Revival 2015

Hello Again!!

Every year since 2011, I have prayerfully chosen a word for the year. The word friendships was my first chosen and that year I connected with my best friend Corbin and started our most beautiful journey getting to know one another. Since then, I've had the words rise, second, surrender and finally this year's word revival. Each word has been multi-faceted and has caused me to look internally at what sin patterns and worldly desires that need to be removed from this life.

Revival was mostly chosen because I felt that after some hard things I'd been going through over the past few years that I would need a year of rebirth and of renewing my faith. I actually debated between choosing revival and humility. You see, God laid on my heart a few years ago that my deepest sin pattern, the one bad root that can completely ruin all of the good seeds He's planting, is my pride. So, what better way to overcome it than to focus on being humble for a year. As honorable as this sounds though, my heart was not in it. I felt like humility was a lot of work and I didn't even know where to start with it, but I would dutifully choose that word. Then, on December 31st, I was listening to Pandora and what came on, "Revive Me" by Jeremy Camp. I literally sat crying listening to this beautiful song and feeling overwhelmed that the creator of the universe knew my soul needed a revival.

So, I didn't choose humility, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to work on humbling myself. Oh no, God had plans of humility for me. One aspect of my pride is having a god complex. I feel that I can do everything by myself, no prayer needed. I can raise my kids without consulting God, I can be a great wife without prayer and I can even be an amazing friend without prayer, right??? Actually, I can't. Sometimes my kids completely overwhelm me with how much they need me or how much trouble they get into without supervision. If I don't approach my husband or my friend's with grace, I become one judgmental woman. It's funny though cause if I do something all on my own and it works, I worship myself. I think how much better I am than that mother over there who obviously doesn't have it all together.

Can I just tell you how embarrassed I am by all this? But, without sharing my sin and repenting of it, I can never be free from it. The more I keep it locked in the closet of my soul, the more it grows. I am telling you, I am desperate for a revival. I want what Pastor Chad called a revival of holiness. I want to grow in my faith and start learning and growing in God's grace.

What about you? Do you feel a revival happening right now in your faith? In your church? In the body of Christ? Can I just tell you where it all starts? On your knees faithfully seeking God's face. Talk to him about that deep-seeded sin pattern that is destroying you. Openly tell a safe friend about this sin. Declare war on the enemy! He does not win my friends. I know that it can feel like it, but God's Word, our beacon of hope and truth, says that is a lie.

Now picture this, the body of Christ as a whole, on our knees seeking our Lord in ways we never have before daily, asking Him to make us individually holy, asking Him to remove sin from our life. Please join me in this calling. God has so much promise and hope for us. Let's cling to it!

Will you join me in prayer?

Lord,
I am so incredibly grateful for you and your saving grace. Where would I be without you? I pray for a revival in my soul. Please remove this pride from every ounce of my body. I pray that every person reading this would feel the power of your revival. Please convict their hearts Lord. Help them to recklessly seek you in all they do. I pray that you would send people into our lives to help us to see our sin and completely remove it. I pray for a revival of holiness in your church. Help us to face the mirror and our own sinful ways before ever looking at the world's sins. Cleanse us Papa! We need you so desperately.

In Jesus name,
Amen

My Heart For This Blog

Hello all my wonderful friends!

Can I just say that God has really been laying all of you on my heart lately. I think the biggest thing I'm feeling is that everyone (myself included) is looking for a little more authenticity. I love reading blogs and hearing from other Christians, but so often I crave more honesty and openness from the author. I feel like the majority of posts give me a small snapshot into who they are but nothing too revealing. Then, I realized that was precisely what I wanted my blog to be. I wanted to offer advice on things God had revealed to my heart but in a way that appealed to everyone. Now this sounds good in theory, but God didn't create me to blend in (trust me I've tried). He created me to be so fully unique that anyone looking at my life will see His fingerprints. 

For this reason, I changed the name of my blog from Isaiah 26:3 Perfect Peace to Anchor My Soul. Of course, I still want to live in perfect peace, but the thought of perfection actually kinda overwhelms me. I believe my original blogposts were me trying to attain that perfection. Anchor My Soul on the other hand is me just being me. I'm broken and have doubts about my faith. I say mean things when I'm angry and I cry at the most embarrassing moments (like when I made my maid of honor speech at my best friend's wedding). My life is often times so overwhelming because of all the choices I have to make and the realities I have to face. The only thing that keeps me anchored is God. He is my hope, my first love and my best friend who has been by my side since the moment I was created. 

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure

Hebrews 6:19a

Here are my promises to you: 

1. I will be open and honest with how I am struggling in my life
2. I will not pretend to have all the answers
3. This is a safe place to talk with you and for you to talk with me
4. I will not judge you
5. Grace will be given on a frequent basis

As I stated in the beginning, God has been laying you on my heart recently. I want you to know that its okay to just be the person He created. Use the gifts He's given you and if you don't know where to start, I'm right there with you. Let's all get on our knees this week and ask God for guidance and the freedom to just be who we are. I love you so much, but God loves you more. Yes, I know I'm cheesy.

Yours sincerely,
Chrissy

My Story of Faith

I remember attending a little church that sent a school bus to our apartment complex when I was in early elementary. I honestly can't remember the teachings or why I stopped going. My mom told me she tried to keep sending my brother and I, but we begged her not to. Maybe it felt strange to go without her. I remember going to this very small church with my stepmom and dad when I was about 10. I remember liking the pastor and praying but what I loved most was all the free stuff like toys and food we got after church was over. I had a few friends in my teens invite me to youth group and to church but all of it seemed so foreign to me and my friends seemed very hypocritical to me. They were going out partying with me on Saturday night and then, acting like perfect angels on Sunday morning.

The first time I remember having to really think about God was in an Alateen meeting. You see my mom was a broken woman who had a deep addiction to alcohol. I found such solice in these meetings because other teens knew what it was like to live with an alcoholic. The mentors taught us how to love these broken people and how to see past their fatal flaw. Anyway, one mentor was talking about praying to a higher power. She said if we didn't feel comfortable praying to God, we could replace the word with goddess or something like that. I tried that night to pray to a goddess and I flat out couldn't. I felt that praying to a stuffed animal would have more meaning than praying to a goddess. So I prayed to God. I don't know what I prayed for and I know I did not continue praying after that, but I definitely see it now as moving just a step closer to an unknown God.

When, I met my husband, who had grown up in the faith, he asked if I believed in God and I distinctly remember telling him that I believed in God but not in the Bible. We debated for a few hours over the sanctity of the Bible. I told him that it had been translated too many times by man and how could we possibly know if what we were reading was the truth or even what the author originally wrote. The more we fought, the more I realized I knew very little on the topic but I still stubbornly made my case. 

After we were married, I finally caved in to my husband and decided we should find a church. We tried a few but I always felt like I didn't belong. The preachers were talking to the people who had always attended church and for me, that seemed incredibly intimidating and I felt so naive. Then, we heard of an up and coming church in Belmar called Red Rocks Church. There were about 200 people there which I thought was a pretty large crowd. We had come on the last day of a series called Red. The people who greeted us were warm and welcoming. The people who sat near us were our age and very friendly. The music was just amazing. We decided this was our church. 

The following week, they started a new series called "Go" and they placed a recliner on the stage and talked about getting out of your Christian chair and going to do what God has called you to do. But, for me, it was a calling to Jesus. I realized I wanted what Jesus was offering, peace and joy and an everlasting love. I wanted to know God deeply and to follow Him to the ends of the earth. 

You know what moved me to accept Jesus and to understand the love He had for me when He died on the cross? A song. It's called Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle. The chorus spoke volumes to my soul:

At the cross You beckon me
You draw me gently to my knees, and I am
Lost for words, so lost in love,
I'm sweetly broken, wholly surrendered

Lyrics

The next month, I was baptized in a small hot tub at the front of Red Rocks Church in front of my mom, my brother and my husband. 

If you have never received Jesus as your savior, I want you to know that He's waiting for you and loves you. He wants a relationship with you. I know you think this is written to a whole world of people, but this is for you. It can be the start of something so beyond what you could possibly fathom. If you'd like to accept Jesus in your heart, tell Him that you are a sinner and repent of your ways and that today you would like to accept Him as your savior. 

You are so loved and so prayed for,

Chrissy