Transparency and Reflecting
Hello anybody and everybody ha ha like anybody reads this. Well anyway I guess God does.
Lately God has been telling me to slow down, etc. I have to learn to be okay with where I'm at and go from there. I know that I need to keep growing, but I'm never going to "get there" so I need to realize that this really is a process and a journey. I've been reading a book by Joyce Meyer called "Enjoying Where You are on the way to Where You are Going". I'm actually almost done. For a while I put off reading it because I didn't feel like it was possible for me to do that. But it is and I think that I am growing. God teaches me new things everyday. He really does.
I keep up with my sister's blog now because I have it send me a link in my email. She's a really good writer and it always gets me. Recently she wrote about God calling her "Amada" which means "beloved" in Spanish. I think sometimes I might think in my subconscious, well of course, Brittany is beautiful and amazing and doing great things for God and being independent. Then I think of myself as lesser like I always have to work on something. But God loves me anyway. He was trying to show me this today and lately. He tells me that "You're both beautiful, just different and at different stages in your lives."
One time in Panama a couple of beautiful little girls were calling us (in Spanish) pretty and themselves ugly. We kept telling them no and three of us said loudly together "TU ERES MUY BONITA!" Which means "You are very pretty!" They still said no. It was sad. Then I talked to one of the little girls, Itchelle or Mitchelle, (they were twins), I said, "Somos differentes, pero bonita y bonita." "We are different, but pretty and pretty." I said pointing to each of us. It seemed like her eyes lit up a little in understanding like she had never thought that things could be different like that but both pretty. Those girls were some of the most precious little girls I have ever met and I miss them so much. In Panama there is some racism where they think that light skin is better, so that may have been why she thought that.
Dear Jesus, please help us to see the beauty that you have bestowed upon us and to see our worth in that we are loved and created by you. We are of more value to you than many sparrows. It doesn't matter what we are doing, big or small, it matters in the heart, and that we are going toward you. Father, teach us to be transparent with and uphold each other. Teach us to pray for each other and let ourselves be prayed for. Help us to know we are not alone. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for the love you pour out on us. Thank you for women who listen and understand. It is good to have others to talk with. Thank you God for all you do in my life. Amen.
I am so thankful for the women in my life. : ) My best friend Destiny that I talk to almost everyday, my core advisor last year and good friend Sarah Rennick who is there to listen and encourage me no matter what I am struggling with, my mom who cares about me and forgives me even when I'm a brat, my grandma Pat who teaches me and tells me stories and about other things, all the women at church who talk with and encourage and listen to me, my sister Brittany Fairbanks who I love so much and am inspired by, we have the same heart on so much I am sure, we are just on different levels of freedom, my Aunt Laura and cousin Anna who are fun to hang around with and who listen, etc. It is good to walk with others. It is good to have understanding women in my life who encourage me to aim higher. I would be a completely different person without them. Yeah I do have to learn to be transparent. Often people ask me "How are you?" and I feel like I have lie because I'm not doing that well then. Otherwise people notice and say that I don't look so well because they know me better or seem like they care so I usually tell them why and that's kind of good.
I still miss my friends from the Honor Academy and being there. I miss Texas. I appreciate Minnesota though. Life is going by so fast here. I sort of wish it would snow. I'm learning to appreciate people more. It really feels like the people that I went to the Honor Academy with are my family. We all have matching rings and who else gets up at 5am in the morning to do exercise and do push ups to the song "I get down, He lifts me up, I get down He lifts me up," etc. Yeah, we are family and always will be. We were so united in heart and spirit, chasing after God and working for Him. It was so great and incredibly difficult too. I will always be grateful for that year I had. In some ways it was kind of like a year long Bible camp (like the ones in the summer that last for a week). It is now over and the high of it is over, but I will always remember it fondly. In some ways I have to grieve in letting go of being around the friends and the experiences I had, but once I am able to let go, then God can bring healing and bring me into the next thing He has for me.
"God will make all things beautiful in its time."
"Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end." --Ecclesiastes 3:11
Hmm. The verse says he has made everything beautiful for its own time. Well what does that mean for me? I blog this because I am part written processer? Idk I just like to write.
I love that song, "You make me new, you are making me new. You make beautiful things you make beautiful things out of us." etc. It's probably one of my favorite songs actually.
I really like candles. They are calming. Tonight at youth group was about us being the light to the world; warm, inviting, helpful, etc. Yeah that is really good and when I let God in and believe what He tells me that I AM beautiful (not just a superficial outward beauty, but really beautiful on the inside in who I am) then I am so much more free to be myself and give of the beauty that the Lord gives to me. I can only be filled with Him when I am empty of me. I can't do this on my own and I don't have to. Praise God!
I keep hearing lately, "You don't have to do it all at once." That's good. "How do you eat an elephant?.... One bite at a time." I am beautiful because God makes me beautiful. I know that God has implanted love and compassion into the hearts of people, even ones who don't know Him, it is just how He makes us. It doesn't make sense, but it points to Him. If life was really all by evolution and survival of the fittest, nothing would have cared for its young because it would want itself to survive more. If it wanted its species to survive that implies a care of some kind and that doesn't just happen and it's not by evolution either because it's dumb and check out the gap in the fossil record but anyway yeah. Way of The Master dot com has really good stuff on that. http://wayofthemaster.com/ Yeah. Keep looking to God and His strength. That is my word always too.
I've been writing a lot of poems lately and a few songs (probably not totally complete though). I really like writing poems and it's a good outlet for me. I've been journaling some but I do need to come to rest more often and be okay with reading or journaling and not working myself til I'm so exausted. My soul longs for God's refreshment and I hope to be a refreshment as well. I love you God so much! He really is so good to me because He loves me. I don't deserve it. I try to but He loves me because He is good, like that is how caring friends love me too but with God it's like that but perfect, woah. Be transparent Jasmine! Lol I'm trying. God likes to sing that song to me that goes, "Baby you should let me love you. Let me be the one to give you everything you want and need..." Ha ha but seriously I do really need to let Him love me. And sometimes I just cry when everything feels so awful but I know that He is there and He loves me. He heals up the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.
God, please break down my pride and all the walls I build up inside. Woah..ah..oh...woh..ah..oh...wo..ah..oh.
Thank you for all you've blessed me with and that you are a great friend and couselor that I can talk to. Amen.
Lately God has been telling me to slow down, etc. I have to learn to be okay with where I'm at and go from there. I know that I need to keep growing, but I'm never going to "get there" so I need to realize that this really is a process and a journey. I've been reading a book by Joyce Meyer called "Enjoying Where You are on the way to Where You are Going". I'm actually almost done. For a while I put off reading it because I didn't feel like it was possible for me to do that. But it is and I think that I am growing. God teaches me new things everyday. He really does.
I keep up with my sister's blog now because I have it send me a link in my email. She's a really good writer and it always gets me. Recently she wrote about God calling her "Amada" which means "beloved" in Spanish. I think sometimes I might think in my subconscious, well of course, Brittany is beautiful and amazing and doing great things for God and being independent. Then I think of myself as lesser like I always have to work on something. But God loves me anyway. He was trying to show me this today and lately. He tells me that "You're both beautiful, just different and at different stages in your lives."
One time in Panama a couple of beautiful little girls were calling us (in Spanish) pretty and themselves ugly. We kept telling them no and three of us said loudly together "TU ERES MUY BONITA!" Which means "You are very pretty!" They still said no. It was sad. Then I talked to one of the little girls, Itchelle or Mitchelle, (they were twins), I said, "Somos differentes, pero bonita y bonita." "We are different, but pretty and pretty." I said pointing to each of us. It seemed like her eyes lit up a little in understanding like she had never thought that things could be different like that but both pretty. Those girls were some of the most precious little girls I have ever met and I miss them so much. In Panama there is some racism where they think that light skin is better, so that may have been why she thought that.
Dear Jesus, please help us to see the beauty that you have bestowed upon us and to see our worth in that we are loved and created by you. We are of more value to you than many sparrows. It doesn't matter what we are doing, big or small, it matters in the heart, and that we are going toward you. Father, teach us to be transparent with and uphold each other. Teach us to pray for each other and let ourselves be prayed for. Help us to know we are not alone. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for the love you pour out on us. Thank you for women who listen and understand. It is good to have others to talk with. Thank you God for all you do in my life. Amen.
I am so thankful for the women in my life. : ) My best friend Destiny that I talk to almost everyday, my core advisor last year and good friend Sarah Rennick who is there to listen and encourage me no matter what I am struggling with, my mom who cares about me and forgives me even when I'm a brat, my grandma Pat who teaches me and tells me stories and about other things, all the women at church who talk with and encourage and listen to me, my sister Brittany Fairbanks who I love so much and am inspired by, we have the same heart on so much I am sure, we are just on different levels of freedom, my Aunt Laura and cousin Anna who are fun to hang around with and who listen, etc. It is good to walk with others. It is good to have understanding women in my life who encourage me to aim higher. I would be a completely different person without them. Yeah I do have to learn to be transparent. Often people ask me "How are you?" and I feel like I have lie because I'm not doing that well then. Otherwise people notice and say that I don't look so well because they know me better or seem like they care so I usually tell them why and that's kind of good.
I still miss my friends from the Honor Academy and being there. I miss Texas. I appreciate Minnesota though. Life is going by so fast here. I sort of wish it would snow. I'm learning to appreciate people more. It really feels like the people that I went to the Honor Academy with are my family. We all have matching rings and who else gets up at 5am in the morning to do exercise and do push ups to the song "I get down, He lifts me up, I get down He lifts me up," etc. Yeah, we are family and always will be. We were so united in heart and spirit, chasing after God and working for Him. It was so great and incredibly difficult too. I will always be grateful for that year I had. In some ways it was kind of like a year long Bible camp (like the ones in the summer that last for a week). It is now over and the high of it is over, but I will always remember it fondly. In some ways I have to grieve in letting go of being around the friends and the experiences I had, but once I am able to let go, then God can bring healing and bring me into the next thing He has for me.
"God will make all things beautiful in its time."
"Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end." --Ecclesiastes 3:11
Hmm. The verse says he has made everything beautiful for its own time. Well what does that mean for me? I blog this because I am part written processer? Idk I just like to write.
I love that song, "You make me new, you are making me new. You make beautiful things you make beautiful things out of us." etc. It's probably one of my favorite songs actually.
I really like candles. They are calming. Tonight at youth group was about us being the light to the world; warm, inviting, helpful, etc. Yeah that is really good and when I let God in and believe what He tells me that I AM beautiful (not just a superficial outward beauty, but really beautiful on the inside in who I am) then I am so much more free to be myself and give of the beauty that the Lord gives to me. I can only be filled with Him when I am empty of me. I can't do this on my own and I don't have to. Praise God!
I keep hearing lately, "You don't have to do it all at once." That's good. "How do you eat an elephant?.... One bite at a time." I am beautiful because God makes me beautiful. I know that God has implanted love and compassion into the hearts of people, even ones who don't know Him, it is just how He makes us. It doesn't make sense, but it points to Him. If life was really all by evolution and survival of the fittest, nothing would have cared for its young because it would want itself to survive more. If it wanted its species to survive that implies a care of some kind and that doesn't just happen and it's not by evolution either because it's dumb and check out the gap in the fossil record but anyway yeah. Way of The Master dot com has really good stuff on that. http://wayofthemaster.com/ Yeah. Keep looking to God and His strength. That is my word always too.
I've been writing a lot of poems lately and a few songs (probably not totally complete though). I really like writing poems and it's a good outlet for me. I've been journaling some but I do need to come to rest more often and be okay with reading or journaling and not working myself til I'm so exausted. My soul longs for God's refreshment and I hope to be a refreshment as well. I love you God so much! He really is so good to me because He loves me. I don't deserve it. I try to but He loves me because He is good, like that is how caring friends love me too but with God it's like that but perfect, woah. Be transparent Jasmine! Lol I'm trying. God likes to sing that song to me that goes, "Baby you should let me love you. Let me be the one to give you everything you want and need..." Ha ha but seriously I do really need to let Him love me. And sometimes I just cry when everything feels so awful but I know that He is there and He loves me. He heals up the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.
God, please break down my pride and all the walls I build up inside. Woah..ah..oh...woh..ah..oh...wo..ah..oh.
Thank you for all you've blessed me with and that you are a great friend and couselor that I can talk to. Amen.
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