FOR WOMEN ONLY

I’m reading the book Jesus: the One and Only by Beth Moore right now, as I am utterly fascinated by Jesus and His brief life on earth and I long to know Him better. So much about His ministry and His 33 years spent walking the earth as God incarnate in a human body fascinates me – nothing so much as His practice of using common, ordinary, even hopelessly flawed people to carry out some of His greatest works. And not only that, His habit of using WOMEN to bring about some of His most impressive miracles in a time where women were to be seen and not heard is downright radical! I think one could even argue that Jesus was the first feminist (no, I'm not a liberal). He came to walk the earth in the first place through the body of a very ordinary, young, likely even frightened girl – his mother, Mary. Mary isn’t set apart in the Bible as doing anything great or miraculous in the years before she gave birth to Jesus, yet God chose her as the vessel to bring His son into the world. How mind-blowing is that?!? And then time and time and time again, Jesus illustrated His power and love and mercy and grace through the lives and experiences of imperfect, even damaged women. Mary and Martha (Mary was a worrywart), Mary Magdelene (she was demon possessed), the woman at the well (she was an adulteress), the woman with the issue of blood (she was diseased and in biblical times, considered “unclean”)…and so on. Jesus wasn’t shy about walking with these women, redeeming these women, healing these women, and using these women in all their weakness to illustrate His great power. In all that I have learned and am learning about Jesus, that is perhaps the most awe-inspiring thing. He doesn’t look for the perfect, the “arrived,” the ones who “have it all together.” No, His eyes roam the earth looking for anyone who is willing to stand up and say “Use me. My life is yours. Allow me to be your vessel.”

I say all this to encourage you today that wherever you are in your journey, however flawed or imperfect or even damaged you may be… you are enough in God’s eyes. Other people might pass you over in their search for “something better” but to God, you are beautifully and wonderfully eloquent. All you have to be willing to do is take your mess, your struggles, your brokenness, and lay it at His feet. He specializes in making beauty from ashes. To others you might be too much or too little or too big or too small or too loud or too quiet or too honest or too guarded, but to Him you are JUST RIGHT. When others rejected you, He has been waiting for you with baited breath. No alterations or upgrades or makeovers required. You can go to Him, just as you are. He knows every sentence of your story and has great plans for you in all your imperfect glory.

We'll meet at Jesus' feet

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Luke 12:34

I haven't blogged on my trip to Uganda 1. because it's hard to put into words my emotions 2. I broke my back and was busy with other things but today God reminded me of something I learned there.

I have always had trouble with the comment "Lord willing". I don't know why but it's been my thing when people say "Lord willing I will see you tomorrow" I want to say no I will see you tomorrow. I guess it was a control or trust thing even though I had always trusted the Lord with my fate and have totally surrendered my life to Him.

What's crazy is that just like Jesus used the orphans in Haiti to take my head knowledge of Jesus into a full blown heart knowledge of Jesus and relationship with Him. He also used the orphans in Uganda to do the same.

A quick overview: the orphans in Uganda knew the Bible backwards and forwards. They spoke English which was nice but literally on the first night we had a devotional with the girls they went around and spoke Psalm 52 from memorization because that was their Psalm for the week!! An interesting point here is I learned how foolish I am with spending my time in the word. They yearned for it like a deer pants for the water so their soul panted for God and His spoken word.

But on our last day as we said our good-byes I was telling them I would be back next year and I meant it. I had been changed yet again. When you go to the other side of the earth you not only see that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, but He is the same in America, Haiti and Uganda. We all love the same the God and He is in every place at one time! So I said to one of the girls, "I will see you next year." She said back, "Lord willing I will see you next year too Stephanie. " AH there it was! So I said, "Yep Esther, Lord willing." And then she said something I will never forget for as long as I live. She said with laughter and a big smile on her face, "But don't worry, Stephanie, if I don't see you again, we will meet at Jesus' feet." As my heart and head tried to grasp what she had just said (again a 10 year old) I realized where her heart was and it was not in her circumstances or her earthly treasure. She already knew where her treasure was. It was in Heaven. I cried and said as I walked away, "I'll see you at His feet, Lord willing."

Japan's 23rd Psalm

From a Japanese bible the 23rd Psalm translates as such, it says it all:



The Lord is my Pace-setter, I shall not rush;

He provides me with images of stillness, which restore my serenity,

He makes me stop and rest for quiet intervals,

He leads me in ways of efficiency through calmness of mind,

And His guidance is peace.



Even though I have a great many things to do each day,

I will not fret, for His presence is here,

He prepares refreshment and renewal in the midst of my activity,

His timelessness, His all-importance, will keep me in balance,

By anointing my mind with His oils of tranquility.

My cup of joyous energy overflows,

Surely harmony and effectiveness shall be the fruit of my hours,

I shall walk in the pace of my Lord and dwell in His house for ever.

The Best Advice I've Ever Received

The most important advice I’ve ever received came from a man who lived in the early 1900's but his truth rings clear today just as it always has and always will.


“Your real new self – which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours only because it is HIS– will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for HIM! Does that sound strange? The same principle holds for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself and you will find yourself. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fiber of your being and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing! Nothing that you have will ever be really be yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find HIM, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

– C.S. Lewis

The dichotomy of losing your life to find it never made sense to me until recently when I did all these things: died to my ambitions for my life, looked for God in the little details of my life and joyfully accepted the opportunities He put into my life that this quote began to make sense. I am a true testament to this truth in that when I died to myself Christ who lives in me took over and blessed me beyond belief. These blessings were in the natural whether it be a new home or a new car or someone anonymously giving me $2000 for a trip to Haiti or a $3000 infrared sauna. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? It’s because once you die to yourself nothing is yours. So if you give something away it comes back to you. Maybe not from the same person but it comes back! You cannot be in this loop of blessings until you have the mind set that nothing is your own. None of these natural blessings are as important as those that came into my very being, the ones that inhabited my soul. The spiritual blessings were those of which are unexplainable,

A joy that surpasses understanding
A peace that is constant
A love beyond measure...

What’s holding you back from giving all of yourself away?

Until you do I venture to say you are not truly living...

God promised an abundant life but it may not be how you expected to find it, huh ?

Yeah, well, me either...

Haiti November 2011

I haven’t blogged in awhile, sometimes I feel as though I barely have time to eat, sleep and breathe with the schedule I have but I have had so many amazing things happen to me over the past few months, and God has revealed to me something that I never truly understood until know. What’s crazy about it is that it transcends every aspect of my life. If you would have asked me two years ago even one year ago that I would be involved in the lives of teenage girls I would have ran clear in the other direction… the fights, the drama, the cattiness. Ugh. I was through with that and wanted it to stay that way. But God has a funny way of showing us, “our ways are not His ways, nor our thoughts His thoughts.” We make plans and God laughs right? Well, He’s laughing big time if that’s the case in my life. Most of you know I have been involved a bit with the student ministry at Long Hollow and teach an incredible group of tenth grade girls on Sunday mornings. My passion for these girls to know the heart of Jesus and to fall deeper in love with Him everyday has almost consumed my life. I’d do anything for them.
On a side note I also just got back from Haiti with a team of women who went to basically love and pour out our hearts to the women who run the orphanage. These are the women who take care of 10-12 kids at a time making sure they are clothed, fed and taken care of. These women are more than moms. They are mighty, strong women of God. How selfless of them to take up this task. Throughout the week as I spent time with them and got to know them I became very heavily burdened by their struggles. Most of these women are my age some younger and two were older. One of my friends McLaine is working there for money to send back to her 8 kids at home. Yes, that’s right not only does she have kids of her own but she takes care of 12 boys in the orphanage. How she does it I will never comprehend? My other friend and momma to the boys Amentine I connect with because she always likes the newest fashions. We took her a pair of white pumps that she just loved. In speaking with her she said she needed prayer to face her loneliness and that she was praying for a Godly husband. When she said this I immediately thought wow, she’s just like me in every way. I traveled so far yet I found someone just like me. Our pursuit was the same… a heart for Jesus and a Godly man to pursue our hearts.
On the trip home I was consumed with thoughts of how incredibly alike all women are. My girls who share their problems and struggles with me actually want what girls in Haiti want too. Our common link in it all is having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and sharing in His sufferings. Another common link was that all of these girls often looked to men to fill that void in their hearts.

1) I believe with everything that is in me that our core validation, our primary validation has to come from God FIRST. And until it does, until we look at Him for the healing of our souls, our relationships are really hurt by looking to each other for something only God can give.
2) As you increasingly become women of substance, women who offer true beauty, we find that our hearts grow in their capacity to love and be loved, to desire, to live. Our hearts will become enlarged by Jesus.
3) We cannot expect not to suffer through this time. God will not always rescue us from a painful season. He does not always give us what we so desperately want when we want it. He is after something so much more valuable than our happiness. He is restoring and growing in us an eternal weight of glory and sometimes…its hurts.

“To possess true beauty we must be willing to suffer… if Christ was perfected through His sufferings, why would we believe God would not do the same with us?? Women who are STUNNINGLY beautiful have had their hearts enlarged by suffering. By saying yes when the world says no. By paying the high price of loving truly and honestly without demanding that they be loved in return. They have come to know that when everyone and everything has left them, God is there.”

Abiding in Christ means paying attention to the voice within, nourishing our own hearts, and nourishing our own relationship with Him over time.

It is in the waiting that our hearts are enlarged…

"I have come so that you may have LIFE and have it to the FULLEST." -- John 10:10


The topic of seasons of life has come up more than once in my conversations over the past months. At 26, I am surrounded by people in various stages of their lives, some single, some married, some with children… but all important to me. If you would have asked me 10 years ago where I would be I would have said married with kids of course (it’s a Southern thing). You go to college, get married and have babies (that’s just what people do here). Lately, I’ve felt like my life has started to go in slow motion, not really progressing as one would think a life should progress. Questioning am I doing the right thing, is this where God wants me, am I making a difference in the people’s lives around me? Almost as if I’m at a standstill… the more I thought about it, the more I became okay with where I am. I’m in a season that is uniquely mine and has been for the past two years. A season that has changed my life for the better, a season where my Savior finally revealed His face to me, a season that I can honestly say I was finally delivered…. a truly beautiful season. Why then would I want it to be any different? To look like anyone else’s season?


I go to bed tonight not questioning God anymore but thanking him for this season, one in which I fell more in love with God, made some incredible life changing friends, and have had the privilege of doing things I never would have gotten to do had my life looked any different, had it looked like what I thought it would 10 years ago. Thankful for the ability to travel, to travel to Haiti several times, to eventually travel to Uganda in February, to spend one on one time with God in my own house, to spend quality time with my family, to visit friends all over the country, to be able to invite those I love and care about into my home and hopefully change their lives for the better. Looking back on it from this standstill, so to speak, I’m abounding with joy and gratefulness that this season has been what it has, it’s been nothing like I thought it would look but isn’t that what life’s about? We have no idea where life is going to take us but the beauty of that is when we get to these standstills and have time to reflect back we see how far we’ve come. It’s hard to see the big picture in the moment but each of these little seasons simply prepares us for the next. I’m encouraged by Jesus’ words when He said I have come so that you may have life and have it to the fullest and to consider it pure joy when you face trials and to remember He has a plan for your life that’s bigger and better than you could ever imagine or dream up. How awesome to serve a God that we can’t even begin to comprehend sometimes. But that promises us He will never leave our sides no matter what season of life we are in. If He could say anything to me right now I know he'd say, Trust me Stephanie, trust me, embrace it and let go… =)

I am beautiful, captivating and loved.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love.” Jeremiah 31:3

Being around teenage girls for a week, I was amazed at how much of their security was found in boys. They were drawn to me and stories of my past relationships and how I learned to find my security in Christ alone. With this in the back of my head and thinking I had it all together, I was slammed this weekend with voices from God saying Stephanie you deserve better, I made you better, you were fearfully and wonderfully made. Don’t settle. Please don’t settle. Why was he telling me this? God I’ve got it. No, Stephanie you don’t.

If I had a dollar for every time someone wanted to set me up, I could retire. No joke. Sometimes I go just to go. I always said I’d never settle and the older I get the more I see myself with flavors I would have never tasted in the past. I was reminded yesterday if you’re dating to fill a void you think you have or the world has placed on you, you’ve got it all wrong. In the past few months I have settled for less than the best in this area, and God finally put it on my heart to let Him take over. Not only take over but make Him the focus of my life instead.

There is no doubt a woman becomes lovely and inviting when she is pursued. Her heart begins to come alive, come to the surface, and her countenance becomes radiant. As women we long to be loved in a certain way, a way unique to our femininity. We long for romance. We are wired for it; it’s what makes our hearts come alive. You know that. Somewhere deep down inside you know this. But what you might never have known is this….

This doesn’t need to wait for a man.

If you’ll open your heart to the possibility, you’ll find that God has been wooing you ever since you were a little girl. Jesus calls himself the Bridegroom (Matt. 9:15, Matt. 25:1-10, John 3:29) Bridegroom simply means fiancé. Lover. This is the most intimate of all metaphors Jesus chose to describe his love and longing for us, and the kind of relationship he invites us into. What God opened my eyes to is that the story of my life is not defined by these relationships but by the long and passionate pursuit of my heart by the One who knows me best and loves me most. God has written the Romance not only on our hearts but all over the world around us. What we need is for Him to open our eyes, to open our ears that we might recognize his voice calling to us, see His hand wooing us in the beauty that quickens our hearts.

“Every song you love, every moment that has moved you to holy tears has been given to you from the One who has been pursuing you from your first breath in order to win your heart. God’s version of flowers and chocolates and candlelight dinners comes in the form of sunsets and falling stars, moonlight on lakes and cricket symphonies; warm wind, swaying trees, lush gardens and fierce devotion.” – Captivating, John Eldredge

The culture of women in the church today is crippled by some very pervasive lies. Our need is not to be romanced by men but to be in a spiritual romance with God. What we/I must remember is that we are being romanced, and ever will be. We are bringing something to the heart of Jesus only we can bring. We are His betrothed, His beloved, the beat of his heart, and the love of His life! He will never let us down. Draw near to Him. He is waiting… <3