Graduation

     Hey everyone! So yes, if it is in Gods will, I will be graduating in May! This is an extremely exciting time . . .but I won't lie . . . its a sad one too . .  I mean with Christ's power, I'm ready for life's adventures but I will miss the battle ground I am presently on, a lot . . .

     The school I am currently attending, I have been a student in for four years. I love it . . . It is my God given ministry and battle ground.

     If the Lord calls me to a different place to be in for college, I know so far, this school has been one of my favorite places that the Lord called me to serve in!

     He gave me companions that I shall never forget. They have made an incredible impact in my life and they have simply given me another reason to fight for the kingdom of Heaven. I can't even describe how thankful I am to the Lord for my family that He has put me in and the ministries and friends He has blessed me with.

     Truly, my friends are my family in Christ. The hardest part about college is that the Lord may choose to close this chapter of my life with these people. On the contrary, He may choose not to.

     What I have come to realize is this, I love what I am a part of now but I only have one life here and I must go where God sends me . . .But that makes me so excited because I know first, that I will always have the strength through Him. Second, all these people that I love, I'm about to spend eternity with them  . . . so I don't want to get too board of them yet! Hahaha! Finally, I'll be alright because where ever God puts me is the best place for me.

    I will miss my high school years so much. . . but its ok because God will give me the strength to follow Him and I pray I will remain right next to Him until the end of time.

   Thank you God for my family and friends and the indescribable  blessing and gift they are . . .And to God who looks out for me, loves me, and whose got this!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think this quote is SO true when it comes to the eternal prospective! The beauty of the friendships that Christ provides for us are SO amazing that lets just wait for eternity because there, the relationships will be perfect and we will be with Christ!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I actually forget this all the time but love is selfless so just a reminder that when you say you love a person, love them selflessly, cause that is want love is!

 

 

 

Love, Ash! HAPPY SPRING BREAK!!!

 

 

Thanks! God loves you!:)

 

It Has Been To Long

Hey uhhhh! Its been so long!! Oh my goodness! It's senior year ( which is wonderful) and there is lots of school! Ok so yes I have a YouTube site and I love it! I'm currently checking out colleges and trying to remind myself each day that Gods got it all and I don't have to worry about anything!

 

 

 

Ok so lets see . . .My encouragement and push for you today  . . . First, anxiety does not have to control you! God holds our hearts and its ok! You were never created to live in fear! The Lords wings are enough to cover us! Always!

 

Second, we have to man up! We have to grasp who our father is! We are sent here with the power to move the heart of God! And that is only by his grace and love! He will change to course of time by our request if it is in his devine will! He controls all, we just need to ask and have faith that he can do it and leave to results up to his perfect will! 

 

 

Do you have a broken heart today? Guess what? People aren't meant to be what determines our value! Cause we are all fallen creatures in a sinful world! Of course we are completely new in Christ but we still can sin so ,therefore, still exist in a fallen place!  Its ok! You have been made new through Jesus! He died for you! We have to man up! Know who our Father is and that he hears us! 

 

 

 

Love you all! Have a wonderful love filled week!

 

Love , Ash!

 

 

 

 

P.S. I got to try on some dresses just for fun the other day and this is one that I loved!

 

And I have to thank one of my wonderfully sweet friends for taking the picture!

 

And yes, I colored my hair red!

 

Love you guys!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:)

 

 

 

Our Secrets

They chase after you. They run after you. What if they don't stop? You can't breathe. Not anymore. You have hair hitting your face from the speed you are sprinting at and your eyes are sore from staying open trying to be aware of every object in your line of sight. Which pedestrian will be the one to trip you? When will that man jump out of the dark and scare you? What sight will cause your heart to beat harder than you were ever prepared for? Your throat and nose are sore and they burn from the constant battle of trying to breathe in. You frantically look in all directions. Who will be the first to grab you harshly? To shake you and bring you to tears as you regrettably reveal the truth. All of it. Everything. Who will be the first to frighten you? Shake you to your core as you admit who you are with more fear then is humanly imaginable. Who will discover who you really are? And when they do, you ask yourself, " how much more will they hate me, have anger for me, run from me? Please, please you cry out. Please don't truly figure out who I am!

Please. Don't . . .  

 

 

 

 

 

 

We gladly create for ourselves, islands  . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we lock yourselves in . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We'd rather be there than anywhere. We hide our shames, our fears, our past, and our sadness.

We go and hide in our mental islands that we create for ourselves and we remind ourselves over and over again, I knew I should have never joined the other people of this world because all they do is rip you . . .

 

Every time.

 

 

We wrap up by ourselves and tell ourselves how we were always right and how the people that tried to help us were wrong. Always! 

 

We knew it.

We wrap up in a ball and tell ourselves, " your life is terrible"! Or maybe your life is wonderful in every aspect except for with a few people. You have a fear about what the worlds response is going to be when you share with your close companions the one thing that you know they would reject you for saying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We want people to know but out of fear, we remain where we are  . . . Alone, and that's ok, for a time  . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

We drop hints, but we never want to share what our greatest fear is because of fear of rejection from the people we love most  . . .

 

 

 

 

 

We hear our friends and family get closer and closer to our island of fears and secrets. It is odd though because even though we lead them part way there, we don't ever want them reaching our secret territory.

 

 

 

 

So what is this secret that we all try to hide? It is different for most people but we are never the only one with the a certain secret. But why are we afraid to share it? If everyone has secrets, then why are we afraid to share ours? Why do we fear being rejected and left on our own? It is because the world teaches that first, people won't fail you, and this includes that people will always be there for you and second, that our life will be easy with God. Ok so first, people will fail us. We are hurt and rejected not because the people are constantly turning their backs on us, but because WE expect them to be something that is impossible for them to be on their own, and that is, being everything we need. People are not and will never be everything we need for our whole lives because if they were, we wouldn't need God. Along with that, when people say they're always going to be there for you, that may not always be true in every situation. Saying you will always be there for a friend is not a bad statement at all! It is beautiful, loving, and kind and God calls us to be there for each other and if we didn't, then we are not following His loving calling, but if we truly believe with all our heart that that person is going to be there always and forever, at our every call and every time  we need someone, then again, that would make them inhuman. Friends can definitely be there for us always and God designed it this way for them to be there with us always through life and next to us but He also doesn't promise this. That is what we must understand! God doesn't promise that we will always  have our friends with us or around us. Our friends follow God's calling when they love us but no one gets to control what God does with our lives. So yes our friends are doing the right thing in saying this and they are obeying God but God is the one who controls whether or not we need someone next to us for certain times in our lives. But we must trust Him with who He puts and takes out of our lives. It can be hard but He is constantly stretching and growing us! Second, we need to realize that God is the ultimate comforter but also we must learn that He is also a God that will not let us stay where we are! Everyday He will stretch us and grow us and if we believe that if we have God everything will be easy, then we also lie to ourselves as we say God will never put us through hard things.

 

I hide things because I know some of the things what the Bible says and I know that people will never be everything I need but one thing that God has taught me, once I let my defenses down and acknowledged the truth, it is that God is truly everything that our hearts need and He does fill us up. Live on an island that acknowledge the truth, because if you know the truth, that people will fail us and that God truly can fill us up, truly, then you can share any and all things and secrets because God says," the truth will set you free."! Know and acknowledge the truth and trust God that no matter what He does, He's got us and will always be enough for us! Its ok to live on islands because we are humans but God calls us to something much greater! Its ok to live on islands but know the truth then jump out and trust God and just run! You never know who you might help plant seeds in and might encourage! God takes away friends for reasons. Its ok to have islands just trust God with your life and everything! Always! Always!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

:)!

 

 

 

 

The One Who Holds Us

I think a lot of times, we try really hard to succeed and do well at life in the sight of others and to prove it to ourselves. Most things we have control over, that is unless something else has the ability to change our circumstances, which there is. This means then that, our live is something we cannot control, except for in one aspect. That aspect is whether or not we will pray and ask God to change our hearts and attitudes. Of course, God can change our hearts without us even asking Him to but God wants us to ask him personally for multiple reasons.  First because if we ask Him ourselves, it shows Him our desire to change. Second, we are talking to Him. Third, because He calls us to pray and fourth, because He doesn't always like changing our hearts when we ourselves, personally, don't want to change. Anyways, we really have no control over want happens in our lives, ever. We are stuck in the middle between being afraid of what God may call us to do or constantly fighting God and always feeling stressed and tired. We ask ourselves, which one is worse! God created a very fine balance in our lives. A balance between us being able to control our situations with how we respond and him controlling our actual circumstances. We are very much involved in what happens in our lives but just not the way we all think. Sometimes we feel like this. . .

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

We are stressed and we don't know what to do. We need some one to save us. Some one to tell us everything is ok and that main person is God but we are afraid to go to Him because of what He may tell us to do but we are already too worn out. 

 

You are stuck. What do you do. Uhhh! The stresses of life.

 

Your mind is going crazy and racing like a perfect storm!

 

 

 

 

 

 

You know, our Father is peace, He has kindness and at times, He has humor. His mysteries are endless and His designs are so creative! He smiles as He watches the butterfly climb out of the cocoon and laughs at the foals first trot! He looks at what He has made and says it is good and smiles with strength behind His eyes! He leads with power and reins with terror! He will not let mere man question Him without later bringing the human to humble himself and bowing in honor before God. He stands before all things and all things are to bow in submission to Him. In all this grandness though, God is love but we must be carful to remember, love does not always mean Kindness, softness, and gentleness. Love will rebuke us harshly and demand that you make corrections before you move forward! It will open the path to lead us to our full potential. God is scary too! This is something we forget! It can be terrifying when He reveals His power to us. He can reveal parts of Himself to us and we can become afraid because He is so great and so different from us in His personally being. He can be terrifying but what if He wasn't one of those many things that He is? What if He wasn't loving? What if He wasn't peaceful? Demanding, jealous, gentle, creative? It can be hard to respect  Him at times, but in reality, we should be thankful He is who He is. If He wasn't even one of those things, this world would be an extremely different place. The one who is all these things IS holding us and like I said, if He was any different, I'm not sure we would want Him to be holding us! He is great and He is good and He is  the best person is the entire world, now in the past and in the future that could ever hold us!

Peace

(The two paragraphs following, are things that I felt while viewing this Lara Croft image)

 You are nothing without God. He saved you and without him you die. He is everything you will ever need. God saved you from eternal everything( eternal everything meaning eternal chaos in Hell). Everything you are, every power you will ever posses is from Him. Alone, you will die. If you walk alone, you are darkness fighting darkness. Satan wants you dead. You stand strong as if you are able to fight but choosing to go alone will only make you look like a fool. Survival is simple, its surrender. Surrender all to God and he will give you everything you will ever need. It is complete and total surrender. Croft(Croft meaning Lara Croft, the girl in the image) believes she can do it on her own, but she is only a figure of what we can never be. A powerful hero. You cant fight evil if you have evil inside of you. True beauty is in surrender. Admitting you are not strong enough.

 

The weapons we carry we only carry because they are God's gifts to us, and He's asking us to use them. For these weapons are not meant for a physical appearance of strength, but to be used against the enemy. That is all. The only way one can be in right with God, is to surrender and admit that he is wrong. To pour himself out and ask God alone to fill him. Alone, man is dead. God alone is the only source of power and life left or that has ever been in the world. With strength in her eyes, she only looks in awe and shock at the amazing gifts that have been presented to her. Her stance is a stance of honor. God has blessed her in unimaginable ways and graciously provided her with gifts, therefore, she will take them knowing that her only power is found in God. Alone, she is dead. Satan wants her dead. She decides to hand her weapons to God. The battle is only for her to learn to trust in God. She takes a stand knowing that she will not allow herself to ever follow the ways of the world. Satan wants her dead but she will not allow herself to stray. Why? because he knows her purpose, and the world will never stop pulling at her but that is why without God everything is dead. You were sent to the world to be empowered by God. Lara Croft represents a woman who became a warrior only by the grace of God caring enough to make her His own.

 

 

I called this post Peace because if we ask God to fight our battles, then we are at peace. Gods got us and . . . phew!, its ok! I actually wrote this description about this image on 9/28/14! Just thought I'd post it! Thanks for reading! and . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:)!!!

 

 

 

Thoughts . . .

 

 

  

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

I always get so rapped up in trying to save the world, to be the hero, to do the amazing and impossible, yet although that's great, God had one thing he wanted from me. He had one desire for me. One thing he wanted me to do. He just wanted me to surrender and give my heart to him. That's all. All I ever wanted from you, was just you, he said. its ok. Your mind might be racing with a thousand things that you have to do and how you had to get it right and perfect and always have faith cause its obvious that you always should, no! I just want you. That's all I wanted. Just your heart. You don't have to be miss perfect or save your friends or do everything right. Its ok. You are all I wanted. And listening to every voice and trying to interpret and understand everything, no! I want you to strive for excellence, but you are my child and I love you no matter what you do. I got what I wanted from you and that was your heart. Yes strive towards things and work hard you have so many gift and so far that you can go so don't waste that, but your heart is all I wanted from you my dear, and it is ok. Strive to do the best but know that you are completely enough and the very best to me already! Run after things if you choose to run, but if you do, do it knowing, that I am God in heaven and these are only things to work towards and run after here on earth. you can disappoint me but my love has never and will never run out on you my dear. this world will almost at times convince you that you will never make it, but my dear I have your heart, you are never worthless to me and my heart. Strive and run towards things but also know that you are my child whom I created and I will love you forever. Never forget who you are and where you belong and where you truly come from. Let his will be done Amen.   

 

A Fathers Love

God. A King. A Rock. Creator of all, with the sweetest spirit yet can rain down fire and command lighting bolts to cover the entire earth with one word.

God. The mightiest and strongest warrior of all. It's more than an image can hold or a human heart can ever understand.

His power is uncomprehendable. As I said, his power cannot be placed in a photograph. Well will never be truly able to understand his love and power until we meet him. And still even then maybe not . . . 

This painting below is a painting by a young girl from many years back. She has visions from heaven then paints them. Well, on the other side of the world, a little three year old went to Heaven and then came back. His father showed him many pictures of Jesus to see if any of them matched the Jesus he claimed to see in heaven. None of them were much like the Jesus he saw, until one. The Father of the three year old showed him the image below and the little boy recognized him right way and he said,

"Yes, that's him! That's Jesus!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesus is much grander than we will understand here. Something that I have forgetting lately though, is the fact that Jesus is a father. He loves to comfort and love. I think when we think about God all we tend to think about is the power and the grandness and although those things are extremely true, he loves so much. He is a Father that always protects. Why? because we are weak and he is the loving father and he will always protect us because he is strong. He will tell us to get behind him. Even though he's the strongest thing that ever was, he will command evil spirits away from you out of the strongest of love. He is a monster yet a shoulder to cry on. We should fear the LORD yet he will wipe a nation out of your way because he loves you. He wants to travel with us though it all. Everything in life, he wants to walk with us. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Jesus is here for you always. He always has been and always will be.

 

 

  

He will do anything for you. He died for you. He's done all a person can do to try to claim another. Yet also in his great love he respects the choice of those who turn from him. He will let his children go and make their own choice and he wont stop them because he loves them.

This is the greatest commandment because it's the one that fulfills us." Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all ,your mind, and with all your .strength." Mark 12:30.

 

He is the Father and he is always there for you! And he loves you!

God is True Love

You know, love is something everyone is always talking about. People say " I love you" all the time and we see symbols of love everywhere, but the thing about love is that, if its apparently everywhere, why do so many people that still feel alone and uncared for and rejected?

First, there are some people who just simply believe they can never be loved. They believe this in two ways: one, that they are only loved and accepted by other people because those around them feel the obligation to love you or second, you feel you will never be accepted by anyone(in the attractiveness sense) because you never feel beautiful or you will never be good enough for yourself or anyone else.

 

 

 

 

 

Well being a little person, sometimes its hard to be surrounded by tons of beautiful other girls my age and think that any guys that were there would also admire me. It can be hard when the entire world is taller than you and you know that when you dance and talk with people you can't always look them in the eyes because things feel so much taller than you.

But here is the thing, the question. Why are we here on earth? Why did God create us and what for?

God created us for multiple reasons and I don't clearly understand or know them all but what I do know, is that no matter the reasons, God loves us. God created our purpose here on earth to be to meet God and chose whether or not we want to follow him. If we chose to follow him, then our purpose also becomes to love others and to have joy and thankfulness as we adore him and thank him for his beautiful creation and earth we live on. God also meant for us to commit an act of surrender as well. See this is the part I struggle with though because it's just so hard sometimes to give every choice you make in life, to a God you can't physically see. I'm always thinking what if I'm in a situation and so I pray and ask God for help but don't hear anything, what will I do then? Where is God?

Here is the thing. If we surrender to God, he will not leave you hanging alone if you tell him you desire to follow him and his will for you. And a lot of times when we can't hear him, sometimes its because we don't want to hear what he's saying. So if it's not what we want, we pretty much just ignore it and figure that that response wasn't from God.

So what does all this have to do with love or a God of true love? Well, God has just really been reveling to me lately, the importance of true love. So what is true love? Well love is something that we as humans will never fully understand until we get to heaven and maybe not even once we get there but love is an action and a choice, a decision and a commitment no matter what. And of course there is such a thing as protecting yourself but I'm talking about loving people that we know are people that are safe to love. Love comes from God because God IS love, so when God says that when we love each other we will see God, this is what he means because God basically, in the form of love, will be seen in other people. 

 

 

Love is a selfless act. It is where we care more about how the other person is effected by something more than ourselves. We want the best for them, whether is us helping them get there or not. This is the hard part for me because as a human, if I help someone, I hope for some kind of reward, which leads me to the main purpose of this post: God is true love so therefore if we don't have Him inside us, it is impossible to love. Now you may say that you know some really nice people that aren't Christians but they show great love, I'm not saying at all that their love and kindness towards you is a fake or anything, because guess what? Christians love others with something we just call love too, its not the true type of love that God gives and has for us. Humans can only go so far with their levels of love because we are human, all of us. When we love each other, it is the smallest, tiniest glimmer of the amazing and bright blazing love that God has for us. This is why God calls us to love each other, because if God never asked us to show love, then no one would ever see any of the brotherly loving side of God.

So what is something that is true? Ha ha well it's something that is not false. Its real, there, and living now. Love is a choice we have to make with people. We have to choose to love them and by love I mean, want what's best for them even if it means you step out of their life completely or tell them something that may cause them to hate you the rest of their lives. Love is when you put the other persons feelings first and push past what it may cause do to you and your life. Now since we are humans, this is impossible but with God anything is possible. He made the human emotions and the heart and don't ever forget that some of Gods beloved creations will go to Hell one day because they didn't accept and love God back. God knows what lose and pain and losing a child or someone you love is. He knows. Don't worry.

God has laid on my heart, to remember why I'm here. I'm here to meet and fall in love and follow God and to love others with the love that we ask him to place in our hearts. In my opinion, some how, when you view it that way, what guys think of you seems to fade far into the background. A good reputation for yourself is good and important but remember God will never ask us or make us do something that isn't a wise, kind, loving, and a beautiful idea!  

Ask for him to fill you with his true love for the world and everyone that you have around you today and forever!