Super long week... yay!

Hey, everyone. ( :

It's been a while, right? I go from posting almost (if not more than) every day, and all of a sudden you hear nothing from me. No, I haven't turned my back on all you lovelies. Ha ha. I actually had my internet disconnected--say what?! Yeah, you heard me. First, my dad forgot to pay the cable bill, which I find hiiiilarious. And then Comcast just couldn't seem to make it work. So, dad's deciding to go with SureWest instead. Also at the cost of ditching cable television. It's okay, though. We'll live. And I'll enjoy being able to watch JCTV again, ha ha ha. I'm so cool. I seriously do love that channel, though. Christian music videos, and there was this one show that I think was called H2o or something that was really good. I'll have to check and see, because there are some awesome programs on that station. And the roadtrip one was fun, too. And nobody has any clue what I'm talking about, right? Ha ha ha ha.

Anyways. I'm at the library now. We still have another week until we get internet again. I've been dyyyying to post! There's been so much on my mind!

Okay, first thing on the agenda, (gotta do this fast, I only have 35 minutes to finish this post!! AH! LAWLZ I'm a fast typer, no worries) I've gotta tell you all about the book "Jesus Freaks" by dc Talk. It's amazing. It chronicles many stories of so many people in the persecuted church throughout history, and current, in closed-door countries. Many of these people are being persecuted for their beliefs by communists. It's so sad. But the book isn't just story after story of death and fear and destruction... I can honestly say it's encouraging. These people stand strong in their faith, boldy proclaiming the Good News when threatened with torture and death. They're willing to put their lives on the line to further God's Kingdom. I think that is absolutely amazing. How can we, who have nothing like that to threaten our joy, be scared of something as silly as judgement, and allow that to hinder God's work? We're ridiculous. We should be spreading out and boldly spreading Christ throughout the nations. This book has also burdened my heart for prayer. We should all be praying that the persecuted will stay strong in their faith, and that God would continue to keep them safe, strong, and loving. These people dare to love those that beat them senseless. It's truly amazing. Pray for their oppressors. Pray that they will see Christ in the Christians they want to see destroyed. Pray that these people will reach their persecutors with God's love. It's happened many times before, and it can continue to happen. Pray that the insane laws (such as the blasphemy law in Pakistan, which requires that those who reject the Koran and Muhammed's teachings should be put to death) to be thrown out. Their burdens are great, and so should our burden for prayer and action be. ♥

Next up! : ) Giving up our lives for Christ... man, this is something God's been slamming me with lately in my Bible studies. Whoever holds onto his life will lose it, and whoever lets go of their life for Christ will gain eternal life. Amazing, radical teachings. We have to give up our lives to put ourselves in teh center of God's will to experience what a real life is. It's crazy!

One of the biggest things I struggle about following God's Will is giving up everything that I want, all my selfish desires. It's easy for me to mistake emotions and junk like that and use them as a way of saying I'm following God... how foolish of me. I need to give up all that. What I follow is God's Word, and His Spirit. Nothing else. Not advice from friends, nothing like that. It's all about God. So, pray for me to pull through on this! I need to refocus!

I think it was Psalm 92 or 93 I wanted everyone to read. It's all just a huge heart of praise. Loved it. I hope everyone will check it out!

Peace, love, blessings, and prayer,

~Natalie

P.S. - I totally wanna remind my friends that I really am praying for them! I pray that you'll grow deeper in your relationship with the Lord, falling in love with Him more and more every day. And I pray that you'll be strong in your convictions, never wavering. And that you'll all find joy and love everywhere you go. I love you all!

I'm not perfect.

I'm so far from it. I have no patience when I'm confronted with something that I'm not sure about. Right now, this isn't going to be very positive sounding, but I'm so very unsure about a lot right now. No, my faith in God isn't wavering, but my beliefs about the fine tunings of it all is really being tested. I'm not sure what exactly to think, but I know I really just need to trust God and ask Him to show me what to think. Prayers would be appreciated.

I would also like to say, however, how proud I am of my dear friends. : ) Seeing their faith grow and how they're really selling out for God has been amazing. Just tonight I got to hang out with a friend and she was telling me how much she's allowing Jesus to just change her from the inside out, and how she's really just giving it all to Him. It is so encouraging to see others doing exactly what I strive to do as well.

Also, my hamster almost escaped today! When I left I forgot and left the top of the cage open!!! She got out, and I crawled everywhere praying to find her. God must really want me to have a hammie cuz she was in the floor by her old cage... Thank You, Lord!!!

That's all!

Prayers and big love,
Natalie : )

The church body's functions

¹² Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. ¹⁴ Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

 ¹⁵ Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

 ²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ²² On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, ²⁴while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵ so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

 ²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. ²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰ Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹ Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. And yet I will show you the most excellent way.

 I Corinthians 12:12-31 (NIV)

There's no use in envying other people's spiritual gifts (or the ways that they are able to help the church). Yeah, we should be willing to jump in and do our best to work, but don't let envying those whose gifts make them look more spiritual let you be held back from doing God's work!

Just my thoughts from my personal Bible reading tonight. I figure the plain version here really says more than I need to. Just read the scripture and think about it. "And yet I will show you the most excellent way" might not make much sense there, because Paul is going on to teaching about love in the next chapter. Amazing chapter, I'm looking forward to spending time in it tomorrow!

Big love! XOXO

~Natalie ♥

Late night!

Intense prayer time tonight... I focus so much better on God at night. So thankful for bible study with Joey. Opening my heart and mind to God's Word & His will.
                                                                                          
My goshh I am so tired today! Last night's Jesus time seriously just... it's making my eyes feel like raisins instead of grapes. That doesn't even make sense! But last night was so intense! Really just inspected my heart to find whatever is there that's keeping any distance between me and God. My self-centeredness, my lack of love for others, and actually laughing at jokes that should make me grieve the lack of purity in today's world. That's what really stuck out to me.


So pray for me as I'm asking God to and taking action on purging myself of all these stupid habits that hold me back. There's nothing I want more than for my heart to be one with Christ's. To get to that point, I know I need to continually be inspecting my heart. A regular prayer is going to be Psalm 139:23.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts:" (KJV)

In the Bible In Basic English version, I love how this thought is worded.

"O God, let the secrets of my heart be uncovered, and let my wandering thoughts be tested:".

Psalm 26:2 says,

"Examine me, O Lord, and try me; test my mind and my heart." (NASB)

I don't think I pray these things enough! I need to really emphasize it. David sought God to examine his heart, instead of being his own decider of whether or not he was good enough. He went ahead and went straight to the ultimate judge, Who is known for zero tolerance for any kind of sin. Too often when we're examining our own hearts, we let a ton of junk slide because it's not like we can detect sin very well if we're used to living with it. Our sin nature gets in the way and is totally comfortable with it there. When we honestly turn to God and ask him to clean out our hearts and examine us, He pulls through.

I used to think these verses were David saying, "Look, God, no sin!" and just inviting Him to check it out. Kind of like having your parents approve of your room when you're done cleaning it. I realized last night that I was totally wrong. It's David asking God for His honest opinion, asking Him to point out the secret sins even he himself had failed to notice. He wrote and prayed it so heart-felt...fully? Hahaha. That's so not a real word. But anyways. You say this whole-heartedly... and God will answer it. He'll let you feel inside your heart that there's something there keeping a little wall of separation. You sit there and meditate on it, and compare your actions and motives to God's actions and motives... anything that falls short needs to go. Self-love (the conceited, proud kind!) is one of the biggest ones we have to get past. There's a balance you have to find that usually lands on self-respect enough to keep out of stupid situations, but the focus is more because you want to honor God with yourself, not because you have some kind of reputation to keep up. It's not your reputation you have to keep up, it's Jesus' reputation you're protecting.

This is what's on my heart!

Hope y'all got something out of this.

Love and blessings,

~Natalie.

Clean : )

I just cleaned out my iTunes library. Man, it feels good. I got rid of 1163 junky songs that I didn't need! (Okay, some of it was KJ-52, but he's seriously nott my cup of tea. At all.) Some of my friends don't totally understand this kind of action. I love them to bits, but they just don't get it. They say, "Well, it doesn't really matter what you listen to. It's not a big deal." And I know they're saying that because they might think I'm looking down on them for listening to secular music. I really don't look down on anyone for that. But, personally, I don't have any reason to listen to that stuff. It makes me more worldly. It gets in my head and messes up my relationship with God, and nothing should come above that.

1 Corinthians 10:23 says, 

" "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is constructive. "

This says heaps about what we allow into our lives. Next time you're watching television, or listening to the radio, compare what you're letting into your mind with this verse. If it doesn't measure up, you might want to consider watching or listening or even reading something different. Just a thought!

Hope you're all having a lovely day!

XOXO,

~Natalie ; )

Just a side note ;)

I just had my personal Jesus time and... wow. I just wanted to share how much I'm falling in love with the Creator! The best thing is... I can feel myself changing from the inside out! He's starting with my heart, and moving on to my mind and my actions and my words. I feel Him working on me, and it brings tears of joy to my eyes. I don't want to be the old, selfish me anymore. I want to be a mirror of my Lord. Kind of like standing in a doorway, with Jesus on the other side, and I'm mimicking His actions. I want to be so close to Him, and know Him so well, that people can hardly tell the difference. I want people to see Christ through me, and even disregard this old person here. I wanna be His mirror. : ) His love is filling up my heart every day, and I feel it particularly tonight. Now I'm gonna go pour out that love on my lovely boyfriend, and hopefully brighten his stressful evening just a tad. ; ) Poor kid's so stressed out! Pray for him if you can.

Love and prayers,

Natalie! : ) : ) : )

The White African

Tonight, I got back into a show I have loved for ages. It's called POV (Point Of View) and it's aired on PBS. They play documentaries here each week that really inform you on an issue (sometimes it's not a very important issue to me, but oh well). Tonight, they played Mugabe And The White African. It was about the fight between the Zimbawean president Mugabe and the white African farmers. The filmmakers chose to follow Mike Campbell and his family in particular. The things done to them are heart-breaking. Mike Campbell died last year from injuries sustained three years earlier in a kidnapping and torture that was intended to force them out of their land. To find out more details, read here. What is amazing about these people, though, is their continued faithfulness to God throughout their trials. They were put through immense struggles, and yet they continued to trust His plans. Heart breaking, and encouraging, all in one.

Man, that was a hard film to watch. But it also reminded me of the prayers I need to be sending out for people I don't even know. Their immense hardships are overwhelming, and I forget to even recognize that daily. It has also reminded me to pray about what God wants me to do about these things. I wonder if prayer is enough? Some days I really hope and already plan that I'll have a normal home life, married, raising kids (the kids part is a long way off, of course) and all that good, American stuff. But I'm learning to be okay with the idea that God might have bigger plans. God might call me to be in the ministry, and that excites me. Whatever He has in store for me, I'm excited about it. I'm hoping for something big. I'm hoping for something that will make a huge impact for Christ. The burden on my heart for the lost continues to grow, and I almost pray that it's my calling to actually go and do something about it. Maybe. We'll see. There's a long time until that's possible. But I hope that my life will be something worth praying about. Until then, I'll just follow the little steps and guidelines I'm receiving from God every day. He always has something to tell me, I just have to listen for it. : )

Needless to say, I do plan on going on a missions trip at least someday. Maybe I'm not called to be a full-time missionary, but I've heard it said that going at least once on a trip like that is an amazing thing for any Christian. : ) I hope I hope I hope I can go someday!

Anyways.

Do you have a love in your life? Any love. Like... a passion! Helping people, cooking, eating, exercising, loving on people, making beautiful things, music, any hobby? You should. It helps a lot in making your life more meaningful. It becomes... what you do! It's part of who you are. Make a list of the things and people you love that you wouldn't be the same without! I'll do it.. right now!

My loves <3

• Jesus Christ/God. Same diff...literally! Love it!
• My family. My mother, my father (he's a hard one to love sometimes, but I do anyways!), my brothers, my sisters-in-law, and... my sister? Hahha. Fine. I'll love her, too ; )
• My wonderful, amazing, and so very loving best friend and boyfriend, Joey. Gosh that boy is such a blessing! I hate how much I take him for granted. : (
• Friends! I love my friends to bits. They blow up my phone every day with the funniest things and always listen to me when I hate on stuff hahaha.
• Art and music and writing. All these forms of expression, I love them all. I thank God for the gifts He's given me and the talents I have to use for His glory. I hope I do Him justice. ; )
• Running. My goodness, I love to run! It's so freeing, and I love the feeling of all that blood pumping so hard and fast and boy do I get a runner's high. Even if a mile is the hardest thing for me, it's still one of my favorite forms of cardio.
• Worship. And I love being a part of it in my church. Sure, I miss being in the congregation for worship, but... it's great to be able to use my guitar-playing for something so good. Maybe someday I'll get a break and get to sing from a pew. ; ) heehee
• FOOD AND T.V.! I love them both! Food makes me full, and tastes so yummy! It's hard not to let that love get out of control... ha ha ha. I'm a silly willy, I know. And I love television. Man, that thing keeps me entertained. It'll be the death of me. SpongeBob, baby.
• Blogging, the internet, facebook. Okay, so I kind of hate facebook, but I use it all the time, so who cares. I love blogging and the internet, though. I like having an excuse to be narcissistic all the time. And I like being able to find recipes a lot. Cuz I love cooking!
• Texting, babes. You knew it was coming.

And I think that's the end of my list. Because, frankly, I could go on, but it'd get too long!

And I'm loving these fonts I found while I was messing with my profile layout! Heehee. I hope they're readable! This cursive one looks so much like my penmanship.

Also, I really miss my mommy! She's in Dallas for the Mary Kay conference... She's having a blast, of course, but I didn't get to say goodbye to her this morning when she left. : ( Sadfaceee. Oh, well. She'll be home Saturday! Yippee!

Today's devotional was about God's plan. That's what really stuck out to me. It's not about God's plan for my life, but about God's plan, and then I change my life to help fulfill His plans. So it's really about God and not my life. I loved that. It's changing my perspective so much already. I love this devotional course! I can't wait for the meeting on Monday with all the girls. Our discussions are going to be amazing.

I want people to comment! Let me know what you like about my posts, what you don't like, constructive criticism! And if you have anything to add to what I'm saying, for goodness sake, say it! I love feedback, and conversations, and yeah. : ) Love it to bits.

I can't wait for tomorrow and to see what's in store!

~Natalie M.

P.S. - Without Christ, we can do nothing!