Dear Readers,
In these blogs, what you will find is my life displayed for you to see. (Eeek!! for the person that hates being the centre of attention, this freaks me out!) It is not perfect. It is not stress free. It is not pain free. It is life and in the midst of it all…I have found a new way.
As any parent will tell you, life drastically changes when you have children. God begins to use your little ones to teach you who He is and shapes you more than you ever dreamed possible. I remember vividly one of those tough mama days when I had just gotten my twin boys to sleep. I was on the toilet with the door open (fellow moms you understand…your eyes need to be on high alert, even if it looks like our little ones are sleeping), and I had been crying. From where I was, I could see one of my sleeping son’s face and I thought, “What is all the fuss about? What is my problem?” Then the Lord spoke to me and said, “Juliana there is a new way.” I not only needed a new way, I was desperate. I felt as though I was just surviving and existing in my life. I saw a picture of myself just standing on the sidelines of my life, not really entering in. I was doing all the necessary things and I was really efficient at it. But I was just a wreck on the inside. It felt like I was dying. Who is Juliana? What are God’s plans for me? What is my purpose? God was so faithful to answer and share what was going on. He used this verse repeatedly to wake me up and call me to attention. “…I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you are living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!” (2 Cor. 6:11-13 MSG) It wasn’t God who had made my life small, I was making it small to protect myself from a whole host of fears. I knew I couldn’t do life like this any longer!
At that time, God used a couple of books to completely turn my life upside down. In reading Jennie Allen’s book, Anything my hubby and I realized we did not want to live a safe, comfortable, risk-free life. We needed to see God be the big GOD He really is. We didn’t want to simply ‘know’ these things as we had both grown up in the church…we wanted to experience it to be a reality! God took us up on this, as we began to pray bigger, bolder prayers…prayers that scared our socks off! At the same time we were learning how to experience a richer, more powerful and effective prayer life through John Eldredge’s book, Moving Mountains. Life was never going to be the same.
This was in 2017 and God continues to amaze us as we see more and more of God moving us into the exciting, adventuresome life in Him. A new way, meant a new way in every aspect as I soon began to find out.
Are you hungry for a new way? Maybe you’re like me and have known about God, but you’ve not really experienced Him. Will you take the step to believing that there could be more for you too? I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
