A Year of Grace

Last December, I came in contact with some Instagram friends who had a word for the year.  I wanted to learn more about this word...and how they each picked it.  What I gathered is that instead of making New Year's Resolutions, they picked a word to focus on for the year.  What a great idea!  

I think New Year's Resolutions are overrated.  They get made and about two weeks later, they get left behind in the dust.  So I decided that I wanted in on this little word-picking-for-the-year-shindig.  Boy am I glad that I did.

If you remember, I picked to word Grace for 2013.  Let me just tell you, I had no idea what the Lord had planned for me this year.  Oh goodness.

My mind was open to giving and receiving grace this year...but I shortly learned that my heart was not.  I knew that I wasn't grace-filled.  I knew that I needed to be working on it.  But my heart was completely shut to the idea of grace.  Oh I could receive God's grace...his forgiveness, but I couldn't seem to give grace to people who needed it.  Something was seriously wrong with that picture.

I am a fairly dense individual.  I don't get subtle hints very well and that includes when God is talking to me.  I feel that He has to hit me over the head when it comes things He needs me to hear and learn.

This year, what I didn't know was that God was working in my heart.  He was softening it little by little.  Then one day, He poured His truth on me.  My eyes were open.  My heart was listening, and I was broken.

The next few weeks were emotionally painful for me.  I was working through pain that I had held onto for years.  I was working through situations that hadn't been resolved.  I was working through a mountain of lies that Satan had been telling me through those years that I had chosen to believe.  Yes, I chose to believe those things.

I had even broken down and asked my small group for prayer as I was sorting through all of the issues.  I had been held captive to unforgiveness, bitterness, and even hatred.  I was tired of living this life.  I wanted a life of freedom.

You see when you harbor unforgiveness in your life, the only person you are hurting is yourself.  For some reason I thought that holding onto hurt and anger and grudges would be the way to go.  I thought it was the only way that I could live.  I didn't ever think that I could ever begin to forgive.  

I was right about that, though.  I couldn't ever forgive.  Not on my own.  If it were up to me, and only me, I would hold onto all of that for the rest of my life.  I would try to get even.  I would be filled with hate forever.  It is only through the grace of God that I could forgive.  It is only because I allowed Christ into my heart and let my guard down, that I could truly know what it meant to forgive.

Through lots of prayer, reading the Word, writing down my thoughts, and the encouragement and prayer of my small group, I finally found that freedom.  Slowly but surely, my heart is being healed of all the hurt, guilt, and hate.  I know that God is Healer.  But what I hadn't really known is how He can truly heal my heart...from a pain that I never thought that I would be rid of.  He can heal my wounds...the ones that cut so deep.  He can heal my attitude towards others.  

God has broken down those walls in my heart.  He has busted through and stamped out all the lies.  He has has restored my soul which has allowed me to forgive and extend grace to those in my life who have needed it.  This has been nothing short of a miracle.

God definitely gets all the glory in this story.  There is no way that on my own I would have been able to make this kind of progress.  There is no way that on my own I would even be talking about God's Grace today.

Friends, I am here to tell you that God can truly heal you...but only if you let Him in.  Is there an area in your life that you need to let Him in?  I kept this part of my life from Him for so long...it was such a burden to bear.   But when I finally let Him in, I found freedom.  I found peace.  Most of all, I found grace.  

No more am I a slave to hurt...guilt...hate...bitterness.  I am free.

FNP Meets The Attic

Friday night we had an experience that brought back some amazing college memories.  If I had to pick a year, I think my freshman year of college was my favorite.  Here's where my husband will interject and tell you his feelings are hurt {because I didn't meet him until midway through my sophomore year}.

Freshman year was my favorite for a couple of reasons.  I found three girls that were my age to hang out with.  We were inseparable.  We were in each other's rooms.  We "studied" in the library until it closed.  We drove around town singing at the top of our lungs.  We went splashing in the fountain at Jordan Valley Park.  We busted ice off each other's cars when it iced over that year.  We had sleepovers.  We attended Christian Campus House events together.  We got each other.

One thing that we did together...that I didn't fully remember until Friday night...was attend Friday Night Praise {or FNP}.  FNP was exactly that.  We gathered at the boys' house from Icthus {another campus ministry} and boy, did we pack that place.  I'm talking rows and rows of people...on the couches, on the floor, stacked up the stairway, in the kitchen and bedrooms and anywhere else you could find a place to sit.

Our favorite place to be was in the kitchen.  It was quite funny to see the boys' cleaning schedule up on the fridge each week...and to see that they might not have been the cleanest people, but they did try and that's what counted.  Friday Night Praise was acoustic worship with people from all over campus.  They had a projector with words, and if you were in the living area, you could see them.

It was that year that I really learned to worship.  I learned that you didn't have to be singing the words to the songs in order to worship.  Since we were almost always in the kitchen, we didn't see the words.  When we didn't know a song, we listened.  We closed our eyes and focused on praising the One who gave us that moment.  About midway through, they turned off the projector and turned off the lights.

It was that exact moment that I lived for all week.  It was in that moment that I felt closest to my Creator.  It was in that moment that everyone's voices got a little bit louder.  The foot tapping got a bit heavier.  The emotions were a tad higher.  It was in that moment that I could lift my hands and release all the tension, anger, stress, sadness, happiness, joyfulness, praises to the One who really loves and cares about me.

This past Friday night, Tyler and I attended The Attic for the first time since we've lived in St. Louis.  It was hosted at the church we attend, so we decided to check it out.  It was an hour of singing.  And in that hour, my mind was thinking back to my college memories.  It was thinking about what it really means to worship.

I want to get back to the heart, to the root of worship when everything is about Him.  It doesn't matter if I sing or pray or serve...if it's about Him, it's worship.  I want to put Him first in everything.  Some days are harder than others, but He's here to help guide us.  

What does worship mean to you?