What’s Trending? What’s the Bible Say about it?
Here is a way American Bible Society connects the Word of God to our society.
These are random trending videos, articles, songs that have an underlying message.
What are some trending stuff you enjoy?
If you don’t see it on the page, please throw it by my way or feel free to ‘submit a story’ (at the top right of the page)
I would LOVE to hear from you all on some of the stuff posted..
Btw — I personally enjoyed the Dove clip on beauty.. how women perceive themselves.. it’s fascinating.. “Are you more beautiful than you think?”
Show us Christ.
Today, more than ever, I am aware of the state of depravity all around us.
People are broken. People are hurting. People are angry. Some are rejoicing.
How do polar-opposite emotions occur simultaneously?
This is not a ‘new message’ blog entry.
We need Christ.
He’s the only answer .. that makes sense.
All of the other answers seem to fade.
It doesn’t even make sense calling them an ‘answer’. They’re alternatives that lead us to more questions and more hurt.
America needs to see Christ in the brokenness around us.
No denomination. No religion. No anti-”fill-in-the-blank” here.
Show us Christ.
We need to be held in order to stand.
We need to be carried in order to walk.
We need peace that surpasses ALL human logic to keep us hopeful.
Man will fail us. During this week, it is an obvious reality.
We hurt one another. We cause each other pain. We disregard the emotions of those bleeding and keep on moving.
So, I stop everything and simply think .. and thank .. God.
He bore even more extreme pain and hurt. He lost His Beloved. He suffered loss.
The love of Christ never fails. It surpasses evil and wickedness. It is the ONLY thing that can cover a multitude of sins.
He will carry His people through the pain. Not one tear goes unnoticed. Draw near to Christ..
He’ll draw near to you.
It’s a promise.
No strings attached.
Silas’ Passion
One of the things I enjoy most about being on the worship team on a Sunday morning is to watch children worship.
Yup!
You heard me correctly.
There really is nothing like it.
One of the sweetest moments during yesterday’s set was during “Beautiful the Blood”, when I noticed my little buddy Silas with his arms outstretched and eyes shut, screaming out the lyrics to the song.
“And now I sing freedom for all my days
It’s only by the power of the cross I’m raised
The King of Glory rescued me”
I had to force myself to look away cause my eyes started swelling.
I remember thinking to myself last night what it would be like if we all had a child’s passion to worship God.
I wonder what it is about that song that moved Si into relentless worship. That’s besides the point..
He didn’t care who was standing beside him. His friends were not nearby. It seemed at that moment to just be him and God.
My heart swelled.
That is pure worship, isn’t it?
Raw passion.
“How beautiful the blood flow
How merciful the love show
The King of glory poured out
Victorious are we now“
..and so I beg the Lord for a few things — one of them being a continuous passion to worship Him. I don’t want to be looked at for my voice. I want them to see a little girl who desperately cannot seem to find any other method of relaying this love & passion towards the Christ. I want it to be my overflow. Could I be that girl who doesn’t care about flailing her arms and screaming out words of praise. Eyes shut to the world. Just me and God. I pray for that boldness. A child’s heart.
I’m grateful for Silas.
I pray he never, ever loses that passion.
I pray that it drives him to do bold things for the sake of Christ.
I pray for the upcoming generation .. that they would be bold worshipers .. in Spirit & Truth.
I specifically pray for the kids in my church family and in my own family — that the Lord would give them a heart to be bold in praise. I pray that they would always have arms high and hearts abandoned. I pray for us ‘older folk’ — that we would take the time to tune out the outside noise and tune in to His melody for us.
…and so I keep on pressing on to know Him more and I wait for the day when I know Him fully!
Just a Stranger with a New Norm
I almost feel like a stranger to my own blog..
It has been one of THOSE seasons. Ever feel like a fraud in your own writing nook? I’m looking to get over all of that and slowly begin blogging again.
First things first, praise be to God for .. just being ‘God’ .. faithful .. true .. gracious .. patient .. kind .. and always loving. It’ll be 1 month of working with American Bible Society (ABS) next week. Time has flown by, for sure. Life right now has finally gotten into a new routine .. a somewhat swing of things.
A good day is like today, as I’ve gotten 8 hours of sleep and my mind fully processes and functions. I’m a sleep whore, I know. I’m grateful for rest. After months of struggling with tossing and turning — it’s nice to sleep through the night and actually wake up before the alarm sounds.
I begin my morning around 5:30 and the ‘getting dressed’ process starts around 6. I’m usually out the door sometime between 7:20 and 7:45. My work day starts at 9am — and we always begin with group devotionals and prayer. This has been such a means of grace. For a girl who has struggled with a lengthy dry patch of personal Scripture time, this has helped serve as a venue to fall in love with the Word ..again. God must’ve known I needed that, crazy how looking back in hind-sight .. things are so much better than I could’ve planned!
The people that I work with are some of the chillest, sweetest, Jesus-loving folks I’ve encountered outside of my own church family. We all have very different upbringings and we even pray differently and have different testimonies, but God beautifully uses it all. Our team is such a perfect blend of personalities and His grace in the midst of it.
On a ‘rough day’ it’s a blessing to have co-workers encourage and uplift. This genuine desire to care for one another is so radically different than past job experiences with co-workers. Even in the midst of serious work pile-up and chaos, I know (without a shadow of a doubt) that this is all a part of making His name great.
So, I’m beginning to put faces to names in this part of the journey at work. Every day I feel more confident with the work I’m doing. My commute to and from work is lengthy and this is still something that I’m figuring out. Till those answers get clarified, I’ve been enjoying commute rides just jamming to music with the windows down. Yes, I am THAT girl on the Turnpike. Aretha, move on over boo.
Ok, who am I kidding?
No one.
Exactly.
*grins*
My new norm is something I’m grateful for. I’m humbled to be a part of a bigger Calling. All over the world, people are experiencing the love of God through the Scripture and I get to be a little part of that. Cool, right? Every day is a confirmation of His love and mercy towards me. I am undeserving of that kindness, but He somehow keeps it coming!
Love you friends, keep on loving! Keep on laughing! Keep on living .. LOUD 
Working it up!
..just a small part of the BIG changes that will be called “life” for this season of my life
..thanks for ALL of your prayers, love, and encouragement through this crazy season of waiting. And by crazy, I mean sweet. Maybe
I’ll post a new blog soon.. tons of stuff to catch you all up on.. till then..
Protected: Crushed for a GREATER Purpose
Atonement: Love of a mom and the ultimate love of the Father
It’s been a long time since I’ve written.
Hi friends.
Words don’t come easy anymore. I prefer silence these days.
Here I am, with tons on my heart to share.. so, here goes something, hopefully!
My sister was sharing with my family a sermon that was preached at her church the other week and it had me thinking. Still thinking, actually. It’s based off the 2 Samuel 21 passage in which the sins of King Saul have to be atoned for. The only way atonement can be done in this passage is through blood. The dictionary likes to define atonement as: “amends or reparation made for an injury or wrong.” Let’s just say Saul had a bunch of wrong doings. Wrong doings that impacted more than just himself. His loved ones felt the ripple affect.
Sin does that to us, right?
Let me backtrack to the original story..
So, the Gibeonites (the ones who were wronged by Saul) were asked by King David how wrongs could be made right. Their response was they didn’t want Saul’s money, nor did they want to take the life of the men of Israel and put blood on their own hands. The king responds: “I will do for you whatever you say” and so they respond back with “the man who consumed us and who planned to exterminate us from remaining within any border of Israel, let seven men from his sons be given to us, and we will hang them before the Lord..”
Wow, right?
They wanted the sons of Saul to be exposed and hanged for the wrongs of their household led by their father, Saul. So, the king took 2 sons of Rizpah (one of Saul’s concubines) and 5 sons of Merab (the daughter of Saul) and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites. These men were exposed and hung before the Lord during the first days of Harvest. They were placed under the curse of God.
Rizpah (it’s fascinating that they would even put her name in the Bible considering how MANY concubines get lost in the pages!) does what only a mother could do for her child. She spreads herself on the rock from the beginning of Harvest until it rained to stop prey & predators (of all kinds) from tearing up her sons bodies. The preacher made a great point by addressing that this gap of time was not a matter of days or weeks — it was months that passed by. Can you even imagine!? The love and passion a mother felt towards her boys went past death itself.
The preacher then made a fantastic correlation with another mother in the New Testament who laid at the feet of her Son in the midst of His brutal death. Mary, the mother of Jesus, watching her beloved child brutally be crucified. His life being placed under the ultimate curse of sin. It gave me chills when I heard about it. It still does.
The ultimate atonement was when Jesus Christ wrapped Himself in flesh and came down to earth to save the broken world around Him through His life, death, and ressurection.
What a brilliant correlation, right?!
And so I think about Rizpah, just one of the many ladies who were a part of Saul’s life. I’m sure they all fought for his affections and attention. Yet, HER name was mentioned in the passage. The bodies of her sons were properly laid to rest because of her ultimate act of love towards them. David saw the love of a zealous mother and paid her with grace. I can’t help but marvel about how the Lord would use the Old Testament sins and need for atonement to point directly to a Man on the Cross, many many years later, atoning for the sins of the entire world – past, present, and future. This was not a man with a vicious trackrecord — He was blameless, with not even a hint of sin to be found in His life.
Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.
So, here I am with all these thoughts needing to be shared with y’all because it’s been on my heart for the past couple days. And so I type. I cannot keep silent even if I try. I’m grateful for Christ’s atonement and the ultimate love of the Father. I have words because of Him. He fills the silence. He gives me words to speak.
Current Passage: 2 Samuel 21
Current Tune: “You Satisfy My Soul” by Laura Hackett
Current Sermon: “Where Mercy Reigns” by Dr. Liam Goligher
(It’s brilliant! I had to blog about it. Check it out by clicking the link attached to the name of the title.)
Lessons From a Wardrobe
“Is — is he a man?” asked Lucy
“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion, the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh,” said Susan, “I thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king I tell you.”
to much is given
The Lord has been teaching me so much during this season. Much of it has not been a ‘walk in the park’. It has brought tears and outbursts, anger and pain, continuous melancholy and abnormal silence (for Sheryl!) ..topped with some feelings of defeat. Over and over. These are the emotions I battle day after day. I bet you wanna switch lives now! *smiles*
…probably not, BUT regardless, He has been teaching me so much about my heart and its affections.
I grew up believing that success was found in knowledge, financial security, and the stability of a family.
I have found that the Lord has stripped me of all of the above to remind me of His love for me. What began as a feeling of one blow after another, the Lord used as a means of grace.. to bring me to Himself. So, I think about all of the things this girl has dreamed about over the years, and I’ve found myself at a loss for words — I have so much more.. I have a Savior.
This is not some figment of my imagination or someone I hear my pastor talk about, so I jump on the bandwagon of “Church life”. This is my personal confession. The Lord in my life has been sheer grace — walking with me every step of the way, taking every blow I threw towards Him in rage, and continuously serving my needy heart by washing my feet.
He has shown me provision without a current salary.
He has shown me pure JOY after moments of heartbreak and loss.
He has allowed me to see the sun shine after continuous rainy days.
He has provided me with some of the most loving people this girl could NEVER, ever deserve.
..”to much is given, much is required”
I have been given so much.
He tells me that to be less is to be more.
He tells me that to have nothing is to have everything.
He tells me that when I decrease, He will increase.
I have been given Jesus.
Everything else seems to pale to Him these days.
..so, so much is required of me. I beg that He would give me the courage to believe in Him like in the days of old. I pray that He would use that belief to make much of Him. I hope that I could even scratch surface on what is required of me.
I have been given much.
I have been given the Christ.
Current Tune: Kristian Stanfill – ”My Reward”
