His Joy is my strength!

I had a great weekend! God has shown me that prayer works. I have always struggled with prayer and whether my prayers are even heard but my eyes have been opened and I understand more than ever that God does hear all of my prayers but sometimes they are not answered because I am praying the wrong way. I often times pray selfishly and I do not pray for the manifestation of His glory nor do I pray with faith. Another important lesson that i experienced first hand is that God will answer prayer above and beyond our expectations.
Two circumstances this weekend blessed my heart: I have been praying earnestly for a someone for the past five months and i found out on Thursday that he is growing in his spiritual walk like never before and is giving his life completely to Jesus. Every specific request that I placed before His throne for this particular individual has been answered and I am so excited to hear about his growth and to see how God works. "Delight yourself also in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart". Another neat answer to prayer happened on Friday night - my sister and I drove about 40 minutes to a Casting Crowns concert and as soon as we pulled into the parking lot she realized she forgot her ticket! ugh. We had no idea what to do because we were far from home and the concert was completely sold out! I prayed that God would provide us with a ticket and left it with Him. When we got out of the car we decided to just walk to the front and meet our friend, we were walking up to the steps and a man yells out "tickets" and we were in disbelief b/c the concert was sold out! So we said yes we needed a ticket and asked him how much and he gave it to us for free!! How awesome is our God! He even cares about the little things :)

Sunday was refreshing, David Gibbs spoke in the morning and evening. He is the founder of the Christian Law Association and was the lawyer for Terry Schaivo's family. He is good friends with our pastor so he and his son come to speak at our church often. His morning message was about being a 2-mile Christian and how we are to go the extra mile in everything whether its our relationships or work or home life. I think what convicted me most was that I am to do my job for Jesus not for my boss or for my own success because eternity is far more important than the present. My real job is to be a disciple of Christ and my real home is Heaven -- just focusing on those two realities puts a lot into perspective.

I went to my friend's wedding on Saturday and had a fantastic time, God has blessed me with great friendships and I am continually thankful for who he has brought into my life. I was helping out with decorating the reception hall and wow it took us almost 3 hrs to pull everything together!! My favorite was the cupcake table :)

God is Good

Time after time God shows me His goodness and how much He loves me. Lately He has been blessing me with opportunities to be an encouragement to several of my friends. I know I would not have had these opportunities had my eyes not been opened and my heart been softened. It's a feeling of freedom when you break out of the box you've been a prisoner of for so long - the sad thing is that I put myself in that box! I only saw myself and really didn't see much further than my hand, the box surrounded me with what I wanted to focus on and it got to the point where I couldn't see the problems and needs all around me. I mean I did see them but I was too busy with my own life and didn't really care to reach out or put forth any time and effort.
 A couple weeks ago God began to give me opportunities to share my testimony and share encouragement with friends both new and old. It seems like at least once a week He will send someone my way and when this happens my heart literally sings praise and thanksgiving because I am being used by God! What an awesome feeling to know that God would use someone like me as a tool in another person's life. You really can use mistakes you've made in the past or situations you've experienced to encourage and counsel someone else....makes it all worthwhile.

I had a broken relationship with someone who I hadn't talked to in about 4 years. I hate tension so to go 4 years with guilt and bitterness made me burdened. Over these past couple of months I have felt compelled to contact him and make amends - "bury the hatchet" so to speak - but fear stopped me. Time went on and his name kept popping into my head every now and then but i kept pushing it away. This Sunday night, out of the blue, I recieved an email from him simply to say "hi" and wanting to know how I was doing. He said that certain things over the past couple of weeks had reminded him of me and he wanted to check in with me. I was a little taken aback at first but excited because I knew that without a doubt that this was of God. About a week ago I asked the Lord to search my heart and He knew this was something that needed to happen in order for me to let go of some of my anger and bitterness. God is good. The burden has been lifted and this individual and I are working on a friendship again. I truly believe God can and will use me in this person's life.

Another exciting thing over the wknd -- i have a new puppy!! Her name is Lilly and she is a little 1 lb 10 oz ball of black fur. so cute, she looks like a bear cub :)