Speaking Louder than Before

Have you ever heard a song and it just stopped to make you think? How about a song that you've heard a hundred times before and nothing ever happened? Then, one day, you're listening, as you always do and that song comes on and something just HITS you... That's exactly what happened to me a few days ago with "Speaking Louder than Before" by Jeremy Camp. God has really been laying it on my heart lately to stand up for Him and show people what He's done in my life.

Here are the lyrics to the song:

Hear now this Declaration from out across the nation

We need to wake up and understand.

Many hurting hearts are crying

But our voices seem to be dying

Can you see this battle raging on?

We are the light to reach this world

We are the salt preserving these souls.

Lets show them all the love that we've received.

We are, we are in desperation.

We need to reach this generation,

We are speaking louder than before.

We are the hope that's been forgotten,

We have a love that will be brought and

We are speaking louder than before.

Take every chance that you can

Move together, taking a stand,

Never losing heart, we'll speak as one.

We need to be the image of christ,

To show love and serve at all times.

We can make a difference in this land

Everything's so surreal, but this urgency I feel,

We should be reaching out to all these desperate pleas,

The need is real, can't you feel this call to revolution?

My beating heart is breaking for them.

That's why I am speaking out, that's why I am speaking now.

After hearing that song for the hundreth or so time, what Jeremy is trying to convey in the lyrics FINALLY hit me. We, as a Christian race, fail miserably at showing people the love of Christ. I'm not saying EVERY Christian does this. I'm just saying, as a whole, we're NOT very good at it. It seems like we get pumped up right after we accept him as our Lord and for about a month we're SUPER Christians. After that, we fall into the monotony of living our lives for Him. We fall victim to the world. We stay in our super tight Christian bubbles with our Christian friends making sure we don't falter on "the big things", yet continuing to sin just as much as we always did.

What kind of a change is that promoting to our non-Christian world? Nothing AT ALL. We need to share the love of Christ with every person we encounter. We need to show them the CHANGE that's taken place in our lives. Who else is going to do it? NOONE. THIS is why we were called on this earth... to LOVE Christ and to show His LOVE to everyone.

I'm not trying to preach at anyone. This is just as much for me as it is for anyone else. I'll be the FIRST to admit that I am not perfect - not by any far reaching stretch of the imagination. I have faults and my faults seem to overpower my talents and gifts more often than not. I am certainly not the first person who will walk up to a stranger and spout off my testimony to them. I envy those people that can. I wish I had the guts to do that. I also know that with the power of Christ, I COULD be that person.

That's all it is for anyone of us. Take your biggest fear - think hard on it. Whatever it is, God will take it away and give you the courage to face TEN of those fears. That's how STRONG and MIGHTY of a God we serve. He sent HIS SON to DIE to take away our sins so that we could one day be with Him in Heaven. How many of US would be willing to give up our most precious loved one to save the ENTIRE WORLD - a bunch of random people we don't know. Not many, I'd be willing to bet.

It's time to STAND UP and SPEAK OUT. SHOW the world what Christ has done for you.

Long week

I've been blogging a lot lately. I guess that happens when you have a million things running through your head at any given moment. As it were, I decided that, rather than post my blog on myspace where there is SO MUCH other stuff going on, I would dedicated something specifically to the random musings that go on inside my head. I had to use this site for a blog project at school and thought it would be simple and easy to create my own blog here as well. So, here I am.

This has been a weird week for me. Finals are starting up, sleep is far and in between, and work is hectic. But, on top of the normal things in my life, I've had to brushins I never expected to have this week. Let me be the first to say, seeing people you didn't expect, can really mess with your head. My head has been running circles around itself. There's so much going on in there right now... it's probably a good thing I'm taking time to write it all down.

It all started two weeks ago. I woke up one morning after having a VERY disturbing dream that a friend of mine had died. I went to my mom immediately and told her and she says: "Funny you should mention death. Daniel's mom died on Thursday." Now, for those of you who are reading this and don't know, Daniel was my first true love. I met him when I was 20 and it was a whirlwind. I fell for him hard and I fell fast and it took me a really long time to get over it. He cheated on me and that left me feeling empty for a long time. Anyway, as many hard and harsh feelings as I had for Daniel after we broke up, I never would wish harm on his family. His mom and dad were nothing but nice to me the entire time Daniel and I were together. His mom was hilarious. I remember she was always making me laugh. I found out when the funeral was and felt God pulling at my heart to be there. So, I mustered up some kind of something and went. I just got home about 20 minutes ago actually. It was the strangest thing. I was in a room surrounded by people who knew this woman, most of whom I didn't know. I waited in the recieving line afterwards. I wanted Daniel to know I was there, to know that I still cared for him and his family, even though we broke up several years ago. When I saw him, I felt NOTHING. It was almost like there was this person that I didn't even KNOW. He looked so different, bad even. And not in the "my mom just died" kind of way. He looked like he'd had a really rough past few years. It made me feel almost PITY for the guy. I mean, I've risen above all of this and he's not well. I didn't speak two words to him.

This just got me thinking on the way home. What if I HAD married him? There were talks of it at one point. That would have been a terrible mess I would have gotten myself into. I remember now what people were saying about me when I was with him. They didn't know who I was... I acted like I was on drugs... I was some weird anti-Katie that noone knew... and then I realized that was who Daniel was to me today. Someone I didn't even know. It really put a lot of things into perspective for me - God does things for us for a reason. God puts people in our lives for a reason. I see that now.

Secondly --- on Wednesday, I talked to Rob. It was the first time since I got the GREAT brush off back in the beginning of November. Once again, God was pulling on my heart. I just felt like I needed to tell Rob that I'd forgiven him for all that he'd done to me. So I took a deep breath and told him. It started a conversation that was well overdue. Of course, all this conversation got me was that a) he still has feelings for me. b) brushing me off was the worst mistake he'd ever made in his life. and c) there will always be a part of me that will still feel everything I've ever felt for him. So, basically, all that did was stir up crap that didn't need to be stirred. He and I are talking now, but I told him I can't be anything more than his friend. It's just TOO painful.

I guess it's all in God's hands now. I'm handing all of this over to Him and letting Him handle the brokenness in my life and my heart. I'm trying, however I can, to live strong everyday. I feel like each day gets easier. I was doing so well for a long time until this week - this week of events that turned my perspective around. But I'm still here, I'm still breathing, and I'm still healing. I know that in time, everything will be alright again.