MercyMe 'Shake' (Official Music Video)

I'm changed.... I'm ready to dance and sing into the new year.  Miracles are on the horizon.

A dreamers daydreams: Her Boaz's Proposal

As I was considering this photo and the beauty it contains I suddenly had an image pop into my head of a beautiful marriage proposal..... Within a room full of pink flowers, beautiful and fragrant, a small box sits exposed on an old wooden floor. She walks slowly amongst the containers of flowers and even slower leans down to pick up the tiny parcel. As her eyes fill with tears, her shaky fingers push at the ribbon which falls away with ease. Holding her breath she opens the box to find its sparkling treasure. At that perfectly orchestrated moment, a voice from outside the dream speaks clearly and she knows its familiar tone. Smiling, biting her lip, and feeling every beat of her heart, she turns to see him walking over to her. Simply taking her hand in his, he looks down into her face and says, "Be mine for all the rest of our tomorrow."

Not sure why I'm feeling so sentimental this afternoon.... just am!

Knowing the Holy Spirit

I've decided to write here rather than my blog...about my new study of the Holy Spirit (A.W. Tozier).  I would cherish you comments.  
I do understand the Trinity and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit but something new has emerged and I must change how I think of this personage.  I understand that the Holy Spirit is the LORD and that He has all the attributes therein but today my understanding is deeper still, though it may not be heard clearly in my words.  I see Him without substance but He is an individual, with the ability to love, who has intelligence, desires, and feelings; can see, hear and speak; who has knowledge, sympathy, and  can rejoice but can also be grieved deeply.
I have been questioning why some days I can hear Him clearly and many other days there is only silence and I questioned myself today, "Have I hushed my dear friend, my companion into a hurt silence, because I have wounded 'His heart'?"  Yes, I think it is so.... my doubts, my unbelief, my lack of acknowledging His presence would be enough to silence Him.  I think He is a gentleman too; He will not go where He is not asked.
The Holy Spirit is all knowing.... He knows what I am thinking, there is no fooling Him.  He is ever present in my life.  Yet, I cry out to Jesus who has gone to heaven and ignore the Godhead who lives within me.  The one who bares witness to the truth.  He is exactly like Jesus.... spirit of Jesus, Just as Jesus is exactly like the Father.
I remember reading a book by A.W. Tozier many years ago and he said, we should know the Holy Spirit as well as we know our own hand.  I never forgot it but I did not allow it to change me.
I find I have been grieving my dear friend .... it is similar to how I would be grieved for a beloved friend who neglected me, doubted me, turned their back on me.... but He so much more than a friend, He is my LORD and I sin against Him and refuse to obey Him.
HE grieves because of His great love for me!

Today a new journey has begun... as I understand His presence, His character.  Jesus's character while walking the Earth was demonstrating the Spirit!  How extraordinarily simple it is really.  He is most friendly, most tender, most kind, most loving; He has the most beautiful character, and that character is one and the same with the Father.

As the days draw nearer to the LORDs return, our dependence upon the Holy Spirit must increase. (John 16:1-15) My prayer is that His presence will make my soul strong and that I will not fear the wrath of man.  I pray that courage would grow within me as the Holy Spirit demonstrates our Jesus to the world through us. The Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment will follow.  The world will be convicted by its treatment of Christ-followers, as the Holy Spirit uses us to bear witness of JESUS.

Flashes of light in my memory

When pain and sorrow becomes overflowing joy:

I am being taught to hear the "still small voice" of the HOLY SPIRIT in this new season of my life. I have always known it I think. When I was a little girl I would hear it telling me to take that big black book from the shelf. It was a dusty old Bible with a yiddish section in the back. No one ever read this book, no one took it from the shelf, but there I was reading the book of GENESIS secretly behind the couch, in the corner of the living room. There have been times when the HOLY SPIRIT has been more like the sound of a lightning bolt with its brilliant flash of light and loud crack of thunder, awakening me from a sound sleep. Suddenly I am fully alert with every fiber of my being ready to respond, and there is absolutely no question who is speaking.

I was awaken this morning repeating these words, "Snippets of colour flashing through my mind."

Snippets of colour flashing through my mind,
between my memories.
Flashes of light seen clearly throughout the windows of my past.
They were sifting through the pain and tears, the joy and laughter.
Holy ground.
My life has been HOLY ground.
It has been GOD walking with me.

More Growth

These last few days, few weeks the LORD has been showing me exactly how far I have traveled on this road.   HE has shown me how my life has changed and just like the caterpillar who has emerged from its chrysalis, I've been using my wings.  I can't go back and be what I was, as that person no longer exists.

Will I ever learn this lesson?

I have been actively dating now for a year and seem no closer to finding that one special person to spend the rest of my life with then when I started.  I suspect I know more about myself and about what I'm looking for...hmmm.  I am farther along than I was when I started aren't I.  LOL.

This is what I'm seeking and hope to find with that special person.  I want to wear your sweatshirt to bed so I can have that emotional connect all night, the sense of smell is so closely linked to our emotions.  I want to watch scary movies with you, not because I like them but because I want to laugh and have you be my protector even in silly things and times like this.  I want to talk on the phone until sunrise because a minute away from you is just too long.  I want to sneak out at night to look at the stars with you because I never want to lose the innocence of youth and joy of sharing the world together.  I want to play your favorite video game if you have one, or learn to play darts just because you like it and I want to share in your life's little pleasures.  I want to make you watch chic flicks because I love the romance and want it alive for always and always between us.  I want to kiss you in the rain because I love the rain; feeling it fall on my face and splashing in puddles.  I want to go on walks with you along the beach, up mountains trails, along the sidewalks in Paris, and make memories that we will cherish for the rest of our days.  I want to laugh until I can’t breathe just because.  I want to hold hands and kiss in public because I want everyone in the world to know how wonderful it is to be in love with you.  So, this is it, I want to fall hopelessly in love with you .... the problem is I just can't find you, or maybe your aren't ready yet.  I wish I knew the answer.  

I know LORD Jesus you have all the answers and it is all in your time.  I trust you have things under control. I'm lonely.  Remember you gave Eve to Adam to be a helpmate.... please remember LORD, I'm no different.  I ask you to move and help me find that special one that you would have for me.  I want no one else.  I am trusting you with my petition, the prayer deep within my heart.  

Yours,

Elizabeth Antonnette

Exposure

I am reading the book, "Do You Think I'm Beautiful" and find the first major question it asks very difficult to answer.  It is so simple really. 

I love the story of Cinderella, not the abusive step-mother and wicked step-sisters, although I know those characters well from my past, but the realization of a dream and of course the happy ending.  The question is this though, who am I in the story?  I said I was found in many of the characters at different points in my life but that just sounds good and isn't true.  I wanted to be Cinderella and be the belle of the ball and as I remember back I was told that I was once.... but I didn't believe it and it never touched me.  How sad that is to know that your dream had been realized in your youth but you missed it hiding behind your fears of rejection and abandonment.  No, it wasn't my fault entirely as I was young and I had no control over what others did or said to me, those people who should have been encouragers played out villains instead.  Was it a masked ball?  Yes, I see there is a mask in place and I am still afraid that I will never realize my dream of finding someone to laugh with every day, to journey through whatever life has for us, yes, even to grow old with.  My Russian friend said, “You need to simply let yourself fall in love.”  I think he has something here.  My mask is this, I am strong and a woman and none of this really matters.  It all matters.  Pain can't be pushed into a closet for long; it needs to be let out, felt and learned from.  

Okay, I started to fall in love with someone.... yes I gave up a piece of my heart.  I stand and say I do not regret it because I don't.  It brings back all the wonderful feelings before people broke promises and broke me.  I am today, standing under a shower and allowing those feeling to flow over me.  I am beautiful and lovable and precious.  Yes, I am a strong woman but I had to, to survive.  I can be both and that is me.  

Thank you Jesus for letting me stomp my foot and be mad, to run and let that wild thing inside me out, but most of all thank you for always being with me, never abandoning me, for loving me, for telling me endlessly, tirelessly that you love me just the way I am.  Yes, you made me, ME, for the pleasure of knowing me. I am your Cinderella, your princess and I know without question that you want me to know that deep inside.

I do believe.  I do know that you have someone here in life for me but your timing is significant.  I accept your timing but will do my part and not stop looking.  I will not close down and hide behind the wall again or any self-made barrier.  

Today I found the first stone to put in my princess crown…. under pressure even coal turns into diamonds.  The first stone is grandidierite one of the rarest stones on Earth.  It is a unique stone in that it is trichroic, transmitting blue, green and white light.  

Yours always,

Elizabeth Antonnette

Headlong into the New Year

The 2012 journey has been marked with family health issues, surgery, and so many internal changes.  I prayed, no, I pleaded for years, body, mind, soul and spirit to see people as GOD does to see with HIS eyes.  Laura said I should ask Him to take it away, it was burdensome and my heart gets so heavy, it leaves me broken and used up.  I didn’t understand what to do with it but now each day I hold fast to that which I am, I am at peace with this gift. To know within my spirit each day that hope does exist and that the past is really the past.  The wall is physically down, though illusions of it still are felt.  I laugh when I find myself behind, behind… oh, yes, nothing is there, I am exposed to the world.  I love feeling the rain, feeling the warm of the sun on my face, feeling a gentle caress across my skin.  What a joy to begin each day, to hope, to dream, to smile, to laugh, to run headlong to what life is offering.  

Yours always,

Elizabeth Antonnette