Come and listen

Come to the water's edge, all you who know and fear the Lord

Come and listen

Come to the water's edge, all you who are thirsty, come

Let me tell you what He has done for me

He has done for you

He has done for us

Come and listen, come and listen to what He's done

Praise our God for He is good

He has done for me

He has done for you

He has done for us

Come to the waters edge all you

Come and listen

Today has been so cold and wet.. just plain YUCK. But there's something about this weather that really moves me to Him. There's something so inviting about curling up under my warm blankets, closing my eyes, and sitting STILL in His presence. I found a great calm today as Jesus led me to the waters edge... as he led me to come and listen.

stamp of approval

:::CONFIRMATION:::

His stamp of approval has been more clear to me today than ever. I'm amazed at all the confirmation I'm recieving. His word, His people, His earth are all validating His sweet promise to me! WOWOWWWWW! i'm in shock.. how do I recieve this??????

"Confirm what You said to Your servant, for it produces reverence for You!"-- Psalm 119:38

"Gideon replied, "If you are truly going to help me, show me a sign to prove that it is really the LORD speaking to me..." --Judges 6:17

Thank you Jesus, for being the place I pour all of myself.. for being the Voice that is guiding me, for giving me discernment, and for leading me to make big, "grown up" decisions. This is NOT about me and I thank you for all the people You have placed in my life to remind me of that, and to encourage me in Your timing. Thank you for allowing me to step outside of what I want and the plans I feel best for myself. You know BETTER! You ARE better! Thank you for giving me patience as I waited to hear You speak and for giving me the wisdom and an open heart to recieve it when You did. Thank you for hearing the prayers and pleas of my heart as I beg you to make Your will clear. You are FAITHFUL! It's ALL ABOUT YOU.

meet my valentine..

yea thats right.

KEITH URBAN!!!!!

whatttttt! and yes.. we were that close to him. ohwamyagawsh. im still crazy excited. what a funnnnnnnn night. (so many funny stories. haha. i am laughing just thinking about them. thanks to william and katlin for being amazing, trusty men and helping us get out of the ghetto in huntsville.. ahh) i mean who cares if we did have to drive 4 hours and then drive 4 hours back at 12:00 a.m. yea..) SO WORTH EVERY PENNY and every minute of time. i had such a great Valentines (p.s: thanks to everyone who got me goodies and for all the stuff I had when I got home.. i just love it. love it love it love it. LOVE is what you guys are to me.. EVERYDAY!) ahhhh! ok. im going back to sleep. we got in bed around 3 a.m. so im really really tired.

sorry these pictures aren't that clear.. somethings wrong with my camera! bah. these definitely dont do him justice!

most scattered blog EVER award.

this is going to be scattered, but this is just a small summary of whats been going on in my heart and head these past few weeks. this isn't rocket science and these aren't radically deep thoughts, but they have had great meaning to me lately..

tonight, at bible study, we got into a really interesting conversation about grace and about brokenness. we began to agree that we all struggle with accepting grace.. even grasping the concept of it. it's tough and I know personally, its been something that I've had to allow God to just almost PROVE to me. That His blood IS indeed sufficient and that it DOES cover every sin.. past, present, future.
Grace is a lofty concept.
wait.. or is it? Do we spend too much time trying to analyze God and what He has done and miss out on what He did?
what do you think? tell me.
I dont know. I'm still chewing on it.
As we talked of grace, we shared about brokenness, about how we had or did feel broken in these past few days. It's so true what they say, "if it ain't broke you can't fix it". If we aren't broken, He can't mold us or remodel us. Keith Chancey shared this summer that we must go high to get low. So true. In order to ARISE IN CHRIST, we have to fall face first at the throne. We have to GIVE UP.we must humbly shatter the very image WE have of life, love, circumstances, etc, and say Jesus this is YOURS. WE HAVE TO TAKE ON His ideas and we must accept His identity as our own.
But we CAN'T stop there. We must allow him to heal us, to put our pieces back together. This is the hard part. I feel like we WANT to stay broken. myself included. We want to just say ok I'm broken! I'm broken!, while never giving God time to fix us. I know that for me, its hard not to wallow in pity and just wait for some miracle to come and change me or my situation. Instead of taking initiative and CLAIMING His truths and promises, we tend to just sit around and lolly-gag in our faults and in our struggles. NO MAM. NO SIR. NUH-UH. NOT O.K. (ha.. beth that was for you!!!! :).That is Satan feeding us a lie, he wants us to stay stagnant, to remain inactive. We can't just stop at being broken, we must CLAIM IN HIS NAME THAT WE will and WANT to be remodeled and reshaped for HIS GLORY. sure, its hard.. sitting in the waiting room.. walking through the desert is yuck sometimes. but its where He speaks tenderly to us. We must get off our bumpers (kamp woot woot), get out of our pity parties and ARISE and AWAKEN to our newness, the fresh life He gives!!!!!!
With that brokenness comes such freedom. Ok let just use this analogy, if a pot is broken, it can't hold water. ha crazy, i know. Its free-flowing, not contained. The same with our flesh and our sin.. when they are poured out, we gain FREEDOM. freedom is a beautiful thing and just saying that word outloud brings me such joy and peace. really. say it out loud right now. FREEDOM! its good. its priceless. matchless.. and we can ONLY get it from Him. It allows us to be real.
Speaking of being real (like I said, this blog is a scattered clump of what I've been soaking up lately), a sweet friend of mine said this and it really has stirred up my heart. really. like super intensely. ok. so she said "why can't the church be more broken??" she said this as she wept and shared of how what I have may have seen on the outside of her, wasn't the same picture I would see on the inside. Y'all. for real. WHY CAN'T THE CHURCH BE MORE REAL. we have PRIDEEEEEEEEEEEE. horrible disgusting UGLY pride. and im the frontrunner. I have so much pride. why do we think we can do this on our own. JESUS DIED TO SAVE US. How about we give Him some credit by letting Him do it. He wants to. HE ABSOLUTELY delights in it because that makes us more like Father and that brings Glory to HIM!
i mean, do you ever have a problem and you go to someone and they are like "just give it to the Lord, just give it to the Lord.." and while that is necessary and demanded of us, God also places us in each others lives as comforter.. . we are made to glorify Him and we do that by being Him to others. but so many times we are told to just supress that. WHY? that closes ourselves and our faults off to others and then they dont see the real us. We weren't stressing the fact that we needed to share our deepest darkest secret with the world or to have a person that we confess all of our sins too, thats why we have Jesus... but what we were communicating is that if all of us would stop trying to be these lofty theologians and start being honest with not only others, but ourselves about our dirtiness then we can be real. we can be free. not to mention how many unbelievers would finally feel comfortable after seeing us without the facade of perfection. they would feel welcome to be their selves and woudl be attracted to the redemption that we only get in Christ. when we take our shame to the cross, we can shamelessly ask of God and of others because we (and they) know that there we are not perfection.. that we aren't striving to be an "awesome" christian. but simply that we are learning to live our lives for the ALL-SUFFICIENT God and bring glory to His Holy name.
basically, it all comes back to grace. when we allow God to reveal what His grace looks like and really start to let Him cover us, then we stand blameless, pure! we stand FREE in Him. we stand full of the joy from Him. When we allow His grace to be enough, and stop letting sin or wordly things take the place.. we experience what it means to live BOLDLY in Him.
ya'll thats good stuff.
let our theology become our reality (thanks clo)
i love you guys.



Lord, You are all-knowing. You know the deepest pit of our souls and even in the tiniest crevice, you speak LIFE into us. Thank you for covering me with grace. Thank you that your grace is so big and rich and uncontainable, that it has seeking to know You more. Teach me to revel in it, to soak it up. You are mercy. You are grace. You are love. YOU SATISFY ME and what you did on the cross IS ENOUGH.

this junk is out of control.

i dont know why im even trying to write this blog. im not quite sure how i think im going to be able to put into words the things i feel in my heart. even just sitting in this quiet room, i try to put my thoughts into a collected, organized form and i can't. i just can't.
God is doing SUCH BIG things in my life. its strange. its all happening so fast. i can NOT begin to fathom what He is doing in and through me. and for me. man, is He ever doing FOR me. He is blessing me like crazy. and I dont mean with good friends or material things (even though He CERTAINLY has blessed me with the most wonderful people). He's blessing me with things that only I feel. things that He knows only I think about. things that only I would smile at. things that bring me UNIQUE joy. and thats good. it feels good.
I feel like He has finally produced discipline in my life that yields fruit. its craziness. and im so excited. so excited.
He's teaching me more than I feel like my brain can hold. But He knows I can hold it. He's using that new discipline to allow me to organize the situations that exist between my heart and my head. He's allowing me to comparmentalize each new truth and place them into specific areas of need, both in my life and in the lives of others --- while at the same time merging each one of those truths into one big, giant truth: everything for His glory.. and that is undoubtedly making me better, stronger, MORE LIKE HIM.
are you confused yet? ah. All i know is my life is changing. my network of friends is changing. my attitude is changing. my perspectives are changing. MY HEART IS CHANGING. and i like it. i love it. i want MORE.
its cool watching all of the new aspects of my life settle into place. I really can say that I've never been more intrigued with who God is and who He made me to be. But I will say, I WANT TO BE MORE INTRIGUED. more fascinated. more stunned.
He's good. REAL good.

a beautiful turn-around.

this day turned out to be much more than i expected. let me explain.


so i wake up this morning at 7:14. what? no FAIR! i went to bed at 1:00, so tired that I could barely keep my head up. I didn't have class until 11, so needless to say.. i couldn't WAIT to sleep in! But, God has a funny way of getting my attention. I woke up very anxious.. I think my heart was racing like 900 miles per hour (that could have been because my roommates and I watched "The Fog" last night.. umm AWFUL!).
The first thought that crossed my mind was how I needed a job. I need one bad. All I could do was think about how I'll soon have no money and that by the time I'll finally be able to get one, I'll be almost ready to leave for my summer stuff. My thoughts were NOT "Jesus, thank you for another day" but were "J-O-B? I need one! Maybe I'll get the one at Cafe Barista? but no, i dont have the right hours? maybe i should get up right now and go look... AHH! I'll NEVER BE ABLE TO find one!"
I started out so stressed. I dont know why this particular morning had me stressed about a job instead of the other many things I have going on, but that was the deal. I finally got myself calmed down.... No wait, He finally got me calmed down. It was like this cloud of promise came around me and I was at peace. I felt God whispering that He was faithful and that I needed to trust Him with my worries. It was much sweeter than it probably sounds on a "blog", and I can't really express to you how delicately, yet powerfully He spoke to me. It was one of the sweetest times I've had with Him lately. Thank you, Jesus!
So.. on top of waking up all jittery and anxious, I felt AWFUL... how could this be? Ya'll, i felt perfect last night! I was bee-bopping around like it was NO THING! But, all of my roomies have been sick so I figured I had finally come in contact with all the nasty germs in our apartment that I have been desperately trying to avoid. My back was KILLING me, my nose was pouring (im sorry!) and my eyes would not stop watering or itching. I was muchos frustratedos. ugh!
But.. like I said, His peace came to me and calmed my anxious, sick little soul. I got out of bed, made my way to class, for what I expected to be super bad. why you ask? I was supposed to give a speech.. how can you do that with watery eyes and runny nose. Im not sure? Well yes I am. God. I'm SURE He spoke through me. I got up there, started talking about my family.. and He just took over. I hardly remember being up there, much less speaking. But what I do know, is that I started speaking boldly about Him. about the gospel. about ways that He has blessed me and shaped me into who I am today. let me interject that I LOVE one-on-one Jesus talks. I could sit at a coffeeshop and talk scripture and God's grace with you until we were both doubling over.. BUT, I rarely ever get to, or even want to share when I'm in big groups... in a church setting maybe, but at work, in a meeting, at school? no thanks pal.
Well, I did. today. In front of my entire class. Our speech was supposed to be about us, our family, things we love to do, or even things we are involved with on campus. Well, He is all of those things. He is my family. He is the thing I love to be with. everything Im involved with is because of Him. I am who I am because of Him. and He spoke that clearly through me today.
A bunch before me, and lots after me shared of how "God is my first priority" or "my faith is the most important thing in my life" and "when I got in my car accident, it changed my life and I owe it all to God".
YALL IT WAS SO COOL. I was so encouraged by the things that were said. And to be honest, I was shocked. These people know God just as I know Him. They've experienced Him in ways that I could never imagine. I know that people at Encounter believe in Jesus. I know that people at Wesley believe in Jesus. I know that my small group believes in Jesus. I know that my accountability partner is a Christian. duh. of course they are. they go to "encounter every week", i see them "at church ever Sunday and Wednesday". BLAH. that is getting overly sickening to me. Its not about that. NOT AT ALL. I didn't know these people's church attendance record. I dont know how many verses of Scripture they have memorized or how many John Piper books they've read. I FORGOT ALL THAT. i got to see How he had LITERALLY moved in their hearts. That's what it's all about. thats what He is all about.
these people shared of hard times, of great loss. Most of their speeches proclaimed times when God's grace had become most real to them.
---wait, let me butt in here and remind you: THIS IS AT A SECULAR UNIVERSITY... THIS IS NOT A RELIGION CLASS. --
ok, let me continue. if you are even still reading. (sorry i know its long).
but, yall.. these people were living in the Spirit and proclaiming Jesus with PRIDE AND AUTHORITY in the middle of Public Speaking 1000. umm hello? my socks were knocked off. i cant even fully explain that classroom today. wow. wow. and wow.
it just confirmed to me what God has been pressing into my heart: AUBURN IS BECOMING THE CENTER OF SOMETHING HUGE. ya'll the speakers are right. Louie is right. Matt Dean is right: He IS indeed raising up a generation of believers that exist solely to Praise Him and bring great GLORY TO HIS NAME.
God is famous on this campus.

i'm not ending my day the same way i started it. im not going to bed with anxiousness. today i learned the very core of what it meant to trust Him. I got a beautiful picture of what it looked like to be a product of His love. I will sleep with the thought of His reliability and His faithfulness. I am remembering the cloud of promise He shielded me with this morning. Im remembering His gentle, "be still". IM GOING TO BED FEELING MORE PRIDE FOR MY JESUS THAN I THINK I EVER HAVE BEFORE. My day is not ending the same way it began. It may have started out rough, but it is ending very differently. Today has been a beautiful turn-around.


Jesus, YOU STUN ME. YOU AMAZE ME. You have placed my heart in a new state of awe. I thank you for days like today. I thank you that your favor has been found in Auburn, AL. I thank you for the leaders and the prayer warriors who have been interceding and praying for these days to come to Auburn. THEY ARE HERE. You have made that ABUNDANTLY clear. Their faithful and fervent prayers are being answered and I can't believe I'm part of it. You are stretching my heart farther than I ever thought possible. Allow me to seek You each morning with a worry-free heart. Continue to surround me with your cloud of promises and faithfulness and instill in me the ability to be more trusting, more humble, and more obedient to what you are calling me to.. Thank you Thank you Thank you. We want more.