Breaking Free Day by Day - First Blog Devotional

Scripture:  

For I satisfy the thirsty person and feed all those who are weak.  

         Jeremiah  31:25

Hello,

Today, is the first week devotional of 6 that we are doing.  I hope that you enjoy it and check back every week for our Blogging Weekly Bible Study.  

I encourage you to please read the scriptures out of the bible that I post, so that you fully understand and see the context in which these verses are used.  I want to speak "The Word of God" and not be one of those that can abuse or misuse the scriptures context.  

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Devotional:

Can you think of anything you've worked hard at to attain that ultimately failed to bring you the satisfaction you expected?  We can easily be led into captivity by seeking other answers to needs and desires that only God can meet.  

Discussion:

I can think of a few things that I worked really hard on, thinking it was the missing piece in full filling me and making me the most happiest.  Acting - Yes, I love acting. I have a huge passion for it, and I have loved it since I was a young child.  My mom loves to tell the story about me as a kid, how I would always watch a movie, and then I would go to my room or outside and act out which ever character I found most interesting in the movie.  Modeling was also a fun passion for me.  My friends and I would save up allowance every week, and then we would go buy film for our cameras to play "photo shoots and models".  My mom still to this day has some of the pictures from our old modeling days.  I may just have to help her dig them up and post some to give you some giggles.  

I always said I would live in LA or Miami, next to the beach, in a big city and where I could do both my acting and modeling.  In Jr. High School, I explored band and drill team, by my freshman year of High School I then became athletic, drifted into being the school mascot "Black Panther".  I really loved getting to be free in my creativity. I loved coming up with my own dance routines and entertaining the fans.  By my sophomore year I tried out for the cheerleading squad and made it.  It was the coolest moment ever for a girl to make "try-outs" of the cheerleading squad.  In Texas, it was a "big" thing to play football and be a cheerleader.  Laughing just thinking about it!!! So silly right? But, I didn't know better or different at that time.

Well, I have completed and followed my dreams.  I have been a model and actress now for about 12 years.  I have lived in both LA and Miami (residing in Miami).  I have travel around the world and seen some amazing places.  I was doing it all.

However, I still didn't find myself to be fully satisfied.  Something was missing.  

Devotional:

Perhaps we each have experienced an empty place deep inside that we tried our best to ignore or to fill with something other than God. 

Discussion:

Finding myself still feeling as though something was missing or that I just wasn't 100% satisfied.  I began to think that it was because I didn't have "someone" in my life to share it with.  So I began finding myself trying to find that someone to share it with.  Only to end up with more disappointment, more heartache and closed roads.  Why am I feeling this way?  I still pray.  I still talked to God.  So why do I still feel this way? 

Devotional:

A crucial part of fleshing out our liberation in Christ means allowing Him to fill the empty places in our lives.  Satisfaction in Christ can be a reality.  He can make us feel complete.  I'm not talking about a life full of activity.  I'm talking about a soul full of Jesus.

Discussion:

That is why I was feeling that way.  I realized after many years of working hard, pushing harder and finding myself so distracted and busy with activities in my life.  I no longer had time for a relationship with God.  I no longer was attending church regularly.  I wasn't letting God be a full time part of my life, just a piece of my life when I prayed or wanted to ask him to help me land an audition.  Basically when it was a convenience to myself, as much as I hate to say that and admit that.  I dislike those type of people who only will be there or do things for others, only when it is convenient for them and or they are getting something for it in return.  Too many people are like that. Some of the closest people in our lives can be like that and they can be hard to love.  I was like that with God.  No wonder I wasn't getting answers or finding myself fully satisfied with my life. 

When I decided to turn my life around, attending church, getting back on track and giving ALL of myself to God.  Things in return started to change and fall into place.  Falling in place God's way. I gave myself fully to God, not allowing myself to really date or be involved in any type of relationship.  I made a promise to remain sexually inactive until I was married.  Making myself clean and pure for my future husband.  It wasn't always easy, but I trusted in God's plan for my life and for the future of my life with my son as a single mom at the time.  

After a long, long 6 years of what I would like to call hell, I finally broke down to God on a late ride home from Disney.  I cried and told God that I was lonely.  It has been 6 years since I have had someone that I could love and that loved me in return.  God, was doing some amazing things in my life during this time no doubt.  And, God surely likes to show off sometimes (one of my favorite things about him), for the very next day at church, I met my husband, Mark. I kid you not.  We both had been attending the same church for years but not once did our paths cross.  I would always sit in the front of the church and he would sit in the back of the church, and we always seemed to attend different service times on different weekends.  God was working in both of us and decided that it was time that we met.  We went to lunch that day after church with some friends and the rest is history.  Almost 3 years later, married for 2 and now parents to two children my son Hunter 7 years old and our little girl Morgan 6 1/2 months old.  

I am satisfied in full.  I have my relationship with God. I have my children, my family, my friends and someone to share it all with.  

There are days where I still feel like I am missing out on that other side of life. I know that is satin trying to mess things up. The fun, exciting stuff that comes along with acting, modeling and traveling, is all very attractive to the eye. Then I talk with God and I am reminded how lonely I was when I had all of that other stuff. I was too busy for anything else. It consumed me. I have just enough of everything right now. I have the right amount of modeling, the right amount of acting, the right amount of traveling and I have a whole other part of me that balances it all out, the kids, the family life and the mommy and wife side of things. 

I would never change a thing about my life right now.  I am so totally and abundantly blessed.  God has been so amazingly good to me and continues to full-fill my needs, not my wants necessarily, but my needs.  In truth, I don't find myself having many wants.  Just finding myself in moments of thinking I have wants to be met.  Then I am thankful of God for a lot of my unanswered prayers.

Prayer:

Father, I want to take this opportunity to say thank you for all you have and continue to do in my life.  Thank you for never giving up on me and loving me even when I didn't deserve your love.  Thank you for where my life is today. Thank you for my two beautiful and healthy children, Lord.  Thank you for my home I have to keep clean, and bring my family home to rest in.  Thank you for the food we have so easily provided to us daily.  Thank you for the circle of friends you have given me over the last few years, Lord.  Thank you for meeting my needs at always just the right moments.  Thank you for my career Lord, and for having my husband to share it all with.  

Lord, I know I still have days where I think I could still be doing more or I feel lost because I am not being more than just a mom or wife.  Thank you for always reminding me that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, and I rejoice in knowing that I am here,  because this is where YOU want me to be.  Although, I may not feel like much of a super hero and or feel as though I am doing much for the world in your name, Lord.  I know that I am a hero in my children's eyes, and that by raising them the way you want me to raise them, Lord.  I am in fact doing a lot for the future our world, by raising two Godly beings. 

Thank you for honoring me to be in my childrens and husbands lives. I am honored you chose me to share in their story that you have already written out.  I am truly amazed and thankful for you choosing me to be ME! Thankful not for those you chose to be in my story, but for those stories you chose me to be in (my daughter, my son, my husband, my friends, my family). 

Amen. 

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Please feel free to leave a comment, question or prayer request. 

Until next week......

God Bless.

Today's Daily Christian Wisdom -

What is past is past. Today we start anew, and what we do today will make our life for tomorrow.