Daughter,

I gaze upon your true beauty in sheer awe and amazement, at whom I’ve created. My radiant love is all I’ve ever wanted for you and it’s wider than all the galaxies in the sky and deeper than the greatest depths of the ocean. You are perfect to me even on what you think are your darkest days. There is nowhere you can go that I can’t be with you. At your highest highs, I’m celebrating with you—in the depths of your lowest lows I am there with you. I cover you with my love and sing over you with songs of deliverance. You are already free. Your chains are gone. I paid it all for you already. All I want is for you to sing, my precious beautiful daughter. Tell me what troubles you and sing of your freedom. Watch as my hand moves over the storms in your life. You are victorious, Daughter. Sing, and stand from that place of victory and watch as my salvation covers you like a blanket. Fix your eyes on me. Find your identity in me. I long to be your all in all. I love you with all my heart, my love is enough. You are enough. You are perfectly loved. Loved with an everlasting love.

I am the great comforter and I speak tenderly to you. I’ve seen your struggle and today is your day of victory, IN ME. I’ve paid the ultimate price for all your sins—the choices, thoughts and actions that have all separated you from your God. What the enemy meant for evil, I have, in great mercy turned around for your good. Prepare for me to enter your heart. Make a way for me to rule and reign in your heart. I’m in the business of setting things right. Deep and dark valleys shall be raised up to great peaks and high unscalable mountains will be leveled for you to walk through. My glory will be revealed for all to see. I give life with my breath and all of mankind is fragile. Life is temporary, but I am eternal, and I endure forever. You who know me, proclaim my goodness. Don’t just speak but let your lives e visible worship and praise to the darkened world around you. Be bold witnesses of your God without fear. Tell the world about me plainly. I am a sovereign and powerful God and I save. I care tenderly to the lost and to the found. I leave the 99 to find and carry back the 1. I lead my loved ones gently. I breathed and galaxies and life came into being. I’ve weighed mountains and held oceans in my hands. I am powerful and have an answer to every question. Knowledge and understanding are my creation and specialty. The nations are mere dust, minute in the scope of everything I’ve created. How can you even begin to compare me? I am infinite. I am inexhaustible and you can spend your entire lives trying to explain me, yet words will never suffice. Many have come in the name of a god, but those empty idols can’t hold a flame to my awesome power. I sit in heaven and I spread out space like a canopy. I give and take authority away. Kings are humbled by my power. Who will you say is my equal? I blow and storms pick up and speak and all is calm. Who do you suppose created all of what you see? I bring each star and being before me and call them each by name. Every detail is before me and I don’t miss a thing. I hear the complaints and cries of my people who feel abandoned by their God. Those who feel hidden I say to you this…

I am Father God.

I am the creator of all the earth.

Nothing gets past me. I don’t get tired nor do I fall asleep on the job.

Nobody can fathom the extent of my wisdom and understanding. I strengthen those who need hope.

I am strong on behalf of the weak. Not even the strength of young men or the weariness of old intimidates me. Those who put their whole heart in me will not faint but will be overwhelmed with new strength—God strength. They will pursue life with supernatural ability.

Preface: I want to introduce to you excerpts from my journals. I truly believe these to have been and are words from God given to me through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I don’t claim to be God, but I also do not claim full responsibility for these letters that I will begin to share through a series I have called, “Love Letters, The Anthology” These words were gifts to my heart during seasons of my life and to share them is beyond being vulnerable, yet I believe they will help others. I believe God wants me to share more like this (from my journals, but also free written like my last post) Would love to hear how they speak to you and if you find them encouraging. Reading this one again has really encouraged me, especially the last part as I am personally working through pride and humility. Enjoy xx Ali

I affirm you. You, from myself, my own flesh and blood, the love of my life. You are the love of my life because I gave my life for you. I laid it down. I breathed my last breath with you in mind. I poured out my blood, my living LIFE. The very sweat of my brow formed through excruciating and agonizing pain was all a labor of love. I loved you. I saw you before you ever came into being. Before you came to BE I saw you and wanted, desired, longed for a relationship with you. But here I am. Here I AM making all things new. I’m holding you right in the palm of my very hand, BELIEVE it. Your life is no accident. I hold, secure, fasten, hold together, orchestrate, and construct your life, IN MY HANDS. I hold all things together. Your heart, beating at my command, oxygen processing at my decree. Blood flowing, nourishing, sustaining at my orders. I am God, and there is no other. No one else I give my glory to, NO OTHERS. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know the plans– specific, clear cut, ordered, immaculate, orderly– in order, plans that I have. I have not lost them. They are not hindered. They are not lost. They are not defeated. They are not thwarted. They are not aborted. They ARE possible. They will happen. They will come to pass. What I speak, I will set in to motion. I will bring it to fruition. I will set it into motion. I have them and they are IN control. I have them, they are not going anywhere. No weapon the enemy has forged against you, fashioned against you, set up against you, WILL NOT PROSPER. My right hand of favor is upon your life. Season your words with grace. Season your life with love. Clothe yourself in humility. Clothe yourself with oversized humility. Allow it to overwhelm your being. With great humility comes great honor. The measure of love, of grace, of humility, of selflessness you bestow upon others will be returned seven-fold to you. So, give when it hurts. Give when you are tired. Give when you’re inconvenienced. Give when it kills you. Let your selfish flesh starve. Let your pride, your love of self, die and with it all the selfish desires. You are purchased with incorruptible seed, with my blood that speaks a better word.

I saw, I know, I’m aware. I love you anyways. Did you know that before you came to be, I saw you? I’ve been pursuing you your entire life. This is not coincidence. You have made it to these words on purpose. The love I have for you isn’t intimidated by your real thoughts, hurts, feelings. I’m intimately acquainted with you. I watch you as you sleep, watching over your entire life, breath by breath. I know things have been hard, I know it’s easier sometimes to numb the pain than to sit with it. It was painstaking and an act of passion to take all the mistakes and sickness—wrapped up all in one—on that tree so that I could forever be with you. I want you to know that I’m a safe place to put your heart. This world is crazy, I’m aware. When things around you are swirling like a tornado, come find me in the eye of the storm. My feet have always been available for you to lay all your concerns and I’ve spread wide a net for you to cast your cares to me. I’ll take care of them for you. I just wanted you to know that I’ve been thinking about you, and my thoughts towards you are good—they have always been and always will be. My grace is sufficient and covers you. My ears are always available to listen, I love to hear your voice. I know all your anxious thoughts and I want to let you know, that they aren’t overwhelming to me. If I can hold the sun in the palm of my hands, whatever is troubling you can be held there too. I love you, God. fffffffffffff

Peace is something I can’t live without. I can go without a lot of things and learn to be content in many situations but having unrest in my life is a deal breaker. Peace can easily be taken for granted, but when it fails to show up, it is unmistakable. When you walk hand in hand with it, allowing it to lead and guide all your steps, it is a game changer. Simply, when God is at the helm of my life—when I walk with him, listen and look for him in all I do, I have an addictive peace I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Isaiah 48:22 states, “But there is no peace for the wicked,” says the LORD.” In Isaiah 57:20 it continues to say, “But those who still reject me are like the restless sea, which is never still but continually churns up mud and dirt. There is no peace for the wicked,” says my God.” Personally, I don’t like to consider myself wicked, but it simply means evil or morally wrong. In all honesty, we all fall short of God’s standard of perfection and miss the mark morally. That’s why Jesus could confidently say to the crowd anxious to condemn the woman caught in the act of adultery, “Let’s have the man who has never had a sinful desire throw the first stone at her” John 8:7 TPT.

He knew that every single person has erred morally and would not have the ability to condemn her—and neither did he. In the text it is written, “Upon hearing that, her accusers slowly left the crowd one at a time, beginning with the oldest to the youngest, with a convicted conscience. Until finally, Jesus was left alone with the woman still standing there in front of him. So he stood back up and said to her, “Dear woman, where are your accusers? Is there no one here to condemn you?” Looking around, she replied, “I see no one, Lord.” Jesus said, “Then I certainly don’t condemn you either. Go, and from now on, be free from a life of sin.” John 8:9-11.

Although there is no peace for the wicked, Jesus made a way to be our peacemaker, our fiercest defender and the one who’s love is relentlessly extravagant. God never designed us to be apart from him, yet he gave us the choice to decide if we would love him or not. For those who want a life with God, he made a way for us through giving the world his son Jesus. God in human flesh, born unto the world, came to be sin so we could live a life free of sin. This basic belief that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior offers us the gift of his holy spirit which is the tangible form of peace and direction that we so desperately need.

In this crazy life we need a beacon of hope—like a lighthouse sending out a reassuring light to let sea travelers know that they are near shore. I too feel like I am voyaging through the rough and choppy waters of life. It can be disorienting from day to day, even moment to moment with changing emotions and stressful situations. However, God, his word, and his holy spirit are my ever-present help—my light assuring me I am close to shore.

Lately my emotions have been overwhelming, and situations have seemed bigger than life. The temptation in those moments is to turn to something that will numb the pain or allow me to escape whatever I am facing, but I’ve found a better way to deal. I’ve taken my big and broken heart and I’ve opened myself to the Bible. I’ve taken myself exactly as I am, overwhelmingly big emotions and all, and have taken refuge in His words. I stay there until he heals my wounds and pours out his peace, which he always does.

It’s captured perfectly in Psalm 18:24 “God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.” I have had a tight grip on my life and have never let myself be vulnerable with anyone, not even myself, never realizing how damaging that was! I always prided myself on being a truthful person but didn’t feel safe being honest with myself. How could I have lived my entire life loving God but never opened my heart to him, fully? I’ll never know every single why, but I do know that when the student is ready the teacher appears.

God doesn’t always reveal to us why he does certain things. God knows sometimes that it’s better for us to learn from our circumstances than to know the ins and outs. It says in the Bible that his ways are higher than our ways and I know that a lot of times our perspectives are what need changing. I challenge you to open your heart, His word and let the God of the universe in. He has a once-in-a-lifetime plan for you. He wants to take you to places you couldn’t imagine in your wildest dreams. There is a pathway of life he has for you, and it’s time for us to walk it out and see our future unfold brighter and brighter.

He left us instructions for this life in a hand written love letter, customized for you, known as the Holy Bible and the transformative life and love of Jesus are written in red.

It’s so easy to walk through life and miss some of the most beautiful moments and miracles. There is a hidden, secret layer of life that exists right before us. It’s God, plain and simple. He exists and he is before us. We often miss him completely. Here’s an analogy. Have you ever seen a Fed-Ex truck? Many of us, myself included, have. Have you ever noticed the arrow between the ‘E’ and the ‘X’? If not, would you have naturally noticed it? For me, I had seen those trucks a million times but have never seen the arrow until someone had pointed it. It had been right in front of me, right in front of my face, the entire time.

Similarly, hearing from and seeing God in every day life is a lot like that. He is like a magic eye puzzle. He is there either right in front of us or in the immediate background of everything. If we just settle ourselves, rest our vision and be still (key word, still) he and everything he wants to speak to us will come into focus.

I often think we make hearing from God more difficult than it is. I know I often create similar environments from the last time God spoke in order for him to move and speak in the same way, but God is not to be contained. He can speak and move however, whenever and wherever he wants.

God sometimes feels so far away but he is as near as our breath. He is in the sky, the snow covered hills, the clouds and stars in the sky– everything you can see and even don’t see!

It may feel like God is far away, but here is a metaphor. God can not directly touch us like we can, human to human; there remains a barrier. It’s as if we are fish in a big cosmic bowl. Yet, God looks over us and in moments of him speaking or moving it’s as if he put his finger in the water bowl, swirling the waters above. We can see the ripple effects of this and we can know he has spoken and is God.