Unraveling Relationships and Letting Them Be

I am a person who loves people! I look forward to meeting new people and engage in great conversations whether they are deep and personal or just on normal casual stuff. There is always a risk involved in friendships/relationships that form when I release my true self and become vulnerable and completely exposed to others. I have tried not to focus on the risk that is involved when in the process of being real. I focus on the possibilities of discovering a new life. However, after much thought and experience recently, I think that perhaps it wasn’t the smartest way of doing relationships! It has hurt to be real and in some cases has even broken some close ties between a couple of friends and I. The focus however, changes when I am in these relationships not just for myself, but also for Father and his desire to come through in them. I have come to the conclusion that Father has used me in people’s lives and when that time is over and its time to move on, I am learning to be okay with that! Now, its not exactly the way I thought some relationships would turn out, and I used to think part of the risk was to overcome differences and grow in more of a deeper friendship, but that doesn’t always happen. If one of both parties isn’t interested in pursuing each other in the relationship, than it cannot be forced to grow. It is what it is and no matter how much I would want it to be more and grow, I can’t make it happen! I am getting to a better place of understanding that Father will put people in our lives for moments at a time, and when its time to let go and move on than its okay! I have struggled with this so many times losing people as friends and trying to figure out what I did wrong to lose these friends. All I can say is I gave these relationships a go and now it was up to the others that were involved. Whether they wanted to pursue me back or not, now that I know that they don’t want any contact with me anymore, its time to move on! I have started to realize that maybe my struggle partly was thinking that the more I invested in these relationships, the more these relationships became God to me, but God needs to be God to me and not people or relationships! I now like to think of relationships more as great learning lessons that Father will use to draw us closer to Him. Isn’t that what its about in the first place? I think so! I am in a better place now and am learning to allow the natural unraveling occur in these friendships and letting them be what they are.

The Shrewd Manager

Has anyone ever heard a preaching/teaching on the Shrewd Manager in Luke 16:1-15?


The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

1 Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.

2 So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.'

3"The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg—

4 I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'

5"So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'

6"Eight hundred gallons[a] of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.'

7"Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe? " A thousand bushels[b] of wheat,' he replied. "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'

8"The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.

9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

10"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?

12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?

13"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

14 The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.

15 He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.


Now, I wonder why it hasn’t been taught that much in “churches”. Maybe its because being shrewd like this manager that was about to lose his job is looked at as bad thing. I think that the manager was a complete genius, so when he didn’t have a job he would have favor with those clients.

What do you guys think??? More insight would be fantastic!

What Do Y'all Think?

Took some time to adjust some things on my blog! Thought I could do better than change the color and template! What do you guys think about the picture?!
Is it too big?! I am confused as to how to make the picture smaller!

Any suggestions would be grateful!!!

Love In Freedom, Nicole!

Paradigm Shift

I have thought about changing in ways in which I think other people want me to change. Sometimes its my physical appearance, other times its my attitude and choices. Anything really that I think people could benefit from if I decide to change things in my character. However, I have thought that just changing for others isn’t good, so I would think that maybe its God who wants me to change things, so I would do what I could to rearrange things in my life and change what needed to be changed. Then I would think, wow, what if the things that I think Father wants me to change is only coming from me, and only me? What if I care way too much about things that Father doesn’t really think about as bad things! I have decided to just throw in the towel and not try to give myself these standards that won’t really do anything for my character, but only add more ‘things’ to the list of things to accomplish in my life. Changing for other people to please them has always in the past left me empty and sad. I don’t know what it is, but sometimes I have worked really hard to do things differently and show people how much I care and am interested in being in their life, but for what I have experienced in the past it just builds up to nothing, and in most cases all that effort and energy becomes helpless when I find out that it does nothing for others. The standard I feel like I have held on my shoulders becomes so heavy that it drains me until I am left dry and can’t give anymore.

I am ready for a paradigm shift in my life! Make it a HUGE one! I am tired of feeling empty after trying so hard to give, when it doesn’t do anything in the first place. At least I don’t see the fruit of it. It becomes such a burden that I am getting to the point of realizing that there is really no point to live like this any longer. Pleasing people and loving people are two big different things. I want to stop trying to “please” and “give” my all to people, and just to simply find the peace of loving freely with no expectation of myself to be this pleaser person and give more than I can handle! I am not against giving, but when it becomes a standard that I must follow through on being this certain person for others becomes more of a burden than that it is worth, especially if it doesn’t do any good in the first place.

The Need To Fix

Have you ever felt the need to fix others? Particularly other people who are believers and are ‘supposed’ to do and think a certain way. I think that it isn’t my job to fix people, but just to love them as Father loves them. It’s so easy to see a problem in someone’s life and say, ‘well I can help God fix that problem’. Since when does God need help with His people? Did he have help making this world and us in the first place? I think not! This undying need to fix others is another form of control. It usually renders to the people who ‘need to be fixed’ a sense of shame and guilt that Father wants to get rid of in the first place. The problems I see that I think I could fix can usually make matters worse and cause the problem to become unfixed for the person I am trying to help! It usually backfires and becomes more of a problem than it was in the first place. I am not saying that helping others is a bad thing, but I think if my motives are initially to fix people to have a sense of control does the opposite of what I want to accomplish. Hence the words, “I want”. Where is Father in those words? Has he called me to help? Or did I go on my own accord, and think that it is my job as a Christian to ‘help’. I am not even sure if that job is even mine unless I hear strictly from Father to lend a hand where a human hand is needed. What if the best thing to do is to express to others that you have a concern and all you want to do for them is love them as Father loves them and leave it at that! But can’t I do more than that? Sure I can, but is it really honestly going to do any good? In a lot of cases it won’t. The problem will just become more of a mess than it was initially and I may be even hindering the Spirit from doing his job! It is so easy to get in the way of Father when I have this need to control and fix people. I can hear Him gently saying to me, ‘time to move over Nicole, and let me do what I do best.’ If only it was that easy to just let Father do His thing! Life would be a lot less stressful that’s for sure! :)

End of a Chapter – Beginning of a New

A couple of months ago, my husband got a job in another town in Colorado which means we will be relocating to the southwest part of Colorado and consequently I had to end my two year job and passion of being Emma (4), Maddy (6) and Josh’s (9) Nanny. I was their nanny since February of 06’ and had grown to love these children and the family as my own. When I got this job, Father opened the door to the best experience in my field that I could have ever imagined. The parents, Trina and Dennis work full time and needed a full-time nanny to fill in at home and care for the children, which was right up my ally. My normal routine would to start my day feeding the children breakfast, doing the girls hair and getting them to their preschool classes and Josh would take the bus to school. When the girls didn’t have school we would find all kind of things to do and would always be on the go, we had really great times together. Until last fall when Maddy started Kindergarten full time I only had Emma everyday throughout the week, which was a hard transition for us both because we were used to having Maddy around to play with and care for! Emma and I finally got used to life being just the two of us and developed a most sincere and incredible relationship! She was my sweet little Emma, we would do everything together, play, go out run errands and all kind of things. She even helped me with my duties of the household chores. We had so much fun together. I think through this job I learned more about parenting than I could have ever imagined. I was the parent when the ‘parents’ weren’t around. People would always assume I was Emma’s mother. I didn’t mind, but would appropriately let people know I was just the nanny. The word nanny I grew accustomed to, it has a good sound to it and I pretty much took ownership of the position. I would read books about Nannying and child rearing to enhance my skills and develop new ones. I would read parenting books and discipline books to understand what worked and what didn’t! It’s pretty funny looking back and remembering how much I was into my career! I could go on and on about all the stories I kept in my memory because they were too precious to forget. However, you probably get my drift, my job was amazing and Father used it to show me his delight and wonder in how awesome and amazing children are! Now, of course not everyday was peaches and cream. We definitely had some hard and challenging days, but I learned how to incorporate control when dealing with other people’s children. It was a good learning experience and things I learned I hope to still have when I have my own children…




Friday, May 2nd 2008 came and gone, the day where I had to say my goodbyes. I knew the moment I got close to these children, breaking the tie would become so much harder than I could have ever anticipated. I knew it would be hard and I understood that I wouldn’t be their nanny forever. But when that time came for me to say goodbye, the last two years of my life came crashing down fast and hard. I was beginning to see how strong my connection and feelings were for these children I grew to love, adore and respect. I probably cried and ran on emotion mode for probably over a week, however, the strength of it hit me really hard about the last couple of days. I got through it; I said goodbye, and now its time to move onto the next Chapter of my life.

The Move To Durango! My husband is already down there working as I finished up work in Denver, and now my job is done, we are waiting to rent our condo out and then find a place in Durango and make the monstrous move across the Colorado Rocky Terrain! Things are so uncertain right now; one thing certain is that my husband got a job and that is something to be grateful for. While my hubby and I are apart for the next couple of weeks or even a month, I decided to take some down time and come visit my folks and fam in New Mexico where I will be hanging out. I hope to make some trips to see Jonathan, but I won’t officially be there until we actually move. Hard times call for desperate measures! While it isn’t all-bad Father is definitely providing and we are pleased about being in His will!

So, that is what is new, and what has happened! I hope you enjoyed reading this LOONNGG post! Thanks for sticking it out!

Falling Behind!

Hey All, Bino, Aida, Matt, Alvin, Joel, Lydia, Kent, Bob, Laura! And who ever else happens to pop in... I just wanted to let ya know that I haven't commented and haven't been keeping up on everyone's blog posts, not because I don't want to, but because I haven't had the time to focus and spend time reading them all as much as I want! A new chapter in my life is starting and now I will have a lot more time to center in on you! I am still around, and want to continue reading and sharing life with you, and now I will have the time! I will explain in the near future of the new things that have been happening and keeping me busy!

In the meantime, you all are close to my heart and I think of you often... Keep bloggin'...

I love you ALL so much!

Love, Nicole!