Walking On Water

Blog has Moved!!

ashleighnichole — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:36:35 +0000

The new site is www.ashleigh-walkingonwater.blogspot.com

I changed because you can do more with the background and stuff on blogspot, and it’s free to change your background. Sorry to change it on you all!

Ashleigh

Speaking from the Heart

ashleighnichole — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:46:44 +0000

So Sunday night at youth group it was my turn to give the message (us three interns took turns) and were doing a video message series and then discussion groups and what not. Anyways, so my video was called Today (out of the Nooma series) and it was about how so often we hold on to things of the past and never let go and move forward with life. And I’m really the queen of holding on to the past, I don’t normally hold grudges, but I remember the past like it was a cute little puppy, even though quite often, it’s an ugly horrible part of my life that I’m holding on to like I would a teddy bear. Let me give you an example, most of you know I was adopted right? So one of the bigger memories I have of before I was adopted was sitting under the kitchen table while my parents screamed profanities at each other and i watched my mom be violently abused by my father. I will never forget a certain vision of my dad slapping my mom across the face. It is a vivid memory. The fact that it is a memory is okay, but the fact that still to this day, I want to beat the living daylights out of my dad for doing that to my family is not. So the message was about giving the stuff we hold on to, to God, and letting him take care of it.

This message completely hit home for me because I am so guilty of it. If someone could take apart my brain or heart and look inside, they would see about 100 hurtful things living in there, still haunting me. But God desires to take those off our shoulders. He desires to make us new again and let us move on from those things. He desires for me to move on from that awful memory, and the many other things that hold me captive. Our God is so good. Why would he want to take a memory like that off my shoulders and put it on His? Occasionally I question why He would even do that, but then I realize his incredible love for us. I can’t even dream of doing that for someone to show them I love them. But Jesus did that for us, and I don’t think I could ever fully fathom the depth of his love.

Through this message all I could think about was how horrible of a speaker I am, Speaking was not one of God’s gifts to me. I get nervous, and then it all goes downhill from there. So the whole time I’m speaking this message or praying or whatever, I’m thinking about how awful I speak, and how self-conscious I am about speaking, but we did this activity in the end, that hit home so hard I almost started crying in front of the entire youth group. We took a note-card, and wrote down what we were giving to God and releasing from us so that we could live in today and not in the past, and then we took our cards and burned them as a symbol of giving them to God and letting them fall to ashes for us. I wrote on my card “bad relationships.” It was all I needed to write because those two words covered just about every hurt that I had. I then had to share what I wrote on my card for the youth group to kinda give an example as what to write, I shared something small, not quite as heavy as what I just shared here, and burned my card. It was everything I had to hold back tears. But as I look back, tears wanted to flow, and I’m not quite sure why I stopped them. Tears to me show heart and emotion, and I think at that moment, the audience wouldn’t have minded. However, that self-conscious guard said woahhh! No crying! I finished that message barely touching the surface of how I really felt about the subject, leaving me wishing I spoke more from the heart and less out of my fear of speaking.

So my advice is this, if you are speaking on something that really hits home with you, speak from your heart. Don’t let the fear of failing mess with your head and not let you go as deep as you want with something. It’s worth it, because what audience doesn’t love a genuine real person?

What do you all think?

Ashleigh

Take me as I am

ashleighnichole — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:30:32 +0000

I heard this song on the radio on one of the christian stations, I wish I knew what it was called or maybe some other line so I could find it and hear it again, but one of the lines said, “Take me as I am cause I’m broken” or something to that effect. After being at Revolve Tour this weekend, that song just touched my heart, because in so many ways, my life has been broken, it’s been a shattered piece of glass at times, and it has been a beautiful piece of glass at times too. But what I really got out of that song, was God uses us in our brokeness. He shows us in our heartache His desire to be our everything and how much He loves us.

When I was driving home from Revolve with a good friend, we were talking about the conference, what we liked, what we didn’t, and kinda got to talking about how the people that have been influences in our lives have been the people who have had a rough past and overcame it, who have a story to tell about their journey with God. They share their hardships with overcoming an addiction, or a broken home life, or a struggle with a particular sin, or whatever it may be, and through their story we connect dots with ours, and are encouraged to get out of the bonds of sin that hold us. It was the same type of thing at Revolve, one of the things I noticed was that not one of the speakers up there had a perfect life, they all had pretty significantly rough things that they had to overcome at a rather young age. I found that so encouraging, that some of the best people in that field, and some of the most amazing influences to Christianity are using their messed up broken past, to reach out, and to show people there is a way out and his name is Jesus.

So thats where my facebook status came from, the one that said, “Take me as I am cause I’m broken, but use my brokeness to make a difference in this world. This is my prayer to You.” I just pray that my life and my struggles can someday help someone, that maybe the reason I went through them was so that God could use me in the future and I needed that experience in my life to be able to make a difference. As Natalie Grant’s new shirt says, I want to be a “World Changer” and use the hard things I have suffered through to share Jesus and his power and love to others. So my encouragement to you, is to remember that God has a reason for everything that happens, and maybe his reason is so you have something to share later in life, maybe something that happened to you 10 years ago will be something that brings someone else to Christ.

Who knows, Just a thought.

The Art of a Grilled Cheese

ashleighnichole — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:13:29 +0000

Ok, so if you know me this well, you are amazing and should probably recieve a gold star, but it is a rather known fact around my house that I am a stellar grilled cheese maker. It is totally an art, and can totally be messed up! So if you like grilled cheese’s as much as I do, you know that it takes a very strict balance between melting the cheese and toasting the bread to a golden crisp without burning the bread. The biggest secret to a grilled cheese (drumroll please…) is to not have the stove on really hot. What a quick fix! All you gotta do is be more patient!

Ok so if you’ve read my other blogs, you know that I tie ridiculous things in with life, well here I go again tying in making a grilled cheeses to your life. I’ve probably totally lost it… Oh well.

So lately I’ve been going through a lot, and my first reaction is to fix fix fix, do whatever I can to change the situation because I don’t want to let it get worse, but I also don’t have patience to let God tell me what to do with it, so I do whatever I can to change it to make sure its ok for the day, but never the long term helping fix. I am like the opposite of a calm patient person, probably because since I was like 10 years old I decided I had to do absolutely everything, so I never learned what life was like quiet and peaceful, so I keep filling it, and then I tell myself I don’t have time for patience… HA! Ridiculous eh?

So tonight, when I decided I wanted a grilled cheese, I had to seriously consider if it was worth the time because the way I make a grilled cheese, takes me a while. And must be enjoyed with a tall glass of milk and an open book. So is patience and asking God for help worth your time? Or is the quick fix continuing to satisfy you? Because easily something different could have filled my stomach, but what do you want in life? To constantly take the easy way out and get it done for today? Or to learn and grow from every experience and cherish it? I know that with what I’m going through right now, I need to take a step back, and really make sure I’m dealing with things in a patient, kind, calm, peaceful way, and make sure that I’m not just doing what needs to be done to move on with my day. (AKA burning the bread, yuck)

So anyone want to join me for a grilled cheese? I’m even offering to take the time to make one for you! However, if a grilled cheese is not joined by an open book, it must be joined by a chat that lasts longer than 10 minutes and goes deeper than the surface. (Who knew there were rules with a grilled cheese??)

Anyone wanna take me up on my offer?

Bitter Blaming

ashleighnichole — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:42:42 +0000

Ever blame yourself for something that is very clearly not your fault? Ever wish you would have comprimised your beliefs or morals to avoid something bad happening? Ever wish you could turn back time and change the past? Ever struggle with not getting over the bitter blame you hold inside of you? Are you consumed with the thought of blame?

*Are you constantly striving for more… Contentment avoids you?

Striving to make a change, or change the past? Striving to get out of the bonds that hold you to your sins? Or trying to get out of what has happened to you? Wishing you could change it? Wishing you could miss the heartbreak side of life?

I know I am.

But it has been in those times of question where I run to Jesus whole-heartedly…

Food for thought… At least for me.

Kiddo Cheer Up

ashleighnichole — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:22:14 +0000

So, I think most of you know by now, but if you don’t, I hate Valentines Day. Not because of the holiday, I mean, I completely support people going on dates and taking a day to make sure their loved ones know they care… Go for it by all means. And call me to babysit because even when I am married, I will probably not ever be partaking in Valentines Day Events. Basically just some crappy stuff has happened on Valentines Day, and long story short my boyfriend at the time ended up with a kid conceived on V-Day, that wasn’t mine. (Nor would have ever have been a possibility for it to be mine.) But my heart was ripped to pieces. Still is in fact, not quite all the pieces are glued back in place. But if you’re ever hurting, Go babysit for Heidi’s kids. They just make life fun, you would have never known I had cried all day prior to going there because I was so happy when I left her house. There is something about a smile on a kid’s face, and their genuine love for life and in Heidi’s family, Jesus. They have an apparent love for God. And it cheered me up. It made me see that I do have a Valentine, and I’m not alone. I may be lonely but I am not alone.

Funny how some kiddos age 7 and almost 3 can have such an affect… Amazing. I’m so glad I went to babysit for her tonight, one it saved me from being alone on Valentines Day, and two, I was cheered up by a pair of rascals running around the house with strawberry soda moustaches. Gotta love the kids. So happy Valentines day, Hope it was a good one for those of you that participate. But even more than the earthly loved one’s we call our Valentines, I hope you all realized that Jesus is and will for ever be your Valentine if you accept his offer. So I wasn’t alone tonight, I had a Valentine and two amazing children and a good friend who I stayed with and talked to until 10:30. So I guess I really am right, I may be lonely but I sure am not alone.

Buenas Noches, Te Quiero,

Ashleigh

Hey, Jesus?

ashleighnichole — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 06:51:09 +0000

Dear Jesus,

I’m lonely.

I need You.

Love,

Ashleigh

Great Expectations or Not-So-Great Expectations?

ashleighnichole — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 03:54:00 +0000

So, as most of you know, I’m a musician and have college auditions coming up very soon (the first one on Saturday!!) but I’ve been working extremely hard, practicing more than I ever have, and taking on music I never thought was possible for me to play. It has been an insane growing experience, but up until today, I never thought I would be ready.

I tend to think of myself as the girl that isn’t good at anything. I set myself at ridicuously high standards and expect myself to reach them, and if I don’t, then it’s one more thing I can add to the “Things I don’t like about myself” list. For years this has consumed me. The list of things I hate contains mostly everything about myself if I’m really going to be honest. It was even as extreme as one time being at a class at church, and we did this activity where we went to different stations did something, and answered questions about it. One of the stations was to look in a mirror and write down at least 5 things that we liked about ourselves, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t think of one thing I liked, granted that was at the lowest point of my self esteem. But the point of this is, we are too hard on ourselves and expect much more than we can possibly do, and it wasn’t til I relaxed and lowered my standards when I was finally happy and appreciated what talents God had given me.

So look back and take a glance. Are you holding yourself at too high of standards? I know that if I continued to think I was going to be a perfect cello player, beautiful singer, get all my work done at church, look good every day, get good grades, keep relationships with my family and friends, and be the perfect daughter and friend to everyone, I would still be a self esteem mess. I’m not going to lie and say that it changed over night, or that I have completely lowered my standards, because things don’t happen that quick. But I can say, that you have to change the inside of your mindset and change what you expect and how much you let God in. If you continue to try to stop the behavior and not the mindset (or inside) you won’t win. Sorry to be so blunt. But been there, tried that. I encourage you guys to re-evaluate the things you expect of yourself. If it’s too much, then cut back. You are only human and can’t do everything, as I learned the hard way. And God loves you for who you are, not for who you think you want to become. It took me almost 5 years to realize God loved me, and not the 90 pound blonde hair blue eyed vision I had of who I wanted to be. My desire is that it doesn’t take you all as long as it took me to figure out. The sooner you realize your expectations are too high and change them, the better.

I’m happy to say today I left my cello lesson with a smile on my face, saying “Ya know, whatever happens at the audition happens, but I know that I have accomplished so much and overcame so many obstacles, and I am happy with where I have come.” and I truly think that going into my audition with that attitude, could win me my audition.

So go take a look back, what are you expecting of yourself? And are you trying to do more than you can handle? Or look a way that isn’t possible or healthy? Remember that God loves you for you, and cares about the real you. I would love to hear what you guys find when you look back at your expectations. I love it when people share their lives with me.

Ashleigh

Ps. Wow this is way long… Sorry!!

To a girl with a broken heart…

ashleighnichole — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:05:51 +0000

I know it’s hard, believe me I do, I wish I could tell you all the story, but you’ll have to ask if you want to hear because I’m not posting the story online. A heartbreak is a rare kind of sickness, it feels like it has no cure. However, I’m here to promise you, that there is a cure to this awful pain. And the cure’s name is Jesus. He is there with this arms open, ready to give you everything your heart needs to mend itself. He’s ready with the bandaids, and the tylenol, to make the ache go away. But He is better than those things, because He is the only cure to a broken, unfilled heart. He is the only one that can fill you, and until you let him fill you, your heart won’t be full. So I encourage you, to cling to what you love to do, and cling to Jesus. He will never let you down, or break your heart. He will never screw up, or accidentally say something He doesn’t mean. He will always love you, no matter what you do. He will never leave you, no matter what you do. And I can tell you that until you love Jesus with everything you have, loving someone else is difficult if not impossible in my experience.

Anyway, I hope you know already that I’m here for you. I have a great shoulder to cry on, and I understand what you are going through. And I hope you also know that I love you so much and you have been a blessing in my life. I know it will be hard to trust again, (as I am the queen of not trusting) but God will tell you when the time is right to trust again. Live in Him and find yourself in Him. It’s ok to cry. You are an amazingly strong woman, but sometimes we all have times where we want to be a little girl and just cry, and thats ok.

I love you so much, so so much. And I’m here for you every step of the way. I’m cheering for you. Get some sleep beautiful girl.

In this with ya, all the way,

Ashleigh

Own It

ashleighnichole — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:28:34 +0000

I was talking to a friend this afternoon about owning my life, and making my own decisions for myself. We talked about how in life there are always going to be things that make life hard, or things we don’t like, or don’t want to deal with, yet we need to take control, because its our life, and our dignity we have here on earth. So I get this text from her, that says, “Own it. Be more of a woman and less of a girl. And never, never stop letting God be your air.” Which I just find to be such an amazing text, something so simple, yet so perfect. I’ve come to find that it’s when I stop letting God be my air that I end up in these ridiculous predicaments, that I normally struggle with getting myself out of. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, so Own it. Own your own life, and make your own choices. From what I’ve seen, people admire those who can be themselves and make their own decisions because they have individuality and uniqueness. (Easier said than done right? Especially if your a person that has the self doubt that I do.)

So then that brings me to a song during worship today that after today and talking to her, just broke me. The lyrics are “So take me as you find me, all my fears and failures fill my life again. I give my life to follow, everything I believe in, now I surrender.”

I have messed up, I have made bad decisions, and I haven’t always worked very hard at getting out of them. But now is the time for me to surrender, to own my life, and to take control of the messes I’m in the middle of. I know I have God and others by my side, and maybe it’s time to grow up a little anyways. And man sometimes I hate growing up, it take more decision making- but I know it’s worth every step. God is so good. Amazing how He can captivate a nervous confused heart and make it so in love with Him. Amazing how worship can take my breath away sometimes, and I forget I’m even on stage leading. Amazing how God created the way we grow up and mature, and how He helps us through every step. And ridiculous that we choose to push something so amazing like grace, love, and forgiveness aside to do things on our own. And seriously AMAZING how He welcomes us back with open arms…. Great God eh?

Ashleigh

PS. Michele, hope you don’t mind I just shared our convo on my blog, however I love what you said. I love you so much. So much.