Dear Emi

I read your most recent blog post "if you really knew me" and i thought i'd post mine for you!

If you really knew me you'd know that...
1. Sometimes I'm still ashamed to be a Christian, and I constantly fight myself to stand by God. I feel like i'll always be trapped by my self, and never be able to become "good enough" to be with Christ.
2. I am incredibly insecure, and often look to other people for that security. When I dont get that from other people, I freak out.
3. I'm self-conscious. I feel inadequate with others, like I don't fit in.
4. It's always hell for me to trust people, even people i love. Sometimes I have bad dreams about someone i'm close to hurting me, someone that would never do that, and for days afterwards i can't trust them because of the dream.
4. I want everyone to like me, my ideas, and my way of going about things. But not everyone sees things the same way i do, and not everyone will like me- it's frustrating knowing this.
5. I mood-swing between shy and outgoing. I hate myself for it because sometimes i'm too outgoing when i need to shut my mouth, and other times I'm too shy and I come off rude.
6. I've felt like crying either right after or days after having sex. Because I'm not married, and I know it's wrong and feel awful for not controlling myself. And I often will sleep with someone or mess around with them to feel loved or better about something.
7. Most of the time it's hard for me to forgive. Occasionally i'll have someone who made me so angry and i couldn't forgive them so I cut them off (elyse) only to miss them later and regret becoming angry, even if I was right to be mad.
8. I feel unwanted, and like all i do is mess everything up. I constantly feel like people i love will stop loving me back and leave. I'm always afraid of being hurt. It ruins my happiness, and I desperately want to find a way to finally be at peace so I can truly be happy.
9. I have things I'm so ashamed of, that I try to keep them secret from even myself.
10. I want someone who knows how to help me find my resolve when i feel dead and weak, but in the end I'm always left to myself. I feel exhausted and angry toward other people because of this. I feel like they should be able to do something to help me, but in the end it's always me helping myself.
11. I want someone I can trust, but feel like I'll never find someone i could trust completely. I feel violated from the simplest of differences.

I love you emi!
-Abi

I love Abi

Abi,
I love you.You need to come down here so we can party.

This blog!

Is here so I can randomly say

I love you emilie!!! :D

Faithfulness Week 1 Day 2

The Purpose of God in My Life

Read Deuteronomy 10:20-22

20.Fear the LORD your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name.
21. He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.
22. Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.

Moses reminded the Israelites that God took them into Egypt as a group of only seventy souls. Four Hundred Years later, Israel emerged as a nation. It is not uncommon for God's promises to not be completely fulfilled in our lifetime. God made the promise of nationhood to Abram and Sarai in Genesis 12, and even at the end of Abraham's life, Israel was still only a very small nation of three. But in a day long after his death, the nation numbered to millions.

Faithfulness always serves God's purposes, but often the mills of God grind slowly. Many times we only see God's enduring intentions in hindsight. Even as Abraham died, he could not measure the extent of the promise that grew from his faithfulness. That finished vision was perhaps a score of lifetimes away. Still the promises of God never sleep.

Faithfulness instructs us how to live with purpose, but even better, we can pass it to our children until- as Abraham discovered- the world is blessed because of that simple discipline called obedience.

Faithfulness is a gift anyone can give God, and he responds with a purpose for every morning's sunrise. Then at last we are free. We live and have great reasons to live.

Questions for Personal Reflection:

1. Faith is passed from generation to generation. What has been your life teaching about God?

2. Faithfulness produces obedience. What are some things you can do to nurture faithfulness in your life?

Bible study!

Hey Emi! I'm starting this bible study on faithfulness. I figured I'd post it on here so you can do it too! :D woot

here it goes dun dun dun

Faithfulness Week 1 Day 1

Read Genesis 12:1-4 NIV

We don't know much about Abram and Sarai when God called them to originate the Jewish nation. We only know that they were old and that they came from Ur, a pagan society. Many suggests that they were moon worshipers serving celestial gods and goddesses.

Then Suddenly a previously unheard voice broke into their world. It was the voice of a God much mightier than the gods they worshiped- it was "the" God. This unknown God spoke to them and said, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land that I will show you." (Genesis 12:1). And with this brief summons, Abram and Sarai, old in years- some would say too old to make such a pilgrimage- had the audacity to obey God.

Judaism was born in this simple way. At the time, few people recognized the significance of Abram and Sarai's trip. Yet this is the way God works. He often alters history by starting with the smallest instructions. A baby in a stable or an old couple doddering out of the moon temples of the Tigris valley are just two examples of God's unique methodology.

In such ordinary things comes the roar of God. The quaking world is the reborn in the name of people who obey the extraordinary claim God holds on their lives. In their faithfulness, God's blessings swallow them whole.

Have you ever heard a simple, seemingly unimportant whisper? Did it fail to make perfect sense? Listen! God waits to bless you. He longs to bless you. All you have to do is say, "Yes, Lord, I will!" Then act. Open your heart and follow your faithfulness. Be obedient in simple matters and the angels will come to attention.

Questions for Personal Reflection

1. Have you ever felt that you were hearing a whisper from God? What did he say to you?

2. When hearing what you believe to be God, how do you know for sure it is God? What keeps you from acting in faith in response to God's calling?

That's it! Love you emi! <3

Dear Abi

I love you!! and I miss you. :-)