Godly Cleaning

Ok guys, I have a confession to make to all of you. I suffer from a small little disorder called DCOIS syndrome (also known as "Doesn't Clean as Often as I Should" syndrome), especially when it comes to my bathroom. Yeah, it's a mess. Is that a crime now? It is? Well, it's a good thing that I learned a way to keep me cleaning then.

Today my mom told me to clean my bathroom. So I did, grumbling the whole time but stiil cleaning. I decided to tackle my bathtub first. So, with a sponge and Clorox Bleach in my hand, I started to beat down my filthy enemy. Funny thing is that I started enjoying cleaning. I realized that everything I did while cleaning could be related back to our relationship with God. I've lost you, haven't I? Let me explain. Think of the Clorox Bleach and sponge as God and our connection to Him. Think of the bathtub as yourself and the grime in it as our sins. Is it starting to become clear now?

Like I said earliler, I suffer from DCOIS syndrome. Because I suffer from it, the grime in my tub was starting to build up and become visible. Gross, I know, but relate it to our sins. When we start sinning we usually start small, something that doesn't change us completely in anybody's eyes. But if not treated, those sins start to grow and pile up and create a huge mess. That's where our God bleach comes in. He gives us what we need to clean up that mess in the form of salvation and love. His redeeming love changes us and makes us want to be better than who we were. However, we can't just rely on God to fix everything and make it all pretty and sparkly again, just like how spraying Clorox won't clean the tub right away either. We have to do work to fix it as well. We need to scrub the grim away a little bit at a time, giving it continuous attention and work. Little by little, it starts to go away. This is true of our faith too. When we accept Christ, we can't just believe that everything is alright and that we don't have to do anything about our past mistakes. This is not true! We have to go back and start fixing everything a little bit at a time by reading the Bible, going to church, and not settling for anything less than the righteousness and purity God wants and calls for us to have. If we don't then our sins will just keep growing, regardless of how many times you accept God into your life.

Living for God is not easy. It never has been and never will be. I know this very well. The enemy will try extremely hard to put some doubt into your relationship with Christ and will use every opportunity to throw obstacles in your path. It's just like your skin becoming irritated because of the bleach. Your skin will start to burn because of it and you have to stop cleaning to go treat it real quickly. It's the same thing with your relationship. The enemy will do something in your life that will create a wound or burn in your faith. Now, I'm not saying to stop cleaning up your sins, but you need to just take time to reassure yourself of God's love for you and to treat that burn the enemy gave you. Go read the Bible, pray, and talk with other christian friends about it. This will help more than you know, I've experienced it several times myself. There is no easy way to live a righteous life, no matter how you look at it. Even if the enemy wasn't attacking, you would still need to scrub the sins away. It's hard work, but extremely rewarding. I may not like cleaning very much, yet when it's all pretty and clean again I find a great happiness and pride inside of me. Now relate that to the cleaning you do for God. Just think of how ecstatic both you and God will feel when you scrub all the sins in your life away! God already loves you the way you are, but He wants us to be pure and righteous as well. Naturally, the enemy wants exactly the opposite. Which is why he'll keep attacking and trying to make those sins grow back. We need to be careful of this and constantly clean up our sins before they have a chance to grow too large and nasty.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I'll never look at cleaning up my bathtub the same way again. In fact, I probably won' t be able to stop cleaning up my bathtub whenever I start feeling tempted because it will remind me of how God wants to move in our lives.

James 1:21, James 3:2, Romans 12:1-2, Ephesians 6:10-18, John 8:34

And finally, any prayer requests?

Relationships

So there's about 3 weeks left until I finally turn sixteen. Scary, right? But, with this in mind, I've been thinking a lot about my relationship with God and how it's changed so much since this time last year. Looking back, I've seen exactly how God had moved in my life even when I wasn't aware of it. And all of His actions has led me to become who I am today, led me to trust Him far more than I ever imagined I could.

Only my close friends would remember this, some probably don't even know, but at the beginning of my ninth grade year, I actually had a boyfriend. Although I wouldn't really call him a boyfriend now. We were really just friends that thought a relationship could work and called each other "boyfriend"/"girlfriend". We never even got to talk most of the time when we were "dating". Now, I hadn't approached this relationship in the most christian way possible. I mean, I didn't flirt or try to tempt the guy (all of you know I wouldn't do that! I'm much too shy), but I didn't pray to God about whether this would be right for me or whether it was in His plans for me. All in all, I probably pursued the relationship much more than I should have. Well, obviously it didn't work out. I came to realize that this wasn't what a relationship should be like and that God probably wasn't very enthusiastic about us dating then, so I prayed to God for strength and confirmation that I was making the right choice before calling up my boyfriend and explaining to him that our relationship just wasn't working out and that it would be better to remain just friends. It hurt to do that. I knew I was making the right choice, but I really hated that I might be hurting someone in the process. But now, I realize that God was trying to teach me how NOT to approach a relationship and that He was telling me that I just wasn't ready at that time.

God was right (big surprise? no, not really). From the experiences I've had in just these past two or three weeks, I KNOW that I wasn't ready. God wants us to fall passionately in love with Him first, to put Him first in our hearts and trust Him with everything in our lives. He wants us to realize how important and beautiful we are to Him, and not focus on what that one person you like thinks. Contrary to what we think, no human relationship can complete us. Only God can and only God can make us truly happy. The more in love with God we fall, the more we start to love ourselves and others. He wants us to experience this happiness and this completeness in Him that no human relationship can provide.

I'm turning sixteen in about three weeks. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed. But I'm just fine with that. God is moving in great ways within me, and when God feels the time is right then I am confident that He lead me into the type of healthy, loving relationship that He intends for us to experience.

In other news... the song "How He Loves" from the David Crowder Band has been stuck on repeat all day, whether on my ipod, computer, or even in my head. There's just something in this song that calls out to a part of me. It's an amazing song! One last thing: any prayer requests? :)

-allie

It's strange....

It truly is strange, thinking that only this morning I wouldn't have even considered starting my own blog. A few days ago I was talking about this with one of my friends and said that I had a small urge to start a blog of my own, but I didn't know what about. She said I should write about my walk with Christ. At that time, I wasn't sure that I would be comfortable with telling everyone what was going on in my relationship with Him, not sure I would have the courage. That all changed this weekend without me even realizing it.

I went out with some of my friends on Saturday night to go see a movie called "To Save a Life". Before I go any further, let me take this time to implore all of you to go watch it. That movie is definitely one of the best I have seen in a long time. The main character, Jake, has such an inspiring journey that takes so much courage and faith to follow. I was sobbing through most of the movie because it spoke to me so much. Later that same night, I got on facebook and saw a message in my inbox from one of my best friends. The words I read encouraged me so much through some insecurities I have been struggling with for a while. God's presence became so clear to me and I started to sob for the second time that night. In truth, it was probably Saturday night that changed me once more and gave me the courage to start facing more of my insecurities.

God has used this week to bring me so much closer to Him than I have ever been in my life. I can not thank Him enough for the situations and for the people He has placed in my life. This week has been hard, I will not deny that, but it made me rely on God to help me through and gave me that chance to discover more about His amazing love. I know there will be more trials in my life, but I know that it will all be worth it if i can live my life in service to my savior and Lord. I have faith that He will bring me through and will provide for me. God knows what I need.

Before I end this, are there any prayer requests you have? God bless you!

-Allie