Happy Saturday!!!

Hello Everyone:) I hope this post finds you all healthy and happy. I've had a really amazing week. It's been a ton of processing and excitement for what God has planned. It's also been a week where I've had some break throughs with things. It's been so good but also exhausting like a baby bird finally breaking out of it's shell. It's happy to be out and free but it's so tired from all of the work that it took to break through the shell. I think God's been teaching me to let Him guide me completely. It's so easy for me to want to be strong and do things and carry myself and I think for a long time I thought I was letting God carry me but I realized there's so much that I try and hold onto by myself. So this weeks been full of letting things go and becoming more childlike, learning to hold Gods hand and let Him lead me and not worrying about where we're going or when we'll get there but just trusting that He'll keep me safe and not lead me somewhere that He couldn't go with me. I think the verse that talks about if human fathers want good things for their children how much more would God in His perfect love want to take care of and give His children good things.. is so good. It's easy, I've found, to have so much head knowledge but to allow all of the head knowledge go to your heart and really sink in is an entirely different thing. This week has been a week of letting all of my head knowledge take the 18 inch trip to my heart in things like

• trusting that God really does want the best for me
• knowing that really and truly He does mean what He says in Jeremiah 29:11 
• believing that I can trust Him to hold my heart and if He has it He will protect it

and several other things that I'm still working and thinking through. I think besides letting head knowledge go to my heart, one of the hardest things for me is not expecting so much of myself. I find it way to easy to judge myself on how far I should be along or what I should already know by now instead of having grace and allowing myself the time to just process and grow. So with all that said it's a painful process but so absolutely good. I'm so excited that all of this is taking place because I want more than anything to know God and to become the woman He created me to be so that I can encourage others and in any way help His kingdom come to earth as it is in heaven. I think that this week has been a week of falling more and more in love with Jesus. He is just beyond words beautiful and good and spectacular. * side note .... lol so I'm listening to spotify while typing this and the song Build Your Kingdom Here by Rend Collective just came on right as I was typing that and it was just too cool not to share :) It's one of my favorite songs and is one of those songs that you can just pray the lyrics to and be overwhelmed with the desire for them to come true. God is so awesome!!!!!! Also, we watched the film Compelled by Love about Heidi Baker and it was so inspiring to see how she completely gives her life everyday to Jesus and says yes to whatever He asks. I think I want to do that but I find myself so many times saying no even if I don't realize it. It was eye opening and all I want is to be able to say yes to all that He asks of me so that's something that I'll be working on the rest of my life but thank goodness I'm not relying on my own strength. In the movie she just had this sense of reckless abandonment that nothing mattered at all just Jesus and what He was asking her to do and where He was asking her to go. Her desire to be sold out and to love all the people around her with this radical love was absolutely incredible and makes me want to live the rest of my life like that. Not in copying her but in running after Jesus and holding nothing back and saying here is everything I have, here I am. Send me. I'm so excited as I type this! God is just so incredibly good. And it wasn't that she never got hurt or that her life was perfect. It actually sounded extremely hard and she has lived through so much pain and many trials but those didn't matter because in the end all she wants is Jesus and to love and serve Him and to love and serve His children. After watching that it was also hard to feel "happy where I'm planted" but I know this is where God wants me right now and I know that I have so many opportunities to live a life just as radical as hers if I just allow God to use me in every day life. and also to know that none of this matters if I don't love Him. Because Jesus is the only thing that matters. He's the only reason I can do anything. I just want to spend the rest of my life falling more and more in love with Him and it's the most thrilling thing knowing that I can. That it's not this thing that I have to work harder or be better. I just have to love Him and everything comes from it. And I don't even have to earn His love but He loves me and has loved me from the beginning of forever and will love me always. He is just so good! So that's how my week has gone. I hope everyone has had an amazing week. I love you guys and miss you! Let me know how you're doing or something new that's happening in your lives. xx - Matisse