a Surrendered Life

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When I think of the word surrender more often than not I envision an army surrendering to another army who just gives up.  Sometimes I think of a person surrendering to the will of someone else.  But instead of thinking of the word "surrender" as a verb--as an action--I want to challenge you to think of surrender as an adjective.

I know that this goes against every rule in the English language, but hear me out.

God wants us to move past this action of surrendering into a surrendered life.  In other words, God desires us to move past the process of surrendering every problem as it arises in our life.  He wants us to move into a new realm of trust.  He deeply desires us to always live in this complete trust state.

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Trusting completely without reservation is difficult, but when we recognize who God truly is and when we step into a realization of His sovereignty, trust does come much easier.  Nonetheless, this comprehension can only be achieved when we leave our understanding of God on an intellectual level and cultivate heart knowledge of who God is.  I love what J. I. Packer says in his book Knowing God.  He writes, "A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge about Him."

I feel so deeply that God is calling His church, the very Love He died for, back to Him and back to a knowledge of Him.  Not who He is or what He did or what He's like or even what He can do.  He is calling us back to Him.

In Revelations 2, Jesus is speaking to the church at Ephesus.  Jesus commends the church for their love of good deeds and for their perseverance but Jesus says this, "I hold this against you.  You have forsaken the love you had at first.  Consider how far you have fallen!  Repent and do the things you did at first" (Revelations 2: 4, 5).

I hear the voice of the Holy Spirit saying the same to us today.  "I love how you love the broken and hurt.  I love how you show my compassion.  I love how value the poor and the needy.  You're doing a wonderful job at showing my compassion.  You're doing a great job at not giving up.  But you've forgotten to love for Me."

The Holy Spirit has put a hunger in my heart to know God again...to return to my first love.  I find myself missing Him and His presence.  I know who God is and I know what He's done.  I've seen Him work miracles and I've experienced His power.  But all of these signs of God are pointless without an understand in my heart.  I what to know Him.

Tonight I'm finding myself praying as the psalmist of Psalm 42 prayed, "As the deep pants for streams of water so my soul pants for you, my God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When can I go and meet with God."

It's here, in this place of a surrendered life, that we can truly know God not for what He is, but for who He is.  And for that, my soul lives.

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DIY Magnet Boards

Hopefully you have finished all your spring cleaning.  But if you haven't or if you are just looking for an easy, inexpensive idea to help organize I've got the project for you.  (Look here, here, and here for more easy crafts.)

This project only cost about $2 to make and most of the supplies I had laying around the house.

Here's what you'l

l need...

A couple of cheap pizza pans.  Your choice of paint and brushes or sponges, drill, sand paper, and silk screen or stencil.  I used this one from Martha Stewart crafting supplies.  I'm really loving this particular one.  I've used it several times over the last couple of days.

Very simple to make, start by drilling a small hole in the rim of the pizza pan.  Follow that by using sand paper to run down the entire pan.  Roughing up the metal will help the paint adhere to the pan.  Pay special attention to the place where you drilled the hole.  The edges will be a little rough.  After you've wiped the sanding particles off, begin to paint the inner circle of the pan.  I avoided the outer edge, but if you would like paint to the edge.  Make sure to apply several coats.  In order to speed the drying time, I used a blow dryer.

After you have applied several coats of paint and they have dried, use your chosen stencil or silk screen to add a design in an alternating color.  After your design has dried it's ready to hang.  I added magnets to the back of cloths pins that I had previously glittered.

The more you use the better.  Try using different patterns.  It will create more surface to aid organization.  For example, if you use four or nine, you could create a square or six and form a rectangle.

I hope this craft will help spur your own creativity! 

(Also, I promise my chest of drawers is not messy.  It just looks that way from this angle.  Promise.)

Did you work on any crafting projects over the weekend?

Linking Up With

Craft and Repeat

Marvelous Mondays

Re-Purposed Project

Make the Scene Monday

Kathe With an E

The Weekly Creative

Brag About It

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Take the Plunge: Getting Started as a Mentor + Printable

Doing life alone has a tendency to become very boring, very lonely, and something scary.  Here's the great thing: we're not supposed to do life alone.  We're called to live life together.

Relationships are a crazy thing.  In order to be growing as an individual, there are three types of relationships that we should be actively cultivating.  First, we need to be learning for someone more experienced.  Second, we need to surround ourselves with people at the same level that we are.  Last, we need to be sharing our life with someone who can learn from our experiences.  In other words we must be mentoring other people.

If you've been a reader for a while, you might remember that I shared my passion for the mandate of mentoring about a year ago.  (You can read more about that here.)  Over the past year, if anything, my passion for this has only grown.  Let me explain why.

As Christ followers, there are very few of us who have not heard of the Great Commission, but just in case, I'll share it with you again.  Before Jesus ascended into heaven the book of Matthew states Christ's last words to His disciples, "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit and teaching the to obey everything I have commanded you."

When I hear or read this verse, I often think of missionaries who have given up their lives to take the Good News of Christ's love all over the world.  As Christ followers we get beside them.  We send them.  We finance their endeavors.  After all, some will send and some will go.  But Christ's message from this verse is really much more than just telling someone of Christ's love.  It's more than just saying a prayer.  It is a mandate to make disciples--teaching them, instructing them, guiding them, doing life with them.  It's what we do to help the ladies in our communities.  It's how we raise our sons and daughters.  It's the relationship that we foster with older and younger women that enhance our lives.  It's making disciples!

And that, ladies, is mentoring.

Mentoring is a commitment of time and energy and talent and even money, but it is so worth it.  You will help someone else grow, but you will grow more into the image of Christ too!  As a Christ follower, that's what we're all aiming for: to be more like Christ in His love, compassion,  holiness, and mercy.

There's a good possibility that as you read this you are ready to take the plunge.  You're ready to find a mentor and become a mentoree, but where does a person start with all that?

Most likely we would all agree that a task becomes much easier when we know what we are actually supposed to do.  I know my major fear in branching out is a fear of uncertainty.  Thankfully, it doesn't have to be that way.

Today, I want to encourage you to take the plunge.  Find that lady in your life who's probably a little older and a lot wiser.  Ask her to meet with you once a week or a couple of time a month and then do it.  Keep that appointment.

When it comes to finding someone to mentor, there a good chance that she's already in your life watching from a distance.  Look for her and then invite her to "hang out" sometime.  I hear coffee is always a great way to connect. :)

Below is a guide to ease the intimidation.  Print it off and stick it in your Bible.  Think of mentoring like making a new friend.  Take the plunge and become a mentor and find a mentoree today!

click to download

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Beautiful Things

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Last summer, boredom and loneliness drove me from my house straight into a deserted reservoir.  In the seclusion of this forgotten place I soon began to find the unique beauty of my hideaway.  As I meandered through my secret hideaway I discovered the peace of nature.  The birds swooped down.  Rabbits scurried from one bush to the next as they tried to escape my eyes.  I watched as spring become summer and then fall.  The grass turned green.  The flowers bloomed.  The colors turned from bright pinks and yellows to warm orange and red.

I couldn't wait to escape the day on my evening walks through the reservoir.  Many times I would stay out well past dark just drinking in the magic of my place.

In reality, my magical hideaway is just a huge drainage ditch that runs along the back of our property catching any flood water from the Arkansas River.  But to me, that huge ditch was a beautiful place for my mind to find quiet.  It become a beautiful place to me.

It's interesting how God takes similar ditches in our lives and makes them places of beauty.  

Overwhelmed by the times and places in my life that were filled with pain, hate, and ugliness I wonder how those places could every be beautiful.  Just their memory still causes me to doubt myself. But somehow, someway, God takes these times of intense grief and makes them beautiful to him.

Ecclesiates 3:11 says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." That's so like Christ taking everything that the enemy means for evil in our life and turning it around for good...those dead, dry memories in our lives and uses them to bring Him glory.

There's no way to completely understand God and His sovereignty.  He works in ways we cannot see or understand, but we have this assurance that He is working.  He's taking the drainage ditches in our lives and plants beautiful flowers in them.  He's taking the overgrown, dark path and clears the branches making an easy path for us to follow.  He's working all things for our good.

Today, I leave you with this.  Look for the beauty in the ugly.  Find the joy in the sadness.  Discover the comfort in the pain.  Though difficult to find, it's there.  It's waiting to point you back to Christ and to His ability to restore your heart.

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Spring: a Celebration of New Things

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When I started blogging a little over a year ago, I remember finding other bloggers share about their tiredness of blogging.  Most of them had been blogging for about a year.  I remember reading posts with challenges to blog everyday for a month.  I never took any of those challenges up mostly because I was blogging about 4-5 times a week and was very happy with the content.  I remember thinking at the time, "What are these ladies talking about?  How can you get tired of blogging?  Blogging is one of the best outlets in the world."

I started out the new year with big plans and dreams for this little blog.  You might remember this post about my blogging values.  I believed in those values and still do.

I was determined to be a blogger who made a difference with her blog.  I wanted to change lives--to challenge and encourage women who were needed encouragement and strength.

Despite my determination to not become that blogger, I did.  I wouldn't say that I ran out of things to write or to share.  I could share my opinion all day long.  But I annoy myself, so I can only imagine what it would be like to read that.  Not fun.

I think I just grew weary.

Looking back over the last couple of months, I regret not blogging...not sharing life with other people who I've come to value.  I lost that love for connection.

For that I'm sorry.

I don't really feel that I need to ask your forgiveness for not blogging.  How conceded would that be?  How vain would I be thinking that you've just been sitting at your computer waiting to hear from me?  (Sometimes blogging and using social media makes us selfish.)

I do want to share life with you and I'm choosing to make an effort to do that.

I hope that we can reconnect and began this journey together again.

So, about that title...well, it is still spring and in spring we celebrate all new things.  We celebrate the birth of little animals.  We celebrate the earth as she awakens from her winter's sleep.  We celebrate the clean, freshness of everything.  So, today, I'm celebrating a new spring for All My Love for All My Days.  She's getting cleaned up and reborn.  And that is something to celebrate...at least for me.

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