Gratitude Challenge: Days 6-8

Instead of giving you all excuses of why I haven't been keeping up on this I'm just gonna start writing about the things I've been thankful for.

Sundays. (Don't worry. I'm not going to do a consecutive Thank You for every single day of the week). I'm so thankful for Sundays. Sometimes I complain about how early I have to get up and how all I want to do is sleep...and while that might be true... I wouldn't trade my Sundays for anything.
I get to hold babies all morning long. I get to laugh about "baby tattoos" and which babies are going to be dating in 15 years with Emily Marker and Shelby.
I get to eat delicious food in the cafe. At church. So convenient.
I get to spend all day with dear friends. The friends who have become family. The friends who hold me accountable and love me. This community, this church, these people are incredible and I can't imagine what it would be like to live life without them.

My job. The Lord has blessed me with two amazing jobs. At the same location.
It's hard. And sometimes frustrating but at the end of the day, so rewarding.

My family.
I'm thankful for my Dad. Who can spout off anything and everything you could ever want or need to know about any war. Who fixes my car when I'm being a girl and have no idea what's wrong with it. And who will make the "chipmunk face" if you beg him long enough.
For my Mom. Who can only drink wine with cranberry juice. Who has a passion for preschoolers like I've never seen before. And who loves to laugh.
For Chelsea. Who loves lace, ribbon, oxfords, and anything vintage. Who puts up with me and my need for quality time. Who always makes me laugh....even when she is telling me that I'm acting like a baby.
For Brenna. Who loves music more than life itself. Who is an incredible musician. Who has a huge heart. And who loves movies.

The Fast is over...

So now that the fast is over I want to share with all of you the things that impacted me and just how the overall experience was.

At first, I had a really hard time with the fast. Not knowing what was going on with all of my friends every second of the day was extremely difficult for me. I didn't know what to do with all the time I seemed to have. Well, I knew what I SHOULD have been doing... what the point of the fast was... you know, seeking God.. but I couldn't bring myself to sit down and start journaling and talking to God. I realized that the reason I kept putting it off was because I was afraid I wouldn't hear Him. That even with the "noise" removed from my life... I wouldn't hear Him. So, for the first few days I watched some TV, spent some time with my family, and did some worship paintings. Then (I think it was someone at lifegroup) I heard someone saying that even if God chooses to not speak to you some days, it's worship to simply seek after Him and just spend time focusing on His words and even reflecting back on the things He was spoken to you before. So I just started talking to Him.

My first time talking to Him during the fast was amazing. I just poured out what I had been meaning to write down for awhile. A lot of thanksgiving and praise.

That first week I feel that I got a grasp on time again. Time seemed to go by so slow when I wasn't wasting it away online. I felt that I had SO much more time to just spend with God. The rest of that week I just spent praising God.

The second week Nate spoke about anchoring yourself in the word which filled me with conviction. That's something that I'm not very good at. So that week was spent just going over scriptures and finding new ones that I fell in love with. Here are just some of them:
Zeph: 3:17
Isaiah 62:1-12
Ephesians
Philippians 1:6
The days kept going by and I spent more and more time in the word. I spent hours just journaling and listening to God and thinking about stuff. I became more and more comfortable with the silence. So much in fact that just now, I tried listening to music and do this... and I got distracted. I had to turn it off. That's how much I have fallen in love with silence. I crave it now.

I had coffee with Sarah today and, among many other things, she talked about how the silence has to become a lifestyle. That it's a discipline you have to ease yourself into. And it's so true. I had the hardest time with it at first but now I long to just go sit in my room with the bible and my journal and just go after God. It's amazing.

So overall, this past month has been incredible. I loved it. I feel like I really connected with God and reached a new level of intimacy with Him. I can't wait to see what comes next!

Voxdei

Just a notice to whoever is reading this... it's probably going to be a little lengthy. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Nate has asked the entire body of the Stirring to fast from something that creates "noise" in your life and create that face-to-face relationship with God that he yearns to have with each and everyone one of us.
I honestly didn't realize how much "noise" was in my life until Nate spoke about it tonight. I mean, I knew I spent a little too much time on facebook and I listened to music basically all the time, but I just assumed that's normal. Well, I don't want that to be normal.
Tonight Nate spoke about all the different types of noise. Books, TV, cell phones, ipods, computers, advertisements, friends, jobs, your own thoughts, family, and basically everything else in life.
Now, these things aren't "bad." What is bad, is how much time I've been spending on these things rather than with God.
What is slightly ironic is that I've been trying to pray a lot more and make a conscious effort to worship God, but I keep using the excuse that I'm "too busy."
How could I have been so blind? Too busy for God? For my Creator? For the one being who DIED for ME? Lets just say that tonight was a huge slap in the face.
At the end of the service I just felt completely convicted with this. So I've decided to make some drastic changes.

I am fasting from:
Internet (other than paying bills)
Music
My thoughts (sounds weird, but I'll explain below)

Internet: I spend WAY too much time on there. Especially facebook. Even if I have nothing I will still stay on there wasting time. Not okay. I'm going one month without it. I'm turning off mobile updates from facebook and twitter. I'm not even going to blog, which I have been getting into lately. No myspace. No youtube. No nothing. Except to pay my bills and check how much money I have.

Music: This is going to be the hardest one, however this one has some exceptions too. I am addicted to music. I will admit it. I don't like driving in my car without it on. I don't like sitting in my room without some sort of music on. It's not just music that I have an obsession with.. but NEW music. It's bad. I find new people all the time and then sit and find out which albums I want and then wait for it to download and then listen to it. So, I've decided to go without music for a month. I'm allowing myself to listen to worship music because I feel that this coming month is going to be a HUGE time of worship. For the past, almost year now, I have felt this strong urge to just WORSHIP. To sing out. To dance. To just praise God. And music is a big way I express that. FYI I'm listening to music right now trying to get a small fix before I go a month without it.

My thoughts: Which I didn't think was a problem. But just tonight I went for a walk and was talking to God and I decided that I was going to stop talking and just spend some time in silence. As soon as I decided to do that my mind started REELING with thoughts about EVERYTHING and ANYTHING. So this month I am going to try to quiet my mind. To completely focus on God. To actually set aside time to just be completely silent. To spend time in solitude with God. What Nate said about solitude tonight really hit home for me. I have a really hard time with silence and I want to become more comfortable with it. I want to be able to shut up so I can hear God when He is trying to speak to me.

I also want to take an entire day with God. I want to find somewhere I can just go and sit. Or go and walk. But just spend an entire day with Him. Not thinking about anyone else or anything else. Just me and Him. That is a DEFINITE goal this month.

Another is to journal. Since I can't blog, I'm going to journal. I find that if I try to just pray I get really off track, but when I'm writing I'm much more focused.

Well, that's about it. I would love to have people praying for me that I be able to accomplish these goals. It would be greatly appreciated.
See ya in a month!
Much love,
Ashtyn

P.S. Here is my prayer to start off this month.

God,
First off, I want to thank you for putting this on Nate's heart and having him share it with the body and for challenging each and every one of us. I feel that our generation is in desperate need of a reconnection with you. In desperate need of a break from technology. And I want to thank you for challenging us with it so that we can be an impact to our friends outside of the Stirring.
I ask that you give me determination to stick this month out. I know that the things I am fasting from, You want me to fast from. You showed me each and every one of these things. You see what has ahold of my attention and you are redirecting it back to you.
I ask that during this month, all of my attention will be on you. With creating that face-to-face relationship that we are all meant to have. I ask that you remind me of these things I am fasting from, but that you constantly remind me WHY I am fasting from them.
I pray for all my brothers and sisters at the Stirring. I pray that you would convict them with this message and give them the strength to go through with all of this. That you would help us all hold each other accountable for these things. In Your name.
Amen.

Mmmmm.... David Gray

As I was sitting here listening to David Gray's CD (Draw the Line) I decided I should write a blog seeing as I haven't written in awhile.
Well, Christmas has come and gone. Which is weird. Because it didn't even feel like Thanksgiving had happened and then here came Christmas! But a lot of things have been going on so lets just start updating...
Life group ended. :( It was very sad. The last night, however, was a lot of fun. We played telephone pictionary which always provides laughter for the entire night. I'm really gonna miss those girls, but I'm excited for a new group with new people and new topics.
I went to pick up Chelsey from the airport. It was really good. I had never driven that long by myself before and I was really looking forward to it just to spend some time with God and I did! I listened to worship music the whole way down there and just prayed and talked to Him and it was really good. The ride back was good too. Just being able to talk with her was really good. It's hard to keep in super good touch when we are both crazy busy and she lives 12 hours away so it was a really good time to catch up.
Spent time with Chels, Steph, Tina, and Jamie. It was really good. I love them all. We had some good times complete with laughter... laughter... and laughter.
Had all my finals... went well except for my Art one. However, I got a C in the class so I'm all good! I've gotten all my grades except for my world religions one and they've all been good!
I've been having to work a longer shift at work because the kids are out of school. It's been good because I know it's extra money, but it's hard to be with the kids that long. They get so restless and they don't want to be there so it makes it difficult for ME to want to be there. But on the plus side I got to work in the toddler room for a couple days which was fun.
Christmas was good. I got a lot more stuff than I thought I was going to. My fav gifts were my PINK headphones and my David Gray cd! Oh and SEASON 1 OF WEEDS!!! I can't wait to rewatch that and then start gathering all of the seasons!
Oh! Story!
Stirring has been doing this "Consumed" series which is all about how consumerism wars for our hearts and how we can't be consumed with God AND money. Well I felt that it was all stuff that I had heard before till Sarah started talking about loans and financial aid at LG. She was asking if loans were technically debt and how she should go about approaching that subject. Well, Emily told her that as long as the money was being used for school then it was being used for what it was meant! Well, this hit me. Pretty hard. I had used ALL the last few semesters financial aid to pay off my old car and to get other things. Like, my iPod and all that jazz. Well, I was feeling really convicted when I realized that I can't do anything about that now. However, I was going to use this next semesters money to pay for part of Cosmetology school and to pay off other things. So I started praying about it and I realized that this didn't sit well with me. I wanted to do these things on my own with the money that God has provided me with and I want to TRUST him to provide everything. So I took a HUGE leap of faith and I dropped all my classes for next semester. I prayed before I did it and felt that it was the right thing to do.
Oh! Speaking of Cosmetology school... I went and did an orientation/meeting thing and I loved it. If I was excited before I went.... I don't even know what I am now!
Just seeing all the girls (and one boy) there and doing the stuff and having it all be hands on got me SO excited! I can't wait! Yay yay yay!
Hope everyone else had a great Holiday season! See ya in the new year!