ashleysnook11

I Am A New Creation!

I AM FORGIVEN!! The old me has passed!! After I had accepted Jesus Christ and gave Him control over my life, those three words “I Am Forgiven” changed everything, and I couldn’t wait to tell absolutely everyone what He just did for me!

I wasn’t thinking about the night before, I wasn’t thinking about anything besides that I now owe Him everything!! He gave me eternal life, a new FREE life! I was ready.. to conquer anything and everything because now I had Jesus Christ living in me!

I was driving home and knew everything.. needed to go. I was done with it, done with my old life. I was absolutely ready to give it up for Him because He gave up His life for me!

So I came home, walked in the door.. didn’t say anything to Anthony (not that I was angry anymore) I was on a mission.. a mission to TURN! I walked through the kitchen, grabbed any alcohol and walked into the garage and in the trash it went! Next thing was the weed.. the pipes. I WANTED EVERYTHING OUT!

And that is exactly what happened, that was the old me.. literally less than 8 hours ago. That was ME. But.. THEN GOD. I was ready to take up my cross and follow Him, no matter what it took.

Shortly after all of this took place I was just standing in my garage in awe.. ready to call everyone and tell them what had just happened! That’s exactly what I did. Deep in my spirit I couldn’t contain the excitement!! I had to let it out.

The only person I didn’t tell was my husband.. I remember shortly after I had already called two people he came in the garage and was like “what happened today?” I looked at him but I couldn’t say anything besides we’ll talk about it later.

I didn’t want anything to steal my Joy at that exact moment. As I looked at my husband.. I knew it was going to be a long road.. but I knew God was about to do amazing things for our marriage. All I had to do was obey Him and be still.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

Jesus answered and said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Luke 5:31-32

Accepting Jesus Christ is the first step! The second.. is CHANGE, turn from all the things you did before!! Your chains are gone!! You’ve been set free! START ACTING LIKE IT!

Not by good works, it is a gift from God!

Where to begin!

I was lost, broken, my marriage was falling apart, smoking weed and getting drunk every weekend. But most importantly.. I was heading straight to hell!

Until God took control.

I was stubborn, wanting things done my way. Thought that I was able to fix it on my own. Until everything.. and I mean absolutely everything was falling apart around me!

I was married to my high school sweetheart for only six months.. when I almost lost it all!

So I will start from the beginning!

It was a Saturday night and my Husband and I were heading out with some friends for a birthday party. We were there for about three hours and not making the best decisions. Allowing the alcohol to take absolute control over us. We left shortly after as the bar was closing.. and on our way home was when I snapped. While we were in the bar a girl had came up and was trying to show my husband something and had her arm around him. That made me jealous.. and angry as all goes out. But I chose to take it out on him once we got home. We walked in, I started slamming doors. Screaming, calling him every name in the book because I was terrified something was going to ruin our relationship again! (There were a lot of trust issues on both sides) I finally called him.. his dad who walked out on him at the age of seven. I knew all the buttons to push and I pushed them hard. That was the moment I knew I had said something I was never going to be able to take back. Something that was about to end my marriage. The hurt in his eyes.. was something I will never be able to forget. His eyes became glossy as he said I’m done.. I can’t do this anymore as he walked out the door. I sat in the middle of the room in complete despair as I didn’t think the buttons (that I pushed to often) would finally go off warning him to leave.

He left and headed to his moms, which his mom proceeded to tell him to come back home. He came home and I was in bed bawling. No words were said as he walked in and laid on the couch. Well here I went again, went out and said more and more and more. I couldn’t stop I was raging inside. Until finally he brought up the “D” word. He was done. Officially done.

I went back to the room and laid in bed.. not knowing what to do, he didn’t want to fix this.. my whole world came crumbling down. Even though I knew my insecurities caused this.

I probably got two hours of sleep, and at 8am my alarm went off. As soon as I looked at the time realized that I had promised our 4 year old the night before that I would go to church with her (at the time she was going with my parents to the church I had been to a couple of times back when I was 17). I was like nope not today, I turned it off and laid back down.. but I couldn’t go back to bed no matter how hard I tried. I got up and was like okay, God if you want me to go.. I’ll go but I’m wearing a sweatshirt and not getting done up. After about 15 minutes I went out the door. There were a million thoughts that were going through my head as I was heading to the church. I got out of my car, as soon my daughter had seen me and got so excited. But I couldn’t help but look at her with tears, knowing that her world was about to turn upside down, knowing that she was about to go from having her parents together to a broken home.

I walked in the church with my head down following my parents, we go to sit.. and right before we were able to Pastor Dick came to give them a hug, looked behind them and smiled and said “wow Ashley how are you?” While giving me a huge hug. I lost it.. I broke down right there. He looked right at me, as if he was looking at my soul.. seeing how broken it was and just simply said.. “are you ready?” I nodded my head. We all sat, during the entire worship and service I just sat and cried, it’s was everything that I needed to hear.. God was speaking right to me.

Then.. as soon as service was over.. I wanted to leave.. but I was being pulled to go to the front. I walked up, make up smeared, hung over.. sick to my stomach and not knowing where to turn to next. As I stood in front of Pastor Dick, he said “Ash?” I looked up at him as my eyes were filling up with tears.. and he finally said.. “are you ready?” My knees started buckling, I started shaking and said yes.. I need this, I need Him.

And on that day!! 2/25/18 I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord! On that day my whole life changed.. on that day.. MY EYES WERE OPENED!

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Romans 8:2
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. Matthew 16:24

Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
Because it will help you focus your own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
What topics do you think you’ll write about?
Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.