Emotions : Casting a burden too big for you (or your friends) upon Jesus

What can you do when you're so closed off that you cannot cry in front of others?

Cannot really share.

When everything gets so pent up that you are on the verge of "spewing" on the first lucky person to actually desire to get beyond the surface. Lucky them! They get the pleasure of experiencing a fire-hose  / garbage truck / tidal wave of sadness, anger, frustration, pain and self-pity all in rapid-fire.

Gross. Ew. Ick. Yuck. Phooey.

I so do not want to be that person... again... or ever actually.

I should come with a warning label. Seriously. Those poor friends (thank you for still being my friend afterward!) who have had the privilege of having my garbage truck of emotional out-of-controlness... I am so sorry. I pray that God will heal you from any lingering effects.

QUESTION:   How can I approach an all-knowing, all-powerful, loving God with all of this seemingly endless pent-up emotion? (instead of blessing... say... one of you... :)

God can handle my emotions / worries / fears.  - - - "Cast your cares upon Jesus," right? (Love that song!) Here's what it says in the Bible:

1 Peter 5: 6-11 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ->6 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. 7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.8 Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 9 Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters[b]all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are.10 In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. 11 All power to him forever! Amen.

Whoa! I don't know if the rest of the scripture around that verse hit you like it hit me. FIRST we are called to humble ourselves, THEN we are supposed to give Him ALL--- everything--- ALL of our worries and cares. To God. The great I AM. Because He really and truly cares about us.

God is not overwhelmed by our emotion. Nor is He surprised by what we have going on inside. He absolutely LOVES us and knew us before we were born. Before even our own mothers knew of us.

John 15: 1-17 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. 3 You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. 7 But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! 8 When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.9 “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. 10 When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 11 I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! 12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. 16 You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

How beautiful! God's word is such a blessing to a weak and sometimes foolish spirit like mine. Know today that:

1. God wants your worries as well as your cares. WANTS them. All of them. Cast them because He cares for you.
2. Notice then that he warns against the enemy's schemes. Wha? - Emotions & the enemy's schemes??? You betcha. - Identify the enemy's lies and STAND FIRM.
3. God says he will RESTORE, SUPPORT, and STRENGTHEN you. - Today I'm going to especially lean in on that one.
4. REMAIN in God's love. - His luxurious, patient, and overwhelming love.

Praying for you friend. That God will continue to open our eyes and our ears and prepare our hearts for what he has for us. Also, that we will remember to give all of our cares to God. Lastly, I pray that God will help you to rest / remain in the safety and security of his wonderful love.

Enjoy friend! - - - - Kate

GET WISDOM - from the Father of Light

I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself possess wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and in this oracle he means to say that the wisdom of men is little or nothing... as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.            - Socrates

Struck by the beauty of fall in the crisp afternoon air and soundtrack of praise in my heart.... pursuing the God who gives wisdom generously. Recently I have been seeking the wisdom that God gives, learning about what hinders God from answering our prayers, and continuing to realize how large the plank in my eye is versus the specks in other's eyes.

How else can I conquer my tendencies to rely on my own thoughts / conclusions??  - - - - - Especially as a chronic over-thinker.

Putting this photo in here = hilarious to me. It fits somehow...

James 1:5 ESV - If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

Ephesians 5:15-17 ESV - Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

James 3:17 - But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere

 

Proverbs 17:27-28 - Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.

Jeremiah 9:23 ESV - Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches,

1 Corinthians 3:18-20 ESV - Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”

Isaiah 55:8-11 ESV - For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

------>I have recently listened to a talk by Joni Eareckson Tada and have had a deeper revelation concerning this as she spoke about how her quadriplegia was in God's plan to display His glory in her weakness. There are just way too many examples of this... comment some if you think of any!!!

Romans 11:33 ESV - Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways

1 Corinthians 3:18 ESV - Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.

Daniel 12:3 ESV - And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.

Straight from the Heart

Caramel & Coffee
and the sound of the shore
hold me close. I'll open the door.

Rachmaninoff & Mr. Yo Yo Ma
causes the rain. water my jaw.
better than ever - quelling the maw

Pads on the sand & crunch of my Boots
hair gone to heaven. tossed at the roots.
listening to God and seagull flutes

Hands like waves & Keys like sand
tear up the silence as I run 'cross the land
filthy rags as my offering... sorrowfully placed on the stand.

and... my conscience convicts
with school's dodge-ball picks
Here I am. stones and sticks.

Blind to the light so oft forgot
opening mind to the realization of rot
help me heal! forget! changing my plot.

Here's the truth on a bed of sweet hay
lacking the poem. will you listen today?
smother it softly - it won't hurt that way

A heart & a Boy
living proof the soul's not a toy
part of the ploy. learning true joy.

Killing the Pharisee
don't you see? It's me!
Martyr no longer - how can it be?

Katie died & Jesus Christ Lives
Washing, rewashing in the blood he gives
clinging to hope though life's hardest drives

Maybe I don't & Maybe you do
Is it a secret? would you tell me true?
Counted as one, as one of the few




May I always count the hardest things in this life as blessings. As ropes that bind my heart to that of my creator. Now, right now, I am going through Jeremiah and hungrily drinking every word from Jehovah Rapha, the God who is our healer.

This is going to be tough. God seems to be asking me to make some drastic changes in my life. BUT I don't care! All I want is Jesus! Fear of man, what others think of me, is going to be hard to root out of my life. That's okay. I don't care about what is hard, only about what is right.

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 51:17).

How amazing to be able to approach the throne of God with confidence. (Heb 4:16)

Please continue to pray for me friends. My desire to please God could so easily warp into a work-based system where I try to "DO" my way into heaven.

I am praying for you as well.

I pray that you would seek to KNOW GOD and that he would surround you with believers. That you would be unable to escape from his LOVE and his INSTRUCTION. May the soil of your life be tilled and fertilized, ready to bring forth fruit from the WORD of our LORD GOD - Yahweh, the Prince of Peace.

In the name of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth. - - - - - -Katie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZnZJhdkL2w&feature=g-vrec

THE GOD FAST: read & understand

Who/What is the main influence in our lives?

Think of it. Out of the television programs we watch, the music we listen to, the books we read, the computer sites we visit, and the friends we have.... what percentage is biblical?

Should we be leaving the evangelism only to super Christians? ---Waiting for our co-workers and that lonely older man in the coffee shop to ask just the right questions so we won't be outright rejected?

Somehow I've connected these two lines of thought in my own life. Biblical reading is the fuel for my joy and steadfastness and every time I choose to intake all other forms of entertainment I believe that it can equate to an eternal loss. --- I'm not talking about the actual film or song BUT the fallout/consequences that result from NOT using that time to fill myself with God's holy word.

What wrecks my prayer life? - - - A lack of purity. Selfishness. Pride.
What does the average song/film/book/etc preach? ----> Everything that is opposite from the fruits of the spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, and Self Control. Are you surmising that you will go through hours of these programs and come out unscathed?

PLUS, as if it weren't hard enough, these same influences have crept into mainstream Christianity and can be purchased at your local Christian bookstore or from a list of Amazon recommendations.

Filter everything through God's Holy Word. I'm going to go on a strict diet/fast soon where I jump into God's word and nothing else. I'm wondering if, at the end of it all, if I will see the world differently. Will I actually be able to walk in what God's word calls me to do? What He calls me to be? Ignoring what mainstream Christian leaders think and instead running wholeheartedly in God's word?

Pray for me friends. This is not radical. --- This is exactly what God's word calls us into.

Philippians 3: 7-14

⁷ But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

¹² Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³ Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

FRIENDSHIP: thick'n thin

God does all things well. He is sovereign and his wisdom and timing are perfect. Not only that but within the inner thoughts of our hearts he says, "Come unto me you who are weary and I will give you rest."

I believe this for you:

II Samuel 22:29-37 "O LORD, you are my lamp. The LORD lights up my darkness. In your strength I can crush an army; with my God I can scale any wall. God's way is perfect. All the LORD's promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection. For who is GOD except the LORD? Who but our God is a solid rock?

God is my fortress, and he makes my way perfect. He makes me as surefooted as a deer, enabling me to stand on mountain heights. He trains my hands for battle; he strengthens my arm to draw a bronze bow. You have given me your shield of victory; your help has made me great. You have made a wide path for my feet to keep them from slipping."

Living in weakness where he is strong/God's strength is made perfect within our weakness.

- - - - - Kate

GOD's POWER & STRENGTH: for today & tomorrow & the day after that....forever

Both the prayers and the praise of the righteous avail much. It is through our faith that we are able to claim victory in all areas of life and walk forward in boldness and joy. My prayer is that God continues the good work he has begun in you in a new and fresh way and that your personal desire to have him inundate your life is increased!

I am excited about this time. God is answering my prayers.

Zephaniah 3:17 - "The LORD your God in your midst, the mighty one, WILL SAVE; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

Ephesians 3:16-20 "I PRAY that from his glorious and unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be MADE COMPLETE with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think."

Ephesians 6:10-12 - "A final word: Be strong in the LORD and in his mighty power. Put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand FIRM against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places."

Ephesians 4:1b-2 "...lead a life worthy of YOUR CALLING, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. be patient with each other, making allowances for each other's faults because of your love."

Your calling is great and the LORD will use it mightily for his kingdom. Bless others with the gift of God's word - - -he has equipped you for battle! I am so proud of the strides you have made and I know that God has been pleased with the battles you have won in his name.

Run the race to win the prize! There is strength in your testimony and healing in the word that God has placed within your heart. Do not be discouraged. For today God has given you the victory, by his glorious and powerful name. (Jeremiah 1:17-19)

I thank God for what has happened and what WILL HAPPEN - - - - Kate