Hello 2014!

As much as I wanted to continue the tradition of my Hello photo post on instagram this month (If you follow me there you get much more content.My preferred way to blog is through photography) I had a very different feeling in my spirit this morning. So I have decided that this year I will pick a word for every month and meditate on it and keep it as my constant reminder. And for the month of January the word Renew really hit home. I have been carrying this word around in my heart for months and it has been my daily request. 



So dive into the word Renew with me this morning. Grab a cup of coffee, or tea and prepare your heart. 

To be honest I didn’t realize the connection I had with this word until I looked up verses with the word in them this morning. Then it started to really sink in. God has put this word in my heart to share with you.  I feel like honesty is the best policy, and to be quite honest the second year of marriage was not easy for us. We both embarked on a journey to become better people and that started with us both looking at some very tough stuff. We discovered our love languages, our personalities, and our apology language. ALL of which are different. Having to keep all these things in my mind when talking to or interacting with my husband always weighed a little heavy on my heart. So daily I would ask God to renew my heart and mind. I always felt like I had a huge list of things to think about before I could ever say anything, and for a person who naturally speaks first thinks later….that is a challenge in itself! I discovered through some hard inward searching that I am a very negative person, that I used to be selfless until someone told me I let others walk all over me. And I noticed that since then I can come off sort of rude and self-centered.  In all of these discoveries and difficult moments the word RENEW was my saving grace. Christ can change me, he can perfect me, and he can restore me to where I was before. The world may have gotten in and changed and roughed my soft spirit up, but I can become a selfless servant again. 

The definition of the word Renew is so beautiful and resonates within me the longing I have for restoration.

Renew from the oxford dictionary is as follows.

1:  to make like new :  restore to freshness, vigor, or perfection 

2:  to make new spiritually  

3
a :  to restore to existence   

b :  to make extensive changes in 

4:  to do again 

5:  to begin again 

A few scriptures I put in the photo above have been ones I have carried in my heart for years.

Psalms 51:10 
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and renew a right spirit within me.

Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind
that by testing you may discern
 what is the will of God, 
what is good and acceptable and perfect.

 Colossians 3:9-12
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self
 with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, 
which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, 
circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave,
 free; but Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, 
holy and beloved, compassionate hearts,
 kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,

Isaiah 40:31
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint

I hope you guys found this word as moving as I did this morning. And I hope you feel a stirring in your heart to hold tight to the character of our Father. I usually feel like I deserve to be treated a certain way. But how can I justify that feeling when Christ was persecuted, spit on, hung on a cross, and slandered in every way possible.

This January I hope you will be renewed, restored, freshened up, refilled with vigor, and press on towards perfection.

Remember to everyone we represent Christ. 

Speak Life -Jessica Smith Wallace

Debra Hartzel
1/1/2014 10:42:14 am

Lovely

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