Trusting Him

This is what I talked about last Sunday during Sunday School:

My latest blog post was about how I have decided to give everything in my life to God and let Him handle it. And when I say everything, I mean everything; my hopes, dreams, desires, fears, doubts, everything. This is a big step for me, because I tend to pick these things back up again without even noticing. I thought I was doing a really good job at this, but I realized that I haven’t been doing as well a job as I thought. You see with everything that has been happening lately in our country, in my family, and with the people around me, I have not been trusting God in every situation. I just don’t understand how some of these things fit into Gods will, but it’s not for me to understand. Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Another version says, “Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own.” Clearly, I’ve been trying to figure everything that has been happening out on my own, and I can’t. That’s not what God has instructed me to do. That’s not what he instructed us to do. Yeah, it’s hard to go through life and wonder what God is doing, but He knows what he is doing. While writing this I am reminded of a picture that I found on Facebook a while back. 

I even put it as the lock screen on my iPod so I would see it daily and remember that God is in control no matter what happens. Well, that didn’t exactly work out as I planned because I am still worrying. As I think about worry I was reminded of Philippians 4:6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” I always look up the verse in the message too, and I really like what is says, “ Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” This verse makes it seem so simple to just give all of our worry to God. And you know what, I think it really is that simple, we just can’t exactly comprehend it. I’m not exactly sure why that is though. I mean God created the entire universe in 6 days. If he can do that, then I think he is capable of handling our problems, or worries. They may seem big to us, but they are small to him, its just a matter of learning to trust Him.

The Line Has Been Drawn!

Give this song a listen.

This song explains so much in my life right now. This is where I was, not even 6 months ago. I felt like I would try so hard, and then I would make a mistake, or do not do what God was telling me to do. I just couldn’t shake it. I kept trying to win on my own, and do everything on my own and I kept failing. Finally, I surrendered it all to God again. Yes, I said again. I cannot tell you, how many times I have surrendered my everything to God, just to pick it back up again and try to do it on my own. It makes me want to go back in time and yell at myself, “YOU CAN’T DO THIS ON YOUR OWN! HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO LEARN THIS!” But this time its different. I don’t know how to explain it. I honestly don’t even remember when this happened. I was probably in my car, on the way to school, because that’s where God and I talk the most. But I just feel so free! I have been changed! The old me, yeah, she’s gone. Seriously, I think back to who I was just a couple of months ago even, and I almost don’t recognize myself. Just about everything has changed. My thoughts, my attitude on life, I think my personality has shifted a little bit too. I mean really who would have thought that I, the one who used be afraid to pray in front of a group, would get up and tackle two nights of youth??? Not me. I figured that day would come, but I figured I would be older (although, some of the youth do call me old…).  I’m not saying I’m perfect though. I still have my days, and my problems, but it’s a lot easier to deal with when God is right there beside you saying, “Just give it to me, I can handle it.” I’ve drawn the line, the old me is dead and I can’t wait to see what God is going to continue to do with the new me. I know he is brewing something. I can feel it in my soul; I just don’t know what it is yet! I guess until he reveals it to me, I have to just wait patiently and seek him more!

And Summer Comes to an End

Well, tonight is officially my last night of summer! I spent the morning worshiping my King, the afternoon catching up on some TV, and this evening getting everything ready for tomorrow. As I reflect back on my summer it has been an adventure!

·      In May:

o   My best friend Sarah headed to China for around 8 weeks!

o   The fuel pump on my car went out leaving me stranded in the middle of Shackelford. Now that was SCARY!!!!

·      In June:

o   I had a nice day trip to Six Flags with Sam, Angie, the Jessica’s, and Alaina.

o   I went to camp as a counselor, which was SUPER FUN!!!!!

·      In July:

o   Sarah came home from China and Sam left for China, almost all in the same week.

o   My friends and I also had this awesome “Glow Party” which consisted of putting a bunch of glow sticks into a pool!

o   And then Sarah and her family came to visit! That made me really happy because I really missed her while she was in China.

o   In the midst of all of this, I studied for my Insurance Test.

·      In August:

o   Pastor Nathan challenged all of the Youth to carry our Bible everywhere we went, and of course as a sponsor I couldn’t let them have all the fun, lol!

o   Our Youth went to Louisville, Kentucky for National Fine Arts and I was privileged to teach Wednesday night youth for those who weren’t in Fine Arts. Now that was a hoot! (See previous post)

o   I attended a two-day class for my Insurance Test.

o   I took my insurance test and passed on the first try! Who would have thought I would be 19 and have my insurance license… Not this chick!

o   Then my car didn’t pass inspection, even after fixing all of the safety stuff. The fix? Just drive it… Finally it passed and its all good now ;)

See what I mean?  An adventure! Now it’s time to head back to college, and you know what, I am actually excited! Looking back at what I was feeling back when I started last year, so much has changed! That first semester was HORRIBLE!!!! I was just miserable. But, God brought me through it; He has brought me further than I ever thought possible, and He is still doing great things in my life. I know God is going to do great things this school year, I can feel it, and I can’t wait to see what it is! I am also excited to get in on taking my Bible to school! Since I have missed out on a good two or so weeks of taking my Bible to school, I think I’ll continue on through September!

 It's going to be a great year, and nothing is going to change that!!!!!!!!

Teaching Youth...

So, about a week and a half ago I had the opportunity to teach our Wednesday night Youth group. Pastor Nathan, Ms. Dawn, and about half of the group were in Louisville, Kentucky for National Fine Arts Festival, so I figured it would be a piece of cake. Boy was I wrong… Now, it wasn’t horrible at all, it just wasn’t what I was used to. You see all of the youth that were left were mostly the sixth graders who just moved up, a few new youth, and two of our normal group. I went into it with the thought, oh it’s really just the middle school youth, I should be fine… Not so much. I overlooked the fact that my key people who know my tolerance levels weren’t there. So, I found myself getting a bit aggravated before they figured out that I meant business. I loved it, despite my small amount of aggravation, and would totally do it again!

I chose to speak on something that has really been on my heart lately, since camp really, and something I have been trying to work on, but am failing at a bit…

Below, is a summary (with possibly a little bit added by me) of what I talked about:

God is a jealous God. He’s not jealous in the sense that he is envious of us or wants what we have; He is jealous of US! He wants our time. He wants us to spend time with Him, worshiping Him, reading His word, talking to Him, and just being with Him. All of this really stemmed from Tuesday night at camp this past summer. (To read about how camp went, see my previous post) While I was in prayer both during Pre-Service Prayer and during altar time I found myself just sitting on the floor surrounded by God’s presence. It was kind of like I was in my own little bubble with God, the music and distractions faded, and there was perfect silence in my head. I was just spending time with my Daddy. It was in that time that He told me I was being a Martha. You remember her story from the Bible right? Jesus was over at her house and she was running around trying to make everything perfect and not spending time with Him. Jesus didn’t care if everything was perfect; He just wanted to spend time with her. Well, that’s been me lately… He wants me; He wants us to be Mary’s. You remember Martha’s sister Mary right? She sat at Jesus’ feet and just listened to him while Martha did all this stuff. Well, Jesus wants us to just sit at His feet and spend time with Him.

Sometimes it may seem that it is hard to make time for God. We may even think that it is hard to make time for God, but that is the devil talking! Don’t listen to him! It is essential that we make time for God! All you have to do is find a place, any place really and make it your “prayer closet”. It can be your room, your actual closet (if you have room for that, because I sure don’t, hehe!), or literally anywhere that you can have complete privacy with God. Me personally, I have several prayer closets. My room is a popular one, but sometimes I can get distracted with everything that’s in there. My next most popular prayer closet is my car. Since I have a thirty-minute plus drive to and from school, it is the perfect time to talk to God. To tell you the truth, God and I have had some pretty deep conversations going to or coming home from school. There have been days that I have had to get myself together before heading to class or work.

Spending time with God can be as simple as reading your Bible and saying a prayer. If you don’t know what to pray for, start going though a list of people you know, pray for the church, the youth group, or pray in tounges. You can turn on a worship CD and just worship him. If you are having a rough day, tell Him. The Bible says to cast all your cares upon the Lord. Tell Him what is on your heart. Whatever you do, make sure you spend some quiet time with Him after you have prayed or worshiped because that is the time that God will speak to you. It’s in the quiet that He speaks and you must listen very carefully to hear Him.

One of my favorite songs, The More I Seek You, by Kari Jobe gives a perfect example of how we should be with God.

Known Camp 2012

So this past week has been just AMAZING!!! Camp was beyond words! I really can’t even put words to how great it was! Okay, let me just have my moment of complaints for a second. The food was disgusting, the showers are still to small, the beds are still horrible, and it was unbearably hot! That’s all, I’m done, lol!

I really don’t even know where to start; there is just so much I want to say! I had a really great time with my girls! They just kept me laughing all week long! There were times that I did want to hurt them, but I refrained and lectured them a bit instead. We even got along pretty well with the guys this year too, even though I would have liked to hurt Jac… He thought it was funny messing with me, aka hugging me while soaking wet from epicenter and the pool while I was dry. This may have been partially my fault since I did make a big deal out of it, but it was still mostly his fault! Be careful Jac, I will get you back when you are least expecting it!

Pastor Nathan also stretched me this week. You see, I was in charge of finding students to take the offering every night. The first two nights I used people from our church, and then Wednesday night, Pastor Nathan challenged me to find people I didn’t know to take the offering. I think I looked at him like he was crazy. That was not what I wanted to hear. When I told him that I was not happy with him, he took a rubber band off of his wrist and gave it to me, telling me that was fine as long as when I thought about how I wasn’t happy with him, I snapped myself with it. That night at service after the offering was taken by complete strangers that I found (with a little help from my girls…) Pastor Nathan looked at me and stretched the rubber band on his wrist. My response: I gave him a dirty look and snapped my rubber band… Sorry about that Pastor Nathan, I try to keep my dirty looks under control, but that one slipped ;)

The services were just fantastic! Both Pastor Ryan Christopher and Pastor Andrew Cummings really brought the words and got us fired up for God. I must say that my favorite of the two was Pastor Andrew. He kept us on our toes at every night service as well as keeping us awake! (Except maybe the night they fed us the turkey dinner…) He preached in a way that I have never heard before, as well as scripture I had never heard before.

During the pre-service prayer and altar times God really touched me. There was one night, I think it was Tuesday, that during both pre-service prayer and the altar time I found myself sitting on the floor surrounded in God’s presence. It was like I was in my own bubble with God. The music and distractions faded and there was perfect silence in my head. This was God’s way of telling me that lately I have been a Martha, doing this and that, but not making time for Him. He wants me to be a Mary. He wants me to just sit at his feet and be with Him, just spend time with Him! And to tell you the truth, I think I knew this before camp, but I just kept making excuses. Ever since I started college, I stopped making time for God. I told myself that I was too busy, but I think I was just ignoring God. But, God changed me this week. Since Tuesday night, I have been in perfect peace. There were a few things on my mind that I wasn’t sure about, and he reaffirmed that I am on the right path and that I am where He wants me to be. The turmoil that was in my head and in my heart is now gone and I just have this overwhelming sense of peace like I have never felt before! So, starting tomorrow, I am going to get back to digging into His word and studying what it says!

The other thing that was really cool was the fact that I was on the other side of the picture during the altar time. I got to pray with the students instead of being prayed for. Now this isn’t new to me, I pray for people all the time at church, but there was just something about it that got me really excited! The most exciting night for me was Wednesday, Holy Spirit night! Pastor Andrew called all of the leaders up to stand in a line, and then called any student who wanted to receive the Holy Spirit for the first time to line up in front of us, and any student who already was filled with the Holy Spirit or waned to be refilled with the Holy Spirit to stand behind them. At this point, I literally could not stand still! I just wanted to jump for joy because of all the students who wanted to receive the Holy Spirit. It just made me so excited!

What was my reward for working so hard this past week, you ask? Well, other than the amazing time and memories that I will keep forever, I got to ride home with Pastor Nathan’s Momma instead of in the van full of crazy teenagers! Let me tell you that was so nice! The thing that made it the best was David and Grace. When we left the campgrounds they were singing worship songs! David sang Freedom (you know the one that goes “No more shackles, no more chains”) and Grace sang God’s Not Dead. This just made me smile so big! They are the cutest things ever! And the best part was, we hadn’t even sung these songs at camp, they were all from their memory! I just love them to death!

Last year I ended with this, “Camp can either be the best experience of your life or your worst. It is what you make it. You can choose to make it great and let God do great things in your life, or you can choose to close yourself off from God and just worry about the social aspect of camp.” While this is correct, there was something that Pastor Andrew preached about that is so much better! He said that you can either make camp and the things that God did in your life a memory, something that is frozen in time, or you can make camp a moment, an event that sets your life into motion. So, this year, I am not going to let my experience at camp be just a memory, it is going to be the turning point in my life! The moment where you see everything changed!

Answers in the Tornado Sirens

So last week was a pretty awful week for me I have been feeling pretty down, but today sitting at work the tornado sirens went off and scared me a little bit. I had to remind myself that it was just a test. I was stuck on that phrase for a while. “Just a test”. And then in my spirit I heard the words “test of faith” and immediately I knew that God is just testing my faith. He is my provider and will provide all of my needs in his time. It’s just a test and all I have to do is keep the faith beacause this time in my life will pass and better days are yet to come!