Wanna know a secret...

I don't know about you, and this is probably another one of those 'girl' things, but I absolutely love it when one of my friends comes to me and says 'hey, do you want to know a secret?'  And just to clarify, it is of course something about them and not about someone else otherwise that would be classed as 'gossip' which is something I do not like to participate in!

When a friend wants to tell you a secret it makes you feel special...because they trust you enough to confide in you something close to their heart...they know that you will also hold it just as close to your heart and not tell a single soul.  Girlfriend to girlfriend and no further... its a precious relationship.  As girls we all need this type of relationship in our lives.

But do you want to know something else?  Our amazing God, King of the universe, creator of the world... He wants to tell us some secrets too!  He desires a relationship with each and everyone of us that is close and intimate so that He too can whisper secrets to us... All we have to do is ASK! 

Devine Secrets... between Him and YOU!!

What a precious relationship that is... The God of the universe wants to tell us His secrets... AMAZING!!

I wonder what He will tell me... or you??

ASK HIM & HE WILL....

Jeremiah 33:2-3
This is what the Lord says - the Lord who made the earth, who formed and established it, whose name is the LORD:  ASK ME and I WILL tell you remarkable secrets you do not know about things to come...

Sparkle...Sparkle...

Philippians 2:15&16

Do everything without complaining and arguing so that no one can criticize you. 

Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people...

I love that movie 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' with the gorgeous Audrey Hepburn playing the exquisite role of Holly Golightly.  My favourite scene is the very beginning of the movie where Holly has obviously been out all night and it is still early morning... the streets are quiet and the shops are not yet opened for business... Holly is standing in front of the Tiffany's window eating a croissant while gazing admiringly at all of those gorgeous Tiffany diamonds...

the ones that I can only dream of!

I don't know about you, but I love diamonds...

there is something about their 'sparkle' that just begs for my attention...haha. 

If you have a diamond, or possibly even diamonds, that you wear all the time, which I do in my engagement ring and in my wedding band, you will soon discover that the sparkle that you were so impressed with when you first wore that ring soon begins to fade and it becomes slightly 'dull'.  All the dirt and grim of everyday life begins to build up on and around that diamond and since a diamond can only reflect what is around it... it no longer shines as bright because the light that was once allowed to penetrate through the diamond is shut out and can no longer be seen.  However, if you take that ring and clean it all up, get rid of the grim and dust and build up of life, it once again shines like a brand new one.  You walk around with that flashy diamond on your finger wanting to display it to the whole world!!

Sometimes our lives can become a bit like a dull, not so shiny, diamond ring...

God has called us to live 'clean, innocent' lives like that of a child... but often we let the 'stuff' of life crowd us in.  We let little things start to build up around our shining light... things that people might say in innocence offend us... that movie we watched last week that we should have walked out of... we argue with our spouse about the smallest thing... we yell at our kids 'because we are tired'... and the list can go on.  It all starts to build up around us and we no longer reflect the light of our God.

We need to get rid of this 'stuff' and let our light once again shine in this darkened world...  

God has called us to be SALT and LIGHT. 

We need to shine so bright that we leave a pleasant taste in people's mouths...haha.

If we fill our lives up with the Goodness of God, with His Word, with His Love, with His Peace, with His Joy... If we let the Spirit of God work in our lives... show us where we need to change and let Him clean us up... we can once again be a diamond that SPARKLES!! 

A diamond that shines so bright... illuminating the lives of others... a reflection of God!

DON'T

LET

ANYONE

(OR ANY THING)

DULL

YOUR

SPARKLE

A Glorious Life...

So I was thinking the other day that I hadn't set any goals for 2013 as I usually like to do at the beginning of each year and the longer I thought about it I realised that I honestly didn't feel like doing it and I didn't want to do it... I felt that there was no point and the reason why I was feeling that way was because a couple of years ago my husband and I stepped out of our comfortable lives into the great unknown, to achieve a 'huge' dream that we felt God had asked of us and to date we are still 'out on the water' waiting and working towards making that one dream come true. 

It has been a long and hard slog to say the least and there have been many times when I have wanted to give up and go back to where I was... living where I was comfortable... knowing what I was doing... not having to stress about certain things... etc, etc.... but on the other hand when you feel that God has called you to do something, it is difficult to let that go.  I guess I felt that this one goal had taken up so much space in my life that there wasn't any room for anything else.

So I sat down with my pen... a little reluctant to even start thinking about my dreams and goals and I suddenly remembered a scripture I had seen on Facebook earlier in the day...

James 1:12
God will bless you... IF you don't give up when your faith is being tested.  He will reward you with a GLORIOUS LIFE just as He rewards EVERYONE who loves Him!

WHEN YOUR FAITH IS BEING TESTED...  I feel like my faith has been tested big time over the last couple of years!!!

IF you don't give up... God will bless you!!

A GLORIOUS LIFE... what does that GLORIOUS LIFE look like???

This was my motivation to start to dream again...

I believe that God wants every one of us to love our lives... to be happy with where we are and what we are doing... to have our very own GLORIOUS LIFE but what do we have to do to be rewarded with that GLORIOUS LIFE?

DON'T GIVE UP!!!

Don't give up when the going gets tough... keep on believing... keep on having Faith... keep on praying and trusting... even if you are going through the most incredible testing time... God is still there... He is still in control.  Some of the toughest times of our lives can also be the most fruitful.  I have to keep reminding myself of this all the time!!  My character is being built... God is strengthening me for what is coming... Don't give up on the rest of my life just because one part of it is a little difficult at the moment!

I now have a full page of goals and dreams for 2013... all of them being part of my GLORIOUS LIFE!!

I'm not going to give up!!

And if you haven't guessed by now... getting back to the blogging is one of them.

The Impossible is Possible...

The other night my husband and I were driving home from Brisbane quite late and I was thinking about the fact that since I had written my most recent blog and had been feeling quite good about life, that there was a sudden turn around and I felt like I had been in a real battle.... isn't it always the case that when you feel like you are getting on top of things and God has been speaking to you that something else just happens to come up and you feel like you have taken about 100 steps backwards... even further back than where you started!! 

Anyway... as we were driving along I happened to look up at the sky and saw an almost full moon shining down through a scattering of cloud.  I then had this stupidest thought (stupidest...is that even a word!!?)...

I was thinking that what if there was life on the moon...

it is so far away and so big that someone (or something) up there wouldn't even look like a pin prick from way down here on earth. 

Then I thought... Imagine if you had the earth in your hand...

how powerful would you feel?? 

With all that life you would be holding and just one little squeeze and it would be gone!  

You would kind of feel like some sort of super hero...

maybe even Wonder Woman... but then again...

what about God?? 

God holds then entire universe in His hand...

not just our tiny little earth but all of creation in its entirety!! 

Whoah... hang on a minute... let me just wrap my mind around that thought!! 

If God, our all powerful, loving, caring, God is holding the entire universe in His hand then He must be pretty big huh?? 

Yep... massive, huge, incomparible...

our mind just cannot comprehend the bigness of our God.  

If it could then we would never worry or care about anything because we would

KNOW without a shadow of doubt that GOD is in control. 

He is in control of every single situation in our lives and we really have no need to worry at all.  We can just hand it all over to Him and let Him take care of it...

every single situation...

not just the small ones but also the ones that seem insurmountable to us...

those ones that seem completely impossible.

If only we could keep our minds out of the way... how much easier would it be to believe the IMPOSSIBLE! God wants us to overcome in every area of our lives, we just have to trust in Him.  So, next time I start to stumble and worry and stress... I'm going to picture God holding the entire universe in His hand...

our GREAT, AWESOME, AMAZING, HUGE, ALL POWERFUL, LOVING, CARING,

GIVING, INCREDIBLE (there are no words!)

GOD who wants to bless us and help us all to get where He wants us to be...

overcoming, blessed, abundant,

faith-filled God warriors!!