by Gina Colburn | Nov 1, 2015 | Uncategorized
Gratitude…something we take for granted. The month of November somehow gets overlooked as simply the time and space between Halloween and Christmas. But November is the month of thankfulness. I try to be grateful everyday but I try to really focus in November on being grateful and not being caught up in the busyness of the Holiday season. To be intentional about slowing down and realizing how much I have to be grateful for.
Today, I am extremely grateful for my husband, Jason. He has been without a job for a few months and it has been extremely difficult on him and our family. But today I am grateful for a new opportunity and a new job that he will start in the next couple of weeks. The new journey is always marked with uncertainty but there is a peace that comes that God sees and walks this journey with us.
We take steps, we walk through the muck and the beauty knowing that God never leave us. Together, we find gratitude in each day so that we can live out faith. When we focus on gratitude we learn to embrace each day and each circumstance with a new appreciation for what God has done and is doing. So this November be grateful! Find something each day you can celebrate no matter how big or small. Live in gratitude…
by Gina Colburn | Jun 29, 2015 | Uncategorized
Remember when we used to be friends? You know the kind of friends that see each other face to face. Plan time together that included coffee, laughs and sometimes a few tears. Or those times when a text or call would be the start of a long lengthy conversation solving the worlds’ problems. Do you remember when we could agree to disagree on our differences without fear of being called names? I remember… do you?
Now it seems we have been reduced to social media friends at best. We might stop in periodically to each other’s page to see what’s on your mind? But texts go unanswered, private messages sit staring that they have been read with no response, the phone doesn’t ring and the coffee dates are never scheduled.
I don’t think we meant for it to happen. Life has a way of stepping in and creating space and distance. But I wonder sometimes if it could be the way it used to be… I find myself asking the hard questions about our relationship? Did I do something? …or did we simply drift? Whatever it was I cherish the memories made.
In the midst of it all, our nation is divided on so many issues. Relationships are becoming more and more fragile. We begin to judge our loved ones and friends based on the blog, news article and status we share. We begin to see our differences of belief as reasons to discard each other and “unfriend” one another. We are no longer offering grace and leading with love. We want everyone to see our view and our view only.
I am not writing this to anyone in particular and writing it for everyone…if that makes sense. You see relationships are tricky. Relationships are at the core of everything we do. We can’t escape them…even when we try. I have been in ministry for 15 years and I have seen a good many relationships come and go. Marriages that I thought would last for sure…end. Marriages I thought for sure would not make it through the crisis…thrive. I have seen friendships that were as close as can be fade away to simply memories on the shelf.
I have spent countless hours counseling many people and at the heart of it all is relationships. Relationships with God or lack thereof…relationships with family members…relationships with spouses and children… I wish I could say that I have it all figured out. I wish that every relationship I had was perfect and what I wanted it to be…but I can’t. I have been guilty of neglect of the precious gift of friendship. I have been hurt by the casting aside of relationship. I have hurt people, and been hurt by people.
And yet I keep moving forward, asking forgiveness, forgiving others. I put boundaries in place where they need to be and pray that they are the right boundaries. I pray everyday that God would give me wisdom as I navigate through all the different relationships He has trusted with me. I pray for those who have a bad taste in their mouth when they see my name or face on their newsfeed or hear someone mention me. I try to offer grace because I am in need of so much grace!
I want the world to know what I stand for…and not against. And I am for relationships… I really believe relationships matter! I really do believe that God loves everyone. RIGHT.WHERE.THEY.ARE! I really believe that we can have relationships with people who believe differently than us. And I really believe that we can work through incredibly messy stuff to be friends, family and live in community.
John 15: 12-15 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
I say all of this to say, relationships take work. The work will include laughs, tears, and determination. Don’t give up! Keep moving forward! Keep forgiving and asking forgiveness! Don’t let pride, baggage and unmet expectations keep you from moving past the messy into the beautiful.
by Gina Colburn | Apr 30, 2015 | Uncategorized
For all those mom’s and dads that find themselves this time of year looking over the past 18 years and asking themselves “where did time go?” “how did my little boy/girl grow up so fast?” This year is the second year in a row I find myself reviewing 18 years of one of my children’s life. We are on the home stretch of writing the final chapter of Jordan’s childhood…high school is days away from being done. Middle school has long since been left and grade school seems like a lifetime ago.
I do not just simply ask the questions that I listed above but I also ask “if I did enough,” and “is he ready,” or “what did I forget” to name a few… The reality is this chapter is closing. Our family dynamics change again. We send another child away but not away from our hearts or our thoughts. It’s like you know the day is coming but then it gets here… and your heart is so proud that it wants to burst, but it is also so sad that you cry tears from a deep, deep place. You drive away and you realize this is where faith comes into place. Maybe that does not make sense to you…but it’s where you have to trust Jesus to hold them on a different level than what the last 18 years were like. Now it is them making decisions, wrestling with their faith and my Jesus. So that it will be their faith and their Jesus. The safety net of your home and boundaries are now removed. Their freedom is unleashed.
The thing about writing final chapters is this… God is the author and perfecter of our faith. As one more child leaves my nest I can rest in the fact that God is writing their story. It will be their story…filled with lots of good things, sprinkled with heartaches, and faith building experiences. Proverbs 22: 6 (MSG) Point your kids in the right direction—when they’re old they won’t be lost. That’s a promise…so I write it on my heart, and pray it over their lives and trust the One who is writing our story as an ongoing story of His story.
I will allow myself to slip down memory lane, remember the fist time I knew I was going to be their mommy. The first time I looked at their face and called them by name. I will remember first words, first smiles, first days of school and everything in between. I will count my blessings of each day spent with them. I will look forward to the future they are moving into. Their location may change but their lives are imprinted on my heart, I will continue to lift them to my Jesus as they make Jesus their own and seek Him for their career path, their spouse, their place to worship and to serve.
As April gives way to May and graduation looms… I will celebrate the amazing young man I get to call son!
by Gina Colburn | Mar 23, 2015 | Uncategorized
I wrote about Margin in my last post. It’s my word for the year. Since then I have been walking the tight rope of scrambling and resting in finding my normal. I was recently speaking to some people who are allowing God to transform their lives in BIG, HUGE ways about how sometimes we hold on to things because it has become our normal…our comfort zone so to speak…and I thought back to my word: margin. I really think that I have held on to things that I should have moved away from because holding on to them was normal. I had become so used to being known as busy that I felt like I had to live up to it…its what I knew…its what had become…comfortable. Except it really was not comfortable – it was exhausting. Since I wrote the blog, lots of life has happened. It was like I was declaring I must put margin in place and Satan stepped up his game. The journey of finding the new normal became unexpected, unscripted, exciting, terrifying and left me a little empty.
Empty is an interesting concept, because I believe empty is how God really wants us. When we empty ourselves of “us,” we let loose of all that we have been holding on to so tightly and we simply come to God, it is then that He can truly fill us with Himself. When He talks about us being jars of clay to be filled with the Holy Spirit, he can only fill empty things.
I found myself empty and sick. Physically sick. Emotionally drained. Spiritually empty. It was during this time that I found some truths that I needed to be able to move forward. I know this was confirmed in those days…I have to have margins. I have to create space in my life so that I can sing and say and declare “it is well with my soul.”
No one can make my soul well except the Author and Perfector of my faith, and for Him to be able to make my soul well, I must pay attention to the soul. To pay attention to my soul I have to control my schedule, my time, my commitments…I have to be intentional about spending time in the presence of the King. I do not want to sleep through the wonder of His holiness!
“Those who live at the ends of the Earth stand in awe of your wonders. From where the sun rises to where it sets, you inspire shouts of joy.” Psalm 65:8 NLT
I wish I could write that I have this all figured out…that I have achieved margin. I cannot! What I can write is that I am on a journey with the my Abba Father. He is writing my story. He is directing my journey, He is so faithful to correct, to encourage, to pursue, forgive, offer grace and mercy and hold me when it all seems too much to bear. He is filling me with things I didn’t know I needed and subtracting things I thought I couldn’t ever let go of. He is showing me that this journey is unexpected and unscripted only to me… He has not been surprised by one single step.
I am learning that whatever I face I can cling to Jesus, as so many who have gone before me have done. In the midst of whatever it is – saying goodbye to loved ones, letting go of hurts and anger, fighting unimaginable battles – we can cling to Jesus and sing it is well with my soul. It is not about the unscripted and unexpected. It is about trusting Jesus to see you through it…no matter what.
Challenging as it is…my soul has become my focus. My soul-care is vital to me being the daughter of the King He has called me to be. I choose to focus on Jesus and the full life he has for me…and when I say full I do not meet full of busy. I mean full of Him.
So this wonderful, messy, unexpected, unscripted journey continues…
by Gina Colburn | Feb 2, 2015 | Uncategorized
I just seem to be restless…not simply restless in my body but restless in my spirit. My whole body aches for rest and yet my heart is heavy and my mind is full. There are days that I am positive this is just a season of life and then there are other times (more…)
