GREEN-LIGHT revolution

But it's still Monday!!! In fact, I've got 12 minutes before the clock strikes midnight in St. Louis! Until my next post, here are some of my own six-word-stories of my experiences with God (being Love) that I've been twittering about this month:

• one. exactly what Love's all about.
• silent night.. Love's pure light.. radiant..
• Love provided forgiveness; forgiveness provides love.
• only Love makes the impossible possible.
• Love's words? always captivating, never cliché.
• life only gets better with Love.
• every time.. Love continues to rule.
• i cross my heart and... Love.
• wanna know a secret? ask Love.
• only Love is patient without delay.
• Love is my great adventure. Hundredfold.
• Love? ...absolute. audacious. admirable. astounding. accepting.
• i somehow find that Love&i collide.
• it's a Love story... say yes.
• Got Love? ...does a body good.
• Love is a battlefield? try Hero.
• Love is a many splendored being.
• to Love, or not to Love?
• who told you Love is blind?
• fall in love? Love's not fallen.

Home for Christmas My name is Abi, I'm 22 and living in St. Joseph, Missouri...I'm from England! When people ask me where I'm from I tend to respond in the most tangled way: "Well....I grew up in this one place, and then my parents moved to this other place when I moved away for college and well, now I'm in the middle of America - so I guess I'm kind of from here now."

A few weeks ago I began thinking about 'home' more than usual. There are various triggers, but this time it was due to a trend I noticed in Christmas songs... 'Drivin' home for Christmas', 'Please come home for Christmas'...'I'll be home for Christmas'. I thought: "Well, I'm not going home for Christmas! OK?!" The first step is admitting. Haha. So for the first time in 22 years, I'm not going home for Christmas.

I wanted to look at what 'home' actually is to people - what is its definition? (I was considering this in the shower - the place where I think too much, but also enjoy a strange kind of clarity!) To some home is a place of rest, security and belonging, to others it's just where you keep your stuff. I guess it's the difference between: 'home is where the heart is' and 'home is where you hang your hat'! One of the conclusions that I came to, (around the time of shampoo application) was that home is about boundaries; the ones that are set for us and the ones we set for ourselves.

When I found out I was headed for St. Joe for FYT last year…it wasn’t quite what I had in mind…I had never even heard of Missouri. I admit, I panicked and prayed 'God this is crazy, I'm not going there unless you give me the big thumbs up!' That night I got the thumbs up pretty straight and fast in Psalm 16:

'Lord you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant placesSurely I have a delightful inheritance.' v5-6 I

went to bed with the biggest smile because in giving God the reigns I knew that He was taking me on an adventure. I had no idea what to expect. A year an a half later and I'm making St. Joseph my home...for now :-). I never imagined that I would be sitting in an apartment in America at Christmas, writing a blog and wearing crazy-festive PJ 'pants' (for a giggle...we call them PJ bottoms). God has certainly been redefining home for me and showing me the 'more' that He has.

I want to encourage you to ask God what He wants to say to you about 'home'. I pray that He would let you loose in your hometowns this Christmas and also in the nations!! Let God redefine home for you and set your boundaries, because I think when you do this, you will find that His far exceed your own. I don't think this will mean moving to Mongolia for everyone ;-) It might just involve stepping over the fence!

Whatever it means, we know that our security is in God and our rest is with Him. On this earth we are just passing through - our home is in heaven worshipping Him! Let God guide your steps - He has an amazing inheritance for you!!

Merry Christmas!
Going a festive shade of green...
Abi

Hi ladies! I don’t know how many of you are enduring finals week, but I know that if you’re like me it can be a really crazy week! So here is some encouragement to help get us through the rest of the week, and into glorious Christmas break!

• “With your help I can advance against a troop, with my God I can scale a wall.” – Psalm 18: 29
With our God we can scale a wall! Finals will not control us!

Ok moving on…..

This past weekend I went to a wedding; it was absolutely beautiful. There was snowy white decorations, and whimsical music. But one thing that the pastor said during the service stuck with me most of all. He was talking about Adam and Eve, and how when God made Eve He kept Adam sleeping until He brought Eve to him. I thought that was such good wisdom and encouragement for us! Our prayer should be that God keeps are future men asleep, until He brings us to them. That’s another key thing; God is the one that brings us to them. We should not have to search, or plan. In perfect timing God will bring us to our Adam, just like he did with so many of our Bedouin heroines of the Bible. God brought Eve to Adam, Ruth to Boaz, Rebekah to Isaac, and Rachel to Jacob.

Well that’s all for now. I can’t wait to see all you beautiful women at Mobilise!

Going Green!
Miss

I bet I've got ya' interested already, eh?! Well, enjoy this little story:

So I was serving tables the other day (like I do most days), when down sat a party of old ladies. I patiently started taking drink orders amidst the hearing aids and obscure questions, and by the time I made my way around the table, the woman in the final seat asked me for an iced tea. Not unusual.

At this point I gave her the tea choices (as we have more than one tea), but all of a sudden to my surprise, there came an unexpected & witty reply: "Oh honey, give me the Tropical Passion Iced Tea (the house tea)... because at my age, I could use a little passion!"

HAH! Go ahead & laugh a little bit! Ok, now that you've got your giggles out, let us continue...

I smiled with a twinkle in my eye and before I could make reply, she immediately continued: "Now, I know that's hard for you to imagine at your age sweetie... but believe me, when you get to where I'm at (85 or so), you need every bit of passion you can get... and this tea is just what I need today!" I smiled, and responded somehow (I forget)... but here's what I thought as I walked away:

"Nope, not hard for me to imagine. Trust me. I've lived for long periods of time without it (passion in my soul that is), and I'm just a wee whipper-snapper of 25." Perhaps, just perhaps... our definitions of passion are different.

My life experience thus far has told me that passion clearly has NOTHING to do with age, or physical fitness, or intimate relationships with the opposite sex, or the amount of $$ I have, or where I live, or what my hobbies are. Nope. It is true for me to say that, in my own life, these things can, and do indeed, stir my passion, but they WILL NEVER, EVER provide the SOURCE for the eternal passion in my soul.

By God's lavish grace, I have learned this much by the ripe-old-age of 25: that passion in my life has EVERYTHING to do rather, with Jesus Christ and His robust love for me--His resulting death on the cross (John 19:16-30) and His miraculous resurrection from the dead (see John 20 & 21). If my passion in life isn't rooted in what Christ has done for me on the cross, it is eternally destined to fail... and I've found it usually does so sooner than later.

Because of Jesus love in my life, I ask, hope and anticipate to have such a passion as great as His (John 15:12-15). And as a matter of fact, while I grow in knowing Christ throughout my time here on earth, I only expect my passion for living to INCREASE. Ask me how I'm doing when I'm 85.

Until then... going green!
blogger bek

"Circumstances, difficult. God's goodness, never more apparent."

For the past two months I've found myself walking in the midst of trying circumstances, and this statement rings all-too-painfully-true in this here heart of mine.

Glancing down the path ahead of me from the very beginning, this was not a trail I found myself wanting to take with the Lord; yet I knew it was one He was asking me to walk alongside Him on. I felt a familiar inkling in my Spirit that the Father was wanting to both lead and love me down this path... and love me well He has indeed!

In the events that transpired this fall, the Lord graciously revealed past shrapnel splintered and buried in the deep crevices of my tender heart--places where Satan's lies were desperately trying to hold on with all their might. I've come to find in my own life, that oftentimes (for me personally) the Lord takes a "hands on" approach when it comes to removing these splinters.

It's in obedience to His leading me through difficult experiences that I find a truer and deeper intimacy with Him. And although the removing of these shards has been, and is always painful, the truth and love that God replaces their vacancy with, eternally out-weighs the cost of my suffering their removal. EVERY time. I praise Him for the grace He gives me to remain obedient to Him when ALL my flesh feels like running in the opposite direction.

The victory I find in perseverance only serves to strengthen my faith in Him and my trust in His GOODNESS. And with each and every victory the Lord gives me, may He grow the battle cry of this Warrior Princess stronger and stronger:

"Blessed be the Lord, my rock, Who trains my hands for war, And my fingers for battle; My loving-kindness and my fortress, My stronghold and my deliverer, My shield and He in whom I take refuge" --psalm 144 (NASB)

Going Green!
Rebekah Kruvand (aka BexEna, Warrior Princess)

I love Fall weather. I am sort of sad that Chicago is finally transitioning into winter…it snowed yesterday and some of it even stayed on the ground! While others would be excited about this changing season, sadly, sometimes I get grumpy. After all, it is had to go for walks along beautiful Lake Michigan if it is so cold you must bundle all extremities for fear of them fall off!

But then again, I can be quite dramatic:-) Yesterday, in the midst of the falling snow I met with a friend for dinner. Because our fingers were so numb, we ended up going to this little coffee shop to warm up. We got hot milk steamers with caramel and warm chocolate cake to split. It was so cozy and nice to get out of the cold and simply enjoy friends and have an excuse for a hot drink.

So in the end…I guess winter is not so bad. In fact, I hope to always through off the glum and celebrate every season of life and recognize the blessings interwoven in that particular stage of being. And I guess that is true for more than the weather…I’m just saying:-)

Happy first snow fall from Chicago!

Going green!
Cath

Confession….as I stated on my Monday post, I was recently convicted after reading the book of James where it says, “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed,” (James 5:16, NIV). God has blessed me with a Bible study made up of an amazing group of women who are vulnerable, honest, encouraging, and challenging. One aspect of our small group that I cherish is the honesty that exists there. When areas of our life, sinful, selfish, rebellious areas of our life stay in the dark, then that murky, entangling, heavy laden sin soon becomes all encompassing and we forget how to turn to Jesus…at least that is what happens in my life.

So how do we break that cycle, how do we turn to Jesus, confess the sin, bring it to light and be healed? Confession.

We confess to Jesus and we confess to one another. We invite accountability into the mix. We invite community to be a part of the healing. We line up beside our sisters to keep them from falling back into sin.

But if we want honesty in a group of friends, we must first, ourselves be honest. I must be honest.

I have confessed this sin before, but I hide behind previous confessions. I mean if I repented once, then the problem is taken care of…I will never sin in that area of my life again…I will never stumble ever again …..For one thing, yes, Christ takes care of our sin once and for all…however, I am not perfect and I should never claim to be…this life is all about daily bringing my faults to Christ and repenting, healing, growing, and moving in a new direction.

So once again I confess my sin. I choose not to be ashamed that I have fallen into the same pattern of sin, I choose not to stay in the dark and watch the separation between Christ and I grow, I choose not to hide, I choose not to be silent, but confess and bring my sins to the light and humbly repent and ask for healing.

My sin….masturbation. Not a sin that lots of women like to talk about, but lots of women struggle with. But I mean…that’s a guy sin, that is gross, mature Christian sisters don’t struggle with that…want to bet? The stigma against females and masturbation is what keeps this sin in the dark and what keeps women from confession and what keeps women from healing and growing in faith. So right now I want to break the lies, claim this struggle, confess, and repent. I never thought I would confess this particular sin in such a public venue, but I really feel like that’s what God wants me to do. Even if this gets read by one reader…I pray that God would use that.

I choose not to be broken, but to confess, be healed, and grow in faith.

Going green!
Cath