Am I a Walking Contradiction?

A little out of place huh? I am not sure of the direction of this blog, but I know that I must write what God has revealed to me. Honestly, I guess the reason I do not know what to write is because I thought that this was a "duh" subject. I took a bunch of kids on a field trip this weekend. At one point, two girls and I got separated from the rest of the group, and while I was trying to figure out a way to keep them entertained, I found this bookstore. The girls were more than willing to explore an old bookstore, so off we went. The moment I walked into the store, I cringed. I had brought these girls into a very dark place of confusion and lies. The girls ran off into different directions, and while I pondered what the best method would be getting them out of the store, I prayed. I prayed for protection and wisdom. I prayed against the enemy and that the book store would be transformed. It didn't take long before the girls started opening up with questions, but I hesitated in giving them simple "fill-in-the-blank" answers. These girls were smart, and I didn't want to be another voice filling their heads with do's and don't's. I just let the girls run around, and while I waited I researched and snapped a few pictures.

God said in Revelations that no one should take away or add to the Bible (Revelaton 22:18-21), but the enemy has made a game out of mixing a little bit of truth with a whole lot of lies. The owner of this bookstore attended church, but her bookshelves were filled with books about finding your true self through meditation, different types of incantations for different illnesses, and dream interpretation books. The pictures on the wall portrayed fallen angels and a world in the hands of the enemy. All the lies were made to look beautiful. However, if I had told the woman that I was a believer in God, she would have told me that she was too. NO! No! You can't play on the fence. You can't say, yes I believe there is a God and all paths lead to heaven and Him. NO! I am so sick of this argument. We are telling people lies that are leading them straight into destruction. God strictly states that the gate is narrow and Jesus says that He is the only way. The road to destruction is the wide one. Matthew 7:13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small leads to life, and only a few find it." Information like the paragraph below lead to destruction. Read and be amazed.

However, this type of lifestyle and these lies are so appealing to the younger generations. There is a desire to find "enlightenment" and break away from the "rigorous rules and contradictions" of the church. The girls were amazed and a little wierded out by the things that they found, but overall they were intrigued. They asked questions, and looked around debating what they believed to be truth. I prayed. When we left, one of the girls finally asked me what I thought about this bookstore. I waited for a moment, and responded, "Do you want the Mrs. Bean answer or the Mrs. Paula answer?" They both stared at me, they just wanted the truth of my opinion... heck, they just wanted truth. I told them about how the enemy is the father of deception and confusion, and alternate lifestyles like those that this paticular bookstore encouraged were a form of darkness used by the enemy to trap people into bondage. I spoke briefly about how I too had been trapped in darkness because I thought it was "fun," but when I became a believer, I took the Bible at its word. Truth is Truth and there is no darkness in the Light. I asked them if they had any wierd feelings in the bookstore. They both said yes, and I told them that in the Bible it talks about a gift of discernment that we are given to decide what is good and what is bad or dangerous. They thanked me for being honest with them, and then one of the girls announced, "I think the Bible is nothing but a book of contradictions." My heart sank, and I asked her what she meant. She preceded to tell me how so many people have told her about things that the Bible said, but then someone else would say something different. Finally, I asked her if she thought she was a smart girl. She said yes, then I told her that people were contradictions, but if she really wanted to know what the Bible says, she should get it out and read it.

My heart broke for this girl the rest of the night, and even now. I cried and prayed over her. She is a beautiful girl with great potential. I know she will go on to do amazing things, and I am continously amazed by her. Sunday, my pastor made a bold confession that he was found guilty on several different occasions speaking for the enemy. I wonder how many times we tell people things because we believe that they are true when in fact, we are speaking for the enemy. We are a walking contradiction. I pray now that pride and arrogance and confusion and deception will be taken away from my lips so that God can be glorfied and no little girl in a bookstore will ever say that words I spoke were contradictions.

Words

I woke up this morning, having a Monday. Ran out to my car, and of course the battery didn't want to start. So... here I am waiting on a ride, and I thought I would share some words with you.


Tears stinging my eyes.
Thoughts clouding my heart.
I know You are my God.
The God of the world.
The only true God.
The one and only.
You gave me life.
I was dead in the grave.
There was no life, a walking corpse.
A lifeless heart seeking self.
Seeking sex.
Because I didn't want You.
Seeking drugs.
Because I didn't want You.
Seeking drunkedness.
Because I didn't want You.
You came to me.
I pushed You away.
How could I have denied You.
It isn't like I didn't know You.
I saw the days and the stars.
How could anyone believe the lie
That You didn't create
What science can't explain.
You interuppted my funeral procession.
Gave me a new soul, new eyes, new mind.
I was alive: You came in.
On my couch, I cried Your name.
I was lame, You taught me to walk.
I learned to run, and now I dance in Your freedom.
They laugh and point fingers.
Tell me I'm strange.
I want to live a life that is real.
Too big to be normal.
But my name isn't important.
I have a spark in this life.
You are the candle, You give me light.
I am called.
Not someday, but NOW.
To be Your reflection, To feed Your sheep.
Because You loved me
And I need You.
Yeah, You told me, they would prosecute me.
But it isn't about me.
It hurts sometimes.
I watched my baby die.
But You use me, and I am thankful.
I am a slave to righteousness. A slave to right.
There are definitely times.
I don't wanna cross that desert.
I don't wanna fight that fight.
But You called me out of the darkness
To be Your light.
But my light, nobody can see, when it is surrounded by light.
So I go back into the darkness.
Your name FEARLESSLY on my lips.
I'm sitting in the garden
My nails digging in the mud.
Whispers of the enemy screaming in my head.
I am saved by Your love.
Your love is holding me.
Nothing to fear.
There is no safe death.
So I will be still and wait.
And know you are God.
But I'm on a mission,
And Your name will be known.
You are the God of this earth.
We are Your people.
And Your people are crying.

This is Your creation.

And we are taking it back.

Collections

I am not someone that likes to keep onto things. I have a three month rule. If the item is not up in the house making the house look beautiful or if we are not going to use it anytime in the foreseen future nor have we used it in the last three months, the item is gone. I am not one to collect anything, but whenever Michael and I were first married, I felt like we should get something to collect as a family. Something unique and special. We decided on Willow Trees. I know that they are very "in" right now, but my husband and I love them, and we really feel as if they show our family style. Here are a few pictures of the Willow Trees that we have.

These Willow Trees were a gift from my husband for my 25th birthday. The little boy is called caring boy and the girl is called spirited child. I love that the girl is wearing jeans and has her hair up in a pony tail. We both thought that these children represented the child like faith that God had given both of us. Lesson: Never let your spirit get too old. Get wiser, not older.

I guess the one with the married couple is our official first year of marriage Willow. I love this one, and it is called together. The angel holding the candle is called the angel of hope. We found this one shortly after we lost our first child. I love looking at it and imaging that our daughter is dancing with Jesus. When we were pregnant, I listened to the song "Our God" by Chris Tomlin. I used to laugh and think that one day we would dance with our child. At Passion, Chris Tomlin played this song, and both my husband and I broke down into tears. Our God is stronger, greater, and good, and our beloved child is now dancing with Him waiting for us. It makes our hearts smile and break. It is a comfort while we patiently wait for God to answer our prayers and send us another child. Hope.

I got this one in the mail the other day as a Christmas present from a dear friend. She is the angel of courage. The card actually states "Bringing a triumphant spirit, inspiration, and courage." I pray that I live a life with arms high in victory as this angel does. I was blessed by the gift, and now we have a new reminder of how we are to live. It came at a perfect time too. Michael and I got this in the mail shortly after we began embarking on praying that God would fearlessly be on our lips.

So... does your family collect anything?

I could have been her...

Yesterday, in the middle of Best Buy, I was talking to a dear friend on my husband's phone because no one but God Himself knew where my phone was.... anyhow different story for a different time. We were discussing some children that we used to minister/mentor. These children did not grow up like I did. There were not rules or standards for these children, and most of them didn't know who their real mom or real dad or real anything was. It was almost as if they grew up living in a story that was not actually their own story. Anyway, God has brought me face forward with many of these girls this past weekend. Some of the girls went ahead and found a way to make a life for themselves. Some of the girls drifted farther back into their fairy tale world and now have decided to set up camp and live there. It is heartbreaking.

Life is funny, but God is never surprised. My husband and I are taking a mission oriented class at church for the next 15 weeks. The class is on Sundays, and it comes with homework and required reading. I have mixed feelings about the class. I am excited to be learning and finishing something I began last year, but the thought of going ahead and giving away 3 hours of my Sunday for the next 15 weeks doesn't excite me when so much of my time is already taken. I have a serious freedom issue that I need to get over. However, the class is a good reminder that we are not alone in the world. The class is also a great reminder that we have a responsibility to God and His people to bloom and spread His love where we are planted first and to the ends of the Earth second.

My run-ins with the girls and the class all came tumbling down on my last night when I was cleaning and redecorating my house. I AM BLESSED BEYOND BELIEF. I have a beautiful house that is clean, decorated, and organized. I mean I have a Better Homes and Garden magazine on my coffee table. I have a husband who not only loves and cherishes me, but he loves and cherishes God. I have never seen a man more anxious to wake up in the morning so that he can read his Bible. My husband is also a dedicated worker and is okay about living without the finer things in life so that I can be a stay-at-home(ish) wife next year. I mean the man ate beans and rice for like three days last week. I am thankful for a job that has taught me much about kids and life. I am thankful that the word of God is free here and that our government does not have control over the church. I could go on and on about what I am thankful for because I am in freedom.

However, I could have been her. I could have been the one to fall into slavery at a young age. See, my parents both had to work, and I was in charge of letting myself into the house everyday after school. I walked home the same way at the same time for many months. All it would have taken is someone to watch me for a couple of days to figure out how to get a hold of me. Also, when I was in college I did some horribly stupid (I mean STUPID) stuff that ended me up in bad situations with men I didn't know. Before college even started, I made a game of how many times I could sneak out of the house. I wasn't even going anywhere good, I was just going to see if I could get away with leaving. One situation stuck out in particular.

I was maybe 9 or 10 years old, and I had a friend named Autumn. Autumn had a mom that would let her do almost anything she wanted, so one NIGHT Autumn came to my house asking if I wanted to go hang out with her. My dad wasn't home, so I knew that it wouldn't be a problem. (I love my mom and dad with all my heart, but mom was just easier to say yes than dad was.) While I was running out the door I vaguely remember my mom telling me to call her when we got back to Autumn's apartment. (Oh the days before five year olds had cell phones. I had a walkie talkie I was required to carry around our apartment complex). However, I never called my mom. As soon as we got to Autumn's house, there was a knock at the door and some girls were asking us to come outside to this gazebo thing in the middle of the apartment complex. One of the girls was my babysitter, so I felt safe enough going with her. I forgot to call my mom, and Autumn's mom didn't care if we went. When we got to what I assume now was a party for pot smokers (I didn't know what pot was at 10-years-old). There were people much older than I present. Most of them were men. It was dark... too dark to see much, and there I was, tiny me with my pound puppy bicycle.

Can I be real with you? At that time, children were being taken all the time, but the idea of slavery was incomprehensible. Nobody really knew that people would have taken a 9 or 10-year-old girl off of her pound puppy bike and put her to "work". I could have been her, the girl with the testimony "I was in the back of a building being raped repeatdly when they finally raided the place and set me free." Or I could have never been given the chance to speak at all. See, I am not afraid. God protected me then, how much more now am I protected with God and all of His angels fighting for what is right and just.

My dad was the one that found me, and I had never and honestly have never seen him as angry as he was that night. He busted that party and yelled at everyone to go home. He grabbed me and told me to get home before he did. I drove that pound puppy bike so fast, and I didn't even lock it up. I ran straight to our apartment and dove behind my mother's chair. My father came in with a belt and emotion. I realize now that more than anger, he was probably just afraid. He had every right to be afraid.


"According to the FBI, more than 300,000 children have been sold by sex traffickers in the United States. In the global trade, one in four sex slaves are Americans who simply vanished. And each year 13,000 new victims are snatched up and sold for sex."

Monday Morning Coffee Break

There is something so beautiful about waking up early, making coffee, preparing lunches, breakfast, and dinner, and getting to spend some time in God's word. I see now why the Proverbs 31 woman arrised early. She had things to do, but more than that it was the desire of her heart to see her house in order before the rest of the world got up and moving around. I feel like my husband leaves the house in a much happier mood when things are in order and running smoothly by the time he gets up and awake. Getting up early and starting the day is a little way that I can love him. I decided today that his job will be to make the bed each morning. It is a horrible little task that I hate to do, but I love it being done. It kinda goes into that washing dishes list. They need to be done, but I do not want to be the one that does them. Today is Monday morning, and today I go back to being a teacher of English. It is a bittersweet end to a fantastic break, but the realization that this is my last semester in this school is a reality I do not want to let go of. Nothing can be left back. I am reminded of this, it is important to remember to bloom where you are planted. God said make disciples of all nations. That doesn't mean just overseas or just here in America. It means all! I am going to focus on that today. The people in my classroom need Jesus just as much as the children in other countries. What are some things that your husbands do around the house?

Hope is Springing up from this Old Ground

Michael and I are finally home. We raced home yesterday so that we could meet my brother-in-law and his wife (who is quickly becoming one of my best friends) at our house to watch the Razorback game. Michael and I spent much of our time unpacking the past two weeks on our drive home. We visited so many people, we talked to so many lost souls, and we were given so much wisdom to those way more intelligent that I am. We watched God move... literally move. My opinions on so many things are changed. My opinion of salvation, the Holy Spirit, and then finally my opinion on mission works is completley changed! A dear friend of ours attended the Passion conference with us, and she cried when the realization that millions of people were dying each day and going to hell because they had not heard the word of God.

It is always interesting when you come back from a trip like the one that Michael and I just took. You always come back searching, and I am thankful that our searching has sent us back to the word of God. The last time I went on a trip of this magnitude, I came back home and was by myself. I had been gone for a month and now I was alone. I remember that night clearly. I laid on the floor and cried. I cried for hours for reasons I am not sure of. Last night, when I came home, I didn't have to come home alone. I am so thankful for that. It took me forever to be okay with getting married because I was too afraid that marriage was going to take away freedom, but God has shown me so many blessings in marriage, and last night I didn't cry. I sat with my husband in hope as we discussed what God was going to do in our lives next.

When you come back from a trip like this, there is also a balance to be found. I remember the last time I came from being away from home. I was gone for two and a half months, and when I got home I couldn't figure out how to adjust back into this life. This life is the reality, so what do we do with what God has given us? Michael and I are cleaning our house today, fixing cars, and getting ready for Monday. We are officially finding a balance. However, we are not changed. We have already made some decisions about how life is going to look for us in 2012.

I am quitting my job. I told my principal that Michael and I wanted to focus more on me staying at home next year. Michael works, and he works hard. He wanted to make sure that our family had the freedom to minister to the world, so we decided that the best bet was for me to quit. I will be returning to school on Monday and begin telling people that I will not be returning next year. I have no idea how to do this. I want them to know God is the reason for our paths in life. I want them to know that there is a reckless abadonment that is occuring in our household, and I want them to know that it doesn't matter how many things you have when you die. Stuff will perish, so our family will never have the stuff that other families have.... so what. We have more than enough. Actually, I am in the process right now of seeing what we can get rid of because we have too much stuff. The sad thing about me quitting my job is not that we will not have the money to buy the most expensive stuff, but I will miss my students. I want to tell them each day that there is a God that loves them. I want each of them to see daily that God is real, heaven is real, hell is real, and there is freedom in the name of the Lord. I will miss their beautiful faces.

I won't be able to just stay at home next year though. I have to find some sort of job. I have tossed around working at a hotel of some sort or working for Starbucks. I will only have to work part time, so I don't want to find something that is going to keep me just as busy as teaching. I have no clue where God is going to lead me, but I do know that in the last week, He has given me two visions. The first vision is a book that I am going to write and sell. A book that He is going to give me words for, and I really don't know anything about the book. The book will be used to buy land so that we can finally open a camp, home, restoration house, safe house or something for children, women, or something. We are still drawn to the fight against human trafficking because there is a battle. I don't want to miss out on this battle.

There is an academy every year for people who are interested in becoming unofficial government investigators for cases concering human trafficking. It isn't too expensive, and I think that my husband and I will be sending me there this summer. I am really hoping that someone will be able to attend with me because Michael cannot go. I will ask my church soon and see if anyone is also passionate about helping the women, men and children in bondage. This way while Michael and I are still trying to figure stuff out about the home/camp that has been laid on our hearts, I can be of service to the local police. It is so cool to remember that God is bigger than me! I am so excited that God does inmeasureably more than I could ever imagine.

The second vision is of me, pregnant, holding a beautiful brown baby. I remember the brown babies that would run up to me when we did the Christmas party in downtown Atlanta. They would outstretch their arms and beg for attention. Sadly, (I promise I am not racisist) there were many brown people in the city of Atlanta that were trapped in spiritual bondage. Everyone we met in the clubs, etc. were brown. I pray for revival among the brown people of America, and I pray for men and women to stand up and love people in these areas. I pray the Holy Spirit bring on something crazy cool for them and open their eyes. It broke my heart. We were in Atlanta for so long, and we met so many amazing people on trains etc. God even sent us an angel who was brown and couldn't speak. We were on the wrong train, and he stopped the train and pointed to the correct train. There were so many brown people in such deppression, and then all the Passion people showed up, and there were more white people than brown people. Actually, there were hardly any brown people. We do not serve a God of white people. We serve a God who is for all people! We serve a God who is for all languages. I do miss the people of Atlanta.

We are home.

We are changing.

We are growing.

We are called to go make disciples of ALL NATIONS.

We have our vision.

We have God's will in our hands through His word.

We have the Holy Spirit.

Hell is real.

People are going to hell everyday.

It is now time to Go! Right Now, Right Here!

May all of our eyes be open like our dear friend who was with us.

I will leave you with one of the hundreds of stories that has stuck with me in the past couple of weeks. There was a story of this human trafficking ring. It was a pretty big one; there were like eleven girls. One day there was something strange posted on twitter that led authorities to the place where the girls were being kept. Three days later, the girls were saved. They told the A21 campaign after they were saved that since the day they were in bondage, they prayed to Allah everyday for him to come and save them. They remained in bondage. Three days before they were rescued (when the twitter post went out), one of the girls remembered another God that her grandmother had spoken about. His name was Jesus. They decided then to pray to Jesus and ask Him to save them. Three days later they were taken out of bondage.

There is freedom in the name of the Lord.

Today is the first day of the New Year, and I find myself interested in what God is going to do at passion, a little homesick, smelling like weed (I think Atlanta has the market on weed, just saying, you smell it everywhere), in love with my husband who finally chose his 2012 word Learn, and happy to be in a hotel where a dear friend will be joining us soon. I am so grateful that this day fell upon Sunday. Michael and I met some people here that invited us to church later this evening, and it will be a fun time for some worship and fellowship into the new year. Last night, in a crowd of tens of thousands of people, I found a friend that I attended Camp Skyline, and we got to ring in the New Year together. It was definitely God's divine appointments (His timing) that got us together since niether one of us live anywhere near Atlanta. She got an internship here from her school, and will be living/working here for a few months, and of course Michael and I are on some sort of vacation/mission trip/pilgrimage :). What about you guys? How did you spend New Year's Eve, and what do you resolve to do in 2012?

Before going out to eat at Olive Garden. Funny story, since I used to be a waitress, Michael and I like to *overtip* on occassion to waiters or waitresses that are especially good. We had a fantastic waitress, so we decided to *overtip.* That was all good and fine until we got back to the MARTA station and realized that to get a pass card you had to have cash, and we only had five dollars. We had to come back to the hotel to get more cash and then drive back to the station to take a train downtown. It was all very entertaining.