Surrender

Surrender... what does that mean and how do we do it? It's easy to say oh surrender means to give up, sure we know the definition of the word, but do we know what it MEANS? Before I go there, I'm going to include the dictionary definitions...

verb (used with object)

1. to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up possession of on demand or under duress:
2. to give (oneself) up, as to the police.
3. to give (oneself) up to some influence, course, emotion, etc.:
4.to give up, abandon, or relinquish (comfort, hope, etc.).
5.to yield or resign (an office, privilege, etc.) in favor of another.
verb (used without object)
6.to give oneself up, as into the power of another; submit or yield.

Sometimes the things that we are called to surrender are just that things... When we get married, we are called to surrender some possessions to make room for our spouses possessions... when we decide we want something, like a new car, we have to surrender the old one to make that happen...

Sometimes the what we have to surrender is ourselves (ie definition number 2)

Sometimes we have to surrender our emotions... like we surrender our anger or our hurt and we replace it with joy... or sometimes we even surrender our joy replacing it with anger or hurt!

A friend of mine wonderfully stated that surrender is “giving in. Sometimes we need to give in to something to allow for something else that could be better to happen.”

So when we are asked to surrender to God what does that mean? It means that we need to give ourselves up... DUH... But who are we? Are we just a physical being, or even an emotional one? Are we just our soul? I would venture to say (in agreement with Barlow Girl) we are our dreams! Well, we are a combination of our past experiences and our future dreams/goals/hopes. 

In some ways it is easier to give our past experiences to God because they have already happened! (Not that it's EASY! just easier)   But our dreams, that is something completely different!  We have invested time and energy into our dreams.  But I think that's what God wants most! 

Now how do we surrender ourselves and our dreams to God?  That's different for every person and every situation, but I think that our surrender comes when we chose to continue to follow God and trust him even when the road doesn't flow exactly where we thought it would...  When we tell God through our actions, You are more important that what I want, or thought my life was going to be!!  It's that simple (I know not simple right?)

But trust me, I'm living this right now! If you know me, you know I have wanted to do missions since I was 8 years old!  I am now 26 and for the first time got the chance to come to Colombia in what I thought was going to be a self organized missions trip.  I was going to be here for 5 weeks, and 3-4 of those weeks I was going to be working in a orphanage!  But here I am 2 1/2 weeks in and have been at the orphanage 1 day!  And I found out today that I don't get to go back!  So now where does that leave me?  I don't know, and that's hard... But I have spent the last 2 hours praying and saying God I surrender that which I wanted to do, even though it was a good thing, to whever else you want me to do!   It's been hard, and I was upset and bummed, but I KNOW that God provided a way for me to be here and led me here.  I just have to rest in that knowledge!  And wait yet again for the fullfilment of my dreams!  (BTW I also know I will struggle with this on and off, it's not just simply solved)

Before I even found out for sure about that, I was listening to the Barlow Girl song "Surrender" that's actually what inspired me to write this blog.  so i'm going to end my blog with that...  Listen to the words, and know that when God does ask us to surrender our dreams/ourselves, He has something so much better planned! :)

(and in case the video doesn't work properly for you here, here is the site... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG7lBZAULE8

Reoccuring Lessons

Wow... so it amazes me how that God can take lessons that you have learned in the past and bring them back around just when you need them!  As some people know, this trip to Colombia has been something that I have looked forward to... and once I got here it was going amazing! However, there were some things that weren't like I expected them to be... and I got really discouraged!  I won't rehash all the things that lead me to that place, but that's where I was!
Today I was talking to a few friends, one that just let me talk and "process", and for those that know me, you know I am a verbal processor!  My other friend shared her blog with me, and then I remembered this blog... I had forgotten that I even started it, so I shared it with her and then actually went and read it for myself.  And a couple of the things that I had written about applied yet again!  Am I going to let this situation in Colombia harden me and make me turn away from my passion? Or am I going to let it teach me!!! And teach me it has!!! Am I going to trust God to work in me and in those around me while I'm here? Or am I going to be frustrated and irritated because things aren't going how I thought they would go?  

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am here in Colombia for a reason and for a purpose, and I know that God has lead me here, and I know that i want to do this for the rest of my life!!! So why did I ever have a doubt that just because things fell apart that somehow this wasn't what I wanted???  God's bigger than all my challenges oh and He can handle them too!! 

So this is the first in my new series of blogs!  I can't promise what will come out of them, but I promise that God will be the center of them! :)  So I hope you enjoy this journey of lessons with me!

Respect

Not that you would be able to guess, but this blog is going to be about respect!!! Respect is a mental attitude, but it shows itself in many different ways. Each person shows and recieves respect differently! That's part of the complexity of the human race. Now I am going to "vent" a little bit!!

I AM SICK TO DEATH of man bashing. Whether it's a "Top ten reasons I hate men" status on facebook, or whether it's a commercial where they say that men are good for nothing but frozenly watching a big screen tv. I get so sick and tired of the jokes that I hear, EVEN FROM CHRISTIAN WOMEN, that are motivated to disrespect men! For that matter christian men often do the same thing. A woman can't love a man whom she can't respect!  A man I know really well turned into one of those cowardly ball less men, and I lost so much respect for him. This has really been on my mind lately because I realize that of the single men I know that are around my age, there is exactly ONE that I see as demanding respect. My cousin once said to me, "You want a guy that is a sniveling little "Yes man'" I had to disagree heartily with him. I want a strong man!!! (Not necessarily physically!) I want a man that I can respect, and that demands respect. There are way too many things in our society from TV shows to commercials, to even jokes that castrate our men. And the men have let it happen!!! It's a difficult thing to find a man with balls anymore (if you have a man like that, good for you, and if you are a man with balls (real ones!!) awesome) Trust me, I have been keeping my eyes open.

I am talking about men who will follow the biblical example of what a husband is supposed to be! I am going to quote from one of my favorite books... Veritas Conflict "Yes the passage (Ephesians 5:25) does say that the wife should submit and that the husband, as the head, should love his wife as Christ loved us. So here's the question for you, ladies, knowing what you know about the Christ story who has the harder job? The wife who has to submit or the husband who has to love his wife like Christ loved the church." This means that the husband is commanded to serve, encourage, and sacrifice for his wife as Christ did for the church. This also means that he is supposed to LEAD her!! People have the concept of a man being spineless backwards. A man who serves and publically encourages his wife is considered spineless, even if he is an amazing leader in his household. The worlds view on a man who is a good head of the household is often a man who is tyrannical over his wife. Unfortunatly this often spills into the church's viewpoint and that often makes Christian men so fearful of being a tyrant that they become spineless!!

I realize that I am a strong willed, independent, opinionated woman, but daggone it, why aren't there some strong men out there that are willing to take on a challenge? I know that it will be a difficult one! I don't want this to turn into a poor Leslie she doesn't have a man so she needs to vent about that, because that's not what this is about!! This is about women respecting men and men demanding and earning that respect!! This is unfortunatly a shortcoming that is tearing families apart! And unfortunatly, this country is the worse for it!!

Trust

I am going to be posting twice tonight... I think hehe

My first post is going to be about the issue of trust. I was joking with some one the other day and he said I never worry, or at least almost never. I responded back with "I don't worry either, I just forget to trust." Now it was funny at the time, but it is very true.

I have trust issues, I can admit that, and know it! Trust has never come easy for me, and if you know me at all, you can attest to that fact. I have come along way in that area in the last five years!!! But recently again I dealt with the trust thing when I decided to move back home. I had no job, no prospects, and didn't know why I was doing it, except that God told me to. So I listened, and six months later, I still was stuck without a job, and to add to that fact, I wrecked my car. There were a few days that I didn't want to get out of bed, and that I argued with God. "Surely I didn't hear you right, or surely this wasn't how you meant this to be." But there was no response from him. I was left broke, jobless, and carless. I got to the point that I was ready to give up. To me, this wasn't necessarily worrying. It was forgetting to trust, or even worse CHOOSING not to trust!! I had gotten to the point that I wasn't getting my hopes up about anything. I am generally a very optimistic person, but that's how discouraged I was.

Then, miracle of miracles!! In one day, I got a job, a car, and my phone back!!! I love the fact that it doesn't matter if I trust or not, God still is in control!!! AND STILL CARES ABOUT US!!!

Self Sacrifice

Okay... first I will just let you know... in case you didn't before... I wrecked my car the other night. I don't know for sure if it's totaled or not...

My question for tonights blog is this... Where does the line fall between self sacrifice and your spiritual well being? One thing my father has ALWAYS beat into my head is self sacrifice and "it's not about me mentality" Which overall I think is a good one. however is there a point where that self sacrifice becomes harmful spiritually? For example if a person inspires people to worship, but they get to a point that by being on the worship team that they don't feel as though they are worshiping. Do they self sacrifice or do they say spiritually this is not good for me so i am going to step down. It's hard for me because my father's mentality has always been its not about me... and for a person like me who never knows how to stop and can be some what obsessive I go over the top... I beat myself up for feeling bad or questioning my self and not knowing whether or not to sacrifice. I guess I just don't know where that line falls... would God really want me to sacrifice parts of my relationship with him just to inspire others?

Protecting!

Hey guys. So i took up a challenge yesterday, and I don't know how its going to go, but I have the very distinct feeling I might give up! This challenge was to write a 50000 word story in a month. Now my friend did it last month, which was the official month that you were supposed to do it in, but I am just doing it to see if I can. We will see what happens.

Last night, after church, I watched the new movie, Race to Witch Mountain. I know when I was younger, I used to watch that and it's sequels all the time!! (It's not about witches!) I love the movie! Also am working at trying to come up with discussion questions for Transformers 2 with my middle school kids. We have a group of middle schoolers that are very wild, and not at all interested in God. We are coming up with uncoventional ways to carry on conversations with them about God, and it has worked some, but we promised them a movie. We decided we would turn it into a movie with a purpose. But Transformers 2 is not the easiest movie with which to come up with life discussion questions about. Any suggestions?

Today Sarah and i went and saw the movie BLIND SIDE. It was a great movie, and for those of you that haven't seen it, you need to. And for those of you that have, well I will say this much, Leigh Anne is so much like me in quite a few ways. Fiercly loyal, protective, and SHE CARRIES!!! (That's Sarah's wording!) But that's not why I am talking about this movie. When Leigh Anne tells Michael, this team is your family, protect your family, I thought to myself, she's right. We need to be like the front tackle!!! I know this probably is going to be over done, but think about it. We need to be there to help our family in Christ out just like football players help each other out. Sometimes we need to take hits so that someone else in our family is protected. I know this last year there have been times that I have stepped back and needed some extra protection, and God has always made sure that someone stepped up into that position! So many times, our family in Christ can be hit by us instead of being protected by us. I watched a family that I respect and care for A LOT, being hit repeatedly by other members of the body of Christ. They were trying to take them out! They wanted them to fail. Now can anyone tell me, where in Scripture that it calls us to attack our fellow believers?? I didn't think so... But this needs to be our calling!! Step up and hit the enemy before it can hit our family!

That is all I have to say, and I know in someways, I am on a soapbox about this, but I just saw how damaging it was to that family, and their kids, and just to the surronding members of our family!

A new beginning

I have never blogged before... well unless you count MYSPACE... and I don't. ha! But I have to explain why I chose my title. I recently read a book called the Crown and the Crucible... It was about pre-revolutionary Russia. Tsars and princes and nobility. It was about a girl that was a peasant and became a servant to a princess... It talked about the difficulty of learning a life so different than the one she knew. That's a basic summary, but anyways. I was thinking about the title and how it applies to my life. Or actually life in general...

For those of you who don't know what a crucible is: it is a a container of metal or refractory material employed for heating substances to high temperatures. It is used to get rid of volatiles. It is something used for purification. So again... how does that apply to my title? Well, I know that I am called to something amazing in my life. But in order to get there, I have to be purified. Another common way to put it is refined. But I don't want to just scrape by as far as my purification goes. I want God to purify me a lot. Now that's a dangerous thing, I know. It is a painful process. But I know this... My crown will come after I sit in the crucible and allow it to do its job.

Another thing you have to know about me, I just moved home following God's direction... I was hoping to come home, get a job, and live my life here easily... However that has not happened. I have been unemployed for 6 months... Now I have bills, insurance, and other things that I have to pay! God has provided for my insurance, but other things are getting piled up. So I have a choice, do I want to allow this to harden me, or mold me and purify me. I will leave a quote "Whatever our Father above has planned for you, it is a destiny of His choosing. How can it be anything but for your best? And whatever obstacles and difficulties are part of it, He will give you the strength and courage to face them."