I don't know where to start. Last night was just awesome for me...I know that God had been preparing me for a breakthrough, but I had no idea how awesome it would be...It was a strange place that he picked, but that's okay. I would have (I know it sounds wierd) honestly thought that a concert like this would be the last place where God would have touched me the way He did only because I have been so closed off to Him lately, and I wasn't sure how to start to open up.

In my analitical brain I was thinking that it would be impossible for me to get anything out of last night except for a really great time with friends and some really good music...

I can't even describe what God did for me...I feel weightless. I know (one more time) that all the mistakes I've made no longer matter...that I have to stop letting myself fall in the guilt traps that satan lays for me and that I lay for myself. He loves me so much...I don't know why. I don't deserve it. But He still loves me, and that's all that matters.

I want to stop trying to be worthy of His love, because I never will be. I just want to be close to Him again...that's all I want.

I guess this is sortof a praise report/prayer request at the same time. I need some serious prayers from you all as well as some serious attitude changes within myself.

I know I'm on one of those "spiritual highs" as they call it...after a mountain top experience...I just don't want to come down and break the tablets again. I want to come down with the words that He gave me and the promises that He promised to fulfil and the love that I feel for Him right now.

I could tell you were getting something out of last night, I started to take a picture to remind you of it later, but let you be.

Posted this in the other thread, but it seems appropriate here, I can't get it out of my head:

Lord Move, or Move Me
by Jeromy Diebler (ffh)
from Found a Place

I can't find the words to pray, I'm a little down today
Can You help me, can You hold me
I feel a million miles away, and I don't know what to say
Can You hear me anyway

What I need is for You to reach out Your hand
You have taught me no matter what You'd understand


Lord move in a way that I've never seen before
'Cause there's a mountain in the way
and a lock on the door
I'm drifting away, waves are crashing on the shore
So Lord move, or move me


I've looked everywhere to find a simple peace of mind
But I can't find nothin' on my own
So I gotta leave myself behind, take up this cross of mine
Give away everything I hold on to

Lord, I know the only way is through this
But Lord, I know I need You to help me do this

Lord move in a way that I've never seen before
'Cause there's a mountain in the way
and a lock on the door
I'm drifting away, waves are crashing on the shore
So Lord move, or move me

Out of this place of complacency
To a place of fellowship with Thee
'Cause I am weak, but Lord, You are so strong
And You know it's been way too long
It's been way too long

Lord move in a way that I've never seen before
'Cause there's a mountain in the way
and a lock on the door
I'm drifting away, waves are crashing on the shore
So Lord move, or move me

/

That's about when I really started being...moved. God really worked through those guys last night, and I love that song...but it just meant so much more to me last night than it ever has...

Me too... for some reason it was the first time I had actually listened to the lyrics

I've listened to them before, but you know how sometimes you just have to be ready to actually hear what it's saying? I guess that's where I was last night...I want to stay there for a while...it's a little tough even coming back to every day life...the little family arguments that get on your nerves, trying to have the right attitude...trying to climb out of all this junk that I let myself slide back into...you just know that you can take on the world when you get out of something like that last night, and then as soon as the daily grind starts back up you feel like the world is taking you on instead...

heheh... that's hopefully where building healthy relationships with others come in, it's nearly impossible to try to make it on our own without friends (true friends). One good thing about the long drive there and back

That's true...I don't know why I feel like I have to make it without other people close to me in my life...but it's just not seeming to work for me...

A saying we have in our building healthy relationships course:

it works if you work it

hmmmm..also a saying at the end of AA meetings.

When are those healthy relationship courses anyway??

oh, and what i meant by not working for me...it's not working for me trying to make it on my own...just wanted to clear that up. It sounded a little different the way I worded it, but that's what I meant.

ok cool

We meet sunday evenings at CCC at 6:30 for the next couple of weeks, and at 6 after that I believe. There's also a group meeting on Wednesday nights at cathedral in the pines.

what kind of stuff do yall talk about?

ummmm... building healthy relationship-type stuff

It's actually a full course... step by step program , takes months to finish, but then again, we didn't get screwed up over night Myself, I would liken it to a cross between the road adventures and AA. You'll find a mixture of people there, some there for our kinda classes, some for AA, some for abusive relationships with people and food... they are split up where needed. I originally went there to bring a friend who really needed, now they can't get rid of me I've been going ~6 months now, there's also groups for those just starting.

Michelle! I am not even going to try to keep up with the running converstation you and Allen have got going roflol

I am standing in for you!! and I am excited with you!!! GO GOD!!!

I been so thirsty lately for god that the concert helped but i'm sure that is just the tip of the iceburg. Great concert!!!!!! My favorite is Micheal W. Smith.

My favorites:

1. Newsboys
2. Newsboys
3. Newsboys
and a close close 4th
4. Newsboys

hehehe...

Seriously:

1. Newsboys
2. FFH (those guys really really rocked, and God chose
the right people to do the alter call.
3. Steven Curtis Chapman
4. Avalon
5. 4Him
6. Wayne Watson
7. Chris Rice
8. Nichole Noredman
9. Nichole C. Mullins
10. Twila Paris

And the two that really impressed Lara and I were Yolanda Adams and Phil Keaggy. Ones I really wish I could have seen but missed were Shaun Groves and Greg Long...

Oh, heck I liked them all.

Oh, and I wish that Supertones and Bebo Norman would have been there...

Would have been nice to see third day too

Posted by foreverchanged..."I want to stop trying to be worthy of His love, because I never will be. I just want to be close to Him again...that's all I want."

Last night at STAND we talked about exactly that. It says in Psalms 1:3 "He (she) shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper."

I have had a burning desire for the last year to see the "world" that Christ walked in. Although I feel like I am back in school (history, sociology, math,etc...), I can honestly tell you that I have never been so excited about what God is teaching me.

In studying the land and its social makeup, I have learned to look at "the picture" the author is giving us more closely and not as a southeast Tx'n. When I heard a pastor talk of Psalms 1, I just had a picture of a tree next to a small babbling brook, with a tire swing and a small wooden fence catching the sun just at the right angle. And I just missed an incredible picture that God is showing us.

The land that the author is writing about is the desert. It is filled with sand, and sun and most definately NO tire swing by babbling brooks. There is a phenominon in the desert called WADI's (looks like the grand canyon or big ditches). Well at certain times of the year, water will travel down these ditches and soak into the ground and disappear. From this ground water tress will give root.

If you walk down in the WADI you will not see water, but you will see a tree or a bush, and if you are a shepherd, you know that there is water there because of the tree.

What a wonderful picture God gives us of being a christian. It may be a dry time in our lives. God has put us in a hot, sandy, and desolate place and we at times feel isolated and alone. But he has rooted us in a "the stream of living water." And although we may feel like asking God "why me... why here..." there are those who are looking for the "stream of living water" or Christ and although in there lives they may not see the water... they know He's there by our fruit.

Now at first I thought "oh great... I can't live up to the preasure...", but Michelle hit it on the head when she said we have to stop trying to be worthy.

That tree can do nothing but stand there and trust in God for wether it lives or dies. He (she) just delights himself in the law (or learning more about the real God) of the Lord. And spending time with Him.

I want to be blessed in my life. Not necessarily just financialy but more importantly blessed in friendships and family and overall peace in life. It is because of this this, that I have within the last 6 months began to as Psalms 1:1 states "walk in the counsel of the Godly people... delight myself in the law... and meditate on His law daily."

Surround yourself with people who would rather worship and read and study His word than people who would rather do things of the world. Delight yourself in Him and trust that He will do with you whatever He has planned.

innerdawg

That was good, Jason...thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'm finally to the point where I don't care whether it makes sense that he loves me...I just want to accept the love that He wants to give me. It gets awful cold without him.

PS Yes, Allen. I knew I was forgetting somebody. Third Day would have been awesome...and Jennifer Knapp.