Author Archives: Cindy W.

Have you ever heard the Holy Spirit through song or worship, or both?  Have you ever heard it so clear it couldn’t be denied? I have, and it came via an entire congregation (of about 40 people). It’s an experience that not only rendered me speechless, but brought me to tears.  It is something that I will never forget.

Recently I have been asked to help out (when needed) with vocals for our church’s praise team. I am always happy to help and serve where I can, and it is a blessing to do so.  For a long time, I always considered members of the praise team to be “God’s vessel for worship,” so of course I felt blessed. Little did I know that serving in this way would transform me, and the way I viewed worship, in ways I could never imagine.

A few Sunday’s ago I was asked to help with vocals. Practice the Thursday prior I considered normal. Some songs I knew, some songs I didn’t. We sang, talked, laughed, and prayed. As Sunday morning practice rolled around, same thing. We sang, talked, laughed, and prayed again. Nothing came up that I considered out of the norm, I just felt blessed to be able to participate.

Then came time for Sunday morning worship. All I can say is…WOW.

I don’t recall what song we sang to begin worship. What I do remember, is as the song rolled from one to the next, something happened. Something changed.

As we finished up the first praise and worship song, we eased into 10,000 Reasons by Matt Redman. Halfway through the first verse, the harmonies and melodies of the congregation (of only 40 or so) filled the entire sanctuary, and I could no longer hear anyone on the praise team singing next to me. What I heard was this beautiful, amazing, moving sound. The words flowed from the mouths of the people that my family and I share most of our Sunday mornings with, some of our weeknights with, and all of our beliefs with. The music flowed from those people right into my heart. It was the sweetest sound I had ever heard.

God’s love poured out that morning, so alive and abundant. The congregation was “God’s vessel for worship.” Not out of one mouth or two, but out of an entire church, regardless of size.  It was humbling.

We are all filled with the Holy Spirit, with God’s love, and sharing it is the most precious gift we could give to each other, to anyone. We are all vessels for the Lord, not only a pastor, or an elder, or a deacon or a praise team member. Each one of us is called to be a disciple, and to spread His love and His Word through any means we can. So why not start now?

Feed Yourself, Girl! With praise and worship, with the Holy Spirit, and with God’s unfailing love. He is holy and He is sovereign.

Romans 5:5 (NIV) “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Well, here we are again after roughly a four month hiatus. How completely imperfect and messy am I? VERY! That’s okay though. God is still doing His work in my life, and we are tweaking and growing and changing daily. It’s totally awesome!

Over a year ago I started on this new journey. This “Christ in Me”, follow God’s plan kind of journey, knowing where I was hoping to go, and having absolutely no idea where God was taking me. My hopes were WAY off and His plan is unravelling oh-so-much better than I had ever imagined. Though my journey has not been without its worries. Lots of them. And I find myself dwelling on them, over and over again, along the way. See, I am a worrier. My mom likes to say it’s genetic, passed down from my Gram. Well, genetic or not, its there, ever-present in my chemical make-up.

I worry about the things I can’t control, rather than worrying about the things that I can. What I need to do is control the things I can, or the things that God puts on my heart, and let God have the rest. Easier said versus done, I know, but He is the Almighty and He gives us the strength to persevere.

Isaiah 45:5-6 “I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me.”

I have to remind myself, as I am sure we all do, that God is here with us. He knows our every fear, every worry, every happiness, every hurt, and in His time, it will all be taken care of. I (We) just don’t always know how to let it be His time. That’s part of us being imperfect sinners. From that we learn and we grow, though, we will never get it quite right.

I’m sure you’ve heard that saying, “Let go and let God.” While a large part of that is absolute truth, He also enables us to carry out His plan. He gives us the tools, the ambition, the strength, the love, the desire, the perseverance, and the free will to execute His master plan. What we do with it, or don’t, can determine the outcome of our life, or other’s lives. It is a delicate balance, and all you can do is pray. Pray for guidance and love and strength to make the right choices at the right times.

As for me, I will probably always be a worrier, though I like to think my mind may be a little more at ease with each passing day, regardless of what the worry may be. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is God’s plan and it is going to run on God’s time, not mine, regardless of how often or not I worry or dwell or persist. I have to give it to Him, and He will dish it out as He sees fit. Hey, that’s why He is the Creator.

So for now, Feed Yourself, Girl!  with the comfort of knowing that you don’t have to worry, and you don’t have to take on the world. God is here, and tomorrow is waiting.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the presence of Christ.”

Fear: (verb) to be afraid or apprehensive

We all have a fear of something. Spiders, snakes, moths, horses, scorpions, bears, water, lonliness, love, hate, disease, famine, death, and the list goes on. Whether the fear is large or small, they are all very real and very prominent in our lives.

What if I told you that you don’t have to face those fears alone? What if I told you that there is one being greater than all of us who will take on any fear, no matter the size, if you simply choose to accept Him?

That’s right. Jesus Christ.

“I can do all things through Christ who strenghtens me.”  Phillipians 4:13. How true is this passage? You can do anything through Christ just by accepting Him. You can overcome any fear just by placing your faith and trust in our Maker.  No matter what that fear may be. We all have fears and apprehensions that we face on a daily basis.

I have a close friend who is struggling right now with lonliness. She is a single mother with an amazing little boy, and sometimes she doesn’t give herself enough credit. She doesn’t realize how absolutely amazing and strong she is. Being a single mother is one of the toughest jobs I have ever had to experience, and I will be the first to admit that it is scary and lonely, and even thankless at times. I have had to lean on Christ more than once to pull me through, and He was always there. Even when I turned my back on Him when my daughter got sick, He still carried us. I hope that she can find the same strength in Christ and herself to help her get over her fear of lonliness, and so that she can open her eyes and realize that she is so much more with Him than without Him, and that she is never alone.

It should apply to all of us with our fears, big or small. Overcoming them with Christ is more successful than going at them alone. Christ doesn’t always make things easy, but He always makes them possible. I am proof of that and so are you. We aren’t “damaged goods”, but rather we are survivors. (Thanks Katy!)

Fear as applied to God: to have a reverential awe of. (Fear God)

Feed Yourself, Girl! with the awe and wonder Christ. Lean on Him for everything and pray continually. With Him, all fears can be overcome.

Proverbs 3:5-6
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”

We are all called upon by the Lord to do His work, and each one of our tasks is different.

As children of God, we have each been blessed with a spiritual gift or gifts, that in hope, we use to better our church, our faith, our peers, and ourselves.

This week I was reading through 1 Corinthians 12 about spiritual gifts and unity and diversity in the body. The truth in those words is astounding! What if we were all made the same? What if we all had the same spiritual gifts? What if every church ran the same way with the same ideas and beliefs? Would it be a “real church” then?  How are we supposed to do God’s work if that were so? And how absolutely boring would life be?!

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body-whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free-and we were all given the one spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.” 1 Corinthians 12:12-14.

God calls all of us to do His will. Though we each have a different task, we are all united by one fact: We are made to live for Him, in Christ, as imperfect humans.  That is what unites us, no matter our differences. Now lets take the facts that unite us and the differences that define us, and lets apply them to the church. What do you get?

You get one body unified by Christ that possesses a diverse, unique set of personalities, gifts, ideas, and beliefs that can be applied toward church growth, missions, sermons, church groups, charities, children, life groups, and the list could go on and on and on. Each part is special and unique and carries its own weight, no matter how big or small. Imagine the lives we all could touch, each in a unique way, because none of us are made the same. How absolutely amazing!

“Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in Fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” 1 Corinthians 12:15-20.

I’m sure all of this to all of you is all common sense. HOWEVER, have you taken a spiritual gifts test? And if so, when was the last time you applied those gifts to glorify Christ? Read 1 Corinthians 12, I mean really read it, study it, meditate on it, whatever. Just get involved in it.

Feed Yourself, Girl! with 1 Corinthians 12, and get in touch with a side you either don’t know or have forgotten.

1 Corinthians 12:27 (NIV)
”Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”

Adversity is an inevitable part of life. Christian or not we all are exposed to it, and usually more than just once or twice in our lifetime. Some adversities are a product of our thoughts and actions, some are due to misfortune or bad luck, and some are a combination of the two. Regardless of how we cross the path with our adversities, we all have the same choices on how we deal with the struggles, trials, and hiccups that seem to accompany life’s journey. We can either react with our (imperfect) human nature or we can depend on our (still imperfect) Christian heart.

I recently had a door of opportunity open in my career for a promotion. For the past year I have been working diligently, tweaking my imperfections, expanding my knowledge, and overcoming career-related challenges. I was so sure that I was ready. There was very little doubt that I would be passed up for this opportunity.

Guess what? I was.

While I was strongly considered for the position, someone else had been chosen, and all for reasons that were out of my control. My first thoughts were What?! and Why?! and  How is that even close to fair?!. My imperfect human nature started to rear it’s ugly head, and for the next couple of days I was bitter and hurt. I was standoffish, short-tempered, and just plain grumpy.

I wasn’t using my Christian heart very well, was I?

I had to stop and examine myself. I had to turn my heart to the Lord. I had to ask myself,  How can I use this experience to glorify Him?  I cannot be focused on what I can get out of life, I want to be focused on what I can give to life. I want others to undoubtedly see Christ through me. How can I live for His glory and how can I live by His word? How can I show someone Christ in this moment, in this second? How can I turn MY TRIAL into HIS TRIUMPH?

Because all of this, my life, my victories, and my struggles, are all for Him.

So many times when we meet adversity, we get so caught up in our own selves, in our own human-ness. We are so wrapped up in our own wants and needs that we forget that we should be using our lives and our experiences, good and bad, to glorify God. We should be depending on God and on our Christian heart.

2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

Ask yourself, “How can Christ be modeled in the face of adversity through my life?”

Feed Yourself, Girl! with the Word, in the Word, by the Word. It’s nourishment for your Christian heart.

I woke up late this morning. As I do almost EVERY morning. Except for on the weekends. You know, those weekend mornings where you know that you can sleep in because there isn’t work calling your name, or kids that need fed and dressed for school, or some other pressing engagement that requires you to reluctantly pour your borderline lifeless body out of bed, yet your body and brain have a different idea all together and decide you need to be awake before 8 o’clock. On a Saturday. Yeah, lovely.