What Does It Take?

Well, since I didnt put a date on this either, I have no idea when it was written, but it was during my college years 04-09...During Volleyball Season...I think I was frustrated with my teammates and the lack of heart we exhibited, and the lack of respect we had for our coaching staff...

What Does It Take?
When you wake up in the morning, able to breathe the fresh crisp air
Do you stop and take a moment to thank God, or do you even care?
Do you see waking up as your gift or your right?
Do you even stop and realize that someone else didn't wake up from last night
What does it take?

What does it take for you to use everything that by God you were given?
What does it take to realize that your actions could have an effect on how someone will continue living?
What does it take?

What does it take to have the desire to fight for the people that fight for you?
Why is it so easy to say "I give up" or "I'm through"
They have lives and responsibilities too
What does it take?

Where is the drive that made you love this game?
At this point where is the pride in wearing your school's name?
What does it take?

What does it take to realize everyday is not promised?
At any given moment your life can change?
It could be your door upon which tragedy knocks and leave its name

What does it take to realize how blessed you really are?
You have the ability to play this game
The priveledge to wake up each day healthy and not in pain
We all know someone whose story is not the same

Yet and still we act like it's okay to lose
Like it's our right to just give up without at fight
What does it take

I am in no way perfect, I've given up at times too
But I can tell you what it takes for me to make it through
Maybe somehow it will inspire you

For me all it takes is a trip down memory lane
To a place and time when my life was going completely insane

I no longer look as each day as a given right
But as an opportunity and a gift from God to make things right

I think back to the days when i didn't know if I'd be here
The thoughts of him still loom in my ear
There were many times I thought by his hands I would die
But by the grace of God i'm still alive

I remember having to come to practice after one of our fights
And act like it was nothing, I was okay, everything was alright
But it wasnt
I've been choked to the point I've almost passed out
Yet I still hold my head up because by the grace of God I made it out

I take time to remember that it was this game, this game saved my life
It was my peace my joy, my way out

Not My Time, but God's Time

I wrote this on the day that I got baptized....1/16/2007

Not My Time, but God's Time

So many people sit and wonder why am I going through so much strife? How long do I have to struggle? Aren't I doing everything that God wants me to do? Has that ever been you? Have you ever cried only to face more hardtimes? In these times did you praise God in advance or did you ask "Lord why me?" When you didnt have the money to pay your rent, did you stress and turn to people and not God? When you were standing at the bus stop did you say thank you Lord for making a way for me to get from point A to B or did you just remain angry and wish you had your car? When you were dealing with the circumstances of life did you lable it a circumstance or were you able to accept it as the next building block in your testimony? I have been in each one of those situations. I even felt that God was punishing me, but it is much more than that. God needs us to pour out of our soul the word of liffe that He has put inside of us, but how can we do that if we dont go through trials and tribulations? It is through our trials that we become strong enough to stand up from where we were to move to the place that we need to be. The Bible says that our steps are ordered, so we should be able to rest in the fact that God is only taking us through things to prepare us for something better. I stayed in a messed up relationship for far too long, only hurting myself and putting at risk the lives that I should be touching, but God! God has a way of opening our eyes IF we are ready to trust Him. I was trusting money, security, sex, and even drugs and alcohol instead of trusting my God. Singing His praises on Sunday only to be out drinking heavily by the end of the week, but God shook some things up. Not in my time, but His time. He let me stay right where I was. Crying and pleading for His help until I was ready to move, and then when I thought I was ready He reminded me "Not in your time, but Mine" Has that ever cut you up inside? We wnat to do things on our own agenda and not God's, but He has a way of bringing us back to earth. "Not in your time, but Mine" I believe in a divine purpose for everything. Had I gotten out sooner I wonuldnt have truly realized just how graceful and merciful God truly is. I would not have appreciated my life and its value. God is calling us higher, but we have to be ready to move when it's time. I learned from my ordeal that I was ungreateful to those who tried to help me. Being so used to "thinking" I was doing things by my own strength had me on a high horse thinking I needed no help, and not wanting to ask for help, but God has a way of breaking us down to nothing, and it's at that place of brokeness that He is able to do His best work. His strength is made perfect in our weakness.. My rent got paid more than once and it was not by my strength. I didnt even have the means to put food on my table. Brokeness. My ex and I lived apart, but I still longed for that security. God said "NO" The security I thought I had I had in the wrong place. God reminded me that it is through Him that all things are possible, that He was my security and not man. When I started to look at the ex as my way to pay my rent and support myself and my son, God quickly reminded me that He giveth and He taketh away...and He does things so expediciously that we dont have time to come up with a back up plan. Why? because He has the ultimate plan. He is the back up plan. He is plan A B C D and E if we allow him to be. It's such a different outlook when we remove self from the picture. You start seeing people doing and saying the very same things that they condemed you for. People begin to need you, but when you needed them they werent there or they didnt appreciate you. Seasoned folk say "you dont miss what you had until it's gone" The ex called to once to tell me he was sorry, and the truth about what I meant to him after we had moved on. He talked about times that I was there for him and times he was glad I saved him from himself, times I picked him up when he couldnt get up, and I thank God that I was those things, but God was telling me my time was done. It was His time now. I had done and fulfilled my purpose, learned my lesson, and that it was now time to let Him be God. I couldnt keep holding on to the very thing that God was saying "let go" of. Obedience is key in keeping His commands and lining up with His will. I'm not saying God m
 

Restoration Required

Like most of my posts...this one is unabridged, my thoughts on paper....feel free to comment :-) Restoration Required Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, Renew a right spirit within me” Today was a normal day. I woke up and attended a funeral, went to lunch with my husband, and went home to prepare for a nap. Of course no one just goes straight to sleep, so as I lay in bed, I began to play games on my phone as I normally would, but today something was different. As I attempted to open certain apps, I realized they wouldn’t open, and the ones that did began to run slower than usual. I kept trying to open apps but to no avail. I then began to get nervous. I had recently dropped my phone and completely destroyed the screen. It wasn’t just cracked, but rather a chunk of the screen was missing, exposing the innermost parts of the phone. In order to keep the phone from being damaged by the elements, I decided to place a piece of tape over it as a quick fix until I could get it properly repaired. I began to think somehow something may have gotten into the phone and was causing it to malfunction. I began to think about the almost 1000 pictures that I had stored on my phone, and couldn't bear the thought of losing such precious memories, so I jumped out of bed to try to download my pictures onto my laptop in a desperate attempt to salvage them before the phone completely died. The first attempt was not successful at all. I could not get the cord to connect my phone to the computer. By this time my mind was racing. Maybe it is because I don’t have a memory card I thought, so I asked Lance to go buy one for me. I had tried everything that I could think of at this point-I even tried to send them to drop box, but it was taking too long and my phone was heating rapidly. Then something said, “Try the cord that came with the phone. As soon as I plugged the cord with the “back-up” instructions printed on it into my phone and my computer, the contents of my phone became available, but to my disbelief, I could not locate my pictures anywhere. I began to search the folders still not finding all of them. (This helps me to believe that the things that we hold precious to us should be hidden so that they are not easily found-not easily given away or found by just anyone) Eventually, I clicked on a random folder labeled DCIM, and there were all of my pictures and videos. I immediately began to transfer them. By this time, the phone was burning up and losing battery power at an incredibly fast rate. By the time the photos finished downloading, my phone was only at 6% power and felt as if it had been left outside in the heat all day long. At this point I wasn’t worried because my pics had been copied and were now safe. As I got in bed, now ready to put the phone on the charger, it completely shut off. Again I became nervous. My pictures were safe, but now I began to think about how I really didn’t want to purchase a new phone seeing as though this one was less than a year old, and I would rather just get it repaire. I gave it a few minutes then attempted to turn it back on. This time when it came on, I immediately googled causes for phones overheating. The website read, “Your phone is equipped with an automatic shutoff component when it reaches a certain temperature, don’t use it, get it repaired. I turned if off again and went to sleep hoping that I would wake up and it was back to normal. Two hours later, I turned my phone back on and it was charged about 96%, but almost immediately it began to get hot again. I didn’t want to waste time, and I had somewhere to be, so as soon as I got in my car, I phoned Verizon. By the time I was able to talk to someone; my phone was incredibly hot and had gone from 96% to 72% in less than 10 minutes. The representative took me through a battery of tests. Originally, she believed that something, possibly dust, had gotten into the phone through the cracked screen causing it to overheat /malfunction. I assured her however that the tape I had placed over the crack was keeping out all debris. She proceeded to tell me that the only thing left to do then was a complete restore because sometimes we download applications that ask for certain permissions and we allow them those permissions that can damage our phones. She continued to explain that since it’s not possible to determine which application causes the problem, we must do a full restore/ erase everything – basically put the phone back into its original factory setting. I was okay with this bit of information at first because my pictures were backed up for sure. Then she asked about my contacts. I stated that they were backed up and proceeded to hit the erase all button…right as I put my finger on the screen – I stopped. What if my contacts weren’t backed up? What if I lost touch with people I needed? Frantically, I began to scratch down names and numbers of a few of my contacts. Finally, I just said, “ma'am, I believe they are backed up, I’m ready to complete the restore” I typed in my password and for the second time hit the button to “erase all data on phone” As I waited for my phone to reboot, and be restored to it original settings, I could only help to think, “I hope this works- I hope this stops this phone from overheating” When the phone turned back on, I had to begin the restoration process- reprogramming my settings and various applications. The technician made it a point to tell me to restore the applications slowly in an effort not to reintroduce the corrupt applications to the phone. About ten minutes after completing the restore, the phone was working perfectly. It was no longer getting hot, and as it turned out my contacts were backed up. I only lost about 50, so I hadn’t truly lost much at all, but gained a clean, like news phone. I always try to see God in all of my situations, and this one caused me to question a few things. 1. What are we “downloading into our lives? 2. What are we giving “permission” to that is potentially corrupting us? 3. What are we allowing to slip through the cracks in our lives-into our hearts and our innermost being? 4. What are we covering with tape instead of repairing? 5, Why are we afraid to lose contacts? If they are really meant to be in our lives they will be there 6. Why are we allowing things inside of us that are destroying us? Then I came up with a few responses as I began to think about the whole process. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I need God to restore my life...there are some apps that I have downloaded into my life that have caused me to need God to come in and restore me. I’m sure that I am not the only one that needs God to erase all the contacts and reprogram “my device”- in my case, my heart. First issue-The phone was cracked- this can be directly related to our lives. For example, like the screen on my phone, when we are broken, we are often exposed to the elements (outside people or things as it relates to life). We allow things/ people to slip through the “cracks” in our life that we have covered merely with tape. The thing about tape is that it has to constantly be replaced. It’s funny how we would rather put tape on things rather than get them repaired. We would rather put “tape” on our wounds instead of letting God repair us. I guess it makes sense though; tape is convenient-repairs typically cost. In order to be repaired, layers may have to be removed- in our case we would have to take the “masks” off and see ourselves completely naked whereas tape covers the wounds like a band aid. - interestingly enough a band aid cannot heal a wound it merely covers it keeping out debris, but eventually in order to heal the wound must breathe. We need God to breathe into our lives, and heal some of our wounds. Second, we must be careful what we put into our systems (lives) We must take heed to how we introduce “apps” in our lives. Some things need to be deleted and not downloaded or opened because it is useless and may possibly cause us to “overheat” or become bogged down with the burdens of life and not function to our full capacity. Corruption in our lives can come from many “apps” things such as: Feeling empty, being heart broken, wanting to be wanted/loved, buying love, alcoholism, adultery, cursing, not praying/seeking God, feeling empty and many others. We cannot hold on to our corrupt applications for if we try, we will eventually destroy ourselves and potentially go into a shut down mode. For me, I know when God hits my automatic shut off button so that I don’t overheat, but not everyone may recognize those same signs. When we begin to overheat, we must allow God to come in and clean us up. Allow Him to take out everything corrupt and return us to our factory setting. We must allow God to create in us a clean heart-to take out all that is corrupt and contrite so that we may run smoothly. We must also allow God to delete things that we hold on to that take up space and cloud our memory- those very things that desire to destroy us. Thankfully after restoration everything was made new, and given a chance to start fresh. This reminds me of grace!! God promises hold true…. Acknowledge the corrupting- Job 8:6 In our sin and corruption, we must seek God and ask Him to forgive us in order that He might restore us and set everything right in our lives once again. Deuteronomy 30- Turn back to Him Often times we turn away from God and His word just as the Hebrews did, and we become subject to curses and corruption, but if we allow ourselves to turn back to God and His word, He will receive us. His mercy is unbelievable, but we must be willing to obey Him with our whole hearts and souls. Keep Your Mind and Memory Clear and Alert 1 Peter 5:7-11 We cannot allow ourselves to not be aware of the traps that Satan has set for us. Satan aims to destroy us, and he is clever in his ways. Satan has a way of using the “apps” that we download into our lives to his advantage. They may seem harmless, but when we begin to start allowing them “permissions” we begin to put ourselves at risk to be corrupted. It’s amazing how once my phone was purged and restored it began to perform flawlessly. Let God restore you!