restoration

wow. so it feels like i haven't blogged in forever. probably because i haven't. everyday i have so many ideas that i want to blog about but as you can probably already tell, i'm not that great of a writer so i feel like it would just be one big mess for ya'll to read.

for a really long time, i had been holding on to a sin and just waiting for restoration. i prayed about it on a daily basis but i found myself resorting back to that same sin that i knew was wrong. now that i look back on it, i see satans finger prints all over it. i knew that it was satan during those times that i resorted back to the sin but he has his clever ways of telling me that it really wasn't that big of a deal. he kept telling me these lies and i was stupid enough to believe them. but recently, i learned that sin makes you STUPID! that i was. i knew that i had to stop resorting back to this sin. so i just prayed about it but didn't really do anything else about it. i just thought that it was just going to go away and God would deal with it. but one thing i learned this year is that when you are faced with temptation and if your hand is causing you to sin, you must cut it off instead of putting it in your pocket and hoping and praying that you won't be tempted again. you would think that i would apply that knowledge to this sin that i had kept resorting to right? nope. i just found myself in the same position and afterwards asking myself and God why i was doing it. i did a devo on restoration and in the devo beth moore asked, "are you separated from God because you cannot pry yourself loose from the snare of a certain sin?" and i answered HECK YES! but i didn't really know what to do to stop it. when i went to KC this last weekend to my roommates church, Mark (the pastor) stated that in order to really know that you want to fight an addiction and try to stop it, is by telling someone about it, then you really know that you want to fight it and make it stop. at that point i knew that i had to tell someone. i couldn't keep it inside anymore, it needed to come out in order for me to be able to let go of this sin that i had been holding on to for so long.

that night, i got up enough guts to talk to my roommate about it. it was really hard for me to spit it out because i had satan on my back being like "katie, its fine, you don't have to tell her. it's okay, you're not doing anything wrong." i told her i needed to talk to her about something and even then i couldn't spit it out. satan was just wanting me to keep it inside and to keep holding on to it. but i KNEW that it would begin to destroy something that is close to me and i couldn't let that happen. so, we sat and talked. there were a lot of silent moments and i shed a few tears because it was finally coming out and it felt amazing. it felt good to talk about it and to let it go. you are probably asking well if it felt amazing then why did you cry? well, it had been on my heart for what seemed like an eternity so tears just came. but even as we were talking i could still felt satan be like "katie, why did you just do that, its NOT a big deal. you can sit here and talk about it but you know that you are just going to mess up and do it again." at that moment i still felt like i was clinging to it, for whatever reason, maybe it gave me comfort? i have no idea but i also felt completely unsatisfied which was a weird feeling because by saying it out loud, that meant that it was done and that it's not going to happen again. at the same time i knew thats when i needed to thank God for the restoration that i was feeling and i knew that it was something i would still have to pray about and continually give to him to make sure that i didn't replace it with something else. it will be something that you constantly pray about because satan still gets in my head about it. i can sometimes feel him questioning why i made it known to somebody and why am i praying for it to never happen again because it wasn't that big of a deal. well, guess what, it is and it was and that is why i continually pray that i won't resort back to that again and that i won't replace it with something else. God should be and will be the only thing that fills that "void."

if we cling to anything, it needs to be to the promise that Jesus WILL restore our life again. if you are struggling with a certain sin, pray about it but also take action on it and you will feel restored and i can't even begin to tell you how amazing that feels.

i leave you with wise words from my best friend that i will never forget, "if your hand is causing you to sin, katie, you need to chop it off. not put it in your pocket and pray that you won't face temptation again."

1 Peter 5:10 -And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

remember, God is LOVE!