I’ve been struggling on the decision to write this blog.  God affirmed some things in my life that I have been struggling with last night.  I love the fact that He uses “Jesus with skin on” (friends) to speak or just affirm things that He is wanting to work on in my life.  I have been feeling very apathetic about my daily walk, my relationships, my work, and just an all around feeling of procrastination.  For the last several weeks, the Lord has been convicting me of this, but the nature of the sin procrastination and apathy, I have put off dealing with it.  Last night I was hit in the face by an awesome friend that I am in ministry with about the issue.  It was a great discussion and affirmation.  I can be the person that isolates emotionally and one would never know that I was struggling.  However the Lord knows and as hard as I try won’t let me.  I love the way He loves me and disciplines me.  I have always said that I want nothing more than to be honest, so this is a new start for me.  I want to be “naked” in front of you….confessing the attitude of apathy and procrastination.  I pray that the is just the first of many works that the Lord is doing deep with in…

So, I’m heading out tomorrow afternoon to have some good girl time for my birthday.  We are going to be gone until Sunday afternoon.  I am very excited to get some good rest and relaxation, ride some horses, take some pictures, and piddle on the guitar.  It’s a good year to get away.  I’m turning 29.  You know they say the big 3-0 is a hard year but this one is kinda kicking my rear.  It’s my last year of my 20’s.  I am about to enter my 30’s.  When did this happen?  Where did 30 years go?  What have I accomplished?  These are the questions I have been asking myself.  Well the years flew by, that’s where they went.  I have accomplished many things.  My life is on the right track with the Lord.  I love Him with all my heart.  He is my joy and my everything.  I have almost completed 3 years in Living Well.  I am so grateful for that ministry.  It has helped me to learn who I am and who I am in the Lord.  I am excited to start back to college in January to earn my degree in psychology.  I want to get my Master’s in counseling.  I am excited about photography.  I got a camera from my parents and am ready to put it to good use.  I love taking pictures of nature, family, and friends.  I am also trying to learn to play guitar.  Maybe write a few songs…who knows.  However, I’m looking forward to my next 29 years.  Its gonna be great! 

Holidays for my family, particularly Thanksgiving and Christmas the last few years have been very rough on my family.  My niece was born 4 years ago 1 day before Thanksgiving with the valves  crossed going to her heart.   She had to undergo open heart surgery.  She was in the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital for a month in Nashville Tenn.  The doctors realized there wasn’t anything that could be done and on Christmas Eve the same year my brother and his wife had to take her off of life support.  If that wasn’t enough, last year on Thanksgiving day my grandmother died  in Hospice due to a brain injury she had from a fall in the local hospital. 

This was the first year my entire family was in town at my parents for Thanksgiving. We started a new tradition. As cheesy as it sounds, we all went around the room and said what we were thankful for.  My nephew said his family and his new classmate Cole.  My brothers said their family and God.  My niece said her family’s unconditional love.  It came my turn and I has a lump n my throat.  You see, I have been going through recovery and have realized that I have been angry with my family for not being perfect.  I expected a perfect upbringing with perfect members.  I realize now that nobody gets the perfect home life.  I have come to a place of acceptance and realization that my family members are only human just as I am.  I felt the urge to tell my entire family in that circle that I was thankful for them and that I was sorry for being a jerk and expecting perfection.  It was liberating.  I am thankful for my family and love them where they are just as they love me where I am.  Thank God for revaltion!

Love..love is not something to be taken lightly. It can cost you more than you are willing to give or more than you realize you have given. It can be blind…blind to the fact of what price you may have to pay. I have recently realized that I paid entirely too much and got not much in return. What I was repaid was a big mess and BIG HEARTACHE. I don’t want you to think that I am being cynical because I do think there is TRUE love. Im talking about the kind of love we settle for thinking it is in fact real love. For me it is hard to tell the difference between God given love between man and woman and a love that we create and dream up. The possibilty of maybe its love. Wondering if the guy is going to love you back or if what he is saying is really how he is feeling. I put my heart out there and it was not returned. Unrequited love is what I am talking about. It’s hard. I was vulnerable, confusing, and I guess naive. However, I think what grieves my heart the most is the part where I compromised. I don’t mean physically…but emotionally and in my relationship with the Lord….the one that ALWAYS has loved me and will ALWAYS love me. I put Him in a box and wouldn’t or couldn’t trust Him to meet my needs. It all comes back to fear. I am scared that God won’t meet my needs and give me the desires of my heart. I am scared to be alone. But the truth is, I am not alone. God is with me to comfort me and love me. If I could truly embrace this and get it from my head to my heart I would be satisfied in Him.

“Lord, grant my the serenity to accepet the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Give me a changed heart that wants nothing more than to worship and follow hard after you. Give my the courage to step out and say you are all I need and you will fulfill your promises and meet my needs. Teach me to trust you. Let your holy fire burn up everything that is wrong thinking about you and teach me your truths. Confirm in me the love that I once knew.”

Its hard to realize that you’ve “cheated” on God. I am married to him, but my eyes wondered to another lover that I thought could satisfy me more than Him. I want to be first in love with Christ and then my mate in second place. I am so thankful that God allowed this to happen in my life to bring me back to Him. Jesus be the lover of my soul! Amen ,Amen and Amen

Well…God has been doing a work on me the last few years in the integrity department.  I want to be a woman of great character and value.  I want to be the same by myself as I am with friends.  This past weekend, I had a revelation when it comes to integrity for me.  I was visiting with some friends at a birthday party.  We had a great time hanging out and laughing.  A guy I semi-dated came over for about an hour and I turned weird.  I’m talking about uber flirt, life of the party, and full of laughs.  I really do care for this person, but its getting really hard for me to just be myself when he is around.  I don’t know what takes over my body.  Its the craziest thing.  That bad part about  it is he is NO GOOD for me.  He has been an addiction in my life.  I have come back to him and he has come back to me over and over.  I am ever changing my mind when it comes to him.  I also noticed that with the friends that Saturday night, I was not the same person I was when I pulled up in the drive way.  Nothing major was wrong,  just completely different.  I had on so many masks it wasn’t funny.  I was a joker, a know it all, and who knows what else.  I was totally aware of my masks.  I don’t want to be that person.  I want to be the person I am when I with my best friend.  Comfortable in my own skin.  I realize it takes time.  I just need to find the balance of being honest with who I am, and not having to be completely vulnerable with EVERYONE! I have been blessed with the ability to get along with anyone…and have conversation with anyone.  I just don’t want to be fake!

Emotional sex sounds so ridiculous. However there are many times in my life as a single woman that I have found myself enjoying emotional sex. As a woman, we want a man to share every detail of their life, their hopes, dreams, fears, and concerns. I eat them up just as I would with physical sex. I, to be honest, eat up the emotional connection even more.

Emotional sex is when a man shares all his heart with a woman, and listens to all that a woman shares from her innermost secret places in her heart. The bond or soul tie that forms when we do this is just as bad if not worse than when we have sex outside of marriage. Being a woman that has experienced both, I  had a hard time coming to understand the emotional bond. I could easily recognize the bond that was formed when I had a physical sex with someone. I thought that when I had sex with a man he would know that I loved him, its what he wanted.

It wasn’t until after many nights of praying and wondering why I was so bonded to these men, it slapped me in the face. Emotional sex!! I had shared my innermost heart and thoughts with these men, bonding me to them. I had wanted their advice and their approval. Since realizing this, I have tried to avoid sharing things from the deepest part of my heart. I want to save that for marriage. I want to be a pure and white bride, a virgin if you will, when it comes to emotional sex when I meet my husband.  However, there comes a time when you won’t be the one sharing and its the guy that’s sharing all his inner most hopes and dreams.  This is rare, but its out there.  Half the victory is knowing where your boundaries lie.  Know ahead of time what your boundaries are in conversation with the opposite sex.  There has to be some sort of sharing in dating to form a relationship.  I fully believe that God intended for us to be open and honest in communication with one another.  However, I fully believe that He also intended for us to guard our hearts. 

I was recently asked how to undo emotional sex strings.  What a loaded question.  My answer was simply this.  Decide that you want to break these strings. Next, set up boundaries in the relationship, and finally be in relationship with the same sex for mentoring or accountability.  Emotional attachment is hard to recognize.  I just have one question for you…are you wearing your emotional condom?

The last few weeks, I have been having some really crazy dreams.  Some of the dreams are funny, some strange, some really scary, and some very realistic.  Let me tell you about this retarded one I had last night. 

I am in a recovery program called Living Well.  It deals with my past, the root of the problems(control, fear, co-dependency…),  and then spiritual maturity.  Well my dream took place in my group at Living well.  My mom, dad, and old mentor, and another girl I knew from way back were all in my group.  This is odd because none of these people would EVER be in my group, but they were all from my past.  It was my time to do my life story and I began reading what was supposed to be all about my life from my perspective.  I was reading what turned out to be this long report on Calvinism,  Catholicism, and who knows what else.  I burst out crying when it hit me that this story was not about me at all.  I still had shame of my past.  I didn’t mind the new people in my life that knew me as the God fearing person I strive to be hearing my story.  I just didn’t want the people from my past hearing all the things that had been done in secret, especially my parents.  This is where the dream gets comical.  My facilitator was trying to reassure me that I needed to get all this out when my dad walked up to me and said….”have you checked on Weeza?(my boston terrier)”  I had no idea what he was talking about.  Then he said, “Justin Timberlake shot her…she’s at the vet’s office.”  I jumped up and ran out to call and check on her. 

I have no idea at all what the dog  part of the dream meant.  However, I think that God is trying to reveal things to me in my dreams.  Not all my dreams are spiritual, but I believe with all of my heart some are spiritual.  I know I tend to be busy and don’t hear God’s voice.  He  may just have to speak to me when I am still and asleep.  I now realize that I am still dealing with some shame from my past.  However, the fear I did have at one time to face it and deal with it is not there.  I want to be completely free!!  I want to live that life of ABUNDANCE that God has promised.  I want to live in Canaan!

So…I’m sitting at home on a rainy afternoon, struggling to keep my eyes open.  Its days like today when I want to curl up with a good book and read until I fall asleep.  I’m looking out my window at the rain running down the glass.    Even though I felt my life is in a dry and dusty place…God showed His mercy and love and sent His rain to water my soul and quench my thirst.  I am coming out of this dry place in life, and yet the only thing I can think about is how long this “feeling” will last. With spiritual maturity, I have come to realize that my feelings are not something I can use to give myself a spiritual health exam.  Feelings and emotions are just the indicators to do an inventory on my mind, body, and soul.   Don’t be fooled…inventory is not for the faint at heart….be brave and check yourself.  Who knows what God wants to do when we get TOTALLY honest with ourselves, with others, and with God.