ok God, ok!

ok, so God has been calling me to blog for a while now... ~~does He really do that? He's so high-tech. i wonder if blogging existed in Paul and Timothy's day, if He would call them to blog, too.~~ i digress....

so, now that i've repented, i'll get on with the blog. lonette is going to AMEN this one.

isn't it amazing how God just swoops in when we need Him the most?! He just loves us so much!! sometimes, probably most of the time, we don't even know He's swooping in!! i've been smacked in the face with this reality several times this past week. of course, He's with us always, but after i was literally caught off guard and immediately brought to tears with God showing me something this week, i then had to ponder, how many other times in my life can i recognize the swooping in at potentially disastrous times.

i'll start with the occurrence that caught me off guard. well first, divorce sucks. i could do another whole blog on that but i won't. so i must have been praying about something relating to divorce... when God reminded me that both my mom and i came to know Him after my parents got divorced. ~~when i do this ~~ it means what i'm thinking in my head~~ ~~ok God, i guess that's good, that we found you, after the divorce. so 1 good thing came from a divorce. what else you got?~~ that's when the smack came. before i could become a complete disaster of a human being, God swooped in at age 12 and called me to be His. up until this smackdown, i have openly claimed my testimony to be a boring one. i had no idea what i was getting myself into when i said yes to God at some church, during some youth group service, with a friend i haven't seen or known for nearly 10 years... my heart was tugged and i responded with yes. that's it. i was "saved." whatever that meant. just 2 years prior to this "saving" event is when my dad left. shortly after, my grandpa left my grandma after 42 years of marriage. no other men were stepping up in my life to be a leader. God swooped in. this hit me huge. He knew the timing was crucial. had He waited a few years, who knows what sort of mess i would have made of myself. how many years prior was he tugging and i didn't see, didn't hear or chose to turn my head? i mean, even though i now claimed God at age 12, i still fumbled through the next 10 years of life trying to figure out exactly what that meant... to be wanted and loved and dare i say it, used by God, the God of the universe. even now, how often are we tugged? how often do we listen? are we in fellowship with God?

a few weeks ago i had to read a brief description of the crucifixion in a book for class. we've heard it 1,000 times. i then had to reflect on it for a journal that was due. woah... God slowed me down and honed me in on the fact that Jesus never broke fellowship with His Father. He constantly got away to be alone with Him. He prayed often and was never outside of God's will. so the crucifixion... cross... died... took on all our sins... willingly went to hell for 3 days... was separated from God... receiving the wrath of His father... now wait a minute. think of the person you love to be around the most. your adorable bubbly child? your strong and loving spouse? your favorite sweet old grandma? Jesus would have picked his father, with whom He NEVER broke fellowship with while he was here on earth, and then He was s e p a r a t e d from Him for 3 days while He endured hell. alone. a p a r t from God. i praise God that after 15 years of following God, He's continuously tugged on my heart to the point that i, too, don't want to go 3 days without my Father. when it happens... it has happened and it will happen again (i'm not unrealistic here people), i get a little cranky, the people around me sense my crankiness, I begin to not like myself very much... its just all bad. you been feelin cranky lately? not feelin real great about yourself? feelin tugged?

i had a conversation with a friend recently who in trusting honesty shared that they've only been applying them self to life at about 30%, maybe 60% at the max. this person knows of their potential, of which this person (i feel) operates more around 90%, but within their heart, they know there is more. shortly after i was of course praying for this person, as i often do, and recalled the verse in 1 thessalonians 5:19 that says: "do not put out the spirit's fire." another translation: "do not quench the spirit." and one more [of course the message likes to expand a bit]: don't suppress the spirit, and don't stifle those who have a word from the Master. on the other hand, don't be gullible. check out everything, and keep only what's good. throw out anything tainted with evil." when i read this verse several weeks ago now in Francis Chan's Forgotten God i had to stop. oh crap. me. guilty. stifler. suppresser. quencher. i had be done with that stuff. now that God brought me that verse i don't have the excuse of not knowing, not being aware that i'm a quencer!! but oh... oh, oh oh... God is Good! to the tune of big punisher... i don't wanna be a quencer no more... =) because...

where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom

bring the sprit of the Lord into your family, your workplace, your marriage, your parenting.

be free.