ALY ALLEN | THE BLOG

i have a little habit. when life starts getting out of hand, i like to make it worse. i'm honestly not sure if it's my own mind, or the enemy planting lies [probably a combination of both], but i will grab onto a tiny little lie and grow it and twist and chew on it until i'm caught up in a full on stronghold. a spiraling episode , i call it. in high school, when i wasn't as aware of what was actually happening, i called it "letting my imagine run wild". i'd come up with scenarios and play out the entire thing to its logical, or illogical, bitter end. a disaster really. a crisis of the mind. a crisis of belief. lately i'd been doing really well when it comes to these episodes, meaning they were becoming fewer and further between. but recently life started feeling heavy. for awhile, i put one foot in front of the other and waded through it. but then i got blindsided. you can call me crazy, but i believe the enemy gives me dreams sometimes. terrible...

right this very second in my heart i want to just reach out and touch God. i feel like maybe i could if i tried really hard. i feel like i might explode from His goodness to me. i'm sitting in starbucks and my mom has had the kids all day, and will have them all night. and my husband is out of town. so i am literally alone and it is heaven on earth in every sense of that phrase. i love being alone. i love being refreshed. i love solitude. today i also got to sing at my "old" church . i'll just say it felt good. i felt alive for the first time in a loooong time. worshiping God. after nine months off, it was nice to know i could still sing. but it was even better to just worship. to remember that God is always worthy to be praised. it had been a dry nine months, meaning that i hadn't really "experienced" or "felt" God in [musical] worship for awhile. and though i know that many aspects of my life have been poured out in worship over those nine...

i told you about how i recently left my church of 15 years... well it was quite the long process, both logistically and in my heart. there were so many things surrounding our decision, and so many pros and cons on either side. i thought and thought and prayed and prayed. it was a pretty weird time for me. i told you about how God was using this move to grow me and to reveal my pride  i didn't realize was there. but let me share a few universal lessons i learned along this little journey, that i think anyone can benefit from. around June, i started wondering how crazy i must be to think i should ever consider leaving Dr. David Jeremiah's church . like, seriously? people come from all over the country to hear him, they tune in on their TVs and their radios to listen because they don't have the privilege of attending his church, literally seven minutes from my house, where i've gone for 15 years. now, in my head, it doesn't take much for full-on crisis to ensue...

i told you  in my last post  how i really and truly  never thought i would leave  my church. i'm a loyal person, i like familiarity, and i do love routine.  God knows those things so intimately about me, and i believe it's part of the reason why He called me away from it . all of those traits can be good things, but they can also the very things keeping us from the best that God might have waiting for us. the other reason? my pride.  yes, my pride. but let me explain... at our old church, i sang in the choir and the praise team and was given regular opportunities to sing solos. in a church of that size, i guess you could say that people recognized me when i walked by, or in grocery stores, or stopped at a stoplight in my car [true story]. as i served for those seven years, though, i wasn't looking for fame or glory or recognition. and pride really wasn't something i struggled with very often [thank the Lord]. to be honest, i don't love atten...

i never planned to leave my church. i simply planned to take about 9 months off for a last-few-months-of-pregnancy/transition-to-two-children "maternity leave". november 2011, thanksgiving weekend, i sang my last solo with the choir, and headed home filled and content, to a cozy fire and lunch in the oven. i hadn't even kicked off my black peep-toe heels when my husband suggested that maybe we take this opportunity- my little hiatus- to visit a few different churches. you can imagine my silent tantrum. he could tell i was having an internal panic attack but i didn't want to let on. i hummed and hawed and said maybe that was a good idea. for my husband, it was simply a matter of: we've been at this church since we were 13 years old and have never even set foot elsewhere. shouldn't we explore that? shouldn't we know why we're actually going here? we love the church, we love the people, and we definitely love the preaching. there's nothing wrong...

waiting. one of the hardest disciplines, isn't it? for me, anyway. i'm not the most patient person in the world... just ask my 2 year old. waiting comes in all forms. sometimes they're serious and life-changing things that we wait and hope and pray for, and sometimes they're just daily little things that pop up in our path. we pray and pray for God to work in our circumstances. to change them, make them go away, make them better.  but what if God had a different lesson for us to learn in the waiting? some of you are waiting for a baby. either because you're dealing with the heartache of infertility or you're navigating the difficult waters of adoption.  some of you are waiting for a wayward child to return. either to your home or to your heart. a broken relationship needs mending and you're waiting. some are waiting for your husband to rise up and fill his role as spiritual leader in your house. you're waiting for his repentance or h...

last night we attended a "celebration of life" service for one of my husband's assistant coaches who passed away. he was 23 and he actually took his own life. you would've never known a guy like him was struggling. incredibly happy with an infectious personality, he touched a lot of lives. many of the boys on my husband's football team attended the service. he's not at a christian school, so it's anyone's guess how much these boys have been exposed to real gospel Truth... that is, until this service. the gospel was presented clearly and powerfully and the mood of the entire night was that of joy and celebration for this young man's life. sure, he cut it short, but i can only think of how God placed him on the campus of that school, for just about 8 months, to impact these kids, and then become the reason that they would hear the gospel last night. i imagine satan probably figured he'd won this battle. he'd defeated this young man and co...

maybe someone needed to read this today?  i know i needed it. i have a bunch of "mixed CDs" just laying around in the car. i stuck in this particular CD and this was the first song that played. and it was exactly what i needed to be reminded of. please take the three minutes and listen to it i included the lyrics below (emphasis mine, of course). i mean, they're just Truth, with some pretty music added to it. and hopefully they'll give you strength for whatever your circumstances might be if you don't know who Ginny Owens is, she's a singer/songwriter. and she's blind.  i won't write out her full bio, but i think that fact alone gives her some solid "street-credit" when writing about trials, doesn't it? the pathway is broken and the signs are unclear and i don't know the reason  why You brought me here but just because You love me the way that You do i'm gonna walk through the valley if You...

being a parent is a heavy responsibility.  and that's the biggest understatement of the century, right?  it requires all of you: your heart, your mind, your physical body.  it evokes every emotion: heartache, frustration, intense love, desperation, sheer joy.  it takes planning, creativity, wisdom, supernatural strength, and mostly a lot of prayer.  sometimes i feel like i can't give my daughter everything she needs. and i can't. but the beautiful thing is that i was never meant to. that's not how any of us were designed. Jesus is the only one who can give us everything we need. over and over again. if He's the answer for me, then He's the answer for my daughter even though it may look differently at her age. as she's getting older, i'm realizing that i can't protect her from every little thing like i could when she was a baby. she's interacting with other kids, other adults, she's away from me frequently. i can...

scanning through my twitter feed the other day, i saw this: i loved it. don't you? i needed that bit of wisdom that day. you can read serena woods' blog here so i created a little printable for myself [by all means, print it out for yourself too!] and added philippians 1:6 to her quote. to remind myself that God is not going to abandon me no matter how much i think i've failed or how much i feel like He must have given up on me by now. i usually need to remind myself that my feelings  are not Truth. His Word is truth. period. now of course, sometimes God does rescue us right out of our circumstances, but we certainly shouldn't expect that every time. romans 8:28 helps me to remember that no matter what,  " in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

i've had this song stuck in my head for days. and subsequently, i've had this little design for a set of prints stuck in my head, too, keeping me awake at night. i'll be framing them in white, hanging them longways, top-to-bottom. i just haven't decided where to hang them in my house.... lucky for you, i won't be selling them in the shop since the graphics i used to piece together the backgrounds aren't my original design, so you get to print them for free! hang them somewhere that you walk by every day, so you can be constantly reminded and thankful. ** just right click and choose "save as". then you can print or send off to costco, walmart, wherever you print photos **

i'll let it speak for itself: here at the altar of the broken things i'm finally throwing down this mirror of me when i've done all i can do and there's nothing left to prove and i just need You i'm totally completely dependent upon You i'm totally completely dependent upon You here at the place of empty vessels i'm pouring out this heart of selfish ambition when there's no more options left and i'm nothing but a mess that's when You're best i'm totally completely dependent upon You i'm totally completely dependent upon You when there's no words left to say when there's nothing left to pray i just wait i'll wait on You Lord i'm trusting in Your Word 'cause You're totally completely faithful to me You're totally completely faithful to me and her voice, and the music, is almost haunting. so beautiful : sarah reeves new CD [called broken things]

do you keep a journal? when i was in high school i wrote almost every day in a "diary" type journal, where i talked about what happened that day, which boy i liked, what was going on with my friends. i stopped writing in it soon after i met joel [my husband] sophomore year. and then i only wrote every few months. but it's fun [and sometimes embarrassing] to go back and read, and to remember. as i've become an adult my journaling and has turned to God. i know a lot of people who keep a prayer journal. i used to scold myself that i didn't, because i thought it had to a bullet point list of prayer requests, which didn't seem very exciting to me. mine isn't that way. it's dialog. just spilling out my heart to Him in prayer, in written form. it is sacred to me, so intimate. some of the greatest revelations come from this time. i don't do it every day, and lately it's been very intermittent. today i picked up my journal and started reading. a...

i wanted to share this story i saw on the news this morning. maybe you've heard of a little girl named Rachel Beckwith? well, she was a remarkable little girl who, for her 9th birthday this past June, wanted her friends and family to give to her "charity:water" fund instead of getting her any gifts. her goal was to raise $300, to help about 15 people.  if you don't know anything about charity:water , it is an organization that raises money to build wells in the poorest countries where people don't have access to clean water. to date, they've raised almost 10 million dollars and have provided water to almost 500,000 people. truly amazing. and it works by people like you and me setting up a little campaign on their website where others can donate to the project.  Rachel raised about $220 for her birthday. that's inspiring for a nine year old girl.  just a few weeks ago, she was in a car accident and sustained fatal injuries. while she was in the hospita...

i need this reminder sometimes, don't you?  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,   neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 and if i could add to that verse, i'd remind myself that even my own thoughts and perceptions , no matter how convincing they seem, can't separate me from His love. nothing at all.  i love this song by Kathryn Scott. i've been singing it over and over these past few days. this morning it's on repeat   [it's been a rough one with a very uncooperative two year old... you know all about those right?]

we were driving home from lunch listening to some good country music on the way... you know, the songs that say stuff like: "got a little bit of chicken fried. cold beer on a friday night. a pair of jeans that fit just right. and the radio up." or this one:  "i got a roof over my head. the woman i love layin' in my bed... i got shoes under my feet... i got all i need, and it's alright by me." it got me thinking about how we have some pretty incredible things to be thankful for. that i shouldn't take one little thing for granted. the lunch i just ate and the car i'm comfortably riding in. the husband who loves me and the daughter sleeping peacefully in her carseat behind me. and so. much. more . and then i began to think about how God promises to provide our every need , yet we worry and stress over the silliest [sometimes not so silly] things. i just couldn't help but wonder that while He does promise to provide for our every need and care fo...