5 Things Friday- Repurposing for jewelry organization

Repurposing for jewelry organization

1.Use an old rake to hang necklaces



2. Organize small pieces of jewelry in an ice cube tray



3. Use a pegboard and hooks to hang jewelry



4.Hang earrings from an old painted cheese grater



5. Place antique bowls and teacups in a drawer as a replacement for more boring drawer dividers

Soulcare

So I don't know about you, but I'm weird. I have a different way of relating, a different way of learning, growing, and seeking than anyone else I know. Which is really exciting. Because it means I get to relate to, learn from, grow with, and seek God in a way that is entirely my own. I get to experiment with how I connect with God. How I hear from Him. How I respond in worship to Him.

It means I don't have to stick to a strict formula. I don't have to do x, y, and z for so many a minutes a day in order to grow closer to my God. I get to do what works for me, what draws me close to Him, what feeds my soul. I get to try on new and different approaches to relating to God, because honestly I have been following a formula for far to long. It means I get to make mistakes in the whole process, changing and adapting as I find the things that work for me. I get to let go of all my expectations that I have for my relationship with God and just explore.

Seeking

Seeking God is hard. I'm not very good at it, especially for specific things. My mind is wild. All the time. There's like a hundred and ten things going on in there at once. My attention span is the same length as a 5-year-old boy's in a Catholic mass. My ability to sit still is even worse. So when it comes to being still and knowing God is God, there are some issues. I like to fill the silence. I like to blabber. I like to repeat myself, if it means that I won't have to do nothing. These lyrics sum it up pretty good:

I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time

-Addison Road, What do I Know of Holy?

 I think it might be time for a little vacation with God. Or at least some extended time to be still and rest and seek Him. At least enough time to stop talking. Stop planning. Stop being overwhelmed by the one hundred and ten things going on in my brain.

 

Joy

What brings you joy in life? Are you doing it?

5 Things Friday- Books I want to read this summer

Books I want to read this summer

1. The Me I want to Be by John Ortberg (working on it now- SO GREAT!)

2. The Shack by William P. Young (re-read)

3. Sacred Singleness by Leslie Ludy

4. Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst

5. Radical by David Platt (need to finish this one)

Ask, Seek, Knock.

Today was the first day of training for the VYC Internship I am a part of this summer. And it was a pretty paradigm-shifting day. The topic was the Spirit-Filled Life. We talked about the Holy Spirit. How to receive Him (repent and be baptized. Acts 2:38-39), the fruits He nurtures in our lives (love, joy peace, patience, etc. Galatians 5:22-25), and the gifts that He gives us (words of wisdom, teaching, prophecy, encouraging, etc. Romans 12:4-8, 1 Corinthians 12:28-31, & Ephesians 4:11-15).

So when I say paradigm-shifting, I mean it really changed the way I think about a lot of things. One of the big themes we really dove into was the idea of asking, seeking, and knocking. Now, I had definitely heard the verses in Luke where Jesus tells the parable of the man knocking on his friend's door at midnight (Luke 11:5-13). It is only because of his persistence that the friend finally gets up, answers the door, and gives his friend what he needs. However, I had never really looked at the context of this parable. In the following verses, Jesus goes on to say that whoever asks, it shall be given to him, whoever seeks will find, and whoever knocks, it will be open to him. But asks for what, exactly? Verse 13 says "how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

So this whole time, I have been using the "ask, seek, knock" concept for everything else in my life, BUT the Holy Spirit! I ask God for money for school. I seek to know God's will for my life. I knock, wanting to know when the next big thing in life is going to happen. These are not bad things. But I am not asking, seeking, and knocking for the Holy Spirit. I am not desperately pounding on the door, asking for my life to produce other-centeredness, patience, and self-control. I am not seeking, as for hidden treasure, what gifts God has for me and how He wants me to use them to bring glory to Him.

Enter 30 days of intentional asking, seeking, and knocking. Thirty days where I am going to be searching out the Holy Spirit and having Him truly flow through me. Thirty days of surrendering to Him, allowing Him to produce fruit in me and use me in whatever capacity and through whatever gifts He chooses to give to me. And hopefully, this thirty days will turn into a lifetime of complete surrender and abandonment to the Holy Spirit in my life.

So as a little reminder of this, I took the chair arm that I got from the old seats in Valleybrook as a souvenir, and made it into a token of remembrance.

Now is RIGHT on Time

So true. It can be so incredibly easy to look back on our journey and say "I wish...." or "If only..." or "What if..." But those things didn't happen. Things hardly ever happen the way we had planned. But then, that's why God's ways are higher than mine and his thoughts higher than my thoughts. That's why He's God, and I am Heather. Because even when things don't turn out the way I had planned, He uses them to draw me closer to Him, to shape me, to change me, to mold me. I just need to be patient, be still, and know that He is God.