Baggage.

Sometimes life seems impossible.The pain becomes too much. Nothing is going your way, your plans are ruined. You feel down, you feel like there is nothing that can be done to change the situation. You feel so pressured by your thoughts that you just want to collapse into a heap, or crawl under the blankets and cry yourself to sleep.

 Yup it hurts.... This world is imperfect, it is full of disappointment, abandonment, fighting, anger, HATE... Sin. There are always going to be times where we are let down, but we can't forget that we also let people down, and most of all we let God down. It pains him to see us sin, because sin separates us from Him. He wants an intimate relationship with us... in fact He died for us, to make that relationship possible.... we go on Sinning.... and He goes on loving us. That's just it... He loves us, and is eternally devoted to us. We might be in pain, but God is willing to take on that pain, even though we can never repay Him for what He has done for us.
I struggle with letting Him take my burdens, but He wants to do just that.
God is so good!

Life lessons.... What has God taught me from pain or sorrow or Depression.

My first response to this question is "wow. where do I start?". There are so many examples of pain, sorrow and depression in my life... and I think I am right in saying, it is the same for every person on earth. It is just that we have different experiences and different ways of handling experiences. I think God teaches me something in every painful situation that I have... so I'm just going to sum it up....

God has taught me:
To be patient
To be more sympathetic to others needs
That there is more to life than me
That there are always bigger problems
That he is in control
That I am fragile and I need Him to survive
That I am nothing without Him
That he suffers when I suffer
That there is no pain that I can't bare because of Him
That pain will not be a problem for me in eternity, because of the pain he went through on the cross.

and there is probably a lot more that he has taught me through pain and sorrow and depression!

There is always hope peeps.

Keep Calm and Sparkle!

OK so I was just browsing on Facebook, and one of my liked pages posted this picture on my feed. I got super duper excited because it reminded me of the "She is..."theme this year. >>>

I have been excited all year about the theme because it is exciting to learn about being lights for Jesus, shining his love all around. It is inspiring!
 I don't know about you, but I don't "Sparkle" enough. I don't shine. I hide. Even though Jesus has done things for me that I don't deserve, I am embarrassed to say his name to my colleges at work.
 If a friend were to rescue me from flood waters, I would forever be calling them my hero. I would want the world to know that this amazing person rescued me from death..... yet Jesus rescued me from death when he died that brutal death on the cross and I rarely say a thing about it.
I think that is the story for most of us. Even though God would use us more if we told people about our him, we still shy away. We should be shouting Jesus name from the rooftops, but we are afraid of being judged. That just goes to show how imperfect we are.
I think we need to pray more... pray that we won't be afraid, that we won't be ashamed, that we won't be embarrassed.... we need to let God take over our lives, and he needs to be in the center. We are not usable, If we don't allow him to use us.


Just sayin...

http://sheis.net.au/

I can only imagine.....

So the thing is God IS real.
God DID send His Son Jesus to live in this messed up world. Jesus was mocked, ridiculed, tempted, stripped naked, whipped brutally, a thorny crown was placed on his head, and after all this... at the brink of death already... he was forced to carry the cross up a hill... the instrument that he was to be crucified on. The people that were supposed to be for him, were against him. They hammered nails into his wrists and his feet and hoisted him up. The cross was more painful than we could imagine. For anyone who had to die this way, was absolute torture. To breathe, Jesus had to try to push himself up. His arms were dislocated, so this was pretty much impossible. It was a painful way to die for anyone, brilliant actually. Clever. Jesus however had it far worse than anyone... lets not forget that he was whipped and forced to carry his cross before he was nailed to the cross. He would have been exhausted. The cross was set aside for the worst criminals... Murderers. Jesus wasn't a criminal. Jesus was who he said he was. He could have bailed out at any time. It must have been hard when the soldiers asked him to come down to prove that he was God's son. He didn't come down, he stayed up there, because he loves us. He was the ultimate sacrifice. As Jesus died an earthquake hit, the temple curtains were torn in two, and darkness came over the land. It was only then that people realized that he actually was the king of kings.
But that's not all.... 3 days later he got up from his grave. He was alive!

Because of Jesus, I am alive. I have accepted his death, and all that he has done for me, and I have chosen to try my hardest to live for him. I still sin, and he still loves me... he is eternally devoted to me. When my time on earth is up, heaven will be my home.

I can only imagine what it will be like.

Comparing problems

I hate it when people compare their pain to someone elses.

There are serious problems around the world, I get that there are starving children in Africa and other countries. There are homeless people all around the world, there are people who murder others or murder themselves. There are terrorists. Some places have guns more than other places. Some people are obese, some are anorexic, some are in between.

I could name every problem I can think of, and there would still be more.....



Ok, so I'll tell you what I mean by all this:
 I'm not allowed to call myself chubby. When I say that I have a muffin top, or my thighs are bigger than they should be, or my arms are starting to sag with fat like a tuck-shop ladies arms..... I get in trouble. I get in trouble by people who are heavier than me. One of my friends says "Darl, you've got nothing to worry about!". Well actually I do have plenty to worry about. I eat too much junk, and I snack a lot. I don't exercise enough, and I have a family history of heart problems. Just because I'm not as overweight as my friends, does not mean that I am not overweight at all. Obesity is a real problem in this world. I think it is healthy of me to want to lose weight. I should be encouraged, not criticized.

Second thing:
 I hate people comparing depression with starving children in Africa. For a world full of depression, there sure are a lot of people who don't really know what depression is. If you are one of the people who don't, then here is the definition from Dictionary.com:

de·pres·sion

[dih-presh-uhn] 

noun

1.

the act of depressing.

2.

the state of being depressed.

3.

a depressed or sunken place or part; an area lower than the surrounding surface.

4.

sadness; gloom; dejection.

5.

Psychiatry. a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal; sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason. Compare clinical depression. 

  

 

You can't tell someone with clinical depression, to just get over it. It doesn't work.  It is common for a depressed person to not even want to get out of bed in the morning... that isn't laziness, it is illness. A big symptom of depression is anxiousness. I know someone who has bouts of serious depression, and he described how he felt as living in hell. He felt so anxious that he couldn't contain it. Depressed people, just like anyone with a mental illness, can't help their problem.

My point is that yes, some people ARE "better off" than other people, some problems may seem more problematic than others, and some ARE more problematic than others... but we all feel problems differently, just like we are passionate about different things. People hide things, and some people have problems that can't be hidden because they are a different sort of problem, does that make it worse?

 

Think before you speak, before you compare. 

 

 

 

 

Change

It is time for a change. I haven't written in my old blog for a long time. So I've created this one.
This blog will be mostly the same, but it will be focused on change. This is my place to vent.
Let me introduce myself:
Name: Elissa
Birth date:  23/06/92
Relationship Status: Engaged to Rob Collett
Religion: I don't have a religion. Christianity isn't a religion, it is a relationship. I believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is my best friend and my Savior. 
Interests-
Favorite Bands/artists: Relient.K, Hillsong, Bethany Dillon, Kari Jobe, Brooke Fraser, Superchic, Paul Colman, Coldplay, Temper trap, Angus and Julia Stone, Adele.
Books/Authors: The Bible, Lori Wick (Author), The Purpose Driven Life, 90 Minutes in Heaven, Sister Chicks (Series of books).
Movies:  The Lion King (And anything Disney), Hugo, Pirates Of the Caribbean, Narnia, Le Mis,... (These are just some)
TV Shows: Home and Away,  F.R.I.E.N.D.S., Elementary, Bones, Mr and Mrs Murder, MKR, Australia's Got Talent, My Strange addiction, My strange obsession, RPA.  
Hobbies: Singing, Playing the Piano, Playing the Ukulele, Playing the Harmonica. Drawing. Beading
General: Leading the Cadets at Girls Brigade. Teaching Sunday school. Looking after Children, Wombats, Cookie Monster, Shopping.


So that is all I can think of right now. This is me.
Pretty average, but I have a lot more to say about my life.