That picture is of my little Noelle who is coming home on November 22. These past few days have given me some thoughts about God's love for me. I have been excited about her since I found out she was going to be mine. Not only that, but for 2 months before she was purchased, I have looked at her pictures online and fell in love with her and prayed that somehow a long list of things would work out so that I could take her home (which by the way were a series of miracles) I haven't even met her yet, but already I know she is mine. She belongs to me and I love her. This made me think. I have been counting down the days till Noelle comes home and she is just a puppy. If I already love this puppy so much, how much more does God love me, His child. I wonder if God counted down the days leading up to my salvation. I wonder if he waited patiently and eagerly saying, "In 10 more days Samantha is going to give her life to me. I'm so excited to be able to finally spend time with her and share my love with her." I mean the Bible does say there is great rejoicing in heaven when 1 sinner repents. Then I wonder if he eagerly awaits spending time with me each day. I think he does. I know God is way more excited about me that I am about a puppy. (And trust me I am excited) and I know that God loves me way more than I could ever love a puppy (or my husband or a child for that matter). As dumb as it might sound, getting a puppy is teaching me alot. I mean, God tends to use things we can relate to in order to speak to our hearts. This is definately something that has spoken to mine. As I talked with Isaac today about how I was so excited for next Saturday, it just hit me that the excitement I am feeling right now is just a grain of sand compared to the excitement and love God has for me. I think its really awesome that God can use every little thing that happens in our lives as a teachable moment.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
God's Love
That picture is of my little Noelle who is coming home on November 22. These past few days have given me some thoughts about God's love for me. I have been excited about her since I found out she was going to be mine. Not only that, but for 2 months before she was purchased, I have looked at her pictures online and fell in love with her and prayed that somehow a long list of things would work out so that I could take her home (which by the way were a series of miracles) I haven't even met her yet, but already I know she is mine. She belongs to me and I love her. This made me think. I have been counting down the days till Noelle comes home and she is just a puppy. If I already love this puppy so much, how much more does God love me, His child. I wonder if God counted down the days leading up to my salvation. I wonder if he waited patiently and eagerly saying, "In 10 more days Samantha is going to give her life to me. I'm so excited to be able to finally spend time with her and share my love with her." I mean the Bible does say there is great rejoicing in heaven when 1 sinner repents. Then I wonder if he eagerly awaits spending time with me each day. I think he does. I know God is way more excited about me that I am about a puppy. (And trust me I am excited) and I know that God loves me way more than I could ever love a puppy (or my husband or a child for that matter). As dumb as it might sound, getting a puppy is teaching me alot. I mean, God tends to use things we can relate to in order to speak to our hearts. This is definately something that has spoken to mine. As I talked with Isaac today about how I was so excited for next Saturday, it just hit me that the excitement I am feeling right now is just a grain of sand compared to the excitement and love God has for me. I think its really awesome that God can use every little thing that happens in our lives as a teachable moment.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Truth
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" - John 8:32
I'm learning that the things I fear often tend to not be reality. I'm afriad of things that have not happened, may not happen, and probably will never happen. Most of the time, I am afraid because I don't have correct facts about things and sometimes I do have correct facts, but I fail to trust God and understand that he is bigger than my circumstances. I've decided that I need to start learning to check my facts before I start to fear as much as I do. For example, I was recentlty told about a letter that the president of Iran wrote to President Bush saying that we all needed to convert to Islam or else they would force us to. I was also told not to read the letter online because I scare too easily and there was no reason to upset myself. So I didn't read it, but continued to live in fear over this. Today I decided to read the letter, just out of curiousity and you know what? It doesn't say that. No where in the letter does it say "Convert to Islam or we will make you" and as a matter of fact, I don't think it implies that unless I missed something. My point? I was afraid of something that I didn't have the facts about and wasn't even true. I need to start getting facts before I run my mind. Usually my mind takes me to places I don't need to go. The world is scary enough these days so why am I making things worse for myself by worrying about things that arent reality. This has got to be one of the biggest things that consumes my mind. The other thing that consumes me is I also tend to worry about finances. I'm starting to realize that its a dumb thing to worry about for 2 reasons. 1. God is in control no matter what. 2. I'm learning that we have more than enough to live by. I tend to worry because our savings account isn't getting filled up fast enough. I want to have security in case something happens or have enough saved for a house. I always want everything right away, but then I need to stop and realize I'm doing what I need to do and eventually I will get there. As long as I'm following Biblical principals for finances then I'm doing what I should do. I've even started envelopes to set aside money for different activities that Isaac and I would like to be part of with church ex. conferences and camp. (If you ask me, I think I handle our savings very well) Then each month I tend to get overwhelmed when I see tons of bills come in and panic, thinking I will never be able to pay everything. But if I step back and look at reality, I have many bills, but they are small bills and we always have finances left over. I have been looking at my life and getting overwhelmed by things that aren't even there. I took time to evalute our finances and realized that I'm really not in bad shape at all. My bills are paid. I have a place to live. I have food on the table. I have money saved up. And we have extra left over for the little things we may want for enjoyment. If we want to do something that requires a good chunk of finances, then I need to save little by little for it. So with all of that laid out- where is my problem? Its in my perspective. When I sit down and look at where I am at, I realize that it is not bad AT ALL. I think I need to learn to sit down and think things out before I panic. This post has been written as I thought things out. This is what needs to be done in all areas of my life. I need to stop and think about whether my fears have any base in reality. And then if my fears do have a base in reality, I need to give them to the Lord and do what his word says:
"Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you"- 1 Peter 5:7
"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things." - Philippians 4:8
I'm learning that the things I fear often tend to not be reality. I'm afriad of things that have not happened, may not happen, and probably will never happen. Most of the time, I am afraid because I don't have correct facts about things and sometimes I do have correct facts, but I fail to trust God and understand that he is bigger than my circumstances. I've decided that I need to start learning to check my facts before I start to fear as much as I do. For example, I was recentlty told about a letter that the president of Iran wrote to President Bush saying that we all needed to convert to Islam or else they would force us to. I was also told not to read the letter online because I scare too easily and there was no reason to upset myself. So I didn't read it, but continued to live in fear over this. Today I decided to read the letter, just out of curiousity and you know what? It doesn't say that. No where in the letter does it say "Convert to Islam or we will make you" and as a matter of fact, I don't think it implies that unless I missed something. My point? I was afraid of something that I didn't have the facts about and wasn't even true. I need to start getting facts before I run my mind. Usually my mind takes me to places I don't need to go. The world is scary enough these days so why am I making things worse for myself by worrying about things that arent reality. This has got to be one of the biggest things that consumes my mind. The other thing that consumes me is I also tend to worry about finances. I'm starting to realize that its a dumb thing to worry about for 2 reasons. 1. God is in control no matter what. 2. I'm learning that we have more than enough to live by. I tend to worry because our savings account isn't getting filled up fast enough. I want to have security in case something happens or have enough saved for a house. I always want everything right away, but then I need to stop and realize I'm doing what I need to do and eventually I will get there. As long as I'm following Biblical principals for finances then I'm doing what I should do. I've even started envelopes to set aside money for different activities that Isaac and I would like to be part of with church ex. conferences and camp. (If you ask me, I think I handle our savings very well) Then each month I tend to get overwhelmed when I see tons of bills come in and panic, thinking I will never be able to pay everything. But if I step back and look at reality, I have many bills, but they are small bills and we always have finances left over. I have been looking at my life and getting overwhelmed by things that aren't even there. I took time to evalute our finances and realized that I'm really not in bad shape at all. My bills are paid. I have a place to live. I have food on the table. I have money saved up. And we have extra left over for the little things we may want for enjoyment. If we want to do something that requires a good chunk of finances, then I need to save little by little for it. So with all of that laid out- where is my problem? Its in my perspective. When I sit down and look at where I am at, I realize that it is not bad AT ALL. I think I need to learn to sit down and think things out before I panic. This post has been written as I thought things out. This is what needs to be done in all areas of my life. I need to stop and think about whether my fears have any base in reality. And then if my fears do have a base in reality, I need to give them to the Lord and do what his word says:
"Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you"- 1 Peter 5:7
"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things." - Philippians 4:8
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Fear
It was pointed out to me a few days ago that I haven't blogged in a while. The reason for this? I simply haven't felt I've had anything good or of value to say. In short, if I couldn't say anything that sounded good, then I decided to say nothing. I mean I don't want people to actually know that I might be having a hard time. However, I've decided to write about whatever is on my mind on a certain day...simply because writing is therapeutic for me and I want to be a writer, therefore it may be good for me to write no matter the circumstance. So here it is..the mask is off and this is Samantha in the rarest form.
Did you ever absolutely hate something about yourself, yet you have no clue how to change it? That's how I feel right now. I am a person driven by fear. Everything I do in life stems from fear. I'm afraid of the future. I'm afraid of suffering. I'm afraid of destruction. I'm afraid of uncertainty. I'm afraid of the loss of family members. I am afraid of sickness. I'm afraid of rejection. I'm always afraid and with the way the election turned out I am more afraid than ever. The world we live in is progressively getting worse and at a rapid rate and it is terrifying to me. I don't know how to change it. I hate living in fear. I wish I could live in hope. I wish I could trust God in all situations, but it is difficult to trust God in difficult situations. No matter how much I pray or read my Bible, I am still afraid. I don't know how to fix it and I wish I could, but I can't seem to figure this thing out. This is a battle I've faced my entire life and I feel like no matter what I do or how much I try to move forward, I still remain in the exact same place I started. I know what the Bible says about trusting God. In my head I know that God can be trusted, but as I see this world getting worse and worse, I fear more and more. My heart sinks at the uncertainty of things. Yes, I know that I should be happy that things are getting worse. I mean that means we're closer to Jesus coming back right?. Yet I'm not happy. I'm terrified. This stuff is just plain scary and no matter what I do, I can't seem to stop being afraid. Seriously, I'm hoping some one has walked through this and can help me figure it out because I just can't seem to get this right. How do you have hope when everything within you is screaming to panic? I'm really not trying to complain or even feel sorry for myself. I fully understand that there are millions of people suffering way more than I am. I'm just trying to figure out how to overcome this fear so that I can live in freedom.
Did you ever absolutely hate something about yourself, yet you have no clue how to change it? That's how I feel right now. I am a person driven by fear. Everything I do in life stems from fear. I'm afraid of the future. I'm afraid of suffering. I'm afraid of destruction. I'm afraid of uncertainty. I'm afraid of the loss of family members. I am afraid of sickness. I'm afraid of rejection. I'm always afraid and with the way the election turned out I am more afraid than ever. The world we live in is progressively getting worse and at a rapid rate and it is terrifying to me. I don't know how to change it. I hate living in fear. I wish I could live in hope. I wish I could trust God in all situations, but it is difficult to trust God in difficult situations. No matter how much I pray or read my Bible, I am still afraid. I don't know how to fix it and I wish I could, but I can't seem to figure this thing out. This is a battle I've faced my entire life and I feel like no matter what I do or how much I try to move forward, I still remain in the exact same place I started. I know what the Bible says about trusting God. In my head I know that God can be trusted, but as I see this world getting worse and worse, I fear more and more. My heart sinks at the uncertainty of things. Yes, I know that I should be happy that things are getting worse. I mean that means we're closer to Jesus coming back right?. Yet I'm not happy. I'm terrified. This stuff is just plain scary and no matter what I do, I can't seem to stop being afraid. Seriously, I'm hoping some one has walked through this and can help me figure it out because I just can't seem to get this right. How do you have hope when everything within you is screaming to panic? I'm really not trying to complain or even feel sorry for myself. I fully understand that there are millions of people suffering way more than I am. I'm just trying to figure out how to overcome this fear so that I can live in freedom.
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