Zoe's Love Story

 Hope is a funny thing. We as humans put our faith in some many things day in and day out. In the things we can see, in the daydreams we hoard, in the delusions we’re hiding. We just keep hoping. It’s impossible for humans not to hope in something. It’s in our DNA. Believe me I’m aware that the enemy and the world tried his hardest everyday to shatter what little hopes we are preserving. Easily crushed because we too often put our hopes in the things that are fleeting. In created things and created begins that so easily change. Like the spring breeze fragrant and sweet pushed aside for summer’s heat.  So then where you ask should we place our hope, our faith. My answer sound cliché but it’s the answer that has carried me through season of sunshine and season of rain. I place my hope in Jesus. My soon and coming king. Please make no mistake the walk with Christ has been frustrating. There have been disappointments that seem to follow me. But the distinction I must make is that ...

    Hi my name is Zoe and I’m a reforming perfectionist. I have to introduce myself like an AA meeting because the striving for perfection was addictive to me, is addictive to me. It left no room for my humanity, for my flaws, for tears or my brokenness. It just left a chasm in that I filled with vices and empty dreams as I performed for society, for my family, for me. But the worst part wasn’t what it did to me. It wasn’t even the lies I believed about me. It was just the lies I accepted about the one being who loved me so utterly and earth shatteringly. I believed my sin was too ugly for him to see. That he died for everyone but me. That he didn’t think I was worrying dying for. That Grace was not for me. Legalistic teaching isn’t just stifling it left no room for Jesus to love me. It left no room for Jesus to choose me because I wouldn’t choose me. I wouldn’t forgive me. I wouldn’t love me. Legalism made no room for his mercy and it left me empty. I was I could tell you I c...

      Life has often been unkind and honestly it feels like it's not supposed to be. This world around us is fallen and broken truthfully. And yet... we still want so desperately for the world to be...kind. Be kind to me. Especially when it comes to our calling. My calling. My calling to believe and to walk by faith. To walk on waves with the one who created me. But what happens when I sink? When the storm is raging and it's terrifying? The waves are unsteady under my feet. The mist preventing me from seeing. The roaring waves make it seem like Jesus is a million miles away from me. Too far to see. And I sink. I sink into insecurity. I sink into fatigue. Into complacency and unbelief. Plug in whatever noun or verb you need that describes you're situation perfectly.      The idea of walking on water and the feeling of sinking didn't come from me. It's a reference to Matthew 14:29-31. Even non believers have often heard the story. The story of Peter the man w...

       There are many days now that I meet the Holy Spirit in my prayer time and the tears start welling. To the point where they seem to never stop going and the words stop flowing. I often even as recently as this morning felt like I needed to pull it together and stop crying. To be diligent and pray properly. That yes crying some is acceptable but to solely be crying in his presence is excessive and time wasting. I could be interceding or praising or getting directives. And it wasn't until this recent prayer session that I felt God start to speak to me about the importance of my tears shed. That many times the tears I shed unceasingly are prayers. When the words couldn't take place the tears shed told Him everything my heart had to yield.       I then felt like He was prompting me to ask "Why do you think your tears are kept by me?" And it felt like the answer was they are too important to just let them be released and forgotten by me.  ...

  Many have at least skimmed through Genesis 3. You’ve heard it in a sermon; you’ve read it on your “Read the Bible in a year” plan that we all start in January. We teach it to our children in Sunday school and even the world at large has a general understanding of the fall of man. We have even become so familiar with the content that we joke “that would never be me.” We boast in ourselves claiming that if it were us in the narrative there would be a completely different ending to the story. We speak with such conviction in our foolish jesting that failing to see how we fall daily in the same areas as Adam and Eve. See they did not fall haphazardly is if one day Adam and Eve turned off her cognitive reasoning. They looked at all they had in Eden the promised land before the parting of the Red Sea. They knew the meaning of Emmanuel before the Isaiah 7 prophecy. And yet the voice of the enemy comes, and believe me it will come, presents the reasoning that somehow in Eden you’re still...

   I often listen to worship songs during my devotional time and have a lot of thoughts. Here are some of my musings. I included the songs I was listening to and encourage you to listen to it too while you read. https://youtu.be/CtJPdiYk15g?si=_Ge8wAbRQ6L7obKT Thoughts: What do you do when the will to praise seems to be gone? When the winter seasons of life have come and your prayer rooms has turned cold. You've lost more battles than you've think you've won. Promises feel deferred or all together gone. People have walked away and all you can seem to do is limp into the holy of holies. And you have nothing left to say. Silently pleading with God for a break because one more blow just might eradicate the little faith you have left. What do you do when even the desire for prayer is fleeting. Your soul is empty and hungry. Your bible sits waiting for your company. The Lord's gaze you keep evading. When there's nothing left not even tears. What do you do? You Press. ...