Prayer for renewal

COME, SPIRIT, breath of God,breathe new life into me. Blow away the cobwebs in my mind: clear away the debris in my soul. Bring healing to my wounds and comfort to my grief. Refresh my spirit, set my feet to dancing,and set my heart ablaze. Wind of God, touch my life and open me to your direction.
Amen.
-- Larry J. Peacock

That's totally what I hope for myself and all Christians- and hopefully all people. I've really felt God these past few weeks and although I would find it hard to describe how I'm still really excited by it.

I want to dance for God. Okay, so at the moment I should really say I want to sing for God, but there's something that holds me back from that. Part of it is that Charlie reads this (HI!) and I know that if he sees me writing that I want to use my gifts (err..singing is one of my gifts, right?) for God then he'll totally push me to do it- even if I believe with all my heart, mind, soul etc that I just couldn't possibly.

You know my favourite verse used to be "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." It's now "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." And the more times it springs to mind, the more I think that I'm not really using that to it's full potential, or letting Christ use me to my full potential. Totally scary place to be.

I don't want to say that I'll do anything, although I have tried my best to do just that throughout the past 6 months (yes it really has been that long!) I really do want to do my best to let people see God through me.

This is a little off track, but still in context. I was talking to Jill yesterday about some stuff. It's scary how much we are alike, but still really nice 'cause it means there's always someone there who understands and most of the time she's in exactly the same place. A true gift from God. Anyway, she wrote me a "10 Things I Love About You" list, which was just so cute and of course something I could just copy and paste and send back to her! (Except I won't 'cause that would make it less unique.)

On the list there was one that said....
"How you are so compassionate to everyone even if they really don't deserve it."
(She really is too sweet!) But anyway, we got talking about it and I said that everyone deserves compassion and God wants everyone to see Him so that they'll want to worship and praise Him. If I can show someone a little piece of heaven through my actions then that's what I want to do.

Does that mean doing the solo in church? I have no clue. I kind of hope not. I don't like being on show. I prefer singing duets or in choirs 'cause then I can convince myself that I'm not on show- that they are looking at the other person. Easily done when the other person is Charlie and I can hide behind him and his voice.

Plus there's the fact that I don't want to get a big head and part of me is scared of confidence 'cause it can easily be compared to arrogance. I quite like being the shadow. It means that when people realise what you've done you are already gone. It also means that you get praise from heaven instead. And who wouldn't want eternal, Godly riches in heaven rather than what we can offer on earth? Which brings me back to doing things for God rather than others or yourself. I'm really fighting myself tonight.

Another thing I've been thinking about is God's direction. I know He directed me here. The fact that I had my very own miracle of getting about $4000 from basically nowhere tells me that God wanted me here. But not only that, I've learnt so much and I really feel closer to Him. I know that it'll partly be like a mission trip feeling- when you go home and things just aren't the same and so you become a little unsteady on your feet and maybe even start to sink- but then I know I can survive on my own. I know that God is there and that He has a plan for my life, even if I have no clue what it is. And it's exciting and comforting that even if I don't live much longer I know that I really followed a call. I stepped out of my box.

So direction wise I guess I'm headed for university after this. Pastor Renee keeps asking me if I couldn't just study here, but I don't think my parents would like that and I know for certain my sister L-J wouldn't. I have mixed feelings about it.

I know that part of me is a home bird. I need my family and any time my sister is sick I'm so tempted to just get on the next plane and go look after her. But then there's the other part of me that feels that I can do anything here. I can be anyone I want to be cause only Marge and Charlie know me and really they push me more than anyone else to grow and do new things.

There really is no nice way to say how I felt sometimes at home. I guess when Jesus said that you couldn't be a prophet in your home town, I kind of related to Him. So sometimes I think it would be easier to stay here and keep on keeping on. But since when were things meant to be easy? First of all it wasn't easy leaving my family, Irish food or home comforts to come here, and yet I've grown from it and it's been one of the best experiences. So why would I think that I wouldn't have to go through some more difficult tasks to grow from them too?

I guess it's like cold medicine. The more disgusting it tastes, the better it is for you.


I got to view my own little slice of heaven tonight. We had Trinity and Logan over. They are the baby twins from church. It was their one year birthday yesterday and they are just absolutely adorable.

Logan was a little bit grumpy because he's teething, but for about 20 minutes he was the cutest little thing. He kept putting his hand out for me to kiss and then every time he would give this amazing smile and giggle. It really was the cutest thing I've ever seen. I didn't want to send him home, but I guess I would change my mind if he was throwing up or something. But it's still a little gift that I'll hold in my heart and memory hopefully for forever.

Anyway, I think this entry is already a little bit too long so I'm going to go and chat to people on msn! Hope you are all well. xox.