Proverbs 31 Gal

Part 1: A New Blog Series and A Revised New Year's Resolutions

I realized this weekend that I did exactly what I didn't want to do January 1st. I broke ALL, okay maybe not all, I kept most of the easiest ones, New Year's Resolutions. However, it isn't even half way through 2014 so I realized I still have time to redeem myself. As I reflected though on where I went wrong or what I could do better I realized a few things. 

1. When I made the resolutions, I was trying to fix me, not allowing God to do so 

2. When I made the resolutions, I wasn't over everything. In fact, I was still a hot HAM. 

3. I hadn't taken it to God to figure out what I actually needed to do. In fact I kind of just did it and hoped He'd jump on bored. 

As I considered all these things I realized why this last week I have felt completely, not myself. I was  finding myself slip into familiar territory of religious acts. So I said Screech, hold up, back up and reverse.

I began to think why I wanted to do resolutions. The answer was simple, I wanted to be better in 2014 than I was in 2013, isn't that everyone's reason? Anyway I didn't want to just be better, ultimately my heart wanted to better in Christ. I don't think my resolutions demonstrated a heart after God. SO (I feel like I said So a lot) I decided to figure out what exactly God says about me being a better woman in Christ. Low and behold (That's for you Mom) I came across Proverbs 31. So for the next couple of blog post, I will be laying out my revised 2014 Resolutions based on Proverbs 31 and tips and tricks. 

Loves

A :) 

Look for Proverbs 31 blog series tomorrow :) 

I(A)MPOSSIBLE

It's 3 in the morning and granted I probably should be asleep right now seeing as how the only day left I have classes is tomorrow. However, I began to right out a status tonight that came to me as I laid in bed doing my norm... thinking. I was reflecting on a conversation I had with one of my best friends today who I swear is identical to me. We were talking about our 20's.


I realized there is a few ways you can look at your 20's. You can go with the normal American ideal where you party away your 20's, live up the life at college, and towards the end settle down with a good job, a lovely spouse and maybe a kid. Or you could do the standard for most Christian, hook yourself a spouse by 21, have lots of babies, and spend your days doing whatever it is married couples do. You could be ambitious and follow steadfastly after that career you've always wanted, barreling through everything and everyone to get to CEO by 30. I realized I had all these options laid down in front of me, I probably still do.


On one hand I've been handed on a nice, lovely, silver platter a business. Being that I had the opportunity to speak on behalf of this business when I was younger and have a lot of "cred", it's almost seen has a must-do. It's something that I feel I HAVE to be successful at. I HAVE to work my business. It's a nice gateway to allow me to follow my dreams and/or Christ.

On a different hand, I've experienced the idea of being in love young. I know a lot of adults are rolling their eyes right now shaking their wrinkly fingers at my youthful face and questioning why on earth I thought I was in love at the ripe young age of 19. *Step on Soapbox* Once you know the love of Christ, being ignorant to love is no longer a thing. Waiting till I'm older to be in love doesn't guarantee me happiness, love is work, love is a choice. *Off soap box* I've ALWAY imagined my life as a YOUNG wife and mother. Honestly, it's the only thing consistent in my life of what I want to be. Barefoot and in the kitchen making my husband a sandwich. Sue me.

On my third hand (Yes, I'm gifted with an extra hand), I'm at Party Central aka ECU aka College. It's unusual to me how easily it was for me to find out how to get alcohol. (Before you crap yourself I'm not drinking). It would be, in American culture, so understandable for me to party in college. In fact it is almost encourage to spend these years of your life living it up in the fast lane. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll baby.


Sadly, as I think about this stuff, I feel empty. Like, haven't eaten nothing but a poptart all day and it's now 9pm empty. I wasn't made to be madly in love with these things as society preaches to me I am.

I sit back and think:

• Partying freaks me out (AKA Cops) 
• Money is nice but I don't like the feeling of being driven by it
• As much as I want to be a wife and a mother, I'm not that ready to be the responsible for another person yet

So what about me? Like what am I suppose to do? According to society I'm basically a bum.

My dad always said to me this "I can't should never be in your vocabulary" and I've heard it said like this "Impossible literally means I'm possible". Tonight; however, I realized both of those things are false.

I am 

Horrible 

Lustful 

Prideful 

A liar 

A cheater

An adulterer 

A jerk 

A blasphemer 

A hypocrite

A hater

Murderer 

Uncompassionate 

Unmotivated 

Negative (Ironic, sorry) 

No good bag of nothing

and you are too. 

Well that just sucks. 

My point is with all that, I can't do anything. I'm no good, I'm useless. We all are. Outside of the Grace of God we can't do anything good. Sure we can have put together lives. We can will ourselves into making money. We can will ourselves into have a great family. We can will ourselves into being healthy. We can will ourselves into have great spiritual walks.  But in the end you're nothing a part from Christ. You will never achieve anything worth bragging to Him with out Him. He doesn't want just your good deeds and hard efforts. He wants you. All of you. 

Lately, that's the struggle I've been facing. I've come into contact with many people who either think that God wouldn't create people to send them to Hell and therefore if you're a good person you'll get into Heaven or Christians who believe Christ died on the cross for their sins because He wanted them to live a ritualistic life filled with rules. Both are false. Good people die daily and go to Hell, I don't believe Christ made people to send them straight to Hell but I do believe He gave us the choice to chose Him and if we don't He has no other choice, He's a jealous God and you lived a life worshiping your good deeds instead of Him. On the flip side Christ came to set us free. In Christ we have life abundantly and in religion we just have life. 

So with that being said, what side do I choose? Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? What do I want? 

 I don't want to live a mediocre life. I don't want my life to be boring and colorless. I don't want to fill my life with boring things of this earth that leave me empty. I don't want to isolate myself from this world with religion and rules. I want to chase to the ends of the Earth the Glory of God. I want to climb the highest mountain just to take Him in. I want to touch the hands of compassion and love. I want to serve others so that they may know my King. I want to run a race that makes Satan shake. I want to be crippled by sin to the point of not having a choice but to move in God's name. I want to be emptied of all my sinful ways so that in me, Christ can be glorified. I don't need money or luxuries, I need Him. 

I want to reach a point in my walk with Christ that this is true. That's what my 20's are. I want to hug the necks of hurting single mothers. I want to love the rejected and hurting. I want to be the voice of the unheard. I want to educate myself about everything God has placed on this Earth. I want to feel what it feels like to have Blessing overflowing to the point that I am drained so much that all I have left to do is be filled by Christ again. 

It's hard. Christ never promised easy, I know that. Christ promised a life of pain, trials, and persecution. He promise more sucky days than good ones. He told us that we were going to have to pick up our own cross and follow Him and following Him means death to one's self. He promise though that at the end of it, it would be well worth it. 

My request is that you keep me in your prayers, pray that I will be broken by Christ, shattered even and that He will raise me up and make greater known His name than mine through me. 

-A 

It's Not Over Til It's Over: Our God is Bigger

I am not a huge dance show or talent competition show viewer. I have never even really watched Dancing With the Stars; however with the contestant Candace Cameron-Bure so blatantly demonstrating her faith on the show it's been hard to ignore. Recently, TheBlaze linked onto their Facebook profile page a video from Cameron-Bure's DWTS clip where she stated that her Christian beliefs would be upheld during the show. As I watched I got a warm, excited feeling that my God is not finished yet.

 My heart cringes whenever older adults start to claim that, because of my generation, the world is coming to an end. Mind you, this is the same generation that introduced Rock n' Roll, Playboy, and a more heighten society of drugs. With the heighten attention to sexual sins, immoralities, and various other "bad sins" many adults start to drop the claim "this is the end". It's completely frustrating. I honestly don't think is shows their attention to the Bible but their lack of faith and hope in the one they serve.

My God is the same God who destroyed the Earth, Nations, and Cities because of sin but He is also the same God who radically changed Saul into Paul and took an adulterous murder like David and made him a man after God's own heart. So please excuse me while I believe that my God can take a Miley/Bieber generation filled with sex, drugs, and rebellion and turn it into a world with more individuals like the Duck Dynasty family, Cameron-Bure, and 19 Kids and Counting.

Trust me, if you are one of those people who {No offense} looks down at the world from their Christian pedestal and prays for a rapture or declares end times, come down. Come down in the dirt and dig around. Be in this world that you are called to love. Aid the hurting. Love the loveless. Defend the weak. Demonstrate such love that when the world looks at you, they see nothing else but Christ, not some hypocritical, judgmental Christian. If you do you'll realize that TV shows such as Ducky Dynasty, Celebrities like Cameron-Bure, and Movies like Heaven is For Real or God's Not Dead are just the beginning. There's a rumbling under the surface that is starting to emerge. A generation that doesn't look at what you've done, what you look like, or what church you go to, to decide whether or not you are fit for the battle. We are a bunch of tatted up, loud gospel music, Jesus freaks who won't stand for this segregated, I'm-Better-Than-You-Because-(I'm a Christian, I'm a Baptist, etc.) mentality.

We are in a war. Stop fight with the person next to you and start fighting the true enemy.



Peace and Blessings,
Amanda Larson



The Video of Candace Cameron-Bure

Safety Scissors

It's a lesson every mother teaches their child.

Don't cut your own hair.

As a child I think I cut my Barbie's hair rather than my own, well that was until today.


As I sat watching something dumb on Hulu {It's so dumb I don't even remember what it was}, the reality of how actually bored I was sat in. I was home alone with just the dog while my dad and brother are at the NCCA tournament games and my mom hung out with her group of friends. It started very vaguely. The idea was probably started as I went through old pictures {Perm and all} and I stumbled upon my short hair picture from circa 2012? I was all like "I was cute." Which brings me to the beginning of my stages of how I chopped off like an inch of hair tonight.

1. Throwbacks
 Around my 18th birthday I had decided that my longer-than-mid-back hair hair had to go. After constant headaches in Africa caused by the heavy weight champion known as my hair in a pony tail all day, I was done. I sat out on the porch as my mom snipped away. It was all fine and dandy until she said lean your head forward and all of my hair came forward. I now had short-than-my-shoulders hair. I swore my mom would never cut my hair again. However today as I looked at the photos I was reminded of how foxy I really was. 

2. Boredom if of the Devil 
"Why'd you do it?" Mom asked. "Satan was all like 'Chop it off' and Jesus was all like 'You'll regret it', so Satan won this battle Mom." I responded. Needless to say as I sat there bored, I probably could have done something more useful with my time like pack to go back to school tomorrow or something. But I didn't. 

3. The Act 
My hair was in a french braid and I thought "Hey, I'll lock of love style it." So I just chopped it off. I then took my hair out of the braid and instantly I looked in the mirror and regretted it. But it was too late now I had to make lemonade with just lemons. 

4. Cut my Losses and Wait for Mom
No pun intended. Okay actually pun was intended because it's funny, don't deny it. I patiently waited for mom to return home. I flipped my hair over my shoulders and greeted her at the door. She was instantly suspicious of my niceness. I apologized first and then begged for her help. At first she was down. Then she was all like I'll take you to the hair salon to fix it tomorrow. Then I was like "No, she'll yell at me for cutting my hair." Then mom was all like "We'll say someone else cut it in your sleep [Aka blame it on Sawyer]." Then after some winning she began to cut my hair.

My hair is fine now and in fact I actually really like. I also ate the words "I'm never letting my mom cut my hair again." and "I won't cut my hair until after I get married." Oh the things though I do so that I can right blog post :) 


Until next time my little chick-a-dees :) 

A 



   

Double Edged Sword

Have you ever noticed how easily your gift from God becomes a source of pride?

I feel like if you have been in God's Kingdom for longer than a millisecond with a inkling idea of your gift that you have been well aware of both it's benefits and downsides.

I feel like my gift is writing and the ability to communicate ideas to other whether it be through writing or speaking.

I struggle daily with this source of pride. It's like every time I think "You got this Amanda, you're a fantastic writer, people love you." my next thought is usually "How prideful of you?"

I don't mean by any stretch of the imagination that you should downplay God's gift that He has entrusted in you. That you should over-humble yourself to the point where you either don't use it or you shrivel up to the idea of someone complimenting you.

At the same time though if you are anything like me, my initial response to anything God has entrusted me with has nothing to do with His Glory but mine.

His gift sometimes has less of what will be brought to His name but of a means of being praised.

-Praised for my abilities... that God entrusted me with

-Praised for my maturity... that came from God's pruning of me

-Praised for my ideas... that God granted me the freedom to think 

-Praised for my transparency... that God gave me the strength to do

At the same time as I battle with this pridefulness in my heart I sit here and wiggle my fingers at those around me who's pride isn't hidden by fancy words. I have been become a master spinster of words, twisting my language to hide the evidence of my guilt. Fancy words such as "It's all God" and "Praise be to God." My christenese is up to par what can I say?

How well have I become at humbling others. I do so with the gift God gave me. With my words. 

Are you starting to see this double edge sword? 

At the same time I am thoroughly grateful for this gift. 

You're now questioning if I am using christenese aren't ya?

I'm Not. 

I mean it. I am thankful.

I have this ability to speak and some how touch those around me. They get inspired to be better. Or they are challenged.

It started when I was 15, I spoke in front of thousands. Suddenly people were coming up to me and saying how much they were touched by my story. Grown adults were saying this. At 15 most people don't realize how much it means to have a bunch of adults tell you that they were listening to you.

Then at 18, out of pure frustration I wrote a post and placed it on a photo. I shared it with my friends and forgot about it. A few hours later I checked back on it. In a matter of three days I doubled, almost tripled, my friends on Facebook. A little post out of frustration was shared almost 100,000 times. Once again I was being commended for my words, these words that God entrusted me with.

Through both events, amongst many more, God has allowed me to meet people who impacted my life. Through the words that He entrusted me with, I was able to widen my pool of influence.

In my mind though I get the facts twisted sometimes. I think how awesome am I to have such an ability to command attention? How awesome am I to have an ability to influence others? How awesome am I?

As I embark on this new journey; however, I hope that God humbles me. That I am consumed like it says in Hebrew 12:29 "...Like an all consuming fire." by God. That every word that I write will bring Glory to none other than His name. That through my success, His name will be lifted higher. That through the opportunities granted to me that I will be able to share His name. Though I may fail, His name will hold strong.


See having a gift is a double edged sword because we make it to be. We grasp on to our gifts and talents instead of turning them over. We taint our gifts. God can use our gift for far more than we can imagine, we just have to let go of our death grip and turn it over to Him.

“The reality is that all God has to do is reveal himself to you, and you'll gladly join the mission in service to his kingdom. He doesn't force the issue; he just has to reveal himself as is: mighty, wondrous, gracious, loving, and radically saving. No man goes back to saltine crackers when he's had fillet mignon.”- Matt Chandler

-Amanda

5 Things I am A Weirdo About

So anyone who even claims to be my friend knows I am weird so I am not even going to deny it. However most people don't know just how weird I am because well I am an actress of sorts and have learned to cover the symptoms of my weirdness. Due to my vow to myself to be more transparent with people especially since my book basically pulls back the curtain and reveals OZ I decided to tell you the 5 things that I am a weirdo about.

1. Potty Time
     I don't know what it is, but I have a very strange regiment when it comes to public bathrooms. No I am not a super freak about the germs, I am however an uber freak about private time. For instance my rules are never go in a stall directly next to someone, never use the first stall in the bathroom, and for the most part pretend you aren't there. Sure there are exceptions to these rules like it being crowded and having friends who don't respect these rules and like to talk or be super close {No, thank you} during potty time.

2. History of Children
     I am like 90% of the time researching things that have no importance to my current situation. For an example if I am in the library chances are I am not doing homework but rather listening to sermons. Another example is if I am in History class more than likely researching recipes for my future family which brings me too...

3. Pinning Hipster 
     I am a pinterst freak but that's a known fact and not something that makes me weird. I promise. However what people don't understand is my "pinerest freakness" didn't come when I discovered pinterest, no I have been doing what pinterest offers for YEARS. I once created 5 brothers and sisters that my parents would adopt. I have scoured the interenet and found pictures, researched toys, clothes, bedroom ideas, etc.

4. Let's Get Physical
     Again this is a known fact amongst my friends. I am not a physical person... like ever. My body like literally rejects itself when ever physical touch is presented. Hugs, hand-holding, dancing, cuddling you name it, it freaks me out.  I just can't do it like even when someone is crying I am like uh sorry but I am going to stand over here and hug myself. In my mind though I love this stuff. I love the idea of hugs, holding hands and cuddling but the minute I try it, it's like I forget to life.

5. It's not you, It's me... Just kidding it probably is you
     I may seem extroverted sometimes but don't let me fool you, I'm not. And I have rules about that too. Like I need time to be myself, more time than the average person I feel like. Like if I am trapped in the same area with you for more than 24-hours feelings of excessive sarcasm and irritability creep into play, if I am trapped with you for more that 48 hours I basically am plotting how I can get away with physical assault, and longer than a week and we basically are enemies now... friendship over. On top of that when ever I am public, I don't care how good of friends we are, I don't want to see you unless I planned on it. I don't like small talk. I won't make eye-contact with you so I can say later on "Oh I didn't see you". Yes I am that much of a meaner, go ahead judge me.

Now you're thinking that I am a psycho and that's okay, because I probably am. I probably could find more reasons but I think I have given you enough ammunition for one day.


Adios Mustachios

A

I Have a Band-aid: Purned not Broken

Okay, honestly I don't have a band-aid, I have something far more greater than that.

I have Jesus.

If you have been keeping up with my blogs you may have remembered a blog I wrote about 3 months ago on me being broken.

Today I went back and read it. Might I just say praise God for His Goodness. Honestly.

I was kind of a depressive jerk in that post. I realized looking back that a lot of it was raw emotion and unfiltered emotion. At the end of the blog I wrote:

Jesus replied "You don't understand what I am doing, but someday you will." John 13:7 

  

Though I still don't know what God is doing it is amazing how He healed my heart. 

 

I spoke about bitterness in my blog. Mainly how my "ex" caused so much bitterness in my heart because of it. Honestly, though I feel I have reason to, I have unfairly portrayed him in my blogs. Yes, it hurt that my heart was broken. Yes, bitterness was there. But you know what Christ is bigger than my broken heart and the bitterness I feel. He, not I, overcame both my broken heart and bitterness. I am completely sorry for that too. It's horrible to think that, as a called representative of Christ, I could allow such disunity amongst a brother in Christ let alone someone who I care deeply for.

 

 The sting of my past sometimes creep in. Late at night I sometimes think about all that I lost and my body literally begins to shake. Then I remember that I gained so much more through it that the sting is gone. It frankly sucks to have lost that many people I cared about but then again it sucks more that I wasted so much time focusing on my own loss that I forgot to glorify God. 

I also forgot that Christ also knows what it feels like to have friends turn on Him. Even though I forced those of my friends in their final decision. Christ understands. Judas betrayed Him and Peter denied Him. 

I, however, should have handled the situation COMPLETELY differently. People hurt each other it's our natural sin reaction. Instead of showing love though, I completely showed nothing but hate. Deep-seeded hate. 

I am completely sorry for my actions. 

With all that I must say though God is Good. Thank goodness that God does not allow His children to fall away. Thank goodness that God pursues me continually even though I run from Him. Thank goodness that God loves me more than I could have ever imagined that He would give me an opportunity to make it right. 

I don't know where God is taking me. The journey is both electrifying and terrifying all at once. The unknown is vast but I am daily learning to trust Him. Many things I hope for. I hope for renewing in relationships that I have been broken and can only be healed by Him. I hope for opportunities for my puring and mistakes can be used to bring Glory to God. 

I hope to change the idea that brokenness is a one-stop destination. The end all be all. It isn't brokenness is on the lines of cutting away the branches that don't produce fruit like Christ mentions in John 15:1-17. Brokenness is there so you lean closer to God and further from your own understandings and what the world offers.

XOXO

Amanda