Available and Obedient.

These past few days have been great! Well, except during the day yesterday when not having a job or friends hit hard and i was a little annoyed with the day. Other than that, everything has been wonderful. Me and James went on a fun little hike yesterday evening in the woods behind our house. We took all these different directions and ended up walking to our church ha ha. It was really dark on the way back and not-so-smart us forgot flashlights so I really had to trust him to know where he was going to get us back. It was tough but we made it back home! :)

Have I mentioned how encouraging it is to see so much feedback from these post? Amanda Hare actually made her own blog spot for the same reason I did. Props to her!! I pray she follows through and learns to be real about struggles and imperfections like she wants to do. I think that starts to be a little difficult when you know people are actually reading this. You start wanting to sound great and wise and like you know everything. I just want to make it clear now, I'm none of those. The wisdom comes from God's word and from other women who have spoken truth in my life and I definitely don't know everything. That's why I have this!

God Can Use You. This is another chapter from David Nasser's book "A Call To Die". In this chapter David is talking about how much God can use us if we just make ourselves available and obedient. He says,

"We are not always promised that God will show us the "big picture". It's not obedience if we only obey when we know the great things that will come out of it or when it is convenient for us. God wants our availability and obedience to him simply because he asks. If anyone has the right to ask for this kind of obedience, it would be the sovereign, Holy God, right?

Our availability allows us to do the things that we can do to set a backdrop for God to do the mighty things only he can do."

WOW! If we were available and obedient everyday how much do you think God could use us? I bet we would be surprised when we got to heaven and, because of our obedience and availability, met a lot more people that we had introduce Christ to. This is a struggle for me though. I have MY plans, MY will and a lot of the time I let get in the way of HIS will and plan. There are so many times where I know God could have probably used me but I was being selfish and doing what I wanted. Some may wonder, well how might God use me throughout the day? If you see a lady at your work eating lunch by herself everyday...be a friend. If you pass someone on the street who has a flat tire...see if you can help (if you're not alone ha ha). Little things and people that go unnoticed everyday...notice them. Be on the look out. Wake up and spend time with the Lord and in your prayer to him, ask him to use you. Let him know that you are available even though your busy schedule says otherwise. I promise. He'll use you in some way and you may never know the outcome until you reach the other side.

I don't say this because it's so easy for me. I actually think besides memorizing the Word and really writing it on my heart being available for God to use me is the hardest part of the Christian walk. I think about my daily plans more than I even think about my husbands plans for that day. But my heart desires to be used. I want him to bring opportunities in my life that I can share his love.

Now, be careful when you pray to be used...he'll use you so you got to make sure you are available and obedient. I love you all! I'm praying for you all and the struggles you go through as HUMANS, not just women. I pray that through this blog we all get encouragement from each other through Christ.

Available and Obedient,

Devan Draper

"Know the Word"

It's been so encouraging to read all the positive feedback coming from this blog. I'm really happy to know that, all who responded and may read this, are actually...enjoying it or getting something from it. It puts a smile on my face :) (<--See!)

James came home from Alabama last night and boy was I happy to see him! Today we had breakfast and did our devotions and then he took me Kayaking!!! For 5-ish miles down a beautiful river the Pocahontas song, "Just around the river bend!!", was stuck in my head. We had a great time but we're definitely worn out now from all of the paddling. Both of us flipped only once on a rapid. i almost lost our camera but realized it was floating away and caught it. Anyway, we're back home safe and tired.

So we're doing this verse-a-thon to help raise money for our youth group. We're making a list of 50-ish verses and people in the town or church will offer to give however much money for each verse the students learn. I have the job of making the list of verses. I automatically went to the book "A Call To Die" by David Nasser for some verses to memorize. This book is fantastic and he uses a lot of great verses. As I was on my 10th verse I came upon one of his chapters called "Know the Word". Years ago when I was going through this devotion I highlighted some things and this is one of them:

"Can you walk with God and not know His word? that's a good question. Many people believe that God will somehow give them his treasure of wisdom and insight by osmosis. It doesn't happen like that. We have to mine for it, and the mine shaft goes through the pages of the Scriptures.

We Christians, including many who have been believers for several years, are clueless about the truth in the Bible. We can't find Psalms or Matthew, and we think Ruth and Timothy are in a new sit-com. We can't even quote a Bible verse for each year we've been believers. We know the theme songs of television shows and movies and a zillion songs on the radio, but we are biblically illiterate." -David Nasser

This hit me hard and I had to stop everything I was doing and really let it sink in. Here I am coming up with a list of verses for these students to memorize so that they can, not only raise money for camps, but so they can also KNOW the word of God, when I couldn't say from memory, at the most, ten verses from the Bible to save my life. Now, this may not seem like a big deal to you and it didn't until I really thought about it. I say I put my faith in God and I follow him but how can I ever know Him if I never open the Word He has given to me? People are in other countries dying for believing in Christ and I bet $100 that they have been hiding the Bible in random places so that, at times when they are alone, they can go and read it because they can't get enough of His truth. That's pretty challenging as an American Christian who can walk around with a cross on my neck, a fish on my car, a W.W.J.D. bracelet and Christian music blaring from my car.

I like what Bethany, Glass Jar Photography, said in a comment to my last blog: "our preacher once said if you ever get accused of being a christian may there be enough evidence to prove it" That's kinda what I'm talking about. Honestly, I'm not sure how much evidence I could give. I mean, I have a zillion Bibles laying around my house and i listen to Christian music but to say I actually know, in my heart, the Word, negative. I don't know why. I listen to music over and over and learn it, I actually hate listening to a song if I haven't memorized it yet. I watch some movies so much I know the songs when they play and the lines before they even say them. But why, when it comes to the God I put "all" my faith in, have I not "written His Word in my heart" (I would tell you what verse that is but I have no idea). My point exactly.

I think this blog is simply a challenge for anyone and everyone who give themselves the title "Christians" to really evaluate what they're showing the world. What evidence do you have to show for the Creator of this world, the Savior of your lives? I think I have been challenged to actually do this verse-a-thon myself. I want to memorize scripture and write it on my heart. I want to be able to talk to people about Christ and his word and not even have to have a Bible there because it's in my head. I really believe that, in order to KNOW God and his will and all that, we have to KNOW his word.

Being challenged to KNOW,

Devan Draper

Saying your vows with crossed fingers.

Wow! what a busy, but awesome, weekend it was! James had been gone since Wednesday last week and, I'm not gonna lie, I got antsy by Friday and was dying to be around people. So Friday night I drove to my hometown and hung out with my family and then went tubing in the mountains all day Saturday with my "hometown church family". It was SO much fun and the fellowship was needed greatly! Then, Sunday after church my mom, step dad, sister (Brannigan), and her husband Johnathan came down to visit and I went back home with them that evening to help my sister with yard work today. Whew! Back home now and missing James like crazy.

I know sometimes the pausing of thoughts is very needed but that's not right now for me. So I'm going to think out loud, that's what this is for anyways, right?

I have to be honest and say that my blood gets hot and my eyes fill up with tears when I hear of "love" and marriages ending. It really brings this physical pain to my body. My heart breaks and my mind starts wondering, "what happened?" "What could have been changed to avoid this?" "What got so hard that quitting seemed so beautiful and easier than sticking it out?" I can't imagine. I know some may read this and remind me that I haven't been married long enough to understand, I have no clue right now, I'm too young. Some may even read this and be offended and I'll apologize now for offending you, it was never my intentions but I'm not sorry for the truth and my passionate opinion that is about to be typed.

LOVE IS NOT A FEELING PEOPLE!!! Wake up and smell the coffee. Women, if we lived off of our emotions and feelings everyday then one day we'd be guzzling alcohol and smoking packs of cigarettes and the next day we'd be training for a marathon because we wanted to be a health nut. That's how "here and there" we are with our emotions and feelings. Each day is different. I don't know one girl who can honestly say, "Yes, I wake up in the same consistent mood/feelings daily." It just isn't who we are as females, even males for that matter. So this being said, it makes it OBVIOUS that we should never live by our feelings which makes it even truer that we shouldn't LOVE by our feelings because the relationships in our life would be off and on every other day. It's just the truth people!

This gets me to the point of the matter that LOVE IS A CHOICE! You have to wake up and CHOOSE to sacrifice for that person, CHOOSE to LOVE that person, CHOOSE to be patient with that person, CHOOSE to go to bed with that person every night, CHOOSE to stick it through the arguments with that person. I don't have to be married 15 years to be able to understand how hard that is. I'M AN IMPERFECT HUMAN just like everyone else and loving someone self-LESS-ly does NOT come natural to me. It's hard sometimes to CHOOSE to love James when we're not seeing eye to eye or when an argument looks like it'll never have an end. IT'S HARD but I made a promise to love no matter what comes our way. TILL DEATH DO US PART! It's not a figure of speech. That promise is literal and people seem to take it as a fairytale promise. Couples these days seem to say the promise and in their minds be thinking, "But if he does this, this, or this...I'm gone." and they say their vows with their fingers crossed.

It's really hard for me to get my point and passion across in a blog but I hope people understand where my heart is coming from. We say we believe in God, we call ourselves Christians but we look just like the world. We have no grace like Christ and you better not even mention mercy in our marriages and relationships. Forgiveness? They don't deserve it! Consideration? Patience? Self-LESS-ness? He doesn't think of me before himself, why should I think of him before me?!

We don't deserve GRACE!!! We don't deserve MERCY!!! We don't deserve FORGIVENESS!!! We don't deserve this crazy awesome UNCONDITIONAL, SELF-LESS LOVE!!!! People, GOD GIVES IT ANYWAYS!!!!!! He always has, He always will. You want to know why? BECAUSE HE MADE A VOW TO US! Because he CHOOSES TO! Why? Heck if I know! I don't understand why a perfect God wants to put up with a sinful, messy human like me but HE DOES!!! DO YOU GET IT?! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!? The whole reason he created marriage, the only reason he created marriage was to show the world that right there! To show the world the grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love that he has for the church! And what are we showing the world?! That because we are not having our needs met and because it just gets too hard and too tiring it's okay to say I'm done.

It hurts to see marriages end. It hurts to see families broken up and family members taking sides. It hurts to see hate and anger and straight up grudges and bitterness out of PURE IGNORANCE.

This is something that really brings anger out of me. Really gets my passion boiling. Ladies, I encourage you in this blog to CHOOSE to love your husbands even when they are lousy. Because you're lousy sometimes towards Christ but He still loves you. I encourage you to stick it out when it seems impossible. Remind yourself of the vows you made and remind yourself that the words you promised were literal. Remember that when you promised them, your hands were in his and not behind your back with crossed fingers. I encourage you not to live by your feelings and emotions, not saying their horrible to have, just horrible to decide every action with.

Vowing to CHOOSE to love,

Mrs. Draper

Woman to Woman

So many things have changed in this last year. I had a boyfriend who turned into my fiancé who turned into my husband a little over a month ago. I would have never imagined being married by age 20. Never. I love it though. I love my husband, James. He's my best friend and being married is like an every night sleepover. I love the house we live in, rent free! It's perfect and beautiful. We are youth leaders of 6-ish youth at this small country church James' dad pastors at. I would have definitely never volunteered for that job but God placed it before and we took it and ran. I love where life has brought me so far but none of it was ever imagined.

I guess this is labeled "Woman to Woman" because that's what I most desire from this blog, woman to woman talks about what each of us are going through. It's not easy being a woman sometimes and especially when you're a wife. I am in need of desperate woman encouragement and maybe this blog spot will bring about women.

Me and James are doing great, don't panic. One thing God is trying to teach me, though, is my lack of respect towards James. In my mind I think, "Of course I respect him! I respect him more than anyone else!" but my actions don't show that. A man needs respect and, therefore, knows how to give respect but a woman needs love and, therefore knows how to give love. Each person, man and woman, needs to learn the opposite of what they desire. Am I making any sense? right now I'm learning how to show respect. James put it very clearly for me the other morning in our devotions. He turned to Ephesians and was talking about Christ and the church. I've always heard about that example compared with marriage but I only understood some aspects. He asked me how God would ever receive respect if the church read his word and always questioned why? and how? and I thought you said this? I have a terrible habit of doing that with James. He ask me to do something and I question him on it. God loves it when Christians follow him with a joyful heart and obey him. Yeah, he's perfect so he can take all the questionings but it's not his favorite i bet. Same with men. If I constantly question James on everything he ask me to do, how will he see respect. It's a frustrating concept but I understand it and I'm working on it.

I want to learn more from God and other women about how to glorify God with this awesome new role i have as a wife. I want being a wife to be my ministry in a sense. If I can't minister to my husband as a wife how can I ever minister in other ways.

I don't know how this whole blogging thing works but I'm going to learn. Sorry if my post are boring or I'm rambling. I'm no good with words. Just thinking out loud on here. Just trying to learn and grow.

-Devan Draper