Thoughts in the Inbetween

hellokansas:

Back in October of 2009, God spoke to my heart and told me that I will never be satisfied with anything except for Him. This has proven true to me more times than I can even count in the time I’ve spent since then serving him in my community, amongst my friends and family. To further my…

Untitled.

I met this band a week ago in my basement. Six dudes from Williamsport, Pennsylvania. I was nervous to even go down there, not knowing who they even were and how they would interact with me. Luckily, I put my own awkward feelings aside and went downstairs to create the friendships that would make me feel so accepted to be myself.

Luke. Trevor. Taylor. Jay. Dale. John.
They truly show what it means to be open and accepting to anyone. Not once did I feel judged, criticized, or looked down upon for what I said or did. I was never made fun of or told that ‘I shouldn’t have said that’ or given a condescending look. I was myself, and they liked me for that. I was critical, and they joined in. They made jokes, and I laughed….hard. I was sarcastic, and they responded in pure sarcastic nature. It was purely freeing for me. Everything that they allowed me to do, someone had told me that I was wrong, that I shouldn’t have done or said that, that I was mean, or I was given a condescending look that spoke beyond words.

And it went so beyond that too. Not only did we bond over our sarcastic nature, imitation voices, all funny media, movies, and tv, we had great talks that went deep about each other and about God. It was just natural and definitely not a forced way of communicating, ever.

These 6 guys ACCEPTED me and LOVED me for WHO I AM. I have never felt so part of a group of people that I had met just less than a week ago. I can’t even remember the last time I laughed so hard. My abs hurt from laughing, seriously.

My house has never felt like home to me. I live with amazing girls, but there was always something missing for me. Once it did feel like home, one of my roommates moved half way around the world for a year.  I also never felt like I had a place where I could be myself and not be judged for being myself. I’ve always wanted that place to be at home, and I’ve been lucky enough to have had a few of those places at work or random other places I’ve had the fortune of visiting. And maybe it’s with me too. My guards were down with these guys. I wasn’t afraid that they’d intentionally hurt my feelings or say something mean because they disagreed with me.

The guys in My Heart to Fear made my house feel like home.
And they made me love being myself.
I can only speak of their true acceptance to the people they meet and to their overwhelming desire to connect to them. 

I love how God brings people into each others’ lives…the connection that is made through these friendships is something to either think deeply about and wonder as to why, or to just accept the gift that God has blessed us with, or a combination of both, which I like the best. I love the surprises that God gives to me, and I think He really enjoys seeing me in these situations where the point of friendships begin and smiles so big because He sees where these friendships will go and where they will end up, how they’ll grow into something more than I could ever expect or imagine. I love how God works.

this. is. funny. and the next fun and awesome tattoo idea. riiight?

(Source: smallhandsx, via hellokansas)

The Anchor Fellowship. Easter Sunday.

I haven’t felt more loved by Abba Father than I felt that night. It was incredibly and positively overwhelming. And I don’t deserve it, but He gives me His love. I stood there in the back of the church praying in complete awe to a God that would willingly love me for all that I am, shortcomings, stubbornness, insecurities, jealousy, control, worry, and all. None of those even matter to God. I make those such huge obstacles for me to overcome and they don’t even phase my Abba. They don’t even come close to what it takes to create a line or a dot on a piece of paper. That’s how insignificant those issues are to my Abba because He loves me for who I am, all those issues, because He loves ALL of me, not just the pieces and the parts that I want Him to love or that I deem as lovable.

What I heard that night in reference to the love of Abba Father: “lavish”, “humble adoration”, “how great the Father’s love for us”. I couldn’t stop weeping. I was out of my own control, and I say that in the utmost and positive way. There were no holds or judgments that kept me from truly feeling love. Everything mentioned previously about my insecurities or stubbornness was so far removed from me.

Abba only wanted me to feel His unconditional, agape, love.

Psalm 103:11-12

¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
   so great is his love for those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
   so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

And that’s all I felt. I’ve never felt so loved. Loved enough to forget all the things that I attach to myself that are in need of “fixing”. Loved enough to be who I am, who God truly sees me as. Loved enough to trust me to continue His work. Loved enough to bestow an insurmountable confidence in myself, my abilities, my ideas, my determination. Loved enough to love others.

These guys make my day every time i see them. And this makes me laugh and love these dudes even more. Such a pleasure, right?

a plea for purging, for those who don’t know. check them out.

When my friends listen to music,

We lose our minds

(Source: lovewasthekiller, via rmacer)

i’m such a selfish person. really. it’s just my nature. it’s everyone’s nature.

so often we pursue what we feel we should have, what we want, or what we desire. in those moments, we aren’t thinking about anything outside of us. we are only searching after the need to fulfill something that’s missing. so what’s missing?

true desire. true delight.

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

the ultimate desire is to know and love God. we choose, i choose, to ignore that desire and to hide it so that i can hold on to the control of fulfilling my own wants, that way it’ll always be what i want. so God will grant me the desires of my heart because He wants to make me happy, right? nope. the first part of this verse says it all, “Delight yourself in the Lord”.

what does it look like to delight in the Lord?

what does it look like to take pleasure in the Lord?

what does it look like to enjoy, savor, and be enchanted in the Lord?

what does it look like to appreciate, bask, revel, and be charmed in the Lord?

what does all of this even look like with another person let alone the God who loves me unconditionally that it doesn’t matter what i do, He still loves, values, and cherishes me?

stop complicating things, maria. it’s simple. all you have to do is love me.

“LOVE ME BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.”

when you love God you give up control over your desires. and because you love God, your desires are molded into what God desires for you. you share desires.

is that right?!

i share desires with the God who created me, created the universe, created everything i know, the God who knows me full well, the God who loves me no matter what?? 

yes. that is right.

i’ve been a wreck of emotions lately. highs and lows, happiness and tears, excitement and sadness. and that’s all in one day. and that goes on every day. i’ve seen myself change in the past couple of weeks and it’s been beautiful. it’s been incredibly challenging, but still beautiful and peaceful.

i’ve been at war with myself, struggling over giving up the desires that i want and clinging to the desires that God wants for me. the hard part is giving up control over what i want my desires to be. which goes back to my selfishness. when will this craziness of emotions ever end? will there ever be a less intense version of my emotions? will they ever settle out? i’m clinging to the hope that there will be. God does not intend for me to suffer, but i’m fighting myself in this matter and choosing suffering.

Lord, give me the grace to see what You want of me, to align my desires with Your desires. Be enough for me.

sashapark:

Plea + bobby (Taken with instagram)

this was a fun night. no friends, all family. it really is.

(Source: sleepyyspice)

Update from the Anchor School of Ministry.

I just finished my fourth week in the Anchor School of Ministry (ASM) and I feel like it started yesterday. I’ve been through so many personal changes, challenges, struggles, hopes, and excitement than I have in my 24 years of being alive. And the funny thing is, I feel more alive and more passionate and more hopeful than I have every felt before.

I came to ASM to find out who God is, who He is to me, why I need him, and to learn how to apply what I’m learning personally and reflect that to others in my life. We have speakers come and teach 3 days every week while our directors, Ryan and Christina, teach the last 2 days. There are a total of 5 students in the class who are beyond encouraging, helpful, motivating, and inspiring. It was evident in the first week that this wasn’t just a class, but a family. We have all been broken together and grown together, individually and as a class.

I can’t get over how all that I’m learning, all the knowledge, all the prayers, all the conversations, all the speakers, all the topics, all the sermons - every single thing - has been so perfectly orchestrated and so perfect in timing. As I look over my prayers mixed in with my notes, God has been so faithful in answering my prayers through His unchanging character! God has blown my mind and blown my expectations of what He is fully capable of doing in my life.

We learned the basics of faith, and even approached it from an atheist point of view that so we could understand the differences between faith and belief. Belief is an opinion or a conviction to the existence of something that is not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof while faith is believing in something intangible and unprovable without evidence. We received the historical teachings of our faith and took an accelerated lesson through the Old Testament which opened my mind to what I had grazed over before. From learning about the true covenant to learning about the unchanging nature of our God, it wrecked my framework of who I am because I am a chosen being that has the same capability to love unconditionally just as God does. There is no evolutionary process for love. Because I am made in God’s image, I am perfect - I am exactly who I am fulfilling exactly what I am made to do.

Intimacy with Father God consumed me and broke me yet again. My walls and barriers that I’ve lived behind came crashing down. Those had kept me from being vulnerable and kept me “safe”. I had assumed characteristics about myself that had begun as lies from my childhood and I attached to those lies as truth and they became who I was. I defined myself as a perfectionist and I believed that I had to perform, to do well, in order to be known and to be validated and affirmed. Even if my thoughts and actions were genuine, I thought that if I was nice to people, went out of my way for others, talked or listened, then they would like me and want to be around me. I put expectations on myself to be someone to others and to God. I am not expected to be anyone to God because He sees me as perfect.

I had yet another breakdown, where I was in my car during lunch break, and just wept. I had carried around the burden of performance and unworthiness on my own for so long that it had overcome and overwhelmed my ability to do anything, especially act dependently on God. It was too much and I sat in my car, praying for release and submission of my will to the Lord. I rewrote Psalm 139, the Prayer of Examine, in words that related to my life, giving up total control, asking God to search me and know where I am offending Him. It was hard for me to ask Him to “test me” in what I held closest to myself and what I didn’t want to give up. But how could I continue to live under my control and feel so helpless and so at the end of my rope?

Examine me, Abba, and know my heart and will. Test me. Take from me what I do not need, Lord. Show me where I offend You, Abba. Let me listen, and lead me to respond in Your love and Your life everlasting.

This sums up the past four weeks of my life in the Anchor School of Ministry. Of course, so much more has gone on and happened to me during this time, but for sake of keeping this as short as possible, I’ll end here. My life has been beyond beautiful and I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be where I am now and be with the people that I am surrounded by. God is so good!

I want to reiterate how generously God has financially provided for my tuition, regular bills and daily expenses! I am in awe. I am still in need of raising $600 for our trip to Peru and for the rest of my tuition. The deadline for my trip/tuition money is due February 28th. I would like to ask for your prayers in raising the rest of the needed money. If you would like to give, you can send your donation to:

Maria Petty

1345 Bell Rd. Unit 442

Antioch, TN 37013

Donations made out to The Anchor Fellowship are tax deductible. If you choose to give through the church, please write “Maria Petty/ASM” on the memo line. Please send me your address and I will gladly send you a return addressed envelope!

I definitely wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for YOUR support! I am so thankful, so ecstatic, so impressed, and so humbled that you would be involved in my life and my spiritual relationship this far. I cannot thank you enough.

Love, Maria.

Father, hear my cry.

Love came down and rescued me,

Love came down and set me free.

I am of worth.

I am valued.

I am a princess.

I am set free.

I am victorious.

I am Chosen. I have a new name. I am claimed by You.

I AM YOURS. I AM FOREVER YOURS.

(via reflectionof-thought)