I know it’s been a while since I last blogged. One of the reasons being that, for me, writing is actually rather hard. I have about three unfinished pieces on my computer even now. I think one of the reason that I struggle to finish a piece is because I believe that one of the keys to good writing is being honest. Willing to expose yourself and open yourself up to vulnerabilities, which I find hard to do. However, as scary as this may seem I find it is the only way to write. If I am going to take the time and write something I want that something to matter. I want it to somehow, someway impact someone’s life. No matter how small or insignificant it may seem to some. How can I expect for something I write to touch you if it never touched me?
So with that said part of me is very hesitant each time I begin to write, because everything I write has been something that the Lord has laid upon my heart or something that he has allowed me to see. Only I know exactly how that something made me feel. How it stirred the fire within me, how it brought conviction to my life. So I hesitate because I fear I will not do it justice. I will make light of something that was, at some point, so very heavy to me. I fear I wont explain it right or that you wont understand. Nevertheless, I write in hope that it will do at least a fraction in your lives as it has done to mine.
So come…sit with me for a moment or two and let me share my heart…& you may even get a laugh or two as I allow you yet another glimpse into “The Mind Of Mindie“…a silly little girl.
Most girls lie away at night staring at the ceiling planning their perfect wedding day. They imagine their prince charming, who he will be, what he will be like. Which Hollywood has taught us rightfully belongs too us. I’m going to be honest and tell you I really was never “that girl.” My best friend at the time, that was her dream. She loved the idea of a big family. The husband, house, children running around everywhere. That was what she wanted out of her life. At the time I found this so absurd. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around why you would choose (what I thought) such a limited path. Marriage right out of high school. Children, bills, commitment, responsibility. When normal girls saw a child they would say, “Awe” and mentally thought how they simply couldn’t wait to have one of their own. When I saw a baby I would say, “Awe” and mentally see a baby crying at 3 o’clock in the morning, diapers needing to be changed, tummies needing to be fed, doctors visits…well you get the idea. When normal girls saw a guy they could possibly be interested in marring they started picking out baby names. They saw their “boyfriend” with rose colored glasses, and saw the perfect life that was available to them. I look at a guy and I start making a pro & con list in my head. Calculating and analyzing everything telling myself all the reasons why it wont work out. Yeah, I’m a catch, I know!
SO, I tell you all of this to tell you I wanted something different. I didn’t want to be normal (which there is NOTHING wrong with.) I didn’t want marriage right away & even to this day I am determined that I will not have children until after 5 years of marriage. I saw other paths that were available. I saw ministry. Some had it in their head that their life couldn’t begin until they had meet their spouse. I had it in my head that there were things I couldn’t do if I had one. So, I was going to be independent. I was going too get a great job. I was going too move out the house. Make something of myself, and most of all…I was going too make a difference. Obviously I had a few lessons to learn & boy let me tell you that the Lord had no problem helping me learn them!
On the way to planning my “life” & thinking all the ways the Lord was going to use me. I felt like the Lord ask me, “What if I don’t choose you?” I wish you could have felt my heart at that moment.
My Dad is a Pastor, preacher & a man of God. My mother, a choir director, a teacher, a companion & a very compassionate soul. These two amazing people I have in my life. Every day I thank the Lord for allowing ME too be a small part of THEIR life, THEIR ministry. So having them in front of me everyday, their shoes laying before me & me feeling like I am going too have to fill them or at the very least live up to them. Meanwhile the Lord has placed the question in front of me asking me what will I do if he doesn’t.
For those of you reading this may seem silly. You may not understand & that’s alright. However, for those of you who have had your flesh thinking it is something & the Lord having to bring you back down to nothing you know that it is a very, very painful thing.
After being stripped of all pride. The Lord telling me that there is nothing I have that he needs. That there is nothing that I can bring. No reason for him to use me, or to choose me for anything. I had to go & I have to stay at the place where I can say to the Lord, If you don’t call my name, If you don’t make me great, If my name is never known, if I never touch lives, I will serve you. If all you have asked of me is to sit on a pew & love you, I will. I am a broken vessel & broken I will stay before you. God doesn’t not need a star, he already has one & his name is Jesus. What God needs is servants. Will we be one?
May 27, 2010
January 11, 2010
Where is our Passion?
Do you remember when you got saved? That feeling of complete zeal? Feeling almost like a caged Tiger. If only they would open that door...I could save the world. Having no wisdom, just pure excitement. Your eyes being opened for the first time; seeing the world in a whole new light. God saving you by his grace and all you knew what that you wanted others to experience what you just had.
Then after time passes so does some of your zeal. You begin to realize that this Christ you love, the man who saved your life, others seem to want no part of him. So you wise up a bit. Realizing that everyone still can be saved ,but just that not everyone wants to be saved. So with that realization you let it take some of your fire. . .
Today was my first day of college, and while sitting there listening to my music teaching give her lecture I was captivated. Describing Beethoven’s 5th Symphony with such passion. The way the music spoke to her, the way it made her feel. She took me too a place where I no longer just heard the music, but I could almost feel it. Listening to it was almost like you could feel a battle going on within his soul while writing it. Sitting there watching her eyes light up with excitement as she began to share her passion, I began to think. Where is my passion?
When you research the word passion you will find it comes from a Latin word, passio meaning suffering.
Mr. Webster actually defines passion like this:
1. the sufferings of Christ between the night of the last supper and his death.
2. Obsolete: SUFFERING
3. EMOTION: the emotions as distinguished from reason; intense, driving, or over mastering feeling or conviction, an outbreak of anger.
4. Ardent affection: LOVE, a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept.
After reading the true definition of passion I felt convicted. Seeing a music teacher express more passion about her music on a day to day basis than we “Christians” do in a month. Where is our passion? Where is our zeal? The fire that once burned in our bosom to tell the world about this great God.
Christ felt passionate enough about us too give his very life. Can we still say the same?
The end is near…let us again as Christians, as believers in something greater than ourselves, as soldiers, as children of the most high, let us again feel the zeal. Let the fire, once again, consume us. . .
Then after time passes so does some of your zeal. You begin to realize that this Christ you love, the man who saved your life, others seem to want no part of him. So you wise up a bit. Realizing that everyone still can be saved ,but just that not everyone wants to be saved. So with that realization you let it take some of your fire. . .
Today was my first day of college, and while sitting there listening to my music teaching give her lecture I was captivated. Describing Beethoven’s 5th Symphony with such passion. The way the music spoke to her, the way it made her feel. She took me too a place where I no longer just heard the music, but I could almost feel it. Listening to it was almost like you could feel a battle going on within his soul while writing it. Sitting there watching her eyes light up with excitement as she began to share her passion, I began to think. Where is my passion?
When you research the word passion you will find it comes from a Latin word, passio meaning suffering.
Mr. Webster actually defines passion like this:
1. the sufferings of Christ between the night of the last supper and his death.
2. Obsolete: SUFFERING
3. EMOTION: the emotions as distinguished from reason; intense, driving, or over mastering feeling or conviction, an outbreak of anger.
4. Ardent affection: LOVE, a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept.
After reading the true definition of passion I felt convicted. Seeing a music teacher express more passion about her music on a day to day basis than we “Christians” do in a month. Where is our passion? Where is our zeal? The fire that once burned in our bosom to tell the world about this great God.
Christ felt passionate enough about us too give his very life. Can we still say the same?
The end is near…let us again as Christians, as believers in something greater than ourselves, as soldiers, as children of the most high, let us again feel the zeal. Let the fire, once again, consume us. . .
January 9, 2010
Why Did I Wake Up Today?
There are moments in our lives which are truly defining. Moments when reflected upon can be pinpointed as being the moment you discovered your talent, your passion, even at times the very reason you are alive. Take a Professional basketball player; you can only imagine the first time he held a basketball, the first time he made a goal. For him that was the moment he found his talent. A Doctor who as a child lost his Father too a sickness. Then dedicated his life too helping others get well, for him that was the moment he found his passion. A Chaplin seeing a child being arrested for the first time, and feeling compassion. For her that was the moment she discovered the reason she is alive. Such moments are rare, moments we see our purpose in a clear untainted form.
We see others who have found their calling, and live it out too the fullest. No doubt, no questions, just pure determination, and the knowledge that they are right were God wants them. However, for most of us we keep waiting for such a moment to happen in our lives. The moment that will tell us what to do, let us know why were here, and what path too choose. We think, well when I finish High School I will find out my passion, when I finish College, then I will know my calling, when I find the perfect mate, when I have my kids, when we move into that bigger home, when I get that job then can I start my life. When thinking on the future one has too always be conscious of time. How much is left? We hear everyday that the Lords return is soon. How soon? 5 years, 10, because what is 10 years in the span of eternity? A blink? However what if it’s not 10 years, or even 5? What if tomorrow and we are still waiting to find our purpose? This thought got me thinking. We know by reading in God’s words that everything happens for a reason. There is a will for everyone’s life. A purpose, a job for you too do, but God’s will never changes. His time to send his son to get his bride has always been the same. So, with the knowledge that God has a purpose for each and everyone of his children, and that the coming of the Lord is near. Did we miss our purpose? What if God will for our lives wasn’t too wait until after High School and then really start to get serious and start seeking his will for our lives. What if we were never meant too grow old? What if there never was a purpose for us beyond that age of 20? What if the sole reason we have been put on this earth was just to sit by that one student in English? That child who didn’t have a family to go home too. The teenager just looking for answers, answers that we knew, but we didn’t give them a second look because hey, I’m just a kid. God plan for my life hasn’t even started. When in reality….it was ending.
With these thoughts that God has laid upon my heart I will ask you the very question he asked me. Did you fail him? Are there blood stains on your hands because you were waiting for something else? Waiting for an angel too appear in your room and give you divine orders from the heaven? Waiting for hand writing on the wall. However you have answered this question it should be an eye opener. We no longer have 10 years probably no longer have 5, we may not even have 1.
If you are like me and after thinking about all the days you wasted “waiting” for your life to start, you dropped too your knees and asked the Lord too forgive you. All the mornings he allowed you too see another sunrise which you took for granted, thinking there would be a million more. I challenge you to remember this. Each morning when you wake up remember that God is God. That there are no accidents, and if he gives you breath he has given you breath for a reason. If he didn’t take you in a car wreck on the way home from work that night, if he didn’t take you home in your sleep. That is because he is not finished. So every morning when you are blessed to roll over and see the sunlight out the window, ask this question. “Why did I wake up today?” Know that there is a will and a purpose for this day and this day alone. Forget your past mistakes. Stop waiting. Stop giving God the future that you might not have to give, and start giving God your present…because that is all we have, today, right now, this very moment. Nothing else is promised.
We see others who have found their calling, and live it out too the fullest. No doubt, no questions, just pure determination, and the knowledge that they are right were God wants them. However, for most of us we keep waiting for such a moment to happen in our lives. The moment that will tell us what to do, let us know why were here, and what path too choose. We think, well when I finish High School I will find out my passion, when I finish College, then I will know my calling, when I find the perfect mate, when I have my kids, when we move into that bigger home, when I get that job then can I start my life. When thinking on the future one has too always be conscious of time. How much is left? We hear everyday that the Lords return is soon. How soon? 5 years, 10, because what is 10 years in the span of eternity? A blink? However what if it’s not 10 years, or even 5? What if tomorrow and we are still waiting to find our purpose? This thought got me thinking. We know by reading in God’s words that everything happens for a reason. There is a will for everyone’s life. A purpose, a job for you too do, but God’s will never changes. His time to send his son to get his bride has always been the same. So, with the knowledge that God has a purpose for each and everyone of his children, and that the coming of the Lord is near. Did we miss our purpose? What if God will for our lives wasn’t too wait until after High School and then really start to get serious and start seeking his will for our lives. What if we were never meant too grow old? What if there never was a purpose for us beyond that age of 20? What if the sole reason we have been put on this earth was just to sit by that one student in English? That child who didn’t have a family to go home too. The teenager just looking for answers, answers that we knew, but we didn’t give them a second look because hey, I’m just a kid. God plan for my life hasn’t even started. When in reality….it was ending.
With these thoughts that God has laid upon my heart I will ask you the very question he asked me. Did you fail him? Are there blood stains on your hands because you were waiting for something else? Waiting for an angel too appear in your room and give you divine orders from the heaven? Waiting for hand writing on the wall. However you have answered this question it should be an eye opener. We no longer have 10 years probably no longer have 5, we may not even have 1.
If you are like me and after thinking about all the days you wasted “waiting” for your life to start, you dropped too your knees and asked the Lord too forgive you. All the mornings he allowed you too see another sunrise which you took for granted, thinking there would be a million more. I challenge you to remember this. Each morning when you wake up remember that God is God. That there are no accidents, and if he gives you breath he has given you breath for a reason. If he didn’t take you in a car wreck on the way home from work that night, if he didn’t take you home in your sleep. That is because he is not finished. So every morning when you are blessed to roll over and see the sunlight out the window, ask this question. “Why did I wake up today?” Know that there is a will and a purpose for this day and this day alone. Forget your past mistakes. Stop waiting. Stop giving God the future that you might not have to give, and start giving God your present…because that is all we have, today, right now, this very moment. Nothing else is promised.
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