WWJD??? MAN, It's hard!!

Well I know what Jesus would do. Knowing is the easy part. It's all in the Bible. Pick it up, read it. Thats the easy part. Man it's hard to actually do it. To really put yourself second. To serve people and not be hurt when even though they are your friends they don't have time for you. God is like that. He is always there no matter how crappy we treat Him over and over and over again. We are supposed to be like Him. Man thats hard!!! We are supposed to love each other and serve God by serving each other. We are supposed to take the grace and patients and selfless love He gives to us and give it unconditionally to each other. Man that's hard. When the one you love the most loves everyone else more than you. When they even love people they don't know more than you. They say they love you but they only love you in words never in action. They love you when other people are looking but never when it's just you. But still no matter who is looking and no matter how busy you are you still love them. It really really hurts to love people who don't love you back. Jesus loves us. It hurt Him to love us. It still hurts Him. He still loves us. Even if we hide in a closet and no one can see, He comes in and loves us in our closet -- while we are still hurting Him. I want to love people like Jesus loves me. Ok, I want to - want to love people like Jesus loves me but even as I say that I say "but it hurts!!!" Do I really want to be hurt? Cause to really love them like He loves me is to put aside the hurt, no matter how much it hurts and to not let the hurt slow down my love and service to them. To really love Jesus is to really selflessly love those who hurt me. Like He does. Man that's hard.

Jesus, thank you for loving me...even when I make it really hard. Please help me love. Please show me how to love them even more when it hurts.

AAAAHHHHAAAA!!!!!

The last time I blogged, hard to believe it was 5 months ago, I truly thought I was at the beginning of something great. I thought of it as a turning point. I had figured something out. Thinking it would just be a simple matter of choice. I would choose God instead of everything else, believing that He is the fulfillment of my every need. Well that is certainly true but the past 5 months have shown me that though it may be simple the gate really is narrow and the few who find it have really found more than they could have expected, more by far than what we as humans can express. It's why faith like a mustard seed can move a mountain. It's DIVINE. When faith the size of anything attaches itself to the creator of faith it is attached to divinity. It's more than even the most educated, most gifted, or most enlightened among us could begin to comprehend. Thats why it's been so long since I've blogged. I've been trying to understand or trying to force pieces of understanding together. I've been searching for the AHA!! moment.

It's all an AHA!! moment!!! A day or so ago God reminded me of my actual turning point. I was barely twenty years old, I was consumed with depression and I was plagued with a deep need for any kind of love. I begged God to help me, to take over. My soul cried out and in that exact moment He began to save me, although I wouldn't know it for another 8 years. Everything that has happened since then -the good the bad AND the ugly has been an answer to that prayer.

Even the colossal mistakes I've made in the last five months. Even though I knew better. I'd made the same mistakes before and thought I'd learned from them then. Isaiah 38:27 says "I will make you return on the road by which you came". At first that felt like harsh discipline until I realized that the road I came in on is where God had already proven faithful. The apparent harsh discipline was really compassion and love!!! After reading much of the Old Testament my heart is struck by Gods love and compassion. Do you know what He did to the Israelites who turned their backs on Him? I do. I know that I deserve the same treatment they received BUT I'll never get it because of JESUS, He took it for me. My soul found that verse (among MANY others) in Isaiah. God knew the bad decisions I would make, He knew the pain I would bring upon myself, He knew the timing precisely. He knew I'd be in Isaiah, Knew I'd need discipline and He knew I would come to see His discipline as a sign of His love. He knew, He told Isaiah forever ago.

So what I'm realizing now is that there is only one turning point. There are no detours and there wont be, our mistakes and wanderings are included in His plan. We think that sometimes we wander away from Him, but we forget that His love pursues us -even when our back is turned- therefore we can NEVER actually be AWAY from Him... Everything is as it should be. Whatever happens, whatever mistakes we make, whatever victories we celebrate, whether we think we did it ourselves or it was Divine intervention it did not surprise God. He saw it coming and He provided a way for it to be used for His glory. I am finding great peace in knowing that He really does know exactly who I am and what I'll do, and that He knew me while the prophets and patriarchs were still in their sandals. He had already accepted me with all my future faults and loved me enough to provide a way out. A way to peace. A way through the desert of my humanity and into His heart.

It's all so big. His love. His plan. His Majesty. It's an ongoing AHA!!! moment.

Be blessed my friends, I love you.
WP Jen

The Wind Blows......

No noise, no movement, no chill in the air,
No whistle or howl to whip through your hair.

Then out of nowhere, no start nor end
a wind stirs, a breeze blows, our invisible Friend.

It kisses your cheeks and wraps all around,
It moves through the land with a joyful soft sound.

It travels, it carries, spreads color throughout,
like a paintbrush from God it can blow away doubt.

So when the trees dance and the daisies sway,
the wind blows through our lives sending dreams on their way

--written by a 16 year old Jen, I just found it and I still love it.
I hope you liked it too.