Better Is One Day

Better is one day in your courts, better is one day in your house. Better is one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere.

That song hit me hard on Sunday. Here I am stressing about all of this stuff on purpose, and I was singing about the one thing that truly makes me happy. If church was everyday, I'd be there everyday. I know the song is specifically singing specifically about spending time in Jesus' presence, but all I could think about was how much joy is found at church. How strong his presence is there. How free I am to worship there. How many friends I have there. How many lives are changing for the better there. The growth. The fellowship. The love. Jesus. The Spirit of God. The unity. The family. The teaching. I could go on and on. Best of all, I love how I've grown personally, how people care about me, and how I have ministries that I am involved in that touch other people. I help people to worship every week! I have watched a church grow in worship over the last few years, and although it should in no way be credited to me (Glory to Jesus and His Holy Spirit, and what an amazing worship team and band we have!!), I have had a part in it! It is an awesome feeling. And I get to make the missionaries feel super special when they come in. That is a real treat! I love it. Really, everything else could just go away, and I'd stay there in those moments forever.

Chris says this is another sign that I'm called to ministry. *SHRUG*

I'm going to start working at ElderBeerman. I got the job! I know I'll like it... I've been looking forward to it so much. I'm just not certain that it will give me the same joy and fulfillment... Will I be satisfied there? Do I want to be satisfied there? Don't get me wrong, I will give them my all, 100%! It's what I do! I love clothes, I love retail, and I love ElderBeerman! But if I'm truly made for something else, I'm just afraid that I'll still feel like something is missing...

What's Going On With Me

I have for some time wanted to begin a blog devoted entirely to my spiritual journey, separate from my myspace blog. After reading PT's blog I decided, why not today? God has been doing amazing things in our church, but that's not all... he's been doing incredible things in me. I've been saved now for 5 years and looking back at where I was to where I am I'm in awe! Jesus has made some marvelous transformations in me through His Spirit over the years, including bringing me to that wonderful time of surrendering all to Him a few years ago. But this is different... I feel inexplicably drawn to Him, to learn of Him, to sit at His feet, to do something for Him. I keep waking up in the morning thinking of Him, desiring to spend time with this One who for some reason is reaching out and desiring to spend time with me. The Spirit within me is begging me, yearning to reach out to a level of relationship that I've never been to before. To worship my Saviour like I never have. To develop intimacy that I never knew existed. Only now I know it's out there because He's invited me to it. Imagine! Being loved so much that my Jesus would come to me, that the Holy Spirit would talk to me and ask me to talk back! How can I not respond? Sometimes I wake up in the early morning, knowing that it is He that has woken me up... and I'm too tired to read His Word, and I'm too tired to pray, but just knowing that He wants to spend time with me is so amazing! I lay there and bask in his presence and just let Him know how much He means to me. Those times are so precious. It's better than the days when I'd set the alarm to wake up for those forced devotions when I'd rather be sleeping... now I go to sleep, almost hoping that He'll wake me up! The Word of God has opened up like never before as well... I think that I finally understand the verse where it says that the Spirit will teach you. He does!
My Desire. I said once that I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff and that I just needed to jump off. There's this whole world of Spiritual growth out there for me that I was afraid of for whatever reason, and the things that were holding me back were so trivial (although at the time they seemed so HUGE!) But then one day I realized that if it was good enough for Paul, and all the great men of the faith, and if it was important enough for Jesus to come to me about it then I just needed to let go. So I jumped! And I realized that there were things that I thought I had surrendered to Christ that I hadn't surrendered... so many things that I had held back. I had to let go of everything. You know what was awesome? I thought I was jumping into the unknown, but I was actually jumping into the hand of my Saviour! Not as fearsome as I had made it. My desire.... to stay here. To get more and more like Him! To allow Him to find all of the things in my life that don't belong there, the things that keep us from being as close as we possibly can. I want to serve Him, walk with Him, be in unity with Him, my hopes and my dreams to be His.
I can't wait to see what happens in this next year!
-I must mention that I feel I wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for my husband Christopher. ;0) Thanks for leading me to Jesus! And thanks for G.E.A.R. class. You've really taught me so much about these things. Every big step in my life has not been taken without much time in discussion with you!