Ecclesiastes.

I am falling head over heels for this book. I've read it a few times but this time it's strangely intriguing and whispering sweet little things to my heart.

I love how King Solomon takes profound statements and insights while etching them into his own experience. It's beautifully written. Ultimately, Solomon finds that the meaninglessness of our lives, only find meaning while being handed over to God. Our lives are to be wholly centered around the existence of God. He captures, so well, the discontentment found in the lives of those who search for satisfaction and worth in their expeditions, scrutiny, and studies.

Overall, I got the idea that Solomon believes man has a inward conscious that cannot deny the existence of God. He believes this because of how our lives look when we live counter to our initial design and purpose...Well, that's what I understood it to be.

THAT, is a profound understanding of how flawless God's ways are and how nothing can twist His goodness. There is no way to discredit His plan - because as we try to manipulate it, it becomes all the more in plain sight. Furthermore, when we walk away from His plan the more obvious our meaninglessness becomes - thus discrediting our plans and validating His. So flawless!

There is so much more that is jumping out at me but I want it to be concretely in my heart and mind prior to posting it.

Gifts.

Relationships are a great gift.

Lately I've been feeling as if I'm greatly missing out because God hasn't placed them in my life. Specifically, the romantic ones. I've even gone to the extent of looking at other women in my life, wondering what the heck they've done so right that God has given them the gift of a beautiful union with another person. The evilness in my heart is exposed. I've only dated 2 people my entire life and I have never been in a relationship that I pursued with unhealthy motives or in perceived brokenness. So, in my head I was left wondering why God withholds things from me while blessing others.

God has been provoking a new way for me to look at all this. It is a gift to be pursued by God and this thought ignited a new focus and reality for me.

In this season, God is giving me a gift beyond any gift I've ever dreamed of. He wants to bless me with a heart that is content and at peace in all circumstances. He is giving me the gift of spiritual growth, truly being refined in this emotional circumstance. He is itchin to give me the gift of a heart and mind solely fixed on the freedom He brings. Gifts don't come any more real, essential and undeserved. And foremost, He is giving me the gift of a deepened relationship with Him. I'm so captivated by a God whose work is beyond what we first see or initially fathom.

Lastly, God has made it clear that while He offers these gifts to all of His kids, not many actually accept. I could easily find a shallow happiness in a relationship I decide to stir up. I want the gift that penetrates and shatters the core of humanities brokenness and disconnect.

I am greatly favored, as God is allowing this pain to form the beautiful gift of wholeness, unity, and wisdom in my heart.

"Travel the Land" Josh Garrels

:: As I travel the land, I don't care where I am, if the Sons shining down on me. And I step out my door and give thanks to the Lord for the fact that He saved me. As I travel the land, I don't care where I am, if the Sons shining down on me. And I step on board and give thanks to the Lord for the life that He gave me. :: Josh Garrels

Purify.

I went through a really deep heart break last spring. So much of my brokenness was exposed in my response to it. I was depressed, unmotivated, felt worthless, and really just fed off of lies that I allowed to fester. As I've said in numerous of my posts, I knew that these were simply symptoms to core issues and really had little to do with the fact that I was no longer in a relationship. Among the many things God is surely transforming in me, I want to share just a few things that I know He is specifically showing me lately.

He is showing me that this experience is catalyzing something profound in me. Something that has great momentum. Something that I have actually been begging Him for in the last 5 years of my life. I see how this shitty circumstance uprooted and brought into plain view the reality of what my heart looked like. That I am broken - a product of imperfect parenting, rejection, facades, and foolishness - who is in need of Truth, purpose, forgiveness, restoration and a union with a Father who desires every single aspect of who I am.

By seemingly having everything during a season and quickly seeing it all dissolve before your eyes undeniably puts you in an essential turning place. Either you can continue to run after everything you feel you have lost or you can run the opposite way, by saying "yes" to a journey of purging your idols and allowing the Holy Spirit to reconstruct and redeem all aspects of your life. I had such a difficult time running the opposite way, not because I didn't want transformation but because, specific to my situation, I still desired a relationship with that boy. I realized that I wanted it only because it temporarily would "fix" my emotional state, but it was simply how I felt and my emotions were valid to God in the midst of this constant struggle. I could never pinpoint a legit reason as to why I wanted this relationship, either - brokenness set aside. I couldn't see the circumstance for what it actually was.

That was a daily tug of war until God pulled me out of the fire to look at His reflection.

I am worthy of a man who bears good fruit as He is connected to the Vine. I am worthy of a man who is rich in the things of God, and barren in the sight of human culture. I am worthy of a man who is in tune with the Holy Spirit and is seeking Him in all occasions. I am worthy of a man who respects my purity and sees me as God's beloved child, created to be holy as He is holy. I am worthy of a man who has sat in the nit and grit of his heart until Jesus began His good work. I am worthy of a man who understands that the core of love is sacrifice and we were given a flawless example to follow, in the Father sending His Son down. I am worthy of a man who in his humility, responds, and interacts, rather than in his prideful facade. Among many other things, I deserve a man who is not a coward for the Truth and His pursuit of it.

Darin shared this at the end of Sunday's service at the Center

:: author is anonymous

When you are forgotten, or neglected,

or purposely set at naught, and you

don't sting or hurt with the insult or

the oversight, but your heart is happy,

being counted worthy to suffer for Yashua,

That is dying to self.

When your good is evil spoken of,

when your wishes are misunderstood

your advise disregarded, your opinions

ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger

rise in your heart, or even defend

yourself, but take it all in patient, loving silence,

That is dying to self..

When you lovingly and patiently bear

any disorder, any irregularity, any

unpunctuality, or any annoyance; when

you stand face to face with waste, folly,

extravagance, spiritual insensibility-

and endure it as Yashua endured,

That is dying to self.

When you are content with any food,

any offering, any climate, any society,

any raiment, any interruption

by the will of Yaweh,

That is dying to self.

When you never care to refer to your-

self in conversation, or to record your

own good works, or itch after commendations,

when you can truly love to be unknown,

That is dying to self.

When you can see your brother prosper

and have his needs met and can honestly

rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy,

nor question Yahweh while your own

needs are greater and in desperate circumstances,

That is dying to self.

When you can receive correction and

reproof from one of less stature than your-

self and can humbly submit inwardly as

well as outwardly, finding no rebellion

or resentment rising up within your heart,

That is dying to self.

Are you dead yet?

In these last days, the Spirit would bring us

to the stake "That I may know HIM, and the

power of HIS resurrection, and the fellowship

of HIS sufferings, being made conformable

unto HIS death."

The Unknown.

Often times I've heard a good friend of mine talk about this "fear of the unknown" that stops people from enrichment and ultimate healing in their lives. In my ignorant heart, I took note and stored it in my brain for the sole purpose of a future potential conversation piece. I never once thought it was something that would be proven relevant in my life.

I'm not sure if I ever really understood it all before these last few days. I have been struggling with releasing this specific painful situation to God. A situation that tarnished my name, stole my dignity, identity and joy. I was wronged and stolen from. Satan created lies that I allowed to cultivate in my head. Never had I been so depressed, broken and confused as when this season was ushered in. Of course, this circumstance entirely existed because of sin. In part, my sin. I cleaned my side of the street but was still left with an exhausted heart, vulnerable mind, and broken spirit that needed His restorative truth woven back in.

In that season God truly revealed to me that the actions that created this situation were indeed only symptoms of deeper issues. So all in all, amazing revelations have been induced YET I still cling to the hope that He will make this situation right by bringing justice. Here is where I go wrong though... In my brokenness I dig my fingers into the situation in search of justice and remedy and wonder why I continuously come out discontent and further broken.

The fear of the unknown falls into place when my mind has been seemingly forever occupied with this situation in my life, that to take my mind out of it, and stop the works of my hands trying to mend it ... means that I have to find hope in something different. Which also means ... I need to scratch the false hopes my mind has conjured up and let go of what I've trained my mind to think reconciliation is. When I think about this I feel uneasy as if I'm falling into a not so beautiful abyss.

To latch and pry your fingers into situations that have been sources of much pain in your life will forever put you in a cycle of discontentment, as I have surely experienced. As God is far more concerned with my character rather than my situation, I can find hope in truer things rather than trying to manipulate painful situations. Truer things that are forever and that actually satisfy. Truer things that baptize my mind and transform my mentality.