All of me matters as He holds my heart in His hands...

My feelings, emotions, and opinions are important to God my Father. What I say and feel has value and I am important to Him.

"Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?  When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me. In God will I praise his word: in the LORD will I praise his word. "

Psalm 56:8-10 KJV

"Behold, now I have opened my mouth, my tongue hath spoken in my mouth. My words shall be of the uprightness of my heart: and my lips shall utter knowledge clearly. The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life."

Job 33:2-4 KJV

"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer"

Psalm 19:14 KJV

"Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy."

Psalm 61:1-3 KJV

Feelings...nothing more than feelings...

*Originally written on March 14th, 2011*

I hate that I have such strong feelings, strong emotions, & a strong soul sometimes...One of the hardest things for me to do is express how I feel, I feel so much with such a passion it feels like I'm cracking into pieces...every tear is so loaded with more than any person I can imagine.  I know God doesn't give us more than we can bear, but this is such a heavy burden to carry sometimes...

so I run...like Forrest Gump I run with all I am, I harden myself, grab some sneakers and run till I'm numb or my legs won't carry me any further...why express things nobody else really is concerned or even knows exist.  Who would listen anyhoo, and why would they care to?  Part of me wonders why I'm even writing this blog.

I had planned on only running 6 miles, but you KNOW it's God when the Floyd Road Silver Comet trail light changes right when you reach it, its such a rarity, that I changed directions to my longer route and went up to 8.4 miles, but ended up running 10.5 instead.  While it wasn't enough to run away completely from myself-not even a corner really-I did connect with God by the end.

The blue sky and warmth from the sun, or for me the Son, powered me...cheered me up and on and even helped me bless others on the trail He brought along my path.  And the end, I felt heavy, but instead of it being from all the hurt and feelings and inner pain within my soul, it was heavy from the blessed weight of His unmerited favor and love, the weight of all that He is!

The more I know and experience Him the more I want to know and experience! And yet, the harder it is to really handle...I'm sure we don't even grasp an atom of the being and essence of God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit.  At one point I almost wanted to collapse, but not from my own tears but from the glory of God upon me, it was like He was drawing me to Him, comforting me but in the act of His embrace, the closer I got the harder it was to bear the fullness of who He is...yet like a drug I still crave more!  It may overwhelm me, and the more it happens on my runs I wonder if my body will be able to handle it, but I want another hit of Christ, I want another dose but a bigger one!  Give me oh God as much as I can handle of You, and then even more!  If it kills me it would just draw me even closer to You!  And what a way to die, to die from the embrace of the LORD!

Not that I'm wanting to die or anything, just a thought.

On the way home a song came on that always reaches me, Beautiful by Mercy Me.

The days will come when you don't have the strength
When all you hear is you're not worth anything
Wondering if you ever could be loved
And if they truly saw your heart they'd see too much
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are made so much more than all of this
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His
You're beautiful
I'm praying that you have the heart to find
Cause you are more than what is hurting you tonight
For all the lies you've held inside so long
And they are nothing in the shadow of the cross
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are made so much more than all of this
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His
You're beautiful
Before you ever took a breath
Long before the world began
Of all the wonders He possessed
There was one more precious
Of all the earth and skys above
You're the one He madly loves
Enough to die
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
In His eyes
You're beautiful
You were meant for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful
You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You're meant for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His

A friend once posted this for me (and others) and it really does reach out to me...I just sat in the car, crying out to my Father, tears I cannot explain, for feelings I cannot explain.  My soul is tired, I'm tired of caring so much.  Wishing they would just leave me, but knowing He's given them to me for some reason and purpose I cannot fathom at this point in my life.

In all of this life, at least I'm beautiful to Him, at least I know that God desires me, loves me, understands me and accepts me just as I am, just as He created me to be. Knowing all the mistakes I would make, He loves me.  Knowing I would let Him down He loved me.  Knowing I would doubt Him, knowing my lack of faith, knowing how many times I would cry to Him over the same silly things that in the end, don't seem to matter much to anyone but me...He loved me.  He even made me to care about those silly little things...I may not be able to express my feelings, not even well to God, but I can cry with all my heart to Him, and He understands it all, the unspoken inexpressible feelings, emotions, the pain, the tears...He strengthens my Spirit and through it-my soul is nourished

and I carry on.

Through Him, and by Him and Him alone...despite He's lack of answers He has for my pain-filled questions, He carries me on with a joy amidst the storm of my life.  For the joy of the Lord is my strength and stronghold in times of trouble.  We don't have to understand, in fact I think that is when we receive His true peace, is when we let go and let God...

it just took me 10.5 miles and a cry on the Lord's shoulder to get there

His Spirit raining down

*Originally written on October 2nd 2010*

These past two runs have spoken two very different messages to me.  Last week's I was emotionally upset, having a hard time dealing with some feelings and such I wont get into...when I did my studies that morning the verse He pointed out to me was Psalm 5:3

"My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning I will direct it to You, & I will look up."

When I ran the first half I basically just ran out all my emotions, stress, feelings. All the hurt, pain I felt, the open wounds...ran it all out.  I thought on the verse, and realized as much as I wanted to, wanted to shout out his glory but I couldn't, I didn't have the strength to look up.  As walls of trees passed me by, approaching the middle point I saw an opening and the pale sky and God revealed something to me.  How the sun's rays, which usually shine down to the earth from the sky didn't this time, the rays shone from the earth and radiated out.  He told me that it was okay that I couldn't lift my voice to Him that morning, it was okay that I couldn't look up.  That when I didn't have the strength to lift my head that He would come down to me, and be with me and be my strength.  after that, as I reached the middle point where I turned around, I felt all the emotional stress, all the hurt and pain release and just felt Him.  And during my run back we didn't talk, He didn't reveal any divine message to me, I just felt Him with me. Felt His love...and I was comforted for He is the Mighty Comforter, my councilor, my all in my time of need.  I fought wanting love, wanting a lover, a kiss and redirected it to Him, told Him how I know I was really just wanting Him, wanting Him to kiss me and shortly after that amongst the trees a little golden ray spot, short and sweet and I just knew it was God's way of kissing me...and a little leaf fell gracefully down and I felt like it was Him gracefully touching my cheek, wiping away my tears..And silently we just ran together in each others presence.

The second run, my run today, wasn't too amazing and revealing, just a short sweet taste of Him and His love.  I had to cut it short to keep a promise to a friend and so I ran the opposite direction I usually do, away from the sunrise.  The birds were so vocal and I felt their excitement for Him, I just pictured them singing "holy holy holy is the LORD God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come!  then as I ran over the bridge I passed the golf course (the first passing, I passed an opening to it twice) and saw how the sun had separated the colors in the sky from a deep purple (which shows Man's redemption, Christ and his royalty) to  a light pink and then golden white.  I reached where I was origionally going to stop and decided to run just a little further. Then just a half a mile later, satisfied, I turned around to head back. and passed the second opening for the golf course again and saw something that made that extra mile so much more worth it. With the small rolling hills of the golf course and a few ponds and such, through an opening of some trees, I saw their sprinklers on raining a gentle mist over everything and behind that the golden sun shining.  It reflected off of every single drop from the sprinkler-turning it from just a drop of water into a golden drop of light.  Little drops of golden light were glowing down upon everything.  What came to mind was the Spirit raining down on me...It gave that a whole new image for me and brings to mind the verse:

"Be glad then, you children of Zion,
And rejoice in the LORD your God;
For He has given you the former
rain faithfully,
And He will cause the rain to come
down for you-
The former rain,
And the latter rain in the first month."
Joel 2:23 NKJV

What's awesome about that also is at my mothers last Lady's & the Lord night (every last Friday of the month) we just began our minor prophets studies and we started with Joel! God is so amazingly awesome! He is so good and wonderful :)  He makes me happy