What do you think of when you hear the word Purity?
For me, it was the one area of my life I knew I was not living the way God wanted me to. At the time I was a single mother and believed the only way life would be okay was if I had a man in my life to provide, protect and love me and my daughter. What I also believed was the only way this would ever happen was if I was intimate with a man before marriage. Because I believed sex was love. Now don't get me wrong, I was always known by others and teased as the "good girl", but that didn't mean I didn't put myself into situations that God wanted to protect me from because of this lie I was believing. I still believed I had to dress for sex in order to be noticed, and willing to do more than I really wanted to with a man in order for him to ever love and want to marry me. However, one day all that changed! I had decided to go on a "honeymoon with God", deciding to put God first in my life as the man in my life. So I went alone to camp for the weekend to spend time with just me and God. While I was there God taught me many things about myself and about the love He had for me including that in my Purity was His strength. When I first heard God say this I was shocked, but over time I began to understand that being willing to stand pure in the choices I made with men and not choosing to believe that sex was love, but God was love, my perspective changed. Now this didn't come easily for me, and I have to admit I literally yelled at God in disbelief. I didn't believe a man would actually want to wait to have sex with me, nor want to wait to kiss me before I got married as well. I still believed there was not a man on this earth that would wait to kiss me, and that this meant I would never get married. Now was God really asking me to give Him my first kiss, and live a life of purity to only set me up to "fail" by never getting married? The answer of course is no. God was asking me to trust Him with this area of my life so He could give me something better than I had ever imagined or even believed existed. A love that was selfless, kind and willing to wait! So I began to choose purity for myself, and for me it looked like NOT doing the things I thought I needed to do before in order to be loved. This included not dressing for sex, not drinking, and not going over to guys houses anymore. By choosing to NOT do these things anymore, I was choosing to give up the only ways I had been taught to "catch a man". I was choosing to now let God be in charge of whether or not a man would even come along, and above all else, I put God first in my life and NOT a man! It was not long after finally surrendering to a life of purity God brought into my life examples of people who had chosen to also live a similar life of purity themselves. And then soon after, God introduced me to my husband Travis, whom I did not "see" until God had healed my heart through his friendship and love. Now I know everyone's story is different, and I know not everyone is called to give up kissing until they are married. Nor am I saying that anyone should. I am here to ask instead, what is God asking you to give up in your life to be loved the way you are searching for. God has the answer for us all, and no matter what it looks like, we all are called to a life of purity! Meaning we are all called to live a life of purity the way God asks us to so we can have the love He designed for us. So what is it in your life? Is is drinking, smoking, having sex outside of marriage, looking at porn, eating unhealthy, watching or listening to things that do not bring life into your life?... The list is endless, because it is specific to you and your walk with God. What area of your life are you not living with purity before God? What is He speaking to YOU about? Whatever it is, I would encourage you to surrender that area of your life over to God and choose instead a life of purity. Because by doing so you will finally receive the life God has designed you for! Be encouraged friend, you can do this!!! If you want to read more about how God changed my life through choosing purity, please order my book Pursued with Relentless Love on Amazon today!
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What does it look like to Lead in Love?
BE God's LOVE to your spouse each day and watch how God changes their heart and yours in the process! Do you fear surrendering something in your life to God? I know I did. I knew at that time in my life there was one area I could not seem to let go of. One area I didn't believe God knew best. Yet this same area I knew continued to draw me away from Him!
That area was men, and for me I didn't believe giving this area to God would be something I would want if God was in charge of it. Honestly at this time in my life I was a single mother and believed the only way life would be complete and "okay" was if a man was in our life to take care of us. What I didn't realize at the time was God Himself wanted to be that person for me and my daughter as our provider and protector. I honestly believed if I surrendered this part of my life to God He wouldn't send anyone in our lives. I believed God was asking me to become an "old maid". But one day as I drove home from work God's voice was so loud all I could do was surrender. It wasn't a quiet, gentle surrender to God like I have observed in so many others lives, it was instead a position of defeat before God. My surrender felt at first like an argument I had just lost, but at that very moment God turned my feelings of defeat and despair into hope, love and His peace. It was this experience from God that made me know I could trust Him with this area of my life, and that no matter what it ended up looking like it already felt better knowing God would take care of it. Looking back, I know it was this conversation with God where I finally surrendered in believing I knew what was best for me. I began to trust God in a whole new way, and in every area of my life! God knew I wasn't ready until then to believe He wouldn't hurt me and would give me the desires of my heart. God knew I needed to take it at my own pace and was waiting patiently for when I was ready. What is in your life God has been asking you to surrender to Him? Are you in a place in life where you have never asked Jesus into your heart, and can't escape His voice like I couldn't because it just keeps getting louder and louder? Wherever you are on your journey with God, and whatever He is speaking to you to surrender, I encourage you to do so! Because when you do surrender to God in your life, He won't hurt you, He knows whats best for you, and He will never give up on you! Figuring out the purpose God has created you for begins with the understanding that all of our purpose is to love God and love others! Out of this heart we begin to find the unique ways God has created us through our gifts, desires, passions and capacities to serve Him.
For me this began with hearing God say that I would become a mother of many not all of my own body, and that I had a ministering heart to minister to the needs of many from all I had come through. For the longest time my focus was on understanding what this calling looked like in order for me to pursue it. In the process God reminded me He was with me all along, and I could not miss out on fulfilling something I was created for, unless I choose to say no to that calling and purpose. Out of my relationship with God I began to see in myself the things that God had spoken. Like a father sees in a child and encourages them until the child sees it themself. When I realized all I had to do to fulfill my purpose was to keep my eyes on Jesus and follow His voice and not mine or anyone else's, my purpose began to pursue me! My gift that my husband likes to call "the baby whisperer", combined with my passion to love people, whether as a child or a grumpy old man launched me into just being God's love to others. This developed eventually into becoming a nannie, daycare provider, counselor, coach, pastor, writer and speaker. When I began loving the people God put in my path as I would want to be loved, I was only capable of loving a few, but over time God continues to stretch me into being capable of loving many! Your calling is the same, to love God first, and then to love others! It is not a purpose that will puff you up or take away from you. It is a purpose that allows you to step into the body of Christ as the part of the body that God created for you to become. To fulfill something that only you can fulfill, and only with God's help. Trust Him in the process! Follow HIS voice! Be obedient to HIM! Then watch your purpose pursue you! As a counselor, I have worked with clients for months before they are able to trust me enough to know that whatever they tell me I will not hurt them with. In most cases of abuse this is the case. When beginning a therapeutic relationship clients understand there are only a few times as a counselor that I have to disclose the information that is shared with me, and those times are if they are wanting to hurt themselves, hurt others or are being hurt by others.
EVERY TIME a woman (or children) discloses they are in danger or has been in danger at the hands of others they are ALWAYS fearful of what the repercussions towards them will be for telling the truth. You have to understand that it is this fear that the enemy uses to keep you trapped in abuse! I say this so that if you are also in an abusive relationship and are reading this, that you hear that having this fear is normal and that you are not alone in it. As a victim of abuse you are constantly living in survival mode which includes thinking about everything that may happen in order to protect yourself from more harm. But what if I were to tell you that YOU have the power to take away the ability your husband has to hurt you, just by telling someone. By telling someone your husband no longer has the same power over you because he no longer can control you with his wrath! It does not mean the fear will go away immediately, as it will grow before it subsides. But when you expose light to darkness, darkness flees. Meaning, your telling someone and getting help makes your husband reap consequences for the choices HE HAS MADE, NOT YOU! And when this happens he no longer has the power to control you anymore! The problem with being trapped is we don't see clearly! When we are locked into abuse we believe we are protecting ourselves and our children by not saying anything. Because when we stay silent we believe his wrath does not ensue and harm us. However, the reality is that the first time you are hit is the ONLY time you are NOT part of the problem. After that first time, if you don't choose to tell someone about what he has done and make sure it does not happen again, you become part of the cycle. It is this cycle that enables him to believe he can do it again to you and possibly to even your children. This cycle is very dangerous, because the only direction it takes you is down. It is at the bottom of this cycle that I don't want you to be, because at this point a person believes the only escape is death. Many times when I have helped clients where children have been taken away from domestic violence, part of the process of healing is helping the woman understand how she was part of the problem by staying silent. Helping her to see that every time she didn't tell someone and allowed her children to be exposed to the same abuse she was, whether it be physical, verbal, sexual, spiritual or neglect, she was NOT PROTECTING them from it. And it is this point that governing bodies get involved by taking children into custody, to protect children from experiencing more abuse if the child's parents can not trusted to protect them from it themselves. I understand there is so much more than can be talked about on this subject, but saying everything is NOT the point of this blog today. The point is if you are still reading and you are in danger, you need to tell someone TODAY by calling 911! You need to chose to be a part of protecting you and your children and not part of the cycle you are in! It's okay to say NO to someone that is hurting you! I want to leave you with this thought from Jesus himself! Have you ever heard of the story Jesus told us in Mathew 18:6 MSG “But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don’t have to make it worse—and it’s doomsday to you if you do." Jesus is encouraging us to first of all understand that we are HIS children and HE is warning anyone that hurts us or makes us sin is doomed. Jesus says it would be better off for them to put a huge rock that was used to grind grain around their neck and be dropped off into the middle of a lake and drown than what will happen to them for hurting you and your children! Trust Jesus!!! HE WILL HELP YOU IF YOU ASK HIM TO! YOU just need to call 911 and tell them EVERYTHING!!! |
Is this you?.Do you want to know God more? Do you want someone to help you do so? Do you want someone to walk alongside you who has been in your shoes? Do you feel alone? Do you want to experience the healthier and happier you? Archives
March 2023
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