Pushed through maturity...

When I said 2013 was the year for continued growth, I really just had no clue. I have been through spiritual warfare a lot. It is tough. It isn't a pretty process either. I had a breakthrough last night followed by relief and gratitude because frankly, this one has worn me out.

This evening I have been able to sit and study and write down some of what I have learned. I have a headache and I am super tired. I have been in prayer for the strength to get through the rest of this day.

One of my many lessons that came up was how sometimes we are not capable of understanding the why's of what has happened in our life. Just like my 4 year old can't comprehend an adult world, we can't comprehend God's logic.

As Christians, we don't get to run around like kids completely oblivious. We aren't getting off that easy. If God has called us, He wants us to grow and mature spiritually. God's ultimate priority is making us holy and God wants us to know him. God will let us be uncomfortable and will let us endure and He will let us be stretched but He won't stretch past our abilities.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV)

So as I was sitting here, just having closed my bible, thinking I needed to update my blog and I am still tired and I am ready for easier times, my 4 year old runs up to me and asks me to spell play-doh. I laughed and smiled. I ask for easy and God gives me play-doh, and the strength and restoration and inspiration to update my blog.

For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. (2 Corinthians 13:9 ESV)

A Grateful Believer in Jesus Christ
~Johnna

Cooperating with God

I'm reading the book "Sacred Marriage" by Gary Thomas. In it, he discusses how one meaningful aspect of marriage is cooperating with God to bring a child into being. It put on my heart the need to share a very personal story. Like, I couldn't even continue reading because the words wouldn't make sense because I just needed to write this, so here goes.
We had been told we couldn't have children. We went through fertility treatments and eventually were able to have our son who was followed a short two years later by his sister. We both felt our family was complete at that point and my husband had scheduled "the procedure". Two days before it was to take place he cancelled it. He said he didn't feel right doing something so permanent after we had prayed so hard to have children.
Just a couple weeks later, we found out we were expecting our third child. It wasn't exactly planned but we were okay with it. A few more weeks later and my doctor told me I had lost the baby, that he couldn't find the heartbeat. He wanted to do a procedure. I couldn't imagine. I argued with him, asking what if this and maybe only... He said my HCG was down to a 7, there was no way. I still refused the procedure and went home and cried and prayed and cried and prayed. A week later, I still didn't have any symptoms of a miscarriage. I went back to the doctor so he could see if I was okay. My HCG was in the thousands and the sound of a fetal heartbeat echoed through the entire room, even the nurse cried.
I can't explain my Kamryn girl, you would just have to know her. Born with skin abnormalities that the doctors never could figure out, she has survived near complete kidney failure at the age of 4, and now age 8 has proved almost every specialist wrong on every diagnosis she has received.
Kamryn is also my little evangelist, she will ask everyone in line at Pizza Hut on Sunday if they go to church and if they know Jesus. Her answer to every thing is God centered. (Her sister has to pick up the dog poop outside because God expects his grass to be clean). She doesn't say her prayers, she sings them, almost everytime. She doesn't leave anything out either.
I could make an entire blog on Kamryn. She is one of our 6 examples of cooperating with God, and oh how blessed we are to have her.

For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. (2 Corinthians 2:9 ESV)

I don't know why I was led to share something so personal but if it helps just one, it's worth it to leave fingerprints.

A Grateful Believer in Jesus Christ
~Johnna

Life Friends

The main theme behind “Leave Fingerprints”  is to focus on how we can positively impact other people. Life has a way of teaching so many things that we can’t get from sitting in a classroom. There are experiences and circumstances that have molded us into who we are today. Most of us are stronger because of our trials, although we may not always feel strong. God uses endurance to build us up for His purpose.

I am currently working on a project with one of the organizations I am involved with. We are looking to develop a mentor ship program in our community. This project is buried in my heart in a way that I know I am walking in His will and not mine and I also know this will be bigger than anything I can accomplish on my own. That is God’s way of reminding me how much I need him.

This mentor ship program is blooming very fast. It is our hopes to link single moms that may be exhausted with single moms that made it through that season of exhaustion. We want to link those struggling with mental health problems to those that have received treatment and are functioning. We want to link those that struggle in poverty to those that found a way to thrive. We don’t want a quick fix for just today, we want a solution today that will improve tomorrow. We want to help connect life friends that can walk together, holding each other up.  I-am-excited-honored-humbled-blessed to get to see this shaping into something that surely will affect change in people’s lives.

I want to share as we enter into this journey for anyone looking for similar ideas or venues to help. I want us all to be motivated to “Leave Fingerprints”.  Please pray with us and for us that we can see God moving in our community and in the lives of people that hunger for the answer. Pray they find the peace and rest and love they are seeking through a relationship with the source that created it all.


Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28) KJV

A Grateful Believer in Jesus Christ
~Johnna

Getting Unstuck

Last night's lesson in Celebrate Recovery was 7 reasons we get stuck. One of the reasons was laid on my heart pretty heavy. It was "afraid of the risk in making the necessary change".  Let me disect that a little. This blog is two fold, one for me to share and one for me to understand and learn. So let us process this together.

The first part, "you are afraid of the risk" This is probably an understatement for me. I haven't been one to really be fearful of much before but after some traumatic experiences over the last two years, there are lots of things that scare me. Risk means to me that there is no telling how any decision I might make will turn out. That kind of makes me afraid to even take part in any decision making process.

The second part, "making the necessary change." I am very well aware that we can't grow without change. Change is inevitable and a part of life. Change is what keeps us moving forward. Necessary is an important word in that phrase as well. Sometimes we can get really comfortable in our lives. I know that I find something that is working for me and I want to stay right there. Then I find something not working for me and for some reason, I still want to stay right there. There are changes that need to made, they ARE necessary. We have outgrown what was or wasn't working and we HAVE to change.

While there are a lot of ways that this reason for being stuck may apply to us, the bigger part is getting unstuck. We have to make the decision to make the change. Taking a leap of faith was once defined to me as the act of making a commitment and expecting success. Regardless of how we define failure, if we are in God's will, whatever happens is considered success. Things may not happen according to our plans or what we were expecting but we can be assured that God's plans are always going to be for the greater good.


Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Isaiah 41:10 KJV

We don't have to be afraid of necessary change. We can be assured we are not alone, we will be strengthened, we have help, and God will uphold us. To get unstuck, we just have to take that leap of faith. 

A Grateful Believer in Jesus Christ
~Johnna

Outside ourselves...

I have been reading through Judges and something that has been shown to me in my life several times lately came up. So often we can be sure something is the will of God because it is so much bigger than we are or could ever be on our own.  

In Judges Chapter 7, Gideon is preparing to defeat the Midianites. As he gathers his army, the Lord stops him and tells him that he as has too many men, that Israel would be become boastful and think they saved themselves. Gideon had planned to go into battle with more than 30,000 men and instead he fought with 300 and they were delivered, giving all credit to God.

God’s first priority is making us holy. He wants success for our lives, but He also wants credit for that success. In most things planned for us, it is out of our reach. If we could accomplish it all on our own, we wouldn’t need God and of course we need God.

My goal for 2013 is growth. I know I need to grow because so many things come so easy for me. This tells me I am not reaching my potential. My potential, the purpose God has prepared, is outside of myself. I have seen this happen in several instances lately. I pray so often to see more, find more, believe more, and accomplish more. That more I know is waiting because as my walk with God becomes stronger, so do I. I have this feeling in my heart, in my soul, that there is something waiting to be fulfilled. I am excited to see what His plan is and even more excited to get to be a part of it. Not just an accidental, this is where I fall into the scheme of things, but I want to be obedient and actively and intentionally work towards God’s will and His glory.

Well this is what was on my heart to share. I have struggled with getting it written down, so if you have trouble following, I apologize but I am sure there is something in there meant for you to get if you are reading this. I pray you find it.

A Grateful Believer in Jesus Christ

~Johnna

Heartfelt Gratitude...

I am a learner. In all things, I try to find the lesson. I have this feeling of peace when I find the lesson in a situation. In that lesson everything makes sense to me and hope fills in me, like I have just been handed a map and I know where I am going from here.

I really look for the lesson when I listen to sermons. Some times it is very clear to me as soon as the pastor starts talking that I am struggling in an area and I need to listen. There are times I have to really pray for my heart to open because I feel like I am missing the lesson. There is another reaction I look for and that is guilt. I know that guilt is a sense that is used to convict me of something I am doing wrong.

Today's sermon was over love as we have been going through 1 Corinthians. We reached chapter 13.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV)

The sermon was taught, Love is a verb and not a noun. I have heard it said, love is the action part of faith. In any case, as I was listening I was trying to get the lesson, what I needed to learn. Then the part came about opening ourselves to let that change happen. Through Christ's love, we wouldn't be the same, everything would be changed.

A feeling came over me, almost prideful at first and I had to process it. A feeling that I wanted to shout "I did that, we did that!!" Nineteen months ago , I hit a bottom in my life, and I hit my knees. Twelve months ago, we hit that same bottom in our marriage and hit our knees again. We submitted it all to God just as we had done with our individual lives.

I realized I wasn't feeling guilt and it wasn't pride, it was gratitude. The lesson of Love wasn't taught to me in church today, but by life over the last year and half. I couldn't shout, "I did that, We did that" because honestly God did that! Today, God brought not just the lesson, but the blessing and feeling of Gratitude. Grateful that I , my husband, and our children know real and true love.

As a family, we practiced love. We took action, and it was God's faithful and unconditional love for us as sinners that turned our lives into more than we ever imagined. Christians since we were children, we no longer believe just what we have been told, we KNOW what we have been told. We have been saved by the Grace of God. We have been forever changed by His love from the inside out.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13 ESV)

A Grateful Believer in Jesus Christ
~Johnna

2013~ A season of growth

It's a brand new year. Its time
to make resolutions, I choose to call them goals. Whatever we want to call them, it's a great time to think about what expectations we have for our lives and what direction we need to go.
Last year was a year of recovery for our entire family. There are many factors that influenced the need for this. The bigger picture, our family wasn't on a spiritual path or living in God's will. We did have about 6 months of recovery going into 2012 but we had many more years of traveling the wrong way.

In 2012, we attended many Celebrate Recovery meetings. We started attending church again. My husband helped launch the landing and I helped launch Celebration Station, the teenage and children ministries for Celebrate Recovery. We were able to visit other churches and recovery programs and give our testimonies. We were blessed to be so immersed, along with our children, into an environment that provided much healing.
Our new way of life was a little terrifying. It was different than anything we had planned. I read in Hebrews a verse that reflected this past year so much for me...

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; "~ (Hebrews 10:31, 32 KJV)

I can literally see God scooping up our family, dangling us across the way like a huge crane, as he swings back on to the path HE intended for us. That swing across was terrifying. So many changes, old environments and old relationships gone replaced with new places and new relationships. Landing on our feet, in the will of God, made it worth it. It just took our obedience and faith.

I worked on several projects this year, one being to see what it would take to bring a homeless resource center to our hometown. I was visiting another homeless resource center with members of a board I serve on. I can't explain the feeling I felt as I stood there in the middle of this day center full of the homeless other than to say it was the hug of God, letting me know this was where I was supposed to be standing. I was froze in place for several minutes.

That recaps a lot of 2012 as far as Recovery is concerned. As 2013 begins, I have set my goals and expectations. One thing I have learned, to pray for God's will for my life and the strength to carry that out. I can't say I have many specific
expectations but as 2012 was to recovery, 2103 will be to growth.

I pray for growth in faith, wisdom, relationships, service, recovery and love.

"Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth shall others grow. " (Job 8:19 KJV)

Whatever your goals, resolutions, and expectations for 2013... Hold on tight to your faith. Give glory to God whenever possible and always help that love grow by leaving fingerprints.

A Grateful Believer in Jesus Christ
~Johnna