hey Good Lookin'

Can I just start off by saying that it's 4:56 on Tuesday morning and I have yet to fall asleep. I think I made my Starbucks run a little too late...

I started to Instagram stalk a little bit. There are so many good looking people on Instagram, it's crazy. But then I started thinking, it's really not that hard to be the world's definition of hot, pretty, whatever. Anybody can obtain an outside beauty with some fake tan, a hair straightener and a gym membership. (goes for guys too) Literally...anybody.  

But what's behind these pictures? 

The inner beauty of a hot bod filled with the Spirit or 

just a good lookin' full of emptiness, lost & brokenness.  

I'm one to fully believe that outer beauty is nothing without an inner beauty to support, strengthen & grow that outer beauty. Living in peace, kindness & friendliness, popularity... is all great, but when we're transformed inwardly by the Spirit..that's when our ways and our looks really start to change lives. Who am I to hold back from this transformation? From this makeover?    If you were offered a makeover everyday before starting your day, admit you'd take it. I soooo would. We do almost ANYTHING to make ourselves look so good every time we go out... but how much work do I put into letting the Spirit inside of me make a statement? 
Anybody could walk into a room and turn heads, 
but the Godly desire to walk into a room and change lives.

So why pay so much attention to looks. The way I look won't change the world. But the Spirit being actively alive & glowing is what really dolls us up. 

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment,...
rather it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle
and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." 1 Peter 3:3-4

In this divine romance with my Ultimate Lover, I'm seeing that He genuinely loves me for the way He made me. God has grown me according to His Spirit. When He uses this flesh in other people's lives, I get chills & this overwhelmed feeling in my heart...as if I was finalizing some awesome plan for my wedding day. In this divine romance, my God is teaching me patience. Patience in love, patience in purity.

Patience in love due to the fact that all my best friends are in relationships, engaged or married. This patience thing He's been teaching me has shown me that HE is the only one that can complete my heart before joining it next to someone else's. That it's in my Lover's timing that this kindred Spirit will find mine and be my other shining light bulb. All in my Lord's hands. I pray for my future husband. For opportunities on this mission field called world, for His Spirit to be strengthened and whole, and for his heart to be completed by the love of the Father. One day I'll meet that man, until then...my Ultimate Love doesn't have to fight for first place ;)

It's officially 5:30, my alarm goes off in 3 hours, and I just dumped my filled cup of water all over me & my bed...
Talk about outer beauty. 

coincidences my TUSH

How can this be His story if He is the one constantly loving, pursuing and fulfilling me? God molded me and made me and put me in this world to be a light for Him, to show Him off and make Him famous. I just can't fathom how living for a god can make me so complete, make me who I'm supposed to be...a whole Maddie Miller.

I think it's probably, definitely, most likely because He's not just a god. Jesus Christ is the only god who is still alive. The only god that can live inside of us. The only god that reaches out to us. I've taken a back seat on this whole worldly god thing, where people pick and choose different aspects of different gods and put them together to make god. And in taking this backseat, I've had the opportunity of learning a lot, a lot, a lot, behind the scenes of it all. I've learned that it makes people happy and it promotes peace and love and kindness. Which, I mean great! The world could use some sunshine.     
But when did this world become completely about us? From the moment we entered this world, we were shown what a servants heart looks like. So where is that gap in the road? When did we make it about serving ourselves? & If it's not Holy-Spirit-alive-in-us kind of driven, then what kind of driven is it? Promoting happiness and love is great but going to the core of this worldly god thing is the desire to please ourselves...how can I make myself feel better without offending anyone?....

Weird, I just glanced over and my Bible was open to this:
"Then Jesus said, 'Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own." Luke 12:15

So no matter how much happiness we own, no matter how much kindness we spread, if God isn't the basis for doing it, then it means nothing..(Col. 3:23)

It's just something new that I've learned this summer! God has blessed me so much with this genuine joy & growth in serving Him, I just can't keep my trap shut anymore.

>Self-obtained happiness is great, God-ordained happiness is SO MUCH greater!

Tonight, we had a Belize reunion. Spirit-driven stories are the only super good ones.
Two of my beautiful, lovely, amazing friends and I are sitting outside. One girl has given her life to Christ and my other is in pursuit! I cannot express to you the genuine & godly joy that overwhelmed my heart when the beauty in pursuit said this, "I'm envious of strong women that can have a relationship with Christ." I'm still overwhelmed because those words are words that I can remember thinking a few months ago. And once a spirit starts to reach for the Holy Spirit, they won't be left hangin'. God is about to rock this beauty's world, I just know it! THEN! towards the end of the conversation, she says this, "have you ever heard of Harborside? I hang out with their pastor at Starbucks like everyday."   God, seriously? Get out of here.  When God pursues, He really means serious business.

So in thinking of God's pursuit for this beauty, He reminded me of our love story. The way He has pursued, loved, and just made me...me. On the way home, I was listening to an old CD and the lyrics said "time to take all the lamp shades off"   (I'm here to be this shining, not complacent, joy-sharing light bulb)     Since that line, I've been thinking about my lamp shade. That dulling cover over my light for the Lord, is it gone yet?

God is in my every moment! A few seconds ago, God used a friend to text me His answer,
"idk what it is yet, but theres
just something about you that
glows."

again God...get out of here! coincidences my BUTT. God is here, God is here.

The Spirit is SO SO SO SO SO alive inside of this temporal flesh. NONE of this is my doing, the Spirit came in and transformed my worldly Spirit. Though being 100% spirit-led all the time is perfection, is Jesus Christ... God has planted this desire in my heart to recognize & step on flesh-led actions. And because the Spirit is so alive in this rotting flesh, recognizing other lights for Christ has become quite the excitement,
GOD CHANGES.
COMPLETES.
HEALS.
GLOWS.
USES.
:)

ps. coincidences are simply God moving,
so when you see paths being crossed,
you're seeing God working

a Dream Come True

For a while I've had this dream of doing a one night only girls retreat about struggles & complete healing in the Lord. I've always looked at this dream as something that would happen way later when I could get a better handle on event planning & coordinating, but God had a different time in mind :)

So Friday morning, I woke up with a list of a million things to do to prepare for that night. In Stranded, I shared that Satan sucks aaand my flights were mucho delayed, so I lost a whole day of prep. BUT! God is faithful! My feet hit the ground to start running my day and I feel this immediate pull on my heart, and it's almost like I had forgotten that this night was all about what God's going to do, not what I can put together. Time in the Word brought me to Paul's words..

1 Corinthians 2:3-5 "I came to you in weakness- timid & trembling. And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever & persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God."

Last night was nothing short of amazing. The Lord provided the funds, the perfect time & the perfect place.  About 30 high school girls & college students & leaders drove up to St. Pete Friday afternoon to watch the Lord's movement. 

This night started off with a meeting, dinner and creating "Things I'm Thankful For" books. Tylar & Joy kicked our first session off with amazing worship, and Ash was a vessel for the Lord. As she spoke on purity, one of our girls interrupted her literally just to thank her for the words she had just spoken. They touched this girls heart and she was so overwhelmed, she had to speak! My favorite Ash notes:
"Are you being the woman the man you're looking for is looking for?"
and my favorite favorite,
"think of your most valued possession. mine's my computer. nobody can touch it, use it, play with it...and when I went shopping for it, I wasn't looking for one that was used and broken. I wanted a new one, that nobody's touched before"

Purity talk, Lord, was strengthening.

Then, not to my surprise, there was a mess up. I had given Heather the same topic that I gave myself. Then...not to my surprise, again, the Lord uses Heather to calm the storm, "Maddie, God obviously needs this discussion to be reiterated with different words & in different stories"    Praaaaaise the Lord.

So back to back, Heather & I spoke on finding wholeness in the Lord and not relying on people to provide that. I had to do prep during Heathers :/ So I really don't know if we crossed words at all but I just continued to pray Paul's words from earlier that day. And boy, did he provide!! again...not surprised. 

The Chocolate Room...they say chocolate mends a broken heart, but I say that my ultimate Lover eternally heals it. I told the girls my struggles with depression & heart ache. How I got myself into it and how the Lord became my knight in shining armor to rescue me out of it. 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 "Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." So now I'm glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me."
 It brought about the guy topic in which the light bulb analogy kicked in! if you're a light bulb for christ, the only reason to bring a guy around is to have another light bulb to shine 2 times brighter. I shared with them my struggle about bringing ungodly BOYS in close to my heart. "Guard your heart for it determines the course of your life." Proverbs 4:23. The Lord says that when we listen to this command, we find life and healing!  Oh how true that is. 
And being in love, being in a divine romance, isn't something that's easy to hide. I'm so thankful the Lord pursued me like He did, because the Lord has shown me that love is not mediocre. Love is joy...it's chilling, it brings happiness...no matter how hard the going gets, you come out stronger. 
And as if God hadn't done enough, he crossed paths with a beautiful girl sitting in the room. She shared her struggles with me, as I did mine.  The power of the spirit is indescribable.

Then chocolate party, Robyn & Joy. Rob and Joy were in the Royalty Room. They spoke on being daughters of the King. Robyn with trust & Joy with genuine happiness in God. Asking me for my personal opinion would not help because I couldn't be in there BUT in knowing that our God is all knowing and super faithful, I'm confident He provided! 

The girls then went for the jammies while we set up the party room. Black lights, loud music and crazy dancing brought our night to an end. 

Girls crashed everywhere & Robyn and I finished up their SeeYa bags. These bags the girls took home contained a symbol from everyone's talk. Attached to it was their key verse. For example...Jade spoke Saturday morning about image and natural beauty. It's not the outside that counts to fill our Spirit but the inside. Spiritual food is more important than physical food!...Any who, example, the girls were sent home with a flower attached to her key verse. Every speaker had a symbol.

We all made it back to the church in the rain and tornado weather, thankfully. God has already started to make my dreams come true and I'm only 19. What in the world does he have planned...


Our God is GOOD, so so so GOOD!

Stranded

I've been stranded for about 8 hours now. Panama City airport got me to Atlanta airport, just to sit & wait for Delta to say "we're overbooked, try again tomorrow". So in the middle of my flesh-driven frustration, I have to admit that I focused very little on what God had planned with all of this. 

Now I'm settled in my hotel room, and I look back at everything that went down today & have no one to blame but satan. Friday & Saturday is the middle school girls event & the Lord has led me to plan it. Why would satan want the woman with the plan to be there?  He sucks. But at this point, I know he wants me to be discouraged. He wants me to be overwhelmed, and I learned this past week that the only overwhelm we should have, is being overwhelmed with victory. That makes me smile. 

Romans 8:37 "No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us"

With this down time, beautiful room and MOST COMFORTABLE BED EVER...my Lover has brought me here to focus and recoup and love on Him. This weekend won't be able to happen without His power and in the mess of planning, I was soon to forget that. My Lover brought me here to really show me what He has planned for this weekend and even has shown me some of the things I missed over the past month that He's done for me! I am so grateful, thankful, blessed, amazed, joyful and full of chills that He has this divine romance all planned out already :)


So, I have yet to be home for the past month. Traveling all over has been amazing and every trip has been so different. 

This summer, I had the opportunity to go on the Engage mission trip with our middle schoolers. If you know me, you know my heart for my middle school girls. They are MY LIFE. And I've missed them so incredibly much these past few weeks. We had the time of our lives at Engage. There's something about working for the Lord that is just so fulfilling and so overwhelming! 

Belize...I don't even have words for this trip. It was such a strengthening week in my walk with the Lord. You really can never finish growing. I was once prayed over with these words, 
"Lord, show Madison that even though physical food is important,
being spiritually fed is what keeps her alive."
The more spiritual food..the more growth. These 2 weeks in Belize provided so many opportunities to share God, learn God and just feel the Lord's movement! It still gives me chills. Belize was beautiful. We snorkeled with sharks & sting rays. Scariest moment of my life. We went muddin like no other Floridian has seen before. We hiked more than anyone's ever hiked before. 








AH! Since my charger is with my luggage in Tampa already, my computer's dying, BUT! I can't contain this love. One last thing...Right before I thought I was going to bed, He said this,

"I will deliver you from every evil attack and will bring you safely into my heavenly Kingdom. All glory to God forever and ever!" 2 Timothy 4:18. 

He stranded me to love on me,

:)

His Story

Sometimes...most times...we get distracted with our stories, our life, our goals. I was blessed with a reminder tonight that I'm part of not just a bigger story, but THEE story. A story that I'm called to live for, a story that has been going on since the beginning of creation. Who am I to think for a second that this story has anything to do with just me?

Accepting Christ is God empowering one with the Spirit. I'm not given this power & this Spirit to boost me up in achieving my own story. That's like taking a box of pizza to a homeless shelter and eating the whole thing on the way there. This empowerment of the Spirit, is not meant to be taken selfishly. So with this Holy Spirit inside, we run! We have accepted to play this part for God. Being who He calls me to be, living where He places me and doing what He asks of me. 

When we surrender, we surrender it ALL because when we accept the Spirit to live in us, we accept it ALL.  

The thing that's so awesome about God is that no matter who He calls me to be, or where, He's constant, never changing, always loving. And although this is His story, He's still gracious enough to be faithful. Jeez louise, this isn't even my story and He still wants to love this broken and sinful character. God makes my heart melt; my Ultimate Lover makes my heart melt. 

He gives me the chills and He overjoys me like nobody else. He shows me a true & genuine relationship & lovership. When 2 are joined together, nothing else but the true light of Christ should be seen. And even though I feel like this is my love story sometimes, ultimately it's His. I think that God's story book doesn't have chapters. The story that He's writing is so great and powerful that there can never be even the tiniest break to start a new chapter. He just keeps going and going. And the thing is, we can see this book being written! When have I ever had the chance to watch a brilliant author write his book!? (...Well never, because I hate reading:) and watching that would be like watching paint dry to me.) But God's God, not just an ordinary author.

"These people (early church) were seeking to engage on what God was doing & as they engaged on what God was doing, God showed up & did incredible things" -Todd Nighswonger

All I have to do to be in this story, is to accept Christ, be empowered by His Spirit and engage, become a part of His movement! For me, the first is checked. The second is checked and still learning about the empowerment and the third is a work in progress. Constantly praying, "God just show me where you're working" 

Working for Christ is fulfillment. And again, this isn't my story, but being apart of God's story fills me up, how selfless, faithful & loving can one God be?! 
Romans 5:5 "For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with this love."


God, why did you write me in this story of Yours?