FALL, in love.

This is a post I did for Access, our youth group blog :)

Yes, I love fall.
I love pumpkins, any recipes with pumpkin in them, leaves changing color and falling down, mums of all shades, honeycrisp apples, fires in the fireplace (at my parents...), Bears games, and pumpkin spice lattes from starbucks.

But as things are dying this fall and it slowly turns into winter, I am hoping to be renewed and become more alive in Christ. This is my first Fall as a mother and I am hoping and praying that Fall 2011 would be a season where I experience extreme growth in my life, in my time in the word and prayer and a season where I go hard after Christ and others.

I was recently challenged by a devotion in the book "Trust" by Lydia Brownback (please pick up a copy if you do not own one, you'll be glad you did).
She talks about how we can so often be people pleasers, fearing people and their opinion of us. She writes, "We want to be liked and loved and to gain the approval of those around us...Using others to build ourselves up, to fulfill us, and to meet our needs just won't work. Sooner or later, because people are sinners, they are going to let us down." Lydia goes on to write, "Desiring the love and approval of the significant people in our lives is natural; however, if we feel that we must have that to be happy, then a good desire has become a destructive one. We are attributing to people what rightfully belongs to God." But she calls us not to be discouraged if we see ourselves here and to see this as an opportunity for growth. She ends by saying, "Realizing that you cannot obtain your desires from the people in your life is a catalyst to look elsewhere, to God, where you will find what you've been seeking all along."

So this fall, my goal is to be more bold, not to desire to please people, but instead to FALL in LOVE with Jesus Christ, the author and perfector of my faith. It is such a joy and a blessing to serve Him and I want to LIVE that out everyday!
I hope you will be challenged to do this as well. Happy Fall to you all!




"I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundation of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor?" Isaiah 51:12-13