A Life After Death

Well, the Lord must know that I am a visual learner- and oh how I wish I was not *shudder*
Don't you love poopie diapers in the morning?
Anyway- I am going to keep this as un-graphic as possible while still getting that point across (and if you still can't get the point than maybe you need to spend a week at my house and the Lord will have to teach this to you the way He taught me!)

My grandmom made a mess last night in her pants. My grandmom tried to clean the mess up herself. My grandmom made the mess ten times messier than the mess originally was. I had to clean the mess up first thing this morning. (I'm just so thankful for the Lord's grace for the moment on mornings like this!)

Spiritual application: I sin. I try to clean up my own sin. I make more of a mess cleaning up my own sin than there originally was. God comes and cleans me up. Praise Him!

If my grandmom has just hollered to me I would have come and cleaned her up (I've become a light sleeper when it comes to her voice). It would have been simple. But no- she had to try to do it herself and made it such a bigger mess than it had to be.

When I dirty myself, all I really have to do is call out to my God and He will come and oh so gently wash me up. Why do I forget this all the time.

And here is the clincher-
My grandmom was pretty ashamed of herself (it was really sad!!!) for getting so dirty, but once I cleaned her up- she still thought she was dirty!
I keep having to convince her that she's clean!!!!
It's insane. And that's when the Lord really spoke to my heart. I still think I'm dirty all the time- but God has made me clean! How freeing! And God is such a better cleaner up of our dirt than I am!
It was a beautiful lesson (in a gross, dirty, poopy way, you know?)

Paul was right- our old life is rubbish- literally dung. And how foolish we are to hold onto it. How disgusting we are to hold onto it!
Praise the Lord He is able to wash us white as snow!
Psa 51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Eze 36:25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
Mat 8:3 And Jesus put forth [his] hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
Jhn 13:10 Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash [his] feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all.
Jhn 15:3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

Grandmom quote of the Day: (speaking about a song)- "That is a clean ballad"

Ouch.
God is so good.
And so merciful to me for not letting me sit in all of my ugliness, and failing, and immaturity. And I'm very thankful.
Sunday night prayer nights have been really good- in a very real way. Not in some feeling. Not in some weird emotion driven thing. In my real life I am seeing God work. In my heart. He's literally going straight to my heart and opening my eyes to all that I am not and all that He is and how incredible His grace is to me.

You see, I said this prayer three Sunday Nights ago...and it went like this "Lord search me and know my heart and see if there is any wicked way in me..."
Well guess what He did. He answered that prayer (do you ever pray and than instantly kind of me be like- um never mind Lord I didn't really mean to pray that if you were going to answer that!!!)
Well, I'm really genuinely glad He did answer that. But it has seriously been a constant wrestling with the Lord. I want my life to be my own, you see. I think that I have some right to it. That I actually own it or something crazy like that.

You see. When I prayed for revival- really I wanted God to take me and my friends and the pastors that I liked and to put us on some pedestal and to really just work in us and really it was just about my glory- um yikes. So wrong. And so not what God is doing. And so He's literally ripping that out of me. Humbling me. Changing my desires. Changing me.
I've been really struggling with my right to myself- I mean, my time was my time, right? And I mean, I had time for God in my life- but I'd sectioned it off for my convenience. He didn't seriously want all of my life right? Wasn't I giving Him enough of it- He had Monday nights, Wednesday nights, Thursday afternoons, Most Friday nights and sometimes Saturdays when I did ministry and a lot of Sunday and also part of everyday when I would spend some alone time with Him- but seriously, I literally would say to God, "during the day is my time, Lord" and I really was holding onto it. Did He really want my whole heart? My whole life?
But I struggled. Because I was scared. I was scared that He would really want me to run to Him for all of my satisfaction. I was scared He'd call me to actually give things up- tv? movies? books? what if He told me to stop completely- don't I have some right to myself????!!!!
Anyway, I'd wrestle and wrestle and wrestle with God.

Come Monday Night. I was very busy cleaning up after College and Career Coffee and Tea Ministry (basically my friend Sara and I serve coffee and baked goods to our college and career group) and my dear friend Chantale comes up to me while I'm carrying the pots back to the kitchen.
My friend Chantale was saved just a little over a year ago. November 2nd will be the anniversary of the day we met when she came to college and career and I met her and the Lord has used her to just remind so many of us of God's abilty to save the lost (she came from a completely secular background- and knew nothing about God or the Bible) and what it looks like to go from complete darkness to light.
Anyway, she is pretty nervous and fumbling a bit with her words so once we're in the kitchen I stop moving around so I can listen to her. She holding her Bible and finally is like "You know I struggle with knowing God's voice or not but for awhile now I've felt like I needed to talk to you" and she goes on to say that she's been reading through Thessalonians and whenever the word "Idleness" came up for some reason she thought of me and felt like God kept telling her to bring it up to me and she read me the verses in Thessalonions (which are actually very harsh)
Well go ahead Lord and cut me to the core and humble me all in one night, why don't you???
But honestly God is incredible.
At first I was like, what? And than the Lord just confirmed it to my heart.
Idleness. Laziness.
My sin- that is what it is. I wanted to call it some huge thing. I knew something between me and the Lord was wrong but I kept trying to find some big thing seeking God for what it was- when really- it was something very simple. Pure laziness.
Wow.
And the Lord knew I never could have recieved it from a different friend. Chantale seriously was so loving and humble and fearful in coming to be about it- and she loved me enough to do and loved the Lord enough to obey HIm and I'm so thankful.
And I feel like my eyes are open to how seriously WASTEFUL I have been with my days, with the way I've lived my life. How many hours have I spent watching tv in my grandmom's room and sleeping my mornings away and ugh it's just awful.
But my pride keeps trying to make it's ugly head pop up-
It's trying to make excuses for myself- oh it's awful- "Doesn't she know that I am Tiffany Doran- I take care of my grandmom"
And what- am I going to stand before God on the last day and say "I took care of my grandmom" when I have to account for my actions. What does that mean when taking care of grandmom accounts for literally only a fraction of my time- sure I have to be at home, but I spend so much time just sitting around doing NOTHING!!!!

The Lord has just encouraged me so much with Hebrews 12
He chastens me because He loves me. He's not going to let me stay this way. I'm so thankful.

" Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master, whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be?
Never disregard a conviction that the Holy Spirit brings to you. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to bring it to your mind, it is the very thing He is detecting in you. You were looking for some big thing to give up, while God is telling you of some tiny thing that must go. But behind that tiny thing lies the stronghold of obstinacy, and you say, “I will not give up my right to myself”— the very thing that God intends you to give up if you are to be a disciple of Jesus Christ."
My Utmost for His Highest- Oswald Chambers Sept 24th

"It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say mistakenly, “Oh, that must be from the devil.”
“Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, “Don’t be blind on this point anymore— you are not as far along spiritually as you thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you, but I’m revealing it to you right now.” When the Lord disciplines you like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a right-standing relationship before God.
“. . . nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him.” We begin to pout, become irritated with God, and then say, “Oh well, I can’t help it. I prayed and things didn’t turn out right anyway. So I’m simply going to give up on everything.” Just think what would happen if we acted like this in any other area of our lives!
Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me— sanctification is God’s idea of what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)."
Oswald Chambers August 14th

I love Fall.
I love food.
I love Fall foods.
I love the flavors of fall...apples, apple cider (mmmm with william sonoma last season mulling spices!), pumpkin, pumpkin spice coffee, pumpkin pie.
and I love certain recipes that I usually make in the fall/winter...
such as
Martha's Walnut Stuffed Chicken Roulades (sooo delicious)



and
Cooking Light's Spice- Rubbed Pork Tenderloin mmmmmm!


and this Chocolate Loaf Cake is good anytime (hence Smitten's Title "Everyday Chocolate Cake")




Honestly! So good. Anyway, one of these goodies is in the oven and I need to go check on it!
Above each photo is a link to the photo source and recipe if you want to try it out yourself <3

I was perusing facebook this morning and you know I saw a few of my friends had posted a video and were commenting things on it about "watch this" and "it's worth it" and I just thought it was some woman singing. Eventually, when I saw a comment about it's length I realized it was not a singer, but a speaker...and so I pressed play...and 16 minutes later I was just astounded. I actually didn't have words other than "wow" to describe the words I had just heard, and not just the words, but literally the fountains of living water that flowed from this woman's mouth. Watch this video.


" There are things that you will be only able to learn by the weakest of these. And when you snuff them out you are the one that loses. The Lord looks after them, but you are the one that will suffer forever. And what arrogance- what absolute arrogance! And it has been an argument for so long in this human place that we live that the stronger should dominate the weaker- should determine who lives and dies. The arrogance of that! Do you not realize that you cannot make your own heart beat. Don't you realize that all the power you think you possess, you really possess none of it. It's the mercy of God that sustaincs you- even when you hate Him." -Gianna Jessen.

Honestly- I think I do this at this time every year. Promise to update about Coatesville and surf camp- than I am just busy AT surf camp and Coatesville and than everyone goes back to school and I just love fall and so I never update- I'm just a liar I guess.
Anyway, I have really weird dreams all the time. Ranging from getting married with a black gospel choir serenading me to pigs surfing with the help of ducks to trying to jog to highschool with my friend Julianne and a bag of hand-me-down clothes. WHY??? Maybe that's why I am tired all the time- I'm too busy all night to get any rest.

Anyway, Sometimes I have themes I'm learning but I think it's been more of my entire life needs to just die and my desires need to just die and I am getting to the total end of my self and all of my ability and so it's time for Jesus to just do it all and have His way. I've felt super super unable lately- and do you know what- i really really am. But God is just so able. And drawing near to Him is just so utterly sweet. I'm realizing more and more I just want to be near Him and for Him to delight in me and I in Him.
Some journal quotes and verses as of late:
"The spirit that comes in is not that of doing anything for Jesus but of being a perfect delight to Him. The secret of the missionary is- I am His and He is carrying out His enterprises through me. Be entirely His"- Oswald Chambers
"The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water" John 4:14
"Keep right at the source, and you will be blessed personally? No- out of you will flow rivers of living water, irrepressible life"- Oswald Chambers
All right one theme has been water- living water. Yes. That's seriously what I want- The Holy Spirit overflowing out of me.
"For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water" Jer. 2:13
Another theme is like just how we as a people can think everything is okay when it is really not okay between us and God- the way people don't even have shame about their sin anymore-
"They have healed thew wound of my people lightly saying, 'Peace, peace' when there is no peace.
"Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
"No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not even know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them they shall be overthrown,' says the Lord" Jer. 6:14-15

Revival has been on my heart lately.
"If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways than I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sins and heal their land" 2 Chronicles 7:14
My church is being stirred. My pastor has decided to cancel out Sunday night Bible Study and make it a prayer meeting instead for like the next 10 months or however long it takes us to go through Luke on Sunday mornings. I'm excited. I don't know what it is going to look like. at all. I mean, there are thousands of people at our church- is everyone going to show? Is anyone going to show? We need to be stirred. I need to be stirred. I need personal revival in my life. Sometimes I step back and I've just been like Lord- am I even willing? Am I really willing for Him to actually come in and remove everything that needs to be removed? To actually do whatever He wants in my heart? Oh boy...
But The Lord has been also just reminding me through the books of the law that His commands are for my good- that everything He does is for my good and that He only wants good things for me. I mean, He's only ever done good for me- I look back even on my grandfather dying, how he would be 82 today, that we'd be celebrating our birthdays together tonight- and there's a part of me that's sad. I'm sad that even my crazy lunatic grandmother remembered that it was his birthday today before I did. I mean, I miss him. But I can see God's incredible sovereign hand in taking him and even the way it went down- seeing a loved one in a foul smelling, death filled respirator hospital is one of the most horrible things in the world. Being at Bible College and your grandfather having a triple bypass is hard. Not being with your family when your grandparents are in the hospital is hard- much less being an ocean away. Watching your mom sob in hallways when doctors are telling her her father may have brain damage is hard and watching your mom and aunts fight over whether to have my grandpop keep fighting or remove the respirator was probably one of the darkest most horrible times in my life.
BUT GOD.
Honestly. But God. God brought such incredible beauty from those ashes. My grandfather's salvation. My grandmother's salvation. My cousin's salvation. My up and down year of sin and despair- but ultimately- victory over sin, brokenness, joy, peace, love, patience.
God did it. Praise Him.
And so why do I still doubt?!!!!
Anyway- I'm excited, and we're asking the Lord to have His way.
So I'll let you know how that goes.
I've been listening to a lot of J. Edwin Orr. A man who studied revival and tromped all over the UK telling people about Jesus.
Check out some of his speakings-

Sorry for the randomness- I'm telling you I feel like it's been a very random month and two million years since surf camp but one day I'll update ;)

here

So anyway- surf camp was absolutely incredible. the best one yet. I think God works more in my heart than the kids every year. He is incredible. He showed me so many things about Himself and about myself and He showed me how incredibly faithful He is to His promises- I cannot even describe it! I love Him because He first loved me.
Honestly- I'm so blown away at how able He is to work and do things in my life I honestly never believed He could do.
I'll leave you hanging there and I guess add some more details later ;)

I'll be twenty-two in exactly one month- which I think will be the absolute perfect age. I'm excited for a new year. God is so good and I'm so excited to see what He wants to do in me and so ready for Him to get rid of every ugly thing in me and transform me by His beautiful grace.

Summer was wonderful but I'm ready for fall. I've already picked three pumpkins from my garden and need to start canning them. I want to buy so much yarn and knit and sew and be warm in cozy scarves. I want to bake and read and make soup! Our corn stalks are dying and are going to look so lovely for fall! I love the change of seasons!

I feel like this summer was an eternity because of everything Christ has just done in me and I'm just so refreshed and revived and refocused. Now back to the daily. My mom's going back to work and I'm done my adventures for awhile. But my life is not my own and I just want to seek the Lord daily for what He has for me to do. His plans are so much better than mine!
Isaiah 54:4-5
"Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed;
Neither be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame;
For you will forget the shame of your youth,
And will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore.
For your Maker is your husband,
The LORD of hosts is His name;
And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel;
He is called the God of the whole earth."
Photos curtosy of dan faehl and leslie daniels