Truth.

"In order to be truthful
We must do more than speak the truth.
We must also hear truth.
We must also receive truth.
We must also act upon truth.
We must also search for truth.
The difficult truth.
Within us and around us.
We must devote ourselves to truth.
Otherwise we are dishonest
And our lives are mistaken.
God grant us the strength and the courage
To be truthful.
AMEN."

-Leunig

I just love...

When children mispronounce or mispell words ♥ The sound of uncontrollable laughter ♥ People who are so happy that their joy fills the hearts of everyone in their vicinity ♥ Experiencing beautiful moments, and being able to capture them with my camera, and cherish them forever ♥ The beauty and individuality of every person ♥ Smores ♥ The way everything is funnier when I'm laying down ♥ When I write with a pen and the ink flows smoothly ♥ Wispy white curtains against a sky-blue wall, blowing gently from the soft breezy air ♥ Thank-you letters ♥ True friends ♥ Faith ♥ When I feel needed, and can really help someone ♥ Home-decorating ♥ Hugs ♥ Inspiration ♥ When little kids say they love me, because I know they mean it ♥ Color ♥ People who sacrifice their lives to lead people to God's Kingdom ♥ When boys act like gentlemen ♥ When Christians are BOLD, loving, and sensible with the gifts God has given them ♥ When someone does something kind for someone else, not for anything in return, but truly out of love for the other person ♥ When brothers love their sisters ♥ The people who make anything and everything in life, little or big, an adventure :) ♥ When someone secretly does something kind for someone else ♥ When people believe in me, and have high expectations for me ♥ When time doesn't seem to matter as it passes by ♥ 1 Corinthians 13 ♥ The ability people have to display God's love with a single smile ♥ True love. God's kind of love. Selfless, servant-hearted, sincere love ♥ Being held in my Savior's arm and knowing that He will never let me go. ♥

Diversity

Lately I've been thinking about how diverse God's creation is. It just fascinates me so much. Just thinking about people, even. Isn't it amazing how different everyone is? Everyone is so beautiful on the inside and the outside in their own unique way. I was sitting in one of my co-op classes, and looking at the other 20 students in my class... they are all home-schooled Christians, but even though they have those two significant things in common, each one of them is very different. Each one has a different personality, fashion sense, learning style, and everything! It's just amazing! It also amazes me to look at my family! I have four younger siblings who live with me. Even though they all grew up in the same house, and were raised by the same parents, they are COMPLETELY different from one another. I could write pages and pages and pages about the differences between my siblings. It's hilarious! I don't see how anyone could NOT believe in God after seeing that. Animals and plants haven't even been brought into the picture... Oh wow, God is just SO incredible! =D It really shows me how much we all need each other. As the body of Christ, we are incomplete without each other! It is wonderful to truly be able to see how God blessed each individual with their own gifts and talents. Thank You, God :)

I Love My Family...

Spring break was AMAZING. It went by really fast, and I was not bored for a single moment of the seven day period. The four younger siblings of mine who live with me left for the week, and although I missed them, I have to admit that it was nice to have a quiet, clean house for a week. When they came back home, however, I realized just how much I had missed them. How much I had missed my sister Abyni's hugs and cuddles, and how much I had missed each one of my sibling's senses of humor. Each one of them has a hysterically funny sense of humor. From the moment they arrived home, they have been making me laugh. They are so entertaining!

Kainan is my thirteen year-old brother, and he rocks. Just the other day, he came to my room with two packages of Reeses. [I started having an intense craving for Reeses months ago, and haven't stopped.] He had walked to a nearby grocery store just to buy me some of my favorite treats! I had not even asked him too~ I had not really mentioned WANTING Reeses! He did it just because he knew that I liked them, and he wanted to make me happy! How blessed I am to have such a caring brother! He has such a big heart, and although he thinks he doesn't want to get married, I think he should. I think that he will be a wonderful husband for someone someday :)

Abyni is my eight year-old sister, and she's a delight :) She can be really tough, and her muscles are probably about the same size as mine, but she is a sweetheart! She gives me hugs daily, and we often have arguments about which one of us loves the other the most :) The other day she wrote me a letter, and it was so adorable! It said, "Dear Spritay, I love you sooo mush! You make me sooo happy! Withot you, my hart would be broken :(" HOW SWEET IS THAT?!?! Oh my gosh, I love her so much!

Each one of my eight siblings is so extraordinary! I've never met anyone like them before :) God has certainly blessed me... *happy sigh*

Best Friends

I am SO thankful for my friends! I have four best friends, and I could NEVER put into words how much they mean to me! Two of them I get to see often, and two of them I rarely see. I can't imagine how different my life would be without them in it. Sometimes I think God sent these friends to me as angels to brighten up my life. I feel SO BLESSED to have such wonderful friends. They totally bring out the best in me, and let me do the same for them :) I really hope that I am close to each one of them for the rest of my life. I hope that I can become the kind of friend they deserve. I LOVE MY FRIENDS!

Fighting Against Satan's Attacks

Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. -James 4:7
 
I saw this passage in a whole new way today. Whenever I have read this verse in the past, I thought of it as "When Satan tempts you to do something wrong, run away from him." This is definitely true, but today I dug deeper into the verse. Satan will not only try to tempt me to do sinful things, but while I am walking with God, he (Satan) will put obstacles on my path. Slamming me with depression, disappointment, anxiety, worry, darkness, confusion, fear, pain, etc, he then leads me to believe that such abuse is from the Lord.
 
"I had always thought the most God-pleasing thing I could do when bad things happened was to simply accept them and move on. But God was showing me that when the enemy attacked, He didn't want me to accept it. He wanted me to fight by the power of His Spirit." -Leslie Ludy (From Set-Apart Femininity)
 
I feel kind of silly to have never thought about it that way! When I have gone through tough times, I have assumed that they were God's way of strengthening me. Satan has often prevented me from living out God's purpose for my life to the fullest, because he put pain along the way... and instead of standing firm and resisting his attempts to attack me, I have accepted it, quickly fallen, and blamed God in the end. It's scary how sneaky Satan is.
 
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. -Ephesians 6:10-11
 
I definitely believe that God disciplines His children- but what I learned today is that it is NEVER in cruel ways. God is love, and He will not hurt His children.
 
"I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you." -Luke 10:19

I have realized that accepting the depression, anxiety or any other type of pain from the enemy is ultimately sin. When I accept Satan's cruelty, I am living as his servant, instead of God's devoted follower. When I let Satan put misery in my soul, I become extremely depressed, and that prohibits me from being a light of Jesus Christ. It also takes me off of the path Christ wants me to be on, onto a path of selfishness. From now on, instead of accepting Satan's attacks, I will try to stand firm, and fight against them!
 
"Despite the popular notion today that it is more spiritual to remain weak, struggling and vulnerable, God desires to build us into valiant, valorous, fortified warriors who fear none but him alone and are vulnerable to none but Him alone." -Another quote from Leslie Ludy's book, Set-Apart Femininity

Good Morning!

I feel very free! I have been beyond busy the last couple of weeks. Last week I felt like I lived at the theater- it was dress rehersal week for the play I was in. The play was a huge success, my Mother was the one who wrote and directed it, and I cannot applaud her enough! She put an extreme amount of work into it, and did an astounding job :)

Since the play has been over, I have been busy catching up on things that I didn't have time for during dress rehersal week, especially homework. Last night I finally got to the point where I didn't exactly have TONS of things that I had to do, so both last night and this morning, I was able to spend time focusing completely on God without hardly any distractions, and it was so very refreshing :) He has been teaching me so much... it's so exciting! I want to blog about all of it, but I don't know where to start! I've been reading Leslie Ludy's book Set-Apart Femininity, it has been really inspiring. I desire more than anything to be truly set-apart, and to love, honor, glorify and worship God with every breath I take, word I speak, thought I have and thing I do... I fail most of the time, but He never stops working on me! It is SO encouraging to know that He will never give up on me! Praise God for His unfailing love! ♥

Constructive Love

Today I was reading the Phillips translation of 1 Corinthians 13:4, and I love it!

"This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance."

The "constructive" part really got me thinking... I looked up the word "constructive" in the dictionary, and this is the definition I read:

1. Constructing or tending to construct; helping to improve; promoting further development or advancement

So... part of what that verse is saying is that love looks for a way to improve, or advance the loved one's life. It kind of sounds like a quote I heard once, "True success is found when you help others succeed." Synonyms I found for the word "constructive" include helpful, effective, positive, practical, productive, useful, and valuable.

I worry about loving people as much as God wants me to... what if they don't give me credit? What if I love them, and then they leave? What if I love them, and they keep treating me so terribly? What if I love them, and it makes NO difference in MY life? There is one word to sum up these thoughts: SELFISHNESS! (Sefishness= the opposite of love, in my opinion) I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I have these thoughts, but I would be lying if I said that I don't. If I'm only loving people to make sure that it makes my life better, then I'm not really loving them, am I? I'm not working to try and make someone else's life better if this is the case, only my own life.

My goal for, well, forever is to make loving others a habit of mine. These are questions I am going to try and ask myself daily for the next month, and hopefully it will become something I do constantly as a habit in the process.

-To whom, and how can I show God's love today?
-To whom, and how can I encourage someone today?
-Who can I build up today, and how?
-How can I improve someone else's life today? (Someone ELSE'S life- not your own, Sprite!)
-How can I bless someone else today?

"Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile." -Mother Teresa

There Is Hope For Every Man

This is a photo I took last July... I love it a lot :) If you click on the picture, you can see a larger version of it if you want to.

Tonight at work, I started belting out some of the lyrics from Casting Crown's song Every Man, "is there love that never dies..." (I've been singing that song in my head ALL DAY LONG) and just as I started singing it out loud, one of my co-workers starting messing with the radio, and turned on the Christian station, and that song started playing JUST where I left off! It was WEIRD! Lol :)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

God LOVES you. He has never, will never, and could never take His eyes off of you! He's obsessed with you! He IS true love! The Creator of the universe lives to hear your heartbeat! Doesn't that THRILL you? When you love Him back, He is THRILLED, too :) Think of the people who you love the most in life. Imagine how it would feel if they didn't really love you back. I hear it ALL the time, actually... "I love so and so more than anyone in the world, but they don't even know that I exist!" Lol... imagine if "so and so" DID realize you existed, and not only that, but they LOVED you! HOW happy would that make you feel? God feels that way when we love Him! I know that in my life, there have been many people who I have met who I wanted to be friends with SO badly, and I would have been honored had they even considered me an aquaintance. And oh my gosh, if they would be FRIENDS with me, that would really be too good to be true! Lol. God loves you and me more than words could say. When we love Him back, we bring the biggest smile to His face. For as good as He is, and as much as He loves us, lets love Him back! :)

Have a lovely Valentine's Day, everyone ♥