Every Day, a New Beginning

For those of you who were following my blog, Everyday Beauty, I'm sure you have noticed a change in the name to "Choose This Day". There are a couple of reasons for this change. Let me give you a little history.

When I began Everyday Beauty my intent was for it to be a beauty blog. As I have stated in a prior post, the Lord, my Lord, had another plan. I followed His lead and the topics of my blogs changed. A little over a month ago, maybe even two months, I'm not sure, I felt He was shifting my focus from the blog to an even greater prayer life with Him. Some very close, personal, alone time. Many things in my life changed drastically. Maybe not to the outside eye looking in, but in my heart, internally. I was led to pray not only to for Him to lead me and my husband to a church home (we had not been attending church for wayyyyy too long), but more importantly to pray for the heart of Christ.

I began praying for Him to change my heart to love what He loves and hate what He hates. He, as always, has been extremely faithful. We have recently started a new journey with a wonderful church family and more importantly He has been molding, softening, and changing my heart even more than I could have ever anticipated. My prayers have changed so much, from being so focused on me to mainly focused on praise and worship of Him and interceding for others, so much so that I often literally feel pain and have tears rolling down my face. Not pain like a pain you get when you hurt your physical body, but a deep, heartfelt, spiritual pain. Hard to explain if you've never felt it. At times I've thought why did I ask for this but I know that question was not from Him. He has blessed me with a HUGE gift to intercede for others in prayer.

Now, just this morning in fact, He has directed me it is time to begin the blog again, to share with others in prayer. Prayer for me is very personal, just my time with Him, and it will continue to be that way where there are many prayers that are just between me and Him and won't be shared. However, this platform is for you. What He has put in my heart is to share prayers and personal experiences with you in order to uplift and encourage you. Encourage you, not only through the prayers, but encourage you to sit and have conversation with Him yourself. He longs to spend time with you and soften your heart toward Him and others, as He has done for me. Trust me, if He has done this for me He will absolutely do it for you.

So, back to the name. The reason for "Choose This Day"....it comes from the book of Joshua.

Joshua 24:14-16New International Version (NIV)

¹⁴ “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵ But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

And so, this day, I choose to serve the Lord. I encourage you to do the same. Each day we have a choice. Each minute of each day we have a choice. I pray you make the choice to follow Him.

My prayer for you today:

Father in Heaven, the Almighty creator of the universe, most Holy, most powerful, and yet most merciful Lord. I thank you for your love and compassion that you have poured out on your people through your Son Jesus. I thank you for your patience and mercy that you have with us. I thank you for being my father, my daddy. I thank you for allowing me the privelege to lift up others in prayer. I ask you father, if there is any pride in me to remove it and to not allow my sins to hinder the requests for others. Please father let them be blessed through these prayers in spite of my faults and only because I plead for them through the blood of Jesus who is mighty and powerful, and the only way of salvation. I ask father, for everyone reading these words today, that you reveal yourself to them in such a way that they cannot deny you. They cannot say "it's a coincidence" or "god is not real" or "god doesn't talk to me". Father, I pray for each one reading that they come to know you so intimately that they feel there is just not enough time in the day to worship you and spend time with you. That you become more important to them than even the air they breathe. Yes, father, I do ask for blessings for them to help them get through each day, but moreso father, I ask that their desire for this world grows dim and their desire for You burns hotly. I love you Lord. Thank you for this privelege. In the mighty, all powerful, filled with amazing grace, mercy, and love, name of my savior, Jesus, thank you for hearing my prayers and I can't wait to watch you work! You're amazing father!!!! Amen.