A Wake Up Call

The worst thing we can do is push God out of a relationship. Any relationship apply's not just with the person you love. God is supposed to be the center of it all. He's supposed to be the center of our entire life and yet often times we push him out more than we pull him in. Why?

Doing things the 'normal' way just feels easier. We start to go about life thinking only of ourselves and we mimic what we see everyone else doing. We treat ourselves and our relationships like the interactions we see on our favorite t.v. shows and we take the path of least resistance. The problem is that it works. . . for awhile.

Recently I have just lost touch with God. I've put my dreams and passions aside and settled for a life of the mundane. I decided to focus on other things and told God to 'wait' until I was done doing earthly things like college, part time job, relationships etc. It just seemed easier to do what everyone else does around me and it seemed o.k.. Than I almost lost the most important thing in my life.

You see, God gave me something that some people spend years dreaming about. It was a perfectly orchestrated blessing that he entrusted me with and told me to carry out in a way that would please Him. He basically said, "If I give you this now will you water it with prayer, put in under the light of my Son and respect it with a higher standard than what the world would?" I said yes and so my blessing began to grow. And than it seemed better to water it with my own words, place it in the coolness of night and lower its standards because I was afraid of failure and rejection. Instead for taking care of this precious gift, I almost destroyed it.

I had a wake up call. A slap in the face was exactly what I needed. A harsh reality kicked in. God was telling me that if He had entrusted me to carry out something this big, that I couldn't not continue to do so without him or it would crumble apart. What was I thinking? We weren't meant to handle things this big on our own. God wants to be the center of it all, which is why He places us in situations we can't possibly handle without His help.

I got back that part of me I almost lost and I have never felt more assured in my life. God moved his blessing back over me and I feel restored to His will. And I thank Him for giving me something stronger than me to show me that I needed to change.

Don't ever take God out of the equation. You may have the blessing but if you don't take care of it you can lose it. It's a choice. And the best part is that if God is in the center you will never have to worry about whether it's right, wrong, if you are missing out or living it out. You'll just continue on His path and all questions will be answered.

The Perfect Daydream

Suppose I told you that you can have one situation go exactly according to plan, you just have to think about it, perfect it, and it'll happen. Most people, including myself, would spend countless hours fantasizing about the perfect scenario playing out before them and changing their lives forever. They would imagine meeting their true love in an elevator, landing the perfect job interview, meeting their favorite celebrity or moving into the perfect home. What most people won't think about will be refusing my offer. Everyone wants to live out their dreams but do we really know what our dreams are?

I've been mulling over this in my brain for a couple of weeks now and I've come down to a conclusion. I don't know what my dreams are. I have ideas about things I would love to do and I've fantasized about walking down the isle, working in orphanages, and sitting on the beach in Greece. I daydream at work, in school or just sitting in my room about life and it's adventures but I don't know me like He knows me.

I think about all of the things I had hoped for and thought out up to this point. I had a picture perfect idea of what my life would be like by the time I was 22. It sounds silly but I planned on being graduated early with my Art Education degree, engaged to a guy who looks nice in a pea coat, and planning to move into a little house. Those of you who know me know that this is not my life and those of you who really know me know that this is not what I want. God took me along a different path and I'm so thankful that He didn't agree to my petty previous dreams. He had something better for me, I just didn't know it until He handed it over.

Turns out I'll be graduating late with a Special Education degree but I'm so thankful for the time I've been given and my new passion. I'm not engaged to a man in a pea coat (but I still like pea coats) and I can't imagine being engaged right now. I still live with my parents, praise God. I love being there and I'm not in a hurry to move out anytime soon. God knew, I didn't.

I'll sometimes think about certain situations and how I will handle them when they arrive. What I will say and what I will do? Will I be clever and rise to the occasion or will I simply stand there like a deer in the headlights? I know that it's easy to get carried away whenever we think we know how we want our lives to go but it's even easier whenever we realize that we don't know and we no longer want to know.

God's ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are above our ways and His thoughts are above our thoughts. He has the perfect blueprint for our lives. Sometimes we question His plan and we start to think it's a little crazy, but that's when we realize that He knew what would make us happy before we even had a clue.

All the sudden my minuscule ideas and fairytale notes look puny and unfulfilling next to God's grandiose script. I never want to plan again, but I will because it's a good place to deviate from. I just want to live my life following after Him, learning, creating and being a disciple of Christ. He's blessed me so much and I wouldn't change a thing in my life. It's been developing beyond any of my dreams or plans. I've experienced things with people that I never dreamed I would. And I can't imagine my life having been any different. I still daydream but I do it for fun and I know that I have dreams that will come true just never the way I expect them to.

Thank you Lord for knowing me better than I know myself. Thank you Lord for whatever the future holds for me. Whatever's meant to be will work out perfectly because of you.

Heart Lyrics- Challenge your songs

Today I was scrolling through my recent playlist and found that most of the lyrics have something in them that stands out to me. Something that can sum up a thousand thoughts and feelings into a few sentences and stanzas. It made me think...what is it about these songs that 'gets me every time'? Then I started piecing it all together. Each word that imprints itself in my mind is part of my personal heart cry. Something in my heart that cries out but it couldn't manifest itself because I didn't know it was there.

Ok so if I haven't totally lost you let me give you a few examples. I won't list what songs they are because that's not important. Just the lyrics that make me play them over and over again:

You are the only thing in life that I got right

My body tells me no, but I won't quit cause I want more

The more I see, the less I know. But I know one thing, that I love you

We'll stay young, go dancing

Every heart in the room will melt. This is a feeling I've never felt

Just like the ocean needs the waves

Anyway, you get the point. So where am I going with this? We learn a lot about ourselves through the types of music we listen to. Sure there are songs out there that just have a good beat so we like them anyway, but there are other songs (like the ones above) that really get to us.

Have you ever read psalms? Like the lyrics of a song, David wrote out his heart cries to God. He formulated his feelings into words and then left them for us to read. Like an open book, his heart was exposed. As we read the psalms, some of those lyrics stick out to us just as much as lyrics to any one of the songs we have shuffling on itunes.

So here's the challenge: read through a few of the psalms, see what sticks out to you, and then ask yourself why that is?

Our hearts cry out for God, but sometimes we tune out our spiritual heart songs.

Psalm 71

²² I will praise you with the harp
for your faithfulness, my God;
I will sing praise to you with the lyre,
Holy One of Israel.
²³ My lips will shout for joy
when I sing praise to you—
I whom you have delivered.

We Should Get Mood Rings

It always baffles me how moods can change so quickly. One minute you're on top of the world, riding the sun on a chariot of fire and glowing in the radiant light. The next minute you're covered in mud. Dirt cracks and peals from your skin and you find yourself in the most disgusting room in the darkest city on Earth.

Pretty drastic I know, but we all fall victims to this sudden shift in atmosphere everyday. It effects our lives, our relationships and our decisions. The chemicals in our brains love to toy with us making us doubt or giving us false feelings. So what do we do?

When this happens to me, I imagine arms stretched out between my dark room and the sun. I start to pull myself out of the muck and across the arms into the safety of what I know to be true. I crawl to the promises I've held onto for years. There are things in my life I will never doubt. They are the home that I long to return to whenever my atmosphere changes. Although my mind makes them feel like a distant memory, I know in my heart they have never left me.

I have a God who has promised me the world. When I feel the shadows taking over, I pray that God will stretch out His arms and bring me back.

I do not want the mood changes to stop me from moving forward and reaching what God has for me. It's a hard thing to deal with. We are our own worst enemy. So maybe we should get mood rings? Or we should start to notice when our mood is starting to change and try and stop it in it's tracks.

It's a crazy idea, but I think we are capable of doing just that. For you it might not be imagining a set of arms reaching out to you. It could be anything. But what is it in your life that you will never have to doubt? Sometimes it is the things in our lives that we know we should never doubt that we doubt the most. It's our minds and our enemies way of trying to destroy our promises. But we have a God who has overcome the enemy.

So really think about it. Make a list, fold it up and keep it with you.

When your mood shifts and you feel the world crashing down and pulling you from the light you know is truth I beg you to HANG ON! Grab the hand of the arm that stretches across your mind and pull yourself back into His promises.

My Favorite Jacket

I have this jacket that I wear all the time and take with me everywhere I go. It's been on the swivel chairs of lecture halls, the padded seating of amphitheaters. . . It's been in more cars then I can count and in more stores then a local mall. It's navy blue, one of my favorite shades, and the inside is gray. But the best thing about this jacket is that it isn't mine.

Nope, this jacket isn't mine, nor was it given to me. I more or less took it from someone when it was left at my house and never gave it back. It smelled like them for the first week. It was a wonderful mixture of redwood musk and sea salt breeze that made me feel warm and protected. And now this jacket smells like me. It's been away from it's owner long enough that it's lost their scent.

Now if you were to smell this jacket you'd say this obviously belongs to JoAnna. I've had it for so long people no longer ask me if that is my jacket or someone else's. But why am I telling you this?

As Christians, we are to treat salvation like this jacket. When we first become Christians, we put on a new coat of salvation that covers our sin and makes us something new. At first it takes some getting used to. The 'salvation jacket' might seem odd for awhile, and people around us will notice that there is something different about us. Old friends may give you a hard time for not continuing to 'hang out' with them. And you might have a hard time getting used to your new scent. But here's the best part...

When we ask God to come into our hearts and forgive us of our sin the Bible says:

2 Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

That means that once you put on the jacket of salvation, you are a new person! You are a saved person who will live in eternity when you die with Christ. The world will notice.

The difference between my jacket and salvation is:

-It was given to you as a free gift

-It's permanent, you can't take it on and off

-You become a new person now that you have it on

-Your scent becomes the smell of the jacket and your old scent goes away

As you wear this jacket, instead of it starting to smell like you, you start to smell like Christ (which believe smells really really good). Then people start to notice and you get the opportunity to share Christ's love and transform other peoples lives! Don't be afraid to wear this jacket with pride! You get to spend forever in heaven with a God who loves and cares about you. Echo Christ's love, so that the whole world may hear!

My Emo Writing Prompt short story

So I felt like I needed a creative outlet tonight so I did this prompt.

This is Super EMO of me. But I was feeling like I needed to do some creative writing and I like this Prompt :) I will be blogging about my usual things this weekend.

Prompt: Take the lyrics of your favorite song and combine them to make a story. Every word must be used in either the body or the title. No extra words either.

Lonely Lullaby (Look up the lyrics if you want to understand my short story)

The ring in my ears pours in a scream as the nightmares take me. These gloomy nights wear on and on and I can’t sleep. I’ll never forget the howling wind and rain holding me the nights I turned bitter. I remember the flushed pink fairytale that sparkled above my tired eyes when I loved you. But the scream of my nightmares was fast to dissolve you. And now the lonely lullabies in my ears turn me icy blue and cold.

Remember when the rain froze when I was holding you? You were my treasured dream and I was the symphony of a silver star. Though she was my lily, my dream come true, she can’t hold me when the nightmares take me. Though she was my Princess, my someone to hold, she can’t dream me in before the dawn. Though she was my love, she can’t sooth me these nights.

I remember these nights when I dampen the eyes I love. I'd rather forget, but I can't. I’d rather scream at you the nights you hold me in my darkest dream. I’d rather take my bitter lullabies and dissolve you when I blink. But I can’t. Because I can’t forget you. I’ll never forget you.

I loved you. I love you.

Forget when I scream, when I’d rather be bitter. Forget when I’m holding fast to the gloomy nights and howling in the wind. Forget my overcast, icy blue world. Forget when I dampen our tired lids.

Remember when I was holding you in the rain. Remember when I sang you fast asleep. Remember when you flushed pink and I froze dizzy in love. Remember me because I loved you. Remember me because I love you. Take me, Annmarie.

Emo I know. :) But that's my favorite song at the moment.

The Key to Love

Thousands of people gathered around the girl standing in the midst of Times Square. With eager faces, they searched her eyes and counted her every breath, waiting for her to speak.

“I’ve found the key to love,” she has said during an interview on Good Morning America last week. She would not disclose this knowledge to the millions of viewers glued to their television sets as she spoke softly into hush of the crowds. “If you want to know,” she had said, “meet me at Times Square on September 13^th at 7 o’clock. I will release the key at that time.”

For the next week following the interview, people booked flights and hotel rooms, they drove distances and crossed oceans. No one, not even the greatest of scientist, had been able to decipher the key. To think that this small girl could know what has baffled others years and years. All had failed to find it until this day. This day would change everything.

September 13^th had finally arrived. The girl stood in the midst of the masses of hungry eyes, black with anticipation. Her palms sweated, her knees shook from under her. She felt the sun beating down on the part of our hair, tanning her scalp and pealing her skin. She had been standing there all day, anxious to tell the world what it was that she had discovered. The clock struck 7 and she brought the microphone to her lips. A whisper that would change the world.

“I’ve found the key to love,” she said, sliding her fingers into the pocket of her jeans. She pulled out a photograph. It was small, delicate and held the most powerful image the world would ever see. She held it up to the sky and every eye on Earth went moist with tears. Some in the crowd cried out and some cheered. Everyone felt relief, joy and peace. At this moment, everything made sense. The tiny photograph that brought the world to its’ knees. . . was a photograph of you.

Happy Birthday Mom! I love you!