The Love of God

I have recently been blown away with the love that Jesus has been manifesting to my heart. It seems that everywhere I turn He appears and I LOVE it.

 I love how he steals me away when I'm attempting to do homework.

 I love when he sneaks up behind me in class and kinda freaks me out.

 I love how He surprises me and makes me start laughing.

 I love His voice. 

I love it when He laughs. 

I love it when he holds my hand. 

I love how incredible of a writer He is.

 I love how generous He is. 

I love dancing with Him 

I love what He creates

I love His back massages (Yes He does give them. He is real and practical after all)

I love His patience

I love His power.

I love that He listens

I love going out for coffee with Him

I love watching him play football. 

I love that He risked everything for a chance at my heart

I simply love HIM

and the best part of all this is He offers this kind of relationship to ALL of us, not because of what we do but because of what HE did. He is truly amazing. For so many years I tried to figure out how to get this love. For so many years I felt like it had to be earned. Then one day He freed my heart and love gushed in. It was something that He did. I'm not totally even sure how exactly it happened. It was kinda like God saying, "You don't have to really DO a bunch of stuff to fix the problem of receiving love by DOING." That doesn't even make sense. haha Fail Christy.  It was simply something He did because it was something I could never do on my own. Receiving is often harder than giving. But if we never receive His love, than we can never receive what we were created for-a real living relationship with Him.  It doesn't matter what you've done or haven't done. God wants to love on you. He longs to romance your heart. Receive His love. It's for you and He wants to give it to you on greater levels than you can imagine. 

Walking by faith

So I've been thinking quite a bit lately about faith. I've also been reading quite a bit about faith seeing as how I have had to read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Job in the last week for class.  Let's just say my brain is a tad overstimulated and having quite the time processing everything that is currently passing through it. But studying the Bible is truly epic. It blows my mind and I love having God blow my mind.

Sitting down going into the word, you read about all of these amazing people who practiced living out faith. Noah built an ark when it had never rained. Abraham went to the promised land even though he didn't know where he was going and he lived there even when he didn't posses it. Isaac and Jacob also received this promise in faith. You could go on and on about all of these people who lived out faith. But what if God was to sit down and write out a story of each of our lives?  What if we were the ones who were to sacrifice the fulfillment of everything God had promised us on an alter? What if we were the people leaving Egypt and going to the promised land? What if He asked us to walk on water? What would God write? Would He say that we were individuals of great faith? Would He say that about me? Do my actions exhibit the reality of what God says even when I don't see it? Do my actions show that God's promises exist when my eyes say that the promises are not reality?  I believe there are times when God loves to stand behind us, cover our eyes with His hands and ask, "Will you trust me to lead you? Will you walk with your eyes closed?" Faith without works is truly dead. If I say I have faith and trust in God and then never live it out, what good are my words?  If we are going to show God that we really do have faith, we have to take that first step that He asks of us. We have to walk off the cliff even when it seems like there isn't going to be anything to hold us up. And when we do, we find that God truly does know what He's doing. What a surprise! He never fails His children. He didn't fail Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Samuel, Peter or anyone else in history who has truly trusted Him. But is He really what we trust in? Is He what we bank on? Do we allow ourselves to go to a place where Jesus is truly all we have left? It can be a terrifying place to allow ourselves to go because we often feel like we have no control. But we will never truly live until we reach that point. And it all starts with simply believing God's Word and stepping out on what He has said.

I love who He is.

I am so in awe of the realness of Christ. How sweet and dear He is. How unfulfilling my life would be void of His presence? The more of His presence I experience, the more I want. I don't think I'll ever have enough of it. Just to rest in the presence of Jesus, just to find moments to steal away, even if only for a few minutes, to spend time with Him, those are the moments of delight. I love that He plants in our hearts a desire to love and romance Him. I love the way He chooses to walk in at unexpected moments and surprise and dumbfound me. Those times that you least expect to meet God and find Him right in front of you are the most amazing moments ever. I had one of those moments today. :) I'm amazed at the personal-ness of God, at His incredibly perfect timing, at the love He has for me, at His generosity to me, at the fact that He knows and meets the deep yearnings of my heart that no one really knows about. I'm amazed that He can piece forgotten things together. I'm amazed that He lets me know Him. I'm amazed at HIM. One of these days I'm going to get to look into His beautiful eyes and spend the rest of eternity with Him. Oh death, how defeated you truly are. You are but a portal to an eternity with the Lover of my Soul.

Jesus, I love you! You are truly worthy of all glory, honor and praise!

A Reason to Hope

You would think that hoping for something good would be easy right? I mean after all, if you want it and it is something that you would love why would you not hope for it? Why can it be so terrifying to simply hope? Well you could say that the bigger the hope the bigger the opportunity for disappointment. I've experienced in my brief life the pain that comes with dying to a hope that you have carried for years. Disappointment that comes from lost hopes can soon convince you that it's not worth trying again. Even now, I see opportunities for hope but a part of me doesn't want to hope anymore. Is it really worth the risk it could potentially cost?

Yet, to live a life without hope is totally unfulfilling and it is totally unBiblical. I believe that one thing God has been teaching me is that He does in fact want me to hope and not just hope for hope's sake but to hope IN HIM because He IS hope. He is the reason we have hope. I believe that God has been teaching me- Christy, if you never hope, how can I ever fulfill your hope? How can I ever show you how good I am by fulfilling your hope if you never choose to hope and trust me to turn hope into reality? Honestly, choosing not to live in hope can potentially be saying to God, "I don't really trust you. I don't really trust that you can come through. I'm not willing to step out on a limb to see if you will come through. You're not worth the risk." How sad. May I never live that out. I would have it said that Christy was a women who was so fully surrendered to Christ that she was willing to risk it all to live in the place where Jesus called her to live, no matter how great the possible discouragement and risk. 

Fortunately, I don't have to work on this alone. If that were the case there would be no hope. lol But God truly is the GOD OF HOPE! He is the reason I am able to have hope. Jesus can do anything and the beautiful thing is He WANTS to do amazing things for me, simply because He loves me. 

A verse that I truly love right now is Romans 15:13

"Now may the GOD OF HOPE fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may ABOUND in HOPE by the POWER of the HOLY SPIRIT." 

He is so worthy of IT ALL! 

May He always completely own my heart!

So here is an attempt at pulling this site out of the cobwebs two years later (gulp).

Some of you may have been aware of the fact that for the last several years I have been working in Alaska in the addictions/Mental Health field. Let's just say that that stage of life has ended. I have been led into a vastly different location and am currently living for the next little while in Hawaii. Yes! Alaska to Hawaii. Even after a month I still have a hard time believing I am actually living in Hawaii. I stop to think and I wonder, "How did I get here?" It is very surreal. Strange as it is, I'm never really dreamed of coming to Hawaii really. Now I am living here. Funny how that works. I do have to say it's awesome! God has blessed me with opportunities to live in places people dream of going to for vacation. Who ever said serving Jesus had to be horrible? He is good after all right?

While I have only been here for a month as of today, I feel like my life has been utterly changed. My life is so awesome and SO crazy. Seriously, my life has become literally crazy and I LOVE it. If I took the time to type out everything that has happened in just the last month,  # 1: it would take too much room and # 2: You may believe that I have literally gone nuts. That would be the case if God was taken out of the equation but because He exists and because He lives inside of me and because He loves me, I literally live an insane amazing life. Literally! He is truly so good and so mind blowing.

Despite all of the craziness, there is one thing that has not changed and that is sweet, beautiful Jesus. He still softly speaks. He still wants to hang out with me and talk with me. He still loves being alone with me.    He never changes. It's just me that changes.

I am so excited because I feel that God is bringing me closer and closer to the calling He has placed on my life and I am so excited to see what He will do.

More to come later but for now... here's a small glimpse of Maka Pala where I spent the weekend.