Today is the first day for the book club that I just started; One Thousand Gifts (http://onethousandgifts.com/).These last couple weeks God has really been working in me an attitude of thanksgiving instead of an attitude of grumbling and complaining. I didn't even know what this book was about before I said yes to this book club, cause really a book club with some of the most wonderful, encouraging, Jesus-loving women...who wouldn't say yes. I am hungry for growing deeper in my relationship with the Creator God alongside these loved and cherished women.
I am using my blog as a stop to write down my thoughts as I read through the chapters, pray through the material, and seek the Lord and his direction of my heart. I long to not only be a women marked by faithfulness, but also by "...compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." (Colossians 3:12)
Intro & Chapter 1...thoughts, reflections, insights, underlines, etc
...Right where I am...
I DO believe in the impossible."Help me in my unbelief" -Mark 9:24
My life’s changed not because my environment’s changed but because my eyesight’s changed. Because I’m discovering that right where I am…. is right where THE I AM is…
My humble prayer as we read One Thousand Gifts: A Dare To Live Fully Right Where You Are … is that together we might discover:
- how to allow the life holes to become seeing-through-to-God places
- learn to eat the manna of every moment — that which doesn’t make any sense
- how joy is really possible. Right now.
- the way to slow down time and live with soul and body and God all in synch
- how to fall in love with God and know in your marrow and your bones that you are passionately loved and live in full communion with the Lover of our souls…joy!
Seed: What has been planted as you read this chapter? What has it stirred in you?
Water: How are you nurturing what God desires in you? Be intentional and obedient to what your responsibility is in growth.
Bloom: What is the fruit you are seeing from what you have learned?
What does it mean to be full of grace? When life aches and doesn't turn out the way we thought it should be... Everyone has stories that are hard and painful and where we end up asking God...why?
Those aches in my life are: My sister- why does she keep making these choices and getting her life more and more depleted. Why can't God just reveal himself to her and help her through this? If He loves her more than I do, why does He allow her to live in this pain. Why won't she choose life, though it's hard, instead of happiness and moments. Why won't she choose Him; the healer, the provider, the Creator, the One? It is painful to watch her life, hear her pain, see her choices making it harder and harder for her...this is an ache in my soul. Each morning I hand her back to God, but how do I respond to her when she needs money, a place to stay, when she tells me she got a new job bar-tending (again), back together with her girlfriend, dating a new girlfriend...how do I respond in love towards her while I am dying inside knowing this will not end well, this will only add more pain on top of the pain that is already there. How do I respond? When I know she can have a fuller life bringing praise to God through who He has created her to be. How do I love her? What does that look like? And God, you've promised me that you love her more than I do...you promised me that she will make it...I've seen your hand in her life; leading, guiding, encouraging...but then she walks away, she doesn't get it. Come Lord Come...into her life, come! I could burst in that prayer to you for her! This is an ache in the depth of my soul.
My Mother and brokenness there- She's my mother? She gave birth to me? I don't want to be associated with her, look at her life? Look at the brokenness, the drugs, the lies, the deceit, the lost, the alcohol...you left me, remember? It's okay. I get it. It was too much for you, it's a lot to have 4 kids within 5 years. You chose yourself, I understand. I just long for you to truly come to know the Creator. To live within that truth. I am selfish too. Believe me, I am. It's a constant struggle to not choose entitlement and resentment, but to choose Christ and those characteristics that are from Him for us. I want to forgive you, to love you, to know what that even means. My cry is to know how to love you and respond to you when you send me drunk texts, when you call me bad mouthing my dad and his wife and the people I love, when you play the guilt card, when you desire to have a relationship with us...how do I respond? How do I love you? How do I forgive you? How do I find joy in who you are in my life? How do I "honor my father and mother"? Are you my "mother"? Is she, my father's wife, my mother? Lord, bring healing, bring relief, bring gratitude when it comes to my "Mother". Help me love both of them. Show me how to love both of them.
My family living in separation from God- I LONG for them to know you. For your kingdom to come in their lives. I don't want to be a judgmental "Christian". The lines are blurred of how to respond to their choices. Why is family so hard? Why can't I just let them live their lives like my other non-christian friends and be "okay" with it? I mean longing for them to know Jesus and truth, but allowing my prayers be enough. Why does it have to burn that much more? What is my response to them?
We are all trying to figure out What is God's will for me? How do we honor God when it seems like God is not honoring our prayers. Pg. 14-16: questions we all ask... We hunger for something more, something other...material world as what it is meant to be, real communion with God.
I desire to always be honoring God through the midst of all of this. We all have moments and stories of darkness in our lives...there are really deep hurts in our life, so let's start there. Let's illuminate the dark corners of our life by the life-giving light or truth!
Thinking about pain we experience in life; resentment or gratitude...it's a battle all the time. How do we work this out where we choose gratitude instead of resentment or -in my life- instead of entitlement.
I am thankful for God's timing. I truly desire to live a life that honors my Lord. An attitude of gratitude I believe will bring glory to Him.
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