A blog worth dewing AND reading...

(this is really long, but please read it) Hey there every one! How goes the war known as school? One week in.... oh joy... you know, Kenleys house is starting to look pretty good! :) yup, fun stuff.. i can't wait till it is done! that will be like the coolest hang spot ever! yup yup... ok onto a lil bit of a more serious note..
While i was working at kenleys house today, I was trying to use that time to let God speak to me, since I am there for hours on end all alone... so today I feel that God was convicting me of something that I feel i need to share with you all. whew....here we go.

In the recent past I have not been honest with you about my walk with Christ. Over the three months after my Mom died, I may have seemed to you all(prolly not tho) to have everything under control, and that my relationship with God was also fine. however that is not the case. Now i dont believe that i tried to fake it, yet i did not speak the truth when asked how i was doing.
For thew first two weeks or so after she died, my walk with Christ grew stronger, and i was trusting in His knowledge of what was best. as you may remember, i was very verbal about that then... I talked with many of you about how awesome God was and how He was going to make everything all right. I believed it then, and i believe it now. Yet as time grew on in the days to follow, i slowly began to fall away from God. Satan was using my pain to get to me, and in the midst of my confution and hopelessness i believed the lies. I began to question God, asking him why he woulds alow this...
It is scary how smooth and decietful the evil one is.. I remember interrogating God with questions as to why he would leave a 7, and 9 year old without a mother... i was not asking for myself, but on the behalf of my younger siblings... so i thought that it was alright, but that is exactly what Satan wanted me to do.. doubt God. He used any way that he could to make me believe that God did not know what he was doing.
So, as my doubt increased i slowly stoped having my quiet time, untill i was not spending any time with God at all.. I knew that i was wrong, because of everything that i have learned in my life.. yet now no matter how hard i tried, i just couldn't care anymore..
I felt so alone.. like i had no one to go to, or that no one was there. Tamara and Nicole were gone to school.. and every one here still had thier own lives to live..(I am not blaming here.. I was in the wrong, not you all) so i jsut kinda gave up. I couldn't go home caseu i could not stand to be in that house, cause it would only make me think of my mom, and the pain was just too great..
As this is happening, my coworkers at Outback, seemed to actually care about me, like they were actually real friends.. I was so lonely that I took thier friendship. I needed love, and i was not feeling Gods because i had shut him out. These friends were always inviting me to hang out with them and stuff. it seemed that they were there for me. when i needed to talk, several of them would take the time to talk after work.. and i had it in common with a few of them who had gone thro similar things... so for the next month and a half i went out with them all the time.. after work going over to TGI fridays till like 2:00 in the morning, or just staying at outback till about then... and as i did, i grew even farther from God. these "friends" were only pulling me farther away from Him... I didn't read my bible, and i didn't even rememeber to pray. i just fell right to sleep when i got home at night. the music that i listened to was Definatly not Christian.. and that just brought me farther from Christ..
Now, i knew this. I Kknew I was falling away from God, but i didn't care. I knew I should care, But I just didn't. it seemed that God had let me down. When in truth I had let Him down. He was there all the time, just waiting for me to come back. telling me over and over again that he loved me and that he would take care of me. I just refused to listen to Him.. and so i brought additional suffering upon my self.
Then, between the begining to mid November, (somewhere in there.. hehe) I broke down, i just could not stand not felling God anymore. but i didn;t know how to get back to Him. I finally let someone in one what was going on in my life. I talked to Kenley for several hours one night. I cried for a long time and told him what im telling you. and he told me that it was okay to be angry, and wonder why God would let this happen. And to question Him. But if i would listen then God would tell me. later that week I was able to go to Wednesday church for the first time in about a year, becaseu i randomly had that day off work.. While i was there, we sung this song in worship, that said something about: i have placed my faith in the lies of men. and believed that You could not save me.. or some thing like that... Well that hit me like a ton of bricks! in an instant it seemed like a cloud was washed away, and i saw jsut how stupid i was being to turn away from God. I droped down in that service and talked to Jesus for the first time in about two months.. it was so amazing! As SOON as i came back, He was RIGHT there waiting like he had been the whole time! I asked him to forgive me for doubting him. And to make me whole again like only he could. To fill that empty place again, where He used to be untill i left him..
As we all know, after something like that you don't just all of a sudden become the same Christian again that you once were.. It had injured my walk with Christ. But i started coming back to Him, and learning things that i never knew before.. I can feel His presence, and i just sit and talk to him like a friends... talking about all sorts of stuff.. I love to pray again, God is becoming a much stronger friend than i have felt Him before. Im some ways i fell i know Him better than I did back at Student Life Camp, when he was just SOO amazing! in other was i fell i have lost parts of the connection with Him that i felt then. Yet once again the Lord is alowing me to see into the lives of others with the gift of disernment that He has given me. He is Beginning to be my everything. I'm finding satisfaction in Him, and in His love. He is blessing my life in ways i never thought possible... ;-) And I can hear His leading me. I've stalled too long. All this that I have talked about, has just served as a means to slow me down, but now with Christ as my leader I will get involved with the youth, like I planned to do before my mom died. They need leadership, and some one has to take that place. I am so proud of guys like Paul and Brandon who are already on there way there! They show a great amount of leadership and love for God. I pray that you guys would not wait so long as I to understand that! Keep going like you are! And know that I will be running right beside you not only keeping you steady, but leaning on YOU for support as well! I had lost sight of the picture that we all saw of what God had in store for this generation of youth in out church, and also else-where. But Jesus has helped me to see that again! and with renewed vigor I say we plunge head first into Him. and let him finish painting His masterpeice through us! Here is something from Psalms 40 that i read in my quiet time today.
"I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He incined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. he put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
many will see and fear, and will trust in the LORD."

Lord, make that my prayer!
Isn't that sweet! I feel like that was written just to me! :)
Ok now, i know its cliche to put song lyrics on your blog, but I REALLY wanna share something woth you guys that has really helped me trust God more with all that has happened with my mom and stuff. And i feel that this song is true for almost any other circumstance.. :) k just a sec let me find the lyrics on line.. ;) hehe

Two months is too little.
They let him go.
They had no sudden healing.
To think that providence would Take a child from his mother while she prays
Is appalling.

Who told us we’d be rescued?
What has changed and why should we be saved
from nightmares?
We’re asking why this happens
To us who have died to live?
It’s unfair.

This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we’d be held.

This hand is bitterness.
We want to taste it,
let the hatred numb our sorrow.
The wise hands opens slowly
to lilies of the valley and tomorrow.

This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we’d be held.

If hope is born of suffering.
If this is only the beginning.
Can we not wait for one hour watching for our Savior?

This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we’d be held.
We'd be held.

Thats by Natalie Grant, it called "Held".. (duh right hehe)
well my friend! I hope to be seeing each and every on of you soon! i love you all!
Peace out yo
James