When there is doubt

Have you ever had that feeling in the pit of your stomach? Bent, twisted, and full of butterflies? Kinda like you're on a roller coaster? Lately I have been on this never-ending thrill ride. I've been learning, in my own personal journey, that its not what we do, its why we do it. I have been guilty of not being transparent. Jesus told us that we are one body. If I bleed we all bleed, if I am joyful, then we are all joyful. I exude the characteristics of happiness and strength in everyone's mind to keep them at ease, but why am I so consumed with "image management"? GOD has been telling me that "IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT YOU HAVE FLAWS, IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT YOU FALL ALL THE TIME" he's telling me that "I STILL LOVE YOU". I don't know, it's not that I don't trust anyone, it's not that I'm not secure with who I am spiritually, I guess I was raised that being too open, letting too many people into the real me can cause heartache....but it is not what we do its why we do it. Last night I was challenged to let people in. " All you have to do is ask". I am learning to live my life more transparent, more open to others. And always HE tells me," I STILL LOVE YOU! IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT YOU HAVE FLAWS! IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT YOU FALL ALL THE TIME! BECAUSE I STILL LOVE YOU!"

" What if the deepest, deadliest, and most terrible parts of our lives never get uprooted until we talk openly about them-confess them- to trustworthy others who can encourage us and lock arms with us to help us walk out our freedom?
This begs the question, do you have someone like that in your life, someone with whom you can be totally honest? Or are you basically doing life alone?"
Individualitis- Religously Transmitted Diseases- Ed Gungor

What else can there be?

One of the most influential people I know told me to, "Plant your roots deep in someone's life if only to make them feel loved." He was right. Love is the universal language that breaks any religious, cultural or racial difference. Love is what binds families. Love knows no boundries.

Love is a movement..

"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.

And the best of the three is love."

-1 Corinthians 13