Speaking up and speaking out....

July 16, 2011 the date of my first public speaking event at Cowboy Church of LaFayette.  Those who went to school with me or know me well, know that I am not a great speaker with crowds.  In preperation for this event I found myself feeling a bit out of character. ~ When my mother as me to speak at a ladies meeting I was a bit shocked and felt really unqualified, I was like "What, ME...seriously?  She went on to say she felt the Lord lead her to ask me."  I had been praying that God would use me & I ask her to let me pray about this.  In prayer I knew this was an answer to my prayer & I couldn't say no to God, he even gave me a time frame for my date. He spoke 3 months and 3 weeks which turned out July 16.  I didn't understand at the time that time frame, but as time passed I recieved better understanding.  After this time frame Michael & I would be finished with our first phase in School of Descipleship.  I would also be rebaptized...YES, {RE}. 

{RE}Baptized...
"Why," you might ask?  Well I have been feeling led to do so for about 3 years now.  When I say LED I mean the Lord had put it on/in my heart.  For the past 3 years I have been questioning {WHY} myself.  I knew I was saved, no doubt about it & I was baptized when I was 10 & I knew that, what I did not understand is if I was saved & baptized and I knew it, then WHY get re-baptized...I was perplexed & just couldn't let it go WHY, WHY, WHY and then one day it hit me.  I always try to figure things out when I have a WHY.  I always have to have answers and if I don't I will... lets say get obsessive and anxious for the answers to my WHY's.  I have a hard time letting go until I get answers.  This time God showed me that when I was 10 I really didn't understand what I was doing when I got baptized, I didn't understand the seriousness (not saying the Lord wasn't with me or  I wasn't really baptized, becuase I was..thier was is just more to it than I knew then & God has shown me so much more since)  I did it out of obenience because I knew the Lord had shown me so much & I am such a different person.  In learning obedience,  he was asking me to do this for him & myself so I did.  This time it was so different, for me the meaning was glorious & freeing.  I declaired in front of millions that I choose to live for the Lord.  I went down under the water & took with me every worry, anxiety, stress, generational curse, weakness, exc.. & buried it.  Christ has defeated every thing that will ever or has ever come against me & I came up free from all the worries of the world.  Because He died I LIVE...I am FREE to live my life in, through and for HIM.  He is the center of my life, included in all I do every day, my parter, my friend, my comforter...he knows my hearts desires, he knows everthing about me; the good, bad & ugly..yet he still loves me so much he died so that I can live free.  I believe that is what is meant by America, the land of the free...whom the son sets free is free indeed.

Speaking on the 16th was one of the hardest things my flesh has ever had to do.  I was not nurvious in the least untill we pulled up in the church parking lot.  I had purchased a Tenth Avenue North CD and had listened to it with tears flowing the whole hours trip to my mom's house.  She says, "  That's just how it works girl, the Holy Spirit is all over you" and I just laughed it off, but the truth is he is always with me in all I do I carry him with me, I never want to exclude the one who matters most from anything in my life & I want my kids to do the same.  I hope that if they learn nothing else in the world from me it's that God is always with you, just make him your best friend and fall in love with him...don't worry about anyone or anything else just seek his face and all else will fall into place.

~1 John 4:6  We have known & believed the love that God hath to us, God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him.

~2 Thes. 3:5  And the Lord direct your hearts into the Love of Godand into the patient waiting for Christ.

~Luke 10:27  Thall shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart & all thy soul and all thy strength & all thy mind.

~Matt. 6:33  Seek ye 1st the kingdom of God & his rightousness & all these things shall be added unto you.

~Exod. 20:3  Thou shalt have no other God's before me.

~1 John  Beloved let us love one another; for love is of God; and everyone that loves God is born of God and KNOWS God...

I want to know God fully and completely in Luke 11:9 and Matthew 7:7 it is written in red(Jesus words) Ask and it will be given you; SEEK and ye shall find;  knock and it will be opened unto you..I am asking the Lord to show me Him...I want my relationship with him to be more real than any realationship I have ever had.  God is jelous for us {Exod. 34:14 & Deut. 4:24}.  I pray the Lord will examine my heart daily{Psa. 26:2}. I do not make time for the Lord,  He is a part of my daily life and I carry him with me in all I do. I pray the same for you...