Are you the egg, the carrot or the coffee bean?

Are you the egg, the carrot or the coffee bean?

In life, some people are like the egg, soft in the beginning, malleable, delicate. But when pressure (like boiling water or life's pressures) surrounds the egg, it gets harder and is tough, not malleable. These are the people who have a hardened heart thanks to the pressures of life.

In life, some people are the carrot. They start of hard and strong, but when pressure (or water) surrounds the carrot it gets softer and softer until it turns to mush. It can't hold it self together, it gets crushed under any weight.

In life, some people are the coffee bean. When pressure (water) hits the coffee bean, the coffee bean changes the water/pressure, not the other way around. The beautiful scent of the coffee bean is magnified by the mixture with the water and the scent affects life and sets the atmosphere. If you're the coffee bean, you are the scent that clears the air. You affect the pressures of life and spread your scent to everyone else.

So which one are you?

*I was taught about this at the Christian Women's Conference I attended. I wanted to share the short form of it with you.

Christian Women's Conference Day 2

Day two of the Christian women's conference brought me even more knowledge and hope.

Imagine you have a cup of water with impurities in it. You want to drink from it but it's not clean. How do you make it more clean and less impure? Saturate it with more water. The water will filter the impurities to the top where you can take them out. By the same token, God doesn't want to change us, he just wants to put more of himself in us to saturate us with himself so that our impurities may be filtered out.

About Revelation

Revelation - unknown fact that is made known in a dynamic or dramatic way.

You need a revelation about who you are. A revelation of your true destiny. 

 About Drama

Drama reveals reality. Women are deep and so we have more drama. Men are simple. Drama you have been through becomes your reality unless you let it go.

About Your Past

Satan tries to stop you from advancing. He makes you focus on the past and present instead of the future.

Women replay the past over and over. You must let it go.

Don't own where you've been or who you've been.

Use your past as a stepping stone, as a platform.

AA says that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic but that is NOT true. You are NOT what you used to be.

About Your Destiny

 Satan tries to assassinate your destiny

"You Must Now Know Who I Am!" - I am important, I am unique, I am me

When I know myself - I walk, talk and act different.

"You're about to have a coming out party" - you are going to come out as you really are

If God put me in the world, the world must need me.

About Others

See your accusers, the haters. They look up at you because they are beneath you.

"Take the stench of your past and make it perfume of your present!"

"If you're gonna go with me, you gotta grow with me" - only surround yourself with people who will help you advance.

"You gotta love everybody but you gotta love some from a distance" - regarding people who bring negativity to the world.

About Your Issues

Circle Your Problems, Don't Let Them Circle You

Your dysfunction has become your normal. If you lead a dysfunctional life for long enough, it becomes your normal and you have to constantly work at keeping it where you want it. You have to keep adjusting yourself. You might feel like it gets worse before it gets better.

Get off Facebook and put your face IN the book.

God doesn't want to bless your mess. He can't bless you until you deal with your issues (just like in John 4 when he is talking to the Samaritan woman.

Your issues are coming between YOU and your DESTINY.

C.O.P.I. Identity Christian Women's Conference

Today was day 1 of the Christian women's conference held by a local church. As a new Christian, I figured this was my change to learn something new, to be surrounded by other Christians and hear some great words from a different Pastor than I normally hear from each Sunday.

Here are just some of the great nuggets of wisdom I gleaned from Day 1

About Community

We must all be planted not just in God's word but in a church, one church, a community in order to be surrounded and to defeat Satan. No hopping from church to church, find the one that fits you best and get rooted in it.

About Your Past

"When you run into your past, tell them, let me show you my future"

"We all have a history but we also all have a destiny."

"You are not what happened to you."  - Satan wants you to think that's true, but it's not.

About Our Mind

There is a difference between Truth and Fact. It can be a fact that you feel a certain way about a situation but that doesn't mean that those feelings are grounded in truth.

"As a woman thinks in her heart so is she" - Proverbs 23:7

About Our Purpose

Purpose= motive, justification, advantage, worth, value, profit etc..

Live ON Purpose but also live IN Purpose, live in the purpose that God has for your life.

"It's time for me to be free to be me"

About Satan

Satan is an identity thief. Satan doesn't want you to know who you are.

Pull Satan out of the front seat and stop letting him drive your life!

Let the Lord bless you and the devil pay for it!

If Satan keeps trying to hurt you or make you sin, it's because you are a commodity he doesn't own. You are gifted and he wants you for himself.

About Decisions

You can't make decisions because Satan gives you too many options. If you didn't have options, you wouldn't be able to pick a bad choice like drinking, drugs, adultery, etc

If you say "I'm not going to decide right now" you've already made a decision. You decided NOT to decide.

Decision= settle the matter or cut off all other options.

When you make a decision, you cut off all the other options Satan wants you to have.

About Misc.

Reactions speak louder than actions. Reactions are your first response, your facial expressions, first words. You can't fake your reaction.

When you magnify - you manifest. The more you think about a negative thing, the bigger it becomes. The more you think of good things, the bigger they become. Which do you want more of?

"My setback is a setup for my comeback."

Homemaker In Training...again

I always said I wanted to be a stay at home mom when I first got together with my husband. I loved the idea of caring for my kids, teaching them things, keeping the house clean and organized for my loved ones.

After the number of kids rose and the stresses piled on though, homemaking ended up being last on my list of things I wanted to do. I started getting majorly stressed and because I didn't have a good system in place, the house got out of control and I sturggled to manage it.

Recently, having been called to Christ, I've been reading about homemaking in the biblical sense and I'm working on changing my outlook. I am remembering those I am keeping home FOR. Not me, but my husband and children. I love them and I can show them that by cleaning the house and cooking meals and sharing my knowledge with them.

So I keep reading about homemaking, reading what the bible has to say about it and fine tuning both my attitude and my systems and routines until I get it to where I need it to be.

So for now, I am a homemaker in training.. again.

How My Call to God Affects My Family

My family is not religious. Not the immediate family, nor extended, on either sides. So my kids have grown up knowing there are religions out there but not really being surrounded by it. As I mentioned in a previous post, we celebrated the secular version of Christmas and Easter and although we celebrated some Jewish holidays too, I'd consider the family very reform so it's not religious exactly.

So when I was called to Christianity and have since been embracing it with daily prayer, bible reading and studying and Christian music, it was a lot more than my family was used to. My husband is being very supportive and one of my children is interested in learning more but another of my children apparently is annoyed by it.

Yesterday she asked me, "When are you going to get over it?" I was very hurt by this but today I sat her down and explained that although she's not used to, many families are full of religious observances and talk and that I'm not saying she has to be Christian but if she has any questions I'm here.

So now I'm struggling with being the only Christian in the family. I keep praying that my family will find Jesus but until that happens, I feel very alone.

Working On My Marriage

Honestly my marriage was pretty awesome but as I was new to Christianity I was reading and studying what the biblical marriage was supposed to look like. It turns out we are doing a lot right but I did have some things to work on.

I used the bible, blog posts, a Proverbs 31 study at Good Morning Girls, books and my own heart and prayers to find out what makes a good wife so I could be a better one. Then I picked up the Women Living Well book and it has been phenomenal so far. I'm currently doing the marriage challenges it has in it and I love it!

I have completed week one and will be starting week two on Monday. Even now I can say my marriage is great and it's where I want it. Next in line is becoming a better mother. I know I have a lot more to work on for that.

I have some resources already but I'm looking for more if anyone reading this has any.

I think wanting to become a better wife or mother is a good thought but if you aren't willing to actually work at it, it means nothing.

Books About Faith

Since I became interested in Christianity, I've been acquiring books like crazy.  I've spent almost $200 on books, most of which were faith related and most of which were only $1-$5 each.

 

This is my Christian book shelf. I'm running out of room and I still have more books on there way to me (half were bought online, half from thrift stores)

Here is a closer look

 Do you see any books you've read? I've only read about 4 of them but I'm going through them as fast as I can. I also acquired a regular bible and a study bible which are not pictured so I've been making time to read that as well.

Christian Memories

My mom is technically Roman Catholic while my dad is technically Jewish. I say technically because although both were raised as such a little bit, neither one attended church/temple or followed the laws in the Bible.

However they had enough background that I was raised learning of both religions and then later on in life, only the Jewish culture as we celebrated Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah and Passover every year. Christmas and Easter were always secular though. As such as I got older, I showed and interest in Judaism and took it upon myself to learn more while my Christian side sank deep down in my memories... until now.

I remember:

• Saying the Lord's prayer
• Singing Christian songs such as Michael Row the Boat Ashore, He's Got the Whole World In His Hands and Kumbaya as well as many others.
• Saying the "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" child's prayer before bed many times
• Putting out a nativity scene for Christmas every year until it broke. 

I have also learned other songs as a Girl Guide leader before we became more multicultural that I now know and a much younger friend taught me the Jesus Loves Me kid song as a teenager.

What would have happened if I had more of my mom's family around or had been taught more of Christianity? I certainly needed it many times throughout my life. How much better I might have handled problems through my childhood, teenager and young adult years if I had embraced Christ. 

My Calling

During the dark time of early 2015 I was plagued with visions of evil things and I saw demons. It was a scary time. Beyond it all, I felt a calling but I ignored it for the most part in the beginning because I was fighting my demons. Once I went to the hospital and starting getting better, I was able to embrace the calling and give in to the need to reach out and learn. I grabbed the nearest bible and started reading.

A friend in hospital called Jamie and I were talking about music and she mentioned that she didn't know the newest songs because she only listened to Christian music. It was something I hadn't thought of and when I got home, I quickly found Christian music to listen to and I've almost exclusively listened to it since. I love it.

I've since acquired bibles of my own as well as angel statues, mini crosses and other Christian decorations to surround myself with. I spend hours each day reading Christian books and blogs and learning as much as I can. I feel the calling strongly, so strongly that I could not deny it even when I felt odd, as my previous feelings of Christianity were less then pleasant.

When hearing previously of others having a calling, I thought they just meant they chose Christianity and called it a calling but now I know, it's not the same. Jesus called to me and now I walk with him.

The Story Behind the Blog Name

I named the blog after the song Never Going Back by Holly Starr.

The song reminds me that I never want to go back to the dark place I was in February through May of 2015. This blog is for me to work out my thoughts, emotions, decisions and knowledge since then. Something changed in me when I was in that deep dark place, especially in May when I needed to be hospitalized because of mental health. I'm never going back to that.