Don't choose not to chew your food...

Well, it's been a while. So much has happened. What's interesting is that I'm in the midst of re-learning what I wrote about in my last post. Trusting God and that He is sovereign and knows what is best for me. I have to choose to trust him because it's not a natural thing. Giving up control is not something we, as humans, naturally long to do. I often find my self preaching... to myself. Remembering my identity in my Jesus is difficult after hiding it, running from it, and being brainwashed for so long. I've been finding myself slowly. Once in a while the old Cate, the crippled Cate, wants to, instead of trusting God and who I am in Him, forget who I am and rely on someone to tell me who I am. Does that make sense? In my last relationship, I lost who I was. I lost my identity and was told who to be, how to act, what to believe... and I was completely blind. I have recently realized that I was emotionally abused. And I thought that I was a strong person. I WAS. before. I AM now. but for about three years, I wasn't strong or independent. I was weak, selfish, co-dependent...

I've also been learning a lot about grief. I didn't think there was anything else to learn about grief. I've also learned things about who I used to be, or who I was when I was brainwashed. That's the term my family used to describe me when I was with my ex. I hadn't looked at it that way. This past long weekend, I took some time and went to North Carolina where my mother's family lives. It's good to visit them. It makes me feel like there's a little bit of her in every conversation. Many feelings surfaced while I spent time reflecting and praying on the beach. At first, I really couldn't focus. I felt like my mind was being attacked and I had to fight just to keep the enemy out, let alone have time to relax, or think about the important things. But I just kept praying that God would help me to clear my head. I asked him for clarity, direction, peace, and overall encouragement. My relationship with my dad has always been a deep and loving one. Despite our uniquely deep relationship, we have always butt-heads with each other.... hmmm... always.... that's where I'm a little cloudy. What I'm struggling with right now is when it all started and what the root is of the tension. Most of the time my dad and I are great. I feel loved, provided for, important, and like he's proud of me. I feel all the things girls want to feel in a good relationship with their dad. Occasionally, there will be an incident in which I get set off and then an argument ensues. Now, I don't just go ballistic out of the blue. What ususally happens is that he'll do or say something that hurts my feelings. Normally whatever he says or does is not something huge or lifechanging. What it IS is something small that makes me feel the feelings of hurt or like I don't measure up... various feelings from some past experience that I've blocked out in my head. What caused those feelings that surface everytime there is discord, I do not know. I wish I did. I know in my head that he loves me. I know in my head that he's proud of me and that I'm important to him. He tells me, he shows me. I can see it in his face. But for some reason, my heart is hurt and angry at him and I don't know why. This is huge for me. My default response... the old Cate... would run. I would try so hard not to have to deal with this. I would avoid the topic, I would avoid my dad, shove my feelings of hurt and anger down and just swallow that huge chunk of unchewed food. It's really painful and killer to digest without chewing first. So bad that it injures me everytime I do it and it's ruining my stomach. That may be a digusting illustration, but I feel it gets the visual going that really gets my point across. THIS Cate, the real Cate, will face it, cut it into small pieces, chew and chew and chew. I get tired of chewing sometimes, but its just the old me trying to get me to just swallow the food that's not chewed up yet. So, right now, I'm chewing.

Come Thirsty... What i'm reading these days...

TRUST

" Learn well the song of Sovereignty: I know God knows what's best. Pray humbly the prayer of trust: "I trust your lordship. I belong to you. nothing comes to me that has not passed through you."

WORRY is irrelevant and irreverent...

" Worry changes nothing. You don't add one day to your life or one bit of life to your day by worrying. Your anxiety earns you heartburn, nothing more."

"Your part is prayer and gratitude. God's part? Peace and protection. 'If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful then the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.'(Phil 4:7)"

ANGELS

The angels that watch over us are two things: Many and Mighty.

In Psalm 68:17 NKJV, King David writes: "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them as in Sanai, in the holy place." When referring to Mt. Sanai, David was thinking of the time ten thousand angels descended upon the mountain as God gave the law to Moses. 'God came down from Sanai... coming with ten thousand holy angels" (Deut 33:2 MSG)

Preview this book at :
http://www.google.com/ig?referrer=ign#max108



I can't wait to get the workbook for this!

I can't get over the fact that at every moment there are many MASSIVE, powerful, and mighty angels hovering over me just watching and waiting for things of and not of this world to come, so that they may fight for me in God's name. Max talks about how angels dance around the throne and and only respsond to Him. He commands them, his army, HE gives the angels charge over us. We have our only personal armies guarding us at all times. While we make coffee in the morning, on the way to work or school, while we sleep, while we work or sit in a classroom, take dance class or teach dance class, in the car toating kids about the city, making dinner, watching tv... everything we do is protected by the heavenly realms. Then I think about when bad things happen. Some people ask why. We can't know why. We just have to trust. Of course we want to know why but that doesn't mean we should. "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans." haha. It's natural to want to know why. We're reasoning creatures, we use logic and equations to figure out the vector of the ball that was thrown with X amount of force. blah blah blah. I'm totally preaching to myself here. When we found out my mom had cancer the first thing that came out of my mouth was, "God is sovereign." I don'tknow how it did, but it did. Then I wanted to know everything. I didn't immediately ask why, but when. How long did she have, what were we going to do to fix it. Could we fix it? No. We could try. If God's got a plan, we can do all we will to change it if we don't like how it's playing out... That brings me back to

TRUST

" Learn well the song of Sovereignty: I know God knows what's best. Pray humbly the prayer of trust: "I trust your lordship. I belong to you. nothing comes to me that has not passed through you."

So many people prayed and claimed that they KNEW she would be healed. She was, at least, not in the way we had hoped for. It's amazing the faith that people have in time of need. The prayer that I was exposed to was far beyond what i had experienced before then. Being a 15 year old and still green in my faith, I prayed but nothing like anyone else. I had faith, but not that he would heal her. I had faith that he could and that he knew what was best even it it meant me losing my mother, my siblings losing their mother, my father losing his wife of 29 years. Those 3 years were the hardest of my life. My dad checked out for a while, I ran from our pain and reality, Will, my youngest brother clung to my dad afraid for losing him also, and David, my kid brother, was filled with anger and hurt. We all felt hurt and abandoned my God. We all expressed our pain in extremely different ways. Our family was falling apart, and at the same time, the strongest and closest we'd ever been. It made me think of how Jesus felt, hanging on tree carved into a cross, dying and left by his father who claimed he would never forsake us. Jesus, cried to his Abba, "My God, my God, WHY have you forsaken me?!" I only had the tiniest taste of that anguish and pain that he felt. God has never and will never forsake us, because he did forsake his son. To put His only son through that: the pain, rejection, lonliness, beating, and even hell, would break a human. Sometimes I think about the judgement that we all deserve and then multiply it by all the people that have and ever will live, that's the pain Christ experienced. Unfathomable.

1 John 3:1 (ESV)
" See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him."

(KJV)
1 John 3:1
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

I kind of like the KJV better in this verse. The words, for me, provide so much more emotion to the statement. It's like he's saying, "Behold! Take note, pay attention!!! Look what God has done! He, our Father, has bestowed, presentes as a gift, his love. Perpetual, unconditional love, that we should be called children of God. Heirs to the throne. (kinda, it's not like we'll take over lol...) Princes and princesses of Zion, the Heavenly Realms.


hmmm... oh when that day comes, it will be a glorious one.

Definition: to present as a gift; grant, give


"I trust your lordship. I belong to you. nothing comes to me that has not passed through you."

Class ehk

So first day of classes tomorrow. I have to get up at 7:00 and make sure I get into a certain Drawing II class. yippee! I don't really have much to say right now. This thursday we have our life group again. I'm glad. I love that fellowship.

Learning to Dance (follow)

So I have this friend. She's really into looking for the single guys and hanging out with them all the time. I mean, that's cool. But talking about it all the time, and in front of them is interesting i think. I could just be really rude. eh. I just don't know If I'd be telling all the single guys I know that i want to hang out with them all the time BECAUSE they are single. ha. I might get a weird reaction. I know that it would be nice to date someone. But I'm not actively looking for someone to date. Even though all my friends minus a couple are either engaged or married, I don't feel the need to be in the same stage of life as they. I need to do what's right for me. I'm letting God handle it. Yeah there are guys I know that I wouldn't mind dating or even just spending more time with to get to know them more... but I'm not going to take matters into my own hands. What's weird is that is so different from my personality, which is one that is very dominating and leader-like. I want to plan, take control of a situation if I feel nothing productive is being done. In the business world, if i led a team of people to do something, that would come in handy. Between God and me, not so much. He's the ultimate leader and I have to follow.

A few years ago my dad was teaching me how to dance. Not ballroom or anything. But you know, slow dance. He's a very good dancer. I've got rhythm and have always been able to dance salsa, bachata and other things that require SOME skill. But this was difficult for me. I had to follow his lead. We laughed because is so closely mirrored my personality. I think it's interesting that He taught me how to follow when dancing, and he's done a lot of the same in life. I've had to learn how to follow his lead. Even now that is somewhat of a battle. If we have a tiff, I normally come around a little quicker these days. I remember some of the arguments we've had in the past. Man, God is going to bring it right back and let me experience the hardship of raising me through my kids. I just know it. I'm glad I'm still under his authority. I know I'm an adult and can make my own decisions but I actually value his opinions now. I love listening to his wisdoms and seeking and taking his advice on difficult times. I love that I can talk to him openly and have intellectual conversations but at the same time, be comfortable and/or learn something from him. I'm so thankful for such an amazing father. What I've talked about in this blog has only scratched the surface of what makes him awesome. I'm so blessed to have the relationship that I do with him.

Charlie

I feel odd. The majority of my friends that I started college with, are either engaged or married. ANOTHER one of my best friends got engaged last night. I'm in no rush to get married. It's just weird. It's like there's a different stage in life just kind of circling above me waiting to dive in and swoop me into its talons. We'll call him Charlie. haha. and above Charlie is my Lord, he's the puppeteer... controlling Charlie, holding him off until the time is right. I kinda feel like I'm stuck. I want to move on and be done with school and start a life without being in school and working low paying part time jobs. Although, there's a season for everything. (Ecclesiastes 3) I know that this is what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Living paycheck to paycheck, stretching every penny. I'm good at that now. I've learned to deal with it. I know God's got something that He's doing with me right now, whether it's something I'm learning or something He's having me do.

The other day, I realized that I may have moved on a bit in the grieving process. I'm actually genuinely, in my heart, excited that my mother is dancing with the King. Lately, God's been giving me tiny tastes of the wonderful Heaven that we're promised. He has been for a long time. Only recently, have I paid attention. I like to think about what that guy said in "90 Minutes in Heaven". He says that in Heaven, he heard all the worship songs ever all being sung at once, all in accord, and he felt the peace and emotions of all of the songs all at once also. How overwhelming. That alone makes me excited and even more at peace than before. Before, I knew that my mother was having a party up there, but it didn't ring true in my heart. I didn't FEEL okay with that. I KNEW in my head that she was in a better place and I was jealous. Now, I FEEL that, and yeah, I'm a little jealous, but I don't think about only that and how long it will be until I can leave this place. I'm totally focused on what God has going on for me right now, on Earth. I eagerly await the day when He comes to take us home, or when I get to go meet him; but I'm glad that I'm here trying to glorify with my life. I don't know if any of this makes sense. It does to me. Alrighty, off to grocery shopping, crafting, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and then... partying! WOO! Merry Christmas!

A whole lot of Love

God Is Love

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Live and breathe Jesus...

I stole these from a very good friend...  I'm so excited about reading all different books but I can only read one at a time. AH!

"You've trusted Jesus with your life; now live that life in 
Him. Inhale Him. Exhale Him. Make Him your lifesource each and every day with the faith of a little child! You were planted in the richest of soils and watered with the amazing Truth of his kingdom. Don't hide the joy-filled life of Jesus beneath the soil, but grow and bloom for all the world to see." Eric Ludy on Colossians 2:7

"But if a woman is aspiring to become a princess of purity, she must wait patiently for a Christlike knight. And though this kind of man is rare, God is raising up men after His own heart. And that kind of man is worth waiting for!" When God Writes Your Love Story

"You're seeing the institution which is a man made system. That's not what I came to build. What I see are people and their lives a living breathing community of all those who love me, not buildings and programs." The Shack

"It's simple. Its all about relationships and simply sharing life- being open and available to others around me. My church is all about people and life is all about relationships. You can't build it. That's my job and I'm actually pretty good at it" The Shack on church