I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born..

Isaiah 66:9.  

This has been going through my head all semester. Actually it is even the desktop on my computer.

I have been in a lot of pain this semester.  Growing Pains. Physical Pains. Spiritual Pains. Emotional Pains.  Pain.  It is a season of it.

If you have read my previous posts, you know that this has been a hard year for me. A lot of pains and a lot of change.   I now live most of the months of the year in Springfield, MO.
This semester I have fought giants. I had 8 classes, some of which I never thought I would pass.  I was far away from so many special people in my life.  I missed out on the wedding planning for my older brother's wedding that is in a week.  My dog had to stay with my parents. I had to do so many new and uncomfortable things. I had to trust God as it felt like at times He was purposely hurting me.  I had no choice. I had to keep fighting.
But that promise in scripture kept in my heart as did so many others. (2 Corinthians 12:9 too)

And you know what?

I survived.  I made new friends that I know will be there for life.  I learned that I can work hard and that I can leave the rest to God because He wasn't trying to punish me. I learned that I can lean on Him for anything. I learned He is good... at all times.

The hits keep on coming. But the blessings do too! God is so good.

I found out today that not only did I pass the classes that I fought with all semester, I got A's and B's in them.  That may seem small to some, but to those that saw how hard I had to work and all the hours with the tutors I spent and how many hours I practiced and those that prayed for me daily, it is a miracle.  And as my mother who listened to my tears during hard class days....God answered prayers. God is good.  All the time.

God broke me. He has successfully taken away all security blankets in my life. He has ripped anything I was holding onto out of my hands. A non-crying girl now has officially started crying. (I seriously don't even cry in movies and started crying hearing piano the other day during finals)

I am so thankful He has.

I don't want God's second best. I want to change the world for Him. I want to sing His praises and help find His lost sheep.  I want to speak into others lives. I want to be a role model for my future children.(a loooonnnnggg time from now). I want to be the best I can be for God. I want to hear "Well done my good and faithful servant."  I want to be the best Alexis Grace Salensky I can be.


So He broke me.  And I know He will again and again. I know I will fight Him again on it, but He will always win. I just love Him so much, but He loves me more and wants more for me. He wants to give me the desires of my heart, and He knows how to get me there when I don't.
Because of this year I now know who I am in Christ and what God is capable of.  That is the best gift I could ever receive other than His Son.


How beautiful is it to have a Heavenly Father who loves us too much to leave us how we are?


Love and Blessings,

Lexie


Oh yeah my favorite things for today(some of them):

A Sea of Faces...

This world we live in is full of faces....a sea of them.
Happy ones, Melancholy ones.... so many different kinds.
I see so many faces every day being at college and driving around town, but this week I wondered if I actually looked close enough to see who they really are.

I also noticed that humans are so good at hiding insecurities. Make up over this pimple, baggy clothes over this part of me I don't like, dress to get attention and to hide that my soul is chained up...
We hide so much that we are not fully sure who we are anymore.
If we don't know who we are, then we search for anything.
If we hide who we are, then we won't know who we are at all eventually.
I see so many girls my age who just want any attention they can get, they want the status of being popular, they want to feel perfect. But when they get there, they are even emptier and more broken then they started.

My heart broke as I looked a people and saw these things while I was out and about this week. It broke because I know the one thing that can fix this for them.  Jesus.

God sees us as we are. He loves us when we are happy, and when we are upset. He loves us when we succeed and loves us when we mess up.  He loves every hair on our head, and loves us when our "imperfections" are all over...to Him we could never be imperfect.  He sees when we are broken hearted, and He longs for us to know that we are found in Him and that He sees our tears.  He loves us for who we are, and we are His.


I have had to remember this as I am in my new stage in life. I am His. How amazing and refreshing is that? We are loved and His. How blessed are we?

As you go throughout this new week, look around and look deeper at those around you and remind someone that our Father loves them. There is no greater Love than that.

Blessings,

Lex

Some things just make me happy :)

Flowers....Baby animals....The sun as it rises or sets... These things just make me happy.
Another thing that makes me happy is God. and Church. and Singing.....and sometimes that makes me strange to people. I really love my Savior. I believe in a relationship with God. That He loves me regardless of what I do. I believe He loves me for me. That makes me happy.
I love vintage things, I love history, I love gardening, I love adventures and I love sleep. I love the country and the mountains. I love

 I love to cook. I love to encourage others and show the love that Christ shows me. I feel like I am the oldest 19 year old ever. I feel like  sixty year old in the body of a college student.
I love my family. I love that we have four dogs and four cats. I love that my brother is marrying an amazing girl that I am thrilled to call my future sister. I love that my parents are God fearing and encouraging and always said I could do whatever I set my mind to if God was in it. I love that my siblings were hand chosen to e in my family, no matter how they got here. Birth or Adoption. I love adoption.
I love mixing things up, and I love when decor doesn't match and have the mix of vintage and modern. I love blankets and dishes and mugs. I love food, I love hedgehogs. I love all things living. I love orphans and older people, and I pray for people a lot. I love to pray.
I am not sure what the point of this post is other than to just say that I love to love these things and to show that life is not all that bad. I am walking through a storm right now, but there is beauty. There is joy. There is love. I am not someone to throw the word love around. Do not mistake this post for that. I do not use that word lightly, I do not throw it around. I do not give up my affection or trust easily. But tonight, I am in love with these joys of life God gave me.  God is good. All the time.


So here are my normal favorite things of this very moment. After all , what else do we have promised than this very moment?:)

Love and Blessings,

Alexis Grace

New Seasons. New Struggles. New Joy.

I haven't posted in a while, or even written in a while. I haven't done much of anything that wears my heart on my sleeve. Art, singing and playing, writing....I just haven't.  In the past few months my whole life has changed in so many ways. I have lost all of my comfort zones....I have been figuratively recreated. Well I am still a work in progress...

It started a while back with the comfort zone of my church. I had made leading worship and being a leader there into so much of my life, that I wasn't going anywhere else, I was so happy with what God was doing there. Why would I want to change anything with my life? . I was in community college taking core classes, I was leading worship with my favorite people, I was being a big sister to my youth babies. But then the acceptance letters came.

 I had said before this to God that I would go where He sent me, and I applied to all the AG schools within a reasonable distance that had a worship program. I laid out a fleece to God that if He would get me into the schools, and into the music programs, and would show me which school by giving me crazy scholarships, then I would go there and trust Him..... Don't make that kind of fleece to God unless you mean it. Because I figured it would never happen and that I would just stay happy and never move forward because I would know that I was where God wanted me. But I knew in my heart of hearts that was not true.

By January God made it clear to me that I needed to step down from the worship team that I put my heart into for years to focus on school. It was the hardest time in my life up until then. If you have never been on a team that is a family, then I pray that you get that joy. It was my whole world to worship and minister with these wonderful beautiful men and women of God. Leaving was so hard. It still is so hard to think about, but God's plan is perfect.

I got a lot of scholarships by May and I had to decide between two great schools...Then the extra scholarships came. Evangel was it. Missouri. Complete opposite world from my little home in Georgia. I knew from the time that God called me into the ministry and from when I first heard about Evangel that it would be Springfield I would be going to. But I really had hoped I was wrong.  I wanted the beach and I got a place where it snows. But after the joy, then shock and reality and then joy again, I was so happy. God had answered my prayer. He had shown me the path He wanted me to go.  He is amazing.

Then another set back came about 2 months ago.  I hear my mom scream at 9 in the morning. I think she is just yelling at my siblings or something, but no she wasn't.  I run outside to see my father laying on the ground with the large tractor we have flipped over. He is moaning and everyone is screaming. My mom yells not to move and that she is going to call help. I hear my dad say that he couldn't move if He wanted to.  The world stops as the ambulance sirens come and they lift my dad into the car and drive away.
I drive to the hospital and as I go there, I feel a weird mix of peace and fear. I hear"... the God of angel armies is always by my side..." and I feel peace. I feel like God speaks to some through the word, some through others, and some through music and the arts. I have always been the third. But then I get back into the loudness as I go to the hospital. I sit praying for God not to take my father away from me. I pray for healing and that he can walk. What would we do without him?

As I sit with my older brother in the lobby, I decide that If God does take my father away or that He is paralyzed, I will not go to school. How could I leave my mother in a month at a time like this? How could I leave my family. This made no sense. God gave me the scholarships and had answered my prayers. How could this happen?

Thankfully, God answers prayers and is so much better than we could ever hope.  My dad got feeling back, He could walk. That very day that he was almost gone, he was back. There is no way that He should be able to, He was launched off the tractor and landed on his head.  He just had two broken parts of his spine and a rotatory cuff that was torn. The doctors could not explain this. I can. God heard my cries. He healed my dad. He had a plan. He just had to show me that He was my comfort, not my family. He was my all in all and my heavenly father. I need to trust Him more.

As my dad recovered the following weeks, everything went wrong. We were under spiritual attack. My dad pulled me aside and said that he believes God wants me to go to school so strongly, that He healed him just  so I would be able to go. My dad is not someone who says things like that to me. My mom is super Pentecostal and spiritual outwardly always. My dad is the business man side of spiritual, always quieter. I listen closely when He says things like this.

The weeks went by quickly, and I moved to Springfield. Being around people I don't know=Comfort zone broken. New friends when I have had the same friends for years=Comfort Zone broken. Leaving my family and pets=Comfort Zone broken. Having to live around a bunch of girls when I always was friends with more guys than girls=Comfort Zone Broken. Living with someone else=Comfort Zone broken (Thankfully my roommate is a huge blessing to my life, I am so thankful for her). Music classes that challenge my very confidence in what God called me to do=Comfort zone broken. 

In all this change, I am scared and exhausted and just plain tuckered out. But God is in this. I found a church that I love. I walked in and I knew I was home. I felt the spirit. I met friends who pray over me and who make me smile and I can relate with. My once foreign room is now my safe place that I can relax. There is peace in this place

I still miss my old life, it would be easier to call it quits and go....But God is with me so closely here. I am still a work in progress. You never know that God is your strength and your all until that is the only option you have.  God is with me.  " In God, whose word I praise, In God I trust I will not be afraid"  I am stepping out in faith. I have been. God is good. All the time.  The God of angel armies is always by my side. I am loved, I am cherished. I am His.

I am still a work in progress, God's work in progress.

So I leave you for now with some joyful pictures.  Smile today, whatever is going on in your life. Remember, you are a work in progress and every setback is a set up for God to show His awesome mighty power.

God bless,
Alexis Grace

Just a Couple Things On My Mind

So lately I have been looking around in life for new seasons, and that has upset some people. I have people say one thing to me and different things behind my back, and I could really get upset about that but I have decided to just love them and pray for them.  I figure despite all the things people say to me and about me, I should love like Jesus did and does. I do not ever try to judge because Lord knows I am not perfect and will never claim to be. God loves me, He loves those who hurt me, He loves everyone. So today I stand up, shake the dirt off and smile and bless them. I bless the people in authority that hurt me, I bless those next to me who hurt me and I bless those ahead in my journey who will hurt me and those in my past who have hurt me. I pray for them and bless them. No matter how hard it is someday, I cannot afford to hold a grudge because my soul depends on Grace and life is short.

Luke 6:28 "Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."


My favorite things of this week:

He just wants me...

God just wants me, little imperfect five foot 2 me.
 He doesn't need me to offer anything else like my talents or my empty promises. He doesn't care what I look like, what size pants I wear, what my hair looks like or what I happen to be doing at the moment. He wants my heart. He wants me.
 He loves me despite my flaws and that I probably fail him a thousand times a day. He loves me despite
my feeling of being inadequate in practically everything I do. He loves me.  He loves me for me.
He loves me and just wants me. Why do we complicate this so much?
 "Not because we loved Him but because He loved us, He sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins" "For God so loved the World that He gave His Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life." We make this way too complicated because I mean read those verses, He already chose us and He knows our baggage.... He just wants me :)


Favorite things for today:

Blessings to you all, remember that your life is a ministry so start using it :)

-Alexis Grace