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give me your heart - my first song

5/29/2019

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For the longest time this song didn’t really have a title.. I just knew we’d live differently if we knew why we were here.. and by we, I mean especially me.

“I’ll embrace the space you created for me.. “ is where it starts. “Give me YOUR heart” is where it ends.

Somehow, embracing the lives that we’ve been given has everything to do with if we have learned to love like God does.

Him first (Luke 10:27) with all our strength. Ourselves, and one another the same.


It means ascribing worth to what we carry - ascribing worth to Who gave it to us, and ascribing worth those who depend on us to give it away.

It means seeing ourselves as God sees us - worthy, able, cherished, and so uniquely prized that we're literally one of a kind. It means finding a way to unapologetically live that out. It means that once we get a handle on just how much God's perfect & abounding love gives us permission to abide safely in Him - we do just that, but we don't go at it alone. We bring others along.

Alive? You’re supposed to be.
Gifted? You’ve got something to give.
In a life-changing relationship with Jesus? Definitely, don't keep that to yourself.

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On GRACE & Progress: A 2016 Check-In.

2/24/2016

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Are you a Perfectionist?

Perfectionism rarely works out for the carrier, and I've been a bona fide perfectionist way more than I've allowed myself to just live and let live.

As freely as God's grace is given is about as hard as it's been for me to receive - but that's an exaggeration...  because grace, even in its smallest form, is still much greater than my occasional inability to simply exhale & take it all.
​

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Be. Do. Become.

1/27/2016

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Reminds me of a conversation I had last night.. ⭐️ so grateful for those who share truths to challenge my now and challenge my process...
"You don't always have to over-prepare to care about what you care about, to stand for what's in your heart to stand for, to be who you were created to be. Not all the time......"
Your passion will lead your life & your truth will shape it. 
If you have the courage to acknowledge what moves you & the will to do something about it - DO.
Be.
And BECOMING is in the doing.. your practice will make YOU perfect. Perfectly you. Authentic. Enough. So move.
I'm learning and I am challenged..
Faith has more than a voice with which to speak, it has legs, with which to walk...
#allconditionsapply #Godleading
#lessonsfromthebest 
#sheawasinspired #soSheawrote.
Happy 2016 : ) 
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"Love Me For My Holy"

6/2/2015

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If there's anything in life about which we typically love to lament, it's when we find that someone loves us, but not for the entirety of who we are ---our strengths and weaknesses, our quirks, and our flaws. It's when the idea of you, or me, stirs interest, excites, and draws someone close for a moment, but as the relationship grows in intimacy, "who you turned out to be," isn't exactly who they had in mind. That maybe, who you are - or have been all along - is now a bit off-putting. The relationship stalls. It ceases to grow... or maybe it ends.  I see posts about it all the time.
Like. Like. Like... And I agree sometimes, I do.. But I can't help but liken this to our relationship with God. Only because I think He wants to be loved for more than the obvious. I think He wants to be adored for more reasons than because He first loved us. I think He wants us to embrace more than His sufficient, irrational grace -- extend our gratitude for more than His provision and protection.  I think He wants us to live in awe of so much more than His inexplicable mercies. I think He wants to be sought out for more than His timing when it comes to our dreams and His orchestration. I believe He wants to be loved for His core.

 "Love Me for my Holy..."

Because He loves us SO much, and would love to be LOVED wholly, in return.

 

And there's so much room for us to acknowledge the more.. His otherness. His GOODness. His GOD - ness. His being set apart. His DIFFERENCE from all things created. His... creation of ALL things. His wisdom, and knowledge. His way... Do we love Him for His HOLY? And how about, for instance, the very thing that makes Him God - and us, in need of a Savior..? His Righteousness. .... Literally... His being RIGHT, all the time.

I'm afraid far too often we get stuck at loving Him for His love... we stop there.

Yes, love drove Christ to the cross and love kept Him there...but it was His holiness that made the cross worth the suffering and sacrifice. It was His holiness that qualified Him to pay the price.   How could He be God if not for His ability to do what we couldn't? ...If not for His ability to conquer and have victory over sin without ever even having to be delivered?
Without His HOLINESS, His death would have accomplished nothing at all.
Without His Righteousness, our lives would be a mess. 

It's His holiness that compels me to love Him for more than His love. 

We MUST love His Holy. We NEED His Holy.

"As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy.” You call out to God for help and He helps—He’s a good Father that way. But don’t forget, He’s also a responsible Father, and won’t let you get by with sloppy living.  Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ’s sacred blood, you know."

1 Peter 1:14-19 (MSG) 

If He is indeed our Father, we cannot just love "the idea of Him," choosing which parts of who He is we'd like to acknowledge today and appreciate tomorrow.    I don't want to live life having occasional run-ins with His way. I don't want His characteristics to be an afterthought when I consider how I treat other people. I don't want to LOVE the concept of having a home in heaven, but lack the maturity and commitment to be His where it counts -- right here, right now in all of life's inconsistencies and moments of stretching.                      It's so easy to over-esteem what the world values - to, over-calculate the worth of what it looks like to have it all together without actually having the whole of who we are, settled in Him.  This, I know. It's so easy to want to be called and chosen, forgiven, conquering, overcoming, and victorious...to want all of His benefits and none of His discipline. This, I know. It's so easy, to miss the mark clinging to every other convenient, accommodating characteristic of our Father. And so easy, still, to lose our souls, chasing the wind --- chasing the carnal, chasing non-factors. PROVEN. In my life. I know what it's like to have a hard time embracing holiness. We all do - we're human. Everyday we drop the ball somehow, but I must ask the question...

...Is it easy to be like Him..to be like my Father?

"Love Me for My Holy," He says. "And whatever you love about me, you'll inevitably imitate."

HOLY is exactly what we'll cherish if we ever want to look like our Father..

 

..if we ever want to enjoy the life He intended us to live.
It's understanding God's ever-present.. everywhere, and would love to play a huge part in our decision making.
Holiness, is life made beautiful because we practice kindness, follow peace, choose LOVE, and have consideration for others. It's having consideration for ourselves --  guarding our hearts and not casting our pearls to those who were never fit to handle them. It's not hurting others if by chance, they show up somewhere along our life's path...it's doing justice, choosing wisdom and walking humbly with our God.
   
I'm convinced - that the more we love His holiness, and the more we open our lives to His way, the more room we give to every flower that could blossom in the garden of His perfect will.
And please know ... I don't speak as my own best example of holiness -- that's for sure. But I am a daughter - who's learning daily, and still, re-learning... to love God for all of who He is. Not just what's easy to celebrate; not just what's easy to imitate.

I have learned to cherish what challenges and changes me.

It's this heightened awareness of His Holiness, our necessary, that can only work to our benefit. It's our intentional attention to His nature that will show us our depravity. It calls us higher... It calls us closer... I think we'll fear it less, if we love it more. 
Are you going to land atop the mountain of perfection within the next 24 hours? Probably not... Have I? Nope.  But, you will look more like your Father.. sooner than later:) My prayer is that the posture of our hearts be fixed on loving God for His HOLY. We love Him for His love. We love Him for His grace. Let's love something else. Let's love it more.
 And oh, there's so much beauty in His holiness...
#LoveMeforMyHoly
                                                                                  ***

QUOTE

"It's the absence of holiness that has made us so restless and so miserable for so long. It's the substitution of other things that have only caused grief, and guilt, and a lack of fulfillment, and constant searching. If the holiness of God could only fractionally displace our constant carnality, oh, the joy that would flood our souls! Holiness is God, giving to us ---  Himself."  
- James MacDonald.
 *** "Worship the LORD in the beauty of His holiness; tremble before him, all the earth." Psalm 96:9 "Walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you unto His own kingdom and glory"
1 Thessalonians 2:12 "Search me, Oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" Psalm 139: 23 
"For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’"
Acts 18:28
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EMBRACE

7/28/2014

2 Comments

 
I wrote this song one night as I considered how effective we could be in the kingdom of God if we truly grasped early on that we were called to be God's agents, his earthly angels, maybe? 

...If we were steady witnesses and distributors of His love, His goodness, and His heart towards all men.. If maybe...we weren't so focused on ourselves...

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(#2) I've Learned... That If You're Going To Pray, You Might As Well Be Honest. He Knows Already, Anyway...

7/23/2014

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 Growing up in church, I must admit I've heard all kinds of prayers.
Wordy prayers. Short prayers. Prayers that were full of heart, and prayers that lacked luster and thought.. Prayers full of scripture, and prayers full of drama. Prayers of faith, anxious prayers, and prayers that I just simply could not understand... another case of the deacon and his lost dentures? ...Perhaps.

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Dear "Church Baby" - Part 2

7/4/2014

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Dear Church Baby,

Believe again. Believe always.. You're preparing in time, for life in eternity.  Stay fresh. Stay open...teachable, and  hopeful... Fix your eyes. Imitate Christ. He's Cornerstone.
***
    Being taught right from wrong, and sheltered as long as I was, still didn't save me from mistakes and moments of waywardness. It showed me something though. I wasn't being confined as much as I was being protected... and no matter how far I decided to stray, something... as if I don't know what ; ) --  SOMETHING inside always reminded me where I belonged. Something's always tugging.  Something will always pull you back.   
God is faithful.
His hand and safekeeping is evident. Count it a privilege to have been marked at an early age for His service. To know better, see better, and be a light in this world.. To be taught before many discover...
Jesus - the answer.

Never lose your wonder. Never lose your awe. 

 Stay on course... church baby.
***
Read "Dear Church Baby, Part 1"
Read "Dear Church Baby, Part 3"
Read "Dear Church Baby, Part 4"
------***------  

"Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard....there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore." (Psalm 133:1-3)

Philippians 3:10: "My aim is to know him, to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, and to be like him in his death..."
Psalm 25:14-15: "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; He will show them His covenant. My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only He will release my feet from the snare."
Ephesians 5:18-20: "... be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father" 

Ephesians 4: 15-16: 

 "... speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love..." 

"And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise."
Galatians 3: 29
"Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary."
Galatians 6:9

"One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple."

Psalm 27:4

 "And having a High Priest over the house of God,  let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works,  not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, all the more as the day of His return is drawing near. (Hebrews 10:21-25)
1 Corinthians 6:19-20: "…Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body."

"Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.…"

(Hebrews 10:35-36)

 
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