Through Grace

“Bones” Russell Dickerson

“Toes” Lights

“Love you like I used to” Russell Dickerson

“My Muse” Owl City

“Wake me up before you go-go” - wham!

“Dancing on the ceiling”- Lionel Richie

“Hungry like the wolf” - Duran Duran

“Sharp dressed man” -ZZ Top

“Celebration” - Kool & the Gang

“The tide is high” -Blondie

“(I’ve had) the time of my life” - bill medley & Jennifer warnes

“I’m so excited” - the pointer sisters

“Total eclipse of the heart” - Bonnie Tyler

“Under pressure” feat David Bowie - Queen

“Never gonna give you up” - rick astley

“Crazy little thing called love” - Queen

“Any way you want it” - journey

“Video killed the radio star” - the buggles

“Funky town” - lipps, inc.

“Eternal flame” - the bangles

“Everytime we touch” (yanou candlelight mix) cascada

“You spin me ‘round” (right round)- dead or alive

“Still Falling for you” Ellie Goulding

“Until I found you” Stephen Sanchez & Em Beihold

“I get to love you” Ruelle

“Shut up and dance” walk the moon

“Starving” Hailee Steinfeld & Grey feat Zedd

“I will be there” Steven Curtis Chapman

“Dancing in the moonlight” toploader

“Boot scootin boogie” brooks & Dunn

“can’t fight the moonlight” LeAnn Rimes

“Kiss Me” Sixpence None the Richer

“Colors of you” Nina Nesbitt

"Finally, brothers [sisters], whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me- practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8,9

"For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take everyt thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete." 2 Corinthians 10:4-6

"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all thse things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Matthew 6:30-34

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:18,19

How we think is our choice. How we love others is a choice. Our hearts are connected with our minds. I'm a very emotional and feeling person, my thoughts are very scattered. My thoughts are often very negative- I regularly struggle with doubt, comparison, skepticism, fear, hurt, and forgiving. Taking every thought captive is a BIIIIG challenge- please, yes, emphasize the big. I hope that I'm not in the minority on this, haha!

Today, even my boyfriend suggested he help me and my first thoughts were anxious, skeptical, and untrusting: "How can he help me?!" and "I'll have to micro-manage... That's going to be an awful time for us." My thoughts also show that I have less patience, too.

What I realized shortly after is this, I need to learn to trust him and other people who I love. If family or friends want to help me- I need to be surrendered enough to allow their help without controlling it. Accept help with gratitude and grace.

I think this reaction shows a deeper problem with control- do I trust God? Why do I want to control all these details my life?

I can't control time passing, the economy, sicknesses, weather, other people. I quite literally do not have control over anything outside of myself. I know, that sounds limited. And well, it IS limited. We are limited and we are not in control of anything outside of ourselves- our thoughts and actions.

I think, that knowledge would be very frightful, but it's not because I do know with certainty (from experiences through my whole life and hearing testimonies of manyyyy others') that God IS in control and He is faithful. Psalm 95, talks about how God has all of the world in His hands and Isaiah 40:12 does, too. Those whole chapters are good to remind us how God cares for us and how God is awesome! (Naturally, there's reference to Moses' and the Israelites' time in the wilderness, I find there are often references to that in other places in the Bible).

So, since God is faithful to me always. He takes care of me. I don't need to even try to control things or people around me. I can live for Him and just take the thoughts captive and toss them away. I can live trusting and without fear. I can accept help from family or friends without fear or mistrust in them. I can control what I say and how I react to others. I don't need to hold onto an imaginary steering wheel in every situation. I can love- think good things, think whatever is true, whatever is lovely, whatever is excellent or praiseworthy.

Well, I often feel that way.

Today I had a weird feeling and this kid from grade eight was weighing on my mind.

It’s weird, haven’t seen this kid since ‘06 and here i am just thinking what happened to him?

How’d he grow up? Is he as nice as he used to be when we were two weird kids?

I assume he’s still weird. I’m still weird, but when you grow up and mature you grow into yourself, that’s redundant, but it’s true. You become a fuller more rounded out version of you. Or screw that, let’s change metaphors… We’re like trees.

We’re still the same type of tree we were as a seed, but as time passes we grow out more.

We’re still fully us, but we spread out. We build roots. We give more to others— shade, leaves for ground to compost, home for more critters.

I love that. I think it’s so fascinating. We all grow differently, too, depending where we’re planted and who & what’s nearby.

Today I feel it. It's August 5'th, I know it's MONTHS til Christmas. I just feel it inside: love.

I am SO so grateful for life! I'm SO grateful for how God provides for me and looks after me. I am so grateful for this day!

The trees were clapping their leaves lightly in the breeze high up against the bright blue sky. It felt like they were just so grateful, too!

Crazy, too, because these trees are deciduous and soon will lose all their leaves to the cooler weather.

Jesus provides. He looks after us. He LOVES us SO MUCH! He looks after us.

That love BLOWS my mind!

That GOD would first take on a human form to live a human life. I mean come on, if you were not limited by a human body and were not bound by anything why would you CHOOSE to be SO limited by a human body? That is TOTALLY mind boggling!!

Then He purposely allows himself to be tortured and killed-- for US, for YOU, for ME!

Romans 5:6-8 "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

And you might be like, but... life isn't good for me, look at this situation or that situation. Life here on earth, unfortunately is far from Heaven, it's far from perfect. It's far from what God wants for us. He is preparing Heaven which is SO much better, best, beyond comprehension to our limited human minds. Heaven has no sin/death. SIN is the separation from Jesus. If we don't accept Jesus' offer to save us from heaven we are ALL headed the same place- ALL sin separates us from Jesus. Pride or murder, both separate us from Jesus. Both are imperfect. God is perfect.

Perfect CANNOT be mixed with even a tiny bit of imperfection without also becoming imperfect.

Let's add a wee metaphor: you're washing dirty dishes by hand and there are two dish sinks. One has clear hot water for rinsing and the other has soapy water to wash. If you put the dirty dish (i'm picturing some sort of sauce and maybe bones, maybe rice remnants, maybe ketchup...) into the clear hot water and then want to still rinse other clean dishes in it after they've gone through the scrubbing and soapy water. Will all the dishes be clean after going through the wash water and rinsed in the clear hot water that had one dirty dish rinsed off in it? Will that clear hot water still be clean to use for rinsing?

It doesn't matter if we want to be "nice" to accept imperfect. We can definitely be friends with fellow sinners and we're not becoming imperfect for it, because we ARE imperfect, but God IS perfect and He CANNOT change. (and I know not changing is something we don't really grasp because everything we know changes). He did ALL that He could to allow us to come to Him and be in relation with Him. He came HERE to earth and He let Himself be tortured and killed so we could reach Him again. Only a wholly perfect sacrifice and shedding of blood would do.

You might read or skim this and think-- well, that doesn't even matter or there she goes again on that topic. I'm alive and I have a great life. Perhaps you do, but are you more than your body? Is there more after this life here? If there's not you're dandy... but if there is more. You're betting your WHOLE life here (for sure) and potentially even eternity that there isn't more. What if there IS more?

I believe with all of me that there IS more. How I have seen God provide for me and my family. I look at my life presently. I look back on my childhood. How He's loved me. Yes, bad things, horrible things happen here on earth. In those times, I've never been alone. He gives me peace and comfort. He listens to me. He answers my prayers-- even when it's not what I want. I feel that LOVE, HIS love within me and around me. He is with me always. I'm SO grateful. And, as it's now less than half a year until Christmas again- I'm here today with Christmas songs in my head all about how Jesus came down to earth for us!

Healing takes time- longer than I would like. I can feel it these last few months and in healing, I am growing. It is uncomfortable.

In pain, I was closed off and stunted from growth by the walls I put up to protect myself.

I'm learning to trust again. I became untrusting and leery twenty years ago. My fear of people grew. I had reason to fear people at fourteen years old in church. I lost my church friends at a hard time in childhood, basically all my friends since my sister and I were homeschooled. We'd moved from our childhood home, lost a grandparent, and i developed a disorder called trichotillomania (hair pulling). Then, the girl friends i'd made in childhood at church stopped being my friends once we hit youth group. I will say exactly the situations that happened at youth. When my sister and I would join peers in a row, they would get up and leave the row, and if we sat in an empty row they wouldn't join us. We switched youth groups to one at another local church for the rest of highschool.

The fear of people and mistrust had taken root, though. I learned recently that's a root of rejection. I was stuck watching my life through those lenses for too many years. I never truly forgave. I was hurt and afraid, so afraid, especially in church. I KNEW without a shadow of doubt that God is was real. God is love. I also was wrestling and wrestling.

It was a lot. Life was a lot to carry. I can't go back, but if I could I would tell younger me to trust people again, love with all your heart, forgive fully. Yes, some people might hurt you really bad, BUT living afraid and hurt and feeling alone is VERY crappy and isolating. In fact, that life is worse than the life you could have if you move past fear and hurt into forgiveness and into love.

I know this is true, because it's my experience. I'm still sometimes scared now, but I see it is already worthwhile.

Jesus LOVES and Jesus forgives. He died to forgive all sins, my sins and yours, everyone's. I don't need to carry any hurt and offenses at all, I can feel them and forgive, give them to Jesus any time they cross my heart or mind.

I feel His love so deeply. I rebelled in my twenties and sinned in ways I knew were sinning. I thought it didn't matter so much because really I was so closed off and feeling so separate from Christian community. I thought that I would be happier just doing as I pleased. I liked things I did, but I wasn't happier. I loved people as much as I always had, because that doesn't change. I did really love and care about all the friends and family I had and have when I was hurting. I just was loving in my closed off ways.

I'm going to go on a small tangent here. If you aren't a Jesus follower you aren't expected to feel some type of way about sinning in your conscience... I'm not expecting you to live to the Bible or to Christian "standards" or "rules" and I'm not judging you. You're free to choose to live as you like.

Anyhow, back to what I was saying... I didn't feel free when i was sinning. I felt sad. There was loneliness and shame. I was more alone than before. I wanted to belong and doing things I wanted had felt freeing initially, but they weren't.

Last year changed me. Losing my Grandma changed me. Becoming so depressed last spring and summer changed me. I had to be totally broken to see that I was broken.

I had to leave my home church where I felt lifebound to by deep loyalty. I was dedicated there as a baby and I take loyalty to things far too seriously, haha, I'm not a minimilist, so you know that loyalty overflows into most aspects of my life, but I digress. Changing churches helped me finally really see the metaphorical glasses i'd been wearing and looking through for so long!

Glasses make things bigger, so those rejection glasses I'd had on just magnified slights, perceived or real, for YEARS. That is SO bad, I know it is.

I do want to say this, I'm really sorry to all I judged, mistrusted, and pushed away.

I forgive anyone who did hurt me back in youth years.

I'm not carrying those anymore. Jesus took both of our hurts and hurting to the cross.

I learned also that I'm free, so much more free and have so much more joy and love within me when I obey Jesus. He gives eternal life. He loves me! Living for Him is freer and fuller life than I ever was living for my flesh wants and desires.

Trigger warning-- suicidal

"Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from His fullness." John 1:16

I copied that verse down into my journal on January 1, 2024.

When I reflect back on 2023 until now, I am overwhelmed. I'm so incredibly grateful for Jesus' presence with me and for my family and friends. I don't know that I would be alive without Jesus and these dear people.

Last winter something bad happened to me and then in the spring, my Grandma died. My Grandma- the last grandparent I had, only one to live through my 20s. I said so many times that she "wasn't allowed to die... at least until after I got married and had one child." I'd say it jokingly, and yet, that was one of my deepest desires, her being witness and part of those life experiences.

The intrusive thoughts bombarged me daily.

From in my journal on May 31, 2023:

"Sometimes like lately I've been imagining slicing my arm open up-down. I can see it in my head. Dying. The more I see others' love. The more alone I feel. I'm not alone, though.

Right hand,

leading me to

a glorious destiny."

Even on my dark days, amidst some of my darkest thoughts. God reminded me through His word in my memory, that He was still with me. That verse is Psalms 73:23.

"Yet I still belong to You; You hold my right hand. You guide me with Your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny."

Last year, from July until October I was off on sick leave because of my depression. My doctor upped my dosage of anti-depressants. I'm very grateful that God created humans smart enough to be scientists and figure out medicines! I was VERY depressed and amid the depression, I was helping a lot with my sister and brother-in-law's wedding.

I had worked from home, which was detrimental to my mental health. No human (in person) contact on the day to day and my brain was very much rebelling. I always strive to see goodness, because there is goodness. Intrusive thoughts still plagued me.

In the time that I was off on sick leave, I spent many many days with my family and friends. I enjoyed being alive. I saw sunsets over the water, sat around bonfires, and I visitted with friends/family and their children. Children are so full of life and joy! I hiked a lot, I played with my puppy, and I laughed a lot.

I made it through 2023 by God's grace. 2024, I see His grace and I live in it and I will share it!

"For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift-- not from works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8,9

What I know is, it's because of Jesus that I'm alive. It's because of Jesus that I have peace. It's because of Jesus that I have joy.

"He answered, 'Whether or not he's a sinner, I don't know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see!" John 10:25