Ode to 2009

Gotta have a post before the New Year begins right? Guess so…

Two thousand and nine. All I’m sayin is…this has been one adventure of a year. I can’t even believe all that’s gone on around and within me. As I’ve been looking back at this year’s journey with the Lord lately, my heart is just so thankful. Theme of the year? The Lord is faithful. Always.

He was faithful in every circumstance of this year. From giving me the grace to get through high school despite my senioritis to hooking everything up with getting me to Fire in the Night and being right by my side in the transition being back home after. Though it was hard at times my heart is just so happy when I think about how He’s weaved Himself into each circumstance and made each one, no matter how small, a testimony of His love and faithfulness to come through when we press on with the eyes of faith, especially with the whole Fire in the Night story. If you wanna hear an amazing testimony of favor and provision, ask me to tell you how He got me out there, it makes me so happy every time I tell it 🙂

While the circumstance stuff is amazing, what I treasure even more than those things are the ways He’s shown Himself faithful to my heart this whole year. The inner healing that the Lord brought to my heart is incredible and He was so just so faithful to lead me and guide me through it all. He was really there for every step. It really hurt at times don’t get me wrong but I knew it was the safest place for me to be. I huge lesson I’ve learned this year is to just give the Lord everything in my heart, the things I never gave to Him before. It’s as if I finally believe that He really does know the best way and I don’t have to hold onto my ways of gratifying the desires of my heart anymore. I feel like I always knew that I should surrender certain things in my heart to the Lord but I still resorted to dealing with issues in my own way, thinking that my way would make me feel better for good. Well, it didn’t and He won 🙂 My heart just feels sold on surrender because I’ve experienced the fruit of what happens when you do. When you finally stop trying your own way and come to the only Way. It’s all through Him. Restoration. Healing. Wholeness. Freedom. It’s all through Him.

I’m eternally grateful for the places He’s taken me, people He’s given me, and truths He’s revealed to me all throughout  2009. Not only for the things that I’ve seen right in front of me, but also for all He’s done behind the scenes. I feel like we sometimes forget or don’t realize that there’s probably soooooooooooo many things He’s done beneath the surface of our lives that are going to be so amazing to see one day. Thank You Jesus for your right hand that embraces me and Your left hand that upholds me.

I could go on and on about this year probably. Like I said, the year in summation? The Lord is Faithful. Faithful and True. That’s His name. As I look towards 2010 I can’t deny that I’m not a little nervous. This is the first year in my whole 19 years of breathing that I have no idea whatsoever about where I’ll be, what I’ll be doing, all that stuff. But it does feel a little adventurous and exciting at the same time.

So let the games begin 8)

Holy Spirit is the Perfect Travel Agent

Today I was reflecting on just how awesome the Holy Spirit has been this past week. My beautiful friend Jenna from FITN flew all the way from Washington (state) to come and visit me and my other beloved roommate Dora on the East Coast. I wanted to blog about how perfect Holy Spirit HOOOKED IT UP! For reals. Today my heart was just overwhelmed as I realized His leadership over it all. From beginning until the very end of the time we got to spend together, it was perfect and Holy Spirit was all over it. as much as this is me just reflecting on what we did a little bit, I also want it to be a testimony of how awesome He is.

• Fun Holy Spirit testimony #1. Jenna’s connecting flight actually ended up getting delayed about an hour or so. Not a super big deal, but the only thing was that we had plans to go to Thai Thai for dinner when her and Dora arrived from the airport to my house and Thai Thai closes at 9:30. Depending on how long the flight was and how long it took them to get there, I was estimating that they may not get to my place until about 8:45 and I even told Holy Spirit, “8:45 is really the latest we could get there sooooooooo You gotta hook it up…” Well needless to say He totally did 8) . He hooked it up so Jenna’s flight caught a crazy tail wind that shot them to New York and they ended up getting to my house at 8:30ish. Sweet deal. So we had more than enough time to rejoice in each other’s prescence, as well as the presence of delicious Thai cuisine 8) AND to top that off my dad randomly shows up at the EXACT time we’re getting the bill and pays for the whole thing. You rock Dude.
• The rest of the night we got to exchange Christmas presents which was glorious as well. Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father and I was totally feelin that in the gifts I got from Dora and Jenna, as well as the gift of just having them with me too.
• Dora had to go to an orientation for Med school Friday and Saturday so after she left Thursday night it was just me and Jenna 8) . Friday was full of fun adventures. We went to all the essential stores where you just walk around for fun like Borders and Home Goods, ate awesome Jersey pizza, I scored some sweet acrylic paint from A.C. Moore, took Jenna to Washington Rock to see the skyline of NYC, all this intermingled with sweet conversation and Jesus-ness 8) It was so refreshing to my spirit to be able to just chill with Jenna and I’m so grateful to the Lord for knowing that I needed that and giving that to me without even asking really. He’s so kind.
• Fun Holy Spirit testimony #2. Okay sooooooooooo in summation…Friday night…Holy Spirit totally just manifested in my room. Now, by that evening, my spirit was just feeling really joyful and good. I kind of had a feeling that something else was up or that He was up to something extra but didn’t think much of it. It was pretty late, maybe about 2 in the morning or something when we were about to get ready for bed and it all started with Holy Spirit ministering to Jenna through me, I could feel Him so strongly and knew something was up once that began because the whole time, I could have busted out laughing with the joy of the Lord if I let myself. The only reason I didn’t was because it was the middle of the night and I would have woken people up. I just could not help but smile the whole time. Jenna and I ended up talking for a while in the midst of all this and then I think we just started talking about the love of the Father or something, I can’t remember. But by that time it was maybe 3:30 or so and we decided to try and go to sleep but Holy Spirit just took over dude! He was so thick in the room it was crazy, I literally could not move on my bed. I could feel waves of His energy come and go over my head and just the love of the Father was being manifested to Jenna and I so strongly. What I kept thinking about was Him brooding over us like He did over the waters in Genesis 1. I cant even describe how thankful I am for that. And we didn’t even have the IHOP webstream on or anything, it’s just what He’s doing and all He needed was our hungry hearts. Beautiful.
• Fun testimony from Saturday: Jenna and I got to witness to this guy at a little kid’s store in Summit =) . He got to asking about where Jenna was from and what brought her out here and what not which got us into talking about IHOP, FITN and Jesus. It definitely felt like a seed planting 8) . OH! And this was the coolest thing to me. At one point he was like, “you guys could be sisters, you can definitely tell that you really bonded out there” or something along those lines. That may not seem like a big deal but it was so cool to me because this guy could actually see that we were knit together in the Lord whether he realized it or not. I think of that verse in John where Jesus says that people will know we are His disciples by the love that we have for each other and I think that this was a cool example of that. He wasn’t just seeing close friends; he was seeing Jesus because He is the love that bonds us together.
• On Sunday Dora was reunited with us! Yay for Holy Spirit joyful times of fellowship=)!
• Monday we made our way to Dora’s place in Yonkers after listening to Mikey B talk about loving God with all of our mind, doing a fun little exercise based on that, and watching some Pride & Prej of course. Just all around good times.
• NYC Holy Spirit Testimony: Tuesday was what we planned to be our city day. When we planned this it wasn’t supposed to be too cold but it was supposed to rain. Well, Holy Spirit HOOKED IT UP! I’m still in awe about how perfect the weather was that day. It was a little chilly but it was the perfect day out of all the days we had together to go. Even the weather He planned out and tuned us in to what day to go. It was a beautiful day all around. We went to the Emp 😉 , Macy’s, Times Square, and Rockefeller Center of course. We also met a security guy at Rockefeller Center who was a Christian and talked to us for about a half hour about stuff from Genesis to Revelation and even had a word for me after we prayed for him. God is good and great.
• Final Holy Spirit testimonies: Wednesday was Jenna’s last day on the East Coast but her flight wasn’t until the evening-ish. We hit a whole bunch of traffic taking her to the airport and were praying for the Lord to redeem the time and hook something up. Needless to say, Holy Spirit was showing off again in this because Dora and I got a text from Jenna saying that she basically got there at perfect timing and that her flight was delayed 10 minutes! What’s funny is that in my head on the car ride there I was thinking, “Ya know, that’d be cool if the plane got delayed for her.” Come on! That’s crazy. He is so good!!

Some of the things that I mentioned here might seem minute. Things that seem like coincidence even. But I just know in my heart that everything that went on was all Holy Spirit. It’s just amazing what He will do when you invite Him. I think I always thought that He was only concerned with “spiritual” things or whatever. But the truth is, He wants to be apart of everything in our lives. And what’s awesome is that He cares deeply about everything in our lives. When I think of this past week, it’s like He just say three of His daughters being able to get together and fellowship with Him and one another and He could not resist hooking it up for them =) . It’s amazing the things He does when you invite Him into your circumstances, your relationships and just the simple cares of each day. I’m so incredibly grateful that He can even be involved in those things. It brings such peace to my heart knowing that He has provision, guidance, and wisdom to offer me in every arena of my life at all times. Thinking on the things He’s showed me this past week just stirs my heart to invite Him more. When He’s becomes the center from which everything else in your life flows, it’s a beautiful thing. But remember, He’s a gentleman so He will never force Himself upon you, He desires to be invited. And when you invite Him, get ready 😉

Shout to the Lord

This song always gets me every time I hear it. I don’t think I was ever in a worship service where they played this song until I was in the prayer room this past summer. It was GBF (Global Bridegroom Fast) so us FITN-ers where in the prayer room starting at the 6 PM set and Matt Gilman was leading. I didn’t know it was this song he got to the chorus and as soon as I heard it I just started crying hardcore. The reason it hit me so hard was because I can distinctly remember being about 10-12 years old or something and I’d always see these commercials for Christian Music CD’s that were live worship songs. The commercial was on almost whenever I would watch TV at that time and I remember thinking the thoughts of, “ugggh, that’s so lame, so cheesy” and being just straight up disgusted and annoyed that the commerical lasted a long time and couldn’t stand it. And here I was, about 10 or so years later, sitting in a 24/7 prayer room, in love with Jesus, and worshipping Him through the song that years back I could not stand. Even at that young age I hated Him. I hated God, was a son of disobedience and wrath and loved darkness. But while I was dead in my transgressions as Ephesians says, God in His great mercy made me alive with Christ and did what I would have never expected and caused me to fall in love with Him.

Everytime I hear that song now it melts my heart because it reminds me of the Lord’s love for me and how HE chose me, HE lead me to Himself, HE drew me after Him. I wanted nothing to do with Him and He knew, when He saw that little girl, that one day she would be singing that very worship song she is disgusted by and her heart will overflow with love for Jesus as she does. It just blows me away. It reminds me again of His pursuit of my heart and His faithfulness to bring me into the fullness of what He has in His heart for me. It also just encourages me heart to know that the Lord’s love is greater than the coldest heart that’s against Him. No matter how much someone hates God or makes fun of Him or whatever, He can take that person and transform them into a lover of truth with just one touch of His deep love for them. The reason I know that is because that’s what He did with me.

The phrase that always comes from my heart when I hear this song now is, “Look where you’ve brought me Jesus. Look how far you’ve brought me. You did this.”

Let every breath, all that I am, never cease to worship You…