Dear Lord

I was listening to a few SonicFlood songs today because I realized I haven't listened to them in a really long time. I came across one that I havent heard even though I have the CD. It is called Dear Lord. It is one of the most beautiful songs I have heard, and it has really made me start thinking things. The song is like a prayer crying out to God. The chorus says:

In my darkest hour
Your every promise comes shining through
You say You're here and you calm my fears
And I know you will never leave
Your word is true and You make all things new
And I know You're all I need.

Those words have never been more true. How often have we felt like we are in our darkest hour throughout life and the only thing that pulls us through is our faith in God? Sometimes, more often than not, all we need in life is God and His love. Sometimes the only person who will be true to us and never hurt us would be God. I know that God is always there calming my fears. There are times when I can feel his arms around me as I cry out to him for strength and guidance. We never know what this life is going to throw at us and we need to rely on God more for things. I will admit there is something in my life right now that I am struggling with and I am calling on God more and more to help me deal with it.

God makes things new and we know his word is true for us. There is no need to doubt anything the Bible tells us about God and that he would always be here for us protecting and guiding us through our hardships. This song...this SonicFlood song is a a great reminder and helped me put things into perspective.

Relationships and Trust

Every relationship requires some form of trust. I dated a guy who was trying to force me to open up to him and tell him things, which made it even harder to do. They guy I am seeing now, everything comes naturally to talk about and we grew close together very fast because of it. It is easy to trust someone when they don't force you to do something that may be hard for you to do. You can trust someone when they show you they can be trusted with different things you tell them.

Trust makes a relationship stronger: this is also true for our relationships with God. We need to trust God with different things in life. Acquire The Fire one of the speakers talked about trusting God throughout life even when we don't know where life is going to take us. Sure we don't know where this road is going to take us but we need to have trust and faith in God. We don't know where our romantic relationships will go but we have trust and faith in them that we will be willing to do different things to make it work and to see where it goes. Shouldn't we be doing what it takes to see where our relationship with God will take us.

Acquire The Fire

This past weekend was Acquire the Fire here in PIttsburgh, the last stop of the tour and I have to say it was amazing. I was a volunteer and didn't get to hear much of Friday night, but I was close to the stage area for Saturday, and they had tvs in the hall so I could still watch the seminars and hear the concerts. It was amazing. The music was so loud I didn't have go inside to see them and I didn't for Phil Joel (bassist for Newsboys) and 1 Man Crew. But I did for Jeremy Camp of course. But that isn't the point of this post.

Friday night I got the chance to catch the last 10-15 minutes of one of the speakers: Nick. He has armless and legless, and his testimony was amazing. He hit your hearts and made you think of your life and your walk with God. I cried when I listened to him speak. Then he gave the alter call...over half of the stadium got up and went to the alter, and if they couldn't make it down they stood in their seats. So many people stood up and showed their reliance on God. There were over 5000 teens and youth pastors/parents at Acquire The Fire, showing their love of God, singing the songs of praise. and listening to the speakers with intent. Some were even walking around saying "free hugs for Jesus" it was kind of sweet.

I was amazed to see how many teens were willing to stand up and say they believe in Jesus and follow him. Too often we hear bad things about this generation, but I looked at these kids and talked to some of them and it gave me hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. I can't wait for next year...

Unanswered Prayers

One of my favorite songs from Garth Brooks is called "Unanswered Prayers." It says so much within it that some people may not realize sure it is about relationships, but unanswered prayers could be blessings in disguise. How many of us have asked God to give us something we wanted or to give us something we think we needed and deserved? Pretty much all of us. Too often we get angry at God for not answering all of our prayers and whenever he doesn't answer them either it is not the right time or what we want isn't what God wants for us.

Too often we expect God to answer our prayers simply because we love Him and believe in Him. But that isn't the point of prayers and there will be times when our prayers will go unanswered. Unanswered prayers are God's way of showing us His love for us. What would we get out of having everything that we want? Wouldn't you think God would want to make sure things are good for us, and like I said half of the things that we want isn't good for us.

Too often in the past I had prayed for things that looking back on it weren't good for me, including relationships. God has plans for our lives and he does leave prayers unanswered so that his goal for our lives can be accomplished. Unanswered prayers help us see a bigger picture better, at least thats what I think. When we look back on life and see the prayers we wanted and see how better our life has become because of those unanswered prayers. We cannot let these unanswered prayers make us question God or ask him why all the time. Instead when we look back on things, thank him for the unanswered prayers and see the blessing within them; I know I have and still am. God doesn't answer our prayers because he wants to see us suffer or be in pain, he doesn't answer some because he knows its for our own good.

Hurts and Pains

It seems like a lot people around me are dealing with past hurts and pains. I was talking to a dear friend of mine: Cait. who is dealing with some past hurts from one person. She was saying she is mad at herself because she misses this person. There will always be people who hurt you, but because you have good memories with them you'll miss them and that's okay. ou dont want to let the pain and hurt make you bitter. Too often we allow people to make us bitter about our past hurts and pains.

I think we go through experiences like that to show us how strong we are or to make us stronger. My friend is fairly young and shouldnt have to deal with this kind of heart. She is unsure of who she can trust which makes me sad, but she is learning people are not always going to hurt her, and I think that is something God wants us to know. While there are people who will hurt us continuely, there are also people who could never hurt us. Trust is something that is hard for us to give out and I think sometimes need to picky about. We need to trust God the mot and that is one of the lessons I think we need to learn through our hurts: trusting God to help us through and heal our pains.

We cannot let our pains and hurts make us bitter and hard shelled. Too often our pains cause us to close people out and not let anyone else in. But with the help of God that won't happen and we can work towards letting go of those pains, but we need to give them up to God and when we do, we leave it there with God and to keep praying about it.

Moving Forward

Sometimes it is hard to move forward when we have so many past hurts that we hold onto. Sometimes we become so jaded and bitter towards things that we just clam up and not move forward in anything including our walks with God. We tend to question him and wonder why a merciful God would allow us to be so hurt sometimes. I think there are times when we think that simply because we are Christians we won't have go through heartache and pain like this, but it is quite the opposite. Some times we have o deal with even more pain.

I have been thinking a lot about my past pains and have prayed about it with Pastor. Simply sitting at the alter saying that I want to give up all these past hurts and pains and give them to God helped, but I know I need to do more than that. I find myself getting bitter towards someone because he wants me to open up to him, and it would just cause me more pain. But sometimes that what we need to do in order to move forward and not let the hurts from the past over rule our lives. Maybe...just maybe in order to really move forward we need to face the past hurts head on and allow them to hurt us as much as possible while we relive them and give them up to God. I would think that would make us a little bit stronger, but could that also destroy us?

We need to be able to overcome our pains to appreciate our relationship with Christ better. What pains do you need to overcome.

Letting Go.

I started this post off as something completely different, but it didn't seem to flow and there was something else that needed to come out. So hence the new post haha. We all have a past, and sometimes that past hurts us and does damage to our present and future no matter how hard we try not to let. The past hurts I have seems to have caused me to put up a wall to those around me and is effecting my relationships with people. I think of why i have a hard time talking to people and I think it is because I am too afraid to let people get close to me, so I don't even try sometimes. Too many people in the past has hurt me and I don't want to get hurt, but I think the fact that I try to protect myself is actually keeping me from meeting someone wonderful, because I never let anyone in close enough.

My prayer lately has been for God to help me let go of all of my past hurts and be able to actually let someone into my life and possibly have a good relationship with someone. A friend told me not to do this for the guy, but for myself and I honestly think that I want to do this for me. I want to make a step forward not backwards. I realize I live in the past...past hurts and past fears that I need to let go of if I want to find happiness in the present and the future. I know God has a lot planned for me and I think sometimes that I don't even allow myself to go after what God has planned because I live in the past hurts. I don't want to live there anymore. I need to let all of that go and start new. God gave me a new look on life, basically a new life and I need to start new. I need to leave all the past in the past and move forward. Give Eric everything he deserves out of me. If it doesn't work out then I know I would have given my all.