Lonely

I feel very much like I did when I first moved into Lister Hall in September.

I got to 3K, and had absolutely no one - I didn't fit in on my floor, I didn't really know anyone in Edmonton and I felt so alone. I felt like God was my only friend. That time was very healthy for my relationship with God, and I'm hoping it's going to be like that again, as once again I feel very alone.

I don't totally understand how this has happened. I have been trying to follow God and His leading with all of my actions, and somehow I have ended up with nobody. I mean, I have indeed been blessed with a wonderful community at my church, but I don't know anyone there enough to trust them yet.

And trust is an issue for me.

But I am certain that focusing on all of the negatives will not turn this all to positivity! So, I will let God do it!

Now that I am forced to be alone, I have more time to spend with God! At the beginning of September when He was my only friend, we became far closer than normal. Maybe this will happen again. I did buy a new Bible Study today, and have an old one to finish, so I'll finally get to that. God and I need to be closer: that has been the focus and purpose of all of my actions lately. At least, I am trying to focus on that.

So, I will spend tonight on me, and my relationship with God. I'm not used to not being around people, and maybe this is what I'm called to be doing right now!

And maybe this is a time for me to meet new people, and try and trust them. Maybe I am supposed to be working on my trust issues. It's hard to imagine that, after being pushed away by two people that I had only just begun to trust - but I am trying to seek God on this!

And doing His Will has indeed brought me peace. I am thankful.

So, tonight, instead of pining, I will do homework, clean my room, eat popcorn, watch movies and do a Bible Study! I will spend time with God, and I will relish in the fact that Jesus died so I could spend time with God! The curtain was torn, and I should be joyful. This is an honour.

Loving Him is an honour.

What do you do when you feel lonely?

Jesus, Speak to Me!

Hey guys. Tonight, after a personal bible study and prayer time, I wasn't feeling ready to do homework. I know things are weird with God right now - and that means it's my fault, and I don't even know what's going on at this moment! So, I randomly decided to google "Jesus speak to me" because I thought something crazy might happen. I found lyrics to a song by Ffh (a band I had never heard of). Though I searched for a copy of the song online, on youTube, on iTunes even, I can't find it. So, I'm posting these lyrics. Here is where my heart seems to be:

Can I talk to You a while, Can I lay my weary head

On Your shoulder again, Can I rest beneath Your smile

Will You whisper to me, As I kneel beside my bed

I've been walkin' in the desert, I need to hear from You

I need Your touch, I need Your love

Oh Jesus, speak to me, yeah

I need to hold You oh so close

Oh Jesus, speak to me, yeah

Oh Jesus, speak to me

It feels like I've walked a thousand miles, Just to see the mountaintop

To be above the clouds, But it only takes a while

Until my feet just seem to stop, And I make my way back down

I've been so long in the valley, I need to hear from You

Feels like I'm losing my mind, Going crazy

Feels like I'm running out of time, Come and save me

Just wipe the tears from my eyes, Say it's alright, alright

I thought it was beautiful. I really need Him here right now. I don't know what's going on. Oh, Jesus, please Speak to me.

I then googled the same thing for a picture for this blog entry, and found a picture titled 'prayer.' I think I need to spend some time with God. Now.

How do you need Jesus to speak to you? How can I be praying for you? Has anyone got a copy of this song? Please tell me where you got it, I really want it!

Arms High and Heart Abandoned

Yo, homeslices!

Today I was reading in Mark 8. I saw some very valuable things, and I'd love to share them. I'd also like to share where I began to feel challenged.

PS, feelings are so messed up. I never know if I should trust mine or not!

Also, when I saw this picture, I teared up. Oh my GOD, I love You!

Okay, so the first thing that stood out to me was Verse 2, where Jesus says: I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.

When I read this, I thought of a few things. I remembered a few months ago when I went through something traumatic, I tried to fast for 3 days. My body REJECTED the plan, and I got really sick. So, as I see it, 3 days is difficult. Yet here were 4000 people who'd been following Him for 3 days with (assumably) little to eat, and were continuing to follow Jesus around although they had nothing to eat (listening to Him and watching Him HEAL LIKE CRAZY must have been INCREDIBLE. I'm so thankful for the Bible). And these people had given up food, and how did Jesus feel about that?

Jesus took compassion on them.

That's my God.

Compassion, according to the dictionary definition, is "Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it." Jesus desires to relieve our suffering. For real, He just said it. This is amazing, I'm being continually blown away as I ponder what this means. I just grasped something.

Compassion give strength. Strength under testing, hard times. Times when God feels far, but really it's us.

It amazes me that the whole Bible seems to be a huge love letter from God saying "I LOVE YOU! I WANT TO SAVE YOU!" I mean, my pride kicks in and feels uncomfortable, but this is wild. Jesus is wild. And I love it.

Being a human is weird.

The place that I begin to struggle when it comes to Mark 8 is verses 33 and 34. I don't understand what it means to deny myself, or how. I also struggle with knowing when what I'm doing is His Will or not. Any advice?

My song of the day... or week, or something, is "Something Heavenly" by downHere. It's a gooder.

Girl Can't Help It

So... My title comes from the song stuck in my head right now... Fergie's "Clumsy." Oops. It's goofier than the ones that would have made sense... Like, "Faithfully without Fear," or "Walking on Water." But when have I ever been known to make sense?

Today, God opened my eyes to so many things. Many of these things involve me opening up a whole lot about myself, which isn't something I really care to do right now... So I'll talk about defilement!Mark 7:14-23, Jesus teaches about defilement! He says that we are not defiled by our environments (for all of you bio nerds: defilement does not operate on our phenotypes), but instead comes from within. So the things that screw me up are not caused by other people, have essentially nothing to do with other people! All of the things that defile me come from my own human heart! Rough waters, much?
No! It's wonderful, because as Jesus purifies us, our evils INSIDE are washed away, and this leads me to believe that no outside factors can cause us to become defiled again. We are in control by giving Him control. Amazing, thanks, Lord!

Also, at Bible study last night, God revealed to me that I needed to have so much more faith... and then it was repeated tonight in my own Bible Study... so for all of you LBS-ers out there (pretty sure that the 5 of you that there are don't read this), my sticky note from Zach says "Faithfully without Fear."

So, here I am, guys. Walking on water...

*You are the Way, the Truth and the Life, we live by FAITH and not by sight for You*

Faith

Hey everybody! Firstly, I just want to share with yous two verses that have been radiating in my heart all day. Whenever I read John 17, it brings me to tears (or really close to). To think that Jesus prayed for US. That He loved US enough to want to SHARE HIS GLORY. It's mind blowing, the love that is poured out in that short chapter. I'm so thankful that His love never changes!
Anyways, here it is: I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. John 17:22-23 ♥ Wow. I love You, my King!
So this week, I'm still plucking away at a Beth Moore Bible Study called Living Beyond Yourself. It is exploring the fruit of the spirit! I love how much God has shown me through this study. This week, I'm learning about faith.
Day one began with a discussion of God's faithfulness to us. It says that our faith is completely based upon His faithfulness. And it's so true! If God wasn't believable, true, would we have spent any time near Him? Also, He gave us a stamp of His faithfulness when He gave us His Spirit. Amazing, even though it's very basic stuff.
Today, it discussed some of the ways we can show faith to God. After reading through the "hall of faith" in Hebrews 11, it talked about God's Will. The Hebrew word for "will" (or maybe it was Greek, I cannot remember...), meant "not to be conceived as a demand, but as an expression or inclination of pleasure towards that which is liked, that which pleases and creates joy." So God being pleased with us is His Will, and our one calling is for Him to be pleased with us (completing His Will). Am I making sense? This AMAZES me!
Christians have faith in one of two things: in what God does, and in who God IS. It is important to only have faith in who He IS because if His actions are difficult for us (or if He chooses silence), we'll lose faith.
So these are the things I am being taught right now. I am also learning to surrender. Still. Is this lifelong?
I must now attend to some homework before I pass out for the night, and I've got to be up early(ish) for church, so... God Bless YOU!

♥

Living Today

Hey guys.
Today I was reading one of my favourite blogs, and the author was talking about hope. http://stuffchristianslike.net/2010/02/hope/
Something really stuck out to me, and it also stuck out in CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters I was really struck by what it means to live in the present.
The author suggested that one must first come to be at peace with the past. I don't know if I'm at this place or not; I wonder what that looks like? I don't know at all, however, what it means to live in the present. Both Lewis and Acuff suggest that this is one of Satan's biggest weapons against: "Satan is desperate to keep you out of the now, because it’s where Christ lives."
So what does the now look like? The first thing that comes to mind is my habit of day dreaming. When I am walking somewhere alone, I've got my music cranked and I'm daydreaming. When class gets boring, I draw hearts on my page and day dream. Before I fall asleep at night, I'm daydreaming about the upcoming things in my life. I day dream about past and future alike: how things would have been different in the past and how things "should look" in the future.
So, as I tried yesterday, I plan to turn every moment of day dreaming to God. Making each of those moments about Praising God for the many ways he has blessed me, about me bringing Him glory in the way that I live and about asking Him to lead me.
It's 11:11. At 11:11, instead of making a wish, I like to Praise God! :) I think He likes it too.
God Bless!

And so it begins...

My name is Robin. I'm currently 18, and studying psychology at the University of Alberta. I love blogging because I love to write - to express myself. Once a few people had found out about my old blog, I just wanted to start over.

I think that the title, on the shoreline, reflects me: I LOVE the ocean, passionately. I feel like the ocean reflects so much of my God, the God who provides. There are times when the ocean is calm and gentle, and times when it is fierce and powerful. There are also so many things we don't know about the ocean, and so very many things we don't know about God. Being on the shoreline makes me feel like I'm right next to Him, and a lot of my God-time takes place next to the ocean.

Today before calculus class began, I decided that when class got boring, I would take the 10 seconds that I would normally spend doodling a heart on my notes to praise God! I found two things as a result: a) I waste WAY too much of class time doodling! b) Praising God is so uplifting! I had been having a frustrating day, and praising God brought me into a more pleasant mood! Thanks, Jesus!

Last night at Large Group (an extension of my C&C group through my church), we had small group time and I ended up with a group of 3 other girls. It was so wonderful, and I'm so thankful that God provided me with that time! We had a really inspiring and empathetic time together, and the prayer time at the end was really strong and wonderful. :)

I'd love to tell you what else is new, but I don't feel like I'm at a place right now that I can do so. I'm sure I'll be able to update you soon... at this point I don't know who "you" is! So if you happen to stumble upon my blog, feel free to tell me a little bit about you! :) God bless!!