God Moments

Hey there! So glad you stopped by. If you found me because of She Seeks welcome!

It's the little moments that God gives this Princess that sustain her. I have to tell you that the last week I was needing a God moment. Circumstances and different things that happened sucked the very joy and life out of me. Maybe you can relate? I felt like I was at the bottom of myself. When Sunday rolled around I could hardly pull myself out of bed. Things around me were overwhelming and quite honestly I was doubting my ability to hear from God. That lead to a pattern of doubt about who I am to Him. I was drowning in a sea of doubt.

I don't think it was just a coincidence that yesterday God gave me a tangible way to feel His love for me. I was sitting in church listening to the sermon very aware of myself. You know those moments where you are completely self conscious and your own actions which then become the object of your attention? It usually happens because you feel uncomfortable. Well yesterday this guy sat down next to me and I became very self aware. Let me explain.

The self awareness began not because of the reality that I am single (which would be the normal reason) but because of what God put on my heart. About half way through the sermon it was as if God was like you need to ask this guy to lunch. SAY WHAT?? That was my response. This Princess is old fashioned. I do NOT ask boys places. Boys that I know well even. It takes a long time and a large foundation of trust for me to even think about initiating something like that. And here God was tapping on my shoulder asking me to ask this boy next to me to lunch??? It was clear that he was around my age and that put the pressure up even more. Like I said I had been having a week of doubting if I can hear God and when I think I hear from Him am I hearing correctly. So naturally my mind went after it as soon as that thought popped into my head. Things like, "Uh God, I don't know Him." or "What on earth would we talk about over lunch???" This argument with myself went on for the rest of service. I leaned down to grab my coat when he grabbed my arm and said "I want to pray for you before you leave. So don't go anywhere."

I could not believe it. He wanted to pray for me? I knew in that moment that God was up to something. (no this was not a match made in heaven for all you ladies with an over active romantic mind) This boy wrapped me in an embrace and began speaking words of life over me. Divine words of revelation. He was praying for things that he could have never known about. He knew nothing about me. We were complete strangers and yet he lifted up some of my fears and talked openly about things that God had placed on my heart. It was a God Moment.

God's faithfulness showed up again. He wanted to remind me that He was never far away. God pays attention to the struggles and little details of my life and knew I needed more than anything to hear from Him. In that prayer and embrace I was covered by my Prince. Restored emotionally and spiritually.

And then I was able to be obedient and ask this kind boy out to lunch. We talked for three hours about the things God is up to in our life. We challenged each other, laughed and got excited about the Kingdom of God. My God moment went from a moment to an afternoon that filled me more than I had been in weeks.

I would love to hear about the moments that God has shown up and loved on you! You are a treasure to Him and this girl is convinced His fingerprints are on everything. So tell me about it :)

My Relationship Vortex: Beam me up Scottie

The relationship vortex is where I am living these days. The funny thing is I am not in a relationship with the opposite sex. Every other time I have visited this at times consuming place I have been in a relationship. Maybe you know this place and have been sucked in? You know it's where you are completely consumed by the opposite sex wondering why, how, what, who and when. Generally this is all pertaining to a particular individual. But this time I am alone. ALONE. I look around and there is no companion. No rainbows and butterflies. No skipping to the eternal love soundtrack. There is a part of me that wants to yell "beam me up Scottie" I am done living here. But unfortunately for me I get to examine this vortex instead. God wants me to stay here so this vortex feels more like a sad saga most days. (hear violins playing sullen music).


Let me explain. I am trying to uncover the good, bad and ugly of my relationships. Each of us construct what a relationship with the opposite sex looks like from a young age. It usually looks like something between a cross of a disney princess fairy tale and our parents marriage at about ten. But then life happens and well, we don't stay in that place. Relationships around us fall apart. We experience dating on our own. Some of our expectations change. We change. This is my problem. I experienced dating on my own and it looked more like a fun mirror chamber where I look at the relationship and it is fat on the top skinny on the bottom but then the next mirror is the opposite. Yikes.


There is a part of me that is grieving that I have to walk into essentially premarital sessions alone with nothing but me and my bible. Why did I have to experience the distortion I did? What weird person does premarital stuff alone? (Okay so Jesus is there). But it is not something I anticipated doing. Sometimes I am a cry baby. That part of me is screaming "BEAM ME UP!!!" Part of me is ecstatic because I have like hourly ah ha moments and it can be overwhelming. With that I am curious. God is not letting me sit stagnant with this one.


God, does NOT want me to stay there. He says "Erin, let me show you what relationship really looks like." In order to get there though I have to go through the field and pull out the weeds. I look around and say "AHHHHHHH I have so many weeds in this place!" My reaction is "God you are the God of the universe, you could just drop me in a new garden where there aren't so many weeds." Ha! That isn't going to happen. So the last couple weeks He has been the master gardener. I think it started with being able to recognize the problem of holding on to the shards of that past relationship. I straddled the fence for a while thinking that I could white knuckle it and create change. Ha! (That relationship is/was beyond help of any kind) Anything I am in control of without God never ever goes well. Then He brought in some people that would challenge my perceptions. It begins with girl friends who constantly remind me of Him and then transitions to my mentors/counselors and then ends with a boy.


Gasp!! Yes, I said it. With a BOY. This boy is an interesting boy. (well, he is a man-you know what I mean). This boy is interesting because he challenges all prior understanding of men. Especially christian men. Is he perfect? Far from it. Does he try to appear to be? Nope. Is he growing? Yes. Can he talk about his feelings towards things that have happened in his life? Yup. Is he willing to admit when he doesn't know something? Uh huh. Does he love God? Oh yes. But what intrigues me the most is the way he encourages me. He is not encouraging me in a worldly way, but instead in a Godly way. Sometimes I know that the words or scripture he gives me is God breathed. He reminds me of my intrinsic value. Odd, usually with a man I am experiencing the opposite. Believe me I have been waving my white flag yelling "God don't let a boy challenge my heart." Beam me up Scottie.


So not only is God working on me, He is rooting out some of my big issues. I am letting a guy into my life but in a different way. As a friend. As a person who gets to see the not so great parts of me but has to win my trust like everyone else. Will he disappoint me someday. Yes, he is human. Not superman. Could he walk away? Yes, he could. But that right there is an indication of my growth. I used to worship men and look to them to solve all my problems. Those days are over. I am not looking back to the place of worshiping them. And I also could cling to him to solve all my problems and tell him all the reasons why he needs me or should stay. This time I say: NO WAY. But I also don't treat him with contempt for his past mistakes and issues. That isn't fair. Ladies, we need to be able to realize that the men in our lives struggle just like we do. They have pasts, fears, insecurities, lies and ego's to fight. Good gracious. Can we be gentle and loving as Christ calls us and care for our brothers in Christ without condemning for their mistakes? Believe me, this has been a hard one. But God is working on me. He is not going to let me escape this one.


So life in the vortex looks something like Matthew 13:24-30 ²⁴Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. ²⁶When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

²⁷"The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'

²⁸" 'An enemy did this,' he replied.
"The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'

²⁹" 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. ³⁰Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "

Walk with me for a second. Yes this is about when Christ returns. But for me it has a little different meaning at this point of my life. A great friend of mine texted me and told me that this is where they feel I am at. Remember the weeds? Well this is why it speaks to my heart. The enemy came into my heart and planted weeds to infest the pieces of my heart and distort my perceptions of relationship. God is bringing in the harvest now. Sorting out the weeds from the wheat and getting ready to burn the lies I carry about past relationships to the ground. Sweet huh??? Yes, this is where my heart is. It is being sorted right now. Harvested.

The best part is I get to do it with amazing women like you :) So for now I will resist the urge to say "Beam me up." Cause who knows, maybe one day it will help you!

Ennie, Meenie, Minie Moe....

Crossroads... Ever been there? You sit there singing the childhood tune "ennie meenie minee moe..." praying you chose the right one. There seems to be no right or wrong choice and you just wish God would hurry up and figure out how to text so He could inform you on your direct line which choice to make. I am sitting in the middle of a fork in the road trying to chose the right one.

This week has been somewhat of an emotionally roller coaster. I am not at one fork, but several. I can tell my Prince is beckoning me into a season of depending upon Him more then ever before. These choices are just the beginning. The other issues is some of them are timing issues. As I try to discern timing for the different decisions, I feel like I am spinning around in circles until I am dizzy and can't tell one from another. I want to run ahead of myself and jump into the season that is four steps ahead of me.

The major fork is the job fork {is it bad that I am picturing a fork stuck into a resume?}. A fork that most people come to multiple times in there life usually. In the past it has not been so crucial for me to find a job, but this time around I need to find a job. Money is dwindling and as I check my bank account the panic begins to well up in me. My parents came to me and informed me that it was time for this Princess to move toward financial independence. {I did my best to buck up and accept the adult responsibility that I knew was coming} The irony is I knew it was coming. God has been preparing me for it through conversations with different people in my life. {imagine that??} Now I cannot say that I entirely disagree with them. I can't depend on them forever and honestly do not want to. I think there is a time and a place for a child to leave their parents. This happens to be my moment. Looking for a job as a "soon to be graduate" is challenging. I don't quite have that piece of paper to prove I did something for four {almost five} years. Not to mention I look in the mirror and I can't picture what I see myself doing. So I wait, for God to slap me with divine revelation. And yet somehow I don't foresee it looking like that. {dang it}

The other issue is this Princess is antsy. You know when you need/want something so badly that you are anxious to make the next step? But then you look and there isn't even a choice yet?? Yup, that is where I am at. I am in a place where I do not even have a job opportunity so I do not even have a choice. So I am trying to be patient and wait. I am trying to be patient and pray. Both things that I think are important, but the pressure of having it figured out is getting to me. And then God spoke to me. Not it an audible booming voice, but through His Words. The shot straight to my heart like an arrow straight from Him.

Isaiah 43:1-2 says "But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name; You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you."

The redemption of my life is something I can see clearly. Just looking at that shows me His love. I adore that He calls me His. He whispers "Erin, you are mine." Eeek {must be the single girl in me-butterflies}. But the next part is what really gets me. "When I pass through the waters" He promises that they will NOT overflow me. Right now I feel pretty in over my head. I feel like the flood waters have rushed in and I am swimming, struggling towards the surface. But He says He will be with me. Ah!! My Prince carrying me through the flood {more like coming in with a life boat}and walking me through the fire. So tonight I am resting in the peace that He is there leading me through what's to come. My Prince will not let me drown.

So as I wait to play ennie, mennie, minie moe, I will anticipate that He will lead me down the right fork {resume included}...

Excitement after She Speaks

Hello friends: I do not know where to begin. I am really quite overwhelmed and am still recovering from airport drama. [I will tell you about that later] This past weekend at She Speaks was more then I could have ever anticipated. I went expecting to see God in ways that I had not before. I prayed that I would be a light for Him and that I would come home with one new friend. That prayer was answered in so many ways. He blew my expectations out of the water. My Prince gave me gift after gift after gift all weekend. [I just wanted to do my happy dance] I left the hotel overflowing with joy and renewed vision.

Imagine, six hundred talented beautiful women sitting in one place waiting upon Him. That was what this weekend was. I looked around me with joy to see my follow Jesus' Princess' waiting upon Him. Each woman was so beautiful. They each had so much to offer and share. I talked to these amazing women who continued to amaze me. Ever single person I met had a vision of chasing after Him. I kept thinking "Wow Jesus, you want me here?" Never, ever underestimate the plan that your Prince has for You. It is always much more then you can imagine. :)

I loved meeting the girls over at She Seeks, a branch of P31 Ministries directly for 20 something girls like me. They write fabulous devotions and I did not expect to meet them. You see with 600 women I was not sure if I would even see them. Oh man. Jesus boxed them right up tied a big purple bow and allowed me to meet them all. These beautiful women are women that inspired, nurtured, loved and encouraged me through my wanderings in the past year without knowing it. I would pour over their blogs, devotions and vlogs (video blogs) in great anticipation of hearing from my Beloved Prince. These women were real. They talked about the issues I faced and the struggles of wandering through life. But they were my friends when I had none. Yes, I realize having virtual friends sounds strange, but when you don't have a single person your own age to relate to, calling your or talking to you it is a big deal. I would venture that I am not the only woman that has felt that way about these beautiful women. If you haven't checked them out, You HAVE to [click home to check them out]. I loved them long before I met them and they are even more lovely in person. They each encouraged me and listened to me and I would be silly not to note that secretly I was star struck.

Another thing I absolutely loved was watching the different women speak. I went there hungry to learn how to publicly share God's heart with people. These women were polished and real. The best part was they were relatable. I watched Lysa Terkeurst, Micca Campbell,Karen Ehman,Marybeth Whalen and Renee Swope share their heart. I learned so much from their wisdom on how to reach an audience. God spoke through those women. My Prince quietly whispered and reminded me of things that we had be working through and thinking about the last couple months. It was moving.

The girls in my Speaking Evaluation group were so inspiring. They had such beautiful stories that captivated and touched each of us. Such strong women who have experienced so much. What I love is that they are eager to share with everyone the ways the Jesus has changed it all.

Oh there is so much more this Princess could say. I might bore you to tears with what could be the world longest blog post. I am so so excited about it all!!! I will continue to share the things I experienced and God put on my heart. But right now I am being called to laundry, job searching, nannying and preparing for my girls bible study!! Oh God is so good!!!