Musing :: Mind : A Fist Full of Faith

pictured above is a gift I received from anonymous donors, a rosary and a card.

I chimed in on the SheReadsTruth proverbs study very late and I'm sorry I did because it's a cute little short study and reading just one day was so relaxing and worth it.

In the post about adultery they dared to ask the question 'Who is the temptress wooing your heart right now?' and I found myself shamefully considering it because I already know who has been wooing my heart for quite some time now; disbelief.

You see I have entered into a deep partnership with my Lord when I agreed to be a Christian. I promised not just to believe Him but to believe in Him. This year He has gone out of His way, as I suspected He would, to show me that He is present, listening and capable of fulfilling my every need.

But some needs I have still foolishly hidden away. Placed on the floor of my heart, underneath the rug of sorts as though He would not be able to see them and the pain they caused....

Is not this too a form of adultery in the union I have promised to honour? I found myself wondering.

I need to stop saying I believe, I need to admit that I'm hiding away wishes as though they are impossible. Nothing is impossible with God.

So I through it all at the feet of my saviour at a very early point in the year. He challenged me to believe toe to toe with His will. Now believing in His might for others has always been fairly easy for me, I've always had a firm handle on that kind of faith but believing for me?! That's another kettle of fish on a horse of a different colour!

In 2016 I felt like my God was about to show off and He did. He told me He could certainly do it for me too. He told me that not only could he but even though He didn't have to, He would prove it and He did.

So in the first six months of the year, I grasped faith and fear in either hands. I decided to switch up the pressure I usually apply to each and hold faith with a firm hand while I held fear with a loose one.

It was NOT easy.

Often I found faith almost slipped through my fingers,  my fingers grasping on to it as though I fell asleep and almost dropped something very important. Sometimes I found myself squeezing fear in a tight fist until my knuckles and my chest were equally tight and I had to rely on my faith hand to pry it open flat again...

It was a huge learning process, painful and awe inspiring. It was riddled with confusion and blind steps into the notion that God is good whether I get what I want or not because God is sovereign and not a genie. I saw new sides of people who were once generous when I could give back to them, sides cloaked in selfishness and greed that had never been made known to me before. I saw people who I'd never seen before because I had always been able to feed myself, smiling at me now and offering help they couldn't know I needed...

I learned from whence blessings come; a true place of potent love, devoid of recipient. I learned that my past actions of kindness and generosity had not fallen on deaf ears. Suddenly people were reminding me that I was smart, that I was generous, that they believed in me like I believed in my goal....it was...divine and inspiring.

Do not read this and think I take this to mean I will always get what I want. I have gone many years accepting that I would not and could not in my time. I've lost many battles with Him and I'm being honest, I fought Him for it because I wanted those things and I didn't get them...but that is more than okay even though I didn't know it then.

Yeah, that's also easy to say after the fight too.

I've told you that my word for 2016 is victory but the phrase that is written on my heart every time I say or write it is victory in Jesus for only in Him does it come.

In the first six months of this year Jesus has taught me to trust in His all encompassing might while I still stood in the darkness, to open my eyes and receive His glory for me too not just for the people for whom I pray...and that shouldn't be so difficult...but it was one of the hardest things I've done. I placed down my self made amour and put on the armour of Christ. I believed there were steps where I could but see clouds. Then I let that sink in, cried, through a fit, slept it off and believed anyway. I never let my doubt supersede my belief. When everyone asked if? I said absolutely. When everyone asked how? I said God's got it.

I've got two hands, a saviour and and enemy. One fills my hand with faith and hope the other fills my hand with fear and doubt. I have learned that it is up to me which hand I lift to my mouth and feed myself with and which hand I let fall away from my face and lay still in peace.

He is the prince of peace and He grants me shelter therein. I feel like I'm rambling. Am I rambling? Well my point is I'M WENT NOAHCon!!!!!!

More on that very soon.

Peace. Love. A Fist Full of Faith.

4 Things I Learned from my Faith in 2015

You reflect what you spend time doing.
I spent time in scripture and in prayer like crazy this year and I fed that love for it. The only way to grow in something is to keep on feeding it. The wolf that wins is the one you feed right?

There is an extreme privilege in abiding in service. 
Service is not about being the top dog, it is about achieving a sense of humility that allows you to realise that you are an equally important part of an extraordinary whole. Abiding in service is not a chance to be self prompted or boastful but is an opportunity to feel blessed by the position you hold in life. A position wear you are free, loved and safe. It is an opportunity to share that possibility with others and help them to feel the same. It is a chance to change lives just by being who you are, isn't that a true triumph in such a desperately unfair world?  

I have a passion for ministry, diverse and loving ministry.
As seen in my love for teaching and the many roles I occupy in my life.  I delved a little deeper into service this year. It was a long time coming, I knew it but I hadn't yet realised in what way I could serve most effectively and where. In 2015, as I explored aspects of my spiritual life, how I can use my personality and talents also became clear to me. Now I'm revving to make things happen and I couldn't be more excited to have a hand bettering lives and being a source of God's all encompassing love to my fellow living things.

There is strength in numbers.
This year I sought out community a lot more than I used to and I learned that surrounding myself with like-minded individuals not only strengthened me in times of pain but it also fed my own growth. When I dwelt in a space that I made sacred for myself, simply by declaring it so, I gave my spirit a chance to rest even in the midst of busyness, pain, dissatisfaction, confusion, anger and abandonment.



It's been a wild spiritual journey for me in 2015 and no doubt next year will come with a brand new set of lessons and it's own enforcements of these...either way, it'll be an adventure!

Peace. Love. Believe.

2015 New Year Resolution Update :: My Prayer Journal Experiance

 At the beginning of the year I made resolutions. I purposefully made them general and simplistic, at least they seemed so to me, in order to better tackle them. It's past the half year mark now (can you BELIEVE THAT!?) so I really wanted to write an update on the process.

I'm not new to journalling, I've been doing it for half of my life now.  It's funny though that sometime along the way I stopped. Sometime around when I started a public blog I found myself journalling less and less. It's not this blog's fault honesty it was me.

Things got tough, a different kind of tough, the kind where coming to a conclusion about a question was not just difficult but it wasn't as satisfying. I didn't want to catalogue it any more, I didn't want honesty that didn't seem to amount to anything. I had enough of that around me it was too much to find it inside of my head too..for a while.

As I grew more intentional about prayer and scripture and a different side of my relationship with God however, I decided to try journalling again, only in a different way this time. What did I have to lose anyway? He already knew everything!

Turns out it was just what I needed. prayer journalling was honesty with ease. I was journalling without any pressure, self applied or otherwise. It's not chalked full of hurt and anger  nor doesn't make me embarrassed the thought of someone seeing it, believe it or not. It's glorious honesty without assessment and I love it!

I will likely continue for years, even though my intention was only to try it for a year.

Admittedly, I failed to keep it consistently as I had hoped. I was so embarrassed as I looked through it for the first time looking back, in relation to time. It goes JANUARY! Intentional! Full of potential and drive! Theeeeeen.......APRIL! haha Wut?!  I got so busy I skipped two months straight and even after! Leaving me with only about half as much as I should have by now but am I disappointed in myself? You know....no.

When I looked at the words, I was shocked. They told me things about my strength, beliefs, courage and tenacity I did not actively know. Look at all those positive adjectives!

Life is hard, life is daunting. Sometimes it's so overpowering that we get tired of thinking about or even looking at it. Yet, golden are we that have not given up. Golden are you who have retained the strength to be here today.

Prayer journalling helped me find the drive to journal again.

Oh and I also did the other prayer resolution I set for myself, let me know if you'd like to hear about that experience. That's half of my resolutions doing pretty well so far, I'm a little impressed and very pleased haha.


How are your new years resolutions going?

Peace. Love. You're Golden.