Captured my Heart

I gave my heart away 11 years ago to Someone who loves me more than I can comprehend, who sacrificed more than I'll ever know so that He could have my heart forever. And you know what the best part is?? He will NEVER break it. He holds my heart tenderly, He sees to the very deepest part, He heals the broken parts. The lover of my soul, Jesus, has captured my heart.

In Isaiah 62:1-5 God writes (i added the italics):

For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet,
till her righteousness shines out like the dawn (until you shimmer),
her salvation like a blazing torch.
The nations will see your righteousness,
and all the kings your glory (your beauty);
you will be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.
You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand (the crown of creation),
a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
No longer will they call you Deserted,
or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called Hephzibah (my delight is in her),
and your land Beulah (married);
for the Lord will take delight in you,
and your land will be married.
As a young man marries a maiden (he pursues her, romances her)...
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride (you are lovely),
so will your God rejoice over you.

Is that not beautiful??!! I read that today and was like, "Wow. That is so amazing." My mentor and I are still working through Captivating and this week's chapter was about the hatred that the Enemy has for women. Ladies, he fears us!! John and Stasi Eldredge say, "Satan has set against every woman from the day of her brith. It's the emotional and spiritual equivalent of leaving a little girl by the side of the road to die. And to every woman he has whispered, "You are alone, or, When they see who you really are, you will be alone, or, No one will ever truly come for you.... Satan is the one who has done these things to prevent your restoration. For this is what he fears. He fears who you are; what you are; what you might become. He fears your beauty and your life-giving heart." So let's FIGHT ladies!! Reading this made me want to reject all the world says about me. It made me want to stand up, be bold, and go unafraid into the world to achieve all that God has for me- reach my full potential.

So going back to the Scripture above- I hope that your heart is encouraged as mine was when I read this. What sweet promises our Savior gives. He delights in us, pursues us, romances us, loves us. Everything our heart longs for!! How amazing. How great is our God and worthy to be praised. So take heart, beauties. We have a lover who will fight for us. We have a lover who believes without a shadow of a doubt that we are beautiful- even when we can't see it in ourselves. Let's rise up in the strength of our God and reach the full potential that He has for us. We can find victory through Him.

Catch up

Wow. I looked at my posts and realized it's been two whole weeks since I've blogged. And it's been almost three since I've actually blogged about life. I'm not really sure why I haven't blogged. I could say that I've been busy (true) but then I should have plenty to blog about. I think I've realized the past month just how incredibly precious friendships are. So I think that the main reason I haven't blogged is because I've really just treasured my time actually talking with people and not really enjoying the computer world as much. Anyhow, there's my reasoning!

So to catch up on life.

1. I'm done with the ACT for now! Yaay! My score went up a point but i'm still a point below what I want. It's okay though! I can always bring it up another point. I'm fairly confident of that.

2. We took a trip to Ole Miss to see the college. It was a fun trip with lots of laughs (thank you Mrs. Brown for going with us!! lol!). I loved this college as well. It has SOO many amazing opportunities and some really neat people. It was good to see another college but now I'm more confused than ever on where I want to go. There's so many pros and cons to all of them! But... I have a year to decide.

Gotta love the scarves.... thanks Mrs. Thomas! :)

3. The Juvinalls (roll your mouse over their name to go to their blog) headed to Ethiopia on Friday. They've already had some travel difficulties but are in Dubai right now, and should arrive in Ethiopia soon. They're getting back on Saturday with their precious daughter Iona and I am so excited. I'm going to lose it when they walk in lol. Definitely planning on bringing kleenex. So hop on over to their blog and be praying for them!!

4. I went on a youth retreat this past weekend with church and had an amazing time. It was a great weekend. I always have trouble coming back from retreats because I SO love being with people and coming home is kind of a letdown but I've stayed busy today and will be very busy this week babysitting kiddos Monday-Wednesday so the week should go by fast! Anyway, back to the retreat I think the thing that God most convicted me of is in my study this morning of James 4:1-10 which is basically about prayer. Verses 2-3 say, "You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." I was just convicted of all the times that I just don't ask at all because my faith is too small, as well as the times that I selfishly ask for things. This has especially been true the past couple of months when the Lord has made evident His plans for the next year (which is exactly opposite what I wanted!). It has been a tough month but God has shown His faithfulness through it all. This weekend was just a good time of focus and renewal, a reminder to put God's kingdom above my own. His plans above my plans. His desires above my desires. To seek Him first with all of my heart!!

4. We met Aunt Diane and Uncle Dan for Monical's pizza tonight. Yummy...

5. And just a funny thing that i just remembered. I wrote a paper last week about Slavery for my English Literature class and the teacher made this comment, "Molly, Great work! You had several interesting and valid points. Try to write more formally in the future......" I looked back on it after I'd received my grade and realized that it sort of resembled my blog post style. I nearly laughed out loud. I did too much blogging there for awhile and forgot how to write a formal paper.

6. Pics from our small group girls cookie party. We got together to make cookies and messed up the dough because we got busy talking (i think that's what happened at least!). So they wouldn't really make good cookies. Not to be robbed of our dessert, we got out a pan and made a cookie cake. Add some ice cream, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles and we were good to go! :)

Love these girls!!! Thank you Lord for these friendships!

7. I just got new updates on my sweet Claudia girl. I just cannot get these sweet kids off of my mind. A few tears trickled down my cheeks when I opened up the email with these pics in it. This precious girl who absolutely captured my heart is growing up without her family. And I could go on and on. I don't know what God has in store for me but I know that these kids are etched into my heart somehow. And it makes it hard to sit here and do school all day when I know that they need help!

I love you, Claudia! I pray that someday i'll hold you in my arms again and hear your enchanting laugh. I pray that your mommas there are teaching you about Jesus, our faithful God, and the love that He has for you. He is your Father!! He says in John 14:18 "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." He has adopted you, sweet girl! He has broken through the bondage and set you free, giving you a family like no other through Christ and the church. I wish that I could give you the earthly family that you need but I can't do that. All I can do is pray, for we cannot receive what we do not ask for!

Have a great week! I'm determined to keep up on this now. I think I really missed blogging...

Happy Tuesday!

Happy Tuesday blogging friends!

Some people have a knack for writing humorous blog posts. Several of the blogs I read leave me laughing. Somehow they can relive an ordinary day and make it hilarious. I can't do that. And it's probably not going to change. I can write serious poems but not funny blog posts. Hmm.. oh well. I'll just keep writing.



Eventually something exciting will happen that will actually be interesting to read about. Meanwhile, my life is basically consumed with school, more school, work, and church stuff. School is going very well so far. I officially despise chemistry (but that's the only class i really dislike). I'm SO thankful for my incredibly intelligent dad to help explain it to me. We've had some good laughs over my pathetic misunderstandings lol (right dad???) :) Health has been depressing the past few days. So far, I've watched 4 videos on domestic violence, abuse, and dating violence. When the video ends I'm just blah. What are you supposed to do after seeing such horrible situations? How sad it is when relationships that could be beautiful turn into horrific nightmares. God did not intend for a dating relationship, marriage, and family to function like that. I'm so thankful that there are still men who follow the Lord and love their wives and children well. Praise God that He has brought up Godly fathers to raise up Godly sons to lead the girls of my generation (in the coming years). If there's one thing I've learned, it's that relationships like that don't have to happen. In Christ's strength, I believe that we can grow up to have healthy, wonderful marriages. It's just sad to see all the people who get hurt everyday from the relationships/marriages that don't work out.

Monday night I started my new babysitting job. It's just every other week for two little boys. They are so cute. The 3 year old said the funniest things. I also realized again just how different boys are from girls!! Girls will sit with me and play for hours with dolls and a kitchen. NOT BOYS!!! We played with every toy in the room, moving back and forth and back and forth. We never played with something for longer than 2 minutes (except for when i pulled out the building blocks- they LOVED those and we played for about 20 minutes with those. Of course, we had to build towers and knock them down over and over again lol!)

Tonight I had girl's bible study. It was great, again. God has been so good to provide so many opportunities to dig into the Word. I'm so thankful.

Tommorow is See You at the Pole, and our church is hosting "Saw You At the Pole" (a pizza dinner, slideshow of pictures from the morning, praise, and prayer). It should be a good day.

Some scripture I read today really hit home:

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."
Proverbs 19:21

Good stuff! :)

Have a great night everybody!
Blessings,
Molly

Tuesday Thoughts...

That's probably the most uncreative title ever. Oh well.

We had girls bible study again tonight. I've so enjoyed digging deeper into the Word with these girls. We're studying Romans right now and so far we've discovered a strong theme running through the first couple of chapters that we've looked at. Our observations kept turning back to God's grace. And it's true!! Nearly everything in the Bible leads back to His grace. That's the essence of the gospel. I long to understand the mystery of His grace more fully. I'm not really sure that we, who live on a sinful earth, can even understand the full extent of it.

Tonight we read through Romans 2 and part of 3. I felt that God was pressing on my heart the reminder that without Him my life is NOTHING. So often I think things like, "Look how far I've come!! Last year I wouldn't have done this (or something to that effect)." But it wasn't me!! To Him be the glory that I become even minutely more Godly. No positive changes in my life were without Christ working in and through me. He's the one that works on the heart, softens it, molds it, encourages. Any work in our lives is totally Him. We wouldn't be the people we are today without Jesus.