I Don't Know.

I don't know what is going on lately. Very thing feels to be up in the air. Job's getting out of control. Love life is DOA and confusing as always. I'm another year older with what to show for the last year I'm not sure. I have started school again, that's a plus, I might just graduate yet. I've been self-centered lately and that's not the me I want to be, but I'm afraid I've been that way for a while and nobody wanted to tell me.

I dropped a close friend off at the airport, he'll be gone for three years. I'm going to get to see him in March so I should stop crying soon. I've tried to rush people into decisions and had that blow up in my face. When push comes to shove they retreated and quickly. I hate going into the holiday season alone. It just turns into a long drawn out "you're alone" fest. Friends are great to have around you, but it's still oblivious they're just my friends and nothing more.

I've been told lately that I don't have to be so strong all the time. How do you turn that off I wonder. I find myself more and more in touch with the scarred little girl that lives within me. She causes me to face things I don't want to, and to cry about things that have been hidden away. I don't like feeling pain, but I'm in almost a constant state of it these days. The 1 year anniversary of my grandmother's death was Tuesday and it led to crying at work. SO not something I do. I don't cry in front of people unless I'm at a funeral (or watching The Family Stone with two friends that also lost their grandmother's just before watching it.).

I need God to center my life and quick. I'm use to feeling others pain, but I'm now having to deal with my bottled up pain. I guess it's a freeing thing. A word to the wise- don't ignore your pain it only makes it worse later. And to the passionate people out there - if you have all that passion bottled up that's not good either. If you want to do something - do it. Stop holding back. If you're passionate about something that's not a BAD THING.

If you can't tell I'm an all or nothing person. That stems from my passionate self. If it's worth doing, then go all out. If it's not worth going all out, then it's not worth doing. Passionate people are driven crazy by people that get all excited about something and then don't do it. Stop living in fear of making a mistake. All things work to the good of God. What else do you need to know? God's will is going to be done with or without you, your mistakes can't throw off God's plans He knew you were going to make them, so He's already worked them out.

I leave you with this thought. If you're my friend and I haven't told you lately, I love you and you mean more to me than I'll ever be able to express to you. I love you all!

~Stella

Rest in Me.

That's what I need to do. I need to rest in Him. School from 7am-12pm Mon-Thurs, and then closing Papa John's two to three of those days, for a month is finally taking it's toll on me. "You're not as young as you once were." That's what my body keeps telling me. I pray for rest and for God to remove the pain/heal my right knee.

Me and Val are moving again. We get the keys to our new place today as soon as I get out of class. I'm excited about where we'll be living. Mainly because it means more room for us. We're moving into a townhouse. I love the idea of the bedrooms being upstairs and out of the way.

Not this weekend but next weekend I have my 10 year class reunion. It's hard for me to believe it's been that long. Although my body feels old, inside I still feel like I'm not an adult yet. All my friends are younger than me, so they keep me REALLY young at heart. I'm wondering what it's going to be like to see my classmates again. I've seen a few of them over the years, but not in mass quantities. Looking back I've packed a lot of stuff into 10 yrs. There are times I even I don't believe I've been and done some of the things I've done. I lived in Wales for a semester. I have loads of pictures and tons of blog entries to tell me I was there, but some days I just can't believe it. It's like all of it was a dream....

Well, it's now class time so I'll talk to you later! Love you!
~Stella

Confession

When I posted last I kept meaning to come back and tell the story of how I was given that word from God. I slept in that Sunday. I woke up around 1:3opm. I started feeling bad about not going to church, so I decided I do one of my lessons in a Bible study book I have. Thinking it would take 10-15 minutes at most, and then I could go on with my day guilt-free. (I'm ashamed to admit it but that's really how I felt. I really thought spending just 15 minutes with God would make me feel better about not going to church that day. Crazy, I know.) Anyway, I read the passages, wrote in the journal section, and starting writing in the prayer section. As I was writing out the prayer God started speaking to me about sin and how truly silly it is that we sin in the first place. He started speaking so fast that I had to stop Him and get paper and pen. As I sat outside writing all that I heard God was taking me to different verses all over the Bible. It was amazing! I don't think I've ever heard God so clearly as I did that afternoon. When I went outside it was 2pm, and when I finished writing all that God showed me and went inside it was 6:22pm! I couldn't believe it. I thought I had been outside for at most an hour. Me thinking 15 minutes max, God turned into over 4 hours with Him. He has such a sense of humor!

I just thought I'd share how I received the message I put up. May you have a great and blessed day! Love you all!

~Stella

Decisions

After much thought I've decided to post God's message here on my blog. I thought about speaking at the BCM, but I feel that God's leading me to share it with everyone. From now on, any word I get from God I shall post it here on this blog. Feedback is always welcome; good, bad, or indifferent.

1 Corinthians 10:13
"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

When we are tempted by Satan, God doesn't allow him to tempt us with anything we can not overcome. We aren't tempted with anything new, just the same old stuff man has always been tempted with. And when He allows Satan to tempt us He always provides a way out. We just have to look for it.

When we sin it's because we, ourselves, choose to do the wrong thing. How foolish we as humans are to fall into Satan's old traps. Why do we so blatantly choose to sin?
If only (myself totally included) we woulds remember that God doesn't allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear, I feel we could over come a lot more than we do. We will never be perfect that's just a fact, but we could say no to temptations a lot more if we would put to memory 1 Corinthians 10:13.

When we sin it's not God's, Satan's, or our friends' fault; it's our own fault. We choose to sin. The fault is not God's. He's warned us numerous times that Satan will tempt us. He's already judged the temptation, before we get it, to be weak enough that we can overcome it. And to top it off He provides us with a way out. What more do we want? Do we want Him to try out being tempted with some of the things we are tempted with? Ok, He already did that, and He overcame every thing Satan threw at Him. God says in Hebrews 4:15 that He's given us a teacher that has experienced every temptation we will be tempted with. That teacher was Jesus, God in human form.

The world God created was so messed up it took Him coming down to earth in human form to fix it. He choose to take on a human form, be tempted, and die to save us all. that is what I call LOVE, that perfect Agape love. If you are ever tempted to doubt God's love for you, remember that.

So it's not God's fault. What about Satan's fault? He's the one that tempts us. Does Satan make us sin, OR does he just present us the opportunity to sin. Satan can't make us do anything, we have to choose to do things. Demonic possession is the only time, that I know of, where we don't always get to choose what we do, but I'm going to go into that.

Did you know that Satan has to ask to mess with us? As children of God (that's believers in Christ), Satan must go before God and ask if he can tempt us or do anything to us. In Job we find an example of God allowing Satan to "mess" with a child of God.

Satan is called the Accuser in Job 1:6, because that's what he does. He goes around looking to find believers to accuse of things. He's always looking to deceive people according to 1 Peter 5:8, "Be careful! Watch out for attacks from the Devil, your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour."

All that Satan has is lies and deception. At the same time he's been using lies and deception since Genesis 3:1-6 when he tempted Eve with the forbidden fruit. He's good at what he does. Knowing that, we should always be on our guard for his attacks. Lies, when you think about them for a bit, normally, can be seen through. Deception on the other hand is often times harder to spot. 1 Peter 5:9 tells us to stand fast against Satan and to remember that other brothers and sisters in Christ are going through the same thing. (No new temptations, same ole same ole. Satan doesn't come up with new temptations just for you, no one is that special. And Satan's not just picking on you, he's tempting everyone.)

All that to say Satan's not to blame when we fall into sin. He only gives us the temptation, and even THAT he only does so after God says ok to how and when he's going to tempt us. God's not surprised by how and when Satan tempts us, because He's already okaied it. And He provides you a way out the moment it happens. Often times while you're being tempted.

If it's not God or Satan's fault who's left? Our friends? I know they're always on my list of who made me do something. But really, do your friends have more power than God or Satan? OR do they just have more pull with us than God or Satan? Here's another question for you to think about: Do you think that your friend would really push you to sin? If Satan's already tempted them into doing something, you don't think he'd use them to convince you (or deceive you) that it's a good idea? Why would he not do that, it's been an effective method since way back in the garden of Eden. Genesis 3:6, "and she gave to her husband, and he did eat." So tell me that Satan won't use your friends and I'll tell you that's a lie straight from Satan himself. But the catch is your friends don't have the power to make you do something, even with a gun. Persuasive as they might be, ultimately you have to choose. You just got to love free will.
When we sin we have no one to blame but ourselves. We choose to do right or wrong, and that's all temptation is; an opportunity to either follow God's path or go off on our own.

I want to encourage you to always be on your guard and to help each other. Hebrews 3:13-14, "You must warn each other everyday, as long as it is called "today," so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ."

You don't show love to your brother or sister in Christ when you sit by silently and let them fall into sin. Approach them in love and don't fear their reaction. If they get upset, God will ease their pain of being corrected. Knowing that, if someone is trying to tell you you're falling don't get mad and not listen, take what they say to heart and seek God's council on the matter. Some times it takes other people to show us where we've fallen short.

I leave you with this verse of encouragement to seek God at all times. Hebrews 4:16,
"So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive His mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it."

in His joy,
Stella

Hmmm.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Hopefully one day I'll stop rushing things. Time tends to just slip away faster and faster the older you get. So what do I do, I try to rush things, instead of being patient. One day love will find me at the right time. I'm tired of it always finding me at the wrong times. I always fall to hard to fast and wind up being hurt. Not because of the other person, but because I don't know how not to instantly fall in love with someone. Is that an age thing or just a me thing? Whatever it is, I've got to learn to stop doing it.

I've never been able to do the whole casual dating thing. I think if you're going to date someone it should be because you see a future with them, and not just because you're lonely. And when you really think about it, if you see a future with a person, why on earth would you date other people at the same time. In my mind that method of dating just doesn't compute. Yes, it can be scary going into a relationship knowing that you're in this for the long haul, but at the same time there's freedom in it if you both start out with that in mind. There's no fear in being open with each other in that type of relationship. If you both know going in, there's no fear of showing each other how you really feel about one another.

That may make me a crazy person, but I hope there's at least one person out there that feels the same way. Otherwise, it'll just be me and God for the rest of my days on earth, and oddly enough I'm ok with that.

ABBA - 1979 Does Your Mother Know

I love this song!

Life Pondering

After about a six year break from the dating scene, I have re-entered. I now understand Paul's views on Christians remaining single. I had forgotten the extra effort required to keep God as your focus. I find myself struggling to keep up. My days are suddenly full. I'm now playing the game of what can I move around in order to spend time with the guy I'm dating and spend time with the consistent Man in my life, Jesus. It's amazing how a relationship with someone can completely change your world around.

I'm not complaining about being in a relationship, I'm just sharing the struggles I'm having right now. I pray that God will teach me how to fix this. I don't like feeling like God is a stranger. I'm used to Him being the only One in my life. I doted upon Him. And now I find myself trying to remember the last time I had a quite time where all I did was focused on Him.

I love you, God, even though I've done a horrible job of showing it lately. Forgive me.

~Stella

Question

Why do we silly humans fall in love with people that can't love us back?

Random Thoughts

For most of my life I've been moving around. (And no I'm not talking about just random motions. I mean when you move from city to city.) When I was younger my family moved around a good bit. I lived in three different houses before I started school in Tennessee. Then we moved to Dadeville, AL. We stayed there for a year and then moved to Opelika, AL for a year and then moved back to Dadeville. I stayed there till I graduated High School. That summer I moved to Douglasville, GA and started school at Carroll Technical Institute. I lived there for a year, and then moved back to Dadeville. Then I moved to Tuscaloosa, AL and attended Shelton State Community College with a side, applied trumpet, class at University of Alabama. I lived there for two years then moved back to Dadeville for a summer and then moved up here to Jacksonville, AL. I've been in Jacksonville for over 5 years now. Within the 5 years I've lived in Jacksonville Place (2 yrs.), a house (a semester), Sparkman Hall (a semester), Cottonwood Apartments (2 yrs.), and now I live at Park Place Apartments.

You would think I would get somewhere and light. But no I just keep going. To add to my moving I started traveling around doing mission work. In the past three years I've been to China twice (a month each time), Wales (for 3 1/2 months), Ukraine (a week), Symirna, TN (a week two winters) Philadelphia (two spring breaks), Massachusetts (for a summer), and now during spring break I'll be going to Guatemala for the week. At this point I'm not believing my own life. I feel like some kind of wild Mustang. No wonder I haven't had a date in the past 6 years. I'm not in one place long enough to date anyone. They would feel abandoned if I tried to date them. Can you date someone if they're always on the go?

The funniest part to me is the fact that I've always felt like I was a pretty laid back person. I've never felt like I've done anything. At times I don't feel that I've accomplished anything. And that's because I don't believe all the things I've done and been through in my 27 years on this planet. I've worked a bunch of strange jobs, studied in 4 universities in the states, took a couple of classes about youth work in Wales, and worked at a professional Theatre for their summer season.

I digress until later when I can remember why I started this post.......