My Mess

       I am so picky about my house! I really like for it to be very clean and organized! However, this is a struggle with 4 kids and 2 dogs. I like all all superheroes in one bin and dress up in another. All toys are seperated into a certain category and put in the appropriate bin. Well right now my house is a total mess. I have piles of laundry that need to be put up and every bedroom needs a good cleaning! This is stressing me out. I would love for there to be a magic wand that could just zap it all spic and span, but unfortunately that just is not the case!
       My life has had moments in which it was also a total mess. It could be caused by work, or my faith failing  or because of  certain relationships.  No matter the reason there have been times I just feel my world is in utter chaos. When I look back I see that most of the time I tried to try and handle and fix all these things on my own. That normally made things worse. I was to proud to surrender it all to God and allow him to help me through it. But.... God wants us to call on Him and He wants us to cling to Him. God wants to reach kn us and grab ahold of this mess and help us.
       If it is so easy for God to come in and "fix" our mess than why do I still struggle with this? Because you can not just ask God to fix it and not totally trust that He can. You have to have complete faith and trust that He can help you. You have to surrender to Him and this has been hard for me. I am just know learning how to give God all of me and fully trust him. But in doing this I can see that He is taking ahold of these messes and helping me work them out or even turning them into blessings.   This definitely does not mean that I am not going to have anymore "messes" it just means that I now have the best teammate I possibly could when going into battle with these "messes".

Please continue to pray as my trip in quickly approaching . However, I have to say the journey to this has already taught me so much !
     
13 days!!
Love,
Amber

Break Me

    I loved playing sports growing up and I definitely would have considered myself an athlete.  I still enjoy playing and watching sports and if you watch or play a sport you know it takes a lot of hard work to be successful at it.  You need to be driven and you need to be passionate about it.  Many of the teams I played for had winning seasons, but it was the times that I was "cut" or when we would lose that made me work harder than ever.  I quickly realized that being at the bottom was horrible and it was in those moments I worked the hardest.
    This is similar to how my relationship with Jesus has been.  When things in my life are great, then I tend not to be as passionate about Him, but when circumstances change I cling to Him and realize He is the only constant thing I have and only thing I can fully trust.  It is in the mist of my brokenness that my faith is made stronger. 
   This past week I have really been praying more about my trip.  I have been praying that God just please make me as effective as possible in sharing His love.  However, as I have been praying, I have felt a strong desire to also pray that God completely "break me".  I know that sounds crazy, but it's not.  I want God to break me down, dissect me and strip me of any strongholds I have or anything that is preventing me from fully honoring Him. I want to be at a place of complete brokenness, so that I finally get rid of all these things that are so harmful to me. Once God breaks me, I can begin to rebuild myself with faith and trust.  This does not mean that I will be perfect from here on out, it just means I have been redeemed and restored!
  Please pray with me that I can give up total control right now and allow God to completely "break me".  I am yearning to be all that He is calling me to be, but I need this to transpire in order to be the most effective on this journey!

Love!!
18 days!!

Amber

Trust

     I love that feeling I get when one of my kids might fall and get a little boo boo and they run to me or want me.  The older ones might just want the reassurance from me that they will be ok and the younger ones want me to kiss it (once I kiss it seems to be all better).  It is amazing to me that they have that much trust and faith in me that a kiss or a reassurance hug is all it takes to make it seem better.  I wish I could give them the gift of always trusting that way, but life teaches us differently.  As we grow up and get older we come across and get taught life lessons that teach us otherwise.  We learn not to be so trusting and to be guarded.
    I struggle everyday with trust and Sunday at church one of the songs was I Will Trust In You.  Man I really needed to hear those words.  There is so much in my life right now that is new and requires me stepping out of my comfort zone.  Naturally, the first thing for me to do is have doubt and to question.  I am trying to follow and trust the Lord with these things, however that is hard and new for me.  I can make excuses all day long why I do not trust, but the simple fact is God has never given me a reason not to trust him.
   My life is not where I thought it would be and this makes me sad some.  There are times I want to go back in time and change so much or make different and better choices, but the fact is that is not possible.  Through all of this God has been there, whether I let Him in or turned away from Him, He was there.  So now I am trying to trust that God has and is still working on my character through the process of my life.  He is making me stronger and I am learning to lean to Him and come to Him for the wisdom I desperately need.  I have learned no matter how good someone is, they are still human and imperfect and until I can fully trust God to guide me and trust that He has me, I am going to continue distrusting everyone and continue pulling away from anyone who attempts to get close to me. 
    Saying you trust God is totally different, then actually listening to Him and do what He says even when it may not be what you want.  As I am doing this, I am starting to see me having trust again in more situations.  I am beginning not to worry so much and even starting to regain trust in people again.  This is hard but it feels good too. 
    As I am mentally trying to prepare myself for Nicaragua, I have been praying and thinking a lot about trust.  I can only imagine how some of the people there feel and especially the children.  The people here have so little, have had family members taken away and deal with way more than we can imagine.  Kids have lost parents so young to sickness and work so young.  They have every reason to be bitter and not trust.  Yet, many embrace people coming in helping them and embrace hearing God's word.  They TRUST what we say even when their whole lives they have been showed actions that would cause many of us to never trust again.  I am faithfully praying now that I can continue to gain this trust and learn from all the many wonderful people I will come in contact with on this trip!!

24 days!!!
Amber