Who You Are

Vulnerable. Exposed. Real. Authentic. Hurting.

All of those feelings embody how I don't want to seem to everybody else. Which means I've strategically built ||walls|| around myself so as to appear as that is what is going on underneath. Unfortunately, that does me no good. Honestly, I wish it did, but God has other plans. Every single time I've let myself be vulnerable with those around me something amazing has happened. God has allowed them to speak into my life, or I have been shown things that I hadn't been able to see before. But for some reason, it's just easier to let other people talk and not worry about my problems for now. What I end up doing in that situation is bottling it up then bursting at the most inconvient times. Yup, that's how it works. Now, don't get me wrong, I've gotten a lot better about this. But it's hard. One thing that helps me is resting in the truth that God loves me. I am valuable, I am good enough and I am exactly who he wants me to be right now.

"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 a hope and a future."

Jeremiah 29:11

"My days have passed, my plans are shattered.
Yet the desires of my heart

 turn night into day;

in the face of the darkness light is near."

Job 17:11-12

In his weakest moment's, Job said that. He was stripped of everything. His own FAMILY told him to turn his back on God and walk away. But no, he didn't. He stayed faithful to the Father, just like the Father had stayed faithful to him for so long.

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TRUST

Trust is not something that comes easily to a whole lot of people.

Trust has to be built over time.

Trust is not something that we allow.

Trust is God given.

Our trust needs to be in Christ, and HE allows us to be

Vulnerable. Exposed. Real. Authentic. Hurting.

with those around us. 

Trust comes from the only one who can truly trust.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and lean not on your own understanding,

in all your ways acknowledge him;

and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5

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God WILL place people in your life that allow you to be vulnerable.

But He still wants you to put your full trust in Him. 

 

Will you trust Him?

Grateful

This semester I stayed at Chandler-Gilbert Community College instead of transferring to ASU. I chose to take 4 criminal justice classes to get a head start on my degree at ASU. So my classes are Intro to Criminal Justice, Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Justice Administration, Criminology and Criminal Investigation. Let me tell ya, most of these classes cover the same things, so I hear most of the stuff at least 3 times. Which isn't all bad, at least it gets engrained to my head. What I didn't expect though is the intensity of learning about our criminal justice system.

Let me go back and give you some background. I've wanted to be a lawyer since I was 10 years old. Granted there was a little year and a half stint where I wanted to make a difference by being a teacher. Anyways, my heart has always been to see justice done. Justice is a tricky term. Because most people's definition of justice is not the same. One of the questions that we always got asked in a pre-law class that I took was, "What is your definition of justice?" Every law professor, politician and lobbyist we asked all gave a different answer. The definition is something that can alter the way you look and perceive the judicial system.

Merriam Webster Dictionary gives it this definition:

Justice: the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments

Every case that goes through the judicial system has a judge, who tries to be impartial, fair and just. But the reality is that every person has a bias. It's human nature. Those judges determine the sentences and the rest of the life of the people that they have to judge. I'm sure it's a grueling job that is hard not only emotionally, but physically.

Back to school, tonight I was in my criminology class and we were learning about violence towards women and children. My teacher is a very passionate advocate against that. She worked as a child therapist in a women's shelter so it's close to her heart. She was telling us stories about different cases of violence and how the police handled them. One of those stories was about Tracey Thurman.

Tracey Thurman was in the process of divorcing her husband. They had a son together and her husband was more than a little upset about the divorce. Tracey had a restraining order for him but he persistently came back and threatened to kill her. One incident escalated with dire consequences. When her husband arrived, Tracey was upstairs in her home and heard him calling for her to come down and see him. She proceeded to call the police telling them that he was back and asking them to send someone over right away. The police officer took his time getting to the house and watched as Mr. Thurman stabbed and beat Tracey on the ground. The cop called in back up and when they arrived they all watched him stomp on her head. The police did nothing. They finally arrested him when he tried to kick her as the paramedics were putting her in the ambulance. Needless to say, Tracey sued the entire police department because they did not step in. But this case changed the way that police officers were trained to deal with domestic violence. She was awarded $1.9 million for damages.

This was only one among many stories that we heard about in class tonight. And all I could think about was how my biggest problem was getting money to go to school. There are people all over the country that are being beaten by their spouses and staying there. They don't report it, and they don't leave. I don't know what that mindset is like because I've been in that type of situation. But from my perspective, I would leave. I don't understand how those things are happening in the world. I can't tell you how grateful I am for the life that God has given me. He is so good to bless me in so many ways. He has given me a tremendous family who loves me and would take me out of that situation in a heartbeat. Hopefully, I wouldn't even be in that situation. I have friends who love me more than I deserve. And yet, they would be there in a heartbeat as well.

Count your blessings, my friends. We have so many blessings that we take for granted every day. We are given each of our experiences for a reason. I firmly believe that. And for me, this lesson has shown me how much I have. God, thank you. I am so grateful. 

Inevitable...

Tragedy.

It's inevitable. We're human, this world is fallen. Tragedy is bound to occur. But even in the simplest form, it is heart breaking. Maybe it's my personality, my heart, but I never want to look tragedy straight in the eye. Ever. Yet, it's going to happen. That is an absolute that we can surely rely on until the day that Jesus comes.

"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. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you."
Jeremiah 29:11-12

There's the promise that we need to keep pressing on. It's a promise that you must believe to have hope. Because, this world, is truly hopeless without our Father. When I sit to long and think about all the imperfections in this world, I have to stop and turn back to Him, who is the Creator of all things. And I know, that His plan, is 100,000 times better than mine. And if He wanted us to live in a perfect world, it would here. But it's not.

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Lie: I am not good enough.

Truth: I am perfect in Christ.

because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
Hebrews 10:14

Translation -- You and I are perfect because of Jesus dying on the cross.

Did you get that?

We are PERFECT.

Wholly. Without blemish. Spotless. Perfect.

Think for just a second, what does that mean to you? Not what everyone else says, but for YOU, how does that blow your mind?

It blows mine. Because I want to be all things, to all people. I want to be a friend, a counselor, a teacher, a chill person, a go-getter, a know-it-all (that actually does know it all), a determined young person, a special kid, an honors student, a minister, a loving acquaintance, just to name a few. But I want to do my very best, and to me, most of the time, my very best isn't good enough. Even if everyone else thinks it's okay. But this whole mindset that I have crumbles when God reminds me, that I am perfect in Him.

Try to grasp THAT concept.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10

Belief and Faith

So last night I was talking to one of my friends pastor's while doing homework at my friends house. And he was talking about this book about liturgical fallacies that we believe as truth. One of the one's that he was talking about was belief and faith. He told a story about a preacher giving a sermon in Germany. The preacher spoke English and was differentiating belief and faith, but about half-way through his sermon he noticed that the translator was using the same word for belief and faith. He stopped and asked the translator why he wasn't translating correctly. The translator responded with, "Belief and faith are the same word in German."

The fallacy is that belief and faith are separated, they are not tied together in some way. But in reality, they are the same thing.

Having this new found truth, I embarked upon my daily Bible study in the book Be Transformed, by Scope Ministries. The Bible study group I'm doing it with calls it the "Book of Pain." Mostly because it is a self-examining book, where you really look at the root of your belief system about how you view yourself and God. Anyways, this week's lesson is about learning about how you view yourself. Today's specifically was looking at the lies that you believe about yourself, and the truth that God says in His words that contradict your beliefs. Then God gave me a revalation about that! The lies that we believe as truths are things that we put our FAITH in. We put stock in them to where we expect them to happen. And when they do, our belief/faith is strengthened because "faith without deeds is dead." Yeah, my mind was pretty much blown out of my brain at this point. I just don't understand how all this time, I was under the influence that this wasn't the case. When the Father talks about faith without deeds is dead, he's also talking about beliefs. Each belief that we hold is held there simply because we've SEEN IT HAPPEN. Again, faith/belief without deeds is dead. But when the deed is there, our faith in it becomes stronger. And we are more likely to hold to that belief even more so now.

CRAZY, RIGHT?!?!

But when our perspective is changed, as in this case, it is in our best interest to wait on the Lord and let him change our heart in it. It's not a time to say, "Well, now that I have a new perspective, I want to change." That's not at all what he wants us to do. He wants us to allow him to change our hearts because of that new perspective that we are given. He wants us to let it take root in our hearts, which in turn will change our behavior, our attitude, our thought process in more ways than one. AND we won't even realize it until it's already done. We have nothing to worry about it then. We just let him do it. Plus it's SO much easier that way. Like the old cliche says, "Let go, let God."