"I found my heart in You."

Woah........


That word completely describes the past week. 


If you have read my previous blog, you will remember how I had mentioned the ministry that God had placed on my heart to start. Well I'm going to be honest with you....... I was not prepared for the instant responses from people and I was DEFINITELY not prepared for how quickly God would open doors. Not too long after I posted the last blog I had my sister contact me telling me she wanted to talk to me more about the ministry. We met for dinner Saturday night and she tells me that God has placed a similar dream on her heart for many months now. She then opens a notebook with a written out plan of how to start a non-profit organization. My first reaction was to say, "That's too big, that is not what I had in mind." But I stopped myself from blurting out this reaction and allowed her to explain her plan to me. As she explained the process I felt God confirming in my mind that this is HIS plan, not mine, let him be the judge on how big this plan is to be. My sister even already has a name picked out. The ministry will be called "The Shelter Tree". She said it's based on the song Shelter Tree by Newsong. I listened to the song and realized this name is perfect.


After the overwhelming shock of what God really had in mind, I told my sister to give me the first steps, to ease the anxiety that had crept into my mind. The first step is to research other organizations and create a mission statement. Well I go to church Sunday and one of the members volunteers at Metropolitan Ministries downtown. For those who do not know about this ministry, they provide fundings to help pay for people's electric bills, rent, food, and other needs. He told me that I could come and shadow to see how things work and to talk with the director about the behind the scene stuff. So this morning I plan to wake up at 6 am to be at the building by 7:30am. Already the enemy is trying to throw barriers into my path because my alarm never went off. Thankfully God woke me up at 7:05. I literally leaped out of bed, threw on clothes and ran out the door. After praying that I would not get a speeding ticket and that the red lights would not slow me down, I pulled into the parking lot at exactly 7:33. It was such a blessing to talk with the staff and volunteers. I could only stay until 10:30 (I had originally planned to stay til 12 but thanks to my late wake up call I had to go home and shower for work) but I was able to walk away with many idea's and a peace that God is going to help me through this. 


I am also so thankful for the people who have come to me and already offered their time once the ministry is started. It's comforting to know that people are already willing to volunteer their time! And I'm especially thankful for Briarwood for their support in this dream that has been placed on my heart. 


It's only been a little over a week since God has placed this dream on my heart and he has already opened multiple doors. I'm still in awe of what he is doing and how he is continuing to confirm his plan to me. I just pray that I can be obedient to whatever he has in mind.

"It's taken so long, so long to finally see that your love is worth the risk."

I have less than 2 weeks left at my job. I am supper excited! Not only will I be unemployed in less than 2 weeks but I will also be at the beach with 3 of my amazing friends! I am so looking forward to this week in St. Augustine. I have been blessed with so many wonderful friends and love being able to spend time with them!


Speaking of friends my best friend Shelly is now married! I am so happy for her as she embarks on this journey with the one guy she lasted more than 3 months with :-). I also met another friend of mine, Lauren, for dinner. I've known her since diapers and even though she is married and lives 2 hours away, I love that we both still find time to meet up and talk for hours with one another. This weekend has been full of friends and I just LOVE IT!


Even though there are many things changing in my surroundings, it has not hindered God in the process he is putting me through. If anything, he is making himself more vocal to me and ensuring I hear what he says, even if that means being called out. And trust me, he is calling me out. He is not letting me use anymore of my excuses. He wants my attention and he is ensuring he gets it. I've always felt that God is to use me in a big way, I just never knew what for. I'm still not a hundred percent sure but he's placing people in my life to hold me accountable and not allowing me to shrug off or put off what he has placed on my heart to do. I am so grateful that God has led me to the church I am at. I'm finally at a place that his spirit is present. And it is there that he is building me and helping me grow so that his voice isn't a static noise anymore, but as clear as the music that is playing on my computer right now. Recently, God has shown me that this past year has been apart of his big plan. It is through my job that he opened my eyes to the needs of people. He has allowed the families that I have worked with to touch my heart. The things I have seen have forever impacted me. The other day as I was thinking about what to do after I leave my job, I began thinking how much I will miss the families I work with. Even though what I do is very stressful, I honestly and truly love the people that I am trying to help. I have had the privilege of seeing people who are hurting and giving them a little glance of hope. As I was thinking about this I thought, "I don't EVER want to forget these people and their struggles." Thats when God placed an idea on my heart. I want to start a ministry where you would go door to door and give families a basic need item, such as bread or milk. One thing I have learned is that money and food stamps are tight at the end of the month and the pantry becomes very bare in anticipation for the next months food stamps to come in. I want to bring these items to people's homes once a month, at the end of the month, to help them. I honestly do not know how or where to start with this but it's something God has placed on my heart to do and you better believe I am going to do it. So, if you have any idea's or would be interested in helping to do something like this, please contact me. My email is emilyrwalters88@gmail.com. I am open for any idea's or suggestions on how to get this started. And if you want to help, please let me know! I could use all the help I can get! If you are worried about going to people's homes it's totally understandable. But my intention is to use this to start relationships with people. It won't be to get them to come to a particular church or to ask them for anything in return. I just want to do what the church was intended to do and that's to go and show love to others. If you read through the new testament, Jesus, Paul, and other apostles WENT to people. They did not sit in a building and expect people to come to them. They went out and built relationships with people and ultimately showed them love. My intention is to bring back this old school way of loving people and ultimately show people the love that Christ has given to me.


Again, any comments or suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated. If you know of anyone who would be helpful, feel free to share this link to my blog.


Well, I'm done. I hope everyone is having a great week :-)

I will trust it's not the end, but a great beginning.

This is my very last weekend on-call with my job. YAAAY!!! It hasn't been so bad this weekend. I only had one face to face check, a few phone checks, and no crisis' s so far.  Then again, nothing seems as bad since I was on-call for Christmas this pas year. I worked all day Christmas Eve and all day the Monday after Christmas. The Monday after Christmas I actually was out on a crisis call until 4:30 am (those were dark days in my life). If you know anyone in the social work field and they have to be on call daily or on weekends, you need to be sure to give them a hug every time you see them. Trust me, they need it.

These next few weeks are going to be a blur. My best friend in the whole world is getting married next weekend, then I will attend another friend's wedding the next weekend, and then the last weekend in July I will be taking my happy/ unemployed butt to the beach with my WONDERFUL friends for a FULL WEEK! I cannot tell you how excited I am about this trip. It's going to be nothing but sand, sun, ocean, and fantastic company.

And yes, to those who caught on, I will be unemployed by the end of the month. I'm leaving my current job due to the amount of hours I have to work. I'll be starting school in the fall as a full time student in School Counseling at Lee University to hopefully speed up the graduating process. I started this past semester at Lee as a Mental Health Counseling student. After working in the mental health field for 1 year, I knew that mental health was not my calling. I'm pretty sure if I had stuck with mental health, I would have become a mental health patient myself. The mental health field is not easy. Sometimes dealing with people in general can be challenging, so imagine adding a mental health diagnoses on top of it. Trust me, it's quite challenging. But I learned so much by working this job this past year. As mentioned earlier, I had multiple dark days during this year. There were times when I felt so overwhelmed and stressed that I felt paralyzed in what I should do. I spent multiple nights crying myself to sleep because I could feel this weight that I was carrying for other people but the worst part was feeling alone in the process. Loneliness is one of the worse feelings and it can be a dangerous emotion. I know for me, it drove many of the decisions I made (which ended up not being good decisions). Now I know why people are terrified of being alone. But really the fear of loneliness can lead you down just as bad of a road as being lonely. 

This past year I have felt lonely and dealt with the struggles that come along with it. I can truly understand why someone would put themselves into a meaningless relationship just to prevent the feeling of being lonely. For me personally, I believe throwing myself into something meaningless would be worse than feeing lonely. I'll take loneliness over a meaningless/ superficial relationship any day. 

I'm currently trying to find a part time position somewhere. I'm not in a huge hurry to find something, I'm sure something eventually will come along.  July 30th will start a new chapter in my life. I'm curious on what will come along with the new changes I am making, but I'm opening them with open arms! I'm looking forward to the new challenges that are waiting for me :-)

It's hard to love again when the only way it's been, when the only love you know, just walked away...

Today I was listening to a 13 year old girl tell me about her life when she lived with her mother. She was telling me that she lived with her mom from the age 8 until about 2 months ago. During those 5 years she lived with her mother, she told me that she could not name a day that went by without someone in the household arguing or yelling. As she went into detail of the things she heard and saw, my heart broke. After she finished talking I told her that she's most likely going to struggle with being in an environment where there is no arguing and yelling everyday and that she will have the urge to begin arguments because this is what's normal to her. She paused for moment then looked at me with the look like a light bulb went off in her head and said, "I just realized that I do try to start arguments everyday."


It hurts me how misconstrued love has become. I'm praying that this new home will help this beloved child realize that love is not yelling and demeaning one another. Thankfully she's living with family members who are more stable and do not yell everyday at one another but I still worry. This isn't the first time I've been in a home where love is shown negatively. To see family members demean one another, call each other negative names, and to intentionally bring each other down really breaks my heart. 


I looked up the definition of love in Webster's dictionary. It's listed as "to value highly; to feel a lovers passion, devotion, or tenderness for; to like or desire actively." In my opinion, this definition does not even come close to what love REALLY is. No wonder love is so belittled. 


Love is meant to be so much more. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 gives the BEST definition of love: "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."


More people are not seeing real love in their homes. Like this little girl, the only way you know you are loved is if someone is yelling at you or calling you names. I know it break God's heart even more than mine to see his children have to live in these types of homes. It makes you stop and think when you're out in public. What do you do when you see someone broken down on the side of the road? Do you comment on what they should have done to prevent this from happening? What about when you see a man sitting on a park bench who has clearly not showered for weeks? Do you walk on by and comment on how much he smells? It's never really occurred to me until just now how we easily re-enforce this negative imagine of love to strangers everyday. 


My challenge to myself and to others is to look at the world through hurting eyes. Listen to how you talk about random strangers on the street. Most likely, the negative things you are thinking or saying is just re-enforcing their mind set of what love is to them. Don't you think it's time to show them the love that God gives to us everyday?