Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it

Warning:  Open-hearted thoughts are stated and words like "intimacy" are used. Here I am on the brink of my twenty-second year.   It feels good.   I feel like I’ve climbed a tall mountain and now I’m at the top, and as I look down on the vast expanse below I think, “how did I get here?”   God has accomplished so much in my heart.   Let us praise Him! I’ve changed a lot this past year.   It’s not like I’ve lost ten pounds and got a tattoo of the Jesus fish on my ankle.   The difference is in the dark night of the soul.   It’s almost like when Crayola came out with the 24 box of crayons, then the set of 50, then the box of 100.   They added colors to the box of ten crayons that you didn’t know could exist.   In the end you’re glad for it, because it makes your picture much brighter.   Silly analogy?   I suppose, but that’s all I got. One year ago today I was praying for what God would want for year twenty-one.   “Just Me ...

First things first.   Dear Bookfiled, I wish you would stop haunting me with thoughts of Mrs. Jones or a creepy house.   However, with every day that goes by, God is kind enough to show me how to appreciate you.   I was reading in an old journal from a year ago.   I actually prayed the words, “Lord, sanctify my obedience and trust.”   I even was asking for forgiveness because I know I complain a lot.   Wow did I EVER get what I prayed for?   Sometimes those are like “broccoli prayers”.   You know they’re good for you, just perhaps not tasty at the time.     “This is the confidence we have in approaching God:   that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.   And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”—1 John 5:14-15 Love,                Al è tcha Second things second. Dear Alicia,   ...