Sunday, July 31, 2011

dry bones coming to life.

Here I go, packin' & movin', yet again! I seriously cannot stay in one spot for too long. While working, packing, & moving the Lord hasn't refrained from speaking into my heart. This past week He has revealed a passage of scripture to me (I have read it & have heard sermons preached on it before, but recently it has protruded forth with life & deep meaning, more so than ever before); I pray it comes to life for you as well:

"The hand of the Lord was on me, & He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord & set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back & forth among them, & I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?'

I said, 'Sovereign Lord, You alone know.'

Then He said to me, 'Prophesy to these bones & say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, & you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you & make flesh come upon you & cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, & you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.'

So I prophesied as I was commanded. & as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, & the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked & tendons & flesh appeared on them & skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then He said to me, 'Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, & say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds & breathe into these slain, that they may live.' So I prophesied as He commanded me, & breath entered them; they came to life & stood up on their feet - a vast army.

Then He said to me: 'Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up & our hope is gone; we are cut off.' Therefore prophesy & say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves & bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, My people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves & bring you up from them. I will put My Spirit in you & you will live, & I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, & I have done it, declares the Lord.'"

-Ezekiel 37:1-14

I cannot stop thinking about this passage & every time I pick up my Bible, I have to read it. It is incredibly powerful because I believe the Lord is declaring that He is reviving His people & He needs us, His servants, to help bring these dry bones to life again! We MUST step up to the plate. The world is waiting to be breathed into; are we willing to put all aside to revive the dry bones of this world?

Monday, July 25, 2011

a rough, but blessed life.

Man, these past couple of weeks have been rough, even to the point of my breaking down in tears! Various stressful things happened all at once & I am absolutely exhausted/burnt out from work. As I'm still trudging through some things, I am looking back on it feeling incredibly blessed. I can't help, but believe that God is bringing me through fire resulting in a deeper relationship with Him; although, I hate to admit, I have not had the best attitude. Let's just be honest here. . .I have been flat out grumpy. I knew I was grumpy, but I didn't realize how much of everything I was attempting to take on myself until I read my devotional for July 21. Oswald Chambers writes,

"As long as we have some self-righteous idea that we can carry out our Lord's teaching, God will allow us to continue until we expose our own ignorance by stumbling over some obstacle in our way. Only then are we willing to come to Him as paupers & receive from Him."

This passage, one of many, nailed me to the wall (ha ha) because it is so evident in my life these past couple weeks. I convinced myself that I was giving it all to the Lord, when in reality I was trying to handle most of it on my own; when I stumbled over some of these circumstances in my life, my tight grip on them was revealed (in my own opinion of myself, that was complete ignorance). Time & time again the Lord has taught me to hand it all over & I have yet to get it right, but goodness gracious, do I learn each & every time! In the previous passage, he says, "Only then are we willing to come to Him as paupers & receive from Him," & I can't stop thinking of how beautiful our Father is because when we give things, situations, circumstances, people, & etc. to Him, we are actually receiving something back: peace, love, grace, mercy, rest. . .the list goes on & on! Another thing I realized was that I was trying really hard to pass off that I was doing good & that I was strong, rather than being real & saying life felt like hell this past week. . .I mean, c'mon! Why the heck was I not real with myself, with the Lord, & the people around me?!

". . .having such a sense of absolute futility that we finally admit, 'Lord, I cannot even begin to do it.'" -Oswald Chambers

I know you've heard it over & over again, but it is so vital, especially in our relationship with Christ; we must be able to admit that we cannot even begin to successfully get through things on our own. Chambers continues to write:

"This is the doorway to the kingdom, & yet it takes us so long to believe that we are actually poor! The knowledge of our own poverty is what brings us to the proper place where Jesus Christ accomplishes His work."

That is where the blessings come in; Jesus is accomplishing His work, His molding & refining of us, when we are poor in spirit. It is such a blessing & I feel so loved that Jesus doesn't just leave me here with a hurting heart & poor in spirit, but instead He carries my burdens & He uses this as a chance to shape me into the woman He intended me to be. I will be the first to admit that I still don't understand it, I'm still grumpy & worn out (it's something Jesus & I gotta work on together, ha ha!), but I feel so much better knowing that I absolutely cannot do this on my own & that I'm being molded. I'm sure if clay were a living organism, it wouldn't feel too great being pushed, pulled, tossed, thrown all around, & etc. (you get the point), but boy, is it a beautiful piece of art when it's finished (depending on if you have skills, ha, just kidding, but seriously. . .I'm terrible with clay. I can't sculpt worth a darn - - but you get that I'm saying our Father is the bomb-diggity when it comes to art). It doesn't feel so awesome when He is molding us, but He does it because He can't wait to see how beautiful we'll end up being. (: Makes me giggle, ha!

UPDATE: I have my plane ticket & I'm flying to Tokyo December 5! Another awesome thing. . .I bought domains (.com, .org, .net) for a photography website that I'll hopefully have up & running in a couple months. I'm preparing to move home with my parents & guess what?! I'm headed to Alaska (in 2 weeks) to road-trip back with my legit friends, Mikey & Spencer, through Canada, Washington, Oregon, Idaho & so forth! Can't wait to spend time with these awesome guys & have the most epic road-trip ever! Also, my rad friend Caleb Fenske designed my new logo:
 
New name, new vision, same beautiful God!
I can't wait to see where the Lord takes His vision of reaching people through photography!
Thank you for all the prayers! Love you all.

YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW AT: http://yeshuaphotography.tumblr.com/

Monday, July 18, 2011

Photo.

So I haven't posted any new photos to my flickr & I felt as if though it needed something new, therefore, a new photo is posted :) check it out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pianoplayinabby/5949659426/in/photostream 

One of the kids I work with :) we went ice skating on Friday!
It's of my friend Gregory. . .he's pretty legit if I do say so myself. Thanks guys :) short post, but I'm just so excited about the new photo! :) wellllllllll, g'night!


Welcoming in July by watching the sunrise with
 my beautiful friend Haley; God is so epic.




Saturday, July 16, 2011

Good Morning!

What a beautiful morning it is here in Colorado & I want to soak it all in! I decided to blog this morning because it has been awhile since I have posted anything! So much has been going on & it's incredible to see how the Lord works in such perfect ways!

My life is changing so quickly; this past week has been a tough week as I am learning what it is to live a life of sacrifice! When I wrote it down on my prayer request board, I had in mind a slow & easy process, yet God doesn't work that way & I should have seen it coming, ha ha! He has been placing opportunities to sacrifice something almost every single day. For example, I am in love with the city I live in & I love the people more than anything here; however, the Lord is asking me to sacrifice it all to go somewhere else before I move to Japan. Honestly, I'm having the hardest time doing it. I hate to admit it, but it's true. I don't think I have ever had this difficult of a time sacrificing something, but I know it's because He has a better plan in mind & it may not be a plan for me, but for someone else! How exciting is that?

I have been so incredibly busy with work & figuring the next few months out! This awesome friend of mine created a logo/watermark for me & I am so excited to share it with you all! Another praise report: last night I purchased my ticket to Japan! Thank you so much for praying for me & I just love you all. That's all I can say, ha ha! Well I gotta go meet my beautiful friend Lorie for a date this morning! :)

 Hopefully I have more time this weekend to go into more detail, but for now I just wanted to say good morning to all of you who read this & tell you that I'm praying for you, believe it or not! :) 

Have a blessed day!
You can also read at: http://yeshuaphotography.tumblr.com/