Learning to Fully Surrender, Every Day

several months ago, i met someone that would change my life, drastically.

Her name was Sara, known more commonly on the interwebs as GitzenGirl. Sara suffered lived daily to glorify our Savior. Ankylosing Spondylitis was her illness, causing her spine to fuse together. It progressed more quickly then most cases, causing her to lose mobility and bringing her unspeakable amounts of pain finally causing her to become confined inside the walls of her condo in Iowa. New allergies making daily life, very difficult. Imagine not being able to leave your house or to open a window to let the breeze in. This was Sara’s life for 3 years. Her best friend was her dog, Riley.

Yet through her pain, her in mobility & daily struggle to do the easiest things, she found joy in life.

choose joy.

this was her challenge to her following on her blog. She wanted people to not feel bad for her pain, but she wanted to be able to teach about a Savior so amazing and so big that He could do anything. Her love for the Father was compelling, gripping & infectious. She loved Jesus & now I say with certainty that she is dancing, full on dancing with our Jesus.

Sara challenges us to daily, choose joy. in the pain, the suffering, the trials, the hard times, the happiness and in all the Lord does, choose joy. Not to choose joy because we are obligated, but Choose Joy, because He has blessed us immensely. In that time when you feel alone, Choose Joy, in that time when there seems to be no reason to be happy, Choose Joy.

My challenge to you: carry on Sara’s legacy, choose joy. Daily, Choose Joy.

Get to know my friend. Get to know Her Legacy, Her Story. She was a fighter, an amazing daughter of a most high God and she loved the Lord.

In life, I want to strive, daily to be more like Sara. When I am called home, I want to be known like Sara. Someone who passionately is in love with the Lord and someone who daily decided to choose joy.

striving, everyday to fully surrender & remembering daily to choose joy.

Meet Sara: http://gitzengirl.blogspot.com

God changes our path. Sometimes when we least expect it & sometimes just in the right moment. He allows things to happen for reason we truly will never grasp.

He led me to APU, He took me back to Multnomah & then He brought me home. In those several months, looking at school and moving to a new state – He has been working on my heart and teaching me every step of the way.

I started an application to Western Washington University today, not because I’ve packed up all hope of Multnomah, but simply because I feel God calling in another direction. How else do we truly hear and understand the direction unless we start to follow His voice? Besides, what could it hurt – a yes is another possibility and a no is a, well no. I have been on such a roller coaster these past few months and truly believe that currently, I am just where He wants me.

Waiting on Him.

Relying on Him.

Knowing it’s His plan & not mine.

I learned today, that God wants to bless us with all our hearts desires. Yet, only after we fully believe and are completely sold out to the fact that apart from Him, we are nothing.

So, here I sit.

Waiting on Him & His plan, alone.

When Life Happens, Direction May Change – But Our Purpose Will Always Remain

It’s hard – but that’s why I choose to Fully Surrender, Everyday.

as i sit listening to a song that has grown very close to my heart, I am drawn to the words that continue to speak to me even after the music has stopped playing:

you stood before creation. eternity in your hands. & you spoke the earth into motion, my soul now to stand.

you stood before my failures & carried the cross for my shame. my sin weighed upon your shoulders, my soul now to stand.

 so what could i say? what could i do? but offer this heart, O God, completely to you?

i’ll walk upon salvation. your spirit alive in me. this This life to declare Your promise, My soul now to stand.

so what can I say? What can I do? But offer this heart, O God, completely to You.

so I’ll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned. In awe of the One who gave it all.

so I’ll stand, My soul Lord to You surrendered. All I am is Yours.

Have you ever truly wrestled with the fact that He had everything? Truly wrestled? Think on this with me. He had everything, He needed nothing more – He is Almighty, All-Sustaining – yet He wanted us. He created everything we see, for us.

-He created it for us; the earth, life, everything we see -so we could use it to bring Him glory.

So why don’t we do what He created us for?

Are your hands high, is your heart fully abandonded?

Where do you stand?

Daily, Learning to Surrender.

That moment when you realized that what just

happened possibly  occurred so you could

learn, grow and be stretched for His glory.

This past month has been a roller coaster - emotions, hopes, excitements – of a life.

• I finalized the last minute things that were needed for the start of school
• I finalized the transfer of jobs
• I removed myself out of ministry at my home church
• I left my home
• I left my surroundings
• I left my friends
• I moved to oregon
• I moved into a new school
• I moved to a new store location, in a different state, in a different set of surroundings
• I started meeting new people
• I started a new school, a real school, a real University
• I fell in love.

I then found out that I would not be staying.

credits. transferring. out of state. issues. Being 18 credits short of my associates degree, junior status. I decided against starting over & moved back to washington.

The adjustment of coming home has been difficult & hard. Mostly because I was so excited to start this new journey, this new chapter in my life. Yet throughout the few days that I truly struggled with coming home or just staying down there, the Lord truly allowed me a sense of comfort in deciding to come home.

I have re-enrolled at Highline Community College — more excitement couldn’t be possible to contain ( hint sarcasm ). Yet I truly am so ready to start so I can continue on the path that the Lord is allowing me to travel down. I struggle with friends getting ready to graduate from their last year in college yet the moment that I start with my own personal struggles, I think of the life that I have live in South Africa, Haiti and Dominican Republic. I think of the faces, people and moments that I have grown so much to love and truly consider ‘life defining’ moments. Not many people my age can say that they’ve done as much as I have.

To know that the creator has blessed me with so many opportunities to share His heartbeat for the world,

allows the adversary to be silenced in my own quiet moments of personal reflection.

So I am home.

When Life Happens, direction may change but our purpose will always remain.

Acts 1:8 

most of the time i write my blog then title it. yet seeing how the Lord has started to change my direction on everything in life, today, i simply started with my title. first.

This seems to be a re-occurrence in my life this past year. God and I have been working on a few areas of my life. The big one was surrendering my life, completely; my dreams, my goals, my plans, my future — my life, over to Him. He’s also been teaching me that in life, things change.

These past several months I truly have found a new respect in the person the Lord is molding me to be. Things in life change & He’s allowing me to understand that. He’s allowing me to see that sometimes we leave some behind yet with everything or person we leave behind the Lord is right there to carry us along while we find our new resting place on our never ending adventure, that we all walk with the creator. He brings people in and out of our lives to teach us something about ourselves or to help them learn something their journey. Those friends that we are able to remain friends with for decades, it’s only by the grace of God & through the genuine understanding that He gives & takes away.

Recently, a friendship has become null & void. With no understanding of what went wrong. I have been left to try and make sense of it & move on. This is one thing that the Lord has been teaching me for some time now. Not to get caught up in the sin (drama) that so easily entangles, which causes us to lose focus of our ultimate goal in life. Bringing God the glory. If you have an issue, a hurt, a problem — the Bible is very clear how to address such things. The Lord reaffirms my heart, when I say that I don’t have time, energy or the need to worry or stress over what happened between Britni & I. I am moving on with my life. I am growing in life. I am not stuck in the past. I am focused on the future & the plans the Lord has drawn out for me. God has allowed me to understand that friends grow apart. Friends grow different directions. Friends grow at different speeds. Gods even started to show me that sometimes Friends weren’t always Friends to begin with.

It’s odd to see how we use social media to brake ties to people whom we once considered friends. Hiding behind our profiles that we’ve created so we don’t have to face the true issues of our hurt, bitterness, anger or our own fiction. It’s so true how a simple voice-less “unfriend Joe Abber” can shout volumes, so greatly unknown that it’s blatancy carries on for miles. It’s even more astonishing at how hard the “block friend” hits. It’s amazing to me that while some are growing & maturing others are stuck in the past. Holding so tightly to the things that brought them temporary joy and momentary satisfaction. It’s with these individuals, whom we once held a deep, loving, tight-knit fake, unreal & totally phony past with that we are able to truly see how close our friendship truly never was.

the Lord is working in my life. i am not perfect. Lord knows, i sin. not just daily but several times throughout one day. Yet, through my sin the Lord loves me and is guiding me to become who He has planned for me to be.

My prayer is that we, as brothers & sisters in Christ will stand up against this “facebookfriendship” that we are all becoming so accustomed to & truly become friends with those that mean the most to us. If you bare resentment towards someone, allow them the opportunity to seek out your forgiveness. Let them know; how they hurt you, how they misplaced your trust, how they can seek your forgiveness. if you stray from every friend who causes you hurt, without allowing them the opportunity to address it, you will never be satisfied & will only continue to seek out friendships that will never last. Let’s become Holistic Facebook(toFace) Friends & start speaking life into each other. We’ve been given authority to speak life, so let’s build each other up instead of dabbling in Satan’s muck of bitterness, anger & phoniness and be honest with those whom we say we love, care for & are friends with. Let’s be Real.

Learning, everyday, to surrender, yet again.

Jabber

I sit here, again dreaming of the things that I anticipated for next year…

- being back in a competitive & elite choir
- being closer to family that i love
- being at a top Christian college
- studying what my heart longs to grow a deeper understanding of, the African continent & the Haitian Nation
- having immense school spirit
______________________________

That is not what the LORD had planned for me. They were my plans.

Multnomah doesn’t have:

-an elite music department

-it’s not closer to my family

-it’s a small bible college not nearly the pedigree of Azusa

-the school spirit doesn’t even compete with APU.

Yet continually the Lord continues to whisper, “that stuff of the world doesn’t matter. I want a deeper, closer & more personal relationship with you. In my love, in my arms — in my plans, that stuff doesn’t matter, Joe”.

Someone recently made comment to me:

“Joe, I don’t understand what the Big deal is about switching where you are heading to school. Everyone does it”.

that took me back. really far back. there is so much more behind the decision for me then just “oh, well I guess I’ll go to this school over here”.  I was going to California. There was no doubt in my mind that August were to come and I would be moving down the 5 headed to my new life as an APU Student. I was convinced that it was God’s calling. I had registered for classes. I had paid $650 committing to attend. I had signed an agreement of commitment to Azusa Pacific. I was meeting, contacting & getting to know other students of APU. I was looking for Starbuck Stores to transfer to. I was looking for places to live. I was looking for churches to attend. I was calculating the miles from school to my families houses. I was planning the times of the year I would come home. I was looking for loans for $32,000. I had applied & auditioned for 5+ vocal scholarships. I had auditioned & submitted my Musical/Acting/Theatre Resume for scholarships. I had been awarded over $6,000 in scholarships. I was waiting to hear back from 2 more choirs, 2 more scholarships.

I was going to Azusa Pacific University.

I was living in blatant disregard of what the Lord had told me to do.

That is the big deal. I was living, planning and doing what I wanted. It was not just a thought, or a possibility. It was going to happen.

Yet, things change. Often

So now. I prepare for what God is doing in my life. Preparing me for the school He has called me to go to. I am excited. Nervous. Anxious. not about the little things like I was. But to start this next chapter in my life.

Stay tuned.

Everyday,

Joe

its weird to think, that as I sit here doing nothing, I find myself thinking to my self, ‘when was the last time I had absolutely nothing to do”?

I’ve caught up on some sleep and just in the past hour gotten up, took a shower and got ready for the day — at 5pm.

This time last month I was so excited for this day in May to arrive. It was another step in starting the direction that God was leading me in and I was so excited to branch out & take this step of faith. Yet it’s amazing how quickly God changes our direction because He brings us to the understanding that it was Our direction and not truly His. I completely forgot what today was.

As I was walking through the kitchen something caught my eye. I noticed on the calendar what Today’s date is. May 21st, 2011.

It dawned on me.

Azusa Pacific University Registration in Seattle.

As I sit here reflecting on what God has been doing in my life these past few months. I can’t help but feel excited, saddened, relieved & nervous about all that the Lord is doing in my life. He’s taking me in a direction that I am so glad to be heading & it feels so good to know that regardless how I got to this point, I am finally secure in His promise to ‘ never leave us nor forsake us’.

The Fall can’t come soon enough!

Still, everyday, learning to surrender.

Joe