He's Not Far From Anyone of Us

How do you stay unbroken in a world so splintered? I look around me and I see death, pain, famine, ravaging diseases, perversion and apathy, which may be the worst of them all. In a world where it seems like God doesn’t exist, how do you keep your head up and know that God was and is and will work through all of this? Hope seems so far away because most of everyone is hopeless. How are you not broken and at the brink of an emotional break down, when you see a picture of a desperate father, battered and weeping, carrying his dead son out of a hospital because a tsunami killed him, because some powerful, unexplainable force of nature was merciless to his son? How do you function when you know that so many people are wounded and lost? How do you live normally when you know that so many people are dying without the saving grace of Christ? How can you really, truly be human without feeling the crippling loss of many around the world?

But just like that father who was weeping over the loss of his son, so our Father is broken and hurt and weeping and absolutely saddened by the pain that the mass majority of this world feels. For our God is not a god who lacks feelings or pain, but rather, he feels deeply for all of us. And we need to lift up our heads, through the power and deep love of Christ, and remember “he is not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:22).

Black and White

Do you ever get into those moments where, you may be doing absolutely nothing, but you can totally feel the Holy Spirit around you?

That's how I feel right now. I was looking at black and white photos on someone's blog and everything got really quiet except for the hum of my computer. My mind was totally absorbed with the pure and breath-taking black and whites. And I could just feel the closeness of God all around me, sandwiching my heart. It's when I'm really quiet and totally absorbed in whatever I'm doing, that the Holy Spirit comes and tickles my toes or steals my breathe right from my lungs. The tiredness from my eyes lift and the tastelessness from my tongues evaporates and Jesus just sinks into my socks and whispers into my ears. When all of the distractions of life melt as I am meaninglessly parousing black and white photos the Holy Spirit comes and fills me with meaning. You should try it some time.

It's Good to Be Back

Wow, it's good to be back. I've decided that my blog is going to be nice and relaxed so don't expect posts everyday like before. Check up on my blog every so often because I love that you are taking the time out of your day to read this.

I found myself wondering why having a relationship with God is hard. I'd love for God to be my best-friend forever...for life, but I find that God must display other aspects of His character for me to grow. *Sigh* God can't always show His "lover" side or His "mother" side. I don't mean that God stops being these things. God will always be my mother, father, lover and best-friend. But I think that God limits my ability to feel those things as I grow in different areas of my spiritual life.

Right now, God is my teacher. I'm finding life hard (as we all do) and I'm finding that God is exercising His discipline on me, His subtle, I-know-you-know-you-shouldn't-do-this discipline. I know that God is trying to teach me how to have God-time when I don't feel like it or when I'm "busy". Ho hum. The bible says that God only disciplines those He loves. So that sends me a wave of relief. God is showing me some toughness because he loves me. Mmm...interesting.

Break Time

Hey dudes!
I'm just taking a break from blogging right now. If you haven't noticed, I haven't been posting very much. I'm just crazy busy and I'm getting tired of the whole blogging thing. So I'm just going to be praying and asking God if He actually wants me to keep this up. If not, I'll stop blogging because I want to focus my life on Christ and not get distracted, especially since this season in my life is very critical.
Love.
Michaela.

The Sacrifice of a Friend

I was just telling a friend of mine that if he ever go into a bind I would help bail him out. For example, on New Years Eve he got stuck in Vancouver and one of my friends said she would drive down and get him if he needed a ride. But he didn't ask for help because he said it was a hassle. Vancouver is 45 minutes to an hours drive away from my house depending on the traffic and it was also 2:30 in the morning. He said that he wouldn't want to bother my friend and I. He said that unless his was in a real bind he wouldn't call because it was his fault he was stuck in Vancouver.

And the whole time I was thinking, "So? So what if it's a hassle? So what if I have to drive all the way to Vancouver and then back home just to pick you up? So what if I have to drive your drunk friends back home too? So what?" And I told him this and he kept saying it was a hassle. He appreciated the offer but it was too much to ask.

And this got me thinking that friends should make sacrifices like this. Friends are supposed to help you out of tough situations. In all honesty, I would expect my friends to do something like that for me. Of course I wouldn't call them up if I didn't have to, nor would I call them all the time, but aren't friends supposed to do this kind of stuff for you? I would hope that my friends would be willing to drive for 45 minutes at 2:00 in the morning to come and help me. And I would do the exact same thing.

The bible says that the greatest friend is one who will lay their life down for you. And I want to be a great friend. So if I can't sacrifice my life for my buddies, let alone drive a distance for them, am I a great friend? I don't know, it just got me thinking about how much I would sacrifice for my friends. I hope that I would lay down my life for all of my friends not expecting anything in return. And I hope that my friends know that I will be there for them. I hope that I'm a great friend. I hope that I'm something like Jesus.

Happy New Years!!!

Yes, it's 5:43 in the morning. Yes, I am slightly crazy. To explain why I am up so early and I'll let you know that my comrads and I have this tradition where we stay up all night until 6:00ish in the morning and we go get McDonald's for breakfast. Mmmm. So this is why I'm still up and about. I'm trying to keep myself awake.

Well, Happy New Years my blogger friends! I love you! Have a good one!!!

To Live is Christ by Trip Lee.

This is a track from the C.D, 13 letters. It was created by various rappers and they take all of Paul's letters and turn them into rap songs. It's pretty fantastic. This song is called To Live is Christ by Trip Lee. Ignore the video though. It isn't well made.

The Christian Faith: No, For the Love of God

See my post, The Christian Faith: For the Love of Pete, before you read this.

So for the whole day I was praying for God to show me His love and His true character. And I started to feel a lot better. I had fun at my family party and I was having a good day.

I don't know if you believe in the gift of prophecy or the gift of tongues but I whole-heartedly do. It says in the bible that such gifts exist and the Holy Spirit gives them to Christians. I can speak in tongues and I get visions from God every so often. This isn't to say that I'm better than you if you don't have these gifts because it's not true at all. I just want to let you know what I believe in.

That being said, I was getting ready for bed and I decided to put on a C.D. I was sitting on my floor, leaning against my wall, and I decided to just speak in tongues and pray to God. Then, God gave me a vision of Jesus croutching right in front of me as I was leaning against the wall. It was like Jesus, in flesh and blood, was right in front of me and I could reach out and touch Him. I instantly burst into tears.

God was telling me that He has been there always and forever. Jesus has never left me. Even though I have felt so alone, God has always been there, right by my side. I'm pretty sure I cried for a half hour at the least. And I just kept telling God how much I love Him and how I don't want anyone else.

It was a profound experience and it taught me two things: God is always with me, not matter what, and God hears my prayers and answers them. I feel so filled with the Holy Spirit and so alive. I feel so close to God and so refreshed. God is always with me. God will always love me. God is true and I can trust in His character. I feel safe.

The Christian Faith: For the Love of Pete

I've been having an incredibly rough month. It felt like everything in my life was going wrong. And worst of all, I haven't been having time alone with God because I spend most of my time running away from God instead of running to Him. It's so hard for me to trust in the character of God, the character that is painted in the Bible. The biggest reason is because so many people that I've trusted have really hurt me and betrayed me. People who are closest to me have hurt me so deeply and I'm so afraid that God will do the same thing to me.

And I don't know about you but I'm not good at hiding my emotions. I'm very emotional and my emotions are fairly obvious is you know me. I can supress my emotions for awhile but eventually they come out.

Everything has just been building up. So on Christmas Eve I was rather depressed. To make it worse, I felt so much pressure to be happy because it was Christmas. And the whole day I was asking myself, "Where is Jesus? Why isn't He here on Christmas Eve?"

My family always goes to church on Christmas Eve and that's where I found myself on Monday. I was really quiet at church while we were waiting for the service to start. In case you didn't know, I am never quiet! I am so bubbly and talkative, except when I'm depressed. So my friend asked me what was going on and I just broke down crying.

We talked in a quiet corner and I told her everything that has been happening. And she said that I need to ask God to show me His character and to show me how much He loves me...constantly. This should be a constant prayer of mine. And so, this leads me to my next post.

See post, The Christian Faith: No, For the Love of God.

Merry Christmas!!!

Feliz Navidad!
Malid Majid!
Feliz Natal!
Sretan Bozic!
Joyeux Noel!
Mele Kalikimaka!
Gledileg Jol!
Sung Tan Chuk Ha!
Merry Christmas!

I love you all and you pretty much rock my socks!