Not So Perfect!

It seems like forever since I have been on here. Sometimes it seems like life just slips right by without even giving you a chance to take it all in.Well, I have been realizing some things in the past few months, or years, that God has brought to my attention. I'm not exactly ready to share all of the things that He has shown me, but I will try to explain.
When I was a teenager, I felt a strong calling from God. It was, well, I guess you could say it was a vision He gave me. Ever since then, I have felt completely inadequate to live this vision out. I have in fact run away as far as I think I possibly could from that day. I know God's purpose for my life, but can he really use me? I am so far in my mind from being ready for what God has laid on my heart, yet the passion burns so strongly inside of me that I can't put out the flame, even if I tried. I hope this makes sense to whoever reads this. I think some will be able to relate because I think that once Satan know that we know God's purpose for our lives, he does everything he can to try to get us as far from that reality as he possibly can. So, for many years, I have not taken this "vision" very seriously, but I have never felt as strong as I do about it at this time in my life. So, back to feeling so unable to do what He asks of me. I have made many mistakes in my life that I feel like God surely is making a mistake giving me this "vision", right? Could this be God's first mistake ever? Nope, He doesn't make mistakes. The problem with me is that I feel that I am never going to be smart enough, theological enough, good enough, perfect enough.......STOP!!!! I don't have to be......HE IS! So I have decided to shift my frame of mind to just that, I will NEVER be good enough, theological enough, smart enough, or even perfect. God is all of those, and I don't have to be. I just need to surrender, and let Him use me! I am going to say things that I shouldn't, yell when I shouldn't, get angry when I shouldn't, and do things that I shouldn't. All I need to do is try to be the woman of God that I have been called to be. God will change my heart and do all of the work for me, if I will just surrender myself as a vessel. Now that is one thing that I can do very easily. I just tend to take things back from Him and try to do it myself. We women are like that. We are natural born "fixer-uppers", right? So, this is going to be quite the adventure for me. I am going to just trust that God knows what he is doing, even if I am not sure how He is going to do it. I am in good hands.
This might not have made sense to anyone reading, but I just needed to vent and get these things out of my head. I hope you all have a great week!

God Bless!
Julie G.

A new heart...

Hello! I hope all is well with whoever visits this blog today. I really don't have a lot to catch up on. We have been looking unsuccessfully for a place to live. We have to rent. Our ideal situation would be rent to own, but we haven't been able to find a place where we feel like we should be. The search goes on. God knows the place he has for us, he just hasn't shown us yet.

Anyways, I was watching a TV show that was showing a little toddler getting a heart transplant. All went well. His body took the heart successfully and the surgery went off without a hitch. I have to share what popped into my head. When I came to a point in my life where I realized I needed a savior, I prayed that God would forgive me of my sins and give me a new heart. So He forgave me, and I received a "new heart." Now, it may not have been a physical heart transplant, but it was a new heart all together. After thinking about that for a moment, I realized something. That little boy has a new heart that needs to be taken care of. He will go to his doctor for check ups, take in the right medicine, and even have to eat a healthy diet and exercises to maintain a healthy heart. I thought of how as a Christian with a "new heart", we also have to have check-ups by asking God to search our hearts for anything that is unhealthy, and take in the right "medicine" by reading Gods word, and exercises to keep our hearts right by living as an example. Oh my! I have not had a "healthy heart diet." I have not had my check ups or gotten the right dose of medicine or exercises to keep my heart healthy. I don't want to die of heart failure, and I surely don't want to face my heavenly Father someday with the gift he gave me looking unhealthy. I need to be doing the things it takes to keep my heart "healthy". I am FAR from perfect. As a matter of fact, when I talk about going to church to people, I tell them I go because I am a sinner. I want to start living a healthy heart diet. I want people to see right through me to my heart and see that although it isn't perfect, it is healthy.

Lord, forgive me for not taking better care of my heart to keep it "healthy". You have given me every tool I need to maintain a heart like yours, please help me to use them! Amen

God Bless!
Julie G.

Re-cap

Well, this week FLEW by! Monday my grandmother turned 85! Wow. I hope I get around as well as her when I turn 85. We celebrated her birthday on Sunday, the 6th, and she was salsa dancing with my cousin! What a blessing she is to all of us. I am so glad she is still alive. She is the only grandparent I have left and I just love her to death!

I celebrated my 32nd birthday on Thursday the 10th. It was a good day. My co-workers made food for the day and someone baked me a cake. My husband and kids took me out for dinner. After dinner a huge storm blew in. A lot of local businesses and residents lost power. When I got to wok on Friday, we had only partial power and no internet. Needless to say, I had a 3 day weekend! Thank you Lord. I went out and worked, if you can call it that, with my husband. I mostly watched him do his thing. It was nice. The rest of the weekend was okay. Today I played baseball and basketball with the kids. I am pretty tired right now.

The highlight of the weekend was church service this morning. I can't even ell you how much of a blessing it was for both my husband and myself. I think it was more of a blessing for me watching how it touch my husband. Our pastor, Derrick, is very gifted at giving a message. He paints a very truthful picture with his words. This morning was no different. We have been studying the book of Ephesians for quite some time, kind of picking it apart. The best part today was when he started talking about how people around us can say things that hurt. He talked about conditional love, such as, I'll love you as long as you get good grades, hang out with the right crowd, wear the right clothes, etc. This struck a cord for my husband. Derrick also talked about how some people may have never heard the words I love you, or been shown a lot of affection growing up. Then, what Derrick said next for some reason just hit like a tone of bricks. Jesus loves you! Yep, without conditions or limitations, he loves us completely! (look up the word completely in the dictionary and see what it says.) We will not know, or begin to live up to the plans that God has for us until we live and realize his UNCONDITIONAL love. It doesn't matter what we have done in the past, or what our hang ups are, or how many times we have sinned or turned our backs on him, !HE LOVES YOU So I want to leave you with that thought.............

Jesus Loves YOU!

Thank you Father in heaven for you mercy and unconditional love! Touch our live in a mighty way! Help us all to realize your unconditional love so that we can live to the fullest potential and be the people you have called each of us individually to be. Amen

God Bless you!
Julie G

Joy thieves!

Have you ever met anyone or had to deal with someone that tries to steal your joy whether intentional or not? There are some people and certain situations in my life that I truly believe Satan uses to try to steal my joy. Did you catch that? MY JOY! Mine!!! For a long time I lived without my joy until one day....... I took it back! I was home alone, dealing with some giants in my life. I decided to turn on my praise and worship. I sat there and just started singing, something I love to do, and realized that I needed to take back the joy that had been missing in my life for quite some time. There were people and things in my life that just stole my joy that was not theirs to take! Very difficult situations and people became so overwhelming that my joy just slipped right out of my life. Well, I have my joy back. I spent a very sweet morning in worship, and my joy returned. Now I protect it carefully! I looke back on that day and realize that having joy is definately a priceless gift from God!

I am so thankful to have my joy!

God bless!
Julie G.

Wedded bliss!

We had a wedding to go to today. My friend's daughter got married. I feel so old! my husband and I got married in 2000, and My friends daughter was in jr high. To see her today looking so grown up and absolutely beautiful just made me think of how fast time flies by. Her dad got up and made a speech about how when your kids are young, you start praying for a good Christian spouse that will be loyal to them and before you know it, you are walking them down the isle. Yikes!!! I felt so guilty hearing that because I don't pray like I should for my kids. I mean, I pray for them, but in the present. i need to focus just as much on their future. So that was a little wake up call for me. (Thank you father of the bride!) We had a good time tonight. The kids are staying at my sister's house, another thing I am very grateful for, and wouldn't you know it, my husband and I are in separate rooms. Ha!

I am going to go, but I want to say that I am thankful that my heavenly father is concerned just as much with our lives both present and future and that He has already gone before us to prepare the way, even when the path is uncertain for us.

Good night and God bless you!
Julie G.

His first tooth!

Well, after about 7 or 8 months of being loose, Bryson has FINALLY lost his first tooth. We are all soooooo excited. (Well, he is now that it's out.) I asked him if I could wiggle his loose tooth, and he let me. I was a little sneaky and wiggled it harder that normal, and it popped. After that it was really loose. If I could have had one more good wiggle, I could have gotten it out, but Bryson freaked out. It took me an hour to pull the tooth because he kept on stopping me as soon as I touched his tooth. I told him that he should just leave it alone and it would eventually fall out. He said he wanted to be the first between him and his cousin, Jordan, who he happens to be one month older than. So he got his wish. I was excited for him. So the tooth fairy will be visiting our house tonight. I wonder what the going rate for the tooth fairy is these days.... Anyway, I just wanted to share the news! It was too eventful not to share.

I am thankful for and cherish all of the moments that may seem so little to some, but so exciting for others. Cherish one of those moments today!!!!

God Bless!
Julie G.