My Hydro Flask Broke

I broke my hydro flask at camp this summer... What is a hydro flask you ask?

It’s an amazing water bottle that keeps your drinks ice cold for hours upon hours, literally will keep ice in your bottle for like 12 hrs. It was given to me a few summers ago and I love it, it’s perfect for long runs in the heat and especially perfect for hot summer days at camp. When I broke it I didn't want to throw it away because it's been to many camps with me. It’s marked with dents, scratches and stickers, it’s been lost a few times and re-found. It's not just a water jug, it’s a story in a water bottle.

Anywho, I broke it this summer at Buckner, but kept using it because it was the only water bottle I had. I carried it everyday, broken, and little pieces slowly but surely began falling out. My friend Jillian researched online and found out you can get a new part to replace the broken one FOR FREE!

Yay I was so excited to get home and get this bad boy fixed.

I got home and life just went fast and I forgot about my hydro flask.  I have tons of cups and bottles at home,  but when you're at camp and it's your only one it's easy to remember it's broken. At home however, when you have tons of cups, its easy to forget to fix the broken one.

Yesterday I saw it in my sink and thought “Oh yeah, it’s broke and completely free to fix it, how did I forget to fix it?"

God shows us goodness in everything, even a flask. And right there at my sink I just heard God talk to me.

Don’t forget things that I’ve shown you are broke, let them get fixed for free. Don’t get comfortable carrying something that’s broken, don’t get used to broken. Let things become new.

I don't want to just settle and use all the other cups, I want this one fixed, right now. In a year when I have to go to camp and it's 100 degrees out in Texas ;), I’ll want cold water. I need to fix my flask now or else next summer I’ll still have a broken flask and still have warm water.

Don't forget the broken things that God has shown you. He always shows you a way to fix it through Him.

Why would we settle for broken when it's free to get a new one?

Love Them.

Have you ever not liked someone?

Be Honest.

You see them and think “hey If I never have to know them I’d be ok!” or “they’re kind of a tool, I’ll avoid eye contact and move on with life? “

If you know me at all you would know that I really do love people, like probably too hard and too fast for their comfort. If you’ve known me since I was a kid you would know that it was literally God who changed me because I wasn’t always so..um friendly. Although I won’t get the love thing perfect until heaven, I just always want to get closer and closer to loving like Jesus loves.

Anywho, I’ll keep this short and sweet, God is working on this with me. I used to notice if I didn’t like someone and just walk away from them, no big deal. We don’t have to be friends with everrrrryyyyonneee.  But then the Lord started turning my heart to it, it wasn’t that I have to be friends with everyone, It’s that he tells me not to hate people. So if He brings someone into my life or your life, and you find yourself not liking them, something is moving there.

The more I feel that, and talk with God on it, everytime He has me walk towards that person and talk to them. Learn their story, sharpen my heart, take out what’s ugly and put in what God there.

My favorite part is that some of the most amazing, most impactful people in my life today were people I can vividly remember thinking “ehh I don’t want to know them!”

And everytime God goes “I love them”, everytime.

I don’t know why I’m writing this tonight, maybe I’ve written about this before but today is a new day.

I guess the point is, meet people, and if there is someone you don’t like there is a blessing right on the other side of knowing them. Find out who they are, maybe they need to know you, maybe you need to know them, or maybe God just wants to continue to show you how much He loves them. And just to love them, talk to them because God says it's what He wants. Who knows, maybe I'm the one that people don't want to be friends with and God is telling you to talk to me, a friendship in the making :) 

I’m thankful for God, I’m thankful He opens my eyes to show me it’s Him that loves people first, not me. I’m thankful that He gives me opportunity to see how much He’s making me like Him. I'm thankful that when I see someone now I'm not sure of I get excited and think "ohhh I can't wait to see how this turns out." I’m thankful that the time it takes for me to go from “eh I don’t want to talk to them” to “Hi I’m Lindsay” is getting shorter and shorter.

Let's Dance God

So I just had my first guitar lesson. Yeah...so I’ve played for years now, but never took the time to learn from someone better than me. What a gift these lessons already are, the world of music is so large and beautiful, I can’t wait to soak it all up.

We talked for about 10 min and then he said “you have to sing the song you’ve been given. There is no one out there that has listened to all the exact music you’ve listened to, the exact mixture of influences. Only you have the exact song in you, it needs to be sung. You can’t sing or play like me, you can only do what you were made to do.”

WOW.

Ok.

His one statement summed up my summer in Texas. With out giving you the 12 hr version of the summer (call if you want to hear it, it's awesome), God just really showed me how much he loves the authentic and real Lindsay. He made me exactly how I am, dancing, singing, laughing, He made me. He didn’t make me you and He showed me this summer He is waiting on me and excited for me to be uniquely me. He was jealous for me this summer in making sure I knew it, he was waiting and what was on the other side was amazing. He took fear off of me and showed me so much joy in going where he’s made for me, there is joy waiting there for me.

He also showed me so much freedom there is in just being me, exactly where I am today, and letting people see me and love me just as I am.

I can’t sing your song, you can’t sing mine, someone needs to hear about Jesus through my song. All the turns, the twist, the melodies that are unique to me, that song needs to be sung.

Thanks God for making us so unique, God please help us continue to want to sing our song. It’s freedom to be who He’s called us to be in Him, and it frees others to be themselves in Him as well. We have to go where He's leading, even if it's weird and totally out of the box. It actually is going to be out of the box, He doesn't fit in the world, not even close. So his plan won't either, but we can trust Him because He's the one waiting to take our hand, spin us around and dance with us. 

I'm so excited for this new season with God, I don’t know what or who it holds in it, but I'm coming home new. I hope there are a lot of songs, videos, random adventures, destinations unknowns. I hope there is dancing in parking lots, dancing in the kitchen, dancing with cute guys ;). I hope it is filled with gut laughter and some tears too. I don’t know what or who is ahead of me, but I know God has already done it and it’s going to be amazing.

Here's a pic from Texas because I love pictures. The place where He sparked my heart yet again.

Thanks God

Let's Have An Adventure

Let's go on an adventure together.
A Video Blog Adventure.
To see life and see God.
Here is the start.

I am Creative.

It challenges me to think freely, to be creative. It sounds so backwards but it's true, it's easy for me to do normal, it takes a lot of work for me to be creative. I have to be really disciplined with my time and mind to think "outside of the box".  The world tries to offers me everything I'll ever need, why would I need to create anything new? There are pinterest boards on how to dress or eat or who to be. Instagram tells me what to think and feel, TV tells me what is cool and trendy. Why would I ever need to create anything for myself, be outside of the box?

If I don't take the time to be creative, use what God gave me, I start following the world and to be honest that bores me. I'm not made of this world so following it won't be enough, it's not creative enough, or good enough for my mind, a mind like Christ. I need to dig in deep and create something, anything that God says is good and go with it. I need to let my mind run wild until I stumble upon something that makes my heart beat faster and I can put out into the world.

God is the God that created the sound of thunder and the beauty of rainbows, he made every edge of the mountain tops and he even made yummy pumpkin spice lattes! (ha well He gave someone the creative idea to make them ha) Point is that He is super creative, think about it, how fun and creative He must be to make a narwhal, the cutest- weirdest animal I know of?

So I don't ever want to stop being creative, seeking more adventure in life and searching for outrageous new ideas. God is infinite so I can't ever learn it all or see it all or think it all, so why stop looking for new adventure and creativity? Why should we ever stop growing or learning or looking for something amazing, there is always going to be more of God so why not ask to see more of His creative mind?

So I'm doing this 100 day challenge with my home dog Carrie V:

http://hillsong.com/collected/blog/2015/11/the-100-day-creative-challenge/#.VkNhQa6rTq0

We're going to spend the next 100 days, writing, drawing singing whatever it takes to dig in and pull out something new and creative back into the world! 

About 5 years ago my friend and I did this project, where we decided to push ourselves past fear. We decided to let our creative side fly, let our passion take over and tell fear to go bye bye. We ended up creating this film, "31 Days" (you should watch if you have 45 min to spare), that just was raw and real and sparked us to push ourselves to be creative. There is a higher quality on DVD but the vimeo version will do. This video still sparks my heart.

https://vimeo.com/19056037

I'm not the same person I was back then, my voice doesn't sound the same, my life doesn't look the same, fear doesn't control my life anymore. Even though I'm not the same I can still grow. There is always something new to find, something fresh and creative to come out and make the world more beautiful. I don't know what will happen at the end of this 100 days, but I'm EXCITED!!

Thanks for being along for the ride!

If you knew God was coming back in a year, who would you be?

So a lot has happened since I wrote my last blog,  LIKE A LOT:

I colored my hair neon purple.

I'm moving to Australia next week.
I bought a pony.

And Adele has asked to mentor me and sing on her next album.

haha ok ok None of those things are true, but if I told you what was going on in my life, those things above would sound more real than my real life :)

My friend told me I need to come up with a 2 min version of everything that is going on. hahaha and for the life of me I can't get it all in 2 minutes.

Everything God is doing is soooo outrageous I just get so excited and want to tell everyone about all of it. I have gotten pretty good about just telling "parts" of what is going on, but oh my it's really hard for me to put what God is doing in a 2 min version. I guess I can try to sum it up in six sentences:

Sold my house.

I'm going into full time ministry with YoungLife.

Raising A large amount of support VERY quickly.

God is building up a community VERY quickly.

Seeds being planted in good ground.

Generations beyond generations will know the love of Christ. Hallelujah!

haha it's almost laughable how generic those 6 sentences are so you should ask me, we can get coffee. ha I've been getting a lot of coffee lately!!

Anyways, this time of my life reminds me of the below questions that EVERYONE has either asked or been asked: 

"If you knew you only had a month to live, what would you do?"

or

"If you knew God was coming back in a year, who would you be?"

Everyone has thought about their answers for these questions. What would we do if we knew God was coming next week? What is that one thing that we would only do if we knew heaven was tomorrow and we had nothing to lose? 

Jump out of an airplane?

Ask that beautiful woman named Lindsay out on a date ;)

Sell everything, buy an RV and travel the country?

We all wish we had the faith or courage to live out our answers, but something is holding us back? Usually fear, comfort level or society hold us back (usually a combination of them all) . Well anyways, I have my answer to that question too and I have to be really honest:

I am living part of my answer out right now. Honestly.

It's been years of talking about it and years of hearing his whisper (and sometimes not such a quiet whisper). It's been years of reading the scripture and saying "Yes yes yes that's right, have no fear, I'm bold, love does, live on the edge for God."

But I feel I'm here, God brought me right here. 

Now God is God, so I do believe every part of my life I've been learning and walking. I do believe I've been walking in faith and following him but now, now I'm in a whole new place. I'm not the same person I was 8 months ago, I might as well have that purple hair and change my instagram to @theNextAdele because that much has drastically changed. However, I do know I've been following him and he's been teaching and loving on me, but this time on my life is calling on faith and trust I've never known.

I keep saying "I'm out on the water, out on the water just trusting Jesus when he says I won't sink." I can't make myself stay afloat at this point, I can't make what He is saying be true, my strength and knowledge and what I see, it's not enough. I desperately need Him, desperately need to trust when He says He has plans to prosper, plans not to harm, when He is saying He's gone before me and it's done and trust Him. He is  literally all I can lean on. When I look at my own strength or try and figure it out, even for a moment, I almost sink, I will get so nervous I can barely move, literally. So he reminds me to look right at him and only him and shows me how to step. Ohhhhh and the walking parts these past months, even if they were baby steps up the stairs, the moving parts have been so Gods beauty. The trusting and peace, oh how amazing. I can't even pretend it's of my own strength, I can't even fake the peace He is covering me in.

Let's just say God is really showing me His glory and that I have no idea how to predict His moves but I really can trust Him, especially in the impossible situations.

I just listened to a Creflo Dollar sermon and he said "When Jesus does something in your life and you're surprised, it probably means your heart was hardened."

wow. just yeah.

He's showing me that His miracles surprised me, I don't know if I really trusted him with huge things. I read the Bible, believed in healing then, but Did I believe in it now? Did I really believe when he said "nothing is impossible" that it was true or was my heart hardened? Did I have unelief that God was ALL God said he was?

Everything that is going on has knocked me off my feet, at first anyways and now, even in this past month his "miracles" have become my normal. Praise you God for changing my heart.

I forever want to be doing things that make me need him so much that miracles are just the everyday and no fear has a hold on me. Because the honest truth is, Jesus is coming back, and we don't know when but let's not assume it's far away. God wants everyone and our call is to take the love we know and share it, plant those seeds right now. His call is not for us to build up our comfort level or make our plans, it's to go and share the word and do it with the urgency that He is coming back.

So I'm excited to be living out part of my answer to that "What would you do if you knew Jesus was coming back next month?" To let go of everything and run and share the good news with lots of joy and holding onto nothing as I meet with parents and high school students.

The other parts of my answer to that question? Well of course part would be to write and share music and I already see God stirring that one back up.

And the other part of "what would you do if you were going to die tomorrow" question would be marriage ;) Let's just say I'm in a place of trusting him to take care of every area of my life now so excited to see Him in it all, but this is for another blog ;)

" I'm telling you the very truth now: When you were young you dressed yourself and went wherever you wished, but when you get old you'll have to stretch out your hands while someone else dresses you and takes you where you don't want to go. He said this to hint at the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. And then he commanded, "Follow me."  John 21:18-19

Eyes on Him

sitting in a hotel room in Chicago.
just listening to music.
thinking about God.
and Jonah came to mind.
we're studying the book of Jonah at church
and the past few weeks we've been studying Jonah's prayer to God
and how it's a prayer yes
but how his prayer is focusing on Jonah's strength and pain
and not on the Characteristics of the father

Jonah 2

The Message (MSG)

At the Bottom of the Sea

2 ^1-9 Then Jonah prayed to his God from the belly of the fish.

He prayed:

“In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to God.
    He answered me.
From the belly of the grave I cried, ‘Help!’
    You heard my cry.
You threw me into ocean’s depths,
    into a watery grave,
With ocean waves, ocean breakers
    crashing over me.
I said, ‘I’ve been thrown away,
    thrown out, out of your sight.
I’ll never again lay eyes
    on your Holy Temple.’
Ocean gripped me by the throat.
    The ancient Abyss grabbed me and held tight.
My head was all tangled in seaweed
    at the bottom of the sea where the mountains take root.
I was as far down as a body can go,
    and the gates were slamming shut behind me forever—
Yet you pulled me up from that grave alive,
    O God, my God!
When my life was slipping away,
    I remembered God,
And my prayer got through to you,
    made it all the way to your Holy Temple.
Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds,
    walk away from their only true love.
But I’m worshiping you, God,
    calling out in thanksgiving!
And I’ll do what I promised I’d do!
    Salvation belongs to God!”

¹⁰ Then God spoke to the fish, and it vomited up Jonah on the seashore.

Sometimes...a lot of times 

my prayers are very similar

me talkng to God

about what I've done

my pain my thoughts the way I see it

and I know He's glad that I am talking to Hm

but how much more wise It would be to listen

and If I can't find space to be silent

than at least spend the time listing out 

Who HE is versus who I am 

He is srength

He is holy holy holy

He is all knowing

He is Sovereign

He is Omnipotent

He is Omniscient

He is Omnipresent

He is all loving

HE IS LOVE

whew..whew whew

I hear Him know He is guiding me

and sooo many times I tell him

"it's too much, don't you know who I am? i'm itty bitty and this task is giant"

and sad to say I say that all too often.

and for whatever reason

as I'm thinking about all of this

I remembered a story my mama told me 

and if you were at my bday this year i shared this story

but short version is 

the day of my birth was a miracle

long story short

i was born a month early

mama hemorrhaged 

she was rushed to the hospital

on the way to the hospital

my mom and dad decided that whatever happened to them and their child

they would trust God in it

whew

just the thought of that heavy heavy conversation

how hard that conversation must have been

whew

but I truly believed they meant it

that they would trust God in it.

and my mom said a great peace came over her after they said that

at that very moment, peace.

so they get to the hospital

she went into labor

and the little bundle of joy you know today

lindsay michelle was born

so my dad goes to get my mom some ice

and the doctor comes in and shuts the door

and tells her that he shouldnt be saying this to her or asking her this 

but he wanted to know what her and my dad believed in

and she goes "well God, we believe in God." 

and he goes "good. I'm catholic and a doctor and I shouldn't be saying this, but if you didn't believe in God before today you should."

and my mom just sits there in silence as he continues.

"if this baby would have been born on her due date, I honestly don't think we would have you and her both here.  I don't think you or her would have made it.

Today was a miracle, nothing short of a miracle that you both survived and you should have great faith. The hand of God was on that child and on you." 

whew

i don't know why i'm remembering that story now

tonight
but i'm glad i did.

but it's a great reminder

i absolutely had no control

if i died or lived 

or if my mom died or lived all those years ago

but God did
Nothing is too big for Him
nothing will thwart His plan
not then not now not ever

and even though i've grown up

i still have the same amount of control

haha none

But the good news is

God still has the same amount of control

He still has absolute power

and I am His daughter that can trust Him in His plan

The Hand of God is on me

and I can trust when He says go ...that He has control I just need to walk.

I can trust that the story is not about my strength or my pain

but about His power and about Him

so Jonah was brave and did pray

but the story wasn't really about Him at all

it's about God's pursuit and continual love and strength

i love this song:

how great is our God!

take my eyes off of me
and turn them to your strength
you are good.
thank you Yahweh.