's been probably one of the biggest lessons for me is to be patient and wait. Psalms 27:14 says it very well. "Wait on the Lord, be strong and He will strengthen your heart. Wait on the Lord." Jeremiah 29:11 says it even better. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." If God has great plans for me and if I follow the path He has laid out for me, if I put my WHOLE trust in Him and let Him lead, instead of trying to make Him follow, how can I go wrong?

So, leaving 2013 behind soon and coming into 2014 with great expectations and beliefs about what will happen has me looking forward to this coming year with GREAT anticipation, joy and excitement! I look forward to being a better and stronger mother, daughter, friend, person, leader and Christian. 2014 is a new year, a new beginning, a new page on which I will write victories, goals, joys and dreams realized! Happy New Year to you all and may your 2014 far exceed and outshine your 2013!

What's In A Testimony?

Testimonies.

Every Christian has one. Even if you don’t think you do. Whether God has brought you out of addiction, or a sexually explicit past, or have been part of the occult at one time, etc.; or whether you have followed Jesus all of your life and never had anything major happen to you. You have a testimony!

For those who have fought the fight and danced with the devil – literally or figuratively, those of you who have found salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ and know the redeeming power of the Blood and Name of Jesus, you KNOW your testimony from darkness into light.

For those of you who have followed Jesus and stayed steady on the path God has laid out before you all of your life, you too have a testimony. In the face of everything the world is throwing your way, in onslaught of the arrows and slings of the enemy raining down on you, you have kept your eyes upon Jesus and clung to the Word instead of the world and that is INCREDIBLE! That is not easy to do, but you have done it and for that, you are a warrior, living the life that God has purposed for you.

Here's the thing, friend...whether from darkness to light or having always been in the light, you have a powerful testimony and the enemy is trying to shut that up. We are OVERCOMERS, through the blood of Jesus - which has covered you from head to toe, inside and out. Jeremy Camp has a great song that comes to mind right now:

We will overcome
By the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony
Everyone overcome

It is one of my favorites right now and I love to sing that song. It goes hand and hand with Revelations 12:11: And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Whether or not you can sense it, there is a daily battle in your life and the enemy is trying to steal your victory in Christ and he is employing the battle tactics of using your weaknesses against you. Your past. The addictions you conquered but still struggle with. Past memories. Past sins. He is trying to make you weak. But you CAN do ALL things through Christ Jesus who gives you STRENGTH. As the child's song goes, "...we are weak but HE is STRONG...YES, Jesus loves me...".

What is love? "This is love, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Don't let our enemy steal that victory in Jesus that you have. As I said at the start...you have a powerful testimony - do not let Satan succeed in shutting you up permanently!

In the name of Jesus you are free!

A life of transformation

God has really started a big work in me. The first weekend in January I went to a www.Oneand2.com conference in Dallas. What happened to me was nothing less than mind blowing. Suffice it to say, that weekend was one of the most significantly impactful, intense and transformative weekends of my life. I'm not sure exactly what my expectations for this weekend were...I will just say that they were shattered. This is one of THOSE moments in life where you know that everything you knew or thought you knew and everything that you had been about and lived for is forever changed. So many will never understand. It's ok. It's about living out the change in all areas of your life. It's about being different b/c you have become different. For those who it has happened to it is one of the most profound moments of your life. Everything's changed. Thank God... :-D Romans 12:1-2

39 years on this earth...35 of them in Christ...and this is the first time I feel truly TRANSFORMED and FREE! It was a heavy, heavy weekend with much discussion on generational curses, “soul ties” with others you have been sexually involved with etc. and breaking those. And my experience in the breaking of them in my life that Saturday evening was profound, absolutely chilling at one point and in the next freeing beyond anything I have ever known or felt! And there was a point in that experience where I had to fight from crying that ugly donkey cry in front of 200+ people. You know the one...you don't want to open your mouth for fear that your sobs will sound like a donkey braying. LOL!

My encounter with God that weekend was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Even Emily said when I got home, "Who are you and what have you done with my mom? You're different. Like really different. You're happy. Kind of giddy happy, but happy happy. You're just different." I feel lighter, but heavier at the same time. The heavier is more like a deep profound feeling and weight of increased awareness, but I feel the absence of the weight inside of the very center of my chest, that I didn’t even realize it was there until it was gone, and filled with the most buoyant, light, carefree feeling I’ve ever experienced. My mom said that it was the Holy Spirit truly dwelling in me and being given free reign instead of always fighting with Him and myself with my worldly desires and selfishness of what *I* wanted.

She said that this is the breakthrough that she’s been praying for for me for years and years. There is such a difference in the way that I am processing things, that I am responding and reacting to things and how I am treating others. I SEE them differently. I SEE my responsibilities differently. Was I saved before? Absolutely no doubt that I was...but I never had that OH MY WOW experience that others have talked about having until that weekend.

During that weekend I was told by 3 completely different people, only one of those who even knew me, that they saw me going into ministry of some kind and helping others. My mom has been saying the same thing to me over the past years.

How God works and His timing is incredible to me. Why not before now? I don’t know. I guess it just became where I got to the point that I had to willingly give up my own fight and truly lay myself down on the alter at His feet and just say, “I truly surrender all. I’m done. I don’t want to do this with only part of You. Not my will but Yours...and not just ‘Your will for my life’ but ‘Your will...period. End of sentence.’”. It’s incredible what happens when you stop trying to fit God into the box of your life. Even a couple of months later I still feel like crying over the profoundness of it all...but the good kind of cry. LOL!