Grace for Grace

This past year of my life, my last year of being a teenager, has felt so different than anything else. Life has picked up in a way that I wasn't really expecting, for better or worse. But more than that, I feel like my inner life has changed far more, my heart and my attitude are being sanded down to something smoother, more even and unafraid. I am not afraid of my bad moods, I am not afraid of my tears, I am not afraid of the ups and downs, I know that I am not alone in it.  But what is amazing about me knowing that is that I have spent the least amount of time with God this year than ever before, but I still feel Him working in me, when I haven't done anything to earn it (not that we could ever, but sometimes I think I can).  Discovering the truth of who God is will be a lifelong pursuit, but especially this year, He has made Himself known to me, His heart for me in the littlest ways. He is showing me that my foundation is Him, that He has grown something good in me and that...

If you have grown up in the church, or even if you have just seen others in the church for better or worse, you probably have negative associations with the word "righteousness". I know that I have, and I'm still working that. I ask that you set aside that negative history and maybe even hurts that get tangled around other's expectations (or our own expectations) of what we should be.  God's righteousness is not the world's definition of righteousness.  CHOOSING RIGHTEOUSNESS: "I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way." Psalms 101:2 I have lived and rested in grace for the past years of my life. I have allowed myself to feel freely, to share my heart with God, to understand the power of His love in the face of my fragile, fleshy human heart. It has been the most transformational process of my life, understanding the absence of condemnation, the absence of separation. Accepting God's grace also revealed a lot of false standards that I hold for...

I am 19. This is my last year of being a teenager, which is super uncomfortable and lowkey terrifying.  I have always struggled with my future in various capacities, but recently, all of that uncertainty and trying to trust God and anxiety and fear of losing my precious dreams has been building and became too obvious for me to not solve and work out.  I am constantly so amazed by God's timing, and I feel so close and cared for by the Holy Spirit.  I had a few days where I was home alone, and spiraled pretty hard. I was listless, fearful, unmotivated, and anxious. I ate anything I could find and watched childhood TV shows to try and find some source of comfort (which, now that I'm writing that, I am feeling convicted that I didn't go to The source of Comfort. I wanted easy, I wanted fleshy comfort. But there is grace for that, and He still made Himself obvious, and He still came through for me. wow). I've also been realizing that my self-image preservation is deeply root...

At this point it feels like I'm a broken record, repeating the same sentiments again and again, but they haven't lost their flavor yet, so I am trusting that it is still sinking in for me.  As I have previously mentioned, this past year I started learning how little I actually know, how stupid we humans are.  Now I think I am learning what to do with it, why it matters. Praise God for the Holy Spirit because I consistently feel like He has guided me through each new lesson and understanding, like He is taking me through a lifelong class made just for me. It's silly but it feels really special, He feels very close. It helps me understand a little more how God WANTS me to understand Him, how He wants me to grow and submit and draw closer to Goodness. And His timing is of course perfect. See, I know these things: that God cares and His timing is perfect, but it's another thing entirely to see it actually changing my life and my heart, to feel His activeness in my process. ...

Even though it may not be smart to trust everyone you meet, I have found that because my heart is so secure in God, I can believe others without risking injury. Trust goes beyond feeling. Trust is something so steadfast and unwavering that no matter what feelings may cloud my judgement, I can return to Him because I TRUST. Trust is risky, but when it's given to the only One who will never let you down, there is no risk. Trust is choice. ^^^ That was written a year ago, when I thought I had so much figured out. I didn't realize that I thought I had things figured out, but somewhere along the way, I became self-assured, and believed without realizing it that God had given me some sort of special insight.  And the Holy Spirit in His kindness and wisdom showed me this past year that I am, in fact, stupid. It is a dangerous thing to find any truth in ourselves. We are easily swayed. There is so much in ourselves that is false that we don't see. We have no ability to form obj...

Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books. It is so comforting and so convicting.  Ecclesiastes makes it clear that all of our attempts at meaning or achievement are fleeting and flammable. It will all burn up. It doesn't matter what we do, we all die the same. Generations have come and go and no one remembers them. But a quiet life in pursuit of God, in pursuit of wisdom and love, will also die the same and no one will remember you. "All things come to all." It is all the same here. But: "I know it will be well with them that fear the Lord."  We are valuable, yes, and we can have a lasting impact on the kingdom of God, but we are also dust, only given value by Jesus, by the breath in our lungs and the hands that formed us.  We assume so much. We have our limited, human perspective, and we can't even understand how limited it is, and we rationalize God's actions through our filters and assumptions. We put our own crap on God, we try to figure out what He ...

 I think I am naturally inclined to most forms of hyper-spiritualism because I like to feel unique, like I somehow stand out by being more spiritual or close to God. The Holy Spirit has been convicting me that I really am not special, so I've wanted to take a look at forms of hyper spiritualism.   There is a trend in a lot of modern Christianity to use language that sounds good but that says very little. I myself have been guilty of using it and thinking that I somehow understand more than others because what I say sounds more spiritual. It's so stupid. It's a form of gatekeeping and it's self-righteous and ultimately man's words.  My journal Bible has gone through three versions of me. The first one was just figuring out God's love and who God was, writing down excitement and the sweet obvious statements of who God is. The second was super well intentioned, and I did grow and learn a lot, but I listened to others words more than I listened to God's. I didn...