Two Thousand and Eleven!!

I can not believe how fast 2010 went by! God was soooo very faithful all year long, He has amazed me every step of the way. The best thing that happened to me this past year is that I have learned how to and have had a desire to fall deeper and deeper in love with my Savior. He has brought me though so much, He's loved me even when I've messed up. He has never looked at me differently, but always through the eyes of love. I have a new heart understanding of who I am in Christ.

I am the apple of His eye
I am His beloved and He is mine.
I am His inheritance.
I am His jewel, His treasure.
I am the joy set before Him, because of His great love for me, He endured the cross and despised it's shame.
I am dark, but lovely.
I am someone He rejoices over with singing.

And there is so much more, His love for us is astronomical, we will not ever really fully understand it until we are with Him face to face. I feel like His love is so overwhelming, but really, I've only experienced a small portion of His great love for me.

So here we go 2011 I look forward to what God has in store for me, my family and my friends. May our love for Him become deeper, wider, and stronger then we could ever have imagined and then sit back and watch Him move!

ENJOY, LOVE, GIVE

What's Your Destiny?

I've been learning lately what it means to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength". To love God with such a fierce love that my desire is to worship Him, to spend time in His presence, to be with Him only. I feel driven by this desire, it's my life line, my only hope, my DESTINY. To fall in love with Jesus, to turn to Him and say "I love you" to be an amazing lover of the Son of God. To be defined by my love for God, when others look at me they only see the glory of God in my very being. This may sound pretty radical, but I think God is calling us to be radical for Him. We need to not only understand who we are in Christ, how He sees us, but we need to move closer to God's own heart and fall deeply, madly in love with the most powerful man that ever walked on this planet.

If this is your hearts cry, come join us for a night of Praise & Worship every Thursday night at 7:30pm at Maranatha.

PRAYER

I had a talk with someone today about prayer. We were talking about how sometimes when we've prayed for someone about a certain situation for a long time we sometimes don't know what to pray after praying the same thing for so long. It some how feels stale in a way, I suppose. Then we discussed how praying a prayer of adoration over them seems to be so much easier. Some how when you just take time to thank God for who He is in someones life (or your own life) the words and thoughts just seem to come so much easier. It's easy if you know who God is and if you understand that ALL the promises in His word are for you. Prayer all of a sudden becomes this new and exciting thing that you want to do all the time, sometimes I do it without even really thinking about it. It just seems to become a part of you, God really is that good, He really wants all that is best for you. He is always there whether you feel Him or not. So, if your prayer life feels a little stale or you feel like your prayers are not even 'reaching the ceiling' I encourage you to just take some time out of your day to thank God for who He is in every situation in your life. And watch Him change how you see things.

What Does Your Testimony Look Like?

Sunday morning I was challenged on many levels, enlarging my heart, my mind, my understanding of who God really is...

One thing really stuck out for my though and that was the statement that "your testimony won't be about all the bad things that happened to you that God saved you from, but rather it might be about all the bad things that God protected you from." Or at least it went something like that. Many of us never did all the "bad" things (drugs, smoking, drinking, stealing...) that some do that God saves them from and they have this "great" testimony that a lot of us can't identify with, but are amazed at how God had continually restored them after they went through so many hard years.

Some of us came from good homes, actually made mostly good decisions and feel like we don't have a marvelous testimony to share. But what if we looked back on our lives and testified on all the things that God had protected us from through the years. All those times when we were about to make a bad decision and we didn't, we were going to speed, but chose to slow down, the times we were going to go home one way, but decided to take another route only to find out that there had been a terrible car accident on the route we were going to take right around the time we would have driven by. God is always with us and I think so many times we really don't realize how involved in our lives He is, I'm guilty of it, that I know.

It got me thinking about my life and when I think back I can testify to many, many times that God protected me. I didn't necessarily know it then, but looking back, I see it so very clearly and I thank God for ALWAYS being by my side weather I acknowledge Him or not.

"Yet I am always with you, you hold me by my right hand." Psalm 73:23

WOW, I AM is always with me! Thank you Jesus!

TRUST

...the dictionary tells me TRUST means: reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety of a person, a person on whom one relies, something entrusted to ones care for safekeeping.

I'm learning to TRUST God with not only my heart, my life, my marriage, my children, my friendships. I have to rely on someone's integrity, strength, ability and surety, I have to entrust someone to care for all of this for safekeeping. I know I can't take good enough care of these things, I would rather just trust God to do it. He has enough integrity, strength, ability and surety then I or anyone else could ever have.

If God can take care of such a fragile being as the Jelly Fish, then surely he can take even better care of me. He tells us not to worry because even the birds of the air don't have to worry about what they will wear or eat, they trust God to take good care of them. How much more won't our very own Heavenly Father take care of us...

Do you believe that God has enough integrity to see you through your tough times? Is He strong enough for you? Can you hang onto the fact that He is able to keep you from all harm? Do you understand that all He wants is to love you and keep you safe?

All we have to do is TRUST Him!

I Have This INCREDIBLE Friend...

Her name is Ruth and she has a heart so big I don't even have words to describe it. She has done many good things for many needy people. Last month she had a garage sale to make money for layettes for mothers that come into the Crisis Pregnancy Centre and don't have anything to support their beautiful new babies. The people there have helped many mothers through the years. She was able to put together 12 layettes and within the first few weeks six of them were passed out to needy families. So, because of her large heart, she has decided to put together some more layettes of love to pass on.

Here is a message she has of her recent blog:
PLEASE HELP US BLESS THESE LITTLE ONES. The voice of the next generation. The ones who have been born into difficult & heartbreaking circumstances.

If you have receiving blankets, panotene cream, baby bottles, baby shampoo, size 1 diapers, baby towels, baby wash cloths, wipes, sweater sets, size 0-3 onezies...and so much more, let me know. Also, I can forward you the complete list of items we are hoping to get for each layette...and for the wee ones they will provide for.

You can contact her at ruth.bergen@gmail .com if you are interested in helping out. You can also email me or leave a message here if you would like to help.

Thanks so much!