Follow Your Heart

Hello there fellow readers!

I've come today to chat with you about the longing of my heart.  You're probably like "Huh?  We already know your heart, and that you love orphans."  Which is true!  I do love orphans immensely which is what leads me to my next point!  Recently, when I say recently I mean for the past 8 or 9 months, God has tugged my heart in a direction.  A direction that I'm willing to go.  A direction that will take me some place new, and some place far from here.

God has tugged my heart to the direction of Africa, and/or Haiti.  Now you're probably wondering why those two places?  Well Honestly... I don't have an answer to that yet, I'm not even sure which one I will en up pursing yet.  All I know is that God continues to push my heart and hands in those directions.   As of right now I don't have any trips planned.  But I'm going to be praying for God to open doors.  I think I am going to begin to prepare to be a kindergarten teach in whatever place God sends me!

So please, pray that if this is indeed God's will for me, that doors will open. :)

Getting Your Toes Wet...It's Dangerous

Remember when you were little and your mom would say "Don't touch that, it *could* hurt you."  So for a while the fear of getting hurt would stay inside you until one day when you decided to give it a try.  You do it once and nothing happens, twice and still nothing happens.  By this time the fear that was inside you is gone, and you don't see how it's dangerous.  That is until you get hurt, then you regret not listening to your mom in the first place.

I think that often times we as humans are like that. Well at least I know I am.   We hear about how you need to be very watchful of what you put in your mind, music, tv, people that influence you.  We're told that those things can lead us a stray faster then we think.  We're told that they are dangerous, and can be hurtful to us.  That fear of falling away from God, and becoming more like the world, stays with us for a little while.  Just until we decided to give it a try...Sound familiar?  We dip our toes in the water, and realize that it's not too bad.  So we put our feet in, but promise that's as far as we'll go.  Next thing it's up to our knees, then our waist, before long we're completely submerged in a pool filled with worldly things.

For a while?  We like it, we feel free, we feel like we can do anything.  It's nice, it's pleasant, it's enjoyable.  We're not "Bound" anymore by rules, guidelines, or feeling like someone is constantly watching us.  We've strayed so far from the truth that we know deep in our hearts.  But we convince ourselves that this is the good life, so we go on with life.  We live in our on ways, we do things that fulfill the desires of the human body, and we just soak it all in.

But what we don't realize is that each second we spend living that way?  Is just another second that pulls us further, and further, and further away from God until He's just not there anymore. It's not that He's not there, it's that we've filled our heart, our lives with so many things, so much clutter to fill this void that keeps coming back....and it's made it seem impossible to go back.  To swim back to shore, we're tired and worn and feel like we can't swim anymore.  It's too tough, our arms give out and we begin to sink, we give up, because it's just so. so hard.   We try every now and again to go back... but these things their so heavy...They hold us down.  They keep us in the prison, we feel that we can't get free.

It's at that moment when we've sunk as far as we can, when we can't swim anymore and have nothing left to give that we see God's hand.  The hand that has been reached out to us this whole time.  We just needed to open our eyes and move the clutter.   God scoops us up, He carries us to shore.  He reminds us that He?  Never left, He was and always will be there to pick us back up and carry us to safety.  Because this wont be the first time it'll happen.

Because now that our minds have lost their innocents, and know what it's like to live in the world.  To be a part of everything that's happening, it will be 10x easier to fall back into that, when things aren't going our way.  It's so easy to go back to those things, to jump back in.  To start with the feet, then the knees, and then the whole body.  It's so easy and so dangerous.

It's something that tears you apart faster then you would think, it eats at you, and destroys you.  Before long you're right back at the bottom, struggling to get back up.  Fighting the fight that you told yourself you would never fight again.

It's a vicious cycle.  I honestly just wish every knew how dangerous it was, without having to experience it themselves.

This is something that has been on my heart for weeks but I just haven't been able to put it into words.  I guess it's because this post is partly feelings, and I haven't been ready to face them?  Either way...Tonight, I'm thanking God for the rules, and guidelines.  I'm glad that He is always watching over me, and only wants what is best for me.