Reckless Abandonment

Have you ever thought of what reckless abandonment towards the Lord looks like? I recently heard a great teaching on it. The subject really hit home to me and I think abandonment is a lesson we all need to learn.

To really understand what abandonment looks like, we need to know first what it means.


Dictionary.com defined abandon this way:

1. to leave completely and finally; forsake utterly; desert

2.to give up the control of

3. to yield (oneself) without restraint or moderation; give (oneself) over to natural impulses, usually without self-control

So when you say you want to abandon your life to the Lord you are giving up the control you have, forsaking it completely, yielding it wholly to the Lord....

This is a huge undertaking!!! To give up everything in your life and give it to the Lord isn't easy at all.... It's not just giving up the things sinful things that are in our lives, its bigger than that!! It's yielding all your wishes, plans, dreams, your life style, preferences, your very being to the Lord. Giving it all to Him to do with as He sees fit. Not holding anything back, but letting Him have utter control!


WOW! It's mind boggling just writing it out! We live in a society that puts great value on make your own choices, doing your own thing, it's your life to live as you please......
I found this scripture that pretty much sums up how we ought to live "our" life in Christ:

"But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.....I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." ~Philippians 3:7-8, 14

We must let go of everything, offer it up to the Lord, in order to gain all that is Christ!

We have no right to hold anything back from the one who made us! Like I said it is not an easy process nor is it a quick one, but think of how awesome it is to have our whole lives living for Jesus!!

"I have but one desire now–to live a life of reckless abandon, putting all my energy and strength into it."
–Ed McCully, Missionary Martyr

I'm Still Living!!

Well I've done it again! Went to long without a post! I'm so sorry my sweet friends.....

Ok, so I'm going to give you a bit of my life these past months in nutshell... :)

Since I last wrote I have taken a very long bus trip to South Dakota for a Christian music Festival, stayed a while in MN again, went on vacation to the beach, moved away from my family to be a live in helper for my Great-Grandparents (missing my family a good bit right now), found a very encouraging group of christian to fellowship here, and currently I'm going to be helping at crisis pregnancy center soon!

The Lord has been doing such wonderful things in my life!!! Growing me more in Him everyday! Since I can't see my family everyday I learning to lean more on the Lord for companionship, trusting more in Him, and finding new ways fulfill the vision the Lord gave me back in June.

I'm not sure if I shared my vision with you or not so here goes......

While in MN during the summer, the put a burning desire on my heart to be a missionary, to minister to new moms... esp pregnant teen-moms. So these last months of my life have been the Lord growing me in that! I'm the type of person who when given a order wants to jump to the end result right away. In this case being a full time missionary. Well I'm finding that's not how the Lord works. :) He has been molding, shaping and refining me! The bus trip that in total lasted 4days let me get a true glimpse of what the world is really like, how people react to one another, while on it I got into some very interesting conversations :) I got to met teenage moms, people who were on their last dollar, an Amish family, as well as many other colorful people. I got to see how much the Lord must really love us and then wanting to show that to them.....

Now I'm living in a new city, more shaping going on here..... Learning to care for people in all forms of mental health.... patients and trusting that the Lord knows what He is doing are the biggest things on my plate at the moment! My goal at the moment is to stay here through the winter, then go home for a bit and in the spring move to MN to take missionary training.... please pray for me, as this is a huge leap for me to take!

So as you can tell, my life has pretty much exploded in the last little while and the Lord is slowly putting it back together, piece by piece, to better serve Him!!!

I have thought of you all often! I'm hoping now that my life has settled at bit to get back to posting things....but you will have to be understanding if I don't :) I'm going to set up my email and Facebook account on here so you can keep up with me a bit more if you like, and I with you!

I was very encouraged to see that I still have friends and people who stop by this blog..... thank you all!!!!

Let me know how yo all are and what new things the Lord has been bring into your lives!

Your Sister,

Laura

Roses.....

Hello Everyone!

Sorry for the absence of posts this weekend!

This last week has been so busy, but very enjoyable!

On Thursday I was able to go and help a momma with a lot of little ones organize and clean her house for company.

Friday we had a wonderful time celebrating a friends birthday.

And Saturday was spent helping another sweet friend get ready for a fellowship time!

We had a great time being with them and another sweet family!

It was a very encouraging too be with other like minded people.

Anyway, that was my weekend!

I thought I'd share some rose pictures I took the other day!

These roses were so big and they smelled great too!

I really liked this red one. It was as big as my hand!

When you see a rosebud, you know that if you are patient,

soon a beautiful flower will open up and be an enjoyment to all who see it!

But, if we are impatient about seeing this flower bloom we may force it to bloom to early by trying to open it our self instead of letting nature do it.

If this happens the bud is no longer an enjoyment to anyone, because it did not have the proper time to mature and grow.

I see young women this way as well.

If we are patient and let the Lord guide us and mature us in His own timing, we will bloom under His hand.

But if we are impatient about growing up or getting married or whatever, we will end up taking matters into our own hands and trying to force something to happen.

When this happens we take it out of the Lord's hand and we can no longer grow and mature how He had planned. We can end up blemished and broken. God can still fix a broken life, but think of how much time was lost just by our impatient acts.

So, with that being said let us as young women guard our hearts and give the Lord complete rule over our lives. Don't try to act older than you are, be humble and be open to learning. If you are still single, wait on the Lord for your husband. And wait patiently! Don't go "looking".

I think this can be applied to all areas of life really! If we try to make something happen. We usually end up with a big mess and lots of disappointments.

This can be big things like getting married or having a baby, to small things like trying to make a get together work or anything to fill a void in your life.

If it doesn't seem to be working out it is usually not the Lord's timing for it yet!

Prayer.......

I recently had an opportunity to grow in the area of prayer.
A sweet friend passed away not long ago. He had been quite sick. Many people were praying that he would be healed. Well, a few days later he went to be with the Lord. I had a really hard time understanding why even though we had prayed for his healing the Lord took him anyway.
“What ever you ask for in prayer”…..Right?

However, I had forgot the most important thing about praying, that it is all is the Lord’s hands. I can’t make Him do what I want.
I had been demanding toward the Lord, I wanted Him to do things my way. If I had prayed with an open heart then I wouldn’t have gone to the place of questioning the Lord’s will later. I still would have been sad that our friend was gone, but I would have been in a good place in my heart about what the Lord had chosen.

I would encourage you sweet friends to remember that the Lord is like a father, our own fathers wouldn’t like a demanding child, so do you think our heavenly Father would?

This doesn’t mean, not to put our prayers before Him, but to do it such a way that it is with an open heart to what ever the Lord has.
Lord not my will, but yours be done!

A sweet sister sent this quote by Amy Carmichael to my family. It’s really encouraged me as I go through hard struggles or even just the everyday things. I hope this speaks to your heart as much as it does mine!

“All that grieves is but for a moment.

All that pleases is but for a moment.

Only the Eternal is important. A trial comes. It will pass. In a few days, or months, or years, we shall have forgotten it.

But the way we face that trial—our inner attitude towards it—belongs to things that are Eternal. All that we are, all that will ever be, in us and in others, in the entire universe—past, present, and future—is effected for all eternity by how we respond to temptations, or trials, or victories, or defeats.
The issues themselves are irrelevant. The eternal—how we respond in our inner hearts—those are the only things that matter. All else will pass and be forgotten and trivialized by time and space. It does not seem so now.

We feel, ‘If I could only have________.

If only this problem would go away, then_________.”

Yet, we must be reminded of what we know…

The pleasures pass. The trials, though they seem long and difficult, are a vapor. If we could have what we desire, or shed what we disdain, we would, with that attitude, only suffer dreadful loss in the Eternal realm.

The scriptures say, “He gave them their [demanding, insistent] request, but sent leanness into their soul.” Let us look to HIM and invest in the Eternal, not that which only passes away.” ~Amy Carmichael