What Have I to Offer?

"What have I to offer, to a world in need? Yet for some unknown reason You have chosen me"- Jacqui Velasquez

I wonder about these lyrics continually in my day-to-day life. There are people in need of so much all around me, it is more than the physical, it is the emotional and the spiritual. They are longing for things.

I am watching people fill these needs with the temporary offerings of the world, drugs, alcohol, whatever can give them instant gratification and fill a void.

I DO have something to offer though, to the broken, to the hurting and that my friends is Jesus. I don't like to just throw around words about Jesus either, because as Tait puts it "Empty Words will NOT suffice".

I have been thinking about the gospels lately, reading books, listening to songs and thinking about all that Jesus was, and IS.

I forget sometimes his ministry to the hurting, but it's all throughout the gospels. He stood up for the sinners when people wanted to cast stones at them, He healed the lepars, yet more importantly healed them of their sins, He chose the most unlikely people to be his disciples, and God chose the most unlikely as apostles. Take Paul for example, He was persecuting Christians and then the Lord changed all of that and Paul was later willing to be a martyr for the name of the Lord.

Honestly I'm not entirely sure where my train of thought it going other than to say, that Jesus understands the hurting, and NO ONE is out of reach. And THAT is what I have to offer, the Love that Jesus has provided, and His heart to pursue those that don't even realize that the very thing they need to fill that void IS the Lord.

Fade...

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The things of this World Will Fade

My desire is that the things I have lived for fade to the glorious wonder of a life lived for an Audience of One, for the Lord.

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My Heart for Change

*Going Home*

* I want to minister more to my family with love and exhibiting patience

* I will limit my time spent in front of a tv when there are ways I can help out around the House or books that are worth reading to help me grow

* My ministry *

* I will be willing to car pool people to church and encourage other friends to come visit my church, because fellowship is a blessing I do not wish to hold to myself.

* I will try to attend one bible study a week

* I will pray to see where God can use me in both Manna and Crossroads

* I will use my music, photography, and writing for the glory of God

*To Muskies*

* I will do my best to make phone dates and to write letters to Muskies and not just waste time on IM.

* I will encourage my brothers in sisters in Christ at Muskingum in whatever ways possible

* I will pray for next year for the fellowship on campus and for Cru, Lambda Chi, The Lighthouse, The R.E.A.L House and other ministries on our campus

Personal Time

* more time spent in the Word and more time spent in Prayer

*Less time in front of tvs and technology when I go home, and more time spent enjoying God's Creation

*more eating right and less junk, I should glorify God in the way I treat my body

* find an exercise routine with my stepmom and also friends

*Necessities*

*Trust God in finding a job and pursuing job possibilities

*Learn more about finances

*Help out with preparations to move into the ministry house

*Most of All to Seek God First and Glorify Him in my actions

Using Photography for Ministry

God is growing my passions for photography and I want to be able to use it for ministry purposes.

The following website is a photography/devotional sight, worth checking out, specifically go under graphics and heart gallery. It will surely bless you with beautiful images accompanied by scripture

www.heartlight.org

I also want to begin putting up photo projects I am working on that are also accompanied by scripture. So enjoy :-)

God Bless, Alicia

Cleansed

I've been scrubbing dishes lately... I mean mounds and many of which are not even mine.

I am learning that I hate it, I have to scrub and scrub caked on food, need to soak them, scrub again and the pile of dishes seems simply endless. Really I spent a couple of hours doing this the other day.

While I washing I began to think about filth and sin. I started to think of how I am like one of those dishes for various reasons. I am fragile, I have my spiritual stains and when I let sin in my life just sit there, like those dishes with the food it can because an ugly and miserable mess. Also if I just continue in that sin that it becomes much harder to stop doing. Much like the longer food remains stuck to the plates the harder it is to get off, to come clean.

However, this is where tools come in. God has given us the Holy Spirit, living water. The Holy Spirit helps me to remain cleansed, helps to convict me when I'm in the filth and when I'm walking in the Holy Spirit helps me to come clean with my sin. Just like how the water is vital in cleaning up the dirty dishes.

Sometimes I do not always walk in the Holy Spirit, but that's where there are other tools to bring me back. God is like the soap, He can break through the grime in my life. That is why He sent Jesus into this world, to make me purified. No matter how big the sin, He can break through it... like Dawn to the dishes.

Sometimes I need to have some form of defense again the dirt and need to scrub, so the sponge is helpful for that. We'll call the sponge the Word of God. First of all, we need to absorb the Word of God. The Word of God when spoken of in the armor of God is the sword, the ONLY defensive strategy against Satan and the enemies of the world, all other pieces of armor are defensive pieces. So The Word is vital in fighting the grime of this world.

I have found myself in the midst of some caked on sin lately... unconfessed up until recently. It is going to hard to get out of the sin's stronghold because it has been so long. I am a dirtied dish that needs the Living Water, Needs Cleansed through the Word and with the Dirt needing broken through by the Power of God. However it is possible and just like the dishes I did, it takes time. Yet it gives me hope. God wants to see us cleansed and He provides us with much to help in those areas.

I pray that we experience God's cleansing power.

-Alicia

Be Still Dear Beethoven

The Gift of Silence

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Apparently I have dead composers on my mind. Today it just so happens to be Beethoven. Let me tell you why. Maybe it was inspired by my History of Film class. See we are watching silent films recently and I am learning that I appreciate sound far too much for silence. Hmmm... that should tell me something on a grander scale. In my walk with the Lord I also find I just don't appreciate silence. If there is silence, I seem to find a way to make some noise in my life. I struggle with slowing down you could say.

Now back to Beethoven. He had a gift for music, duh we obviously all know that. He also had to toil with the blessing of music, because around his 30's he began to lose his hearing. Historians argue about what caused it, a deformity in his ears or possible lead poisoning. Either way it could be said that by his 50's he was completely deaf. No sound, no being able to hear his compositions played. He because a person hiding in solitude, withdrawn with his deafness.

Beethoven Learns in the Silence

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It started with the fact that he could no longer hear church bells in the distance and slowly it became worse. A paraphrase of what Beethoven wrote in a letter said, that deafness is one thing, but in his profession it is one of the worst things. A famous musician and composer, he felt the need to fight it. No he could not regain his hearing, but he could fight as a musician.

Stories have circulated that Beethoven eventually sawed the legs off of his piano, so it could be closer to the ground. He then would place his ear on the floor to feel the vibrations. Each tone and note had a different vibration. This is how Beethoven could continue to compose. Not only that, but Beethoven continued to write some of his most famous symphonies during this time.

We fight Silence

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Like I said earlier, I tend to fight silence. Don't we all. Society tells us to. Speak up, work harder, rush rush rush. Silence and Rest are not in our agendas. We don't have time for the Lord. Now just like Beethoven, initially when we fight the silence we can find ourselves miserable. Beethoven became a man deeply depressed and even suicidal. When we are overworked we can find ourselves in these states of desperation, maybe even on a lesser scale.

Well, the Bible says *once again a paraphrase* "Be Still and Know that I am God"- Ok so I know KNOW He is God, that is easy for me to grasp, although I don't expect it to be for most people so don't think I am saying that part is easy, yet the part I struggle with is be still. When I speak of silence, I am not saying "don't have a voice", I'm saying a restful silence.

There came a point that instead of only being burdened by his deafness, Beethoven worked through it. We too can do that in our quiet times with the Lord. Sometimes they even seem burdensome and yet they are fruitful. This is a stretch, but for Beethoven He had to bring himself down to his hands and knees, head to the ground before he could truly grasp the music again and we need to bring ourselves on our hands and knees for prayer sometimes in this silence.

Fruits of Silence

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Beethoven still found life in the fruits of his silence. Some even speculate that some of his greatest masterpiece's were done while he was deaf and he was most creative in these moments. You see even though the external world was silent around him, He had the internal symphony playing all along in side of him. He could hear each and every note, and not only that, but later he could even share those symphonies with others.

We have that. It is when we slow down that the Holy Spirit is speaking wonderously to us, like the symphonies of Beethoven's heart. Not only this, but the Silence, the quiet times can be fruitful, for after we have met with the Lord we have works of the Lord to share. Beautiful music shared from the Holy Spirit with the world.

My prayer for you: Is that you can find the time to be silent just for a moment to get a glimpse of the notes the Holy Spirit wants to reveal to you.

Reflections...

Distorted Reflections...

"But now he lives inside, someone he does not recognize, when he captures his reflection on accident." - Death Cab for Cutie -

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I am intrigued by reflections: how they can be picture perfect images of what they are reflecting or how a simple ripple in a pond or warp of metal can distort and contort the image. They can multiply the beautiful or reflect the grotesque.

I'm sure we've all done it. Stood in front of a mirror that simply does not flatter, perhaps a fun-house mirror. Our heads begin to look like one of the Coneheads or we are shrunk by the mirrors distorting qualities. It can be quite humorous really. Yet then there are other times where we look at a perfectly normal mirror and the image we are looking at, the one of ourselves that is being reflected does not seem so beautiful or even funny.

We look into the mirror and see physical features we do not wish to see or worse yet we act as if the mirror has become a portal to the soul showing every flaw we keep inside.

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Who and What are We Reflecting?

Recently I have thought about what I am reflecting. I think as human beings we try so hard to model the next mirror of the world. We want to look in the mirror and see everything the world sees, look into the mirror and see all the riches, the popularity, beauty in the world's eyes.

Isn't this why young girls are dealing with eating disorders? Or this is why the person who already seems to have it all together is still struggling with their self-image. The mirror they are looking into is a distortion of a reality that God wants to so beautifully share with them.

I want to tell you, that You don't have to worry about the world's ideas of who you are, they are distorted images anyways. Would you rather look at your reflection through man-made carnival mirrors that distort your reality or would you rather look into a sparkling serene lake, the natural beauty given by God. You can look into an image of a proper reflection of who the Lord sees you as.

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God's View Of You

"You see my imperfections, still You say I'm a masterpiece, a marvelous reflection, the image of yourself in me. You paint with strokes of grace, undoing my disguise You say beauty lies in the true story"- Ginny Owens

So are you reflecting the world, because like the previous quote, I bet God wants to undo your disguise. He doesn't want You to reflect the world and live for worldly standards simply because he knows it distorts the beauty He has made in you.

Let's talk scripture here, a summary really: God says He has created you in his image. I must say that is wonderful. Consider the attributes of God: He is a loving God and yet powerful God, a graceful God and merciful God. I don't think I'd mind reflecting the Lord?

What does it really look like to reflect Him though? Everybody talks about that, but how do we do that? Well I think one key to it, is to be in His Word. If you were in a play and wanted to be a good reflection of the character you were portraying wouldn't you want to memorize the lines, be familiar with the script and characters you interact with. Well not to diminish the value of the Bible, but to make a point, Wouldn't you want to interact with God's word the same. It is important to memorize the lines, to be familiar with what is going on in the setting around you, the world.

However here is where it is all different, God doesn't want you to simply be an actor in his play. He wants it to be genuine. Take those words and make them a part of your life. Pray to in order to be a reflection of the Lord. These are just a couple of ways we can be reflections of the Lord in this world and one of God's greatest commandments: Love Your Neighbor and even this, Love Your Enemy. Now that is what I call a true reflection, true beauty.

I pray that we can be reflections of God in a world of carnival mirrors-

Al the photogal