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Luke4:24 (the message) Well, let me tell you something: No prophet is ever welcomed in his hometown.

I went home this past weekend and Luke4 rang in my head. But there is nothing like going home to humble you and make you grateful for how far God has brought you, or in this case, how far he has brought me. I can’t go home with out facing my demons, mistakes, and remembering how hard things really were. Life is pretty good now. I tend to lose this perspective way too quickly and forget what it used to be and harp on nonsense. But a good trip home quickly jogs the memory.…  ( Click for more )

“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can break my heart” I don’t know who said this, but I think it is true. Others’ words have definitely left some scars on my heart, but I know that my words have also cut people. Recently a friend told me that sometimes he needs tough skin to talk to me. That made me sad. Not the self pity type of sad but the I’m-sorry-I-can-make-people-feel-that-way type of sad. As a result of our conversation I went back through an old journal and decided to study out wisdom. I went back to a study in 1Corinthians on how…  ( Click for more )

God determines who walks into your life- it's up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let go.

For the past few months I have slowly pulled my heart back and my friendship away from someone who once meant a great deal to me. This has been a result of their self-destructive patterns as well as hurtful behavior towards me. It’s been hard.   

I am not the kind of friend who makes excuses for the ill behavior of others. I do not condone self pity nor self centeredness.  I tell my friends the truth even if it…  ( Click for more )

I heard a question that really got me the other day.  The question was, “Do you let God inspire you or are you trying to inspire yourself?”  This made me think.  I totally try to inspire myself on many occasions, which results in my state of inspiration not being consistent. In fact, I think that I have been so pre-occupied with trying to inspire others through God's word sometimes that I have resorted to allowing others' level of inspiration to influence whether or not I myself ‘feel’ inspired. I don't want to just…  ( Click for more )

You sin. You mess up bad, maybe you mess up bad multiple times. You confess and begin to actively repent of your sin. God forgives you and others support you. Yet you continue to beat your self up, push others away. You decide you are not ‘good enough’ for those who care about you. You punish yourself and ‘protect’ others from the ‘bad version of you’.  Since you are in a bad place or still recovering from a bad place you don’t want to ‘drag them down with you’.  They are better off without you and you are better off dealing…  ( Click for more )

Conviction has a double edged sword definition; on the one hand it is the state of being convinced (convinced: to bring by the use of argument or evidence to firm belief or a course of action, full assurance). On the other hand it is judgment or proof of guilt.  As Christians we can so flippantly use this term claiming to have ‘convictions’. I have recently found there is real value in testing what my true convictions are versus something I believe, but do not necessarily hold to. One example of this is the belief that God loves all of us.  There are many people…  ( Click for more )

Heart over routine. That’s what I desire in my walk with God daily. I want my heart to be refined and be in what I do for God. I don’t want to simply follow a routine.  

When I first became a Christian I remember starting a prayer journal. In my prayer journal I would write out my prayers the way I thought they were supposed to sound. I knew this journal was for my eyes only and yet I still prayed very carefully, wanting to say the “right thing” to God and sound “spiritual”.  It took me a while to break out of this routine and…  ( Click for more )

In Christianity some main biblical principles are set out for us in relationships; putting others before ourselves (Philip2:3), serving others (1Peter4:10), and denying ourselves (Matt16:24). These are all wonderful principles and can often help us to glorify God in great ways. When living in a society of “Me” and “I” first, it is profound to see Christians do as the bible says and not as the world dictates. Yet, like in everything balance is crucial. I am currently learning this balance. Even Jesus withdrew to isolated places, even Jesus needed time to himself…  ( Click for more )

There are weeks where I wish the world would just stop spinning, or weeks where I feel like it’s all an uphill climb, but rarely are their weeks where I just am. I realized this is because even when I do have a good week and things are all going well I freak out and wait for the bottom to fall out.

But the past few weeks have been good weeks and I have been learning to enjoy them! It’s been wonderful! I’m learning that a good day does not have to be the calm before the storm. Good days are ours for the asking. God has a plan and he will bring it out to completion.…  ( Click for more )

I am not good at remembering birthdays. I always forget and totally need reminders. It’s ironic to me therefore how I remember the date of my father’s death.  I never remembered his birthday; I didn’t even know when it was until I saw it on the death certificate.  We were never close, I hadn't seen him in six years, and yet the one year of his death is less then a month away and I keep thinking about it.  The most morbid thing I have had to do so far in my life has been to go through my father’s things after his death.  To…  ( Click for more )

A friend of mine asked me to marry him. I get proposed to on a yearly basis. No, I'm not joking, and yes, the proposals are serious. I have great male friends who I have known for years who want to marry me, but I say no. They are great men who treat me like a queen but they are not Christians and the bible is not their standard and since our standards differ they are not the men for me.  This however, becomes hard to accept when the men with the same standard as mine don't quite seem to value me as much as the others.

One of these non-Christian friends…  ( Click for more )

So many times I can pray for other people and give biblical guidance or advice to those close to me in regards to Gods love and plans for them. I believe and am faithful that he will bring them through the trials they face, build their faith, and blow them away with how he loves them more then they could comprehend.  Yet, it dawned on me that every once in a while the very things I pray for and advise others I don’t believe for myself.  I actually found myself praying to believe in Gods great plans for my life as much as I believe it for others. Somewhere…  ( Click for more )

“Two women looked through prison bars; one saw mud the other saw stars” (author unknown)

Which do you see most days? I guess it depends where you’re looking, right? I am always most inspired by lessons on perspective.  That's probably becuase mine gets warped so easily. I think Godly perspective in the every day world is very hard to maintain. All it takes sometimes is one bad moment at the beginning of the day to throw us completely off.  It can be something as simple as being caught in traffic, getting a blister from new shoes, or unexpected…  ( Click for more )

I had quite the emotional week last week. Who would have thought it? Me in love. Well, he's absolutely amazing and he has blown my mind! It's like he can read my thoughts.  He has been after me for years and I kept him at a distance out of fear. But he listens to every word I say and never interrupts (I know that's hard to believe, I talk a lot). He writes me love letters (who would have thought I would have liked that?). Sometimes he points out the most disgusting parts of my character and even when I'm at my worst and most annoying he…  ( Click for more )

At work I am often put in situations where the expectation is for me to lie. No one ever says point blank, “Kasia lie.” But I can get directions to, “Just say …” When I was put in yet another one of these politically sticky situations I really had to fight to tell the truth and not be deceptive, or coy, or even play on words to give a sense of falsehood.  It is possible to be honest and tell the truth and not be manipulative and still reap beneficial results. After all God is so much bigger then the situation and I must trust that he will bring about…  ( Click for more )

I can feel hurt when people forget about me or forget things that are important to me. A few weeks back a close friend of mine planed a surprise birthday dinner for me.  She planed it to take place a few days after my actual birthday resulting in people not calling me on the day of.  I was so hurt and felt completely forgotten. I'm not one of those people who keeps things like this to myself, I dropped plenty of subtle hints weeks in advance just in case.  I have this weird fear of being forgotten that no doubt somehow connects to my childhood, but I digress.…  ( Click for more )

Patience has never been one of my virtues. No matter how hard I try it always seems to get the best of me. I don't think I ever truly understood the depth or the consequences of impatience.  I know that I tend to be impatient because sometimes I lack faith in God, but for the longest time I believed that I was only impatient and anxious about certain things.  Recently I have been seeing how impatience affects many aspects of my life.

On the one hand my impatience seems good because it  drives me to be motivated and work hard.  My hunger for results drives…  ( Click for more )

Helplessness is an overwhelming, sometimes suffocating feeling. Recently, I've watched several of my friends struggle in their lives and their relationship with God. Seeing them helpless and feeling helpless myself as I've treid to "fix" them has been hard.

If someone close to me is going through a hard time everything in me wants to "fix" them. However, as I've faught to deny my temptation to be everyone's savior, God has shown me my weakness: that even when I do something that seems like a good deed on the outside, I am often fighting God for control on…  ( Click for more )

The more I study out hope the more I am astounded at how the scriptures pry into my heart! It dawned on me a while ago that I base my hope more on sight than on faith. It was like a revelation! If faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of that which we do not see, I had to ask myself am I really sure of what I hope for? Is my hope based on the unseen? In the every day am I hopeful in accordance with how Hebrews defines hope? The answer was a very matter-of-fact no. When I am hopeless I tend towards impatience. In my life impatience is the direct result of my hopelessness.…  ( Click for more )

The more I study out hope the more I am astounded at how the scriptures pry into my heart! It dawned on me a while ago that I base my hope more on sight than on faith. It was like a revelation! If faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of that which we do not see, I had to ask myself am I really sure of what I hope for? Is my hope based on the unseen? In the every day am I hopeful in accordance with how Hebrews defines hope? The answer was a very matter-of-fact no. When I am hopeless I tend towards impatience. In my life impatience is the direct result of my hopelessness.…  ( Click for more )

The more I study out hope the more I am astounded at how the scriptures pry into my heart! It dawned on me a while ago that I base my hope more on sight than on faith. It was like a revelation! If faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of that which we do not see, I had to ask myself am I really sure of what I hope for? Is my hope based on the unseen? In the every day am I hopeful in accordance with how Hebrews defines hope? The answer was a very matter-of-fact no. When I am hopeless I tend towards impatience. In my life impatience is the direct result of my hopelessness.…  ( Click for more )

Helplessness is an overwhelming, sometimes suffocating feeling. Recently, I've watched several of my friends struggle in their lives and their relationship with God. Seeing them helpless and feeling helpless myself as I've treid to "fix" them has been hard.

If someone close to me is going through a hard time everything in me wants to "fix" them. However, as I've faught to deny my temptation to be everyone's savior, God has shown me my weakness: that even when I do something that seems like a good deed on the outside, I am often fighting God for control on…  ( Click for more )