Today I let myself have some guilty pleasures, a little bit of Destiny’s Child, and Eminem rocked my early afternoon. I also thought to myself, I ought to start a romantic thought for the day blog, just because I have a new romantic thought most every day and for some reason I thought it would be fun to share them. So we’ll see how often I actually post them but I thought I’ll make a running romantic thought list for those who might not be so romantically inclined as myself :) hehe
Other than that I have had the honor of traveling to Chicago with Blake and April Healy, John Pitzer, Rebekah Sanderson and Deborah VanHaelst. While we were there I felt like I totally stepped into being myself and I actually saw what was inside of me come out while we were ministering. I had the opportunity to walk some beautiful people through some inner healing and deliverance and watch the Lord love them into freedom they had never known. I watched as they the body of Christ honored and blessed one another and was blown away by the generosity of this beautiful city and its people. Our last day there I actually got to speak in front of a congregation and I preached for a few minutes which is such a testimony of the Grace of God in my life. It was only a few years ago that I broke down before giving a ten minute group presentation on the love of God in front of a class of my peers, and this past month I stood confidently in front of an entire church and talked about the lover of my life and His passionate pursuit of my heart and it felt amazing. I watched the love that He has been pouring into me pour out of me and it filled me with delight at how far His love has freed me from the bondage of fear.
Other fantastic things are that I have graduated from the second year program of Bethel Atlanta School of Supernatural Ministry and from the Bethel Atlanta School of Supernatural Arts, both of which brought me to see the beauty inside of me, and helped me to let it out.
These past two months I have been simply baffled at the changes I see in myself, things I never would have had the audacity to dream about are desires that I know I will see come to fruition in my life. I never would have thought that God would want to take me to the nations and I never wanted to use missions as a way to see the world but now I can not think of a more satisfying life than to travel the world loving people with Jesus, to see His beautiful bride shinning elegantly before Her King. My desire to be seen has been put in its rightful place, knowing that the God of creation sees and loves me all the time. I know that He accepts and loves me for who I am not for what I can or cannot do and His love will shatter every chain of bondage and break every attack of the enemy off of me. I know that I will walk victoriously through life with Him by my side and we will see the bride stand up and know her worth and beauty.
I have so many thoughts running through my mind, what will I do now that school is out, for the summer for the next year, for the rest of my life?! There are so many things to do I am left trying to discover just which one is right for the season I am in now! And thus the many hours I spend lost in thought, searching my heart and discovering what my passion really is and how I am going to walk in it.
I have discovered that the desires and interests I had as a child have never gone away, inside of me I still want to be a singer, a musician, a dancer, a painter, a mom, and a world traveler, I want to teach people about the love of God, and share in the process of them experiencing freedom beyond what they ever hoped or dreamed. I want to dream and read and play the piano and drums, I want to sit by the campfire and sing melodies to the rhythm of guitars playing in the night. I want to write books and take photographs of beautiful things people forget to notice, the color of trees before it rains, the drop of rain that ripples the puddle, the blossom of a long since forgotten garden, the crawl of a caterpillar as it makes its journey across the wood looking for it’s next meal before its great transition toward flight. I want to write children’s stories that open their eyes to wonder at the great vastness of the glory of God and that make the adults dream again like a small child unhindered by the world’s worries. I want to walk down the streets of the inner city shining the love of God brilliantly until the neighborhoods are filled with hope and life and love. I want to see the homeless acknowledged by the people passing them on the street, and not just acknowledged but their presence to be valued as beautiful people who deserve to be loved just the same as everyone else.
I want the Kingdom of God to reign in this world as it does in Heaven and I want to see the injustice of the enemy brought to its knees before the Almighty God, maker of Heaven and Earth, the one filled with Love and justice and compassion and mercy and grace and power and glory. The one who knew the great devastation mankind would create and chose to love us before we were ever created. The one who decided we were worth the pain and suffering it would cause Him because love must be poured out of Him and love endures all things and hopes all things and never keeps a record of wrong. I want to see LOVE demonstrated in my life and in the lives of everyone who claims to know and walk with my Lord, my love, my Jesus. I want to see us, as His bride, grasp what it means to be transformed by His love and to see us love like He does. I want to see the bride rise up and be the victorious joyful church known by her love and actions towards those who need love the most.
I wish that every breath we take would be breathing in the love of God and breathing out the love of God, and I know that we live in a world full of sin, but if we could make that our goal, our desire, to be the breath of love, the breath of life to the world then what might we see in our lifetime? What changes would come if everyone breathed in perfect love that casts out fear and breathed out perfect love that conquers all? Breathed in peace that surpasses all understanding and breathed out compassion for the lost, abused, and broken? Breathed in grace and breathed out joy that strengthened those around us? I dare say that the world would be a different place if we the church breathed in love and breathed out the judgment that all might be saved, and that none have gone too far to be swallowed up by the love of the Father who never fails, or forsakes us.
It is a beautiful thought and a challenge and one that needs to be thought of and hoped for and set as the marker, for we are all called to be the body of Christ, loving one another as He loved us, so we need to first discover the depth and width and height of His love so that we can know how to be loved and then out of being loved love others.
This is my thought for today, my day dream for the world…
