The Smoke of Battle.

Do you have the Smoke of Battle?

The smoke of battle is the wounds, the scars, the stories of a long fought war. I'm beginning to pick mine up. I am absolutely loving that fact. I'm creating my story. I'm leaving my mark. I'm gaining marks.

Do you have a story? Is there a battle that you're winning? If so, I'm proud of you. If so, you're amazing. If so, you absolutely inspire me.

traipsing

I'm all in my memory, trying to figure out just where you did your magic. I'm compelled deep within the fabric of our history, trying to figure out just what you mean to me. I'm sure it's nothing more or nothing less than the beauty of this friendship. I trust you, I hope you trust me, just enough to set yourself free. The wall around my beating heart is that of the wall of Jericho, it's begs and pleads for the sound of your call. I just want the wall to come crumbling down. The wall to come crumbling down. I've been running away from you for so long the blisters on my feet have formed their own blisters. I've been crawling to you for so long that my knees bleed and bleed. I can't deny what I'm feeling anymore, I am hitting the ground running, I'm gonna come back for more. I love you more than life, and I'll do anything to shed the light. To let you see, just how much that you truly mean to me. You are my inspiration. You're on fire, I'm on fire for you. How do we make it true?

Portland and reconciliation of the heart.

I was just across the border in Oregon. It's a beautiful city called Portland. I was there for a Family Reunion. I absolutely love the corporation that feeds my business and I hope that as I write about my weekend that I can edify it, just a little bit.

I heard from many different people from many different walks of life with very different stories. I laughed hysterically, I cried monumentally. Every person who spoke made their business what it is because they made a decision. They made the decision to go CORE. It really revealed to me just how successful the CORE system really is...

I am preparing to do the same. I am preparing for life-changing experiences. I am ready to transform my life.

The word dynasty was thrown around a little bit this weekend. I like that word. I want people to see a Porter dynasty. I want the people I help to help people. I want to selflessly serve these people until my knuckles bleed. My first step is getting the Attalah's organization to explode. My next step is to get the Schuman's organization to explode. The final step is to get my organization to explode. The step after the final step is to help each and every one of my personally sponsored individuals to get their organizations to explode. The cool thing. Is if I complete even one of these steps, I've done what I wanted.

Absorbing all of this information this weekend was critical for me. I am still in the processing mode. Every sentence that was said carried extreme validity. Every major point was like a mini revelation on my heart.

Another cool thing that I observed was that this environment is the kind of environment when things really happen. Everyone carried themselves with esteem and confidence, negativity just didn't exist, and everyone was connected by the same common thread. That thread was DREAM. We all have dreams, while they're different dreams, they're all dreams. The thing that's different about the people in that arena and the rest of the world is that we make them happen. We don't just dream of that car, or that house, or that relationship, or that vacation for the family, we make it reality. With sacrifice at the front comes a wonderful reality in the end.

Everything that I do now, I do it for my future. The way they said it this weekend was really poignant to me. "Dig your well before you're thirsty." It was probably said forty times by five or six different people and each and every time it was said it sunk in just a little deeper. I need to be ready to sacrifice. I should be confident in each sacrifice I take as well...

Every decision I make, I make it with His guidance, my upline's guidance, and my heart's dreams...

There's no other business that lets it's people dream. There's no other business that maintains friendships before fiscal success. There's no other business where those around you selflessly serve you to make your business more successful. There's no other business where your direct counsel is those who have been successful in the business already. There is no other business where love is integral to success. I also believe in my opinion that there's no other business where His hand is laid upon it more.

I am so blessed to have gotten an invitation into this wonderful world. It's the biggest opportunity for me to make my dreams a real thing.

That said, my heart took a proverbial beating this weekend. I have reconciled with a lot of my past because of that, and I will continue forward with my future. My deeply wonderful and amazingly awesome future. I see so much potential all around me. Now it's up to me to actually go out and grab that future and make it reality. It's up to me to see the world around me change. I know I can do it. I have the most amazing association all around me, I have a dream, and I have a fire deeply implanted in my heart. I am absolutely on fire.

Headphones and Late Nights.

Yesterday was interesting to say the least. I was with my new friends at Starbucks last night. Essentially, it was me and five guys, ranging in age from twenty-one to probably forty. It was the most awkward thing to have someone try to convince me that masturbation was like drinking as far as pleasure goes. He also was trying to convince me that I should try it. We even played around with concept biblically. So yeah...

It's interesting the way the world works today. The guys just laughed and I sitting there, not offended, just absorbing this conversation...

Upon recommendation, I'm reading "The Grace Awakening." It's actually been quite transforming. Speaking of transforming, I'm excited for this weekend. I'll be in Portland the next few nights. I'll be dreaming bigger and loving harder than ever before.

Abstraction.

I tend to think very abstractly. I don't find any fault in that, but I do have one qualm. I can never immediately be a logical thinking individual. It just doesn't quite compute within me to think through something with logic. I think I feel like this because a big part of me believes that logic takes away critical emotion that I believe is necessary in order to rationally make a decision. Logic is about taking already programmed steps in order to come to a decision. Being emotionally connected to that decision is then forgotten. The problems then arise. In that decision where emotion is left of the wayside, someone could get hurt, and the decision maker forgets his/her responsibility in the process making them ignorant when the hurt party comes forward...

This is where human nature has increasingly been failing. We forget that with our decision comes responsibility over that decision. Then when everything happens, and we are "exposed" as the "guilty" party, we deny that we ever had any involvement when really we were the sole decider in the matter. Then, as more and more people begin to point out the guilty party who made the decision, they get extremely defensive and in most cases find an excuse to run away and find a new group of association. This group of association is easily manipulated because the guilty party can be overtly deceiving in the way they talk to gain the trust of the new association...

The plot thickens from there too. Now the guilty party is caught in a full-fledged lie. They must keep lying from that point on because if one inconsistency in their story arises, they will have been exposed. Had they just been honest about the first situation, they would not be in this one. Chances are they even would have been forgiven and life would have moved on and the relationship would have been maintained and maintained well...

What happens if they get caught in their lie? What happens when that inconsistency is revealed? Not only did they lose their first group of association, they now lose their new group of association and there is very little they can do to get that back because of the circumstance that it was lost. Trust is very key, especially in a new group or relationship. If trust isn't established quickly it becomes harder to earn...

Now, if you throw in honest emotion from all sides, the conversation tends to open up, and people tend to become honest in their actions. People express instead of repress and that leads to reconciliation. Reconciliation leads to reconnection. Reconnection then leads to re-establishment of the lost relationship.

Anyways, back to being logical. While it's good on a math page, and great in the decision making process, it's absolutely critical not to forget the emotion... Without it, the logic, well it can't be completely logical.

The Fire...

I am so on fire. I just got back from one of the most inspirational talks of my entire life. Bradley Duncan. That man knows how to shoot fire straight into my bones and deeply within my heart. It's so childish to say this... but he is so cool! He's got it all going on. He's absolutely wonderful. His message is powerful. Most importantly, his dream is real, alive, and well. He's a multi-multi millionaire giving me his two cents on how he got there, yet, he wasn't paid a dime to show up. He chose fully to share his fire with us, on his own time. I am inspired. I am on fire. It will be the most amazing two days next weekend. Spending it with dreamers from all walks of life who are dreaming their dreams like I'm dreaming mine. With passion and with fervor...

Passion. Fervor.

Capturing Revelation.

Yes, capturing revelation. I believe it's one-hundred percent possible to attain revelation through prayer and patience combined. Answers, like most things don't necessarily present themselves like a rainbow in the sky. You don't know when it's coming, what your reaction will be, or how to achieve ideally the result you desire. A rainbow needs a very specific set of events to occur. You need rain, you need sun, you need the rain to fall, you need the sun to shine, both at the same time, but most importantly you need to be looking in the right direction. Whereas an answer can come in any form, at any time, in any place, it can even be covered with another face.

I don't know but lately I've been seeking far more answers than I'm getting and I think there's definite reason for that. I haven't been seeking the Lord's favor like I should be. I've been slipping in ways that I thought were far behind me. I've been tragically informed by the masses of people around me that I'm not as put-together as I thought I was.

I'm a girl with desires and dreams and I've been failing to make them reality. I've not been trusting God with the few things in my life that I constantly see myself failing in. I yearn for consistency. I yearn to be understood. I yearn for people to understand me, and where I've come from. I year for deep love that can't be mistaken. I yearn for revelation. I'm just yearning for answers to my questions.

I can't do that without going to the altar. I know what I need to do. I need to run too the altar and beg in His name that I will be redeemed of my selfishness and my pride. I have one desire and He knows exactly what it is. Now I pray that I stop obsessing over it. I pray that he helps me to achieve this wonderful thing. I have such a strong feeling that this could be the real deal. I just wish that the other side knew and felt the same way. Perhaps with proper discipline and obedience, I may acquire the dream. I have to reach for it. I don't think I would have held onto it for so long if I didn't think that something could come from it.

Love is a loaded gun and my trigger finger lingers.

I've been listening to those lyrics lately and they are actually starting to hit home.

"Love is a loaded gun and my trigger finger lingers."

I'm deeply involved with love by my faith, but I'm not experiencing in full the Love I should be.

It goes on to say these words which tear at my core. "Kind words, just a bullet in a chamber. Big talk but nothing's ever changing. Take aim, but never making my mark. Love can change a world but it's gotta start with my heart."...

Needless to say I feel slightly convicted because I don't think I've done a very good job... showing the love that I know that I have in my heart. In general I believe I'm doing well. In general I believe that I am making sure that I don't lose myself through it all. But I have so much that I could show this world within my love through my love and with my love. It is extraordinarily possible that I have the ability to go ahead and do it. You know, transform my life by transforming other people's lives.

This song speaks from a very real place in my life and well as the singer, Chris Sligh, and I think it should be played in churches everywhere. To remind us, that we are the love that the world so desperately thirsts for. Boy are we thirsty. Each day I look at the news, and I see the world and it's current state and I get nervous. I get nervous that the undercover movement I see within the church won't ever take the blanket of security off and actually make a transformation in the lives around them. Including myself. I feel like I've been seeking shelter underneath this security blanket called the church for years. I need to go out there and proclaim my faith. Deeply, devoutly, disciplined, and full of desire. I finally feel secure in my faith enough that I should have been speaking his name fluently for years now, but I still sit still. Deeply still. Underneath the thinking that I haven't been gifted in that way. I am though. I know I am. I can do this. I just, I almost get scared. Almost, but honestly, I haven't any excuse to be this scared. I have it. I know I do. I know the words because I believe them.

Chris Sligh, you have my heart hurting and my head turning. Thank you for providing the musical intercession I needed. I definitely needed it. I pray that this conviction only grows and my heart continues to pound in my chest. It's a wonderful feeling that can't be replaced with anything. Love. Love. Love. LOVE.

Judging by the shoes you wear...

So, not that I am superficial or anything remotely near it, but those shoes you wear...

They're something special. They elate me. They come as close to turning me on as I would imagine it feeling. I don't doubt I've felt sexual energy at all, I just haven't actually been so "on" that I needed someone there and now. Your shoes are delicious. They're made from the finest materials and the detailing of a true poet...

Yes, I judge people by the shoes they wear sometimes. When it happens however it's mostly guys shoes I judge. If they're old and well taken care of, they are typically sentimental. If they're new and abused, chances are they liven an extremely care-free life and maybe even come across as egotistical because of that. If they're anywhere in between, they potentially have achieved a proper balance, perhaps even in all aspects of life. If they run a sport shoe, well, I betcha they're a sporty individual.

Anyways, back to you and your shoes. They are just downright sexy. Especially paired with that sexy (oh gosh yes) pair of jeans and that washed one-time-too-many faded tee shirt. You look absolutely fantastic. The more I look, the more I like, and the more I want. Especially when you talk. Especially the way you walk. Everything about you. God, dear God you are absolutely beautiful. Perfect, perhaps.

You take good care of your shoes, so I wonder boy, yeah, you, could you take good care of me too? I doubt you would ever want to, but the thought is extremely rooted in my mind. Somewhere between him and him, the thought of you excites me, thrills me, because you're something new, something great, something true.

We're on the verge of something wonderful. I just wish you'd march in those shoes over here and tell me that too.

Absolutely

God is full of absolutes. This is monumental in my faith today. This entry won't be very long, or very "deeply" written but it is monumental. He is always absolute. In His walk, in His way, in His truth, in His light. He IS absolute...

I can't comprehend how it happens, but God really works at my heart as I sit alone amongst a group of people. I sit here in the Starbucks location that I so frequently visit and I am compelled by the faith that I live in, to achieve bigger, to dream larger, to believe stronger. I don't know how or why, but it is the way it is because that's the way God intended for me to receive it. The people talk around me, and I could actively be a part of the conversation, but I have been told that I am not to interject right now. I am supposed to absorb...

It's just drifted to the Lord's salvation and I am deeply processing. It's time for me to jump back in. It's time for me to inherit the lesson I'm supposed to learn. I thank God for the new people in my life in this moment. I thank him for the ones who have been there. I thank HIM for giving me the life I lead....

Ephesians 6:18

Reconnection, define.

Running into my high school friends evoked so much of my past into my present. I am so glad I'm not in my former being. I'm so glad I've done some real growth. I love my old friends dearly, but I'm partially thankful that I'm not them. They inspire my songs of praise to this day, because I know without my interaction with them that I would not be the person that I am today.

The Lord is my Rock, He is my firm foundation, with Him I will never be shaken...

He has helped me build a fortress since high school that I will never ever come close to replacing. I have grown so much. I am so proud of myself in this moment.

Hey Lord! Reign Down Please!?

I love the Lord and I love when He rains and I love that He reigns. He is raining blessing upon blessing and opportunity upon opportunity on me lately. I am amazed by His love each and every day. I question it, yet, I accept it as the truth it is.

Anyways, I was driving in the beautiful sunlight today when a powerful thought on humanity hit me...

We're scared of the rain. We're scared to be blessed and fulfilled. We're scared that the reigning King may actually love us beyond the earth and into the heavens. We're scared that he actually places upon us a unique heartbeat. One distinctly attached to His. We're scared to know that the perfect stranger gave His only Son's life for our sin. We're scared to accept it...

As I thought about it deeper, I realized why I have to come back and continually re-evaluate. It's because I've been too blessed in life. Honestly, realistically, truly. It amazes me that there's someone who loves me more than the parents He gave me. It amazes me that He is my Father in Heaven who never stops loving me even in my darkest, most secret lies and sin. It's monumental. It's phenomenal. It's revelation...

I try to write in such a way that I can go back and really remember and recall and recount what I was thinking. That said, I try to write about His love and I can't. Too many paragraphs lace themselves together loosely, and the thing is, they're all valid, real, and raw, but there's just too much to absorb. Perhaps one day, I'll let the whole thing come out onto the paper. All those paragraphs, all those interwoven details so specific to me that I fall to my knees in passionate agony at His altar.

I say passionate agony because that's what it is. It's passionate, but it's agony. I love the Lord with all my heart. Yet, to know that I'm constantly falling short in front of Him hurts me, it pains me, it saddens me. It's passionate because I go earnestly to the Cross in those times. I should always be going to the Cross, we should always be going to the Cross...

Back to original thought, His love is reigning, and we're beginning to see real change on the earth. Granted, we hear about the negative, but I believe that we hear this because Satan's getting nervous. I'll go into that thought another day but for now I'll leave this parting thought.

Who deserves to be rained on? You, me, and everybody in between. Who does the reigning? The holy One in Heaven. Go ahead, carry yourself to the table, and accept His love. I'm still working on it.

Into Marvelous Light I'm Running.

"Into marvelous light I'm running, out of darkness out of shame..."

Charlie Hall lyrics. Cliche`, but really great nonetheless. I have to remember that. Always and forever. Where ever I'm going there needs to be light. Not a shadow around. A shadow is just a cool place to rest, but if one gets too comfortable with it, things implode. Laziness grips the soul, procrastination rules the mind, lackluster glances to the future take shape, senseless desires form themselves in sight. Remember resting is okay, but taking sanctuary in a shadow can never lead to true happiness...

That said, run and run hard. Run and run fast. Run diligently. Run dutifully. Run with desire to win the battle. Run with confidence toward your prize. Never let the light revolve around sadness...

That said a proper process of mourning can occur and is healthy. Extremely healthy in fact. Don't be afraid to cry. Don't be afraid to let people see what makes you vulnerable. Because in that vulnerability, you yourself proceed to gain strength.

I've been reading quite a bit about emotion lately and I'm surprised as to what I am reading. It's not so much changing how I view my relationship with Jesus, but it's cementing it. It's solidifying that I can show my emotion and not be pinned as a weak link. In fact, because I show it, I'm set apart. I'm part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I wrote about that fellowship a while ago. Yet it rings true still to this day...

Yesterday was the Fourth of July. Today is the Fifth of July. Happy Fifth of July! Let freedom of emotion ring within!

Storm Surge

When one asks to be transformed there is a certain set of things that happens. Some of it is decidedly great, some of it, well decidedly not so great. The main thing that happens is what I call a "storm surge." A storm surge is just what is sounds like. Except instead of in the weather realm this takes place within the mind, soul, and spirit.

These challenges, no matter where they come from have been ordained by God. That said, when one asks and prays for transformation, full permission has been given to be shaken. This moment, this very time is where people get angry with God. That moment being the moment that God shows up to meet the desire for change...

That said, God gives us many tools to overcome the storms that surround us. The proof is in Ephesians. More specifically Ephesians 6:10-18. Paul lists the individual pieces of armor that we have in our immediate use. The belt of truth, feet that quickly spread the Good News, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit.

Individually those tools may not do very much, but together it sets the stage for a powerful showdown with the enemy. With these tools any storm can be overcome and weathered. The beauty of overcoming is the strength that lies within one after the battle. They walk straighter, they sing more thankfully, they pray continuously, and they love much more abundantly.

So, in that respect, if one prays and asks for transformation, be prepared to be shaken. Not just a slight tremble, but an earth-shattering, glass-breaking, heart-pounding, adrenaline-spiking collapse deep in the soul and high in the spirit. Also prepare for something breathtakingly beautiful on the other side of the storm surge. There probably was some damage during the storm, and it may still be very rough around the edges, but it's going to be the most amazing change on could ever dream of.

He is the reason, the cause, the effect, and the transformation.

Tired of ordinary...

As I think in depth about the way my life is, I can't help but to be extremely thankful and extremely blessed. That said, my life has become some sort of routine. Mind you, it isn't bad routine, it's just routine. I want something to come along to shake that routine to it's core. Not necessarily get rid of it, but shake it. I wanna feel the power of transformation and the power of revolution again. It's been forever since I know I've tasted that.

I want to remember why I'm living and breathing. I want to remember that each time my heart beats that there's a reason for it. I just want to remember. I just want to recall. I just want to recount what the Lord has done for me at all times. This routine that I'm in doesn't help it.

Also, there's a verse that has been shaking me lately. Luke 5:11. I can't wait to detail it.

Also, there's this song called "Come to the Mountain" by Mark Harris. It's absolutely humbling. The mountain is where we're made whole. Always remember that.

This is an entrance into a thirty-one day challenge.

I'm going to try and put up thirty-one entries this month. That equates to being one per day. I know it's achievable, I know I can do it. Yet, I put an intense challenge up on it. The entries have to be below surface level problems. They have to make me think. I'm not concerned. Yet, it's going to be interesting what God throws at me.

I absolutely adore my life right now. I am so blessed. So, beginning today, I embark on the next chapter of this life.