Freedom's TEO 2

Stop expecting perfection and understanding of your trials from family and friends.  When you are going through things you should run to God.  Talk to him about the trial and let him work.   People are not perfect no matter who they are.  People may let you down and that is okay because we are all a work in progress.  That doesn’t say anything less about the person or their relationship with you.  It means you need to pray for yourself because if you can get easily offended mean you are not as close to God as you think.  It may also mean there is a deep rooted seed inside that you need to work on.  Let the person off the hook from your victim mentality and run to the perfect friend in your life, GOD.

Psalm 18:30 (NLT)

God's way is perfect. All the LORD's promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.

Freedom's TEO 1

So I am trying something new called Transparency Encourage Others (TEO). I will give you little notes (no more than 200 words) on life challenges but expressed to keep you encouraged and focused God.  This is TEO 1.  Enjoy and please share with others.  Love you guys
Crystal ‘FREEDOM’ Baskin

Sometime I wish God made me like people who, as soon as they get hurt, as soon as they are wronged, as soon as they are lied to and lied on, as soon as they are cheated on, as soon as they are pushed to the edge, JUST GO OFF.  Let you know the pain you cause.  Let my anger be expressed by busting your windows out, flattening your tires, scream to the world how you are no good and a selfish bastard, tell everyone you know you are full of crap and even get angry enough to appear on SNAPPED…….I stop and BREATH.  Get on my knees.  Think about JESUS on the cross for YOU and me.  I let the tears flow from the pain and I pray.  I pray that God give you nothing but blessings in your life.  That he continue to use you for his glory.  That you be shaped into the perfect image of him.  I pray that he take away any ill feeling I have about you.  That he teach me how to forgive more and more.  That his love for you will be instilled in me and shown by me no matter what. 

Luke 6:28

²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you

My Idol was The Idea of Being In Love

Jonah 2:8 (NIV) - Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.

For a long time I thought that men were taking the place of God.  I mean I was giving men all that belonged to God.  But I have come to realize that it was not the men who became my idol but the idea of being in love.  Let me break it down this way.  During my life I seen the love my parents shared (50 years of love might I add) and when you get older you realize that with real unselfish relationships there are good days and bad days but through it all you stay.  It’s not about perfection, but about give and take and truly serving the other person.  I knew deep down inside that the fairytale love didn’t exist.  But somewhere down the line I lost sight of this.  Watching TV and listening to music altered my view.  I guess the seed was planted in my youth.  Truly think back to childhood cartoons from Disney showed me Mickey and Minnie mouse had the perfect love.  When I became a little older there were shows like, Save By The Bell, which portrayed the relationships that you dreamed of.  After graduating from high school every movie geared towards women had a romantic relationship with the perfect ending.  The man always managed to sweep the good girl off her feet.  And even when it seemed that the relationship wasn’t going to work out the friends and family would come to the rescue and manage to bring the confused couple together.  So being a person who loves love this type of things attracted me and took root in my flesh.  My heart fell right into imagination and put reality in the background. 

Experiences have showed me chasing the idea of falling in love I have been hurt over and over again.  Why wasn’t my prince charming acting liked the men I seen on TV.  Why wasn’t he coming to take away the heartbreaks and shout to the world just how much he loved me?  Why wasn’t he ready to stand in front of God and profess his love for me?  Well one reason is because the fairytale don’t exist.  Second thing is there is only one perfect love and that comes from God.  The third reason is no one is perfect and that includes the man that is meant for me.  God gives us instructions on how to love, such as:

Galatians 5:13(NIV) - ¹³ You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.

Now I can say experiencing the pain actually was a benefit because it pushed me closer to God.  It also allowed me to see my flaws and areas I need to work on.  Also I know the pain I have been through will help the next person look for reality instead of the romantic comedy and fairytale that we have seen all our lives.

So in conclusion, let me first say to ever man that have hurt me let me apologize to you for hold you to standard that doesn’t exist.  You didn’t even realize that perfection was mandatory.  I know now God is the only one who can love me perfectly.  Next, to Crystal ‘FREEDOM’ Baskin of the past, I apologize that I took you through the confusion and not letting you look at things in the true perspective.  I am back on track and trusting reality.  I am taking time out to allow you to heal from the lies I instilled inside.  Me, myself and I will walk in reality from this day forward.  Last but definitely not least God forgive me for not allowing me to let you guide me 100%.  I know I am growing for your purpose so I thank you right now for being the potter and shaping me into your image.  This life is all about you so please let this lesson sink in for the remaining days of my life.

Psalms 130:4 (NIV) - But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

God Uses Trials for His Purpose

I am sure you have heard that everything that happened to you in your life has already been planned.  If you haven’t now you know.  But with that being said we have a choice how to react to our experiences.  Your life is for God’s purpose rather you believe in him or not.  Even when you are not thinking about him God still loves you and doing things for you, yep that’s the God I serve.  So yesterday God reveal that he is giving me the desire of my heart.  Let me warn you; watch what you ask for because God will deliver.  I asked him to use me, to show me my purpose, and what does he want from me?  As soon as I made this my goal and started pulling closer to him, my world was turned upside down.  There were/are trials in every area of my life.  I felt Grief, heartache, career confusion, family issues, and issues with my body which made it hard to even look in the mirror. 

Well God showed me how he was preparing me for what I asked for.  In order for me to be used by him I have to go through some things to make me spiritually strong.  How can I help people if I haven’t experienced what they experienced? He allowed me to experienced anger, thoughts of giving up and frustration.  One day I was even ready to give up on love, yes the hopeless romantic love-a-holic told love goodbye.  That day I wrote this poem:

I’m Gone

I know I have told you this a thousand times

But this here is my final goodbye

I’m Gone

You took for granted, every part of me

Tired of crying and begging you to appreciate me

I’m Gone

I wish you nothing but the best

Because your actions showed I was second to the rest

I’m Gone

My heart has turned completely callous

Never thought I would hate you with so much passion

I’m Gone

The hopeless romantic has dematerialized

Exhausted for giving you a try

I’m Gone

My friends tell me your representatives just wasn’t the one

But I’ve Run this race to long, I’m overdone

I’m Gone

Starting over is so hard to do

Letting you in, believing your words were true…man

I’m Gone

I thought just because you knew God you would treat me better

But instead you threw me out in zero degree weather

I’m Gone

Behind this mask of happiness is hurt and tears

People are blind to the ocean that formed over these years

I’m Gone

So many pieces of me have died

That’s when I look at my reflection I’ve come to realize

Damn, I’m Gone

I never thought I would say this to you

But I am finally weak enough to say we are through

Love, I’m Gone

I swear the very next day God removed these feeling and opened my eyes to his truth.  He is getting rid of some distractions, closing the door on unhealthy situations and at the same time increasing my territory through the tears and pain.   Yes, he was building my spiritual muscles. 

In the midst of this he had my sister give me Purpose Driven Life without her knowing what I was fully going through.  God revealed in the book one way to discover your purpose was to just look at your God given talent that you were born with.  This made me think back to a few days earlier when a few of my friends came to work with pictures of when they were toddlers doing the very thing they enjoy doing today.  One of my friends was in front of a computer at 2 years old concentrating hard, just like she does today.  My other friend had a picture of her riding a pony, now she has a horse and rides him at events on the weekend.  So it got me thinking about my talents.  I asked my mommy and sister, since they have known me my whole life ha-ha, what were talents did they see in me since my toddler day's and the first thing out of both their mouths was writing (you think lol).  God also showed me how all my other talents will assist me with my purpose, so he can get all the glory.  I think I found my purpose, what do you think?

I see that every tear, pain, victory and joy was for someone else.  It was for God to be seen in me.  God is showing me through it all just how much he loves me.  He is preparing me to truly live for him.  It makes me think back when I was first saved almost 12 years ago.  God told me saints would send me all over the world and to get my passport.  At the time being a baby in Christ I thought it was joke.  I even thought that the prophetess didn’t know what she was talking about.  But now I see that everything from that day until now was in divine order.  To realize God loves me so much brings me to tears.  All I can say is thank you ABBA.  Even though the events that happen so far 2012 has been confusing and uncomfortable at times I am ecstatic that I gained so much, God blessed me with gift of being used by him.

Tearing Up The List

I wrote this last year but the crazy thing is I forgot my own message and created a list again.  I will advise you when God give you a revelation, write it down and review it often, so you wont have to learn the same lesson over and over again.  Enjoy (I tore up my list again haha)

Tearing Up My List

Crystal 'FREEDOM' Baskin

10-31-11

            Well here I go again.  Let me first say I love when my heavenly father gives me a revelation and allow me to write again.  This is all coming from him, he gets all the praise.  I am just a vessel that don't deserve his love but so very grateful for the cross.  Now let’s get down to business.  So a couple of weeks ago I was in service and God asked me do I really trust him.  I mean really trust him in all areas of my life.  Of course I said yes because in my mind I couldn't see where I didn't trust God.  God took me through a stripping a few years ago and it made me realize that in certain area I was in control.  I had never given God a chance to take the lead.  But today I am so grateful for him taking away thing I thought made me who I was.  I took my hands off and allowed him to move.   

            So God showed me that I wasn’t trusting in him with my love life.  I told him that I always asked him to send me the man he has for me.  Then he said so why do I have the list.  Now come on people I know you know about the list.  We create the good old list that describes your perfect mate.  You may have spiritual, looks, attitude, finances, and family description.  So I describe the man I felt was perfect for me.  I mean this man was everything I would ever want.  I actually kept the list in my purse to remind me exactly what I felt was perfect for me

            Then God asked me who knows what’s best for you.  Now this really got me thinking.  I mean if I was such a good choice with men then some of the past hurts wouldn't exist.  Then I started to realize if God made me, knew me before the womb, knew what I was going to say before I said it and sitting with me right now as I type this, I think he knows me better.  Every day I am discovering something new about myself, God is saying let me show her a little more.  So how dare I think I should tell God what man is best for me.

            I know my friends and me who have had the list always say I will not settle and this list will show exactly what I want.  God told me, Crystal when you know your worth and truly love yourself you won’t need a list to stop you from settling, you will be so focused on me and my light shining through you will stop certain guys from even approaching me.  He will be the keeper of my heart and a man will have to come to him to get it.

            Then he showed me how I was putting limits and boundaries on him.  Now he could give me what I asked for but I might not get the full blessing he has for me.  The man he has for me might not fit into the mold I designed.  Which got me thinking, I have friends that tell me that they got the man they asked for and a little more.  Which lead me to believe God was still at work even with a list and when we don't fully trust him (what an awesome God we serve). 

            So with all that being said I decided to fully trust God.  Let him work while I build a deeper relationship with him.  I can even trust that even if he never sends me a man then I trust it was his will and he has a bigger purpose for me.  God didn't need my help creating me so I am sure he doesn’t need my help in creating me a man.  Forgive me God for not submitting completely.  I am tearing up my list and trusting you only.