Come as you are, your shame has already been paid for...

Dear my Lily,

Where have you been?

I've been trying to fix my sin,

For you I'm too tattered and too torn

But Lily, I can make you reborn.

But God, You'd be disappointed to see

the mess that has become of me

No, I'll be delighted that you coming home

Its about who you run toward not where you come from

I created you and knew your my will for you

before you mom knew pink or blue

All I wanted was for you choose

me or you 

So, who's it going to be my precious daughter

Do you think the one who saves can ever falter?

Or can you save yourself?

How's that been working out?

I love you and I'm quite jealous

that you would settle for something less

For I can show you a kingdom

where you will be blessed

Stop fixing yourself

you'll only get tired

for I'm the Creator

and quite frankly you're fired.

Sit and rest and dwell on my power

think of me every rising hour

I know you think I want more

but I just want to be yours

If you have to earn anything for love

that love is not from me

for I just want you

that why the scars in my hand bleed

You are exquisite

a beautiful lily 

You've been saved

you are free. 

So step out of the prison

you have been reborn

Look at yourself 

your no longer tattered and torn

While you and I were talking I took the leisure

of filling your holes

For with me,

you'll be full

So next time 

come to me first

I'll satisfy your hunger

and quench your thirst.

Don't be ashamed of where you've been

for I've already took the shame of your sin

The shame even died with me

so your shackles are gone and you are free.

Dance with me,

My sweet Lily

Your savior,

Jesus

My thoughts on New Year's Resolutions

The gym is currently packed with the people who have recently committed that this new year they are going to work out…I'm not there.  Yet, my parents get a little frustrated every year as a new batch of hopefuls step inside the gym in January.  The sad thing is that the gym is a lot more crowded in January than in other months of the year.  As the year progresses, the hopefuls disappear and the frequent flyers are still chugging a way.  

This is an example of how New Year's Resolutions often are just a goal that never gets completed.  

Let's be honest.  A Year, while very definitive, is also very long.  It's a daunting task.  

Hmm….let me think of all that happened in a year.  I finished two semesters of college, a total of 37 hours.  I performed in Spring Sing with my sorority.  I traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Costa Rica.  I was on a Pine Cove Camp in the City team and we brought camp to 6 different churches.  I helped out at 2 DNOWs, went to Passion Conference, and helped out at a church camp.  I performed at the Music Business Showcase.  I read a spoken word at an event called Inspired Poet for my sorority.  My sorority also rushed and welcomed 30+ new girls into our sorority.  

A lot of things happened in 2014, and I'm a different girl because of it.  

In 2014, I set out to read 10 non-fiction books.  I read 4.  After my crazy summer, to be quite honest I forgot.  

This year I grew up a lot, laughed a lot, cried a lot.  I loved a lot, and focused on my self a lot.  I turned to God a lot, and I failed to turn to God a lot.  I look back and I have regrets and on other days I have none.  Some days I succeeded and some days I failed.  

So, this new year.  I'm not going to make a New Year's resolution, because I don't want to buy a gym membership that goes to waste.  Instead, I'm going to wake up each day and choose to live that day for God.  What does that look like?  Well, it should look like me going to the gym…lol.  

I'm going to make goals don't get me wrong, but I want to take my goals one day at a time. 

Our mercies are new every morning.  I want to wake up and choose to love more, laugh more and seek God more every day.  

It's a new day…what will you choose??

For the heartbroken, the lonely, lost, and confused...

Recently, my heart was broken and I was left confused.  I was left asking God why. Why did he do this?  Why did He take away something that I've always wanted?

Now, I must admit that I feel like a lot of us need to be honest with ourselves and honest with our God about how we really feel.  We want to pick ourselves up and pull ourselves together before we feel worthy to present ourselves to God.  Yet, God knows how we feel, we might as well tell him.  So, after weeks of telling Him like it is.  I told Him that I was frustrated, and confused.  I told Him that I was hurt.  I told Him that I was doubting his goodness that his will was better than my own.

I felt bad for doubting, and being mad at God and still walking in church and professing his love.  Yet, to be honest this is what life is all about.  We are in the refiners fire and every once and a while we have to struggle with things and wrestle with them.  And why not ask your most probing questions to the one who created the universe.

Doubting is not a bad thing, it can make us stronger.  It is just how we handle it that determines our character.

So, the other night I was really struggling with pain.  God said hey remember that time when you didn't make the cheerleading team and I got you through that.  If I can get you through that I can get you through this.

You see, my freshman year I had worked so so so hard to get my back-handspring and round-off back-handspring so that I could be a sophomore cheerleader.  I had it all planned out.  I was going to be a cheerleader all four years of my high school career and then maybe try-out to become a cheerleader in college. Well, it was all riding on the test of my back-handspring.  If I passed that, I could try-out and my family and I were pretty sure if I made it past the test, the try-outs would be a breeze and I would make the team.  Well, I made it past the test and I was celebrating.  I made it through try-outs too, but we were wrong.  I didn't make it.

My whole family was confused.  So confused that my dad had not prepared what to do if I had not made it only if I did.  I stared at a list of girls names where my name was missing sitting in a car decorated for my celebration.  I will never forget that moment.  The moment of confusion.  My mom trying to console me as she was trying to make since of it herself.  

The next few weeks were filled with there is something better out there.  There is a reason. God has something better out there for you.  Then, one day I had had it.  I said, "Mama, I know that there is something better out there for me, but right now it doesn't change how I feel"

I trusted God, and knew his plan, but it was still hard for me to sing "Blessed be the name of the Lord, who gives and takes away" the next day.

I will never forget these moments because they shaped who I am today.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, for you know that testing of your faith develops perseverance, perseverance must finish it's work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything"
James 1:2-4

I later on discovered I had misplaced my identity.  My identity was in cheerleading not in who God made me to be.  I became thoroughly involved in show choir, which I ended up loving a whole lot more than I love cheerleading but what's crazy is show choir didn't become my identity like cheerleading did.  God still was.

I feel like recently I have placed my identity in the wrong things, and usually God takes those things away. God is our God not to make us happy but to make us whole.  I can only be whole if my identity is placed in him.

 I place my hope in God and how He is in control and that there is something better out there for me, but until them I will wrestle with the pain, and come to God with my doubts.  I'm in the refiners fire and I long to come out more mature and complete than when I went in.

So, to the heartbroken, the lonely, lost and confused, God says: Come to me, I'm all you need.