Overwhelmed on My Birthday!

I am just in awe of the goodness of God. I am so overcome with His love at times that I feel like I'm going to explode with praise in response to His utterly overwhelming love for me. FOR ME. Not just love in general like 'God loves everybody' but with the personal experience of His love burning and pursuing and chasing me down every minute of every day. Seriously, I can't think of ANY plausible reason why someone wouldn't want a relationship with Jesus... unless of course they just haven't seen Him for themselves. I understand why people wouldn't want the religious version of Jesus that has been unfortunately portrayed by many well-meaning Christians - Christians who have either tasted and forgotten what it was like or maybe have had the misfortune of being so beaten and trodden down that they've forgotten their first love. I am so convinced that if people could see Him as He really is that they would be beating down the doors of every church begging to know this Man for themselves. He is THAT GOOD! And then some.

What has caused this 'outburst' you may ask? All I did was lie down for a short break about 15 minutes ago because I knew I had to wake my boys up from their naps shortly and I asked God the question, "What do you want to show me about Yourself today because I know your goodness and mercy is pursuing me every single day of my life and I don't want to miss it...' and I just got hit with the overwhelming sense of His outrageous love for me. It is so beyond anything I could ever have imagined apart from the actual experience that I am lost for words sometimes. If you are reading this, I just want to tell you that God is waiting to pounce on you with His extreme goodness and His extreme, unreasonable blessing and love so that you may be a walking, living, breathing revelation of His heart to the world around you. People who see THIS God in you won't be running away, they will be begging to know Him for themselves. I pray that even as you read, that the Holy Spirit would jump through these words and attack you with His goodness and leave you completely ruined for anything less than the fullness of the life He died to give you in the here and now! Happy birthday to me! Happy life to you!

Reflections

Tonight is the eve of my 36th birthday. One year ago I made the decision to live in peace and to pursue it at all costs. I also made the decision to 'blog' about my journey as a means of sharing my experiences with others as well as developing my skills as a writer. Looking back over this year, I'm not only amazed at how quickly it has passed, but also at the changes in my life as a result of this decision. I'll be the first to admit that I haven't always remained in a state of peace, in fact, I've wandered far from it many times. But one thing I have developed is a keen awareness of my emotional state at any given moment. Not in an obsessive sort of way, but rather an internal thermostat if you will, one where peace is the 'set temperature' and any deviance from that by more than a couple of degrees sets off an alarm of sorts that lets me know I need to take the appropriate measures to restore that setting to its rightful position. I never realized how much I had ignored or suppressed emotions until I made a definite decision to influence them towards a positive end. There is so much power in sheer acknowledgment! I am so much more aware and honest with myself - and others- and 'owning' where I've been at internally has made a huge difference in dealing with the junk and moving on. I am going to take the next few days to really contemplate the changes in my life because I know there are many and I'm interested in taking stock. I will attempt to blog about anything I see that's been significant but for now, I just wanted to check in and celebrate the journey so far. I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for me!