remember

quote of the day:

"You be the lady that God has called you to be.
So what if he wants to leave? Let him leave!

Sometimes we try to hold onto things that God is really trying to tear apart.

I dare you to trust God. Believe. Just trust Him."

[Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself]

Renew

I found a passage in the bible that the Lord has just thrown in my face the past few days...
First my mom told me of this verse when I was speaking on the phone with her very upset over some problems with a friend.
Then the very next day Pastor Les had an AMAZING sermon and it was the first verse He spoke of.
Then I was reading my bible last night and decided to read the whole chapter and that very verse was highlighted in that Bible. AND this is a Bible I have very rarely wrote/marked/highlighted anything in, in fact I could only find one other passage besides that one highlighted out of the whole Bible. It was like God was striking me on the head!!

Romans 12:2 (New Living Translation)
2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Or I really like the word renew used...

Romans 12:2 (Today's New International Version)
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...

I just find this as a beautiful teaching that the Lord is giving me. I am so blessed. So this is my prayer: for the Lord to renew my mind, my ways, and alter my life.


PS :: I really hope the snow does not hit us as bad as the weather men say it is supposed to (two feet!). We [Trinity REAL Worship Choir] have worked very hard for Christmas Eve services and I, and everyone else, am extremely excited. I don't want it to be postponed!!!

heartfelt

I can not even describe how crazy blessed I feel and how thankful I am.

God has just been molding me and working on me this past year and I feel completely changed. I feel strong and whole. I am still working on who He wants me to be, but I know I am more than one step closer. And the joy, the unspeakable joy, I have felt, especially in this past week, is just so amazing. One thing is I know I'm not just growing up but I am growing up with Him. I feel Him in me and with me, it is something so indescribable but beautiful. I just have all these random, heartfelt emotions. I don't feel so lost anymore, because He has FINALLY told me that I am right where I need to be even though I have no idea why. But I don't feel the need to question Him, I know it's all right.

One thing that I have been bothered by is judgment. Judgment from my peers and judgment I have been doing myself. I know I have a problem judging others, as everyone else does, but I also have a problem judging me. Lately I have felt people of my peers have been completely judging me wrong, it's caused me to take a step back, some hurt, and has given me some anxiety. But on Saturday night, when I was praising the Lord, He spoke to me...it was so so clear what He said::

"Do not be concerned about the judgment of others- they do not see you as I do. You are My beautiful daughter, valuable to Me, and that is all the matters."

What an AWESOME thing to hear God say. It was just so surreal to hear, it was just what I needed. Why do I care about what others think of me? Honestly no one truly knows me but God and maybe my mom and some of my closet girlfriends. If people don't want to take the time to get to honestly know me, and just want to judge me...it's okay- that is their problem!!! I need not worry. I need to just keep seeking God and asking Him to mold me and create me into who He wants me to be.

I'm happy, so happy. And so blessed that He is with me. I'm truly grateful.

set free

I've dealt with some form of extreme anxiety my whole life. It's in the family, it's something natural. I've had anxiety attacks when I can't move, I lose control, where I've hit people, I shake, and my heart rate skyrockets.

Then the Holy Spirit filled me (say 3 months ago or so), He worked in me and He has set me free. Little things or even the big things that bothered me and caused anxiety issues, just don't anymore. I confess, I've had a couple minor anxiety attacks but it is nothing like before...nothing nearly as intense. Last Friday my friend Micah prayed for me, and he got this word from God telling me to 'not worry'...and it's like I knew, I knew THANK YOU LORD, I knew it was God. I feel freedom. I feel peace. Honestly right now some things are crashing down around me and typically I should be worrying, I should be freaking out. But I know that God has it taken care of. I know He has my back, my best interest in mind...so why worry?

And for me to even be saying that, is simply incredible.

It's complete freedom.



http://www.iamsecond.com/#/seconds/Michelle_Aguilar/

God's breakdown

What a beautiful breakdown.

Friday, 8-21-09


I was at Converge and the worship team was singing/playing a song, "I Will Exalt You" (Hillsong), and it just started. The tears. God absolutely wrecked me, in such an amazing way. He ripped my heart apart and opened my eyes. I left the room and just started to burst into hysterical crying. All I could do was cry. It wasn't out of sadness or hurt or any such negative thing. I could just so strongly feel God working in me. I'm so grateful. He was showing me things about myself that I need to encounter. So I sat in the hallway for 30 minutes with tears that couldn't go away. I got prayer from a friend and it just made me so happy that he knew what I was going through. Then I sat and just spent some time with God, the very thing I've been missing. An hour of weeping with and for God. I immediately felt cleansed and things were made clear.

I just had never experienced such closeness with God. I am in awe and feel such joy. Speechless. It's an experience I cherish and hope one day to happen again.

this prayer

Oh Lord, I need you so much right now. These tears you see coming out of my eyes right now are hurting me so much. I don't know why I let people get to me Lord, I don't know why I do this. Oh God, you are so good to me. You have healed me time and time again, you are always there for me, you have saved my life. I'm asking for your help some more. I know I ask for your help everyday and thank you Lord for being a rock in my life. But I really need you now God. I need your support. I need you to give me the strength because I feel so weak.

Please open up doors in my life for extra finances. You know how stressed I have been about this Lord. You know the anxiety this has caused me, and thank you thank you for being by my side and teaching me to stay strong. You have been providing so much for me, and I'm so grateful Lord...but God, I'm barley getting by. Lord give me wisdom to budget, give me support on how to spend my money. I know if I just ask, that you'll somehow provide. I have complete faith in you God. I love you so much.

I just want to live my life for you Lord. I'm trying so hard to surrender my life to you. Take it all Lord, take it all.

positive

Let me tell you, I'm am learning that my attitude in life really effects me.

at⋅ti⋅tude  [at-i-tood]

–noun
1. manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, esp. of the mind

My day started off with a headache, stomach ache, and some sleep exhaustion. I was pissed I had to go to work, all I wanted to do was go back to bed. I was not in a good mood. I was mad I had a haircut to do right when I got to work, I was mad at my client for coming in, and I was mad at the world.

Then I stopped, prayed to God to help me get through the day and told myself that I will not have a negative attitude. It completely changed me. Just by not letting myself be negative and to look at things positively, made a huge difference. I became thankful that I had a haircut that contributed to my paycheck, happy to see my client because she is one of the kindest ladies, and began to smile through out the day.

Just by changing my attitude from negative to positive it made my whole mood and emotions go from mad/crappy to happy/thankful.

It felt a lot better being positive than bringing down the people around me.

I am blessed to have a Lord that brings joy to my life.

the works

God is doing a great work in me.

I have found myself having such emotions lately that I have never had. I have found myself crying different tears that I have never shed.

I have cried tears of such joy. The tears that come out are because I feel that God is so so real and so close to my heart right now. I get overwhelmed in a complete joy, that I just cry because I'm so happy that God is in my life.

I have cried tears of pain, but it's not pain from sorrow. It's pain coming from God working in me and showing me what I'm doing. He's completely breaking me open and working on my heart. Showing me that saying that to that person wasn't the right way to go, showing me how to be a better christian and a better me. He is shattering some of my view points, shattering my ways of thinking, shattering the lies that have been placed in my head from the devil, and opening up new doors and new experiences. He is giving me a new life, and sometimes I can't help but cry when he shows me who I am, who I should be, and who He will make me be if I continue to follow Him.

And lately I have cried tears that I don't even know where they come from. It's like I just sit there and start crying but I don't know why. He is showing me that I have greater things in my life to deal with and areas of my life He needs to work on that I didn't even know existed or that I struggled with and I had no idea I was. But He knows I will overcome. So when I cry these label-less tears, it's Him saying "hey this is bothering you, we need to work on this, so stop ignoring it."

I never knew that crying could be so beautiful. I never knew how powerful tears could be. But it's wonderful, and an absolute gorgeous process. God is doing amazing things. And I'm going to keep surrendering my life to Him. No longer do I wonder or question what God is doing, or why He has placed this situation in my life. For I know He is working and molding me into a better self. I could not ask for anything greater.

miracles.

"It's easy when we suffer loss to become the center of our life. We had them and now they're gone. And so there is, like, this giant hole where they once were, and it becomes all we think about. And what happens in the process is, our whole life becomes what we don't have, and we lose out on what we do have. Your heart, my heart...it will recover. It will never, our hearts will never be the same again, but we will recover." ---Rob Bell (Matthew | 012)

I was just thinking how much I miss my dad. But for one of the first times, it was a different kind-of missing him. It's like, my life is so great. I've surrendered my life to God and he's restored me!! I feel so full of joy, and have a loss of worry...and I just want to share that with him. I want my dad to know how incredibly great I'm doing, and what God is doing in my life. And I want to share with him, how great God is. But he's not here, and he hasn't been for four years. Then I started to get sad.

Then I thought more...I truly and utterly believe God's purpose for my dad's cancer and for his death was so that I would love and get to know him. My dad and I didn't get along before he got cancer, in fact, I hated him. Once he got sick, I let it go (the process of forgiveness was long and I actually didn't fully forgive him til after he passed but I was able to look past all the wounds and get to know him). I think that if he hadn't got cancer, I would of moved away and never spoke to him again. But his cancer made me forgive him, his cancer taught me to love him through all the pain.

Now I realize that God's purpose for my dad's cancer wasn't just so I could get to know my dad, but it was so I could get to know my Father, God.

Think about it. I left the church at 16 because I was bitter, angry, I hated my dad, I was treated like crap by him, and inevitably that rolled over to God...meaning, I stopped trusting God, I was angry at him for my wounds. When I was 18, we found out he had cancer right before I left for art school in Minneapolis, 7 months later I came back to be with my family. I was still bitter, angry, and all of the above but then I saw my dad's heart. I saw how the cancer softened his heart, how it changed him and how he was truly sorry for the pain he caused me. God restored his heart. Dad died when I was 20, at which I was at UNL going down a scary path, with no God in sight. One day about 8 months after he died, I woke up and decided to end that path. I moved to Omaha and applied for hair school. Move forward a year later and we meet Megan Smith. I was at a point in my life where I was hungry for more, but didn't know what it was....Megan sat in my chair wanting her hair colored and I noticed a bible verse tattooed on her. I asked her about it, she invited me to church, then a few months later, I was re-dedicated to Christ and baptized.

Do you think if my dad hadn't got cancer I would be where I'm at now?

I honestly don't know where I'd be but I'm very aware God placed this circumstance and that situation in my life so I would be where I'm at now- fully surrendered to Him, running towards the light, and wanting to tell the whole world of how great God is. God restored my heart. And without cancer, without the loss of my earthly dad, I'm afraid my heart would of remained bitter, angry, and full of hatred towards both of my dads. But the Lord, oh the Lord does miracles.

advice kept.

"you gotta let HIM lead..you can't put the cart before the horse. you just gotta give Him you ALL and let him take the wheel"

Jesus, he said, “is there, and there, and there ... it’s the Kingdom of God, I can’t point down a path and say ‘That’s where it’s at.’ It’s within us and among us. It’s wherever you are.

"sorrow looks back, worry looks around, faith looks up."
____________________________________________________________________________________

i have a past, a present, and a future.
one of them i can't change; one of them i'm living in;
and the other is in the hands of God.
to say my life belongs to me would be a lie.

i am who i am today,
because of who i was yesterday.
i'm not always proud of my past, but
i love my present, and i look forward to my future.

i'm a broken person.
i have no problems admitting that.
this life isn't about fixing that brokenness,
it's about admitting that you're broken,
and surrendering your life to love,
to God.

God is love,
love is life,
life is good.


i've dealt with a lot of feelings and emotions.
frustration, sadness, anger, rage, disappointment,
contentment, happiness, tears, laughter, pain,
loneliness, compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation,
redemption, perseverance, ridicule, mockery, humiliation,
harrassment, judgment, the list goes on...
i've dealth with them in many different ways.
i've grown sick of apathy and passiveness.
i've grown sick of bad attitudes and yelling and shouting.
i've grown sick of breaking things and being angry.

so, i've turned to God, countless times. and you know what?
he's been there, every single time.
he's given me life, love, wealth beyond measure.
sure, i still feel all of those emotions, far too often.
i still slip and fall from time to time.
but God is there every time, to pick me up.

i've come to terms with the fact that i can't be perfect.
i'm not invincible; i'm not infinite.
i'm not everything i wanted to be.
but i'm thankful for that.

contentment

I am just so incredibly ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That's my way of saying I don't even have words of how I feel. Content, satisfied, happily overwhelmed with life! Being alone scared me, terrified me and was so lonely, it was so hard on me. I'm alone right now and I don't feel lonely but the greatest thing is that I don't even feel alone. Because I know I'm not alone, He is right here with me. It's a glorious feeling. I can't even thank God enough but I'm sure going to try to.


And last night was great as well. I went to Converge (Young Adult Org. at church), after service I was talking to my friend Kelly and our conversation really encouraged me. She came up to me and asked how I was, I told her about how my life has really changed and how I just surrendered it all to Him....she was nearly in tears telling me how she's been praying for me and how happy she was to here that my life was changing for the better with God. She even said she could just see the differene in me, that my whole sense about me has brightened. It was so fabulous to know someone that has supported me and had such hope for my life, could see God work in my life and mold me. I feel so close to God...

almost midnight

Oh man, I'm outside right now on my balcony. Ethernet cord streched out here because of no wireless signal, feet kicked up, new patio chair, silence, and the breeze is wonderful. I'm just enjoying the essence of it all. I just feel at such peace. Sometimes I just never take the time to just stop and enjoy it all, enjoy what God created. You think of everything going on in your life, this and that, but you never just stop and realize how remarkable your life is (good or bad), how remarkable it is that you're even living a life.

I just feel so free. Free of the worries of life, and I know it's just because I'm letting God control my life. He knows what's in store, I can't control it but I can pray. "Lord I want this _________ to happen but if isn't what you want for me right now Lord, or ever, then I know it's for a reason beyond me."

I think I might of figured out a plan for this fall when my lease is up. God plopped this wonderful human, Rachel, in my life. She wants a place to live, I want a roommate, we're both broke and love the Lord. I'm really picky when it comes to moving in with someone but I feel like the Lord is calling me to strenthen my friendship with her. I don't know exactly what the entails, but i'm gonna pray hard about it. And if our plan doesn't work then we know it wasn't God's plan.

I'm just not scared about the future anymore, I'm not running around terrified because I don't know what to do....and it feels so good. I just know He will show me what to do in his own time, He will lead me down the path I need to go. I just know it.

the start

I just feel like this week is going to be so good. Not just this week but the rest of my life!! I feel so incredibly filled with the Holy Spirit and I'm just in awe of Him. I want to seek and chase after the Lord. I honestly can't even describe this feeling I have. The Lord has done wonders in me the past two weeks but even more-so in the past few days. I just want to shout to the world how great he is and how happy he has made me. I am so ready to grow with him and learn.



things on my mind:

I'm not gonna let anyone else get me down. I need to just do what I feel I need to do to keep from being distracted on my walk with God.

Psalm 139...it's amazing. Amazing. God has a plan for me!! "it was written in God's books before we were even born." We just have to trust in Him and accept the victory. I'm not even worried about my future because I know God has it all planned out. I just have to give it to Him.

I'm truly in awe of how God can change people.

I'm not going to fret over people. God is the ONLY one that can judge...no one is perfect. Our calling is to serve Him.

My mom is the most amazing person in my life right now, besides God. I could not of asked for a better example of a role model of God.

Prayer prayer prayer...