<\/p>\n
I have a story to tell you and it\u2019s not pretty.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0 It\u2019s one of those stories that you really wish had never happened and you never had to own up to.\u00a0 But the truth<\/span> is, it did happen and it is part of my history. \u00a0Kind of like a Series of Unfortunate Events, only I was a main character and I made decisions that I knew I shouldn\u2019t have and I paid the price for my actions.\u00a0 \u00a0I have to tell you so you will see how the Holy Spirit<\/span> works in our lives if we let Him.<\/p>\n First of all, to have the Holy Spirit <\/span>in your life you have to have given your life to follow Jesus.\u00a0 That is #1<\/span>.\u00a0 Getting to know Jesus and what He expects from us is #2<\/span>.\u00a0 Learning to walk the walk and talk the talk is #3<\/span>.\u00a0 Making a mess of life and making changes to bad behavior and habits is part of #3.\u00a0 Deciding that God\u2019s way is best and that He wants what is best for me, that\u2019s #4<\/span>.\u00a0 Today\u2019s story comes in at #3 and I\u2019ll tell you about how I learned about #4.<\/p>\n I have to tell you that I am a very stubborn and strong-willed person.\u00a0 Sometimes that works in my favor, sometimes it gets me into trouble.\u00a0 Finding that balance is where the Holy Spirit comes in.\u00a0 I was raised in church and was drawn by the Holy Spirit to give my life to Jesus when I was 11.\u00a0 Boy was that a hard admission to make when you are stubborn and head strong\u2026and shy<\/strong>.\u00a0 I knew I needed Jesus and I knew He wanted me.\u00a0 I was afraid to admit it publicly because people would look at me.\u00a0 My God did not give up on me and He continued to tell me to come to Him.\u00a0 Finally at summer camp, during cabin quiet time, I gave my heart to Jesus.\u00a0 No tears, no hysterics, no party\u2026just obedience to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Peace entered my heart and calmed the inside of me.\u00a0 That was pretty cool, then I had to tell my mom, and my pastor, and my church.\u00a0 It\u2019s biblical you know.\u00a0 Romans 10:9 says, \u201cIf you declare with your mouth, \u201cJesus is Lord,\u201d and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 So after I told my church, I got baptized\u2026in the river<\/strong>, the Tennessee River, just like the old songs and the movies show it.<\/p>\n Man, I was on fire<\/span><\/strong>\u2026on the inside.\u00a0 Still shy<\/span>, you know.\u00a0 I dug in to the Bible even more than I had before.\u00a0 My favorite verse was, and still is Proverbs 3:5-6, \u201cTrust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;\u00a0 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0 At 12, I felt God (through the Holy Spirit<\/span>) tell me of the plans He had for my life.\u00a0 I asked Him questions and He answered me.\u00a0 I have held those words in my heart all these years.\u00a0 They are just as real today as they were when I was 12.\u00a0 I am now living those plans that God revealed to me when I was young.\u00a0 Never could I have known what my life would look like, or who I would marry, or how many kids I would have, or that I would be leading an online Bible study.\u00a0 I had to trust that if I gave my life to Jesus, He would take care of the details.<\/p>\n So HERE<\/span> is where I MESSED<\/span> <\/strong><\/em>up and had a NO<\/span><\/strong> good, DIRTY<\/strong>, rotten, Horrible DAY<\/em> for about a year.\u00a0 :-\/\u00a0<\/span> <\/strong>I was in church, in school and everybody had boyfriends<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0 I felt left out and really wanted a boyfriend soooo bad.\u00a0 I prayed for a boyfriend, ANY boyfriend to make me feel special and show the world that somebody wanted me.\u00a0 I was getting attention from some boys, but none that I really liked or thought would be a good choice.\u00a0 I got really tired of waiting for the person God was preparing for me and decided to take a risk on a \u201cbad boy\u201d.\u00a0<\/em> Well, in my defense, he was the pastor\u2019s son, he rode my school bus and he was kinda cute.\u00a0 He also cussed, smoked pot on said school bus and didn\u2019t do his homework.\u00a0 He and his buddies got into all kinds of trouble, but he liked ME.\u00a0 HMMMMM, what\u2019s a good girl to do?<\/span><\/p>\n So back to #3<\/span>.\u00a0 I got distracted from walking the walk, because the talk I was talking was not good.\u00a0 I let this relationship with the boy distract me from the plan God had for me.\u00a0 I got in trouble at school.\u00a0 I lost some friends.\u00a0 I got two In-School suspensions and one 3-day unpaid vacation that my parents were not thrilled about.\u00a0 (sarcasm here)\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised they let me live.\u00a0 It was a close call in my house for a while.\u00a0 My sophomore year of high school is one I wish I could get a do-over, or take a HUGE eraser to and wipe it from my history<\/em>.\u00a0 I can\u2019t erase it, because it brought me to #4<\/span>, \u201cDeciding that God\u2019s way is best and that He wants what is best for me\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0 I had to learn the hard way and some of you do too.\u00a0 Maybe I went through that way back then so I could share it with you today.\u00a0 DON\u2019T DO WHAT I DID<\/strong>!<\/p>\n Ava tells us in today\u2019s lesson, \u201cWhen you focus on God, the Holy Spirit goes to work.\u201d\u00a0<\/em> Try really hard to get your heart focused on God.\u00a0 Push out the distractions and listen for the Holy Spirit to speak to you. \u00a0Just because I messed up at 14, I didn\u2019t erase God\u2019s plan that He gave me when I was 12.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t throw me away because I made a bad decision, or several bad decisions.\u00a0 He loved me and drew me back to Himself and taught me to walk the walk.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to say that was the only mistake I made in my life, but it\u2019s not.\u00a0 It is however, one that I was embarrassed to talk about for a long time.\u00a0 Now it is part of my love story with Jesus.<\/p>\n LET\u2019S PRAY:\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Heavenly Father, Thank you for loving us enough to let us make our mistakes, correct our path and give us a job that brings glory to YOU.\u00a0 Forgive us when we mess up.\u00a0 You know we are going to mess up and need you to come to our rescue.\u00a0 Thank you for picking up the pieces of our heart and putting it back together.\u00a0 We love you, Father and want to bring you all of us to use any way you want.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 AMEN<\/strong><\/p>\n Much Love,<\/span><\/p>\n Mama<\/span> T <<\/span><\/span>3<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n If you are interested in joining us in our GCH:decaf Teen Girls Ministry, please click the sign-up form button at the top of our webpage. Just follow the instructions on the form and hit submit. We\u2019ll be happy to add you to one of our Online Bible Study Groups! Please email GCH_Decaf@girlfriendscoffeehour.com for more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have a story to tell you and it\u2019s not pretty.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of those stories that you really wish had never happened and you never had to own up to.\u00a0 But the truth is, it did happen and it is part of my history. \u00a0Kind of like a Series of Unfortunate Events, only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[68,109,144,147,218,365,370,10,393,394,411,425,436,506,12,620,723,863,879,1173,1174,1039,1043,1047,1053],"class_list":["post-5793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teens","tag-a-daughters-worth","tag-ava-sturgeon","tag-bible","tag-bible-study","tag-christianity","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-forgiveness","tag-friends","tag-friendship","tag-gch-decaf","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-god","tag-holy-spirit","tag-integrity","tag-love","tag-online-bible-studies","tag-rainbow","tag-relationships","tag-self-image","tag-self-worth","tag-teen-girls","tag-teens-2","tag-teens-online-bible-study","tag-teresa-bolme-mama-t","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-1vr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8415,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5793\/revisions\/8415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}