Will You Go Away As Well?????

In the recent years I have been obsessed with the account in the bible where Jesus went from 5,000 disciples to 12....He asks the question "Will you go away as well" speaking to the twelve. Peter says something that has always gave me goose bumps. He says "Where else are we to go Lord, you have the words of eternal life. We have believed and come to know that you are the holy one of God".



As disciples of Christ (note I said disciples not christians) I think it is imporant to ask ourselves some hard questions...Being a disciple of Christ is not easy and if someone ever told you that they have no idea what they are talking about, and probably arent one. You worship someone who was beaten, persecuted, ridiculed, and murdered. If you don't want to experience suffering then don't sign up to be a disciple of Jesus! To many times in our society people (especially christians) when something bad happens we ask the questions "Where was God?"..."God why didn't you stop it?" or "God why did you let this happen?". I used to be one of those people...I would blame God when something went wrong. But, about 8 months ago I had to ask myself some hard questions. "Why do I really follow God?" "If God never answered another prayer would I still follow him?" "If God never gave me the desires of my heart would I still worship and follow him?"....these questions rocked my world because it made me face the reality of why I choose to be a follower of Christ. Did I really expect to never go through hard times? Have bad things happen?



I've been a christian since I was 7, but it wasnt until 4 yrs ago in November that I encountered God in a way that would change my life forever. When I look back the past 4 yrs and see what God brought me out of and see how God saved me from myself and my situations

I am so unbelievably humbled!!! All I can do is fall at the feet of Jesus and Thank him for his imaginable Grace on a sinner like me. And I asked myself "Heidi if God never answered another prayer would you leave?" and I remember falling to my knees crying and having the same words as Peter, I can imagine now how he felt...I remember telling God "Where am I gonna go???....Look what you brought me out of!!!! It was in that moment I knew that I truly loved God!!! I will never be able to thank him enough for how he has saved me (mostly from myself)...that God would lower himself not only just to save me from Hell (A physical place) but he loves me enough to save me from my personal Hells inside!!!!!



I think we have stopped asking ourselves these hard questions....as American's we avoid any type of grief, hurt, or sorrows. We cringe at any form of discomfort. As disciples of Christ I think it is pertinant to ask ourselves these questions...being a disciple is not something to be taken lightly!!! We have choosen to follow someone who lived a life of suffering.



As Pastor Mark Driscoll says "You worship someone who was murdered lean over the plate and take one for the team"



I think in order to be able to say "God where else can I go" you need to have a healthy view of your depth of your sin and what God has brought you out of....I think we would be less likely to question God and complain about suffering. Let me just state that I preaching to myself here!!! There are still many times that I complain about stupid things and I question God and I have to remind myself who it is I worship!!!!

Dont waste your life

Tonight there was a memorial service held at my church for a beautiful, kind, amazing woman of God.....it was evident by the amount of people that came that she touched many lives and left a beautiful legacy...

Death always brings a sober hit...that we shouldn't take life for grantide...that we shouldn't even take for grantide that you will alive in the next 10 min. Not all of us will live till we are old. Some of us may die young, we don't know when. As I lay here pondering this, it is even more real to me that it is possible to waste your life...Oh how I hope I don't waste my life!!! Times like tonight humble me to the bottom of my soul. I am so utterly aware of how wicked I am....wicked but so so extremely loved by my savior who lowered himself to have Grace on me!!!! I hope that I never take that for grantide... Oh how I hope God will help me take advantage of every situation he puts in front of me.. That I would not waste one hurt, wound, or situation were I have hurt or wounded someone. That I would take every day and try and love the people around me and try to show them Christ!!!

I hope to God I don't stand in front of Christ and have to say I wasted my life!!!

Trusting his Heart

Tonight my heart is raw, open, the layers of fakery stripped away
Tonight it's just you and me
My tears fall as I sit on my lap top writing this
my false self is slowing dying away
I can no longer hide behind the streams of positive words and fake hopeful declarations I use as a wall to disquise my real heart
My real heart which screams out did I do something wrong? Have I failed you?
But wait even that's not the heart of it, that's not the real fear
I can feel the real questions surfacing
Am I a bad Daughter? Are you dissapointed in me?

How long till I am ready
When is my time?

I walk around, my heart hurting, in pain
You told me to let this vision die, but I don't know how
My heart fails me!
I try and stay strong, but I don't have the strength
I fear the frailty of my heart at times!
I fear to let go, even though it has already died

My heart is going against everything I know is true
That you love me!
You are my Father therefore you will take care of me
You don't just love me, you know me! In the most intimate way possible
You love my soul!
and even though I know this, my heart screams "It's never going to happen for you"
The battle wages between my heart and my mind!

I will not give in
The only thing left to do is trust in you
Your heart
I know your heart!
Your Father's heart is what I have staked my life on
I don't know your plan, but I know you
and in that I will Trust!!!!

Exposure of my False Self: Letter to God

You broke down my wall...you exposed my false self...you even used someone else to prove that i am loved for who I am right now...so now I have no excuse...you have opened the wound...there is no way to try and hide this even from myself...you exposed in me what I didn't even know exsisted...only you could love me this much... you enter the depths of my soul...parts of myself that have never seen light...you break down the shelves of ornaments I have made to myself...you tear down the shrines I have made to those things in my life that keep me in my place of my comfort zone...but you won't have it...you love me far to much...only you can love me by wounding me in the place of my deepest wounds and secrets...you are the lover of my soul...you love me in ways no human being ever could...your love is far beyond anything I have ever known or experienced...you pursue me relentlessly but with a gentleness that is beyond comprehension...you push past my fakery, my hypocracy, and my lies...you have exposed me, therefore you have loved me

Hurts Twice as Much

I have always been known as an open person....I find it fairly easy to be honest and open with people about my feelings (hence the reason I like to blog).....and since I am blunt (with tact of course) I usually don't mind sharing my feelings and experiences with people.....I'm not a very private person!!! I don't have anything to hide so I share a lot of what is going on in my life!! God has done so much healing in my life I like to share it with other's!!!

Relationships with people have usually come very easy to me as well... I am outgoing and don't really know a stranger....I'm the person that will go introduce myself to a perfect stranger. I love people....And I have always given people a 100% chance when I meet them! No matter how many times I have been hurt in the past! I tend not to hold grudges....I don't know how smart the whole 100% trust thing is but that's who I am.... I try not to compare people...but with this can come a lot of hurt....I don't guard my heart. I give myself to people 200%...when I love someone I love them! I love hard! And I tend to love people very easily!

One thing I have come to discover is that because of my past with my dad....my relationships with males are extra sensitive! If I get hurt it hurts twice as bad! I am more likely to feel rejected or abandoned twice as fast! I always fear the men in my life (friends, God father, etc) will wake up one day and say "Your not worth it" and leave!!! I know in my head it won't happen but deep down in my heart of hearts it's always a fear! I never feel God will leave me just people! I kinda feel like I am drifting and getting off the point so let me real it back in! Back in February my Ex and I ended our relationship.....and for 6 months after I couldn't move on! And through a weird circumstance we started talking again about 3 weeks ago and come to find out he still loved me! We decided we wanted to pray about getting back together and whether it was the right thing...was it what God had for us....anyway I'm not going to go into details but we decided that getting back together was not the best thing and that even though we loved each other there were to many issues that were still getting in the way! We ended things on great terms, told each other we loved each other and that was it! It was done! I didn't think it was possible but my heart worse the 2nd time around! Some good stuff came out of it...I got closure and God revealed some awesome stuff to me through him! He was a great guy and I won't ever regret it.....but for the first time I am truly scared to ever do this again! He was my first love and so I know that might be part of it but I also know myself and know that I gave my heart away to quickly! And even though it was a good experience and learned a lot....it hurt and still does so much! I never knew it could feel that bad! It felt like someone ripped my heart out of my chest! And for the first time I am scared to open my heart up again! I don't want to be that person but I also don't want to be that peron who always gives her heart away to where there is nothing left or only pieces left! I'm scared to give my heart away again! I know it's natural to be scared that you are gonna get hurt but that's not normally who I am so this is fairly new to me! I always seem to go to an extreme....I just want to be balanced...not to guarded but not to where I am frivelous with my heart!

Just needed to get that out!

Love you all :)

Facing the Wound

There are times I feel like my heart is screaming and I wonder if anyone can hear it???

Thoreau said: "The masses of humanity live lives of quiet desperation".

Many people walk around in a constant state of pain...not physically but emotionally! They are torn up inside...their heart is screaming, pleading for someone to listen, who will care. I meet people so wounded inside it's a wonder they function on a daily basis. I was once once one of these people. I struggledwith suicide, depression, and panic attacks. I wasn't living I was just functioning...I lived my life like a robot! It just came apart of life I didn't know any other way. It just became something I lived with and figured there was no way out. My Pastor once told me and I thought it was awsome, he said "People learn to normalize pain"...how true is that? How many times do we not face our real pain? We don't go to the root of our problem!!! We don't face the wound or pain (either inflicted by ourselves or others) we just shove it and stuff it!!! We walk around with this crap inside for years!!! It festers and the infection of it grows over the years and we don't even recognize it!!! We just keep stuffing the pain and never face it! As a culture we are afraid of pain or discomfort!!! We do anything to avoid it... we cover it up with distractions (tv, computer, x-box, phone, etc)

We go to a doctor when we are sick but never go to the one who can really heal us on the inside when we are dying on the inside..

"There are more people walking around the communities of America that are more wounded on the inside than they are on the outside" - Pastor Michael

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because I am marked out by him to give good news to the poor, he has sent me to make well those who are broken hearted; to say that the prisoners will be let go, and the blind will see, and to make the wounded free from their chains" - Luke 4:18

I think a lot of our problem is not that we feel the pain but that we don't face it! We are to scared to face the wound, to face our true selves! It's scary to face it but it is necssary!

"What was laid down in pain can only be accessed in pain" - Pastor Michael
"God opens the wound he doesn't put a band-aid on it" - Pastor Michael

But I also think there is another level...there are people who face "Their demons"...allow God in to heal those areas. We go through desert seasons where it feels like God just isnt there! Horrible things happen....people we love get sick, sometimes there is a death, sometimes we are so lonely we can't stand it....and we wonder where is God? Has he abandoned us? Is he who he really said he is?

It's during these times that God builds the most character in us, this is where our Faith is increased, this is the place where we find what we are made of, it's in the desert season you find out whether you were following God cause you love him or are you following him because of what he gives you? It's in this place the disciple inside of you is born and cultivated! What Iv'e noticed (not just speaking to other's I'm talking to myself here) is that we can tend to throw pity parties for ourselves...There is a proper time for grieving...whether if there is a lost of a loved one or a relationship (talking to myself since I just ended one that meant a lot to me) but then there is time to get up and move on...we can't live in the same place forever...it is so easy to get consumed with our own problems and feelings we almost become narcissist's...we can't see past ourselves.

"There is a time to grieve and then there's a time to quit nursing your wounds" - Joyce Meyers

"Quit feeling sorry for yourself and serve somebody, somewhere somebody is hurting worse than you"- Joyce Meyers

When I heard her say that I was floored!!! I nurse my wounds all the time, I sit around crying feeling sorry for myself...and I have been doing that a lot since my recent relationship ended....I'm thinking it's time for me to quit nursing the pain, get up and go do something for someone else!!!

Love you all!!! Be blessed

Michael Welchert (aka Yoda): Favorite Quotes (here's to you) :)

"The day after the battle is more important than the day before"


"Never let your personality take you where your character can't keep you"


"You are a disciple, you follow God not other people"


"God wants someone in this hour that is whole, sound, complete, who is not shaken not stirred, full of moral integrity, who has the guts and the backbone and has ripped the yellow out of their belly"


"God never wastes a hurt"


"Have you ever tried to cast something out of you and found that it was God?"


"Sometimes in the waves of change you find your true direction"


"The Art of the heart is to hear with the Ear what the Spirit is speaking"


"Our worst sins arise as our response to our innate fear that we are nothing"


"The deepest cry of the human heart is to know God as Father"


"Pride is the house we build in order to hide when we are breaking down inside"


"You can never truly humiliate a truly humble person"


"Don't perpetuate an idea about yourself that doesn't contain the whole truth about yourself"


"I feel lost without hope I feel desperate without vision"


"Those who judge don't know and those who know don't judge"


"People learn to normalize pain"


"Your success will be equal to your ability to confront your pain"


"The lessons that have been laid down in pain can only be accessed in pain"


"God opens the wound he doesn't put a band-aid on it"


"I didn't put on Christ to sit the bench"


"To encourage is to put courage into someone"


"Encouraging could break the back of the devil on someone's life"


"Pain is your ally, it will tell you when you are seriously injured, it will keep you awake and angry, and remind you to finish the job and get the hell home. But you know the best thing about pain? It lets you know you are not dead yet!"


"You don't have to be a statistic you can be a standard bearer"


"Rejection also refers to the residue within our personality of being deeply wounded"


"Life is not about what you do but about what you are becoming"


"The attack and wound was deliberate because Satan was threatened by what God put in you"


"The very place that should be your weakest becomes the place of your strength and your destiny"


"Everyone wants to blame the devil but you will never grow until you take responsibility for your own actions"

"Courage is not the absence of fear but the conquering of it"


"Short memory accounts for small faith"


"Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option"


"You are only as sick as your secrets"

The Real Fear

I don't fear being abandoned by God...I know him to well and trust him to much for that....I've had the revelation of how much he loves me.....It's everyone else I always fear are going to leave and say "Your not worth it...

This I have discovered is the root of my fear!!! Not merely just people pleasing... I truly to the bottom of my soul fear that I will be abandoned!!! I have found this fear is deeply seeded with men!!! No matter what the relationship (father, brother, friend, boy friend)...As much as I thought that my statement above was true and valid I am realizing it is full of errors and contridictions!!! It is true that I have a close relationship with God, and I trust him above anyone!!! He has proven his love to me over and over and I know he will always be there!!! The core of my identity in Christ has been and will always be that I am a Daughter of God!!!! I am his daughter!!! What tranformed me was the revelation that no matter how screwed up I am, the real me, is loved by God!!! He is the Lover of my soul no matter how sinful and flawed I am he still loves me!!! But my struggle has come with believing that other's can love me and accept the real me! I always worry if I am making people upset!!! I walk on egg shells and don't realize it most of the time!!! I try and anticipate whether people will be angry before it ever happens!!! I avoid it at all costs!! Even my best friend who i know loves me! I wonder if I make a mistake will she want out of the friendship? So now I look and wonder...Do I consider myself of so little worth? In one sentence I am speaking of how God is so great and how he loves me but the next insult him by acting as if what he made (me or others) arent worth loving (in essence what he made was crap!)...what an insult to him! He said that what he made was good!!! So why do I believe that God can love me but not others? There is no evidence that this will even happen! It's all in my mind.... Mark Driscoll said this:

"Something doesnt have to be true to be devastating it just has to be believed"

So is the real root fear of abandonment? or something else deeper than that?

just some contemplations!!!!

Mark Driscoll: Favorite Quotes

You worship someone who was murdered. Lean over the plate, take one for the team."

“Don’t search for God’s will, instead search for God, and he will plant a desire in you! For if you delight in God his will becomes your will”

“Something doesn’t have to be true to be devastating, it just needs to be believed”

“You have more things you can do than things you should do”

“If Satan can’t get you to sin he will keep you busy neglecting God”

“People who don’t have a sense of call exchange fruitfullness for bussiness”

“Pursue your call not your potential”

“If you’ll be honest with yourself, it doesn’t matter what your theology is or how much you love God, at some point your not going to be happy with him because he doesn’t do what he is told and he never calls for help”

“Sometimes the fig leaf we hide behind is verses out of context”

“People who have fear of man issues appear humble but the truth is that they are easily pushed around”

“Anxiety is not to be managed it is a sin that needs to be repented of”

“Religion is the enemy of the gospel that is most common among people that are religious in Nature”

“Idols tend to be good things that you have turned into god things, which therefore become bad things”

“Sometimes the worst thing is to get your idol because then the pressure is on to keep it”

“Train the called don’t call the trained”

- Random guy: “But she’s hot”
- Driscoll: “Ya well so is Hell you gotta get beyond that”

“Our God is a little offensive! Most of the people who REALLY liked Him got killed!”

“You wanna be counter-culture? You wanna be a total rebel? Get a job! You wanna be counter-culture, totally alternative, radical? Be a virgin until you get married…to a person of the opposite gender. And then stay married and pump out some kids and pay your taxes and read the Bible, you freak. You’ll be just totally a rebel.”

Ravi Zacharias: Favorite Quotes

"The loneliest moment in life is when you have just experienced that which you thought would deliver the ultimate, and it has just let you down."



"A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God."



"God kept them in the wilderness so they could see the weakness and frailty of their own hearts"



"Sometimes at the most painful time in life we want to break that moment of pain for the individual when it's the very point at which God wanted to bring them"



"If you don't learn humility, he will break you"



"Love is not just an emotional feeling. Love will never be pure till Love comes with the will to be committed as well, not just the emotion of feeling"





"We have a right to believe whatever we want, but not everything we believe is right."



"Yes, if truth is not undergirded by love, it makes the possessor of that truth obnoxious and the truth repulsive."



"These days its not just that the line between right and wrong has been made unclear, today Christians are being asked by our culture today to erase the lines and move the fences, and if that were not bad enough, we are being asked to join in the celebration cry by those who have thrown off the restraints religion had imposed upon them. It is not just that they ask we accept, but they now demand of us to celebrate it too."



"I thank the Lord that, even though things were so wrong in my life here, I finally was brought to the realization of what all those struggles were about. There are some wonderful things from your painful past, things with a beauty you may not have realized at the time."— (Walking from East to West: God in the Shadows)



"Love is a commitment that will be tested in the most vulnerable areas of spirituality, a commitment that will force you to make some very difficult choices. It is a commitment that demands that you deal with your lust, your greed, your pride, your power, your desire to control, your temper, your patience, and every area of temptation that the Bible clearly talks about. It demands the quality of commitment that Jesus demonstrates in His relationship to us."— (I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah: Moving from Romance to Lasting Love)



"Without the will, marriage is a mockery; without emotion, it is a drudgery. You need both, If your will is not committed to that person you have made a mockery of them"



"The most powerful weapon on earth is not the bomb, the most powerful weapon on earth is the truth"



"Love is a command, not just a feeling. Somehow, in the romantic world of music and theater we have made love to be what it is not. We have so mixed it with beauty and charm and sensuality and contact that we have robbed it of its higher call of cherishing and nurturing."



"Beginning well is a momentary thing; finishing well is a lifelong thing"

"God is the shaper of your heart. God does not display his work in abstract terms. He prefers the concrete, and this means that at the end of your life one of three things will happen to your heart: it will grow hard, it will be broken, or it will be tender. Nobody escapes"



"The day that each person willingly accepts himself or herself for who he or she is and acknowledges the uniqueness of God's framing process marks the beginning of a journey to seeing the handiwork of God in each life"



"God makes appointments with us in our disappointments. To see the pattern we must take three steps involving the heart, the mind, and the cross"



"For the Christian, worship is co-extensive with life. Life is already an expression of worship"

John Piper: Favorite Quotes

"He will go in, he will not stay on the outside. He will not have externalism. He will push through your fakery, your posing, your hypocracy, he will push in until he touches every single raw secret nerve of your life, he knows you! - John Piper


"When I am revealed and my heart is laid bare...my heart is being exposed to myself and to God so that I might know him better....even self knowledge is about God knowledge, even the exposure of ourselves is about the exposure of Christ to ourselves because if we don't know the depth of our own hardness we won't know how we are excluding him from there" - John Piper


"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him"— John Piper


"If you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great."— John Piper (A Hunger for God)


"Do you feel loved by God because you believe he makes much of you, or because you believe he frees you and empowers you to enjoy making much of him?"— John Piper


"Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It's a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don't want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel."— John Piper (God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself)


"It is better to lose your life than to waste it."— John Piper


"Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't."— John Piper


"The strength of patience hangs on our capacity to believe that God is up to something good for us in all our delays and detours."— John Piper (Battling Unbelief: Defeating Sin with Superior Pleasure)


"The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite forheaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is notthe X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality wedrink in every night."— John Piper (A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer)


"Suffering in the path of Christian obedience, with joy - because the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life (Psalm 63:3) - is the clearest display of the worth of God in our lives. Therefore, faith-filled suffering is essential in this world for the most intense, authentic worship. When we are most satisfied with God in suffering, he will be most glorified in us in worship. Our problem is not styles of music. Our problem is styles of life. When we embrace more affliction for the worth of Christ, there will be more fruit in the worship of Christ.— John Piper (Tested by Fire


"The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all thefriends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, andall the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beautiesyou ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and nohuman conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied withheaven, if Christ were not there? "— John Piper (God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself


"The key to Christian living is a thirst and hunger for God. And one of the main reasons people do not understand or experience the sovereignty of grace and the way it works through the awakening of sovereign joy is that their hunger and thirst for God is so small."— John Piper


"It is about the greatness of God, not the significance of man. God made man small and the universe big to say something about himself."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)


"The answer, The answer, my friend, is not yours to invent or create. It will be decided for you. It is outside you. It is real and objective and firm. One day you will hear it. You don't create it. You don't define it. It comes to you, and sooner or later you conform to it—or bow to it."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)


"Life is not a straight line leading from one blessing to the next and then finally to heaven. Life is a winding and troubled road. Switchback after switchback. And the point of biblical stories like Joseph and Job and Esther and Ruth is to help us feel in our bones (not just know in our heads) that God is for us in all these strange turns. God is not just showing up after the trouble and cleaning it up. He is plotting the course and managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good and for the glory of Jesus Christ."— John Piper (A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God)


He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)


"Desire that your life count for something great! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Want this! Don't coast through life without a passion."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)


"Woe to us if we get our satisfaction from the food in the kitchen and the TV in the den and the sex in the bedroom with an occasional tribute to the cement blocks in the basement! God wills to be displayed and known and loved and cherished and worshiped."— John Piper


"We are more than a collection of appetites - we are of God."— John Piper (A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God


"There is a warning. The path of God-exalting joy will cost you your life. Jesus said, "Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." In other words, it is better to lose your life than to waste it. If you live gladly to make others glad inGod, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full. This is not a book about how to avoid a wounded life, but how to avoid a wasted life. Some of you will die in the service of Christ. That will not be a tragedy. Treasuring life above Christ is a tragedy."— John Piper


"My joy grows with every soul that seeks the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Remember, you have one life. That's all. You were made forGod. Don't waste it."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)


"Don't be surprised. There is nothing new under the sun. Only endless repackagings"— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life


"We weren't meant to be somebody--we were meant to know Somebody"— John Piper


"Do you love the cross because it makes much of you? Or do you love it because it enables you to enjoy and eternity of making much of God?"— John Piper



"You get one pass at life. That's all. Only one. And the lasting measure of that life is Jesus Christ."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)

Brennan Manning: Quotes from a True Warrior for Christ

"My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it."
— (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

"To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God's grace means."

"How glorious the splendor of a human heart that trusts that it is loved!"

"There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are."

"When a man or woman is truly honest, it is virtually impossible to insult them personally."

"When our inner child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments and the surprises of the Spirit."

"The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of the pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise."
— (Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin's Path to God)

"Hope knows that if great trials are avoided great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"There is the "you" that people see and then there is the "rest of you". Take some time and craft a picture of the "rest of you." This could be a drawing, in words, even a song. Just remember that the chances are good it will be full of paradox and contradictions. "
— (The Furious Longing of God)

"In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

When a person is evoked for who she is, not who she is not, the most often result will be the inner healing of her heart through the touch of affirmation.

Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguish gift of yourself, a love that forgives seven times seven, that keeps no record of wrong. This is the criterion, sole norm, the standard of discipleship in the New Israel of God."
— (The Furious Longing of God)

"Only reckless confidence in a Source greater than ourselves can empower us to forgive the wounds inflicted by others."
— Brennan Manning (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible but not relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft and true witnesses without being manipulative."

"Everybody has a vocation to some form of life-work. However, behind that call (and deeper than any call), everybody has a vocation to be a person to be fully and deeply human in Christ Jesus."
— (The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives)

"Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don't know we can't do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we're told not to judge.

Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become."
— (The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives)

"Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"While the impostor draws his identity from past achievements and the adulation of others, the true self claims identity in its belovedness. We encounter God in the ordinariness of life: not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary, mystical experiences but in our simple presence in life."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. Jesus listened. In John's Gospel we are told that Jesus was moved with the deepest emotions (11:33)... The gospel portrait of the beloved Child of Abba is that of a man exquisitely attuned to His emotions and uninhibited in expressing them. The Son of Man did not scorn of reject feelings as fickle and unreliable. They were sensitive antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"For me the most radical demand of Christian faith lies in summoning the courage to say yes to the present risenness of Jesus Christ."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"The engaged mind, illuminated by truth, awakens awareness; the engaged heart, affected by love, awakens passion. May I say once more - this essential energy of the soul is not an ecstatic trance, high emotion or a sanguine stance toward life: It is a fierce longing for God, an unyielding resolve to live in and out of our belovedness. - pg. 152
" - (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."

"The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"I knew there was only one place to go. I sank down into the center of my soul, grew still, and listened to the Rabbi's heartbeat."

"The North American Church is at a critical juncture. The gospel of grace is being confused and compromised by silence, seduction, and outright subversion. The vitality of the faith is being jeopardized. The lying slogans of the fixers who carry religion like a sword of judgment pile up with impunity. Let ragamuffins everywhere gather as a confessing Church to cry out in protest. Revoke the licenses of religious leaders who falsify the idea of God. Sentence them to three years in solitude with the Bible as their only companion."
— (The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out)

"My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it."
— (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

"To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God's grace means."

"How glorious the splendor of a human heart that trusts that it is loved!"

"There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are."

"When a man or woman is truly honest, it is virtually impossible to insult them personally."

"When our inner child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments and the surprises of the Spirit."

"The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of the pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise."
— (Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin's Path to God)

"Hope knows that if great trials are avoided great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"There is the "you" that people see and then there is the "rest of you". Take some time and craft a picture of the "rest of you." This could be a drawing, in words, even a song. Just remember that the chances are good it will be full of paradox and contradictions. "
— (The Furious Longing of God)

"In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

When a person is evoked for who she is, not who she is not, the most often result will be the inner healing of her heart through the touch of affirmation.

Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguish gift of yourself, a love that forgives seven times seven, that keeps no record of wrong. This is the criterion, sole norm, the standard of discipleship in the New Israel of God."
— (The Furious Longing of God)

"Only reckless confidence in a Source greater than ourselves can empower us to forgive the wounds inflicted by others."
— Brennan Manning (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible but not relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft and true witnesses without being manipulative."

"Everybody has a vocation to some form of life-work. However, behind that call (and deeper than any call), everybody has a vocation to be a person to be fully and deeply human in Christ Jesus."
— (The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives)

"Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don't know we can't do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we're told not to judge.

Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become."
— (The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives)

"Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"While the impostor draws his identity from past achievements and the adulation of others, the true self claims identity in its belovedness. We encounter God in the ordinariness of life: not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary, mystical experiences but in our simple presence in life."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. Jesus listened. In John's Gospel we are told that Jesus was moved with the deepest emotions (11:33)... The gospel portrait of the beloved Child of Abba is that of a man exquisitely attuned to His emotions and uninhibited in expressing them. The Son of Man did not scorn of reject feelings as fickle and unreliable. They were sensitive antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"For me the most radical demand of Christian faith lies in summoning the courage to say yes to the present risenness of Jesus Christ."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"The engaged mind, illuminated by truth, awakens awareness; the engaged heart, affected by love, awakens passion. May I say once more - this essential energy of the soul is not an ecstatic trance, high emotion or a sanguine stance toward life: It is a fierce longing for God, an unyielding resolve to live in and out of our belovedness. - pg. 152
" - (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."

"The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi."
— (Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

"I knew there was only one place to go. I sank down into the center of my soul, grew still, and listened to the Rabbi's heartbeat."

"The North American Church is at a critical juncture. The gospel of grace is being confused and compromised by silence, seduction, and outright subversion. The vitality of the faith is being jeopardized. The lying slogans of the fixers who carry religion like a sword of judgment pile up with impunity. Let ragamuffins everywhere gather as a confessing Church to cry out in protest. Revoke the licenses of religious leaders who falsify the idea of God. Sentence them to three years in solitude with the Bible as their only companion."
— (The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out)

Be Present

It's been a struggle lately.....it's been a living day to day type of year so far. It's hard to be in a place you don't feel called to anymore, and when you feel your heart being pulled somewhere else. I started to feel calous, numb, and un-interested in the people and things around me. I had such a tunnel vision towards getting to the next place and stage in my life. Yet, at the same time was not understanding why God was not releasing me to go if he had put this "desire and passion" in my heart?

Then the other night I was out having a dinner with a friend when I noticed a new tatoo on her forearm that said "Be Present". At first I didn't think anything about it...Thought oh that's kind of deep but moved on and didn't give it another thought! However, the next night at church (as I was crying and pleading with God for an answer to my dispassion)I kept seeing the picture of this tatoo in my mind. The word's "BE PRESENT" kept repeating in my mind. I started praying "Ok God obviously you keep bringing this to my mind what are you trying to tell me".....I felt the Holy spirit telling me "Be Present Heidi....wherever I have you, you need to be present! In that place! Be Present in that place till I take you somewhere else!"

It hit me! Here I was saying I wanted to go to Seatle to finish school to be a counselor (and ya know what God may have that for me) but right now in this moment I am in St Joe! Involved in church and a leader in Celebrate Recovery! I am to be Jesus to those people! Here! Now! My calling is to be Jesus to everyone I meet no matter where he takes me! I may have a vision and a desire for something in my heart but for right now God has me in the place i am to prepare me for what he is preparing me for! So until God moves me I am going to BE PRESENT!

The Dream and The Goal

The Goal is to be in Seatle by Spring!!!! God Willing!!!! Praying for his Guidance!!!! But I have a rumbling in my spirit so I am going for it!!!

Who will love the little girl

I wrote a poem last night based off this clip from Antwoine Fischer....I even stole a line from the poem but it fit!!!!


Who will love the little girl
the one abandoned as a child
Who will love the little girl
the one abused and defiled
Who will love the little girl
that feels rejected and all alone
Who will love the little girl
who's hurt has become a painful groan
Who will love the little girl
who's voice is being drowned out
Who will love the little girl
who's heart has forever learned to doubt
Who will love the little girl
struck down before her time
Who will love the little girl
who never got a chance to shine
Who will love the little girl
for a good girl she tried to be
Who will love the little girl
the one lost inside of me

Dedicated to my MOM and the little girl inside of her!!!!!

Moleskin Quotes: Finding the Vision

"The diffrence between a day dream and a burning vision is the audacity to act"

"The vision for your life must originate from God, it must have it's priority in the gospel or it's not a vision it's just a day dream...your vision can't be just to earn and accumulate, and keep up....that's not a vision that's a day dream"

"Everybody ends up somewhere, not everybody ends up somewhere on purpose"

"God shows you in stages what he wants you to do...he says his word is a lamp unto our feet not a spot light so you can see 100 ft in front of you"

"If you want to see God accomplish a radical adacious vision for your life you can't dress (spiritually) for where you are, you have to dress for where he wants to take you"

"Quit letting people's opinions of your vision dictate your destiny, there's more inside of you then you are allowing to emerge"

"The visionary is the one that acts on what should be inspite of what he sees and acts on what could be inspite of what they see"

"Most of us are educated far beyond our level of obediance..Most of us don't need some vision from the clouds about what God wants to do through our lives. We need to simply do what we know to do throught the revelation that we already have. Most of us don't act on what we know. So if we dont act on what we already know why should God reveal something on top of our disobediance because of what we are already not doing?"

Steve Furtick Quotes