Undeserved

Today is the start of a very important part of the Church year. The beginning in fact. Ash Wednesday is the start of Lent. A time when we, as Christians remember and rest on the fact that we are sinners in need of a Savior. 

By ourselves we are enemies of God. Completely separated from Him. The sad reality is that that is what our sinful nature strives for. If you ever wonder why we can't just stop sinning, it's because that is who we are: sinners. However, God calls us to be perfect in His sight ( Matthew 5:48 ) , but how can we be if we are corrupted with sin? Does God even understand that? Even if we think we are 70% perfect and that that is a good amount, that is like saying we are good enough, we don't need a Savior. It's a constant circle; sinning again and again, becoming desensitized to it and lying to ourselves and thinking we are "good enough".

Despite our arrogance and disobedience to God, His love for us surpassed that and He chose to send His Son, giving Him the job of dying on a cross. Think of that; living to die for those around you. Does that appeal to you? Would you die for your enemy? Someone who lied to you, made fun of you. I know my answer would be no. I will straight up honest about that. Luckily Jesus did. Imagine that! Just rest on that love for a moment.....Isn't that the most amazing thing you have ever heard!? It's still hard for me to comprehend. So when we do sin, we repent. That shows our love for Christ and what He has done for us. Repentance is a fruit of our faith, the biggest evidence actually. 

I hope you enjoy this season of Lent. So not be wary in your sin but repent and rejoice in the never failing forgiveness of that you Lord and Savior grants to you each and every day.

Blessings!

Mel :) 

Stuck

Finally posting something! This will probably be a mess of a post, but I pray that it will still be a witness of Christ's love to you all :)

Life is not an easy road, but who ever said it was? Compared to a ton of people, I have been blessed beyond belief. I know that the devil attacks my mind to think otherwise. He drags me away from the joy and contentment I have in Christ and pulls me towards all the little things in my life that are not going to plan. When I let him get to me, anxiety comes in and comes fast and hard. Today is one of those days. Everything in my life, stress, drama, guilt all haunt my mind and torture me. My stomach churns inside making me feel sick. I have no drive, no joy, no Jesus. I wallow in the stupid things that with the help of Christ I can overcome. But instead I rest on them and wonder when I will feel better. When those energy and joy-draining thoughts and feelings will deteriorate. 

When and if you ever feel this way, I pray that you will remember that Christ knows what you are feeling. He has felt the weight of stress and fear. So much so he cried tears of blood. Because of His perfection, He went to His Father ( who is ours too ;) and asked that if the debt was not His to pay, that the weight would be lifted off by His Father's power. 

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

You Got a Choice

It seems as if people are in a constant state of unhappiness and dis contentedness.  Their attitude towards things are always negative. I feel bad for them, to a certain extent because I know that they have the potential of a life where the blessings are what they focus on.

The fact is, no matter how hard our life might seem, we have a choice in how we look at that problem and situation in life. We can either think "wow, this really sucks and you no what? I am just going to pout and whine about it because that seems like the easiest thing to do." This is actually what I have been seeing. People making the choice to be negative.

I am not trying to pat myself on the back or anything, please believe me in that, but I have been asked why I am positive the majority of the time. That is because I try to choose to be positive and to not take the blessings in my life for granted. It's not as easy as being negative and pessimistic and there are days when that is all I want to be is negative, but life is SO MUCH BETTER when I choose joy and remember that I have a Savior who created me and loves me everyday and enough to die on a cross for me! If that is not enough reason to be joyful, I don't know what is. 

Choose Joy!

Mel :) 

Vocation Here and Now

One of my favorite things to talk and think about during Christmas, is Mary, the Mother of Jesus and her complete submission to God and His plan for her. 

I, myself have a really hard time trying to figure out what God's plan for me is. The great thing though, is I do not need to figure it out. God already has it laid out in front of Him since the beginning of time. I would like to share some details about my struggle with Christ's plan for my life. Of course it deals with relationships, so I am sorry for being redundant, but I hope this is something that some of you could relate to.

In the course of about four years, I have very seriously liked 3 guys. Pathetic I know.  Each time, I invested way too much of my emotions and thoughts into them, so in turn my heart was broken and it got worse each time. My biggest desire in life has always been to be a wife and a mom. I want to be able to keep a lovely home for my husband, to love and cherish him, to support him and encourage him in his walk with Christ. Eventually, I would love to do the same with my children and drown them in love and teach them the even stronger love that Christ has for them. But when I look at my history with guys, and how so many of my friends have boyfriends or a plethora of guys talking to them when they are not even interested in marrying for a long time, it really hurts. I wonder if I am ugly or weird in some way, too preachy or to flirty or anything else that is unattractive. After I figured out the last guy I liked clearly didn't feel the same way and after a period of dealing with the heartbreak, I decided that I am now too scared to like anyone for a very long time. I am sick and tired of my heart getting broken and all of the drama and stress that comes with liking someone. It took so much out of me. I know that God has not revealed the right man yet, but I trust He will.

So in the mean time, I am learning how to fully submit to Christ and trust in his plan for me. Just like Mary, His plan might not be what I would like, but I know His plan is more marvelous than I could ever imagine. I need to focus on today and what Christ is calling me to do today and that is to be a student, daughter, sister, aunt, friend and witness for Jesus.


²⁹ Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰ But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High....³⁴ “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”... ³⁷ For no word from God will ever fail.”
³⁸ “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her."

Luke 1: assorted verses

Joy and blessings this Christmas! 

Mel :) 

Flawless Beauty

Hello beautiful people! Hope this post finds you all doing well, lavishing yourself in the joy and peace our God grants us each day :) 

Earlier this week, my town had it's first big snow. It was so beautiful, coming down continuously and smooth. It definitely was beginning to look a lot like Christmas :) The ugly, dead and brown grass was slowly covered by the pure white of the thick snow. The woods behind my house turned from a creepy, dirty, dead place to a winter wonderland. 

This snow-covered scene is a perfect picture of what Christ has done for us as sinners. He came to a sin corrupted world as an innocent baby. He lived a life of perfectness and took our place on the cross and endured the most excruciating pain that there was. 

By Jesus' death, we are made righteous, (right with) and holy, (set apart) in order that, by the grace of God, we might enjoy eternal life with Him in a perfect paradise. He takes all that is dead and dirty in us and covers it to make us as white as snow. 

“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. - Isaiah 1:18

Enjoy being clean and free from your sins this day and always! 

Mel :) 

His Presence

Good afternoon! Hope everyone has had a good week so far :) I am so excited to share with you today in hopes that it will give you comfort and peace. 

At my school, we have chapel every Tuesday and Thursday. It is always something I look forward to. It gives me joy to worship and learn with my friends and peers. Well like I touched on yesterday, I had a rough day. My heart was broken and I was having a tug-of-war battle between feeling stupid and being angry towards another. I was mad one minute and the next was balling my eyes out asking myself what I did wrong. 

Sadly, before I turned to the peace and strength of Christ, I relied on myself and ended up inflicting myself with physical pain to numb the mental confusion and pain. Now I have a mark to remind me that I cannot handle life on my own, but only by the grace of God am I going to come out of the storm. Because I relied on my own, failing strength, I didn't feel God presence. I shut Him out and I fell as a result. Later that night I prayed he would enable me to trust in His plan and to give me peace and help me through and to turn to Him as a first option. 

Well today He really spoke to me. Like literally. Chapel today was about restoring relationships and praying for God's guidance in our relationships and trusting in His plan for our lives even if it is not what we had in mind. Once again I started to cry, however this time it was tears of joy! I felt Christ there with me. He knew I was struggling and he cares because He loves me forever. He wanted me to know His presence in my life to never give up on Him. It gave me so much peace and I know I constantly need that reminder because I continually forget. 

Christ is there for all of you and He will never leave you. He cares about every hair on your head and He has you in the palm of His hand until eternity. 

Happy Advent!
Mel :) 

Answers

To start off, I would like to apologize for not posting in forever! To be real, I just didn't have any good content and I didn't want to be repetitive. Finally today, the Lord has placed something in my heart that I think He would like me to share. It stems from something very personal that I have been going through. It is heartbreak. Real joyful and positive I know right? Well, eventually it will turn out joyful. I am sure of it!

During the season of Christmas, a big thing on our minds is gifts. What we should get for our family and friends and what we want from our family and friends. We kind of do the same thing with God sometimes. We ask Him for things. It could be something materialistic, or it could be something like peace, joy or comfort. Those three in particular are things I pray for a lot. Sometimes, though, we receive answers that we don't want. Like "no" or maybe the answers never come at all. 

Recently I received the answer "no". It was extremely hard and I blamed myself for even asking or wishing for what I asked God for. It caused my heart to break and streams of tears to run down my face. I thought to myself " you idiot! why even consider that a possibility!". I didn't thank God that He gave me an answer at all. It was all about me. What I did wrong instead of what God was doing in my life. My mom put it this way " God gives us one of two answers: yes or I have something better. Which, if you are more pessimistic, you can think of that as no, or you can be optimistic and anticipate and trust that God has an amazing plan in store! 

This is also fitting because it is the season of Advent, which means the "coming". So as we wait for the coming of our Savior, Jesus, so we wait on those answers and trust in whatever God has in mind! 

Blessings to you this Advent Season! 
Mel :)