Category Archives: Truth

Prayer, Truth

Shock and Awe On a Wrecking Ball-Part 1

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http://youtu.be/HSg9RDS1A1Q

Yesterday I turned on the radio to hear a new song that caught my attention. It is a beautiful ballad that seems to come from a very broken place of the one telling the story. The lyrics drew me in and I found myself in the story that was being told.

When we are young, we all make choices that seem right from where we are at that moment. Love is no different. We meet someone and jump in heart first, never looking past what we are feeling. Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus not only tells the story of what happens when we choose someone for all the wrong reasons, but it also shows what happens when we make someone other than God our everything. DEATH & DESTRUCTION!

We clawed, we chained, our hearts in vain (this is not love)

We jumped, never asking why (ask questions, dig deep)

We kissed, I fell under your spell (this is why purity is so important)

A love no one could deny (we won’t listen to reason)

I put you high up in the sky (we make someone other than God our God)

And now, you’re not coming down (they in turn think they are the God of us)

It slowly turned, you let me burn (when they don’t get their way, they turn on us)

And now, we’re ashes on the ground (the relationship goes up in flames)

You see, once we take those steps towards something that is not good for us, Satan makes sure we are hooked. He finds that broken part of us and draws us in so deeply that no one could convince us that we are heading down a dangerous path that will only lead to our own demise.

I made those same mistakes. I met a man and made him my everything and we were happy until I started to develop a deeper relationship with God. That is when things started getting very difficult. I was hearing God loud and clear. He was revealing several areas of our lives that were not in sync with Him. So I decided that it was my job to tell my husband (now my ex) where we needed some help. I was the wrecking ball. I shared the truth in love in an attempt to break down the walls and the lies that were tearing us apart, but nothing worked. In the end, I ended up more broken than ever and it was all because of a choice I made that could have been avoided if I had followed God’s will for my life instead of my own.

I came in like a wrecking ball (we attempt to fix the relationship)

I never hit so hard in love (we use whatever tools we have to force change-for some it may be words, for others it may be fists)

All I wanted was to break your walls (we crave open, honest relationships)

All you ever did was wreck me (broken people who haven’t healed from the past only end up hurting each other)

The irony is the writer of the song is so entranced by the spell that he or she still wants the other person. That is when Satan does a victory dance.

Don’t you ever say I just walked away (We want it to be know that we did everything we could to save the relationship)

I will always want/love you (A lie that Satan feeds us to keep us in bondage)

I can’t live a lie, running for my life (The lie becomes our truth)

I have never felt so passionate about anything as much as I do this. If you are dating someone and it is violent or abusive in any way shape or form, get out now. Don’t wait. You cannot change anyone but yourself. Get help and find out why you choose people that hurt you. That is the key to creating a new future for yourself and until you heal from your past, your future will continue to repeat itself. And don’t settle. God’s plan for your life was not for you to settle for second best. Follow his guidelines and the right person will come along in HIS time, not yours. Be patient because I promise you that finding Mr. Right is not only worth the wait, but is way better than settling for Mr. Right Now!!!

Dear God,

Thank you for loving us like no one else. Teach us your ways so that we can end the suffering that we bring upon ourselves because we don’t know any better. Please wrap your arms around each and every person that reads this post and finds themselves in a situation that they need to run from. Give them the courage and the strength to walk away. And most importantly, give us the wisdom to see the truth through the lies in everything we do. Amen.

My Journey, Personal Growth, Truth

Unmasked

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emotion
Behind a mask, your fear resides.
And you carry with you a shield of pride.
They may protect you from the pain,
But they also insure no significant gain.
The very walls you think protect,
Leave you lost and alone in a life of neglect.
Your very soul is dying inside,
So why would you choose to continue to hide?
Remove the mask and walk into the light,
Cause it is there that truth and love collide.
I wrote this poem after the realization that so many of us put on a facade to hide who we really are and what we are struggling with from people around us.
For years I lived in my dream home driving my dream car with three beautiful kids and to outsiders I had the perfect life and everything money could buy. Everyone wanted what we had and we were very good at pretending everything was wonderful. But in reality I was dying a slow painful death. My husband (now my ex-husband) had an addiction to pornography which escalated to full blown affairs before long and I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. I was told that our personal lives were no one else’s business and sharing would be disrespectful to him, which was frowned upon by God. And since I wanted to be the woman God called me to be, I kept silent for a very long time.
So I put on a mask. I wore the mask of joy. I put on a smile and pretended to be so happy with my life. After all, God had blessed us with all the material things we could ever dream of. Who wouldn’t be happy with that? Right? I wore the mask of love. God says that love conquers everything so I loved my spouse with every ounce of love that I had in me, but inside I hated him for putting his insecurities and wants ahead of loving his family and God. I also wore the mask of contentment but deep inside my soul something was missing and as the days passed, my love for life grew weaker. And I wore the mask of fear. Fear of the future. Fear that my prayers would never be answered. Fear that I would never escape the living hell I felt trapped in.
After a decade of hiding and pretending, the truth was brought into the light. I removed my mask of joy and found true joy in God. Psalm 30:11-12 says, “You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!” God met me right where I was and my mask of joy was no longer necessary. Even though my circumstances remained, my new found joy in the Lord allowed me to experience joy no matter what was going on around me.
The mask of love was a little harder to tackle. I can honestly say that I didn’t love my ex the way God called me to love others because he was my enemy. I knew that the bible said to love your enemies but I just couldn’t do it. I truly hated him and there were many days that I wished death upon him so that the pain he caused others would cease to exist. But God was using him to teach me how to love those who persecute you. Letting God love me was the key. Once I gained a true understanding of how much my Heavenly Father loved me, then I was able to give that love away to those who I thought didn’t deserve it. Don’t get me wrong, I still get angry and hurt by the decisions of others but I now choose to respond in love. And on days that I can’t find the strength to do that, I don’t respond at all. Instead I take it to God and lay it at His feet.
It wasn’t until reading, “The Wall Around Your Heart” by Mary DeMuth that I gained a deeper understanding of why I wasn’t content. God created us for relationships. When sin entered the picture, with it came a multitude of disagreements. Those disagreements created strife in a key relationship and without harmony, contentment was very difficult and almost impossible. It wasn’t until I closed that chapter of my life that my contentment returned.
The most difficult mask to remove was the mask of fear. That very fear paralyzed me,  keeping me torn between doing what I knew was right and doing what I was told. If I did what God called me to do, I would cause more problems in my marriage. If I did what my husband wanted, I would go against everything I believed in. But along my journey God was giving me little nuggets of hope by showing me that as long as I was walking with Him there was nothing to fear. He revealed Himself in such a way that I finally let go of all my fears and nailed them to the cross. Letting go allowed me to finally become the woman God created me to be without hiding behind another mask.
If my story resonates with you, know that God is with you. He lives in you as a believer and He will never leave you or forsake you and He will work everything for your good and His glory. Just be patient, cry out to Him when you are at the end of your rope and let His love engulf you during the trials. And never forget that He loves you more than anyone on this earth so don’t put on masks to hide who you really are from the world. He created you for a divine purpose and you cannot fulfill that purpose if you are hiding behind a mask.
Dear God,
Please give each of us the strength and courage to remove our masks so that we can become men and women you can use to further your kingdom. Teach us how to be authentic in such a materialistic culture. Let your love heal our hurts and your truth capture our hearts.
In Your Precious and Holy Name,
Amen.
Personal Growth, Truth, Verse of the Day

Beautiful Collision

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As sinners, there come moments in our lives when our sin and God’s truths’ collide. It is in these moments that we have a choice to make.

1. We can ignore it and keep doing what we are doing, learning nothing from the lesson that was just presented to us. This is also those moments when we rationalize our behaviors, trying to convince ourselves that it was someone else’s fault instead of taking responsibility for our own actions and choices.

2. We can make excuses of why now is not a good time to stop, but try to convince God that we are going to when we feel the time is right and we are ready.

3. We can listen and let God teach us, mold us, and change us to be more like him.

I asked my Facebook followers this question: What happens when our sinful nature collides with God’s truth? Here is what some of them said:

-His perfect plan-Jesus bridging the gap between our sin and His perfection, leading us to Christ and filling in the cracks to make us whole.

-Conviction, revelation, and then repentance.

-Freedom & Transformation

-Make the choice to repent, turn away and stop doing whatever it is you are doing.

-Forgiveness-Broken Chains

-Disaster

The last comment caught my attention because I wondered what the person who wrote it was thinking. Is it a disaster in a worldly sense? A disaster to the relationships surrounding them? The more I think about this response, the more I realize that this is probably what most people think when they are trying to decide wether or not a life with Christ is worth it. Honestly, a disaster will take place because death of anything is never easy. Dying to self is one of the hardest things you will ever do, but it is also one of the most rewarding. God didn’t promise it would be easy, but He does promise it will be worth it.

Personal Growth, Truth

A New Creation

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IMG_4472

Once a little boy was playing outdoors and found a fascinating caterpillar. He carefully picked it up and took it home to show his mother. He asked his mother if he could keep it, and she said he could if he would take good care of it.

The little boy got a large jar from his mother and put plants to eat, and a stick to climb on, in the jar. Every day he watched the caterpillar and brought it new plants to eat.

One day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting strangely. The boy worriedly called his mother who came and understood that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon. The mother explained to the boy how the caterpillar was going to go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly.

The little boy was thrilled to hear about the changes his caterpillar would go through. He watched every day, waiting for the butterfly to emerge. One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out.

At first the boy was excited, but soon he became concerned. The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out! It looked like it couldn’t break free! It looked desperate! It looked like it was making no progress!

The boy was so concerned he decided to help. He ran to get scissors, and then walked back (because he had learned not to run with scissors…). He snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged!

As the butterfly came out the boy was surprised. It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body. He knew that in time the body would shrink and the butterfly’s wings would expand.

But neither happened!

The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

It never was able to fly…

As the boy tried to figure out what had gone wrong his mother took him to talk to a scientist from a local college. He learned that the butterfly was SUPPOSED to struggle. In fact, the butterfly’s struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushes the fluid out of its body and into its wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never, ever fly. The boy’s good intentions hurt the butterfly.

As you go through life, keep in mind that struggling is an important part of any growth experience. In fact, it is the struggle that causes you to develop your ability to fly.

People are a lot like butterflies. We are born and must struggle against the trials of life that surround us in order to allow growth to take place to strengthen our character.  Struggles in life cause us to stretch ourselves and then we emerge as a new creation, more beautiful than before.

Isn’t it time you let God use your pain to transform you into the person He created you to be?

Truth

Walter Joshua Fretz – The story of our son who is impacting so many even though he was on this earth for only a few minutes

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For anyone that thinks it is okay to abort an unborn child before 20 weeks, you must see these pictures. Sometimes in order to help one understand that a life begins at conception, knowledge must be passed on.

F2 Photography By Lexi's avatarF2 Photography

Thank you to everyone who has written and messages me. I was trying my best to respond to everyone but I just can’t keep up. I am reading every message that comes to me and am thankful for them, except for the occasional negative and nasty ones. Please do not be upset if I don’t respond, I wish I had more hours in the day so I could respond to everyone who has opened their hearts to me. ❤ to you all'

*Please be advised that the photos in this post are emotionally hard to handle. I believe they are beautiful and shows that at 19 weeks my child was fully formed. I do not want anyone to be upset with what they see. You should view them before showing them to a child because they will bring up a lot of questions. Thank you all for reading and sharing…

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Personal Growth, Truth

Weeds

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This morning I was outside spending some alone time with God worshiping Him through music. As I sat on my patio, I noticed that the weeds were getting a little out of hand so I started pulling them as I continued to worship. I was a little frustrated because just two weeks ago I pulled all the weeds and this morning there were at least twice as many than when I pulled them last time and they were also twice the size. I realized an important lesson. Just like the weeds in my flower bed, the weeds in our lives can seem very insignificant but if left unattended they will eventually take over, affect other areas of our lives and get so big they are hard to get rid of.

What weeds in your life are you watering instead of pulling them out by the root? How could letting them continue to grow affect your life in the future?

Truth

Tattoo or No Tattoo?

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A few weekends ago I found some temporary tattoos that reminded me of the power of God in my life. I put one on my wrist and one on the side of my heel. I posted on Facebook saying, “Tattoo or no tattoo, that is the question.” Much to my surprise, I got an array of responses. Who knew that such a simple question would stir up so much controversy? Several people said yes and a few said no. A couple of the no’s provided scripture that on the surface is pretty clear that tattoos are not something God allows. I was quick to respond by saying that I would not be getting one because of what the bible says. At that moment, one verse provided that answer I was looking for so I felt confident in my quick decision. A wise friend reminded me that we no longer live under the Old Testament law so getting a tattoo or not was a personal preference. At this point I felt stupid that I was so quick to make such a decision without doing the research myself. So my homework began.

According to Leviticus 19:28, one is not to put tattoo marks on their body. Not knowing much about Leviticus, I referred to my bible to get a little history on this particular book. Leviticus means, “matters pertaining to the Levites,” the priestly tribe of Israel. It covers topics including holiness, sin, sacrifice and atonement, and worship. The Old Testament ceremonial laws functioned as a means of separating the Israelites from the surrounding tribes. This separation was removed when Christ sent His son to die on the cross. Because of God’s invitation to faith in Christ, these laws are no longer observed. Although they don’t apply today, they do reveal that God cares about every aspect of our lives. Everything we do matters to Him.

So in regards to tattooing, I personally feel that this decision is one that must be made by each individual. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Why do I want a tattoo?

2. Who am I trying to draw attention to? God, myself, an idol, etc…

3. Would God approve of the image or writing?

I did my research and after watching several videos and listening to a number of opinions on the subject, John Piper says it best. You can listen here:

Thoughts of Tattoos & Body Piercings by John Piper

God knows my heart and if I do decided to get a tattoo, it will be a symbol of His love and the amazing changes He has made in my life.

Thank you to everyone who voiced your opinions on the subject. It forced me to dig deeper into the Word of God and that is always a good thing!

My Journey, Truth

Tithing of Time

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The Bible is very clear about tithing a tenth of our income. We are to give back ten percent of what we have been blessed with to The One who gave it to us in the first place. One day while I was spending some alone time with God, he challenged me. He told me that if I was to give a portion of my income, then why wouldn’t I do the same with my time? That question shifted my perspective in regards to giving God the time He deserves. We are given twenty-four hours in a day, so if we use the ten percent rule of tithing, we should be giving God two hours and forty minutes. As followers of Christ our alone time with our Heavenly Father is crucial to the depth of that relationship. The more one on one time we spend with Him, the deeper the relationship. Think about it this way, if you are dating or married it is crucial to spend alone time together to keep the relationship alive and thriving. Failure to do so would result in the death of that relationship. Or think of it from a food standpoint. You cannot eat one meal a week and expect that to provide the nutrients necessary to fuel your body for an entire week. So why do we as Christians think that going to church on Sunday is enough food for our souls the remaining six days of the week? Well, it isn’t. God created us for relationships and our relationship with Him must be our top priority if we want to live the Godly lives He created us for.

My challenge to you is to put God to the test in this area. In Malachi 3:10, God says, “Test me in this and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” He promises that if we tithe what He requires of us, His blessing will overflow.

Once you have started this challenge, please share your experiences and stories as a result of taking sure a bold move in your walk with Christ.

My Journey, Personal Growth, Truth

The Handiwork of God

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A few weeks ago I received a phone call from a friend telling me that the man I dated prior to my husband, the one that I have spoken about that broke my heart, had shared his testimony with his wife at Re-Engage at Lakepointe. After hearing it, I realized for the first time that there aren’t just two sides to every story, there are three. Ours, theirs and Gods. Our stories just go to show that we never know what God is doing in our or the lives of others when he takes things away. His hand is working miracles every single day and we have to trust Him even when we don’t understand. I hope that hearing the other side of this story gives everyone that sees it a glimpse of God’s handiwork. His love is a redeeming love and no matter where you have been, what you have done, or how many times you have screwed up, God’s love wins every single time!

My Journey, Truth

God Redeems

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wedding0731

Trey & I grew up in the same town and even went to the same high school for two years, but our story begins much later. I was friends with his brother, Brent, and fell in love with their parents, Butch and Peggy, when I met them at the age of 16. I had always stayed in contact with Butch and Peggy and even sat in front of them at church for years. They were like second parents to me and God was definitely laying the foundation of trust with them before bringing Trey into my life. God knew my deepest desire for a loving extended family that I could trust would love me and my girls like their own and I found that in Butch and Peggy many years ago.

Trey and I’s paths crossed at church one Sunday morning. Since I sat with Butch & Peggy, on this particular day, Trey joined us. We shared small talk and he joked that he had a date that day. I was excited for him so I asked who she was and he said it was me. I laughed at the idea of it because it was a crazy thought. A few months passed and since Peggy and I talked often, I knew Trey was having a rough time. I contacted him just to make sure he was okay and to see if he needed a friend. We decided to have dinner together and really enjoyed one another’s company. We had so many things in common that it was a little creepy!
Over the next few months, we grew closer and became the best of friends. Our kids loved hanging out together and everything just fell into place. We still laugh at the fact that I sat in front of him at church almost every Sunday and I never in a million years imagined that he would one day be my husband!
Our story is simple, but it is nothing short of amazing. Our wedding day was a true testimony of God’s grace and unconditional love for us. He took two broken individuals, used our heartache to refine us, and then brought us together to love one another and our children the way He loves us.
When I heard the lyrics to the following song, they expressed everything I was feeling and so much more.
The day we met
Frozen I held my breath
Right from the start
I knew that I found the home for my heart…
Beats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave?
How can I love when I’m afraid to fall
But watching you stand alone?
All of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow

One step closer

I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling don’t be afraid I have loved you
For a thousand years
I’ll love you for a thousand more

Time stands still
Beauty in all she is
I will be brave
I will not let anything take away
What’s standing in front of me
Every breath
Every hour has come to this

One step closer…

I was afraid to love again because in the past love had brought me so much pain, but this love was different. It was the kind of love that God had placed in my heart from the time I was a little girl dreaming of my prince charming. Trey is a great man, but our love has nothing to do with who we are and everything to do with who God is and what He has accomplished in and through us. You see, when God is your everything, it allows you to see others as God sees them and that is the kind of love that frees us to experience a 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 kind of love. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Now we have the rest of our time on this earth to love one another with everything we have and raise our kids in a God centered home that models what a Godly marriage is supposed to be like!