My Best Friend's Wedding

Dear Blogging Audience,

Have you ever watched your best friend get married to the love of their life? The couple is practically glowing and that look of adoration in their eyes is unmistakable. The emotions that come up as they say their vows and the mothers of the bride and groom tear up as they realize that their little ones are not so little anymore and are ready to commit the rest of their lives to going on a journey of love.

I got to be in my best friend's wedding this past weekend and I never knew the amount of joy and happiness my heart could feel as I watched Faith and Colin get married. My face literally began aching from smiling so much while watching the ceremony. Tears ran down my face as Colin vowed to love and honor and cherish the person I love and cherish and more tears ran down my face as Faith read her rhyming vows to the only boy who had fully conquered her heart. After the kiss and the bridal party left, I felt as if I was glowing as much as the bride was, I was so overcome with joy. We had a massive group hug in the kitchen and kept saying over and over how it was finally done.

When I was first asked to be a part of Faith's wedding, I was ecstatic! I've always loved weddings and this was going to be the 1st time I was going to be in a friend's wedding with real Bride's maidal duties. [Bride's Maidal: the word we use to describe anything the Maid of Honor and I had to do for the wedding.] I was going to have a dress and we were going to get our hair done at a salon and we were going to have pictures taken and there would be groomsmen and keeping track of Faith's things and making sure she ate and had anything she could need. I got to be in the room as the dress was pulled over her head and she was laced up in the back. I got to kneel down and fix her bustle and then look up at her, my best friend, and feel that surge of bittersweet emotions. There she was, ready to leave a part of herself behind in order to find a whole new type of love and joy.
Because they only had two friends stand up with them, I was part of the first couple that walked down the aisle to start the ceremony. I was so honored to have that opportunity to walk in, smile at the many faces I didn't really know and towards the front where I would stand, holding my flowers, and representing a million different memories from Faith's life. I knew that my friendship with Faith was going to be completely different. There are going to be many years more of memories and pictures and dances and laughs, but it's never going to be just Faith and Baylea again ever because Faith is also part of Colin. As the ceremony progressed I remembered the times Faith had held me when I cried or made me laugh til my stomach hurt or gave me a special best friend look that no one else would see. Those things will still happen but it will be different. Even so, I knew my best friend was happy and watching her become Colin's wife was one of the most amazing gifts she could have ever given me as a friend. 


There were so many little things about the day that I got to experience that no one else did and I don't want to take those things for granted. Like the dance party in the car on the way to get our hair done, watching her and Colin see each other for the first time on the wedding day, hugging her in the pictures of just the two of us, sitting in the room waiting for the ceremony to start and letting them win points in Baylea Blushing [I really didn't have a choice], our group hug after the ceremony, standing by the table while they cut the cake, singing them the song I wrote for them and Colin blowing me a kiss when I was done, watching their first dance and not being able to stop smiling.  It was such a beautiful wedding and I was thrilled to have been a part of it in so many ways. 


When we got home I didn't want to get out of my dress or take off Zach's vest or put down my flowers or wash my make-up off because I didn't want the night to be over. As the Fessies all sat in a pile on the couch we talked about how wonderful the wedding was, how beautiful I had been, how happy we were for Faith and Colin and how excited we were for the next wedding. [Which will be mine. ;)] I didn't know how amazing it would be to watch my best friend get married but now I do and it's a feeling I never want to forget.

Faith and Colin,
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for allowing me to love and support you guys in such a special way on your wedding day. Can't wait til I get to head back up to Canada!
Love,
Me

So faithful. So kind.

Hello blogging audience,

Have you ever thought that something was going to happen and you were so sure of it you set all of your hopes on it? And then it didn't happen? And then you're left with all the fragmented pieces of a promise that you thought was coming to pass and your disappointed hopes? Questions, tears, confusion, fears, frustrations, complications, back-tracking, side-tracking, emotional roller coaster and defeat deflate your balloon of dreams.

So sad. So, so sad.

At least, I should be. Right? Because I believed with all my heart that XYZ was gonna happen. I truly had it written in my journals and on my heart and in my songs and almost in my bible. But... It never happened. More than one, actually. Why didn't it happen? Was I just so wrong in hearing from the LORD? What if it was all just me anyways and my own agenda? The things are good things that I know will come to pass. One day. I just thought that "one day" was going to be... last month.

There's a song that fed my soul in the last few days of May while I struggled with the fact that X, Y and Z were all still incomplete, nonexistent, and no where to be found. The song is by Rachel Culver (don't know if she wrote it but she is just that awesome that I'm assuming that she did.)  and whenever she sings it my heart sings with her in full agreement.

The part that always gets me is the chorus that says, "You're so faithful, You're so kind." over and over again. I can't help but let my heart melt into a puddle of love for Jesus as I think about how faithful God is to my heart, my life and my calling. The last two years have been a lot about surrendering and just having to trust God that His way was perfect. I just had to trust that He was leading me in the right way as I let go of comforts and friends and family members and countries and dreams and pain and bitterness and fears and misconceptions. Now I'm seeing the fruit of the surrendering. I'm seeing the blessings and rewards that I wouldn't have gotten had I held onto the things instead of letting go and choosing God. What a wonderfully faithful, loving God!

As the month of May ended I threw up my hands and sang, "My times are in Your hands! My times are in Your hands! My times are in Your hands! I trust You! I trust You!" Even though things didn't go as I thought they would last month, I woke up on June 1st and I was bubbling with joy. IN THE MORNING! Before I even got out of bed!! And you know what, I still have that joy 8 days later. I don't know what God has planned for me but I know that as I continue to trust Him and surrender my expectations and ideas, I'll get something so much more glorious. He is bigger and wiser and able to do so much more than I can!

I don't know if my joy is contagious but if you're smiling by the end of this blog I win!

Love,
Me

P,S.

I have a daughter. She's a redhead. And she's awesome. That's all. Hahaha. ^_^ Love you, Natalee! 

2 years.

How do you write about the loss of something that hit you so deeply that it still affects you to this day, two years later? How do you write about the joy? The pain? The love? The confusion? The victories? The loneliness? The miracles? The little things? The big things?

March 25th, 2010 I landed in New York with everything I owned and a broken heart.

Just a few days ago I found a secret place and spent some time talking to Jesus. I had been having a good day, loving my team and being in Wisconsin but I had reached the point where I needed to be alone. I needed to talk to the only One who had never let me down. These past couple weeks God has been taking some of the most painful memories I have from the move and transition and telling me how He felt about them. Showing me where He was as I walked out of the air-port onto American soil, as I laid on the bathroom floor at 2am crying, as I sat in church and saw everyone hugging and laughing and loving and ignoring me. Last year my song was the faithfulness of the Lord. This year it has been how personally God sees my pain and the hard things I go through. I broke down and cried as Jesus whispered, "I cried the day you went home and you found out you had to leave because I knew that your heart was going to be broken and so many lies were going to come against you. I felt that pain with you."

After talking and crying, I was fine and rejoined my team. That night we shared testimonies for a bit as a group and after two other people shared one of the leaders turned to me and said, "Baylea, I want to hear your testimony."

I don't think people who have never gone through loss fully realize the significance and the healing that comes when you get to share your heart and your story with people who listen. I had resigned myself to carrying my grief alone and quietly this year as I would be traveling until today and I didn't want to force myself onto people who didn't want to know. That just makes it worse. And then I was asked to share with my whole group. It was a gift from the Lord. I shared few details but I cried as I talked about the pain and I cried when I talked about the faithfulness of God to my heart and how He had been showing me His extravagant love for me.

I have come so far since those early days in Kansas City. I thank God for His perfect leadership and in my next breath I pray, "Jesus, let me go back soon. I want to go home." And one day, I will.

Jesus,
You love me so well, better than I could even imagine. You have been so faithful, so good, so kind. You have been so worth every step of the way.
Amen.

Current obsession and other thoughts on Spring Break

Dear Blog Audience,

I'm afraid I've run out of interesting things to write. At least, that's how it feels sometimes. I really shouldn't be writing this now because it is late but I wanted to write something during spring break and I leave tomorrow for La Crosse, WI. If you're there or even close to there, you should join my team and I at our youth conference. It'll be fun.

My current obsession has been working on my best friend's present. It's a present for... well a lot of things. I haven't seen her for two years now. That's a new record for us and I hate it. She's turning 22 in June. She's getting married in July. She lives far from me. And I really really love her. I don't want to say what it is on here because she reads this but it will definitely trump every other gift I've given outside of hugs and my time.

On Sunday it will be two years since leaving Morocco. I've been going over in my head my last week I spent in Fes as I get closer to the day. Part of Faith's present had me researching my old journals and pictures and I have had some really good times of remembering home. If you followed my twitter last year, you'll know I'm doing five million times better than I was then. Last spring break I spent the week on my bed moaning and mourning. There have been tears this year but they have been healing tears. I don't mind still crying for my home. My love for that place runs deep... You can take a Fessie out of Fes but you'll never take Fes out of a Fessie. 

Tonight I didn't even want to blog because I messed up. Big time. Like, I came home and cried for two hours as I listened to "How He loves us" and felt God loving me and recounted over and over again my big mess up. It's in my moments of seeing my ugly pride, my brokenness and my inability to do anything good on my own that focusing on how God loves me more than what I did/can do that really bring healing to my heart. That's where the truth is nailed down and unshakable. Because if I believe that never once during my "moment" did God stop loving me, than during my tender worship and the times when loving others comes easy, it's not going to be about me. It's going to be about God and His steady love for me through it all. Whether I have an amazing night or a horrible night, I can 100% trust that love for me. This is my anchor.

I feel sorry for people who don't have big brothers like me. Like my friend Shawn. Years ago when I was little and broken and confused, that boy made me feel safe, loved and important. Everything in my world was shaking except for him. And even then, he probably was shaking but he didn't let his shaking keep me from feeling steady around him. I don't think I can count one time where I was in trouble and I didn't wish he was there because I have yet to find anyone else who can make me feel as protected and valuable as he does. Tonight as I was bawling my eyes out, he texted me back and slowly but surely calmed me down and put a smile back on my face. This is my big brother. He's amazing.

Pray for me while I'm gone. I come back Sunday.
Love,
Me

"A lack of joy in worship is pride and unbelief in your life." Laura Hackett

Dear Blog Audience,

As a leader of a worship team semester, I am I learning all sorts of things that I never realized a worship leader had to deal with. Some things have been easy and learned so quickly they were hardly an issue (like using the talk back and playing at the same time, staying on the click, and falling in love with my team.). Other things have been harder to learn. There have been days when I've been tired and struggling to come up with choruses or staying on tune or remembering to direct the other musicians on the team and get the best feel for the song. There have been days when I've been ready to lead, so excited to play and sing for Jesus and take my team with me as we sing the word or intercede. It's been such a positive experience for me and I am thankful for my school giving me a safe environment to learn worship leading skills in. Even if I do mess up, I'm not freaking out because there is a room full of people or because I'm leading a church service. It's just a bunch of students and a coach that is there to help us learn from our "train wrecks" as we call them. Not everyone gets this type of safety as they lead a team of people musically and spiritually.
The biggest place of warfare that I've had since I started leading worship, however, hasn't been with my team mates or with the music. It has been with my mind. My thoughts. My heart. My emotions. I've been struggling to keep my thoughts humble and encouraging. I have always been quick to judge things and I have prayed long and hard that I would be quick to love like Jesus, not take what my eyes see and turn that into my perception of that person or situation. I haven't always been satisfied with my leadership abilities, or my voice or my piano playing. I compare myself mercilessly and sometimes it's out of a prideful, "I can do this better" spirit and sometimes its out of a, "I might as well quit, I'm the worst person on the team" spirit. Back and forth, up and down, in and out my thoughts have gone literally EVERYWHERE since this semester started. I'd think something and then instantly reprimand myself for thinking it. It was about clothes and music and voice and choruses and situations and home life and a bajillion more things. As you can probably tell by now, it was a huge battle for me.
On Tuesdays, we have chapel for the music school. One of my favorite worship leaders, Laura Hackett, spoke to us and most of what she talked about was her own struggle as she became a worship leader and she hit on the thought life of a prophetic musician/singer.

"When you have those thoughts, you just have to repent and keep going because your attitude and unrepentant heart could keep your entire team from going someplace with God." 

That was the gist of what hit me. I could relate with almost everything she said and her words of wisdom to just repent and move on was exactly what I needed to hear. The next day I was leading so I started debrief off with an apology as their worship leader of letting thoughts of jealousy and pride and disunity hold me back and affect our team. They all nodded and said, "Yeah, us too!" and that set was the best set I've ever led. I felt the Spirit so strong and it was a joy to lead my team to partner with God. I think what we were really feeling was freedom and joy. It was awesome.
I know I have a long way to go as a worship leader but I am thankful for all the lessons I am learning along the way. I'm not going to ever have a perfect set or a perfect team but I will have sets and teams that are someone and help me grow in love. And that is exactly what I want!

Love,
Me

I love being me

Dear Blog Audience,

As someone who used to struggle with self-hatred I cannot tell you how absolutely freeing it is to dress up and get all pretty and really believe that I am beautiful. I didn't look in the mirror and think, "I wish I was skinnier or taller or tanner or had straighter and whiter teeth...." I looked in the mirror and said, "Wow, God! Look at me! I feel beautiful!"
I love that I have freedom in rejoicing in my femininity. I don't have to get dressed up and have someone do my hair with a thousand bobby-pins but neither do I have to kick-it in my jeans and converse all the time to feel beautiful and comfortable. My skin is my skin and God loves to watch me twirl around in front of the mirror and feel confident. Yes, I did agonize over what I was going to wear and did wonder if the other girls were going to like it but in the end, I decided I didn't have to worry about that. I looked beautiful and I felt comfortable and modest. Me feeling beautiful didn't depend on what the other girls were wearing or whether I was 100% happy with my choice of clothes. It depended on if I listened to that whisper on the inside that said, "I made you. I delight in you. I say you are beautiful. That's all that matters."
When I went to check my make-up in the mirror, I smiled and was drawn to the crinkles around my eyes. I like them. I looked so happy. Yes, my make-up looked awesome, but I loved the joy that I saw. That made me feel beautiful.
The reason why I was all dressed up and primped out was because the sophomore guys of IHOPU were giving the sophomore girls of IHOPU a special luncheon to honor us as their classmates. Usually me in a room full of beautiful young ladies that are dolled up and dressed to the nine's would have me comparing everyone and everything. I'd be calculating everything that they didn't compliment me on and wonder why they didn't. But not today. I walked in and immediately had several girls all say, "Baylea, you look beautiful!" and I believed them. They were gorgeous and had such cute dresses and earrings and were all glowing and I could say back, "You look beautiful too!" I meant it and felt joy in saying it to them! If I had not felt beautiful, I would have sucked in all of their compliments and not handed them out because of insecurity. What a wonderful gift to be free of the insecurities. Not only did I feel honored by the guys, but I felt honored by the girls too in how they complimented me truly and were confident in their own beauty.
What a gift to be free to enjoy the skin God gave me. To look at my hands and feet and stomach and face and thank God for them! It's been a journey because I don't look like what I was told beautiful was. But beauty isn't what I see. I can't define it. I don't even know what True Beauty looks like. But I know that loving how God made me makes me feel like the coolest person in the world no matter what I'm wearing or what anybody says to me. God's heart for me and for my generation is not to despise our bodies and how we look. He made us to be comfortable with our arms and legs and front sides and back sides and use them to glorify Him. Just loving our bodies in a healthy way is an act of worship and is a way of thanking Him.

Love,
Me

Thoughts spilling over

Dear Blogging Audience,

I'm not sure what thoughts will spill out onto this blog today, but I do know that right now, my heart feels very tender for many reasons.

In small group today, we all cried because one of us began sharing her heart and laid her struggles out before us. Her words of feeling like the wait for breakthrough would never end echoed in my own heart and I felt her pain. I'm still waiting for healing. I'm still waiting for the wrong things in my body to be made right. I'm still waiting for the day when I can testify that Jesus is greater than any sickness or disease. But beyond what she said, it was how she said it that made more sense. Her raw emotions and real feelings stirred me. I long for that expression of honest emotion in my own life in every season. Joy, strength, love, tears, brokenness, leaning... I want to be honest with how I feel and feel emotions.

The last couple weeks have been strange for me. I feel so close to God and yet I feel like everywhere I turn, someone is telling me this that or the other thing that I have to do, think or feel to really know Jesus. I've learned awesome things through it but at the same time I have to remember that when it comes to the end of the day, Jesus loves me no matter what I do or say. After one such talk with someone about "XYZ", I left the conversation thinking, "This is good, this is true, but... Just because I didn't know this before doesn't mean that I wasn't really a Christian. I still loved Jesus. I still had fellowship with the Holy Spirit. I was still loved and desired by God."
This is something I've had to remember a lot in the last few weeks. My heart has been wrestling with things because I really want to know truth. I really want to have more knowledge of Jesus and grow in my walk with Him. But at the same time, He's looking at my heart, not my head knowledge. It's the sincerity in my heart that matters to Him, not my maturity. Maturity comes with time and seasons and my current season is bringing maturity. But it's also making me cling to the truth that God delights in my journey, not just the end result of me knowing blah blah blah. He's so involved with every bit of truth I process, He sees my wrestling and hears my prayers for right understanding and He is answering those prayers. The posture of my heart is what He's looking at. Am I holding my heart with humility and desiring to know more about Him? When all this comes to an end, I'm sure I'll look back and see how every bit of knowledge I tried to retain shaping me to become more like Jesus. Every time I pray, "God, I don't understand but I really want to!", He's opening up my eyes to see better. After following Jesus for 23 years, it's a bit rough trying to add new things or shifting your interpretation of things to make room for the new stuff. I feel thrown off and I find myself sometimes trying to work the new things into formulas so I don't forget them. They're all so foreign to me yet I know they are truth.

Maybe that's why small group was so amazing today, because there was a realness and something that I could finally relate to without trying to figure it out. I know brokenness. I know waiting. I know tears. I may not fully understand what the gospel of Repentance means enough to regurgitate it or all the scriptures about the Holy Spirit, but I know that in my life, I have been broken and now I'm whole. My heart has been shattered, and it is now filled with joy. I have cried and struggled to break out of depression and now I walk in freedom. This is real for me. This is Jesus for me. My perfect shepherd, my comforter, my redeemer and my healer. Never once do I have to sit back and think, "Hmmm, let me see what this feels like for a few days." No. I already know because I've been through it and have come out on the other side and seen the goodness of the Lord! He is faithful! He is kind! He is gentle! His loving kindness never ends and His faithfulness reaches to the sky. Watching my friend cry and bare her soul was so refreshing because it reminded me of the time when I cried and bared my soul and met God there. And how I've continued to walk with the reality of who God is every day since then.

Eventually, the other things will become more than head knowledge and I'll have the deep seated conviction about them just like the people who told me about it all were. I could hear conviction in their words and I know that as I look to Jesus for revelation, that conviction will come to me too. But I don't have to make it happen. I have a journey and God loves it! He loves the freedom I am finding and is guiding me gently through each day, showing me little by little, more of who He is. I love that about Jesus.

Love,
Me

Best Friend. All of them.

Dear Blogging audience,

I'm writing this post with one of the best people in the world next to me. This is the girl that I said goodbye to last the night before I left Morocco. We cried as we clung to each other and tried to make the moment last forever. We both knew that as soon as we let go, she was going to leave and I wasn't going to see her again for... a very long time. After we got to America, I replayed the hug over and over, trying to squeeze any type of comfort out of the memory. After a few months, I gave up because those arms that had held me so tightly the night we said goodbye were so far away and I couldn't feel them. I remember my last Sunday before we left for America she wasn't there. She had been gone all week and had been gone the day I found out we had to leave. I wanted to hug her so bad. To talk to her. After church I went to youth group and had to leave in the middle to see someone else. When I went back at the end to get my little brother, she opened the door and I literally fell into her arms because I was so surprised and relieved to see her.
It was almost two years to the day when we finally saw each other again. She was road tripping with some friends and they were on their way to visit someone else and were going to drop her off on the way. We'd known about this weekend for weeks but I had refused to let myself get excited because the crushing weight of unfulfilled plans was too much to go through. Again. This time, however, it was going to happen. She had texted, "fifteen minutes!!!!!!!!" and my stomach was twisting with anticipation. I was watching out the window for the head lights, looking at my phone every two seconds to see if she had texted, my heart jumping with excitement. Then there was a car. It slowed down. Oh my goodness, it was her. I opened the front door and looked out but I couldn't see who was driving because it was night and the headlights were still on. Then, the driver's door opened and the driver stepped out and I knew it was her. I shrieked, ran out into the drive way and met her half way as she was running towards me. We hugged as tightly as we could and two seconds into it, her shoulders were shaking and there was a lump in my throat. This time there was no impending goodbye but we didn't want this hug to end either.  The longer we hugged the tighter we squeezed, trying to get as close as we could and fill up the places that had been empty for what seemed like had been eternity while we were apart. They were the same arms, the same shoulders, the same girl... Finally, the wait was over.
We let go of each other and laughed, tears in our eyes but our hearts were literally flying. I didn't realize my legs were shaking until I got her inside with her bags and her friends had left. She was mine for 2 days and 4 nights. Reality became too good to be true and I didn't know how to believe it. On one hand, it was so easy to have her here. It was so natural. Our rhythm was still there for talking late into the night, sharing our hearts, watching children, loving Jesus, laughing....

I tried to explain to my friends here at school how I have two best friends and my two best friends have two best friends and we're like a best friend triangle. Actually, there are more than that. It's like a star of David, all connected with different points. Is that normal? So even with my best friend here, we both missed our best friend. Is it not normal to have to wait for 2 years to get all of my best friends in "one place"? (Praise God for Skype) Is it not normal that even after those two years, we still had that same deepness and trust there? Even after not being able to share our lives regularly, we shared our hearts with the same honesty and laughed at old jokes and new jokes and said, "I miss you!" over and over and over. Is this not normal? This is the definition of best friend for me.
I realized how much my heart ached for those friends to be in my life again, all in the same youth group and just a taxi ride away. Where our every day lives involved all of us and we couldn't wait to talk to each other and tell everyone what had happened because we were family. Now we're all at a point in life where we don't have to share all our stories with each other because we live in 3 different states and three different countries. We are all (with the exception of one) in university with new wonderful friends and new houses that we've never seen and new places that we've never been to and interact with new people that we don't know. Our new friends became our new sources of verbal processing and, this is just me, but I stopped getting on skype and facebook chat because it was too hard to say, "I miss you." for the millionth time and still have no reunion to look forward to. I couldn't handle it. But there were still there in my heart.
Sometimes I miss the freedom I had with those friends to just be myself all the time and not worry about how mature they did or did not think I was. I miss showing up on their door step saying, "I just wanted to talk." and being welcomed in for the rest of the night. I had a tooth brush at my friend's house. I regularly ate supper with my pastor's family without being invited. Whenever one of us was doing something, all the rest of us were asked to join in because life was better with our family of peers. We knew each others fears and weaknesses, our battles and what we loved the most. Of course, we had those that we were closer to than others but it was impossible to say, "I need you more than any of the others." because I needed them all. They all needed everyone else. That's why when people started leaving, we all began to unravel. Just like you can't take one thread out of a sweater without the whole sweater beginning to fall apart, that's how we were. Knit together by life and Jesus. We didn't fully know how blessed we were to have what we had until it started crumbling away in our hands and there was nothing we could do to stop it. Thankfully, the bond is still there. It's just stretched from South Africa to British Columbia with many stops in between.

(later)
So, my best friend just left. You know, the one that was here. I was able to hug her goodbye and know exactly what day I was going to see her again and that day really isn't that far away. But my heart still aches because this weekend I was reminded of something I forced myself to forget- How easy it is to be with my best friend. There were no tears as we hugged, no shaking shoulders or eyes clamped shut against reality. We were smiling. But the second the car drove out of my drive way, there was an emptiness. It wasn't overwhelming like it used to be but it was still there. I was just barely able to comprehend that my best friend was with me when she was whisked away again. I wasn't planning on crying but I did. Suddenly my crammed bedroom felt empty and I thought, "Oh God, do I have to go through this process again?"
This doesn't mean the peace or the joy are gone. I'm not going to go into a tailspin and get depressed about not having my best friends. I have Jesus and He has been so much more than enough. He has also been so kind to bless me with weekends like this one, with people He placed in my life. He loves that I have more best friends than I can count on one hand and that we still feel like a family. He loves fellowship and community and people being together and loving each other. He delights in the fact that I can share my heart with my friends honestly and feel 100% safe. He knows that I have a history with those friends that far outweigh any other friendship I've had before or since. And it's pleasing to Him! There was joy in His heart for me as I talked and laughed and went to school and ate and worshiped with my friend. It blessed Him to know that my heart was absolutely glowing with happiness. Not only did He place these people in my life, He gives me love to love them with and rejoices over me when I get to be with them. What a wonderful God!

Love,
Me

Dear Little Sisters....

Dear Little Sisters,

This post is especially for you. Why? Well, I love you. All of you. And I see part of me inside of you and I want to be the one that helps you avoid some of the most confusing things I had to go through when I was your age. Your heart is so precious and your innocence is priceless. I want to help you guard and protect them and push you higher than I am right now. Because that's what big sisters are for. 

First of all- You're beautiful. You can wear old gramma sweaters and bright purple snow pants for the rest of your life with a poodle perm and still be gorgeous. You could never touch another tube of lipstick or put on mascara again and still be attractive. Yes, part of your beauty is on the outside but honestly, it's the light inside of you that is shining so brightly that makes you stunning. Your eyes glow and your smile lights up your whole face because you're confident in the love that created the whole world. You know you have the most beautiful Man that is going to come for you and be with you forever at the end of time. And when that day comes it's not going to matter how many times you straightened your hair or wore cute dresses, it will matter if you went into your secret place and poured your love out on this Man and received His love back. When you do that, you can't help but look more beautiful on the outside because of the way you hold yourself. You have that child-like faith to fills you with so much joy. So much peace. Those things on the inside can be so obvious on the outside that people stop and stare and wonder what on earth you have. You're beautiful! I love seeing you all dressed up and taking care of what you look like on the outside because we're special and dressing with the mindset that we are important to God is a wonderful and right thing. But it's what I see coming from the inside that makes me burst with pride. I see you walking with your head held high with or without a boyfriend, with or without the latest style of shoes and clothes, with or without a wonderful family life back home, with or without the perfect this or that. You've learned that those things don't make you or if you're not there yet, you're learning. You're more than all of those things and they don't have to be what defines you. You lay down those things and listen to what all of heaven is saying about you. What God is saying about you. Even on the days when the perfect guy walks right past you after getting all dressed up and you feel like crap, even on the days when you have a fight with both of your parents, you sister and you kick your dog and you feel so angry, even on the days when people say things about you just to tear you down and you feel like the least important person in the world. Guess what.... You're His favorite one. Those times when things don't go your way He's still saying, "You are precious to me. Let me restore your heart. Let me love you." Those days are so hard! But when we take those times and run into the arms of Perfect Love, we come out even stronger. We'll find that little by little, as we grow up, there will be situations that used to frustrate or hurt us that don't anymore, because we've found an unshakable identity in the Jesus Christ, the Son of God. All the men in the world can never give us that type of security and no person, place or thing in the world could satisfy our hearts like Jesus. When that becomes your reality, you're whole world changes.
Secondly- You are strong. So strong. Don't believe me? Look at yourself. You are a beautiful, pure, full of life creation in a dying, perverse and ugly world. And you're still alive. You still believe in Love and you know that there are good plans for you. Only those that are strong can get to be your age and still believe that purity and holiness is better than pleasures of this world. There is a humility that comes with being truly strong because you know your strength is not your own. It belongs to the One who saved you from sin and death. You rest in the assurance that you can call upon that strength that is immeasurable. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is inside of you simply because of God's great love for you. (don't believe me? Read Eph. 1:17-2:10.) How humbling! How awesome! How contrary to the world's perspective to know that even when we are weak, we are strong because we have a power source that never diminishes. Ever. You show strength when you choose to walk away from temptations. You show strength when you choose to love the annoying, immature person that everyone makes fun of. You show strength when you choose the man of your dreams based on what is inside of him, not what is outside. You show strength when you dress with modesty because that's not what the world is telling you to do. You may be the only one with her body covered but you will also be the only one that guys will actually respect and want to pursue a REAL relationship with. (Unless of course you don't know any real men. Then they'll just all be scared of you because you show them that they aren't men and they're not as cool as they thought they were. If this is the case, DO NOT SETTLE!)  You show strength when you choose to live the lifestyle Jesus calls us to in the Sermon on the Mount. Fasting. Giving. Blessing our enemies. Praying. Serving. Those things take strength! Being humble takes strength! Choosing Jesus every day takes strength yet here you are, so beautiful and strong. I'm so proud to call you my little sisters. Really. 
Thirdly- You are a treasure. A jewel. Something hidden away in Jesus until the right person catches a glimpse of it or hears a rumor about it and says, "Yes! I want my life goal to be searching for this treasure and loving this treasure and having this treasure as my very own to protect and take care of." There are going to be really rough days ahead of you. For real. But this journey of waiting is one of the most precious things you can ever give that man you will one day marry. I can't wait for the day that I get to see you in your white dress, gazing up into the eyes of true love without a single regret. We'll never have a journey that is perfect, we'll all stumble at times but the whole point is to get back up, clinging to your purity and your dignity and saying, "I set my heart to wait. Again. Today. And every day until I am pursued and someone captures my heart." Right now, I am sure I'll love whoever you pick but in case someone tells you  something different or some very awful thing happens and you are stupid for a moment, these are some guidelines that I've learned in my waiting years:

1)If this man does not love and respect your family, and especially your parents, he is so not the one. 2)If this man does not love push you and challenge you spiritually to become a better person and love Jesus and others more, he is not the one.3)If this man manipulates you to get what he wants, HE IS NOT THE ONE!4)If this man does not treat you like a treasure because he's so full of himself, he's definitely not the one.5)If this man makes you do all the communicating and work in the relationship, he's not the one.6)If this man does not respect your time, he is not the one.7)If this man does not have the same heart for orphans or the nations or family or whatever your dream is that you have, he is obviously not the one.8)If this man cannot get off his butt and get a job or show responsibility, he is not the one.9)If this man is not willing to face real life but hides away from problems, he is not the one.10)If this man is disrespectful to others, he is very much not the one.

I know some of those are very obvious but really, when you're having a lonely day and someone comes up, says the right things and makes you feel better, you can close your eyes to a lot of important things. Sometimes those guys need to grow up and in a few years they'll be wonderful young men. But sometimes they don't and the last thing you need to do is wait around for a guy that may or may not become worth the wait. Take your single years to pray for God's heart for you. If you don't love yourself, you're not going to wait for someone who loves your (truly) either. When you realize the wonderfulness that is YOU that God really does love and adore and has good plans for, you'll think, "Why settle for this guy that doesn't even want to work? Why settle for that guy that doesn't listen to me when I talk? I'm worth pursuing. I'm worth being taken care of by a husband. I'm worth having a man who listens to me." I want you to get that truth inside of you. I just told you how beautiful and strong you are, but take those things and listen to what God is saying about you. He's so happy to talk to you about you because He loves you! And it's in His heart to give you a husband that will really love you as Christ loves the church. I pray that you all find husbands that you respect more than anyone else in the world (except for maybe your parents...) and that you trust so much you submit to their God given leadership over you. I pray that you'll be pursued by men who will set physical boundaries so high because he knows how precious you are and how weak human flesh is. That they won't be pushing you to lower them, but calling you to even higher expressions of purity. Let us be women that treat our male friends with respect by not flirting with them or dressing immodestly around them or talking about things that are inappropriate to talk about with guys. We don't have to play dumb and think that things don't affect them because they don't show it. We can be wise and love them well with our purity and one day, a man of God will see you doing that and think, "I want a wife that will act like that. I want her." 

Life has a way of not turning out the way we thought it would. It has a way of knocking us down harder than we were expecting and rubbing us in the dirt so we feel more shame than we ever knew was humanly possible. But the wonderful thing is that God uses brokenness to sometimes teach the most important lessons in life. Never underestimate the amount of influence you have one someone's life. You will be a big sister too one day and realize how many little eyes are watching you. You guys have pushed me to reach for Jesus so many times and I have reached this point because I knew that you were looking to me to be an example. I know I haven't been perfect but I do love you and I pray for you to know just how strong and beautiful of a treasure you truly are. 
Love,
Your big sister

Valentine's day prayer

Dear Blog Audience,

After my lovely example of raw Baylea emotions, I'm sure you're ready for something that actually edifies you. I guess the main subject these days is Valentine's day. I could write about that but I really don't have much experience with how to have a great Valentine's day. I'm usually pretty happy on Valentine's day. I always think about my husband [the one that I'm not married to yet] and I always pray,

"God, let this be the last Valentine's day that I am single." 

Looks like I'll be praying that prayer again this too. Honestly though, I'm not that upset about it. How can I be? If I don't have that person, it's obviously not time yet and God's timing is WAY more important than having a date on Valentine's day. Even if I have to pray that prayer for 50 years in a a row [Oh Lord, have mercy], I will always pray, "God, YOUR timing." and mean it. I've seen relationships start in the wrong timing. It sucks! I don't want that! I want a relationship, a man that will eventually be my best friend, but I don't want that premature relationship that cripples you because things seem so right and so wrong at the same time. Everybody gets hurt, nobody knows how to really fix the problem, your parents say one thing, the other person says another and you want to do what both parties are telling you to do but you can't because they are exact opposite. Sometimes you stay with the person and feel like you can never really be yourself or you break it off and you feel like you can never really be yourself. I. Do. Not. Want. That.
HOWEVER! One day, I'll have that best man in the world that gives me an amazing Valentine's day and I can write him a love letter and dress cute and hold his hand and glow with happiness. I want that. And then we'll have some kids and Valentine's day will probably look like us in our sweat pants eating frozen burritos on the couch while the kids watch Veggie Tales. I want that too. Because my husband will be with me and I'll know that he loves me in so many other ways that getting dressed up for a date. There will be love letters and cute clothes but there will also be a deeper knowledge of love and each other. Maybe his main love language won't be quality time, maybe his highest love language is acts of service and the way I can most bless him is by doing something for him. He'll know that I'm not a big chocolate lover [I go through moods] and realize that a box of cookies is my love language. Our marriage won't stay at the level it will be on the day we get married, just like our bodies won't stay in the same shape. I hope that 20 years from now my husband and I can look at our wedding pictures and think, "Wow, we were so good looking back then but we didn't know a thing about love." and be glad that we know more about love even if our bodies don't look quite so young.
I suppose I should stop writing about my husband so people don't get confused. Or maybe I'll just explain. One day, I will be married. This man is a real person and one day I will stand before him and vow to be his wife. With this mind set, I have decided to set my heart on this nameless young man and not pretend like he doesn't exist. That's why I often refer to the man without a name as my husband already to remind myself that my wait is not in vain. It's for a real person.
That all being said, I don't have any big plans for Valentine's day this year. I'm sure my heart will play tug of war between being satisfied in Christ and that persistent feeling that has plagued me for years of wanting to know this beautiful thing people call being in a relationship. And I will pray that it is my last Valentine's day that I ever spend as a single girl. Not because I'm miserable, but because I know that there's a handsome young man that fits the description in my heart of the man of my dreams out there. Maybe he's praying that this is the last Valentine's day he's single too...

Love,
Me

This is me... crabby, confessing and comforted.

Dear Blogging Audience,

I'm an empty well right now. The emotions and thoughts I do have aren't exciting and my flourishing vocabulary is taking a vacation. And my 14 year old brother is being really annoying right now. With my school schedule as it is, the introvert in me is screaming. Right now even. Screaming loudly.
I suppose this is a good thing. I have to kill my flesh somehow. And yet, instead of embracing this chance to be loving and kind even though I don't feel like it, I am glaring at my brother. "I'm so wound up right now and I don't know why!" he says. I think my tongue is bleeding from biting it so hard. No, I did not make any snarky comments but about 5,000,000 tumbled into my mouth, ready for me to vomit out as soon as I gave it the green light. I suppose it is a small victory that I choked them all back.

*Sigh* I've turned on Phil Wickham and am feeling peace slowly seep into my discontented soul. Why so cranky? I suppose lack of sleep, lack of love for my major in school this semester and lack of alone time added together has created this beautiful new rendition of me. Glorious. Oops, that was sarcastic.

Please, don't think that the last few days have been exactly like this. I'm not completely wretched and miserable. There have been times where someone says exactly what my heart needed to hear and my heart leaps up and says, "Yes! Yes, I remember why I'm doing this now!" or I read the word and I feel the words soaking into my dry spirit. Something I've grabbed onto with both hands this week is the truth that yesterdays manna is not enough. Oh man, sometimes it's not not even enough to get through one day and I come back desperate for The One who satisfies me. I lay my heart bare, so weak and broken, so calloused and raw, so cold and hard, and I cry out from my very core. If there is one thing I have learned in this semester it is that my need to be satisfied goes deep and wide and long and high and in the very center is my cold heart and my small expectation to actually have that need met. One of the most beautiful verses to me at the moment is about God doing above all I can ask and imagine [Eph. 3:20-21]. I want to believe this verse. I want this verse to comfort me on sad days and encourage me on good days and amaze me every day. I don't believe it. Not yet I don't. So I just keep reading it and closing my eyes and trying to understand it. But I can't, praise God. I don't want to understand as much as I want to just believe. Just like I'm slowly beginning to believe that God's love is deeper and wider and longer and higher than my ache and my longing. My empty little life doesn't have a chance against this hurricane force. My mind is so shadowed and my thoughts are so dim. I used to think my imagination was something to boast about but if I can't even imagine a God that shoots His love into me to deep that I'm satisfied by this fountain of living water. No, I can't imagine. But I can know. I do know. Barely. One day fully.

Like I said, I'm an empty well. I'm no longer quite as cranky but then again, my 14 year old brother is finally doing his chores and is no longer saying everything that pops into his adolescent brain. I think the must frustrating thing was that his proud and selfish and sarcastic comments made me feel like I was looking in a mirror and it was painful. My weakness being paraded for all to see. I knew it too. Geesh, how could I not? Holy Spirit is very good at telling me what is in my heart because that's what real friends do. I can't even be mad. Even someone like me who pretends a lot of things can't ignore this mortal flesh that encases my dry bones and weary soul.

Love,
Me

Journey of Love

Who is this Beautiful Man?

The One who is shining like the sun.

His eyes are burning with passion and glowing with meekness.

His hands are scarred.

His side pierced.

His voice like the sound of thunder and the sound of a waterfall.

Who is this Beautiful Man?

This One that is clothed in light.

His countenance is majestic and humble.

His mouth is sweet.

Nothing but truth comes from Him.

From His heart, His mouth, His mind.

Such a radiant peace shines from His frame. 

Love overflows from His smile.

Joy pours from His heart.

Who is this Beautiful Man?

So different from every other man I've ever known.

When I look at Him I feel alive.

His passion for me stirs passion for Him and I cannot stay silent.

His feet run over mountains, through the wilderness, across the valleys.

I must follow Him!

Please, Let me stay with You!

My heart cries out.

Don't leave me here without Your beauty.

Your love.

Your peace.

Your safety.

I know that running over the mountains of life with You would be better than being here without You.

I know that following You into the season of loss and solitude is better than being here without You.

I know that finding You in choosing humility is better than being here without You.

Your beauty has touched something inside.

Something I didn't even know I had.

The deepest longing I have ever felt in my life is now awakened.

The strongest passion that my heart can handle.

A desire that surpasses that of ordinary love.

No.

This is Real Love.

Come back, oh Beautiful Man! 

You alone have the words of life!

You alone speak comfort to my soul.

You alone can calm the raging fears in my heart.

I see You!

You're looking in at me.

Your eyes are blazing, I can feel the heat.

Your face is shining, it's piercing the darkness around me.

Your hand is pressed against the window pane and I see, once again, the mark of love on Your palm.

"It was for you." 

I hear the whisper and my heart skips a beat.

"It was all for love."

Love is awakening inside of me.

"My desire for you carried me through to the end."

No one has ever loved like this man.

If I stay and He goes, I will surely die without Him.

Stay with me!

I cry.

"I cannot stay."

The voice breaks my heart. 

So tender.

So solemn.

I look around and realize that there is nothing of comfort that is worth keeping and losing Him for.

No friend, family, possession, position, house or plan.

Suddenly, I know what I must do.

Nothing can keep me here away from that Beautiful man!

Nothing!

I must leave all behind.

I must take the way of the cross.

I must take the way of suffering.

There is a whisper in my heart that knows a blessed hope.

This hope is that no pain in this life will be worse than the exchange of glory the next life will give me.

I choose You!

My heart finds freedom in the declaration.

I will run!

But wait... Where are You?

My heart aches.

The emptiness threatens to crush me.

My soul lay lifeless.

Giver of life, come back to me.

I can barely lift my voice. 

"Come away!"

An echo reaches me and I know who it is.

It is the Beautiful Man.

There is no question in my heart as I leave my comfort.

I leave all things familiar.

I let go of what I earned.

Nothing compares to that echo that is drawing me out.

All flesh is grass!

I know this world is not my home.

Even the days of my life are but a shadow in the infinitude of eternity.

Home?

Where is home?

"Come away!"

Suddenly, I know.

My home is with Him.

Here.

There.

He is my inheritance.

My portion.

My reward.

A small door is in front of me and I know the Beautiful Man is on the other side.

"Come away!"

His voice is louder.

I cannot get through the door any other way than to leave everything behind.

I say yes and push through.

Suddenly, He is there!

His eyes, His hands, His face, His beauty.

My soul drinks deeply of this Man.

Peace surrounds me, Love carries me, Joy fills me, Hope guides me.

On the mountains of life.

In the wilderness.

Deep in the valleys of humility where I am alone.

Soon my eyes will blaze like His eyes.

Soon my heart will overflow with love.

My face will shine.

My thoughts and words will be truth. 

Soon.

On the day when my faith is made sight.

On the day when my clay pot bursts to reveal the glory that is placed in me.

No more mirrors.

No more shadows.

Real Love.

Face to face.

Draw me away!

You have been faithful to my heart.

Draw me away!

Nothing compares to You.

Draw me away!

I want to be like you. 

Just like you.

Come, Beautiful Man. Come home.

Gut-wrenching sobs

Dear blog audience,

for those of you who don't know me, I'm a crier. I have no shame in my tears. If I'm upset, I cry. If I'm sad, I cry, if I'm lonely I cry, if I'm being touched by the Lord I cry, if I'm happy I cry. Sometimes it's only a couple tears and me getting choked up. Sometimes it's a longer time of tears where I need to be alone and feel what is in my heart. Rarely is it gut wrenching sobs. 

I think the first time I actually sobbed from the pit of my stomach was in 2009. The Fes Youth Group was having an all night prayer meeting and someone said something about how almost everyone in the youth group was going to be leaving. There were only two people in the room that had no plans to leave and one of them was me. I looked at the other girl and we shared a sad smile, knowing that we were the only two gonna be left and then I melted on the inside. The next thing I know, I'm covering my face as I feel my insides coming out as I sit there sobbing (loudly). My friend Derik wrapped his arms around me and I don't know how long I cried, but I think that was the first time I really let myself mourn the fact that so many important friends of mine were leaving. I had cried before and I had felt the pain before, but this was different. This shook the very core of my insides. That of course set off all the girls and soon we were all just a puddle of crying girls (And boys) as we prayed over each other. 

There were a few times that I cried like that again when we left Morocco. Most of them were by myself though. Alone on my bed, smothering my cries with my pillow. locked in the bathroom at 2am so that no one else would hear me, in an empty house laying on the floor because there was just no emotional strength to stand back up. The cries and the tears came from deep inside and I could feel the pain so strongly. It was actually physically painful in my chest. 

Well, it's been a while since I have had a session of gut-wrenching weeping. For one, I have had so much of my heart healed that the pain isn't as strong. And I find so much more comfort in Jesus. I've had tears and times of really feeling sad but nothing that touched the inside of my so deeply that the only way to let is out was to open up my emotions and cry with everything inside of me. Usually you can't plan these times either. They come because of something that someone says, does, implies... Something triggers your emotions and they just all come out. (unless you are emotionally constipated.) As you know from before, I've been emotional since school started this semester but I really haven't had anything bothering me that I felt like I just needed to cry it out. 

Someone once told me that I was very in tune with what my body was saying. Whether that is true or not, I totally missed this one. I went to service last night because I had an off night before I start babysitting for another family on Friday nights. During worship and ministry time, some friends and I began praying for each other. First it was just so that the Holy Spirit would increase, we prayed for healing for a couple of us and then the Spirit of Prophecy fell and we began to speak words of life and calling and destiny over each other. Lies were broken off, strongholds broken off, chains were broken off and we did this for an hour or so. God seemed to be highlighting one person at a time and so everyone would pray and prophesy over one person and then God would highlight the next one. I hadn't been highlighted yet and we were praying for someone else when my really good friend Kelly turned to me and said, "You are the daughter of God's joy. You are like His first born, His favorite one." from there she went on to say that it was so important that I keep interceding for the safety of the children at Village of Hope. I've never told anyone the burden in my heart for those kids and how I think about how many children in that area where they are get sexually abused and how I think about that they are now seen as orphans and not children with families to keep them safe. How protected will they be from being trafficked and sold into prostitution? The mountains where I used to live is known all the way on the Northern coast of the country for it's brothels. Those words that Kelly spoke over me, not even knowing how right on she was, made me cry. A few tears and a couple sniffles. But at the end she said, "I pray that you'll find a husband that will say to you, 'Hey, let's go on a trip and just go back and see those kids.' and that you would find a husband that would want to travel with you and take you places."

That's when the sobbing started. 

Now, I think about my husband a lot. A good portion of my day is spent praying and pondering about this man that is still a mystery to me yet already so connected to my life. I ask God about him often, just wanting to know more about this stranger whom I will marry. I am not anxious, but I am antsy. I fully trust the will of God concerning my love life (I mean, come on. He is the author of the greatest love story of all time.) but my "biological clock" is ticking. I'm excited to be a wife. I'm excited to have a family. I'm excited to fall in love with a broken and redeemed human. I want it to happen! What kind of person would I be if I didn't have the desire to be romanced? But I have my heart set on waiting for the moment that an upstanding young man talks to my father and says, "I don't want to live without your daughter." 

That being said, it surprised me how deeply the things that Kelly spoke over me went. I mean, yes, right now God has been speaking to me about a future mate but when Kelly began saying, "You're afraid this is going to happen and that your husband will be like that..." I felt something from the pit of my stomach cry out and say, "YES! I have been afraid! This is something that I was afraid of!" Sometimes lies go so deep that we don't even know they are there until someone calls them out and says, "This is a lie. This is truth. Walk in freedom." 

By the time Kelly was done, snot and tears were everywhere, my insides were trembling and I felt lighter. Sometimes when you weep so heavily, it takes time to get out of that feeling of sobriety. This time, though, I just stopped crying and was fine. Shaking, yes, but there was no turmoil in my soul. 

Sometimes I look back over my life and I wonder why God brings up certain things at certain times with certain people. For times like last night, I know it's another step closer to being a good wife that doesn't live in fear of her husband. It's another step in the right direction for a healthy marriage. How many more steps will there be? Who knows. But there will be more both before and after I get married. It's wonderful how God honors your choice to go through the journey when you fully surrender to Him. I know that learning hard lessons can be uncomfortable but I'd rather be uncomfortable than live in pride, unforgiveness, depression and lies. He uses things like people speaking truth over your heart to bring freedom to an area you didn't even know you had. He uses gut-wrenching sobs to take you into a place of deeper intimacy with Him. He uses weakness to glorify His name. It's so worth it.

Love,

Me

What "I love you" sounds like

Dear Blog Audience,

My youngest brother has Down Syndrome but he is absolutely precious. Even now as I'm writing this, he is sitting with me on my bed. I love these times because it is him in his adorable footie pajamas finding all the little things in my room that a baby shouldn't play with and me becoming a puddle of mush as I watch him be cute. Usually when we're hanging I don't get on the computer because I love to cuddle with him and "talk" with him. I don't always know what he is going to understand and we have about 20+ signs that we all use as a family when we are talking to him. Often times he surprises me with how much he understands. Like when we're praying for our meals he always reaches his hands out to be part of our circle around the table. When we say, "bous" [Arabic for kiss] he puckers up and puts his mouth up to kiss us and when anyone says "Yay!" he automatically claps and his face lights up. He's such a wonderful child.

Tonight though, I was surprised and melted both when he understood without the sign language when I said, "I love you."

He was snuggled up against me with a grumpy look on his face because I had just told him he couldn't press on the laptop keys [my own fault, I know.]. But I leaned over and said, "I love you." and his entire face lit up and he smiled. All I did was say the words, there were no gestures or anything. I said it again and this time he held up his hand with his pointer finger up (his interpretation of the "I love you" sign in ASL.). He kept holding up his little finger at me without me saying anything. He knows what "I love you" sounds like and looks like. And I know he knows what "I love you" feels like because he gives and receives love, just like all of my other brothers. 

I guess because so many people are choosing to abort their babies when doctors say that the child has Down Syndrom, I have the amazing privilege of loving and stewarding a dying race. What if my brother had been given to another family and that family heard that he had Down Syndrome while he was still in the womb and they decided they didn't want that child. Then no one would have gotten to say "I love you" and see his face light up. I really do have a treasure. 

Love,

Me

My Theme Songs

Dear Blog Audience,

Because I'm a musician I often think in terms of songs. The other day I wrote in my journal about how I want "I surrender all" to be my theme song right along with "Great is Thy faithfulness" and "Worth it all." The past few months I have just been in awe of God's faithfulness and how wise He is in leading me. Some of the things that I kicked against and complained about the most are now such blessings to me and have helped me grow the most. Like being single and going to IHOPU and leaving Morocco. I've had such rotten attitudes about each of those things from time to time. I told God that I would get married when I was 21. I told God I never wanted to go to college. I told God I wanted to spend the rest of my life in Morocco. I set my heart on these things and planned my life accordingly. You can imagine how upset I was when God gently took my plans and said, "No, Baylea. Not these plans."

Now I'm 23 and still single and I am so glad I've had this season of life single. Yes, I get anxious and haven't always held my heart in a way that I am proud of but God has been faithful to change my heart attitude. I am just so thankful that God has kept me hedged in and hidden away for me to get to this place of finding my joy and satisfaction in Jesus only. Sometimes I think back to where my heart used to be and my heart overflows with gratitude for the wisdom of God. He sees the whole picture and knows my seasons and my times. I really needed these past few months to get to a point where I wasn't looking to a boy or a relationship to fill me. I can't imagine what kind of marriage I would have gotten myself into if I had gotten married at the age of 21. Thank You Jesus for Your wisdom and Your faithfulness to finish the work that You start in me! As painful as it is to surrender sometimes, I know that is it so worth it. 

College was never on my radar. Not as a 10 year old. Not as a 15 year old. Not as an 18 year old or a 20 year old. I was content with my education and I didn't want to push my luck by going to college and failing. My dream was to be a wife and a mother, what kind of college could equip me for that? Sure, there were other things that I enjoyed doing such as music and writing and teaching but I didn't see any point in spending a bunch of money that I didn't have on an education that I didn't really want. So when I realized that God was leading me in the direction of IHOPU I wasn't very impressed. Until I fell in love. With my classmates, with my teachers, with God and what He was doing in the student body and with what God was doing with me through my classes. I look back on my year and half at IHOPU as one of the best seasons of my life. There has been blessing and pain, extreme growth and extreme loss but each day had mercy and grace from sunrise to sunset and I am who I am right because of everything God has done in my heart in the last 18 months. Jesus, You knew exactly what You were doing when You put me in this school. Thank You for this season of learning. It has been worth every single penny and every single hour I've put into it.

The hardest thing I've ever done was leave my home. One time that home was Wisconsin and I was leaving it for Morocco. I was an emotional wreck and it took a long time to love that place. The last time I had to leave home my home was Morocco and I was coming to Kansas City. Again, I was an emotional wreck but this time it wasn't just me crying and pouring my heart out to my journal, it was severe depression and suicidal thoughts. It was laying on the bathroom floor at 2am because I was crying so hard and I didn't want my sister to be woken up. It was trying to kill what I was feeling through anything I could find- movies, music, friends, computer, IM... Anything I could think of. Yet Jesus was so gentle. At the time it felt rough and I thought I was broken forever but I couldn't see that I was the one making it so difficult. I told God to fix my heart and then took my heart away from Him. I turned to other lovers and broken cisterns, begging them to fill me. When it didn't work I blamed God for not doing what He promised. I can't imagine how many times God held out His healing hands to me, calling me to come to Him and find rest for my weary soul and I never even heard Him because I was too busy wondering why He didn't heal my heart and drowning in an ocean of false gods. The months following my return to the states are filled with the faithfulness to God. He brought people into my life, He took things out of my life, He hemmed me in and wept with me. One time a friend was praying for me and she said, "I see you laying on your bed crying with your face to the wall and behind you is God and He's crying with you." and I knew that it wasn't just one time that God cried with me. It was every time. I didn't want to surrender Morocco. Ever. I wanted God to just fit His plans for me around the fact that I was never going to leave that country. But He didn't because He knew so much more than me. He knew I needed to go to school. He knew I needed to meet the people that are in my life now. He knew I needed to learn more about Him and more about myself. Finally I surrendered, knowing that God's faithfulness was great and it has been worth it all. 

I remember when I was 15 I realized that surrendering was a daily process. It wasn't just a one time done deal, it was a continual setting of my heart. Different things would come into my life and I'd need to give them back up to Jesus. For a while I thought that nothing else could faze me after giving up Morocco but I was wrong. There have been many times I struggled to give things back over to God but in the end, I always choose surrender because I already know that God's way is better. His faithfulness is everlasting. Nothing I can keep now will compare with what God will give me later at the end of time as a reward. One simple reason being that everything on this earth will fade away and only the Word of the Lord will remain. I want what remains, not momentary pleasures.

Jesus, I surrender all. Great is Thy faithfulness. It's worth it all. Amen.

Love,
Me

$100 for a temper tantrum

Dear Blog Audience,

Yesterday, I had a temper tantrum. (This is a very important part of my story so pay attention to this wonderful example of how mature I am.) It was me, sitting on the couch, blubbering, and telling God about how I didn't know why I felt so emotional or tired or if my family was okay or how I was going to survive with school and being single (yes, yes, I did bring that up...) and reminding God of this that and the other thing. Now, I know that temper tantrums are usually little children flailing around on the floor creaming bloody murder but for me, it was still a tantrum. I just let it all out and vocalized so many of the questions and doubts going around in my head after just one week of school. I'm an internal processor so I usually don't have to talk to figure out how I'm feeling but last night I talked (or whined, both are true.) and cried and was border lining on having a pity party. Thankfully I just dried my tears, prayed, "God, help me." and carried on with my night.

As you know, I'm a baby sitter and one of my nights to work is Friday night which meant my bouts of crying and being frustrated at how I was feeling was interrupted by changing a poopy diaper, helping another child use the bathroom, getting the baby get back to sleep, checking on the kids etc. That's how moms do it, right? Thankfully most of my time is simply spent in the living room next to the baby monitors watching the Friday Night service at church.

The guy who gave the exhortation last night prayed for us and he said, "Just pray in your own words, 'God, come woo my heart again.'" So I did. Of course I was crying again (because I just cry all the time these days) and I figured there wasn't anything to lose. I cut down the lie that God would disappoint me like so many other people in my life and declared at the end of my prayer, "God, You are good. You are kind. You have been faithful to me." On one hand I knew that God would come through because He loves to answer my prayers but on the other (more dominate) hand I didn't fully believe that it would happen because why would God take the time to woo my heart? I already believed in His goodness and His wisdom, why would He take the time to convince me again? That aching and longing to be satisfied clung to the hope that God would touch my heart again and the tired, overwhelmed part of me tried to reason myself out of believing. It was a battle inside of me as I prayed but I shoved it out of my head and just focused on the next person who was talking in the service.

It got to be later and later and the parents texted to ask if they could stay out and finish a conversation they were having. I told them it was fine and took the extra time to write in my journal (more tantrum just in written form) and cry and search "cute babies" on google. I found a website called "cute baby fix" and it helped tremendously to distract myself. Finally the parents got back, paid me and I left without looking at my check.
I got in the car, my mind set on just going home and sleeping and hoping that I felt better in the morning. I was driving home feeling blah and discouraged when I decide to pull out my check. I expected it to be the normal amount or maybe a little extra since it was later than usual but I did not expect it to say $100. That was it, the flood gates were opened and I bawled like a baby all the way home. I asked God, "Why?! Why did You give me $100 when I threw a temper tantrum tonight? Don't You remember me sitting in the living room telling You about everything that You needed to fix? I was being a baby and You turn around and woo my heart! Why?!?!"

But... why does this surprise me? This has been the story of my life! The little kisses of love from my Heavenly Father that are given simply because He knows that it will show me, once again, that He loves me. What kind of God is this? He doesn't need me. He doesn't have to even give me my next breath. Yet throughout my entire tantrum I breathed again and again and used each breath to question the heart of God for me. And then He kisses my heart and says, "Baylea, I love you."

Me!
A finite creature!
A girl that struggles to trust the only One who has never broken a promise!

On the drive home last night I said, "God, I can't give You anything because anything worth anything inside of me is already Yours. I can't love You except that You placed love in my heart. You gave me my body when You created it. You give me breath. You are the One that made my spirit. And You take the time to show me that You love me. Again! I already knew! I was already convinced of Your goodness and Your kindness but You saw me and heard my weak little prayer and answered it."
Before I got into bed I read Psalm 139 and could hardly choke out the words as each verse spoke so deeply to my heart at that moment. When I woke up this morning, all of the doubts and questions and rampant emotions were gone and inside of my heart was a peace. The peace that God has given me before. What a wonderful gift it is to have peace on the inside. 

And there you have it, folks. The story of how I got $100 after throwing a temper tantrum. And of how gracious and wonderful my God is.

Love,
Me

[P.S. I do not suggest you throw a temper tantrum but God will answer those prayers you pray asking Him to reveal His love to you again. Do it. I dare you.]

Discombobulated

Dear Blog Audience,

Today was tough. The last couple days I've cried a lot. Not in bad ways, but usually when I get overly emotional it's because I'm really tired or fasting and... I wasn't fasting. School has started and while I love the schedule and how easy it is, my body is having a hard time acclimating to being on the run again. Last night I forgot to set my alarm to wake up at 5 instead of 7 because I had to be at the prayer room at 6 so I woke up at 7. What could I do? There was nothing I could do. Thankfully the first week of school never has sign in for prayer room hours but I still wanted to honor the fact that I did commit to going to the prayer room at that time. I got there in time for the 8am set (which I always love) but I was so discombobulated that I didn't even hug Laura Hackett when she said good morning to me. I find that I use the word "discombobulated" a lot more since I started going to IHOPU. 


[Discombobulate
to confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate: The speaker wascompletely discombobulated by the hecklers.]

I am still very excited about this coming semester though. I know that each class and each teacher were hand picked for me. I know that each person on my worship team was hand picked for me. I spent a lot of time over Christmas break praying that I would be able to love and serve my classmates and those in authority over me. I prayed for my teachers and my worship team. I didn't want school to start again and have a bad attitude about this that and the other thing. I wanted my heart to be ready to love the freshman and the upper-class men and the faculty of my school whether I was disappointed with a class or so excited that I was doing the happy dance. I'm a worship leader this semester which means I have the responsibility of being an example and leading other students not just during our worship sets but in all of our school requirements. I want the freshmen on my team to see me in the prayer room engaging with the Lord and not just sitting in the back on my phone or talking to a friend in the hallway. I want to set my heart to do my best in my classes so I can encourage others to do the same. It's really important to me to be faithful with the small things that God has put in my life right now because one day I want be in Thailand with a husband and 16 kids and a team of people who are there to establish a house of night and day prayer. I will need the grace of God to walk out each day but that is one of the dreams in my heart. Nations. Family. Prayer. Mmm, I want to be faithful now so that God will take me there later.

The month of January is almost gone and this baffles me because I feel like it was just yesterday that I was in the single digits of the month and now I only have one more week left. This is probably the first time in a long time that I am excited to move forward. I'm not one to want time to rush by (unless I know something amazing is coming up, like, moving back home.) so this is new to me. Of course there are things I am looking forward to, like one of my favorite people ever, Krista Bowman, coming to visit me in February and my sister having her baby in June but this is more than that. At the beginning of the year when I was asking God about the year 2012 He told me that this year is going to be a year of fulfilled promises. Just writing that out makes me excited! Even in the mundane and the tiredness and the tears there is an expectancy in my heart. On the good days and bad days, my spirit is alert and waiting for the promises to pass. What will it look like? I don't know except that I know that they will look a lot better than what I imagine. I know that because the bible tells me so. :)

Love,
Me

The Mom School

Hello blog audience,

Guys, I have the best job in the world. It prepares and equips me for my calling more than any other thing in the world. It fills me because I get to pour myself out. What am I? I'm a babysitter of course!

Tonight I got to do more than I normally do because I went over earlier than most weeks. I got to get the baby up from her nap, I got to cook them supper (it was frozen pizza, but still! I put that thing in the oven and cut it and fed those kids!), I bathed the littlest one, got them all to bed AND I cleaned the house (I love doing that and then leaving before the parents notice.). Granted, the kids were really good today, but I super enjoyed it.

I consider my babysitting jobs (there are three-four families that I babysit for regularly) the most important training school in my life at the moment. This strikes me as ironic because I get paid to babysit and in turn, use that money to pay to go to school. My highest calling, however, is not to play the piano and sing. One of my highest callings is to be the help-mate of the upstanding young gentleman that I have yet to meet and be the mother of the children God places in my life. [The highest calling of my life is to love God and love others.] I consider those two roles of wife and mother to be much more important than any job or school or degree or position in the whole world. And babysitting those precious children is my prep school.

When I babysit this particular family I always have the opportunity to learn more. The kids are wonderful and I love them all dearly but they are very full of life and probably smarter than I am on several levels so it takes a lot to keep up with them. The boys are not like my little brothers and the little girl is not like the other little girls I babysit. This gives me the opportunity to learn how to love differently. How to correct differently. How to see the world differently. Every child that is placed in my life gives me another chance to learn how to love differently. I love that about my job.

I know that when I become a mother, my children will not all come from my womb. They will come from many different countries and families and I'll need to know how to love each child the way that is best for them. I will need to know how to correct and discipline each child in a way that is best for them. I will need to know that the world doesn't always the same to each pair of eyes, but I'll need to get down on my knees so I can see the world the same way a child does. I have been praying for my kids for years and I know that some of them are probably already born. What is it going to look like to be the mother to the child another woman carried for 9 months? I don't know, but I know that these nights that I get to love the children I babysit for, God is working in my heart love for another child that will become mine.

And hopefully, when that day comes, and I have a bunch of kids and my husband and I want to take dance lessons (or even just go to wal-mart) we'll find a babysitter that can love our kids and who cleans our house just because she can. Sounds like an awesome girls to me ;)

Love,
Me

The sting of consecration

Dear Blog Audience,

Today was the first day of the spring 2012 semester at IHOPU [International House Of Prayer University]. It was the first day of no facebook and the first day that my blog got zero traffic. Not gonna lie, it stings to have over 200 views within the first four days and then boom, nothing. Just cause I'm not spamming everyone on facebook.

As I checked my stats to see who had been busy reading my heart-felt words while I was at school, I was disappointed to see that the answer was no one and I immediately thought, "Maybe it's stupid to give up facebook." I was so certain about my decision to turn off my facebook just a few moments ago. I'm so easily swayed by my emotions! [Lord, help me stay steady in what You've called me to do.]

Some of you may be thinking, "Why in the world did you give up facebook anyways?" Well, the answer is simple: I don't want to cheat myself out of anything that I might get out of this semester at school by being distracted by my social networks. Last fall at the beginning of the semester I was issued a challenge by the Holy Spirit asking me, "How deep will you go this semester?" And I realized that the depths to which I reach for and set my heart on in the semester is how much God can answer back and take me into. That's when my consecration began to be about more than just being single. It began being about my eyes, my ears, my free time, my mouth, my lifestyle... 

Right now the consecration doesn't feel so beautiful. But I still choose it. Yes, I know it looks like foolishness to the world but God has met me so powerfully in my season of abandon that I can't go back. When you taste something better than what you used to eat, you don't usually go back to that old food again, you stick with the new food. When you see something that is more beautiful than what you are used to seeing, the old things don't thrill you anymore. You just want one more glimpse of that beauty. It's all you think about. It's all you picture in your head. You tell everyone about this thing of beauty that has captured your attention and is so much more beautiful than anything you have ever seen before. That's how this season of seeking and finding God has been for me. I've tasted and I've seen and only Jesus can satisfy the heart inside of my chest.

One of my favorite songs to listen to is called "Worth it All" by Rita Springer. I listen to this song over and over and over and over and over... just ask my family. They know my routine- I get stuck on a song and I listen to it literally hundreds of times for weeks and weeks until I move on to my next song They are such patient people :) But this song has marked my heart. I believe with everything inside of me that me setting aside the things of this world will be so worth it at the end when I get to see the beautiful face of Jesus. It won't matter that no one looked at my blog today because instead of spending two hours on facebook, I loved my family. I won't remember being disappointed on the first day of school because no one read my posts, I'll remember that I sought the face of the Lord and He reached down and touched my heart. I believe that these little things that I say no to now will push me deeper into the infinite heart of God. There's not a doubt in my mind that having a facebook or watching movies or listening to secular music or surfing on the internet would keep me from experiencing all that God has in His heart to give me in this season.

Therefore, the lack of readers on my site = worth it. 

And that's why I am consecrated. Even when it stings.
Love,
Me