Unbelievable!!

Thank you Lord for meeting my need...it's less about the need but more of what you show me when I trust you completely with no reservation. Thank you!

Love Montreal

Yesterday, a few people from The WestSide Gathering & Renaissance Church teamed up on an event called "LOVE MONTREAL" Simply put we teamed up to LOVE MONTREAL and share the love of Jesus through random acts of Kindness. A few great interactions and connections with our surrounding community as people tried to figure out WHY? A great day helped communicate love...free and authentic to our surrounding community. In the culture we live in nothing is free or promoted "FREE" without a catch. Most people I encountered yesterday and chatted with wondered why we would not accept donations, some were sceptical and some had a hard time embracing why we would bother. As our guests who came to have their cars washed, grabbed a hot dog and lingered around to chat with some of us I wondered myself "why?" I was reminded of Jesus and what he spoke about in the scriptures and took his life as an example; Everything he did was motivated by love, love for others! His whole life mission from birth to death to Resurrection was motivated by love. He spoke about love so often in the scriptures,what we should look like when we have it and the void in the absence of love. But how can we love if we don't know what love is. Most of us attribute it to a feeling or a state...sometimes feeling more of it that other times. But the Jesus that spoke love was love...his presence, his mannerisms, his life overflowed with love. Yesterday, I learned a little more about Jesus and myself as I practiced loving others without boundaries or return. My prayer is that my community comes into this love. A love that calls us to come as we are to experience restoration and wholeness...for everyone we encountered yesterday I pray that Jesus met you somewhere, somehow and that someday you would respond to his LOVE

I leave my friend in your hands Lord...Lord have your way.
I leave my hearts anxiousness about my current interests in your hands.

In your name

Thanks God for showing me that you are always faithful...
You have showed me through trust in you my life is continually transformed.
Thank you for allowing me to trust in myself...Thank you for allowing me to fail...Thank you for loving me despite those things and showing me that trust in you is Freedom.
Thank you for this last year and a half...because through it all I am able to love you deeper and experience your grace.

Thanks God

5:00 AM

So it's 5:15 am and I am wide awake. My body feels tired yet my mind doesn't seem to follow. So after some tossing and turning I've come to terms with the fact that I won't be getting anymore shut eye tonight. My thoughts are filled with concern for a Friend that is going through a hard time right now. I run back and forth in my mind searching for a way that I can help but have resolved that this is a path that he must walk and unfortunately there is not much I can do in my limited abilities that will make things better. I feel so deeply this burden for my friend yet have to trust that Christ is walking with him through this valley. Praying for him...

There is something really unique about being up at this time. I'm not really a morning person...my friends and family can attest to that! Everything seems new this morning as the sun is about to rise and people everywhere will be getting up to encounter another day. Some will face this new day with a smile and others with heavy burdens. Everything is so quiet around this time...the whole world seems still and I am reminded that God holds the whole world in his together. Sometime it's hard for me to get quiet so I am tired this morning but thankful that I am able to experience quietness before God...before I start my day.

Stay Tuned...

For those of you who have taken notice that I haven't blogged in a while...well you're right!!
It's been a while and Lot's has gone on. Surgery went well and I have recovered remarkably better than I thought. I' m working on a few posts that involve the latest escapades of my walk. Getting back into a normal routine...so stay tuned. I'm feeling really great....Thank God

Thankful for friends and family that have prayed for me during these few weeks and for a completely devoted mother (mine) who sacrificed time, energy and sleep to make sure that I recover well...a mother's love, a love I have yet to understand until I become one I guess.

Thankful for a God who continues to meet me personally everyday, thankful to him for knowing everything about me and still despite loves me and encounters me in ways that I cannot understand.

Thankful for this time of rest...

So Thankful for pain medication...

Fear...

Over the last few days I believe God has so closely dealt with the many issues I have with Fear. I meet so many people on a daily basis that are governed by fear...I by no means am free in that category. In the past I have let fear overwhelm, consume and cripple my life. I daily if not moment by moment have to leave all my fears past, present and future at the feet of Christ. Recently I've asked God to replace my fears with Truth...He is....

To the many people I know who deal with their fears everyday....here is a great deal of hope
God is faithful

1 Samuel 12:20-22

20 Then Samuel said to the people, “Do not fear. You have done all this wickedness; yet do not turn aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart. 21 And do not turn aside; for then you would go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver, for they are nothing. 22 For the LORD will not forsake His people, for His great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you His people.

And

Isaiah 43

(The Message)

-4 But now, God's Message, the God who made you in the first place, Jacob, the One who got you started, Israel:"Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you. I've called your name. You're mine.When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down.When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead end—Because I am God, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior. I paid a huge price for you: all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in! That's how much you mean to me! That's how much I love you! I'd sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.
5-7"So don't be afraid: I'm with you. I'll round up all your scattered children, pull them in from east and west. I'll send orders north and south: Send them back. Return my sons from distant lands, my daughters from faraway places. I want them back, every last one who bears my name, every man, woman, and child Whom I created for my glory, yes, personally formed and made each one.'" 8-13 Get the blind and deaf out here and ready—the blind (though there's nothing wrong with their eyes) and the deaf (though there's nothing wrong with their ears). Then get the other nations out here and ready. Let's see what they have to say about this, how they account for what's happened. Let them present their expert witnesses and make their case; let them try to convince us what they say is true."But you are my witnesses." God's Decree. "You're my handpicked servant So that you'll come to know and trust me, understand both that I am and who I am.

Both of these text's are full of reasons not to fear...I'm sill processing alot of it.

Chris

Game On

Ever see the 90's movie Wayne's World? Well, there's this funny part in that movie where Wayne and some of his friends play street hockey...every time a car passes through they move their nets and scoot on over to the sidewalk and yell "Game off" Then when the car has passed they resume their places and yell "Game on!" Just a funny thought, my Doctor called this morning to tell me that there has been a cancellation and I'm on again for Monday, Feb 12.
Made me wanna yell...."GAME ON!"

Chris

Gotta Wonder??

Not a good day today...why does everything seem to happen at the same time??
If anyone has the answer...feel free to answer!!

Surgery Cancelled

Kinda sucks that you try to psych yourself up to have surgery and then they cancel...
After a day and a half in the hospital my surgery was cancelled. Once again out of my control...that's ok I really wasn't at ease with my doctor potentially operating on me after being awake for more than 24 hours. So it is what it is!!
Were back on Feb 26 2007

Chris

Doubt...

Today I leave my situation at your feet Father...choosing to walk away at every moment where I doubt. Lord replace my doubts with an increased faith.

Teach me to continually turn...even when the whispers feel more like screams

At the Feet of the Cross

At the foot of the cross is a symbolic place on my blog where I will lay down my heart...all that it hopes for, dreams for...Laying it all down to allow Christ to transform the innermost parts of me. It is a place where I pray God will reignite my passions. When I remember the sacrifice of Christ at the cross I can't help but imagine what my reaction would be at the foot of the cross...watching a blameless man...ultimately blamed for me. A love that loved me before I was even conceived. At the foot of the cross is where I am reminded of the grace that I don't deserve yet have accepted because I believe Jesus...I believe that his scars are deep because of the nails that I've put there. At the foot of the cross I am healed, transformed, strengthened and renewed...through the power of what happened on that cross and made new because the same Christ who died a horrible death...walked out of his Tomb.
Life begins here...

Surgery

Going for surgery tomorrow to remove something that should not be in my body....kind of a physical manifestation of what's going on in my life. I am on a path of removing things in my life that should not be there...Theses things like the thing that is in my body...simply put...should not be there. This for some reason feels climatic...as if it is the last thing that needs to happen before restoration happens. I mean restoration is happening...even though I don't deserve it...I'm restored through God's Grace.
For the first time in a long time I feel a sense of hope..it's kind of ironic that all my struggles with wanting to control the outcomes of my life, I'm totally not in control here...I really have no choice this thing has to go...it's destroyed a part of my body. So either I fight it and it continues to destroy me or I remove it and trust God to heal me.

Thank you Lord, even for this...I place my hand in yours....let's walk.

Chris

The WestSide Gathering

I wanted to take the time today to tell you about a community of Christ Followers....
A few years ago God inspired a man with a vision. A vision to reach and impact the lives of people in the West Island. With a few stirring hearts under the leadership of David Manafo we embarked on this journey. We humbly met 4 of us in his home with hearts full of anticipation for what God was planning. Those four quickly grew to 6, later to 12 and so on. Every step of the way was a step in faith believing that God was moving in and through us. I often remember sitting in Dave and Franca's living room praying that we would become a community of grace. A community that not only existed to exist and be self absorbing...but a community that lived transformed lives through dependency on Christ, a community of Christ followers that embraced people no matter where they were in their lives emotionally, spiritually or physically. A community clothed in Grace, overwhelming love... determined to take on the great commission with passion for the Kingdom.

When i embarked on this journey a few years ago I assumed that all these things we had prayed for would be for others, Our families and friends who didn't know Jesus personally. Maybe my heart was to proud, to think that I would ever need these things, maybe I was naive, maybe I thought that I could give these things, love, compassion, grace without receiving them...This is all to say that this last year and a half which was filled with awful decisions, which led me away from God, from my community, from my deepest passions and desires to serve. I have never felt God's presence, God's love more. I never experienced Christ more. I experienced him through the love and grace of my community of simple people who simply loved me because Christ loved them. I experienced Christ through friends who never gave up on me, although many times I disappointed them time and time again. I was hard to love this past year but they consistently reached out to me, believed in me, prayed for me, interceded for me. When I was tired, broken and spent they carried me...encouraging me to turn my eyes back to Christ. Scripture speaks about loving each other deeply...."above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8...It was that kind of love that turned me from my path. Thank you WestSide for your commitment to love "above all else" Thank you for demonstrating God's grace and embracing my brokenness. I am blessed to be part of community that upholds these values...but I am more blessed to know that our community exists in a world where we have a chance to offer hope...hope to a broken world with the promise of a fulfilled, whole life through Christ. I am thankful that I belong to a community where scripture comes to life through actions, where lives are transformed, the broken and wounded are accepted, nurtured and challenged to follow Christ, to live him, to make a difference because of the Good News.

Thank you WestSide...I wonder if we realize the impact that we could have armed with this kind of love...??

Chris
www.thewestsidegathering.com

In Your Hands....this I commit

Today Lord, I ask that you would give me courage to face my fears, wisdom to consider my words and grace that would demonstrate your love.

An incredible demand in my own eyes...But Lord you are Faithful

Chris

Matt 4:20

"At once they left their nets and followed him." Matt 4:20. I am so moved by this simple phrase in the bible. Jesus calls Peter and Andrew and with no hesitation they respond. No why? or how? Just simple obediance. Jesus doesn't complicate things....I do. With everything I bring to the table my fears, my insecurites, my weakness's with all the what, if''s and But's Jesus simply whispers, yet challenges..."Come follow me..." Let me take the lead...maybe that's the problem i've taken the lead in my own life for too long. Lord teach me to follow...so that I may have courage to respond to your voice, so that I too may drop my "net's " and follow you no matter what the cost.

Thankful for this Obstacle...Learning to re-discover his voice, unlearning to listen to the others.

Daddy...Thank you

Today I am thankful for my Father. A man I often didn't understand growing up. I am thankful for his decisions, guidance and love for his family. I'm thankful for the many sacrifices he made to give me and my family all that he could. I'm thankful that despite all he could give us he taught me the value of hard work and sacrifice. I'm thankful for the deep rooted family values that have been instilled in me because of my father's commitment to us. I'm thankful that he didn't always have the answers to my questions about life yet always gently guided me toward making decisions...Mistakes there have been a few i guess. Who wouldn't make a few trying to raise a little girl at 21 years old but I'm thankful that 25 years later my daddy is still the man I look up to and the man I want to make proud because of the way he raised me. Daddy thank you.