Free to Be

My husband and I host a small group in our home on Wednesday nights and tonight we started a new study by Steven Furtick called Sun Stand Still . We were asked to talk about a vision that God has given each of us for our lives, which Steven Furtick refers to as the "Page 23 Vision". (If you want to know why...you really should read the book. :)) One of the guys in our group shared his "Page 23 Vision" and at the end he said something that just tugged at my heart...something I knew needed to turn into a blog post. He said, "but, God should've picked someone a lot brighter than me". It really spoke to me so strongly because just this morning I was reading Exodus 3 & 4. Moses is tending sheep and God appears to him in a burning bush. (How cool would that be?!) God gets his attention and then tells Moses that He has chosen him to lead the Israelites out of captivity. Of course Moses, who is a shepherd, is thinking what so many of us think when God

If you read my blog post yesterday, you know that God has awakened some big dreams in me.  One of the things that He placed on my heart years ago was to write...to pen my story.  I have dabbled with a few blog posts here and there throughout the years...dipping my little toe in the water every now and then, but in January of this year...I felt the big nudge that now is the time to go deeper.  I'm just going to be honest with you, if that's okay. :) Like most people I know, I really struggle with why in the world He would ask me to write...why He would use ME. There are others much better suited for the job.  So, here I'll share with you some of my biggest struggles (a.k.a. excuses) because chances are you have them too: I have no clue about writing.  I'm not the best at grammar or knowing where to put the punctuation marks...even though I was in advanced classes throughout my school years (I think I forgot EVERYTHING).  My vocabulary range is also pretty limited.  I

Since the lovely Lisa Bevere came to our Illuminate Girlfriends Conference in January my spirit has been stirring and some dreams that had laid dormant have been awakened. There is a dream that God placed on my heart years ago...like 13 years ago! All this time I have held back from pursuing that dream because of one thing...FEAR! This is unusual for me because when I'm passionate about something, I jump in and not just with my little toe either...I jump in full body...full force...well, except for this one dream. This dream is so big it scares me! It's definitely a God-sized dream...it is SO much bigger than me and my small circle of influence. I have read a lot of tweets from people lately with variations of this quote and basically the idea is "if your dream isn't big enough that it scares you, then you're not dreaming big enough". Do you have any dreams like that? I have had a laundry list of excuses as to why I have held off on pursuing the drea

As many of you know, today is Fat Tuesday and tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, kicks off 40 days of Lent.  I've read a lot of Facebook and Twitter posts the last few days from people who are participating in Lent and then some from others who are maybe being a bit critical and questioning why an evangelical Christian would participate.  I had never even considered practicing Lent until last year, simply because, well, I was ignorant.  I thought it was only something that my Catholic and some of my Methodist friends participated in.  I grew up in a Pentecostal church where Lent was never talked about nor practiced.  My eyes were not really opened to it until a dear friend & one of my mentors, Becky Hennesy, began Facebooking and Tweeting last year about how they were encouraging their church in Cedar Hill, TX to participate in Lent.  Because they took that step last year... it is simply amazing the testimonies that have come out of their church and community from it! Lent is all about