Reality Check for Miss. Kep

There are times when I do not always see the silver lining. I tend to not see anything that could possibly go good for ME in a situation. I do not tell you this to get your pity..actually, I am telling you this for quite the oppisite reaction. One thing, I have seen ever so frequently lately is the fact that I am selfish. Soo, sooo selfish. I am constantly thinking about what I can get out of a situation, and probably loving on people, at times, for that reason as well. Sadly, this has been shown through what the Lord is teaching me. I guess, maybe it isn't sad...it is just sad for me because I see how wicked my little soul can be.

Someone got shot at my apartments yesterday around 12. The first thing I thought about was not whether the people were okay, but what vicinity they were to my apartment. Did someone break into my apartment? Did someone mess with my stuff or my dog? Then, when I found out what was on the news and also checked my apartment my mind turned to blame. How could the apartments let this go on? Where am I living? Why would this happen to MY apartment complex. (Recognizing a theme here anyone???) Oh yes, that is right, I was worried about me, and scared. Being scared might be warranted, but my reaction was not. I realized that today when I was talking to my kids. My kids, as I have said before, do not have the best lives. They are living in areas where people getting shot at is the norm. Their family members do drugs and sell drugs. They are constantly having to make sure that they are safe and trying to take precautionary measures to be safe. One of these measures is more times than not either joining a gang, or getting to know certain people who will protect them. Today when I said that someone had gotten shot at my apartment complex, some kids told me thier stories. I found out some of my kids live alone. Some of my kids have pulled guns on people because they had a gun pulled on them. Some of my babies have had thier apartments broken into and many things stolen, but no mom or dad in the picture, so they are left to fin for themselves. The thing that killed me about all thier stories today was the fact that they think it's okay. They think that it is normal to "sleep with a loaded gun under their pillow", or for thier place to be repeatedly broken into, for them to be treated less than they are for the way they look and how they have grown up, for thier families to be in gangs, to go get high to forget about the day...I could go on and on. I do not tell you this to alarm you at what kind of shenanigans are going on at my school, and for some of you whom have never interacted with babies like mine, you might be oh, so ignorant to say that they deserve it. But, oh, how I can tell you that they don't. These are lovely people. A little rough on the outside, but they have the BEST hearts. I call them my family, and I really mean it. I love them. I want what is best for them, and oh, how selfish I felt and silly when I heard their stories. Miss. Kep, young white girl with money to spare is complaining about the fact that someone got shot in her apartment complex, when they have seen this many of times. I literally have more students than I can count on two hands that have seen people get shot and actually die. I am not joking you. And I know they aren't lying. Death is very real to them, and where I am sure there are way rougher schools than ours, I can assure you that these babies have to deal with hard stuff and come from hard things. Today I even had a kid tell me he smoked weed because he started failing his classes and the only way to make himself feel better was to start that. My kids are hurting. My kids, although not always in the right, and at times do fib to people about things, really, really, REALLY need Jesus. They need someone to care. They need love. Oh, how I long for that for them. Oh, how I long that they graduate and move on in life.

Oh, how we need Jesus.

This song has been on my heart today, so I "youtubed" a video of it for y'all to watch!

go here!

love you and again...thanks for listening.

A thought in the morning.

One thing I am learning about my relationship with Christ is that there are going to be many different seasons. Where if you are a weathered Christian, you probably already know this and have been through it. You go through many different seasons, and the Lord chooses to grow you in many different ways and through many different venues. This time around the Lord is teaching me one really big thing... it is all about Him.

I am selfish and idolatrous. And when it comes down to it, the thing that I am constantly making an idol is me. I want what is best for Ashley, not what is best for the kingdom more times than not. It grieves my soul that I am like this. I think I have seen it ever so clearly the past couple of days, which is hard and heavy, but I know is for my good. The Lord is ever so sweet to show me these things. I think I tend to forget what He has taught me in the past, thus why this lesson may be so hard this time around. Thank Jesus, though, that He chose me to teach this lesson to.

It's not about me. It is ALL about him. It is not about my good...it is about HIS and in that I will find joy. Oh, that my heart will see this as truth.

Love you guys.

White as Snow

As I sit here, while the snow is falling and I am in my comfy apartment under a big, warm blanket, I am thankful. This year has started out with such a bang, if you will. Not exactly how I would have planned it, but it also could have been worse.

As I was driving to work today the snow really did have me thinking about the Lord's grace. Snow is constantly used in the bible referring to how he blots out our sin and makes us white as snow. Have you ever noticed how pretty everything is when it snows? It is beautiful. Even the school I work at, which is the oldest in Arlington, was beautiful today. The trees are beautiful, the ground, where there once was mud, is beautiful. The field where the grass is sparse is now beautiful from the covering of the white snow. It is kind of hard not to think how amazing our Sweet Lord is that he does that for us. He covers us. He covers our sins and makes us white as snow. He forgets what we have done, and remembers how He loved us so much to send His only Son for our forgiveness...to blot out anything you have done today.

As I get older I am realizing how much life does not always look how you planned it. I tend to get disappointed and sometimes act like a little child when this plays out in my life. The Lord has been sweet enough to give me a swift kick in the butt and let me see this. But, it has been ever so lovingly. I have finally gotten to the point again where if I am not in the word, I am longing for it. I have realized how much I miss out on when I do not spend that time with Him. I have also realized how many people around me are hurting. The Lord really has put me in a place that I need to be. I can stamp my feet and be upset that I am in Arlington, versus being in amazing, trendy, cool Dallas where many more things are...or I can be thankful that the Lord has placed me where He has. To be honest, the past couple of weeks I have wondered why the Lord has me where He has me. Why has my life ended up the way it has? Why can't I be around more friends? Why are all my close friends married and I am still single and 'that working girl'? :) This is where the little girl in me comes out. Instead of seeking the Lord and being thankful for this sweet, uninteruppted time with Him, I choose to stamp my feet and complain about the stage of life where He has me. Sad, huh? Ya see, what I am learning, is as humans, we tend to think that the grass is greener on the other side. When, in all actuality, it is probably about the same just with different problems that present themselves in different ways. What I am trying to say is the Lord has really been sweet to me in the past few weeks. For a very long time I got to cry out to Him and tell him all my worries. Literally, crying out to Him. Where in that moment, I was very upset and not understanding what was going on and why I was feeling the way I was feeling, I really did feel the Lord's presence. I just asked Him to show up...to show me where I am. Why he has me here. Since then, the Lord has showed me sooo much through His Word and just through interactions with other people. I have even recieved these emails from parents about my role in thier child's life. Where all that may just seem coincidental, let me tell you my friend, it is not. It is the Lord gently and lovingly showing me He is here. He hasn't left me. He hasn't suddently forgotten where He has placed me. He knows what He is doing.

All this can look like complaining, and where I promise that is not what I am trying to accomplish with this blog, I can see where you might see this. I think my song has been more of a I am single, on a quest to mingle too many times, versus just being happy where I am. The Lord is really showing me Who He is...not who I think He might be. I have such a problem with grace so many times more than not, and so what He is showing me above all is what grace looks like. Showing me what thwarted pride looks like and why I have been in the siutuations I have been in, and just how much He loves me. I seem to forget that He has blotted out my sins. That he doesn't love Ashley five to ten years down the road when I have it together a little bit more, but rather loves me now. That is hard for little miss. perfectionist to accept sometimes. I would rather throw a pity party (because even though I am sad in those times, that is what they are) then see what grace he is offering me. I would rather be mad at myself for what I have messed up doing, or what I am not doing enough of, rather than just being still and accepting grace for my sins. I am still the process of learning this because even though I have known about grace my entire life, I feel like I am learning grace a little differently now. Learning it through teaching, who the Lord has placed in my life, and mainly THE BIBLE. :) I am reading Knowing God by J.I. Packer right now (if you have not read this book I highly recommend it) and he writes this on the knowledge of God:

Nor, I think, would may of us ever naturally say that in the light of the knowledge of God which we have come to enjoy, past disappointments and present heatbreaks, as the world counts heartbreaks, don't matter. For the plain fact that to most of us they do matter. We live wiht them as our "crosses" (so we call them). Constantly we find ourselves slipping into bitterness and apathy and gloom as we reflect on them which we frequently do....

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Jesus Christ," wrote Paul. "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him...I was to know Christ" (Phil 3:7-10). When Paul says he counts the things he lost rubbish, or dung (KJV), he means not merely that he does no think of them as having any value, but also that he does not live with them constantly in his mind: what normal person spends his time nostalgically dreaming of manure? Yet this, in effect, is what many of us do. It shows how little we have in the way of knowledge of God.

All this to say I am thankful for what the Lord is showing me. I am still ungrateful many more times than not, but I am glad the Lord is choosing to me show me what He is.

I will leave ya with this verse-

I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like a midst; return to me, for I have redeemed you.

Isaiah 44:22

Love you guys. Until Later!