Living Water

 

 

Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

 

 

Who remembers summer time?! Think back on those scorching summer days, with the sun beaming down upon you and how thirsty it had made you for a sweet beverage. We know it would be best to go for a bottle of water, but man oh man would it be sweet to down a can of Mountain Dew or any other sweet drink for that matter. So instead of taking the H20 route, we rebel it out with a sweet soda. Although it taste so delicious, we never find our thirst becoming quenched and only leaves us thirstier than before! It’s not until after that soda we are reminded that the water would have been ever more satisfying in the long run, although not so instantly gratifying. Do you ever find yourself feeling this inadequacy with things in your life around you? Have you found yourself seeking thirst quenchers in jobs, money, self-appearance, social acceptance or even relationships that do not drive you towards Christ? I have found myself in prior years trying to pull parts out of these areas in my life to attempt fitting a puzzle together to make me feel whole. As I strived to try harder for these things, I just became thirstier in the process. I have struggled with insecurities, worries, and anxiety relating to my level of acceptance from THE WORLD. I drowned in un-Christ like relationships, putting all of my faith in man on Earth and sought my security fully in people. I suffocated in my anxiety over financial situations and sought security in my job to fix these anxieties. My attention was focused on who disliked, who liked me and sought to find out all of the reasons why. I was trying to draw water from empty wells, leaving me thirsty. Then Psalm 42:1 My soul pants for you Lord, pulled my attention elsewhere. The Lord simply stopped me and suggested that my soul pants for Him instead. Guess what? I have never been more quenched in my life. Now don’t get me wrong, life isn’t picture perfect, but with Christ it is so fulfilling I can hardly understand it sometimes! God approaches our souls in the weakest and gives us and Oasis. John 7:37 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” Christ wants to take us from these distractions and fill every empty void with his everlasting water of life that will quench our thirst eternally. He also welcomes ANYONE to come to Him. In our minds, some situations seem impossible and we feel the need to try controlling on how we fill the voids in our lives. The wells we go to are empty, false wells and they don’t have what we need. Let it seem impossible and hand it over to Christ, because it’s not about you it’s about what God wants to do. Jesus has what we need, and He knows what that is better than we do. What God wants to do is show you His love, mercy, friendships, kindness and total acceptance. He promises many things to us, John 10:27-30 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. He promises us eternal security. Christ promises a love that is eternal, unconditional and overflowing. He promises a peace that truly surpasses all understanding and a joy that fills us abundantly. He promises His strength in times of trial and that He will never forsake us when we feel alone. When we drink from the water Christ has to offer, we are filled with love and peace in which we can reflect back to the world to show what we experience. God wants to show us what He has for us, in which the world cannot offer to us.  Christ came down and chose to place himself in a world of pain and suffering to show us exactly the love and acceptance our Father in Heaven has for us. James 4:14 Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. I still ask myself today, “Why did I put my faith in things that will vanish?” This world is temporary, but God is forever! Ever since I have drank from the water of Jesus, my life has become filled with plentiful peace, love, Christ-centered relationships, joy, and grace. We can run to Jesus and be granted eternal thirst. Choose to leave your empty wells for a well worth abundant and full spring of life.

 

 

 

 

 

The Funny In Faith

        

 

        Faith can be pretty comical at times. I like to look at faith as a comic strip or a birthday party as a young child. As comic strips go, I’m talking about the ones you don’t really understand and the ones that leave you with dumbfounded look afterwards. This image helps me find the funny in faith because God always keeps me guessing with certain situations and God keeps us guessing in what he is going to do or where he is going to place us. It is also so beautiful when we have the faith that whichever God is up to, it is going to be something or someplace abundantly joyful and great for us. The tough part is definitely the good attitude filled wait in the meantime for our Lord’s master plan. Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, “says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
              Now this goes hand in hand with the birthday party scene. Now remember when you were a kid and your parents asked you what you wanted for your birthday; instantly that ONE big thing comes to mind, along with a few other small gifts that we would enjoy. So present time arrives and on the table is a colorful stack full of gifts. You cannot WAIT to rip through and find the Ultra Mega Ten Thousand Speed Nerf Gun you’ve been watching on that commercial every day. You start eagerly ripping through the gifts and each gift closer to the end of the pile you become more anxious. You become more disappointed that you still haven’t opened the one thing you had asked for. As you open each gift and find it isn’t the big one, you get a little more disappointed with each one. You start to become worried your parents didn’t understand clearly or listen to what you had asked for. A wave of sadness starts to come over you when you open the last gift and it just isn’t what you had asked for. All of the gifts you received are very nice, but it would have been so awesome to have the Super Megan Tron Ten Thousand speed Nerf Gun.
           So the party comes to an end and you say goodbye to all your friends and you’re alone with your parents. To your surprise your parents have one last gift for you to open and excitement rolls over as you open this last gift. YES! It’s the Super Mega Tron Ten Thousand speed Nerf Gun! You are so happy your parents are cool enough to do this for you. Not only is it the gift you had asked for, but it’s even better. It’s in the coolest color, most recently released model and your parents even provided extra accessories to go with it!
          Now looking back you feel a bit of regret for not enjoying the party more, your friends more, or other the gifts you have received just a little more. This kind of situation applies to everyday adult life as well, wouldn’t you agree? God wants for us to slow down and enjoy the little things given to us. He wants us to enjoy the small gifts and blessings given to us along the journey towards a bigger blessing. God is cool enough to give us that Mega Nerf Gun. It all comes down to our faith that he will all in His good timing and we must have complete trust in Him that our heart’s desires will come to us in His way. We tend to become more disappointed with each circumstance, or trial we are facing and start to question what God is up to. We question if He hears our cries, prayers, requests and wants. Yes, He hears us all the time but He knows about what we want more than we do. He understands everything we think, feel, say and understands us when we feel we don’t understand ourselves. Have faith and trust in God that when our plans do not turn out exactly as we had hoped, God is up to something so much better for us. He is up to something filled with more joy and surprising with a little extra. Be patient and enduring. James 1:2,3 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.

 

        At times our faith needs to be stretched and strengthened. Faith will help you to avoid becoming anxious, worried, or disappointed along the way. We can instead enjoy what is given to us along the way.

 

    

     

Sleeping a Year Away

“Feels like I’m waken from the dead everyone’s been waiting on me. ‘Least now I’ll never have to wonder what it’s like to sleep a year away”

   Now for all you Paramore fans out there, you know what’s happening! As for all the Anti-Paramores, stay with me here. Now let me clarify that this song, although is very catchy, is not particularly my favorite, but these two lines really caught my attention while listening to it during recent months. The reason being these lyrics explained my entire last year precisely. I had walked around claiming I had been “Christian” but nowhere near did I walk like a true follower of Christ. I never spoke the Word or reached out to serve the Lord. I walked around attempting to take control of my life and seek my own will. Oh boy, did the Lord in Heaven knock me on my butt and wake me up. God was like, “It’s time to discipline you child!” All for my well being of course.  Just as Janetteikz indicates in her poem “I will wait” she says, “Arteries so clogged with my will, it blocked His will from flowing through me. So I thank Christ that His blood pressure gave this heart an attack, that flat lined my obscured vision, put me flat on my back. Through my ignorance, He saw, so through my sternum He sawed and cracked open my chest to transplant Psalms 51:10. A new heart and a renewed right spirit within”. Throughout the duration of this blog prepare to read pieces of my testimony being broken down bit by bit, along with other individuals as well. I am Katrina Vance, a daughter of God and this is my first piece.

   I had spoken the Invitation prayer back in 2009 of March to accept Christ into my heart and as my Savior. I had said the prayer a second time in 2010 of January and I had said the prayer again in March of 2012. Catching on here? See every time I had said the prayer; I obviously had no idea what I was doing or what I was supposed to do afterwards. My behavior, my sin, my tendencies and my old nature never budged. I hadn’t been like all of these “good” people sitting in church next to me. I wanted Christ so badly but I just felt like I couldn’t find Him. SO I decided to get baptized March 20^th,2012 and finally felt things are going to be different now. NOPE! I had been a lost little sheep this past year! I mean what was I doing wrong? I was going to church, I was reading my bible, I was “praying”, but man why did I keep falling back into sin? Why was I still struggling with emotions? Why did I still feel so alone? Why had I kept running into disappointments left and right? Why is it hard for me to hope? Why am I struggling with depression and anxiety still? I mean I do so well for a while and then I end up messing up again! There are so many rules God! How do I follow them all? Why aren’t you answering me? Why why why? Endless questions for God, but did I ever listen? I struggled deeply with believing that God truly loved me unconditionally and had wanted the best for me. It had been hard for me to grasp that he WANTED me and consistently pursued me despite all the displeasing behavior I had continued.

            Recently God had placed in a time of trial in which I could never be more thankful for, due to myself finally being woken up to the actual intimate presence of God. I’ll admit it hurt like heck but I have never felt a greater love. I have never felt a God so close and so passionately in love with Him. I had been sleeping this past year and God has been calling me to wake up! For the past year I had been running to empty wells just as the Samaritan woman at the well had been where she had a conversation with Jesus. During my time of trial I found myself picturing this image, in which I had my first real conversation with Jesus rather than a stale obligated prayer. I had quality time with Jesus rather than a sermon of guidelines and rules. In this time Jesus held his hands out full of the water of life in front of my face to drink from and asked me to turn from the empty wells in my life. My empty wells had been what the WORLD portrayed what is acceptable for one to do or have. God wanted to renew my mind and at first during my heartbreak I couldn’t see what God was doing. It wasn’t the first time I had been broken but it took this last break to finally awake my heart to know the truth. I had been lying completely flat on my back, looking nowhere but up.  It was then he started having conversations with me and I with Him. A RELATIONSHIP. Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  It was in this time I felt pain, suffering, confusion, testing, doubt, despair but I had also felt hope, freedom, patience, discipline, obedience and the greatest love ever known. I felt a Father, a friend, a husband, a redeemer, a brother, a savior and a true acceptance of relationship with the one true King. Although I had been running off trying to control my own life, God had pursued me constantly. Psalms 23:6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life. It was May of 2013 I finally decided to accept His pursuit and His call. I wanted to abandon my own will, abandon my own desires and finally seek what he knew had been good for me. I had been broken many times before, but it took this final break for me to give everything over to God. Let me say it has been the most wonderful thing I have ever done. Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me”. It was then I began a true beautiful journey with God in carrying out HIS plans for my life. No longer did I testify falsely due to being anxious of acceptance of the world. No longer did I live chained to depression, anxiety, old nature sins, empty wells, and living for man, bitterness, hopelessness, doubt, confusion or loneliness. I no longer desire to live the “quiet life” yet I am ready to proclaim my testimony and be a witness for God’s glory! I had been scared of my story before but now I rejoice in it. For it shows the true transformation in my heart and the work that the Lord has started.

            I find it sort of amusing how God put this blog on my heart. I had been in my car crying over a recent heartbreak in front of a Panda Express and a rush of ideas came to my heart. God does work in mysterious ways I must say. These ideas gave me overwhelming joy and so many hopeful images of the future. This rush of feelings and thoughts I knew had to be the Holy Spirit. In this I found peace. God has called me to write and to speak of his love. With Him by my side I am no longer afraid. He pressed 1 Timothy 4:12 heavily on my heart: Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. It’s time for me to wake up, step out and speak. Stay tuned for future pieces of my testimony.

 

Welcome to Light In Heart! I’m Katrina Vance and I am so blessed to be the founder of this blog site. I am so excited to welcome you to a place where we can all grow in understanding of God’s workings in every aspect of life. Here is a place to read of spiritual articles, blogs, testimonies, devotionals and inspirational words of various Pastors/Ministers. See the work of God through interviews with those carrying out his calling placed upon them. This is a place where we can see how God works in every single way and we can all come together to understand his grace, unconditional love, friendship, fathering, strength, protection, promises and will in carrying out his perfect plan for us. This is the place where we can all come together and build each other up in truth of the Lord. Here is where we can learn, where we can grow and run to see others with similar situations. Sometimes we can feel alone and feel like no one else can understand our suffering or trials. This is a place where you can see differently and know you are always a part of God’s family. He is the light of the world and the light of our Hearts! God Bless you all!  More blogs will be up soon! ;]