finally my new years resolutions

Talk about being a tad late with sharing my new years resolutions,

 but like I said a few posts back I was going to finally make some this year and share them with all you lovely people!

I took a lot of time to consider what I wanted to "do" or do differently in 2013 and they aren't super incredible but they are significant to me so here you go :) 

2013 New Years revolution resolutions:

- to grow in my intimacy with the Lord and receive his grace, like REALLY receive it. 

I've received Gods grace, because whether or not I choose it He still covers me with it but this year I want to make a choice to really receive it. For me that looks like believing He loves me when I don't love myself, to know that I can do the things he's called me to because he has supplied me with the grace to do it, and to have grace with others. 

- Be healthy

this one is not just physical health, its emotional, spiritual, physical and mental health. I want to not only take care of my body but also take care of the rest of me. I want to speak life, to encourage myself and through that encourage others. I want to talk through tough things with close friends and family and be super open and humble before the Lord, not trying to hide anything.

- Not drink alcohol

this year I am choosing not to drink. Not because its bad, because drinking in moderation isn't bad. But that's exactly what I struggle with.. drinking in moderation is a challenge for me. It has been since I was 13 and this year I became aware of the fact that I haven't ever fully laid it down. This one is a big deal because its been an emotional support for so long. Not a healthy one but it has been, I wouldn't get drunk every time something was going on in me emotionally but I would turn to the thought or the comfort of being able to put off my emotions through a drink here or there. I realize that God wants me to go to him for that and that's what I'm going to do. 

So here's to 2013! 

(raising a glass... of apple juice..haha) 

A new year and new beginnings.

 I pray you all would be immensely blessed and that all of you would have the strength to stick to your resolutions! 

Delayed post... Its a good one :)

Talk about an extremely delayed post! Sorry about that! 

I got back to LA on the 7th of this month only to jump right back into school!

It has been great being back, we went through the book of Hosea and are currently going through Isaiah. The book of Isaiah is a beast, let me tell you! This week has full of class, homework, eating and sleeping :)

So a bit about Hosea.. Hosea is an incredible book, it is God showing his intense love for his people! 

Hosea was a faithful man of God and God told him to marry a prostitute that would cheat on him time and time again. That is how Israel was acting towards God, he longed for deep and intimate relationship with them but they were playing the role of a prostitute and continued to break Gods heart. God was telling them how he was constantly there and would continue to take them back after each time they turned from him. His love is everlasting and we can see it so much through this book.

Maybe you've been in a situation like Hosea was in; you are in a relationship and the person you dearly love does something that breaks your heart, or maybe even cheats on you. It seems like they weren't considering you at all... and you're thinking "how could they not think about me? After all we've been through, they would break my heart like this??" 

That is the worst feeling ever. Whether its in a romantic relationship or a friendship- it is heart breaking. To see the one you love and want with your whole heart walk away from you. 

If I were Hosea, I don't think I could have taken Gomer (his wife) back after she cheated so many times. But God had called Hosea to that marriage, just like we are called to a "marriage" with God and no matter how many times we cheat on him with other things he will still take us back. He has made a covenant with us to never leave us or forsake us, to comfort us when we are in pain, to help us, lead us and protect us. Hopefully after cheating on God multiple times we could understand how it breaks his heart and that would compel us to flee from our hazardous ways. But I know from my own life that I continue to cheat on God... even with the knowledge of him and how it breaks his heart, I still make mistakes and choose my own way. That's where His grace comes in, His grace makes a way for me to go back to God time and time again in the midst of my crap and not choosing Him. He not only wants me to come back to him after I've "prostituted" myself, but HE also makes a way for me to get back to Him.

 What an incredible God, that He would love me/us so much, and continue to pursue me/us even while we are blatantly not choosing Him. That is amazing to me, I don't deserve that, and I cant earn that... its His free gift to me.. all I can do is respond. I can respond in love and loyalty. Constantly trying to love him through all I do, making a choice daily to follow Him.. and when I make poor choices or do something that hurts Him to always go back to Him and not allow my crap to make a wedge between my relationship with Him.

That's what I saw and learned about the Lord through the book of Hosea; God is passionately pursuing us, he formed us, provides life for us, and on top of it He wants to bless us.

If you are reading this and you don't have a relationship with the Lord, I encourage you to talk to God, to ask Him into your heart and to be the Lord of your life. Being a christian isn't about being perfect or "being good" its about having a relationship with Jesus Christ who is God and loving him and mostly letting him love YOU. 

God isn't interested in you for what you can do right or for what you can do for him, He's interested in you for YOU. Because He really likes you.. for who you are.. where you are at RIGHT NOW. 

:) 

New Years Eve :)

Happy 2013!! (almost)

The New Year is coming and it is so exciting. I love it so much because it gives me such an amazing sense of hope for the new things that will begin in the year to come. Its a time where people decide to change things, to begin new adventures, and to make new goals.

I was looking on someones instagram this morning and this person had put up a list of her new years resolutions and it was so happy :). So many of the things she wrote were to better herself FOR other people and for the Lord. It was seriously beautiful and motivating for me.

I rarely ever make new years resolutions because I don't always keep them, so I just stopped doing it. But you know what?! God showed me something through that! I don't make them because I am afraid of failure, I'm afraid I wont accomplish them so I don't even set myself up for that. THAT IS SO SILLY! I haven't been taking risks, I haven't been setting myself up to succeed! In order to move forward it requires great faith and stepping into something that might even look IMPOSSIBLE. 

That is why New Years is exciting, because its a time for risk and CHANGE. I desire change and growth within myself but I won't ever see it if I don't take that step forward. 

THANK YOU JESUS.

I love new understanding and revelation. 

SO.. I'm going to do it, I'm going to make some New Year resolutions. When I do I will post them up and hopefully it will not only be encouraging for me but for you too :) 

RESOLUTION: res·o·lu·tion  

/ˌrezəˈlo͞oSHən/

Noun

A firm decision to do or not to do something.

Synonyms

decision - determination - resolve - solution

me and my mama at church, shes an angel. 

Check it out! Santa showed up at church, SAY WHAT?! Santa knows Jesus is KING. 

Christmas eve Tamales before watching the Santa Claus :) 

Christmas morning glory. Thank you Lord. 

Sort of blurry but my friend from middle school had a handsome baby boy that I was finally able to meet :) 

New Years Eve = New Years Socks =Warm feet and a happy me :)

Christmas Parties & Sweet Goodbyes..

                                        

                                 

7 days til Christmas!!

Can you believe it!? Oh my word that happened fast. 

The first quarter of my school is officially over this Friday; we wrapped up by getting into the minor prophets. When we return from Christmas break we will dive back into the Old Testament and finish it. 

It has been such an amazing past 3 months; God has been so incredible and loving to me. 

Before starting this bible school I felt a bit lost and unsure about my future, I've known since I became a christian in 2008 that I am called to full-time missions but during the past year I went through a lot of ups and downs and spent a lot of time seeking God on what he had for me next. 

  God taught me how to be patient while waiting for His direction and I am so thankful that  his plan was for me to dedicate 9 months to studying his word! Learning the word of God has been so foundational and key in preparing me for the future. I have been so blessed and filled up by studying the word!

Thank you Jesus! 

To conclude the first quarter of the school we are having a mini outreach throughout this week. We as a class are breaking into groups and teaching people how to study the Old Testament. Today I taught about the Kings in the Old Testament; it really fired me up and got me excited about learning more of the word! I love teaching and telling people about the way God has been so faithful throughout history. Its sooo great!

                                  

My boyfriend David left to China for three months last Monday. He is leading a team with two other guys; they took a bunch of amazing Christian skateboarders to preach the gospel to people and  specifically skateboarders over there. I am so in awe of their team, they are so passionate and so real. They love God and have an amazing gift of connecting with people through their gift of skating.  

You can hear about them at Callingallskaters.blogspot.com

It was really sad to say goodbye to David and I miss him a lot :(, but I am soo thankful that we are both doing what God has called us to do in this season. 

Below I added some pictures from two Christmas parties that I went to. The first one was the YWAM staff party... I was able to go because David is on staff here :).

The second one was a party that my class had and my friend and I decided to dress up tacky instead of formal! It was so great. 

I hope you have a wonderful week :)

Jessica, Dorothea, me, and Nova at the Christmas party

David and me :) 

My class had our own party and you could either dress tacky or formal.. My friend Melissa and I chose tacky :)

Melissa and me with our incredible school leader, Megan. The three M's!

Christmas is coming!

19 days until Christmas, can you believe that?! Time really flies. I am so excited because my mom blessed me with a Christmas present of flying me home to Colorado for the holiday. I can't wait!! 

I like the picture above because it is the way Southern California is, not very cold.. no snow.. and some days you could actually go to the beach. I think the only 'weather' we experience here for the winter season is rain. This week it has been raining a lot, it makes me want snow.

I have a two week Christmas break from the 21st of December to the 7th of January, I am really looking forward to it. I'm also quite nervous for it because the day break is over I am supposed to have my next quarter of school paid for... which is 1500 dollars and the thing is I have NO IDEA where its going to come from. I have been praying a lot and have once again realized that I struggle with trusting God for finances even though He's provided in the past. I know its the holiday season and money can be tight but if any of you would like to donate to my school fees you can do it easily through this blog or on the YWAM LA website: https://ywamla.org/donatepay/. It would be greatly appreciated. 

So speaking of school it is going well!  We were in 1st and 2nd Kings last week. They are pretty intense books... very similar to the book of Judges. They are both cycles of people not choosing God but doing what is right in their own eyes. Which I think everyone in the world does; including myself. It is amazing to learn how to revere God, but it really shows me that I don't seek Him or have reverence for HIm in all that I do. Its a process and I am definitely a work in progress.

Through the book of Kings I also noticed a trend... compromise. Each bad king and even some of the good ones compromised their morals for the affection and favor of the people they were leading. For example in 2 Kings 14.3 "He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like his ancestor David. The high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and made offerings on high places."

The high places are the places for idol worship. So see, he was even good! This king did what was right in the sight of the Lord but not fully!! Weird, huh? Yeah so I noticed a theme of compromise throughout the book and it really challenged me. I know I compromise in my faith with God, maybe not huge ways but small compromises pile up and turn into large ones. 

 I know sometimes I compromise in how I love people, for example if I'm at Starbucks and I could buy my friend a drink but for some reason I don't because I fear money. Not only is that compromise in the way I love but its not trusting God for money. Whoa.

 I'm not going to analyze myself and find all of my shortcomings,because I have far more than just not always loving well.. haha. But I think I'll start to notice more of the compromises I make that God may be pinpointing, and work on them. You can join me if you would like? :) 

Have a great Thursday!

happy december!

Happy December! 

Sooo I was trying to think of what to write in this blog and I thought I would share an assignment that I had to do for the book of Job last week. Job was is a really incredible book. It can be confusing and I think like most people, I don't fully understand it. But something that I think is cool about it is the fact that it is in the Bible for a reason; so as much as I question it I also think it is really amazing and has purpose.  

One of the assignments we had to do was write about a time in our walk with God that we went through a time of testing or suffering. I have only been a christian for almost 5 years so there hasn't been a whole lot of suffering but I thought of something and I'm going to share with you the essay I wrote. :) Enjoy:

    The most severe time of testing I have been through in my four year walk with God would have been the time after my engagement ended a year ago. It was October 2011 when I called off the engagement to a guy that I had been with for a bit over a year and engaged to for 4ish months, it was a difficult decision and was a life changing one for sure.

  My past of complete brokenness didn't set a very sturdy stage for that relationship. I had done two training schools with YWAM and staffed two DTS’s but I was still not at a place that I was able to take on a new and serious relationship. It was an amazingly beautiful and painful relationship that revealed to me where I actually was in my hearts healing process.  I learned that the things that had been done to me as a child were still open wounds that I hadn't allowed to heal. All of the pain and distrust that were in that relationship were a direct result of the things that I had gone through when I was younger and without the Lord as my savior. I didn't know how to receive love, give love, and I couldn't believe that someone could purely adore someone of the opposite sex. After a year on the roller coaster of that relationship I realized that there was no way I could enter into a marriage being as broken as I was, so I ended it. It wasn't as if God had spoken and said end that relationship, nobody was telling me to, in fact people were encouraging me not to; it was a very confusing and hard decision to make. I remember asking God if I could be done because my heart was so tired from trying to figure out how to go forward. So many pieces of my heart were not put together; I felt like God allowed me to end it and I did.

  The time after that relationship ended was one of the most challenging times in my walk with God. I was so lost, I didn't understand if what I had done was right or wrong, I was a mess and didn't know how to get back on my feet. All of the temptations that I had dealt with and gave into from before I was a Christian came up again. I began drinking heavily, living extremely recklessly, hurting the people around me with the choices I was making and I was afraid to go to God. My prayers were short and desperate; everything in me ached with confusion. One night while I was taking a shower I broke down to God and said that I didn't want to live the way I was living anymore, I poured out my heart to Him. I was angry, broken and so depressed;  I knew something needed to be done. I finished my lament to him by saying I can’t do this anymore and his response was perfect! He said clear as day, “Then change it.” Whoa, so simple but so radical to my brain at that time.

  From that time on I was determined to change it, with so much help from my sister, her husband, and an amazingly talented professional therapist I began the journey back. The counsel that was given to me during that time was the most solid and helpful counsel I had ever gotten in my life. None of the people I was talking to addressed the issue of the ended relationship at hand; they all took a deeper look. My therapist took me back to the places in my past where I had been hurt and he walked me through the healing process of those things. Each week that I visited my counselor he looked at the fruit that was a product of the deep rooted event that had happened in my past. He didn't help me just cut the fruit off, he helped me pull up the ENTIRE root. It was painful but so needed. My sister and her husband took the role of being there to comfort and encourage me when I felt as though I was faltering. I would have days that seemed to go on forever and I thought that I wasn't going to be able to continue on with the healing that God was giving me. Sometimes I was so sad and confused about all that had happen that I didn't want to turn to God; but He always gently nudged me to keep going.  I questioned God a lot in that time; I questioned the things that I thought he had spoken to me and wondered if I had completely missed something. Some days I would be really angry at God, not only for the relationship but for the things that had happened in the past that left me so broken and unable to relate at that time in a romantic way.

   During all that time of healing I realized how much grace God had with me; He showed it especially through my sister and her husband who I took a lot of my anger out on. They were so patient with me and reminded me constantly that it would take time and time was not a bad thing. I thought I had an idea of what my life was going to look like, I was sort of leaning on that and when it all ended I realized just how much God loves me and wants me to look to him for my future and in that I would find complete peace and wholeness.  In that time I also learned that I am a fighter, a stubborn fighter but still a fighter. I go after the things I believe in; the stubborn part of the fighter in me is if I don’t believe in something even if it’s true, it takes a lot of urging to get me going. Gods working on me though ;). 

  Some advice I would give to someone who is about to go through the same thing as I did or is in it right now would be to not give up. It sounds cheesy but it’s so true. DO NOT GIVE UP. Have grace with yourself and take it step by step… Eventually you will look back and see that each step you took was a part of a mile.. Which turned into two or three miles and before you know it you are in a completely different state from where you came from!  God is gracious and gentle with us. Always remember that.

So there it is folks! One of the assignments I did for Job. I haven't spoken about many personal things on here yet, but I am willing to. The relationship/engagement I was in was super important and a big part of my life.. and it wasn't that long ago. I am open to talking about it, because I do feel like I've learned a lot from it. But I'm not finished, like I said in the essay some days were really hard and still some days are difficult. But this time, instead of turning to my own devices I take time to spend with God and the people around me that remind me that it just takes time. 

:)

My beautiful sister Jessica. I am so thankful for her everyday. I look up to her and learn from her constantly- She is INCREDIBLE. I am sooooo blessed to have her as my sister and best friend. 

Me at Big Bear last week hoping to see snow but there wasn't any.. I like this picture.. my sister takes tons of pictures of me all the time which is super helpful for blogging.. this one is sort of artsy ;)

Happy day after Thanksgiving! 

I hope you had such a wonderful time celebrating.

I had a great Thanksgiving.. The pastor of a local church invited a group of us over to enjoy dinner with his family :).

We ate a huge meal, played a game, had dessert and to finish it off we all worshiped together! It was by far one of the best Thanksgivings yet! 
a few things I am so thankful for.. 
-My mom. She is AMAZING. I love her soo much, she takes care of me so well and is always there for me.
-my sister Jessica and her hubby Shaun.. they are so wise and I learn from them everyday. I'm amazed by their lives and walk with God.
- My incredible boyfriend. he's so sweet to me and shows me Gods pure love. I'm super happy to be with him. :) 
-My dog Lucy. Dogs are the best ever.
-Friends! I love friends! They are so fun
-annddd a lot of other things. but these are on my brain right now. 

Thank you, Lord. 

So I wanted to share some pictures and let you know that if you would like to contact me you can email me at M_Wilson797@yahoo.com.

 I'd give you my phone number on here too but I'm not sure how safe that is haha.

 Anyway I'd love to chat with anyone that wants to! I dont have Facebook so it would be awesome to hear what you all think of the blog, and if you have any questions about what I'm doing email or phone works :)

Have an amazing weekend!

Thanksgiving dinner :)

Jessica and I at Starbucks taking a picture for our dad :)

Worship time-- to thank God for everything he has done

Just a little something about me-- I love sweet things and coffee. So put them together and you have the best drink in the world!  :).