His Plan, my heart and life :)

Hi everyone! This last week has been a semi big one for me. Mainly spent being sick which was a LOT of fun. Ha nooot. -_- Anyway, I’ve finally been able to get some things moving forward a little with my application process for the school that I’m hoping to go to this year! Got my passport photo already so now the next step with that is to get the actual passport which is going to cost boockoe bucks. Still waiting on some other things to come together but there are just some things that are no longer in my control so I’m going to work on doing better with just being more on top of things rather than just being like “I’ll just get it done whenevvs.” :P There was a Mission Conference at the church that I go to, this weekend actually…but with my cold I decided to just go the second night and it was totally worth it. I was a little intimidated by the idea of going alone since I’ve not really gone ANYWHERE alone since the shooting…and especially with all the fog and ice that were out, it was pretty dangerous but I’m so glad now that I finally went and did that. It was totally worth it…the worship group that was there was from a church that my sister loves to go to now and again, and was so great and powerful. There were a few things that I caught that I thought were inspiring: God has created each of us with unique gifts and passions which He wants us to give to Him so that he can use them to spread His love to the world through missions. It doesn’t mean that we have to go to a different country, but it should mean that we’re willing to step out of our comfort zones and take a chance and see how God wants to move THROUGH our lives. Another key thing I heard was that we need to live a life with no regrets, no retreats. We cant let things of this world get us convinced that God wouldn’t want to use us…whether it’s our fears, lack of money, lack of experience…whatever it may be…because God can and will make a way for the things that he wants to happen. No one is perfect so we don’t have to wait to have our lives all together before God will be willing to use us…he wants us just where we are. I mean when you think about it, it’s better that way if God uses us where we are instead of waiting for us to get together first…because what person would want to hear about God’s love when that person already seems to have it together? They wouldn’t really be able to relate to you too well…instead, they can relate with someone who is imperfect just like them. God doesn’t call the qualified, he calls the willing. Look at the people in the Bible…they’re only heroes because they were willing. If you read about the different characters and the way that their stories started out…they weren’t that amazing. It took God shaping their lives, and them being obedient to God’s call on their lives…for God to really transform them. And when God transformed them, it transformed so many other people as well. The main keynote speaker had a lot of good points too: God has asked us to carry our “cross” daily for Him. I don’t think we often really think about the implications of a statement like that. When you think about people who were carrying a cross…you realize that those people didn’t have any future plans. That potential life, was over and their lives were in the hands of the people who were over them. Their lives WERE about the cross they carried. There was nothing else. So, that was something that really got me to think cause we think “Oh carrying my cross means that I just sacrifice what I want yada yada.” When in reality it means that you surrender your life to God. You don’t have to live a life that you hate in order for it to honor God..you just have to make sure that the person you’re serving TRULY is God rather than yourself. When you decide to follow God, you’re going to have to really think it through first. There are going to be costs along the way;some greater than others…but still a cost just the same. You’re either following yourself or you’re following God. And when it comes to your priorities, God cant be on the top of the list in your life…he needs to BE the list. When you think about the way a wife loves her husband…she doesn’t want to just be a number one  option. Think about it…number one implies that there might be a number 2 option etc. She doesn’t want to be her husband’s number one…she wants to be HIS ONLY. And God feels the same way about us…he doesn’t want to be number one on the list,..he wants to BE the list so he can really show us how HE wants our lives to be. The other thing that relates to the statement above about carrying our cross---we cant be like “Oh I definitely am interested and I understand what God is saying…but let me finish (fill in the blank) first. After I live my dreams out THEN I’ll go serve God.” You have to give God your dreams and trust that He’ll replace them with better ones…ones that are going to fulfill the purpose he has for you in the first place. So many people say “I’m open to missions. I’m thinking and praying about missions. I’m really considering missions.” That’s basically like a spouse saying to you “Oh I’m open to being faithful to you. I’m thinking and praying about being faithful to you.” The fact is…you’re either doing it or you’re not. God isn’t the copilot of your life. He is either running it, or He’s not really in it. So in closing with the message, the speaker was asking us to think about whether or not we are really truly FOLLOWING Christ, or if we’re just following ourselves. It really got me thinking on so many different levels in my life and I’m happy to say that the school I’ve applied to…completely goes in these lines but I don’t want to just stop there. I’ve decided that if I don’t get accepted (and there’s a good chance that it could go either way especially since I wouldn’t have much time to get all the money together) I’m going to apply for other missions related opportunities. See, you have to really step out. Take that thing that makes you come alive and give it to God. Ask Him to change your dreams if they’re not what he has for you, and that if they ARE what he has…that he will show you how He wants you to use them for his kingdom. Don’t base it on the feelings like “Oh I just don’t FEEL like that’s what God wants…” base it on truth. Usually God will help you figure that out, and I honestly cant tell you how cause for different people God has different ways of getting his message out. For example, with me I really believe that God gives me what I call a ‘gut” feeling about something. Which means that its not my head (my thoughts) and its not my heart (my emotions). So I’m basing it (my gut) on something deeper than myself. Something that totally puts the emotions and thoughts aside and goes “K God, this doesn’t make much sense but I trust you.” And the crazy thing about it is, every single time I get one of those “gut” feelings…whatever the thing is that I believe will happen etc, always ALWAYS takes place. So anyway, my point is that only God knows what he has for you, but you might have to ask him before he’ll show you. You have to be open to him telling you things that you might on first thought just push aside. Don’t try to get 2^nd or 3^rd opinions…just go with it, and then if it’s not what God has, he will direct you somewhere else…but don’t just stay afraid and not move forward. You will find that when you’re available for God, he’s going to rock your world. I can tell you right now that whether or not I get accepted to this school, I’m just excited about the journey and what God is doing in my life. I’m excited about how I’m being stretched and it’s really honestly something that’s way better than I would’ve ever dreamed, and its ok if I don’t get accepted cause I know God has me in his hand. :) 

Freedom

I actually found another one, which I thought was really amazing:

Freedom

Do you fight for something you don’t believe in? do you dream of something you don’t care about? Do you give up on a dream that means so much to you even when things are hard? Not if you’re a true fighter. Not when you have so much to hope for and an amazing life to live.

You make the changes you want and need to change to try to make your dreams come true. You fight to the end all the while knowing that it could end bad. But if you really believe, you’ll trust God and you’ll take that risk. When people tell you to give up, you listen to the voice you hear in your heart and press onward even though you have no idea how it will end.

I think the times that people’s hearts are softened and changed, are when they hear a story that they can relate to. One where someone faced some of the same struggles they do, and yet no matter how hard things got, they never gave up. And it usually also includes a heart change. It brings tears to your eyes when you see a person who once had a hard heart and were going no where in their lives, and made a decision to turn things around for the better and their changes made not only things go better in their own personal life, but also in the lives of everyone who knew what was going on in the life of that person.

You can’t be free if you just sit there and take the things that come your way. If you want to truly be free, you’re really going to have to fight. You can’t earn your freedom if you never try. You don’t fail when you fall, you fail when you don’t try. This is a story of a girl who got tired of living her life the way she had always lived it. A girl who wanted so desperately to be free, and fought with all she had.

Little Dreamer

From Back in the day

This is the 2nd post... :D

Emotional Suicide (age 16)

Could it be that there is a form of emotional suicide? Like you know that you aren’t going to ever kill yourself but you do it emotionally. It seriously is just a random thought that came to mind just now, but I think that there might be such a thing. We don’t let ourselves cry over things that we should. We tell ourselves we’re fine and don’t let anyone help us. We push people and God away when we’re going through hard times. We refuse to go through hard times. I mean part of it might just be that we are living in a time where everything is easy and everything is given to us right away and we almost never have to work at anything so when it comes up that we do have to work for something, we go crazy and we don’t know what to do with ourselves. We don’t pray, we stay away from people unless we have to be around them, and then we just snap at them or are really distant with them so they will never know that anything is wrong. We get cut and instead of going and seeing a doctor, and instead of letting people call 911 for us, we just lay there in our mess, and don’t try to do anything about it. we refuse to see that things could work out, could get better, and something that starts out as a little problem gets larger till you really need all the help you can get to be able to survive again. Thing is when you finally go in and the doctors help you, you might need more help later on, maybe even therapy, but you recover and soon it becomes only a memory and it is something that helps you through the other bad times in your life because you know that there was a reason God didn’t let you die, so there must be a purpose for your life. Often times though, it seems like we refuse to believe that God can do that kind of thing, or that he would even care to. Yeah, I’m almost sure that not every time you get help, you notice that you’re getting better, but there will finally be a day when you’re not the same beaten up person you used to be. You realize that it’s time to look up before you run into something. You’re letting yourself die when you let things hold you down and keep you from living. Whether it be the past, fears, pain, it doesn’t matter. You might think that you can never change, but I’ve seen addicts get over their addictions. I’ve known people who were literally just about to kill themselves and now they are telling everyone they .know about how real God is and what he did for them. Don’t tell me there is no God, and don’t tell me you’re not good enough. If God thought that you weren’t good enough, Jesus would never have died, ok? You’ve just got to let go of the things that are holding you down, and holding you back from living. Living the now but my mind and heart are stuck in the past, I’ve been stuck for way too long wouldn’t you say.