Why is the grass always greener...?

Well it has been a long time since I have posted anything on here.  Daniel and I are now living in Denver, Colorado and will be married 2 years in July.  Geeze time really does fly by.  Since we met we have moved from Jordan back to the States, to Tennessee, back to Colorado Springs, then up to Denver.  Lately we have been talking about how since both of us moved a lot growing up we tend to get restless after a year or two of being in one place and it made me start to think how I definitely have this "grass is greener" mentality.

When I was in Jordan I just wanted to be back in the States with all it's comfort and friends and family.  Then I get back to the States and I found myself missing the simple life we lived in Jordan without so many distractions.  We go to Tennessee and all I want is to go back to Colorado again, then we get back here to Colorado and I find myself now yearning for a new adventure.  It just makes me wonder what is it that makes me always look for something new and different?  While I am in a situation I tend to only see the negative and then when I get out of it I only remember the positive.

I guess this came up because I will be starting my Master's degree in Counseling in August and I keep getting hit with the reality that we are stuck here at least until I finish this degree.  It's not that I do not like it here or our life right now, I just seem to get restless if I feel locked in.  It is the fact that if we got offered some crazy adventure in another state or overseas we would not be able to go because of this commitment to my schooling for a couple years.  I just wonder...will I always have this mindset or will Daniel and I ever get to the point where we want to settle in one place for a long time?  There is just something about the unknown and exploring new places that gets me so excited!

I have almost always seen the fact that we moved a lot when I was young as a blessing because it made me a more outgoing person and made it easier for me to make friends, I guess the curse is constantly getting an itch to move somewhere new.  Most likely the only thing that will settle us down is if we have kids, but even then who knows what God will have in store for us! :-)

"Passion For Jesus" ~By: Mike Bickle~

So I just started reading a book that a friend gave to me and it seemed a bit divine that she just happened to give it to me now because my last blog was related to what this book is about...I have only read to the 2nd chapter and just in the Introduction I found so much that I could hold onto that I thought I would just share some quotes from it with you. He talks about getting away from head knowledge of God and having a heartfelt passion for Jesus instead. All quotes below are from Mike Bickle in the book "Passion for Jesus". Here are some things that stood out to me so far:

"No one can come face-to-face with what God is like and ever be the same. Seeing the truth about His personality touches the depths of our emotions, which leads us to spiritual wholeness and maturity. Beholding the glory of who He is and what He has done renews our minds, strengthens us, and transforms us."

"First and most important, who is God? What is He like? What kind of personality does He have?"

"As we focus on His heart toward us and encounter His passionate affection for us, then we will become more equipped to overcome temptation. We will focus on four key elements of the gospel in our journey to understanding the fullness of God:
1. Who God is
2. What He has done
3. What can we receive
4. What we should do
The church places most of its emphasis on the last three.....We need to continue teaching these truths faithfully. But the foundation element--who God is-- is tragically absent in the church today."

" It is the revelation of God's passionate affection for us that awakens our ever-deepening feelings of love and passion for Him. Simply put, we love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). When the Holy Spirit wants to awaken love in us for Jesus, He reveals Jesus' love for us. As we see His love for us, we become lovers of God. Whatever we see in His heart for us is what is awakened in our heart back toward Him."

"God is accessible. He has made Himself available. The question is, how much intimacy do we want? Just how passionate for Jesus do we want to be? You and I are the ones who set those limits, not God."



So there are a few things that I pulled out of this book that have me really thinking about my walk with God and how I can grow deeper. I just wanted to share because I am really looking forward to diving deeper into this book and most importantly, deeper into my relationship with God and who He is!! :-)

God Bless!

Just a little reminder to myself...

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast." ~Ephesians 2:8-9~

This verse I really needed to see and remember...so thanks to my Bible Gateway verse of the day emails..lol..I was reminded that we are not saved by works..and God is not looking down condemning us all the time. God has given us the GIFT of salvation by us having faith in Him and his wonderful grace!

Lately, I have been having many revelations about who God really is. I realized my view of who He is happens to be very skewed by my own ideas and experiences in my life. I felt as though God is looking down on me always upset and angry and I always feeling like I need to do more to please Him. In the midst of that, I realized that even though I know in my head this is not true and that salvation is not by works...I have been living unknowingly as though it is. I can testify that living this way is VERY tiring and will always end up in a feeling of failure and exhaustion because we will never be able to DO enough...God does not require us doing..he requires us knowing Him,He is more interested in the relationship He desires from us rather than our good works done in His name. I think the reason for this is because God knows that when we are consistently living in relationship with Him, all the other things we are trying to make happen on our own, like good works, happen naturally as an overflow and outpouring of God's Holy Spirit inside of ourselves.

I know this concept is almost elementary to write about because as a person raised Christian we know this verse from Ephesians and have heard it before. We know that it is not by works but by grace through faith, but I guess this just hit me in a different way this time...I have come to see that most things that I "know" about God...are all head knowledge...they are not really heart knowledge. SO therefore, it is not something I am living, its just something I talk about as the right way, but these things have not been penetrating into my soul and my spirit so that everything about me lives like I really do KNOW these truths that I have been raised hearing for so long.

One thing I do KNOW is that I do not want to get to the gates of heaven and have God tell me "I never knew you, away from me, you evildoers!" like He did even to people who had performed miracles and prophesies in Mathew 7:23. I KNOW I definitely do not want to be that person. Deep down in the core of who I am, I desire to be living on fire for Christ and I want Him to affect me in such a way that every moment of every day is spent in relationship with Him...always on my mind and always acting out in accordance to what the Holy Spirit leads me to do!

This is my prayer Lord!

My hope is in You!

Just wanted to give a little update on...well me..lol

I have been here in Jordan for 3 weeks now and it seems like SO much longer than that. I am not sure what it is about time over here but it feels like enough stuff for several months has been crammed into 3 weeks so when I think about the first week being here it feels like ages ago! And this is not only me...everyone else I work with seems to feel the same. I guess I need to be counting this as a blessing...we always say we need more time for things...and how often does time pass by slowly for us? lol

I just finished the first week of teaching and MY GOODNESS do I have a new found respect for every teacher or professor that I ever had. The workload alone that it takes to stay on top of grades, lessons, organizing, etc. is definitely surprising. In a good way, but just very surprising because I had no idea how much went into this profession! Teachers around the world are my new heroes! This job is the type that, if you were not here truly for the kids and your love for them, you would not be here putting in hours of planning and organizing time at all. The kids we teach are truly our reward..and I just love that! :-)

As I begin to immerse myself in this new place and culture, I find that being surprised that I am here has not really subsided. This place is "A whole new world" as Aladdin put it :-) I still wake up every morning and every night before I go to bed and look out my bedroom window over this city of white stone and cannot believe I am here. Not in a bad way at all, I am just speechless about it still. That God brought me here and I actually am here...the months leading up to being here I sometimes had a hard time imagining it or imagining myself living here because it is such a big step or at least was for me...but I AM here now and God is holding me in His hands! Though things in my days can be challenging and sometimes I just feel overwhelmed, I can feel Him here calling out to me wanting to be my rest. Life here is much more simple than in the States. I get up, walk 5 minutes to work, get off work, walk 10 minutes home, and catch a taxi if I need to go anywhere or else I just spend time building relationships with people. I have no car, limited money which is more than enough, and a job close by. I have only the things I need in my apartment to be able to live...and I have God here with me. There are many less distractions when you are in a place like this...which was exactly what I needed to be able to go away with my Father and find out who He created me to be :-)

There is a part of Psalm 25 that I try to remember to read as often as I can and now that I am here I want it to be my prayer every single day!

"Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long" ~Psalm 25:4-5~

If nothing else, I want to be able to say this is completely true of me while I am here and for all the rest of the days of my life. I pray my hope WILL be in Him that is worthy of all my praise all day long :-)

What happened to the Honeymoon Phase...

I arrived in Amman, Jordan on August 2nd to be welcomed immediately by the 100 degree heat that I am now after two weeks here beginning to accept as reality. I was told there is a normal way things happen when a person moves overseas...the Honeymoon Phase as it is called is in the beginning where you feel excitement for new things and the adventure you are embarking upon. The first couple months everything is new and a whirlwind so it seems like a type of "high" if you will. Then it is said that anywhere between 4 and 6 months normally you come down off that high and the homesickness begins to set in. Where you feel like you just do not like anything about the culture you have been living in, and then eventually you will even out to a comfortable balance. I have been here 10 days and I have been wondering...what happened to the Honeymoon Phase?....this is not how I was told it would be...I find myself missing everything and everyone so much since I have been here...but maybe I will be doing this whole overseas thing in reverse...experience the homesickness first..and my honeymoon phase will come later :) Something I had to remind myself of in the past couple days is that God does not promise us an easy life or even a honeymoon phase, He promises to never leave us or forsake us. He promises to lift us up on wings as eagles when we are weary, and he asks us not to be anxious and stressed, but to present these things to Him in prayer and allow Him to take it on and make our burdens light.

These first couple weeks have been very stretching for me already. As one of my co-workers has said, "Moving to the other side of the world alone is no small thing!" I am realizing it takes more than the willingness to go, although that is the first step, it takes complete trust in the Lord to be my strength and comfort. This endeavor has already turned me completely upside down when it comes to who I knew myself to be. But now I sit in a new place, with new people, new rules and laws, new culture, new ways of doing things...and I realize we can get lost so quickly in whatever setting we are in if we do not know who we are in Christ first and foremost and live based on this identity in Him. So it is through that lens that I am excited for the hard times and challenges ahead..and even more excited for my anticipated future Honeymoon Phase whenever it decides to show up :-)

The First Step...Make a decision already!

I have always been a wanderer, Never following through, ALWAYS deferred from decisions by fear...

Last July (2009)a couple I have known for almost 10 years came back to the States to visit and asked if we could catch up over lunch. Mary is the principal of a private school in Jordan and while we were talking and I was telling them how I had absolutely no idea what I was doing with my life, but that lately I had been playing with the idea of teaching, Mary asked if I would want to come teach at her school. This all started just as random as that, or not so random because God tends to know what He is doing even if we don't. The thing was that I would have to be out there 5 weeks from that day, meaning prepare everything (finances, selling my car, raising partial monthly support, getting money for plane ticket)and have my life be radically changed all in 5 weeks time.

Now if you know me then you would know that the spontaneity of this is right up my alley...so after 3 days of praying I said yes...however it did not sit well with me for very long. I began to feel uneasy, mostly out of fear but also because I have debt that was more than I could handle and did not feel at peace about running off to the other side of the world with my debt in such a mess. SO at the risk of letting down this couple whom I really love and admire, I emailed them to say I could not go. Since moving and taking the job was something that scared me so much, I felt I was now off the hook and relieved I would not have to take myself out of my comfort zone.

God does not really work this way though, He tends to push when we need pushing :-) lol So to my surprise they asked me to take time, get things in order, and consider coming the next year. I remember thinking it was so awesome that they still wanted me to come, but that this offer would be easy to forget and I could move on and find something amazing to do with my life...something that was here in Colorado close to my family and friends. I decided that because I am such a spontaneous person who comes up with plans for my life faster than I could ever finish any of them, which is why I have not ever followed through with any, that if in six months this job was on my heart in any way I would consider it. However I decided this knowing it was just a way to put the voice inside my head that this was what I was supposed to do at ease..I knew I was too scared to go and it would be all too easy to put this out of my mind.

Fast forward six months....

I was living in Denver on a whim, working back at Dave & Busters just to tide me over until I found my "dream job"..even though I had absolutely no idea what that was...and I was starting to feel very unsettled and anxious about my life and my future. I actually started having anxiety attacks, heart palpitations, and couldn't sleep..all of these things had never happened to me before. In other words, I had no idea what I was doing with myself. I was lost...all except for the constant thought in the back of my mind, that voice I tried to push away..telling me to go to Jordan!

So I finally sat down in my room, in the quiet and wrestled with this decision. The funny thing is that I did not have to...I was not letting Jeff and Mary down, they were not expecting me at this point to come, but for some reason I felt I would not have any sense of peace in my mind until I acknowledged this opportunity and asked God if this is what He wanted me to do..and then the hardest part, surrendering to it and to Him.

I remember I was standing in my mom's kitchen one morning and had basically decided i was not going to go. I was convincing myself that I needed to be here close to my family and especially my little sister..and at that very moment God put me in my place like He never has before. The verse that came to my mind immediately is from Luke 9: 57-62, it is titled The Cost of following Jesus. I reminded me that if Jesus says to us "follow me" we are to do so NO MATTER WHAT!! Nothing should stand in our way, not family, not our own desires, and definitely not fear which only comes from Satan. So right then I decided, I was going to Jordan, now matter what God would carry me, I was going to follow through with this no matter what I had to do and I knew that if I was hearing God correctly He is the one who is going to get me there. The things which have to be accomplished before I can leave are impossible for me to do, literally impossible, the only way I will leave on August 2nd and fly to live in Jordan is by God's power!

I have always been a wanderer, Never following through, Always deferred from decisions by Fear...BUT since I made THIS decision, I have not once looked back..I am moving forward only by the Grace of God! I love HIM So much!!