a deep breath.

this sunday in church Ron spoke on sin. my heart has been stuck there for a while. this message was one of deep conviction and raw emotion for me. he explained that in order to rid yourself of sin, you must turn away from it completely...in every sense of the word. he then gave our congregation an opportunity to give those sins God laid on our hearts up.

we each got a small piece of white paper and had the chance to write down a sin that we struggle with on that paper. we then were asked to walk up to the stage and place them in various buckets and those buckets were taken outside to a live video. we watched as each of those pieces of paper were thrown into a fire pit indicating that sin being given to God, surrendered.

to watch so many people in my church body, my home walk up there and place struggles into that bucket almost moved me to tears. i know for me, that illusion was something that will stick with me forever. the struggle i placed in that bucket is something that i have been running from with a deadly fear and i feel like writing it down on that paper was my way of turning around, facing it and saying...."bring it"

i have been dwelling and processing here of what this looks like and where I go from here. Ron encouraged us to tell someone what this struggle was. i am not there yet. i am praying that God softens my heart to be at that place soon.

something that i have been thinking about and just tonight read in Romans 8, is the battle between our righteousness and our flesh, our new versus old self. i often times allow my old self to jump right back in and take over and allow myself to go places i dont want to be. speaking with a friend a few days ago she said, its like getting up and choosing to put on a different set of clothes in the morning. you have to get up everyday and chose the "new self" set of jeans and a tee vs. the "old self" set. this idea resonated so greatly within me.

i have a silly little thing i do when i am feeling overwhelmed in any way either good or bad, i take a deep breath. when i breathe in i say to myself "breathe in the Holy Spirit" and when i breathe out i say " breathe out sin and everything bad within me". although it may seem odd to you, it makes the world of a difference to me. its a quick reminder that i have a powerful savior on my team/side and being reminded that he dwells within me like that is such a sense of comfort.

i have found myself doing that a lot more within the paste few days. when i am tempted to chose sin, i take a deep breath to remind myself. not that this is the end all be all, because sometimes i still chose sin...but it has helped me quite a few times.

so this week, tomorrow, this hour, the next minute...i will be taking  breaths to be reminded that the spirit of an strong, mighty, living God dwells within me.