She begins to crawl, He waits for her.
She starts walking, He walks beside her.
She falls and gets scraped, he picks her up.
She runs into the thorn bush, He picks them out of her and applies salve.
She crashes into someone else, He picks them both up and make things right. 
She wounds herself with her thoughts, He cleans her mind and teaches her what is good and right and pure. 
She resents the constant wounds, He shows her his back.
She sits down exhausted and can't go one more step, He sets beside her till she's rested enough to travel on.
Someone laid an elephant across her back and asks her to carry it. He said NO, you are not equipped for that. He takes the Elephant and lays him across His shoulders.
She whines, he rebuffs her and reminds her whining is for babies and she's far beyond that. She should act like it.
She finds some flowers on the path, they're beautiful. He said "You're Welcome."
There is nourishment at the end of the trial, She is thirsty. He abundantly supplies.
She asks him "Why such a difficult trail?" He responds, "Would you need me otherwise?"
She sits back and enjoys the truth of his words.
She is Blessed.

What is there to "do" about you?

 The idea of where you are and if you're safe makes me anxious at times. It makes me pray, actually. There isn't anything I can actually do in the physical realm to change any of this. Oh, wait, praying is an actual physical activity. It acknowledges with my heart and mind who it is who can teach me trust and give me peace. 

 It might not change you but it changes me. It Stops the anxiety, worry and stress. It's not up to me to decide your life. It's all between you and God.So it's right and good and reasonable that I would ask God to watch out for you. To keep you safe from things, to make sure you're eating and taking care of yourself and that you remember how very much we love and He loves you.

 To keep it all together all day and cry at night over things that aren't my business is wearing me out.

 To surrender my insecurity and anxiety to God alone brings peace to my heart. A physical result of a physical connection to the Eternal God.  The next time you think there's nothing you can do, there is. 

There's an old song called Leave it There. It reminds me of I Peter 5:7. I will say the verse over and over again and then I just start singing in my head. It's a hard song to sing. Not because of the scale but because singing it in all sincerity is hard.

 I think I actually lay the idols of my heart down a few times an hour. I'm not proud of that but that's where I'm at. Remembering scripture and choosing to focus my brain on what I can do that's good retrains the anxiety into productive non worry.

 To actually "Leave it There" for me means staying busy and engaged in worthwhile things that might not mean anything to anyone else but they keep my hands and mind busy. 

I now completely understand why my husband is So busy with projects. 

He, more than me was designed to be busy at tasks. It helps him not dwell on things he can't fix and trust me, that guy would fix it if he could. He is a great example to me of what we should be doing. 

Trying to "solve it" never works. SO ~ I will Praise you in this Storm and I will trust you with my hands and heart so that I do not interfere or get in the way of what you're doing in another heart. 

What if your silence saved someone? Have you ever thought that keeping your opinions to yourself or between you and God alone might accomplish two things? It might help you {me} see that maybe I, we, you can't possible see all that needs to be seen to solve a certain issue and it might help him, them, her, it become what God intended with our finger prints contaminating it. Just what I've been thinking about lately.

I have been SO wrong in the past about my opinions and not always kept said opinions to myself. I started asking God to change my heart about a certain person in my life and He did.

Shocked and arrogant to suppose............ because doesn't God always say "yes" to what is good and right? And isn't it good and right to choose to see another through the same lenses He uses? Well, I did and I kept on praying and asking, occasionally jumping the gun and applying my hopes to a single ray of light.

I know it's tough to think about me "jumping the gun" but hey, we'll get to that another day. ;-}

Recently God has been showing this heart how very narrow it's vision is and how very wrong I can be about things, people, situations and yes, even what God wants from me.

There's a new name written down in Glory and it's not mine. I wish I could claim that it was due in part to me but in all actuality it was all due to God. NOTHING man does can stop God's plans However we sure can muddy the water and delay progress with our resistance, insistence on having it "our way" etc...... God will do what He has planned to do regardless of what I do or don't do. What does this mean?

Well, we think that some verses in scripture are only meant for certain things and lately God has been showing me that His Works are not dependent on mine and my Works do little to hasten His progress except that in my Awe of Him grows every time I see HIS hand and know it was not guided by me but He allowed me to see what He's doing and shows me that my righteous works are not worth as much to him as my willing heart.

Willing to listen, to keep my mouth shut, to keep my head bowed and my heart open to what HE wants, not what I want. Believe me when I say I think what I want lines right up with His desires most of the time. That's how messed up my thinking can be. Just because it's good and right doesn't make it good and right and in HIS time.

IT doesn't make my desires necessarily wrong unless I happen to think my timing and opinion is better than God's. I am not God and pretending should be left to children. We should be fully following His shadow and not seeking to make a shadow for Him. How arrogant is that? well, this heart is beginning to realize that it's pretty arrogant. God is God and Julie is not. That's it, that's all I gotta say. Yes, I should be blogging but I'm not. Happy Monday. ;-}

Who Stole my Church is about the changes rolling through the Church at large like a fire through a dry forest. Are these changes good or self based? Are we changing to satisfy appetites or to serve truth? Are we in for the comfort or is it about Worship?
Why are we/do we attend Church in the first place? Did the early Church fathers think these things? Did they worry about whether their "gatherers" were satiated, comforted, enteretained? Or was it more about a deep deep Love for who they knew gave His all to save their All?
 Who left His rights, wrapped himself up in flesh, that He created?  Walked upon the dirt he designed? Slept under the stars he flug into order? Was publicly Baptised into the water He spoke into being. That life giving water whose very molecules were precisely designed to function again and again as sustainers of life. This is My God. This is what I believe.
This is what science can't explain or prove away. This is what confuses the most supposedly intelligent minds in all the world. This God who knew cell for cell what we would look like, how we would each respond to him and what would it take to break our wills and make us bendable toward truth.
Is "Church" about my comfort, entertainment and ease? Or is it more about how we should gather to reflect and remember what we have, how blessed we are and what exactly "mere dust" sounds like when our praise meets rhythm and becomes music.?
God is not amused by our intent toward pretense, orchestration and show. He is satisfied with genuine responses of the heart with gratitude and love for the only hope we have. Do not be deceived, God will not be mocked. Our pretense does not surprise him but neither does it satisfy his desire for an honest relationship  with His creation.
Stop pretending, people. Is Church for Worship or for show, entertainment and networking? Maybe you should think about that before you choose a seat. Or find a cheap country club but don't insult the Holy God of the Universe with your lame attempts to offer only what's easy and comfortable so that you can say you've been to Church.

It's very hard to really be honest in many arena's on social media. Not sure how this will work but it is what it is and I'm not promising there won't be frank conversation but it's me and it's real and it's honestly challenging at times to walk forward with a happy face on. Things are plain flat hard at times and yet, God. God sees, God knows and He's there. Let Him be. The relationship is nothing if there's no access and I can't expect answers from an impersonal God. He wants to be part of this why else would he have gone to all that trouble? Seriously. It's worth it. I am Obviously New again to the whole blogging thing. Haven't "blogged" in years. The topics will change but they'll always be the same too. My life walking through the hard bits of life as a middle aged woman who wants to walk worthy more than breathe. How does that look? Messy, me thinks. Never easy or smooth and always interesting.