To Walk Or Not To Walk!

What a beautiful day today on this warm autumn summer-like day! I must get out and walk for these days are quickly passing me by, that in the next month or so, it will be snowing. Don't want to be lazy again. That is what I have been being since I wrote that last blog, but I will spare you and not take a picture of myself this time! Tis' time to enjoy what Father has given me, a nice warm day to remind me of his warm and amazing love. Trying to keep my head high and remember Him, for it is a process sometimes!

candycoatedwaterdrops

What is this
Mass confusion
This crazy way we're living
This emptiness we're passing out
Like candycoatedwaterdrops
I'm spilling out my thoughts
You're spilling out your guts

And I can't help but stop and think that

If the world stopped spinning
If the end was beginning
Would you even notice if I wasn't there?
If the world stopped spinning around

"all that's worth dying for is already dead"
An empty religion you've learned to accept
When nothing means everything, your
Daily routine
You go through the motions like a
Helpless machine

You're spinning 'round
You're spinning 'round
But I can't help wondering
You're spinning 'round
You're spinning 'round
But I can't help wondering

When the answers to everything are right
In your hands
You lose your conviction, but you can't
Help standing
On the one thing that held you for so
Many years

You ask for forgiveness and hold back the
Tears

Finding Who I Am Outside Of What I Do

Why do I feel like I have to give an explanation to everyone about how I live my life and what exactly I do? I feel like this pressure to do so is coming from me and not anyone else. Letting the skeleton out of the closet is hard, I guess I feel like it keeps me grounded and real about how I present myself to others, even though no one is demanding or even wanting an explanation of what I do.

1 Corinthians 6:12

Everything is permissible for me but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me but I will not be mastered by anything.


I love this scripture because it points to several important facts; whatever I do does not make me, it is not a part of who I am. Just like a job or a career. I will not take my job with me when I die, nor will I take what I do here on earth with me either. Also, it will not overtake or master me. Now, I have done some pretty dumb things in my life as I am sure pretty much everyone has, but I don’t think that what we do will surpass who we are or become who we are. I remember when I was a nanny, Emma and I would drive past a prison on our way to this children's art studio, and almost every time we would pass the prison she would say, ‘bad people live there’. I would tell her that I believe that the person isn’t bad but their choices that they have made were bad and now they have to pay the consequences and go to ‘time out’ for a long time sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that the person themselves are exactly bad, but what they choose to do. Why do people focus on what other people do instead of on their hearts and other good upright things they do? Why does it seem like evil always has a spotlight on it and we never get to see the good people do? It’s like the news stations. The news media always puts a spotlight on the bad in the world, such as, the crisis of the economy, the hurricanes, destruction, death, and evil people do. The old saying goes, ‘good news isn’t news’. That’s how most of us were trained to observe the human race; we put people into categories and put labels on them based on what they ‘do’ even when we don’t know them.

Lazy Dayz

Today I feel lazy! I don't feel like doing laundry even though it is piling up to the ceiling. I need to clean our house because we may be having Jonathan's sister over this weekend, but, I have no motivation to clean or tidy up. I slept in really late this morning and I try not to feel guilty about it. I must needed sleep, but I didn't even have any motivtaion to even get out of bed. I guess I have been busy working the last two days, and always seem to stay up way too late. I seem to be out of it today, and don't even feel like walking like I normally do. I haven't walked once this week. What is wrong with me?! It's getting colder out, but not that cold, I guess I have really no motivation to do anything...

Well, I guess I need to get off the computer, turn off the tv and purhaps find some motivation and go do laundry. Ugh

Loving Him Fearlessly

When I was a child, I lost my father at the age of 10. I still remember the moment I was told he left to be with the Lord. It was 4am in morning; it was dark, it was cold and I was scared. My mother was at the hospital when he died as my brothers and I were currently staying with our Pastor’s family while he was in the hospital for about 3 to 4 months straight. The moment that news broke that my father died. It didn’t really occur to me what actually happened until I found my brothers in the big house we were staying in to confirm what happened to our dad. I then remember distinctively that I became very afraid. Scared of the dark at ten years of age is typically normal I guess, but not just that, it was seemingly much colder and darker that day. I was lost, afraid, and felt alone.

Death has always been a scary word to me, but not just the word alone but its meaning. It was something that I always portrayed as something of the unknown that was dark, gloomy, and its foundation to me was known as fear. Until recent, I have felt like those memories, those feelings have followed me around like a ghost. I was raised as a Christian, but that really didn’t help me. I knew God was light, and He was good, but I still felt left alone with those memories and the dark to keep me company.

Last week I felt a large cloud of darkness and memories of death lift from my spirit. I went for a walk the other day, and never felt so spiritually connected to God before. It was something unknown to me, but something that I have dreamed of. I have always seen my relationship with God in a physical way, always trying to find that connection in the flesh to the Spirit of God. It has always been something so unnatural to me. Even though I knew I had a relationship with Father, there always seemed to be that cloud always hovering over me and stealing my joy, stealing my confidence in knowing that I was Father’s and He was mine. I have always known that, but I was still afraid. Scared of losing that and finding myself in the dark, alone, with only death by my side. What loss, what discomforting thoughts that would try to capture my attention away from Father, and his love and His amazing grace that IS covered and drench in LIFE. I came out of fearing God, to loving Him fearlessly, and an understanding that the end result of my life on this earth will be finding myself in Father’s physical presence for Eternity and knowing that in that moment and for the rest of Eternity, death will no longer have its grip on me and darkness and fear will no longer exist. Wow, such a mind-blowing thought that has freed my heart from memories and thoughts of loneliness, abandonment, and death. In recent days, Father has taken the place of my fears and the memories that were tied to it. Father has filled in that gap. Not that He didn’t before, but once I felt this spiritual breakthrough last week, I know in my heart of hearts that death, darkness, and fear no longer has a grip on my life as it once did for many years. I know while I still physically exist on this planet, that the evil one will try again, to take that amazing peace I have in my heart away and fill it again with destruction and lies as he has in the past, but I now have this abundant confidence and strength that Father constantly has been giving me in recent days. I am no longer afraid in Jesus Name!

Season of Change

As I walk down the quiet sidewalk, I notice the streets are embraced with color. As the sidewalks are starting to get covered in leaves and the colors of the trees fluctuate between golden-yellow colors to a red color. Mostly a yellow-golden color as autumn has not yet reached its peak and has yet more colors to experience. The breeze has a nip to it, nothing like the crisp of the autumn breeze with a warm drift to keep one cool in the still yet strong rays of the sun. I ponder on thoughts of change once I start to notice the change of season. Autumn shows its beauty and grace in many ways. It allows one to grow accustom to colder temperatures, but yet gives days that are summer like. Those days can lift one’s spirit high from the dimness of what cold can bring, but allows a cool down from a hot and gleaming summer that is only drenched in sunlight and heat. The season of autumn always takes me back in time, growing up and playing in the leaves as a child, or picking colored leaves and making collages out of them. Autumn was a time in my life when things were quiet and still. No big events took place or sudden loss or rare incident. Pleasant, were the days of fall when life had no big worries or doubts, but a wonderful sense of enjoyment and satisfaction of the season.

The Hell Fear Factor VS. Peace & Satisfying Life With Father

I have been pondering a lot lately on what it’s going to be like to live with Father in the spirit realm. When there is no longer me on this earth, when it is only my spirit with my Father and how extremely different that’s going to be. I think I will still be me, but the transformation that will occur once my flesh is no longer and only my spirit body exists. It is somewhat freaky to think about, but I am no longer afraid of death. I am no longer afraid of God. I now feel completely at peace about leaving my flesh suit behind and find that my spirit will meet Father. I almost think that living as a spirit being will be more natural and finding my identity in God will be more visible or easier to live in. I was raised with the thought of dying was a fearful thing and God was a figure that would scare the hell out of you if you didn’t believe in Him. People would use hell as a weapon for us to conform and come to Jesus on bended knee. That strategy does NOT work, because through that, God is only looked at as an angry mean God who will wipe people off the planet if they don’t go to Him and repent. The thing that I am more scared of than that is the ultimate thought of not having relationship with Him. It’s not really hell that scares me, but the total separation of not being close to my Father that scares the daylights out of me. I have full confidence that I belong to God and I know that I am in His arms and nothing can or will separate me from Him at this point, but furthermore, the fact that others out there don’t realize how much their Maker desire’s them and wants to be close to them is literally spiritually threatening. Recently I have watched some You Tube video’s on people being raised from the dead and others who have had dreams of going to hell and how relevant it was not being able to have any relationship or dialogue what so ever with Father, but not only that, but the worst fears one has ever had will happen there in hell. That’s hard to think about, but the way this guy explained it, it became so real to me that I haven’t forgotten that. Not that I am fearful of hell in itself, but not being able to be with my Father is now the worst thought I think I have ever had. Having security in Father’s love is I think the key to living a satisfied and amazing life with Father on this earth. If one is always stepping on egg shells through life because they think God is an angry and condemning God, then what a life, living in fear of God does not sound pleasant or satisfying to me. It sounds awful and I almost find that those who don’t even know God are better off. Not that they are right either, but they definitely don’t have as much as a fear factor attached to life compared to those who can’t live in complete peace and harmony with Father.

Give up on fear; it won’t lead you anywhere, but only farther away from Father and away from a satisfying life with Him here on earth.

Change

What can I say, I guess I was ready for an all around change in my life. Hair, Blog, and my Studio Apartment. I have been organizing my house and getting ready for the cold to start moving in and taking over outside. I organized our little storage space in our little place, and took all the camping gear to our other storage unit and brought back our winter coats and clothes. Then I thought I was getting tired of the way things looked on my blog so, I had to give it a change. Haven't taken the time to just blog in a while! I miss it. I have been, I guess, taking time off unintentionally. I usually will blog when I am inspired to write, but haven't had the motivation or inspiration to write in a while. Anyway, hope you all like the change, I was ready for something different! It reminds me when I was a kid. I would re-arrange my bedroom at least every other month until I got sick of the arrangement, I would just turn things around and make it look and feel different. That is what I do with my blog I guess! Re-arrange and change things around every once in a while for a fresh clean look and perspective.

Hope you enjoy!

In Freedom, Nicole!

Going Short

So, I cut my long hair off for the first time since I was 12. It was scary, nerve wracking, exciting, freaky all at the same time. But for the most part I was more nervous about Jonathan's reaction because he was in love with my long hair, but come to find out he loved it... PRAISE GOD! I prayed hard that he would like it!!!! So, going short was rather easy for me considering how long its been since I have tried short...












Like it?

Freedom Found In Grace

What if grace didn’t exist through the Resurrection? What if we were only made just to be thrown in hell because we are sinners? A lot of what if questions start to creep up into my mingled mind to take precedence over truth and reality. Just recently in our dialogue chat on Friday evening, Manuela, Matt and I were discussing what life would be like without grace. We basically concluded that we all would be in hell. Well, then, I started thinking more in-depth about what this conclusion was, horrible, depressing, and pointless to me; until I started putting the puzzle pieces together. It actually would make sense (if) the grace of God was nonexistent and the sacrifice He made on the cross never happened. However, Through the Resurrection, grace and love abounds. I believe that Father created us to be his companions on the earth and to live and love Him as He would love us. Beautiful picture right? Well, then here comes satin the deceiver and father of lies. Who would then destroy what was good and deceives Eve to disobey God and then sin is tossed and thrown on the rest of us. We are now sinners, all of us. We could no longer be close to God as was planned. Or was it planned? This is a sentence I used in our dialogue. “Why did Father make Adam and Eve KNOWING that they were going to hell in the first place? The bible says Father is all knowing, so it wouldn't make sense to make 'people' in the first place IF the whole purpose was to throw all of them in hell”. Well then the more I thought about it, if He is all knowing, then He knew about the Resurrection and how grace would set us free. He knew that was the only way to free us from sin. Our sins have been washed away and now that we are free, Father can now be in relationship with us just like in the beginning, whoever accepts Him and desires him as He desires all of us. I get it, now that Father went to the cross to deliver us from an eternity away from Him; it is now our responsibility to come to Jesus now that we have a free will. He wanted us to want Him; He isn’t demanding us all to love Him, but to choose on our own to want Him and to love Him. That is why we have a free will. If that wasn’t the reason why, then He might as well have made robots who automatically loved Him and who bow down to Him. But I think Father is more concerned about being in relationship with us than making us do anything. We were made to be in relationship with Him, and now that we have that choice, He can really know who want to be with Him. One verse in scripture has captured my heart since the moment I started to realize how important and significant Grace is in my life, but most importantly, being in relationship with Father; for that is why grace exists in the first place.

Galatians 5:1 It is for Freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Praise Him for Grace!

Guilt Free

Lately I have been getting down on myself for not feeling like I am giving of my time to people and or doing things on a larger scale, such as reaching out to the poor, or giving my time to help others in any way. I get the feeling like I am not ‘doing’ enough to contribute to people’s lives. Sometimes I wonder why I think it’s my responsibility in the first place, but I have always been a person who thought that I need to be that person to fill in the gaps with giving of my time and offering my service without expecting anything back! I am really been asking Father to help me distinguish between his voice and the enemies voice that just wants to give me a guilt trip so that I would do things out of guilt and self obligation. Yesterday I was listening to a God Journey podcast that was talking about someone who was so passive that they didn’t do anything even for their relationship with Father, compared to someone who does too much that maybe Father isn’t even in it! I want to be in the middle of these; I don’t want to be too passive and not contribute and give, but I also don’t want to just give and contribute out of obligation and overdo it where I have nothing left to give to Father because I already have given all of my energy to others. Having a healthy balance between the two is what I desire. I don’t want to feel like I have to do things in order to find more favor with God. I know that line is so far-fetched and frankly upsetting because I know by Father’s grace that I don’t have to do anything to win his favor because by his grace I already have it! Anyway, I feel relieved that now I can feel freedom to pursue and contribute my time without any anxiety to make something happen, but to just be and give freely.

Wanna Chat?

Hey Guys,

Manuela and I were thinking about chatting again this coming week or weekend?! I was thinking either Friday evening or Sunday evening...

Times could be 5pm Pacific, 6pm Mountain, 7pm Central, 8pm Eastern! Please let me know what day or even times(Friday OR Sunday) you would prefer and we could take a vote on it! I am open either night! It doesn't matter to me! Looking forward to some more great conversations!

In Freedom, Nicole!