Perspectives!

 This picture reminds me of my Visual Rhetoric class. We are currently reading Susan Sontag, On Photography. The book speaks about all the different elements in photography, especially about perspectives. This relates to my current life!

I know that I have not been writing like I said that I would. God is truly pushing me beyond my limits, seriously taking me to a place where I have never been before: a deeper relationship with him. God has blessed me with many things. My car is sick, my best friend is going on a 3 week trip, school is extremely stressful. I am an emotional wreck; however, I still know that God loves me. I had a great talk with my roommate about putting our trust in God. We cannot trust man, we must trust ourselves to listen and to obey God. Today, Mark talked about hospitality and how the ultimate display of hospitality is sacrifice. Yesterday, I was a huge blessing in a little boys life, sharing with him and his other seven relatives in his family unit extra sandwiches. God wanted me to bless that family, and then as soon as I was done, he said "Okay, Jessica, now it is time for you to receive a blessing!" How hard it is for me to ask someone for help, but God blessed me with this gentleman from my church community that has great knowledge of cars. God works in  mysterious ways, Dan didn't have to work yesterday or today and was more than willing to be a blessing in my life. Yesterday, I told Matty that I had no more positive energy within my soul. He laughed at me. He said that I was the most positive person that he knew, and that I just had to keep on keeping on. After spending the afternoon with Dan, his positive outlook on life lifted my spirit. I was able to have a wonderful conversation with Jennie, and spread the love and positivity with God at church this morning. I volunteered in the Red Eye at church this morning and blessed many people with coffee beverages! Thanks to Dan and Matty's positive perspectives on the bad that life hands us, I am able to thank God for blessing me with the opportunity to grow my friendship with Dan, and the opportunity to let Matt help me emotionally.

Matt sent me this song. His directions are: don't think to deeply about the song, just breath and be! :)
http://ilike.myspacecdn.com/play#Jeremy+Kay:Breathe:4524941:s22065339.11514983.10864322.0.2.183%2Cstd_1eb9492a9b4e48f781da24299e4ed692

So friends, I encourage you to go out there, be the tangible hand of Christ. Bless the world by breathing and being you. No matter what side of the camera you are on, try taking a different look.

The merciful power of God.

This morning I woke up, and I have started saying my morning prayers while driving to the gym. I thanked my daddy for blessing me with all of his greatfulness, for putting people in my life, and for walking this journey with me. 

After the gym I changed my facebook status to: 

I am learning how to be intentional! I intentionally get up at 5:30 to work out at 7. I Intentionally eat healthy so that I can have sustained energy all day. I do not intentionally spend money or procrastinate...Lord, help me be more intentional!

I talked to Rebekah about her growth group tonight.
The first going deeper question is "How disciplined are you?" She decided that it was too broad of a question, so she asked her group to give a rating for how discipline they are in their faith with Jesus Christ. To answer this question,  on a 1- 10 scale I would say that I am at a 5. At times I feel that I am extremely obedient and at other times I falter and let my obsessions over take my body. I am going to take the next 7 weeks and try to get my 5 to be a 10, so that in the long run my ultimate healing will be a 5.5. Healing takes time. 

Today, God blessed me. God made his will ultimately known to me. I was in my office working on some homework, when I received a phone call that has changed my life. The person on the other end of the phone was the scholarship and award officer for the college of education at FSU. He informed me that I was recommended for a scholarship. I didn't believe him. I asked what I had to do to obtain the scholarship. I asked how it was possible. He informed me that one of the deans said that I deserved the money. This is a complete act of Gods grace. 

This financial help from God is not a supplement in helping me with my bills. I am not sure what this money is intended for, but God has a plan for using the money in my life. God has something big planned. I must be obedient to his will, and listen to him. Like Pastor Mark said on Sunday, we don't want to get wrapped up in the good things when we could be missing out on the best thing. Whatever the best thing is that God has planned for me, I must be ready to go. I must live like a pauper and prepare my body, mind, and soul for accomplishing a mission that is yet unknown. 

My facebook status is now:
God you are higher than any other! Thank you loving me today and always! If you ask, God will provide. He is more merciful than ever. Power to the peaceful, because He is peace!

A rough start...

Yesterday morning  I wrote:

“God always takes us out father than we want to go. This morning upon waking up at the farm (Rebekah is farm sitting), she found one of Patty and Dave’s dogs dead. The crazy thing is that not a lot of people had slept well Sunday night. She passed away during the night, and later we found out that she was sick.  How does one deal with this situation of the emotional trauma? What are you suppose to do?  I prayed for God to give Rebekah guidance and peace.”

Last night I wrote:

“ Today was rough! But I was able to accomplish what I needed to as far as completing my assignments with reading and writing. Something that I need to learn to do is to be intentional with my finances. My goal is to eat the healthiest that I can while spending the least amount of money.”

After I wrote this I went through all of my finances and figured out how much all of monthly bills were going to cost me. I realized that I was not making enough money. I was stressed and anxious. I went to God and prayed that he would provide for me and that he would show me what I needed to do.

Intentionality

“Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All Athletes are disciplines in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:20- 27).



Do you know what a group of rhinoceros is called? The collective group is called a "charge"! Charging is their primary means of attack because they are the second largest mammal; however, they are only able to see thirty feet in front of them. This implies that while they are charging at something they have no idea what is at thirty-one feet; therefore, the object must move in order to survive. What does this imply for humans who are seeking spiritual healing? This is a metaphor for running towards a spiritual life with God. Whatever is my way must move so that I can run with reckless abandon towards my eternal prize.

God has placed me at Element 3 Church here in Tallahassee over a year ago. I have learned a great deal and have been blessed by a community that welcomes me just as I am: broken and messy. In the next seven weeks, this community had made the commitment to run towards God through the program called Pathways: Prime. The mission statement is to: make, mature, and mobilize fully devoted followers of Christ. We are doing this by focusing on “I CHARGE” the seven elements that represent our community: Intentionality, Culturally Current, Hospitality, Authenticity, Relational, Grace, and Excellence.

For these seven weeks I have devoted to myself as a time to give of my relationship status to Jesus. I want to fall more in love with Jesus than anyone else. I am giving my body, mind, and soul over to God to mold me into his tangible hand. I have promised myself that I am going to journal/blog about my journey and that I am going to share my journey with this community. I encourage you to keep up with my daily postings for the next seven weeks.

I want to start off today by talking about where I am in my life right now. Recently, I have found myself feeling lonely and longing for someone in my life that adores my quirks, loves the passion of my soul, and is attracted to me. I even went as far as to ask God to put someone in my life. God answers prayers, but he does so to help us learn and with greater intentions than we ever think is possible. A few months ago, I found myself in relationship that was not only horizontal and not vertical, but extremely hurtful for my soul. These past few weeks a new gentleman has come into my life and has flattered me by continuously telling me how attractive I am. This boosted my confidence; however, God told me that something was not right. I could feel in the pit of my stomach that this was not the relationship that God had intended on me having. I received multiple confirmations on this, and thank God for allowing me to be able to recognize when my spirit was being attacked by arrows. If I would not have had my pervious relation with this pervious person, then I would have accepted the arrow as truth and been hurt more severely. In seven weeks, I hope that I am closer to being a more whole person who will soon be able to give of myself to another person. I long for intimacy, but right now being in perfect relationship with God is more than sufficient.

This morning I went on a 16 mile bike ride with two great friends. We rode down to the St. Mark’s light house and watched the sun rise from its sleepy slumber. In today’s devotional, Rebekah Abbott quotes Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God!” Our community is encouraged to take 10 minutes to pray and listen to God, and I pass on that encouragement.

May we charge on learning and growing every day.

Aloe for Life

Hey friends!
This is a quick posting, and hopefully soon I will be able to fill you in on the craziness that I call my life. Right now though, I want to share with you a website based on a man who has helped change my life. His name is Cephas, and he is my aloe man!

Aloe Vera is extremely beneficial to the body both internally and externally. In February, when Matt and I went to Tampa to have the mercury removed from his teeth, we wanted to check out the Ybor City, FL aloe man. Upon meeting him he told me some interesting things about my health. He said that I was 1) allergic to shell fish 2) over weight and 3) my digestive system was not working properly. I was amazed that he knew all of this without even giving me a health survey. He made Matt and I chug 3 tall glasses of aloe juice: aloe, water, and ice. He also informed us that it would improve the quality of our skin if we scrubbed our faces with it daily.

Now, Matt and I use aloe nearly everyday. I put it in my smoothies, and then rub the tough slimy skin all over my face. Before we go out into the sun, instead of sun block we use aloe. After we have been at the springs, we moisturize with it. Also my hair loves it!

Here is Cephas's website, check him out: http://www.cephashotshop.com/
This was one of the first steps in getting my health back into balance. Take my advice, drinking aloe everyday will shed excess weight.

Much love!
Cheers.