blessings resulting from conviction.

one of my purposes for starting this blog was for people to see the real me.  i want to be honest.  i want God to receive glory from this blog.  it is usually hard for me to let people completely in, to let them see my real thoughts and feelings.  i hate the thought of being judged.  but here i go... for a long time now, Jesus has been dealing with me.  first and foremost, i need and desire to dive deeper into His Word.  i need and desire to have a deeper prayer life.  i need and desire to stop depending primarily on church for my spiritual nourishment and growth; rather i need and desire to allow the Holy Spirit to feed me and nourish me through the Word and through fellowship with Him.  next, Jesus has been convicting me of my self-righteous attitude and judgement of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.  i had developed a bitterness toward certain people and practices in "our" church because of petty things that i did not agree with or understand.  He is slowly healing me.  He is helping me see His church with His eyes.  For it is really not "our" church at all.  He is helping me see His children with His eyes.  He is making me remember that Church should be about Him alone, not us at all.  He is helping me see that there are a LOT of good and beautiful things that are going on in the life of His church.  one of those things is fellowship.  

some of the youth recently went to germany for texas baptist all state.  tonight they gave a report about their trip; it was encouraging.  afterwards, we had a HUGE birthday part for everyone in the church.  there were twelve tables set up, each representing a month of the year.  everyone sat at the table representing the month of their birth.  i was the 'hostess' for october.  the music minister asked me to host it this morning because someone had backed out.  he really did all the work.  i just showed up and set up the table and decorations he had already purchased.  we made a good team!  our table was baseball themed because the world series is in october.  (FINALLY something that doesn't have october associated with halloween...  i am so tired of celebrating my birthday in the halloween month.  it's an alright holiday; it just gets old.)  anyway, all of the tables were decorated really cutely!  the night was full of fun.  everyone was slightly pushed out of their comfort zone because no one was really sitting with who they normally sit with.  i loved it because i got to meet new people.  i got to know people i already knew better.   this was, by far, my favorite fellowship at the church so far.  here are some pictures from the night:

Jesus is healing me.  i am so grateful.  i love and need these people.