2.

There are so many voices heard in a single day. It's crazy how the familiar voices can be picked up, even in a crowd. I watch three girls five days a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. But, no matter what room of the house they are in, I can differentiate their cries. The second the scream is leaving their mouth I know which little for which I am searching. It's reflexive. I have spent hundreds of hours with these little ones since July of this year, and it doesn't take a glance to know which is addressing me or needs attention.

I know them. They know me. When I enter into the house and call out their names, they know that it is me. They scream out my name and rush towards me or tell me simply where they are.

It's intimate, personal, and real. I cherish every second I have with them. It isn't always easy! Children aren't always going to make it easy to attend to them, but it is wonderful building a relationship with them daily.

That's how it was in the Garden. No matter where they were, God didn't have to look at Adam and Eve to know it was them talking with Him. Sure, you can't fault how easy that is considering there were only two humans strolling through Eden at this time.

But that's how it is for us right now. God loves us so much, so intimately and personally, that He doesn't even have to blink to know that it is us calling for him. He already knows it is me, Ashley, crying out when life is rushing at me. He already knows that is me, Ashley, praying a prayer of desperation or exclaiming and proclaiming thanks for what He has done.

That's so personal and mindblowing and special and wonderful. I really hope you get that. God knows you. He knows you. And I really hope that you know and recognize His voice. I really hope you can hear and establish His voice over every bit of noise that the world has to offer you.

I pray in a sea of voices, the Voice of the One that knows you is heard loud and clear.

1.

This is not what I envisioned for my life. I did not anticipate that this would be the desert song I would be singing this season in my life. Tragedy, victimization, and sins against you aren't something that you can predict or chart. But, it happens. When it happens it is raw, real, and heart-wrenching.

I serve a God who is close to broken-hearted and rescues those crushed in Spirit.

I have carried around this same bag of bricks for my entire adulthood. Everything that happened to me as a child, in my teenage years, and since I bridged that gap of 17 to 18, were turned into bricks. Why bricks? Because they are heavy, and if you hit yourself with them, they hurt ;). No, they are bricks because I build every relationship and situation on the foundation of the lessons that I've learned through my past hurts.

If I keep building my life on these bricks, my house will look the same and eventually collapse around me. (Just like it always does).

I don't want to be that woman anymore. I don't want to look back and see the same theme of destruction and hurt and anger marked on every pile of rubble behind me. I don't have to. I don't have to be lost in all of that, because I'm a new creation in Christ. I can trade my pile of bricks, for Him. When Christ is my foundation, then I am on an unmovable ground.

I'm a lot like a computer that doesn't get shut down nearly enough. I try to run all of these programs, and they build and build until the computer cannot handle it anymore and it eventually shuts down in an angry fashion. I do that with my emotions. I think that I can plow through every hurt and every incident, and not deal with them or shut them down properly. Before I know it, my life needs a CTRL+ALT+DEL. When tragedy strikes in my life, I am beginning to recognize that it is God's way of closing out all of the programs I don't need and showing me that I need to reboot, and start running on His platform, not mine.

Thank God for restarts.