Please do what you always do...

God,
There is this problem I'm having
And usually it is taken away
Maybe this is different because I haven't allowed the mind to wander
In which case I would think
Would make it that much easier
I'm following You
And listening to You
Even as I write this
You are saying
"Don't worry about it"
So I hand it off to you
As with so many other things I do
Thank You in advance
-Bert

A great realization...

You know how sometimes...well for me, most of the time
You can know something in your head but not in your heart?
Well all of my life I thought I understood
How God felt about me
I knew He loved me
And that he wanted the best for me
But never anything like this...

I went to a retreat this past weekend and it was full of love...
From people I didn't know
People who have been praying for me by name and people I will never meet
People constantly giving me gifts and words of encouragemt

They did this to help give me a physical representation of God's unconditional love for me
That there is nothing I can do to make Him love me more
And there is nothing that can make Him love me less
He just loves me
The way I am
Regardless of the screw ups
That He will do ANYTHING He needs to in order to make my relationship stronger with Him

Of course I had to accept that
That was the hardest part
Realizing that I really had no concept (and still don't really) of the amazingness of God's love
And just sort of learning to deal with the fact that He is God and pretty much unconceivable
Accepting His love and gifts for me
And not being afraid to ask for the things He already knows are in my heart

A great realization
To my heart and soul
To the purpose of my very existence
To the knowledge of a God who has agape for me

Why do I resist?

So wants me tell people things that He wants them to hear.
I'm kinda getting that now.
And usually, I don't have issues telling people things...
unless I make it awkward in my head.
Which I am VERY good at doing.

I was supposed to talk to someone about a week ago
And didn't til today...
why?
eh, no real reason.
But, I told God
"God, if you want me talk to this person, give me opportunity."
So, He did.
And I talked
And of course
It wasn't awkward...
yup
Lesson Learned.

Friendship

To be a good friend
It is something I never really thought of as a gift.
But really
The ability to be there for someone when they need it most
Regardless of the time being convinient is something I have kinda grown to love.
Why?
One reason is because they will hopefully do the same for me
But even if they don't
I know what it's like to feel alone in this place
And o what a relief to have a friend

It is so easy to get caught up in our own lives
That we can and often do
Easily miss the obvious signs for
"Please help me"
If we each just took a little more time
And were willing to sacrifice
We could really see God work through people

Be careful

So...it's a Saturday night and all the girls look nice.
They did their hair, put on makeup and just look cute...
We go to our event of the evening and decide that we look too good to go to bed.

Of course we want anyone and everyone to see us right?
Well, so we thought.

We go to BJ's to have dessert and lo and behold
We got more than we bargained for
There were two tables full of drunk guys
It was fine at first because we were ignoring them and they had seemingly forgotten us...
How wrong we were.
A guy decides to sit right next to my friend and just sits there drinking his drink
He doesn't say a word.
I get irritated and say, "excuse me, you're at the wrong table."
He looks up and just says, "I'm sorry, I've been drinking, I'm not bothering you though am I?"
We all look at eachother and my friend says, "Hey you wanna go to church with us tomorrow?"
He says, "I already know Jesus"
At this point, I'm pretty peeved and am about to give this guy a piece of my mind
And he finally gets up and leaves all offended and whatnot...
I didn't care
He wouldn't remember this conversation the next day anyway.
My friend thought I was being harsh but really...
I demanded respect. He's not in his right state of mind and I shouldn't have to put up with that.

Suffice to say, next time you wanna go out looking good... keep in mind all the lovely drunk men who are lonely.

Hopefully

How often do we lie in bed at night
Not knowing what lies ahead
Pondering upon the sea of possibilites within our finite grasp
To be linear thinkers of things that are logical
What if one day
We drew a circle of never-ending wonder

Oh who am I kidding
That humankind would think beyond itself?
To be vulnerable to something we can't fully comprehend?
To accept a love that we have never and will never experience any other way?
That'll be the day...
Hopefully it comes sooner than later

A little umph

Lord
Please help me

When I look at people
And see the powerful person
You want them to be
And they aren't walking in that
Don't let me be angry
They just don't see it

Because Lord
I've become weary of
Amazing potential being put to the wayside
They don't see it
And if they don't see it
Then me being overbearing doesn't help

Let me be an example
Maybe give them a little umph
And who knows
Even speak into their lives
Because Lord
We need people with umph

Thank you God
That you see all
And you know all
Give me the strength

So when you look in a mirror...

When you look in a mirror
What do you see?
All day we can look at the mirrors
In which others view us.
We can listen to their amazing opinions
And they could be true...
But what do we see
When we come home
And we are all alone
Do we see beauty?
Do we see strenght?
Do we see Godliness?
Do we see love?
What they say is true
We are our toughest critics
I wonder what would happen if one day
Everyone truly realized their potential
In what God has made them
I believe nothing would be the same
We wouldn't be scared
We wouldn't sin because we wouldn't want to
And we would be beautiful
We would be loving
We would be Godly
The only thing we would be
Is what God sees us as
And when we finally accepted that
We would fall into that role
Not because anyone was forcing us to
But because there wouldn't be any other
Way that we would want to live
What do you see?
When you look in the mirror?
When you go home at night?