. . . Tears Fall . . .

James 4:7-10~  ⁷ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

            Sometimes we all just need a good cry… Last night I had this overwhelming feeling. It was the weirdest thing ever, I was in the shower and had recently gotten off the phone with my dad, who unfortunately I have a rocky relationship with, and we had a normal conversation for us, which is rarely ever good, but I got in the shower and just felt so overwhelmed I began just crying out to God and just praying for my dad, because as some of you know he is sick and the doctor’s only gave him so much time to live. Also he had surgery a little while back that went bad and he can now barely walk, on top of all that he is an alcoholic and is honestly a bitter man from his past and losing my mom. …. But I just called out to God asking him what am I suppose to do. My family all encourages me to not be around my dad so much because of his behavior and how he is with me, but I feel bad not being there for my dad. On the other hand, every time I’m around him I’m never good enough and he always wants to fill my head with gossip on everyone we know and he just talks bad about everyone. I want my dad to go to church with me. I want him to get better mentally. I wish he wasn’t so sick. I just don’t know what to do. I was just sobbing there in the shower just saying all of this to God and asking Him what to do and to guide me and just giving it all to Him telling Him I couldn’t handle that weight of my dad anymore and all the sudden my sister opens the bathroom door and asked me if I was ok, apparently she had heard me crying from downstairs, she had asked if I had hurt my back (earlier that night I attempted to do a back handspring again, lol, and it didn’t go so well) … Well all the sudden I started cracking up laughing cause it was just kind of crazy how she had heard me from downstairs and I was just imagining what she was thinking, lol, but just that little moment , with her coming in, and me laughing about it all helped me feel a lot better. . . .  I told my sister I was ok and I just started thinking about what had happened . . . It felt good just to cry out to God and get everything off my chest and just verbally and physically humble myself before Him. …. Sometimes I think we all just need that. And I feel like God had my sister come in at just the right time after I had gotten everything out and just brought joy and laughter in her coming in. God is just so good and amazing in how His hand is in everything and how He shows his comfort to us and loves us. Thank You Lord for who You are and for loving me and comforting me when I need You!

Psalm 29:11~ The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.

Actions Speak Louder than Words

Actions speak Louder than words. It is so true, isn’t it? Whether it’s in relationships with a boyfriend/husband or how our political leaders act or parents are? Actions always mean more to us as a society than words do.  I’m not saying words aren’t powerful, because they definitely are, but without actions to back up those words there just empty words right? . . .

For example, if a husband or boyfriend tells his wife/girlfriend he loves her, but then abuses her or is an adulterer then obviously those words he uses to express his love aren’t really backed up with true love. If he were a loyal man who was a devoted leader to his wife/ girlfriend those would be the right actions to show his love towards her.

Another example is our political leaders. For example, many people voted for Barak Obama because of his amazing way of speaking and how comfortable with only his words and safe he made some of the American people feel. He uses great rhetoric when speaking, but since his presidency many of those same people who voted for him do not feel the same warm, fuzzy feeling they once felt about him and claim that his actions do not reflect his words and what he said he was going to do. People are mad, hurt, angry. . .

Our parents . . . If you ever got in trouble when you were younger or even now, lol, and your parents yelled at you and grounded you, but never backed up that grounding and went through with it you would think you could get away with anything right? If their cycle was always yelling and threatening punishment but never backing that punishment up and following through with it, it would be easy for us as children not to obey knowing the consequences would never really be there . . .

As Christians we say all the time we love God and we talk about Him to others and tell others our views on Christ and what He means to us and we talk and talk and talk, or blog and blog and blog, whatever it is we do . . . but are our actions backing up our words? I look at myself and I hope that for the most part to whoever is reading this that my actions back up my words, but I also know how many times I can fall short and not let me actions reflect what I say and if I think about it, it’s such a powerful thing. If a non-believer sees me act not in accordance with what I say that can ruin my testimony so much. . . Have you ever heard the story of Marilyn Manson? The ‘Prince of Darkness’, he went to a ‘Christian’ school and this school claimed to be a school full of believers and people who followed after Christ, but the kids in that school just outcaste Manson  and look where he is today . .  It really makes you think. If someone had acted like a Christian, as they had said this school was full of them, maybe Manson wouldn’t be doing what he is doing today? ….

More than just our actions though is our mindset. Because I also believe we can have good words and actions, but our mindset is a HUGE thing also. Because we can be saying and doing all the “right things” but if we don’t have our mindset on Christ and have a pure mind in what we’re doing then it’s not real also. If we’re doing things just to reflect back on us that’s wrong or if we’re only performing our actions to try to “save” ourselves that’s wrong to, because our works are nothing. It’s a relationship with Christ that God wants. He wants us to confess with our words to Him and then through a pure mindset, in just wanting to follow our Amazing creator, wants our actions too purely and truly reflect how we feel and what we say about Christ.

~Matthew 12:36-37- “³⁶ But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the Day of Judgment for every empty word they have spoken. ³⁷ For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”~

I liked this little analogy and decided to share it :)

"People often come to Christ in the fog. The fog lifts and we can perceive life in a whole new realm. Even more exciting is the knowledge that the day will come when we stand before Christ, when we will see Him clearly just as He is, in all His glory. Nothing will be able to cloud the true and living Christ from our vision. For now, we must trust Him to see for us, then guide and direct us through His Word and prayer." ~Quiet Moments with God: Devotional Journal for Women.

God You are so good! Help me to see and follow You clearly daily! I love YOU Lord!

Random, lol, but what's Your Bucket List ???