Listen to your Soul!

I met with a close friend this morning who has a lot of wisdom. His relationship with the Holy Spirit is amazing and to sit and chat with him this morning opened the eyes of my heart. This past year has been a heavy one with loss. I lost 5 people this past year who I did life with in certain seasons. These were people who owned a part of my heart. They were significant in my growth as a man and they were dear friends and family. I felt the sense of loss when I learned of each of their passings. I am joyful that all of them were believers and are in Heaven, even more reason that my HOPE is in Heaven being real!!

Even though I felt the loss I did not react the way I thought I should have. I believe I wanted to not “GO THERE” if you will. I am not fearful of crying but I do believe I was very fearful of the feeling of loss. I fought off my first friends loss, well the depth of what it really meant to me. Then before I knew it more people were gone. So, today as I shared my heart with my friend, he explained to me that our soul needs to know we can hear it. Our soul speaks to us and when it comes to losing people who are close to us, OUR SOUL needs to know that we hear it. When we don’t hear it and shut that off well we shut off hearing it all together. We go numb and as we live life we miss those opportunities to feel.

My Godmother played a significant part of my life when I was growing up. She showed me pure love and she always demonstrated that to me when I saw her. When I heard of her passing I felt the loss, but the grief was not settling in. Then 2 weeks later my other close friend was gone and it was a snowball effect of numbness. I felt the loss but not the grief and I now know that I was not listening to my soul. Each of my people that passed were close to me but left families behind that they were torn away from. I keep them in my prayers as I know what that grief feels like but because I know, I believe I was choosing, as I said earlier, to not “GO THERE!”

Well the Holy Spirit has been knocking and knocking, while I have just been listening to that knock and then another friend was tragically taken away. I needed to hear the news over the phone like 4 times to make sure I was hearing what I was hearing. Then God started to push that door open instead of knocking. He loves us so much that sometimes He just needs to bust the door down. I know I have a blessed life and continue to know that He Loves me so much. It was important for me to say this because He wants me to know its ok to GO THERE because He will be there with me.

So I am doing something personal between me and God for each of my loved ones that I have lossed and also getting back into the game of serving Jesus! My two Passions, my true passions in life is talking and sharing about Jesus and coaching. As I listen to my soul and allow the Holy Spirit to mend me, I want to share with you that Jesus’ love for us is something that is permanent. I can tell you as I pray for the loved ones of my friends and family that have moved on to Heaven, In my life as I stop and look at the big picture, I am LIVING THE DREAM!! A LIFE GUIDED BY AND FILLED WITH CHRIST! I pray for all of you that have dealt with loss that you would stop and take the time to listen to your soul and allow Jesus to meet with you and sit with you in that grief!

One Love, One King, All Christ!

His Mercies are New Everyday!

One of the hardest truths for me to believe is this. Now, we know God is a God of truth but yet I will choose to believe the lies and not wake up realizing I have a whole new day of mercies set aside for me. This doesn’t give me the freedom to sin, but it gives me the Freedom I have in Christ to always turn to him, daily. I just returned from a youth camp that I have volunteered at for over 20 years. Every time I go it’s a grind and we are always working behind the scenes to make sure everything flows smoothly. We deal with any issues whether it be production, set up, time frames, breakdowns, etc. This takes an average about 30 people behind the scenes so that the campers don’t miss a beat of experiencing who Christ is!

I bring this up because I now see this is a lot of how the Holy Trinity works in our lives. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are constantly battling and positioning themselves in our lives so we can experience the love of God in our lives. They know we will fall but in that fall they just want us to get back up and continue loving on others in our lives and living the call they have put on our lives. What caught my attention was one of my helpers for recreation was a camper last year. So, as we were working the grind and dealing with a lot more than just the Rec Games, he was like I had NO idea that much was going. I said thats how you know it’s being done right, not perfect, but right!

God’s call on my life is to intercede and pray for people, but to also share what He has done in my life. I need to know that He is big enough to cover me and as I step into that light that He will not allow me to be shamed or embarrassed. These will be the things that will cover me and I will feel it in my chest, but Jesus took all of this on and I have to trust that. The more I see people surrender to Him, they just do and don’t question and a part of me feels like that may be happening to me. I love what I do and my life has been blessed by Christ! He has watched over me and loved me in all my victories and defeats. When I step back and look at my dreams and the goals I set out before me, I have reached them and continue to do so.

There are seasons we live in life and I know at 47 I am young and still have much more to do for Jesus. A desire to see Him glorified in all I do. I do struggle with my language and that is mainly because I am NOT putting Him first!! He is put to the side too many times when I am feeling numb. My love for Christ runs deep, it truly does, so it is my faith that has carried me through but now it needs to be my every breath! He loves us so much that He is willing to give us new mercies everyday, which means we must forget about yesterday and know that He will give us another opportunity to GLORIFY Him.