God's People

Ladies and Gents, our Heavenly Father! (insert mad applause and standing ovation here)


Okay, but seriously, I can't stress how great this guy is. He has this lovely way of putting people in each of our lives that are full of His love and compassion, even if they don't know it. And you know what, here's my tribute to each of them.



To the lady at Starbucks last night who complimented my top and was as kind as could be-- Thank you. You saved me from a night full of self-pity and crying. You snapped me out of the overtakingly negative mood I was in, and I was able to have a good night after that. You honestly have no idea how much you saved me last night.

P-- You are incredible. You are smart. You are compassionate. You are understanding. And you are exactly the person I need right now, to lean on when I have weak moments. Thank you.

S-- You get so happy to see me, whenever you see me. And it makes me feel so special. Sometimes, that little self-confidence boost turns my day completely around. Thank you.

K-- I love you. We barely ever see each other or talk, and yet you have such empathy for me whenever I'm down. You truly are God's servant, and you truly know what it means to love people. Thank you for caring about me. (ps... let's skype soon... and we NEED to plan a sushi date for Christmas.)

To the random classmate that messaged me on FB, saying how much he admires my organizational work, and asking me for help-- You have absolutely no idea how good it feels to have my work noticed and appreciated. I have been bending over backwards for that choir, and I'm glad that people are appreciative of the massive amounts of work and thought that I put into it. You officially made my day.

To the girl that works in the coffee shop downstairs-- you are so kind to me, every day that I go down there for my afternoon coffee and bagel. I can't tell you how much it brightens my day to see you every Tuesday and Thursday and have you ask my how my day is, and genuinely care about the answer. Thank you.




God had a way of showing his love to us, through everything around us. All we have to do is break out of our self-involved thoughts and feelings, and let Him show us. I'm so stubborn it took until I had to break down and beg God to help me appreciate this day for me to realize it, but I did.

And you know what? When you have that realization that God's people are as incredible as they are, and have as much capacity for shoing God's love as they have, you'll know what I mean.


Have a blessed day, my friends.

And remember: "I am blessed. I am blessed. God loves me, God provides. I am blessed"

Prayer?

How is it that one day can be so wonderful, and make you want to jump and shout and praise God, and the next day is completely awful and so distant from the day before?

That's about the story of my life right now, folks. I am so overwhelmed with everything that I have taken on, and on top of that, I have been feeling very depressed on a far-too-consistent basis.

On Sunday of this week, I decided that I don't want to "just get through things" anymore. After all,

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it! Psalm 118:24

So I decided that I was done "getting through" things, and that I want to prosper and enjoy every day. Our wonderful Father gives us each and every day of our lives as a gift, so why not rejoice in that?

Well, it's been really hard. I have days when I am unexpicably sad, about nothing and everything at the same time. And like I said earlier, it happens way too often for me to feel any kind of comfortable with it.

I think it goes without saying that I would like prayer. I would just love if you could go to God and ask Him to just pour himself out on my life, in whatever way He knows would be best. I would really, really appreciate it, friends.

Jumbled.

So, I just realized that recently, this blog has been a lot about what God is doing in my life, and less about His word. I plan on changing that very soon-- but right now, I feel like I should (once again) update you guys about the craziness of my life with Jesus.

First of all, I would like to make a recommendation. My dear friend, Katherine, is one of the most spiritually connected and amazing people that I know. She has some of the most amazing thoughts and ideas too, which she shares on her blog, Growing Rainbows. I highly encourage that you check it out-- she is very connected with God, and has some wonderful insights.


Over this past weekend, I was fortunate enough to be included in the Work Crew for the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado's annual fall youth retreat, Genesis. It was a really interesting and different experience from all the other Genesis weekends I've been on before, when I had absolutely NO idea how much work went into running the dining hall, just to ensure everyone got a fresh, hot meal. I feel like over the weekend, I learned another definition of having a servant's heart, and devoting yourself to doing God's work for God's people. And let me tell you, folks, I was exhausted. Between serving, bussing and cleaning the whole dining room, going to the hot tub both nights felt way more than welcome. I was also lucky enough to get to bond with some of my peers from the youth group, and really get to know them on a different level. I also got the chance to see my friend John, who I hadn't seen in almost a year... so that was really nice as well. John is the kind of friend who you can tell anything, and he will never look at you any differently for it. So the fact that I had the chance to confide in him again was really, really awesome.

But there was a whole 'nother side to this past weekend entirely. A lot of things were happening in my brain on Friday night alone, and in talking with a few of my really close friends over the weekend, my thoughts started to get more and more jumbled, because I feel like God was bringing up some things that I had let slip out of my radar. Two of these things include my relationship with my boyfriend and my future as a woman of God. Examining the latter, I started to feel as though this Music Education thing that God has me doing right now may be a very temporary thing, or something that I do to learn how to communicate well with and relate to other people, but not something that I will do for 30+ years, like my wonderful father has. I felt like He was really bringing back up the possibility of becoming a church planter, or possibly a worship leader-- or maybe even both (although, if He was, it was in a very roundabout way).

Now, don't get me wrong, I absolutely glorify God in the fact that I was able to take a long-needed weekend off, away from everything that might keep my mind occupied. I just have a lot to think an pray about.... which is kind of why I am writing this all down here. I would really REALLY appreciate if you guys could pray for me. Pray that God gives me clarity, and that He would light his path for me, so that I could see enough to even just take my next step. I feel like sometimes,  God puts streetlights on his roads for us that aren't always close enough together for their lights to overlap-- so sometimes, you can see where you are, and you can see a little bit of what's coming up down the road, but the path that it takes to get to that place ahead of you is a little unsure. It's there, alright, and it's all paved and ready for you to travel down it, that stretch just isn't as lit as some of the rest of the road is. And I guess I'm just in between streetlights right now.

Well, that's my piece for now. May God bless you and keep you safe and out of harm's way!

OH! And don't forget to stop and admire the beauty of the fall. This is my favorite time of year, because God's just up there with a paintbrush decorating His earth with the most beautiful and vibrant colors He can find. :)

Living day to day.

Hi, friends.

I know, I've been that person. I started a blog, and I was really good about posting for about a month-- and then I came to school and it seems like I forgot all about it. And the truth is, that's only halfway true. I forget about it half of the time, and the other half of the time, I think "I should write about this on my blog!" and then the craziness of my life takes over and I don't have time to follow through with my thoughts.

But here's the good news: even though I haven't been writing about it, God is still doing wonderful things in my life. And the thing is, I don't even deserve any of them. I find it really hard to have time to sit down with my Bible and set aside time every day to spend solely on bettering my relationship with Him. That's not to say that I'm not constantly offering little prayers up to Him. That's actually one of my favorite habits-- if there's an ambulace, I say a little prayer; if someone seems unhappy, I say a little prayer for them. And I'm constantly praying about my own life and circumstances. And yet I can't find any time to sit and just talk to God and read His word and worship Him.... but I guess that's my problem. (Pray for me?)

Back to God's undeserved, perfect, amazing graciousness.

Well, first and foremost, I'm secure financially. I always have just enough money to cover groceries and my compassion child.. .and now that I'm getting paychecks from the school, I know I'll have enough to start tithing again. And that in itself is a blessing. Over the course of a couple of weeks, God has really reassured me that He will always provide for me-- I just have to give Him the chance to.

Also, there's this boy. His name is Peter. And he is incredible. He is a wonderful, Christian guy-- and he has a heart of gold. Pete would do anything for anyone of his friends, anytime. He is truly kind and generous-- not to mention he just treats me so well. I trust him so incredibly much, and I get the feeling that it's mututal. I truly believe that God brought Pete and I together to show each of us how special we really are-- to each other and to Him. And all that I can ask of you, friends, is that you pray for our relationship. Pray that we can grow closer to God, and pray that from that closeness to God, we would grow closer to each other.

And last-- but certainly not least-- God had blessed my life. The passion and ambition that I had for performing (that God showed me was not in His plan) has been replaced tenfold with a passion for the new direction that God has sent me in-- to pursue Music Education. Even though I run myself thin every single day because I'm so busy with my major, I get more excited about the thought of teaching every day. God has really put me in a place where I will be able to teach and affect His people more so than I ever could as a performer-- and in a place that I can easily take summers to go and do His work around the world. Also, I'm in a place where I'm completely comfortable with the idea of moving to a different country to do God's work for an extended time (maybe even a year or two).

So although I may not be as consistent as I would like in my updates about God's moving and flowing in my life, it is undoubtedly happening-- and in a HUGE way.





Also, I would like to thank all of you that care enough to read my blog. I love that you keep checking back, too-- even though I'm so incredibly sporadic about when I post. I love you all, even if we haven't met in real life. I appreciate that you care about your sister in Christ, and I encourage you to email me whenever, about anything. Prayer requests? Email me. Need someone to listen? Email me. Want to share an important triumph? Email me. I will always be there to pray for you or rejoice with you. And I mean that. I love you all.

Livin' la vida loca.

After Cause Conference, I was faced with a monumental transition. It was a time of saying "Okay, God, now what?". My major in school is performance. Everything I do is based on the fact that I was going to perform someday. Online, my savings account has a goal called "Europe Fund". This was a big deal to me! So now what? The most pressing issue for me was school. My major in school is Vocal Performance. Should I even go back to school and waste a semester studying something that my Father in Heaven doesn't want me to pursue?

Now, let's take a sidebar here: I'm not really sure where my father stands on religion. He goes to church with us, and I'm pretty sure he believes in the whole idea... I'm just not sure where he stands on the idea of having a relationship with God, or devoting your life to pursue God's heart for the world. Needless to say, it was an interesting conversation when I told him about Cause Conference and the fact that I'm giving up performing.

Okay, sidebar over. Back to the story.

So I'm thinking a lot and praying a lot about where God wants me to take my life, and my dad mentions Music Education in passing. And it just hit me! It's like God used my own daddy to uncover a little but of his plan for me.

The wheels in my head start turning, and I'm really considering possibly switching majors. Well, as soon as I told my voice teacher I'm thinking of switching, she got really excited and had me sign up for a bunch of Music Ed classes to see if I like it. And here's the thing. I love it. I didn't really ever think that I would love it. But I do. My classes are so interesting, and I don't mind doing homework for them at all. And in every class, I get a little glimpse of what will hopefully be the full picture of me as a teacher in the future.

God is just so good. The second you give Him your life, things start happening. It may be terrifying at first, but we have NO idea what wonderful, beautiful, life-changing things our wonderful Father has in store for us. We take one small step towards Him, and He'll come running towards us with plans we could never even imagine.

Prayer Request:

One of the choirs that I'm in is taking a tour at the end of the year to... drumroll.... Europe!! We get to sing in Vienna, Austria; Prague, Czech Republic; and possibly even somewhere in Germany. I am just so darn excited it's not even funny. However, the price tag makes my stomach lurch... $4,000. I don't know how I'm going to do it.

And also, the church I have been going to in Fort Collins has a group of young adults going to Nicaragua in January. And I would loveloveLOVE to go on that trip. Between working at an orphanage with children to helping around the communities that we visit, and even just going back to Central America (which I fell in LOVE with while I was in Costa Rica). But, there's a price tag on this one too-- $1,775. Which is completely possible... if I didn't already need $4,000 for this school trip.

So guys, I guess just pray that God would provide for whichever amazing opportunity aligns with His plan for me. Pray that I would have clarity and vision about which trip I should be on, and just pray that God would be extra close as I'm forced to decide this week.

Thank you so much, and I love each and every one of you! God Bless!!

Cause Conference: Saturday

Honestly, I don't even know how to start this. But I'll just beging by saying this: guys, this day absolutely and undoubtedly changed my life.

So on Saturday morning, I actually ended up sleeping through the morning session (oops), but was able to catch up on a little sleep from the pub outreach and successfully make it to the afternoon outreach. For the afternoon outreach, we were sent out with more water bottles (it was HOT), and I was put in the group that went downtown to the Commons Park/Skatepark area. My friend Nick and I paired up and decided to tackle Commons Park. So we began walking around and handing out water, and ended up being invited to play a game of volleyball by some awesome people that we gave water to. After that, Nick decided that he wanted to sit down and do more of a treasure hunt-type afternoon. Now, in our church, we have something that we call a treasure hunt, where we sit down before going out to do outreach and ask God for specific pictures, phrases or scripture that would pertain to exact people that He would want us to talk to at that given time. So, that's what Nick and I did. We sat in the shade, we asked God to show us who He would have us talk to, and we sat in silence and waited on the Lord's response. While we were silent, I saw a picture of a 7-11 looking convenience store, but waved it off as probably not from God. After we had stayed silent for awhile, Nick started explaining that almost right after he had silenced himself, he had gotten a name--but one that made absolutely no sense. So after trying to figure out who "David Curtain" was, we decided to move on, as it probably wasn't from God. Then he asked me what I had gotten, and I told him about the 7-11, and also that I had no idea how we were supposed to do anything with that. So we started brainstorming about whether he might want us to go to a 7-11 and see if we found anyone there that needed prayer. Well, just then, a man walked by with his dog-- and he was wearing a shirt from the gym he's most likely a member too. But I read the shirt and it was for a gym called "Genesis Gym". Well, that struck me as strange. I've never heard of a Genesis Gym before. That sounds really Biblical. WAIT! So then, I realized that one of things that God can give you on a treasure hunt is scripture references.

I started wracking my brain. Genesis WHAT, God? Genesis WHAT? I need numbers...

And then it struck me. 7-11. What if it's Genesis 7:11?

In the six hundreth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month--on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. Genesis 7:11.

And then I just knew that God was saying, "This is what I'm doing to this city right now. The floodgates are open, and I am raining down my spirit on you".

And so, for the first time in my life, God spoke directly and amazingly to me. Directly to me. I still get chills just thinking about it.

So after I had shared all of that with Nick, we continued on for the remainder of the time we were in Denver with a renewed faith in what we were doing and the wonderful God we were doing it for.

After we had dinner, Nick and I then headed to the final session of the weekend. The session opened as always with really, really great worship, led by the wonderful AnaBeth Morgan. After they finished their set, AnaBeth was praying and I got another picture from God, but this time of an orange-brown cobra, with the neck frills and everything, looking like it was ready to strike. And again, I didn't really know what to do with it. Oh, me of little faith.

The enemy will strike you, but I will prevail.

And that was the sentence that I heard. So for the second time in my life, God spoke directly to me. And wow, that's a sentence to ponder. So honest, but so encouraging. Things will get us down. Satan will strike us down and try to drag us under, but our Almighty Father will never, ever let go of us. He will prevail over all evil and come out victorious in the end of the fight!! Our God is the King and ruler of all!!

And then Jay (my pastor) spoke, and gave the most amazing talk. I didn't write down much, I have to be honest, but there is one thing that really, really struck me. Jay was talking about how much of an analytical person he is, and therefore how he combs the Bible (especially when Jesus performs miracles) to figure out exactly how it happens. So he began telling us about his analysis of the miracle Jesus performs in Luke 9, where He feeds the 5,000. He began talking about how if Jesus wanted to, He could have made all of the bread and fish fall out of the sky (I mean, He is Jesus...). But don't you think that the Bible would have included that? So then Jay started to talk about the fact that the Bible probably would have also mentioned if, when Jesus blessed the bread and the fish, there were suddenly hundreds of loaves and fish surrounding Him. "No," Jay said. The miracle of it all happened in the disciple's hands. The disciples, doubting Jesus plan, took a step of faith and obeyed their Lord-- and look what happened. The miracle happened in their hands.

What a "Wow, God" moment.

Anyways, then Jay continued talking about how some people are just signed up for the showy-ness of God, and aren't prepared to stick it out when things go downhill. He continued talking about that for awhile and then came to his last point: there is something in every person's values that needs to die before we can become closer with God. (What a lighthearted concept, but really!). Whether it be lust, an addiction, ambition, pride, etc., it needs to die, or we will only be going through the motions of following God-- because we wouldn't be allowing him to transform us from the inside, out. Jay continued by saying that if we really wanted to pray a brave prayer, that we should ask God what that thing or things inside of us is that He would want to kill.

So I did.

And then I heard two words. Your dreams. And for the third time in one day (strange how God works in threes), my Lord and Savior bent down to whisper in my ear.

And I bawled. I had these dreams of moving to Germany to become an opera singer, and they were really big, and they consumed a big portion of my thoughts and goals. So, naturally, I was devastated, confused, scared-- a whole array of feelings.

But gradually over the course of the night, I came to peace with it, as I felt God communicating to me that He has a dream for me that's much bigger and better than one I could ever imagine-- and more importantly, one that will bring me more joy than I could ever imagine. And all because I believe that His plan for me will bring me into relationships that will benefit me incredibly, send me places I can only dream of going, and have me doing things I could have never imagined myself doing. And now, since it's been almost a month since this happened, and I've had time to let it sink in and mull over, I can't even begin to describe how excited I am to see what God's plan for me is.

So, guys, there you go. The day that changed my life.

Please let me know if you have questions or comments or similar stories to share! I would LOVE to hear them. Our God is just so GOOD!!!

I love you all, God Bless!!

Transitions.

Whew. It's been awhile since I've been here.

Well, the past two weeks have been a huge transition time for me, between having my life altered in a big way at cause conference, going to Cotsa Rica, getting back into work after a hugely relaxing vacation and then hauling all of my stuff up to Greeley and into my new apartment. But the good news is this: I'm here, I'm settled and I'm with God. :)

I owe you three posts: I owe you a post about the Saturday of Cause Conference. I owe you a post about Costa Rica (with pictures of course!) and I owe you a post about everything that God has been up to recently in my life. And then I want to start back with the regular blog posts on a specific theme. So let's play some catch up!

Hello Blogworld!

I’m writing to you right now from the airplane on my first of two connecting flights to…. drumroll… Costa Rica!! I would just like to share a couple of my thoughts as I’m way up high in the air. (And no, I didn’t post this from the airplane… I'm doing it from our hotel room in La Fortuna, Costa Rica)

First of all-- God is so amazing. Have you even gotten in a plane and looked out the window and thought “So, what I can see right now is not even a whole percent of the world, and it is gorgeous and beautiful and amazing. And God created like 1498745878693 times the amount of awesomeness that I am seeing right now… in seven days.” Well, in case you were wondering, those are my thoughts exactly. Like, WOW, God. He sculpted every single little piece of this Earth with His hands. Every little nook and cranny. And I guess the fact that I’m on a plane and A) can see more of the world than normal and B) am closer to God (since I’m further up in the air) is just throwing me into a state of wonderment. Oh, and by the way, if you ever get a chance to take a flight around 6am when the sun is rising, do it. It’s like God is looking at you and smiling as you take off. I don’t know, I guess I’m just especially enamored with God and His creation today. It’s a pretty cool feeling.

Second of all-- I don’t mean to brag, but I’m so excited to just go and soak up all of God’s glory in a different corner of the world. I bought a camera just for this trip, so that I could bring back pictures of just how amazing He is. Again, I’m especially in tune with how wonderful God’s creation is this morning, and I just wanted to share that with you.

Third of all-- I will be trying to write as many posts as I can while I’m in Costa Rica, but I honestly can’t guarantee anything. I don’t know how the internet will be in the hotels we’re staying at, but I will do my best to keep you informed on what God is doing in the southern hemisphere. Also, I will probably try and post some pictures, so you can admire God’s creation too! :)

Completely unrelated to Costa Rica, are you still going on Project 1C134? Admittedly, it’s slipped my mind a little more than I’d like to admit, but now that the aftershock of the Cause Conference has died down, I’d like to get started on that again. We’ve spent weeks on patience and kindness now (that doesn’t mean we can forget them, though). Now we’re on to

"It does not envy" 1 Corinthians 13:5

Now how do we spend a whole two weeks focusing on not being envious? I think an important thing to remember is that-- especially in American culture-- we’re almost taught to envy as a way of life. We envy that guy’s car, or that girl’s shoes. We envy the iPhones or Android Phones that we see people walking the streets with every day. Another big one is relationships. Are you jealous that your friend is spending more time with their significant other than they are with you? Are you lusting after someone? Those are forms of jealousy too. And even commercials engrain jealousy as a way of life-- don’t even get me started! We have literally been taught to envy everything that we don’t have and someone else does. And I find it really sad. So maybe with these two weeks, we don’t have to get rid of all of those things. And by no means am I encouraging you to sell all your belongings, or anything. I just think that in order too become less envious, we need to first be aware that it is happening. Who or what are you jealous of? And then, it’s God’s turn. Let’s remember that we aren’t just doing this for ourselves or to become “more holy”. We’re doing it so that we can show other people the love of Christ in a way that would please God. We’re doing it so that as we make these personal changes, the light of God would start to ooze out of every pore of our body (lovely image, am I right? Sorry about that). I just imagine someone with this enormously bright source of light inside of them, and it just comes out anywhere it can. Ears? Check. Nose? Check. Mouth? Eyes? Belly Button? Check. That’s kind of my goal, you know? I want to be noticeably more like Jesus in everything that I do, so that people would ask me why I am the way I am. What a great way to share your faith-- to have someone ask you why you are the way you are and to be able to tell them it’s because you’re completely in love with Jesus Christ? I think that would be pretty awesome.

So, lovelies, good luck to you in your quest to become more like Christ! Pray Pray Pray!!

And always, always remember that God, the creator of the universe, loves you enough to care about you at a truly personal and deep level. He loves you no matter who you are, where you’ve come from, or what you have done. Or what you will do in the future, for that matter. He loves you the way that you are-- broken, hurting, lonely, or just plain complacent. He loves you. He loves you so much that He sent his only Son to die for you, so that you wouldn’t have to carry the weight of your sins. His Son, a human, died. For us! And lovelies, don’t ever forget that no matter where you go, you are always, always in the shadow of the cross.

I love you all and God bless!!

Cause Conference: Friday

Hello again!

My last post covered Thursday night of the Cause Conference, so if you haven't read that one yet, you should. :)

Anyways, Friday morning started a really great day for me. We had the privilege of listening to a prolific writer, named Tri Robinson, speak. His talk really focused around Nehemiah, a book in the Bible that is a prophecy discussing the resurgence of God's wonderful kingdom on Earth. And Tri brought up a ton of amazing points about vision for God's kingdom. Here are some of the points that I wrote down:

• We can sit around and debate what we think God wants to do, or we can just kneel down and say "Yes, Lord" to whatever He has planned for us. And ultimately, we need to be Jesus' hands and feet on this Earth. The most important step for this is literally to sit down and pray to God, "Lord, show me my part".
• Another thing to consider when doing Jesus' work is that we shouldn't become "addicted to the problem". We shouldn't wallow in despair over the misfortune of a people to the point where that's all we focus on. Our focus should always be directed to God, because He is the solution to every problem. No matter what. Without our focus on Him, we aren't really going to accomplish anything for His kingdom.
• There are a couple ways to identify if a vision (in this talk, Tri's definition of vision was that of a dream that you have for something. Like a vision statement vision, not a vision of prophecy or something like that) you have is really from God. If the vision is overwhelmingly bigger than you, it most certainly is from the Father. He gives you visions that seem impossible to prove that He really can do anything! And that, my friend, is amazing. Also, in Tri's words, "dreams come and go, but visions from God never go away". And may they never go away!
• Lastly, Tri took a very important technical look at making God's vision for you a reality. He said that it is important not to pre-sell a vision before you have developed a plan. And that the most important way to develop this plan is to remember that this idea didn't come from you, it came from God.

This look at God's kingdom and the dreams that He has for each of us was kind of a newer idea to me, and so I think it was really important for me to hear!

On Friday afternoon, I went to Rick's (the speaker from Thursday night) breakout session, entitled "Everyone gets to play". I really enjoyed the encouragement that it provided, especially concerning the fact that we each have our own part in God's kingdom. One of the things that Rick said that really affected me (even though I'm not very sports-oriented) is that we are all on God's varsity team. If we choose to bow out, there is no JV team to step up in our place! God gives us each an equally important spot on His team, and if we choose not to play, we're letting the whole team down. Rick said this in the context of not putting yourself down, or thinking that you are less-something than someone else.

Looking back at this point in the weekend, I know that God was building me up for everything that he had in store for me for the rest of the weekend. And I'm so grateful that He had such a heart for His children, and has such a great plan for all of us.

Friday night, we had the extreme privilege of hearing from David Eubank, a man who lives in Thailand and spends 8 months out of every year in the jungles of Burma, trying to bring supplies to the people who are oppressed by the Burmese government (which is apparently almost the whole population). And in seeing his pictures and some videos that he brought along with him, my heart broke for the people of Burma. And that very night, I decided that I want to sponsor a child through Compassion International. This is an organization that allows you to sponsor a child in poverty-- and with a $38/month donation, you assure that they have food, water and education. Not only do you get to know that they are somewhat released from poverty, you get to be their pen pal, and write letters to the child. So, without further ado, I would like to introduce you all to Sofia, my compassion child!

Miss Sofia is 7 years old and lives in Colombia with her Mom and Dad

And folks, let me tell you, I'm so excited to get my information packet in the mail, so that I can start writing this beautiful little girl letters!! It is so strange, but I already love this girl, and I haven't even heard from her yet! Please pray that I continue to have the resources to support this wonderful little girl for a very long time! Also, if anybody is interested in sponsoring a child, but doesn't think that they can afford the full commitment of $38 per month, I'm almost positive that this organization would fully welcome a dual or split sponsorship. If anyone is interested, please, PLEASE email me, and I will try my hardest to find someone that will be a partner for you! God wants us to love his children in need, no matter whether we are paying the full amount of half the amount.

So that was Friday night. Oh, wait... it's not over!! On Friday night, we were given the opportunity to do a Pub Outreach in downtown Denver where we would be handing out water bottles to people who were bar-hopping in Lodo (Where most of the nightlife in Denver resides). So, we met at the church at 11:30pm and set off for Downtown in pairs or groups of three. Since the conference was for people from all over the country, us folks from Arvada were encouraged to pair up with people who weren't from the area so that we wouldn't get lost. (For me, this was a little pointless, because I don't spend a lot of time in Denver, and therefore am not all that knowledgeable about where things are in comparison to another. However, I would like to point out that my partner and I--although we thought we were lost-- made it out just fine!) Anyway, I got paired up with this awesome guy from Fort Collins named Christian. We immediately connected because he too is going to school for music (piano performance), so we had lots to talk about! Well, when we got to Denver, we just took a bunch of water and started walking around and handing it out. And it was so cool to see the look on different people's faces as we gave them the water. Some people looked at us like we're crazy, some people got really excited, and one guy was so intoxicated that he gave us both hugs. We ended up running out of water really quickly, so after about 30 minutes, the guy that was leading the outreach went and bought 3 more cases of water for us to hand out. I think the part that I enjoyed the most was giving water to two groups that I distinctly remember. Both had one person who had clearly had entirely too much to drink and was leaning heavily on another person. When we asked them if they would like some water, the friends of the extremely drunk person looked so happy and relieved and ecstatic. One of the guys even told us that we were exactly what they needed, and a blessing in disguise. It was just really cool to know that we affected someone's night in the name of Jesus Christ. Cool, right?

And so Friday ended, a thoroughly wonderful day, full of lots of learning and Christ's love! Stay tuned to hear about the Saturday that quite literally changed my life! May God bless each and every one of you!

Cause Conference: Thursday Night

Hey lovelies! I hope you have had a fantastic week so far!

So my church hosted this conference last weekend called the Cause Conference. The purpose of the conference is to come together as followers of Jesus and learn more about Him, grow closer to Him, and establish this beautiful cause worth living/loving/dying for. It started on Thursday night and it continued through Saturday night. And it was incredible. So, we're going to take this a little at a time. On Thursday night, the pastor from the Vineyard Church--Rick Olmstead-- in Fort Collins came and spoke to us. He called his talk "for such a time as this". And it was essentially all relating to what I started this blog for. I want to love God and love other people as he expects and teaches us to. So let's chat about the points about the talk that really hit me.

First, Rick started by introducing us to his growth as a Christian. He told of how he started out not Christian at all, but of the firm conviction that the needy should be helped by the more fortunate. When Rick was around 20, he met Jesus for the first time and pledged his life to His wonderful cause. But as a part of the church Rick joined, he got involved with a team of church members who went from door to door, essentially with a "salvation agenda", and with hopes of being able to report a large number of successes back to the church. While this all sounds like a good idea, Rick started to become disenchanted with the fact that his team's "salvation agenda" was getting in the way of actually connecting with the people they were talking to. Like they were to busy trying to save them to care for them (does that make any sense?). I think this is a really big idea for us Christians. The Bible teaches us to go out and preach the Gospel to the world, but in spite of this, we shouldn't let our desire to bring people to Jesus get in the way of really connecting with them and taking time to just stop and talk with them. To take this a little deeper, Rick continued by saying something in passing: "it's hard to listen on an empty stomach". I really, really, REALLY like this. People are so hungry for love and acceptance that it gets in the way of their ability to listen to you-- before you just stop and love them, that is. I don't know, that statement just really hit me.

The next major topic of Rick's talk was Micah 6:8.

He has showed you, O man, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God. (NIV)

As Rick sees it, there are three major things that we should focus on about this verse. (1)to act justly (to do the right thing), (2) to love mercy, and (3) to walk humbly. He then went into detail about each:

1. To do the right thing: The major thing that Rick had to say about this was that our Lord would never ask us to do something for someone else that wouldn't benefit us to. He isn't going to send us on some journey for someone else that will pain us or make us miserable. Our Father is far to kind for that. He always has us in mind, even when he asks us to do something for someone else. In this, Rick also referenced Proverbs 31:8. This verse specifically instructs us to speak out for the people who can't speak out for themselves, and Rick made it clear to point it out that in saying this, God doesn't want us to ask or judge how someone got into the place that they did. He just wants us to reach out to them and help them. I firmly believe that His heart aches for every single one of His children that is in need and isn't helped by those of us that have the means.
2. To love mercy: Rick made a really big deal about how this doesn't say show mercy. It says to LOVE mercy. To long for it. To wake up every morning and go to bed each night completely thankful for the mercy that you have been shown, and completely eager to show people the same mercy that you have been shown. After all, we deserve so much worse that God gives us. He never has and never will give us what we deserve.
3. To walk humbly: We could be the poor. We could be in their place. But God has blessed us with numerous, numerous things that some people will never have. So we should turn right around with what God has given each of us and make it count. We should love other people with what God has given us.

Then, Rick began to talk about love. And the fact that love has a name. Love's name is Jesus. Love's name is also my name, Mackenzie. Love's name is also your name. Love's name is everybody's name. He talked very passionately about how we can't write people off as "the homeless" or "the poor". They are very much human and have names and stories, and that we should make lots of effort to learn people's names and stories. And that no, we can't help everyone. But for the people that we help, it will mean the world to them. Have you heard the starfish story? Rick referenced this story, and in the process, pointed out that the only difference between the little boy and the old man is how much each of them expected to be possible. What if we expected that every single starfish to be saved? After all,

"with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26 NIV

According to Rick, all it takes is a little bit of faith the size of a mustard seed (Matthew 17:20) and things could change radically. Rick said over and over that you don't have to be all put together and have this immense amount of faith for God to take the reigns and move mountains through you. In fact, Rick's exact words were: "You don't have to have great faith to do great things". Wow. And then to top it all off, Rick had brought tiny little baggies for each of us, each with a tiny mustard seed inside-- to remind us that our faith can be the size of that seed, and still God will do amazing things through us. And then that seed (one of the smallest seeds) will turn into a huge mustard plant (which grows to be a bush, and sometimes even as big as a small tree!).

Needless to say, Thursday night was the start of something big... and it only escalated from there! Stay tuned for more posts on Cause Conference.

Also, I would like to apologize for the delay of these posts. I could tell you all about how so much happened at the Cause Conference that I really just needed some reflection time, and I could also explain how much I've been working this week. But I'll save you the details and just apologize.

Have a wonderful day, and may God bless each and every one of you!

Hey, guys! I want to apologize for the lack of posts for awhile. This past week, I was blessed enough to have my lovely Godmother and her beautiful daughter Stephanie fly up from Texas and stay at my house for a week. Since we only see them once or twice a year, I wanted to really cherish the time I had with them... so no posts. But they're back in Texas, so I'm back in blog mode! :)

Well, in the past week, I've been experiencing a lot of things with God and I have a LOT to write about, so I'm going to split it up into several different posts so it's not too overwhelming. The first thing is this: We're now onto the second leg of our 1 Corinthians project. This week is all about kindness (but remember patience, too!). It's all about asking God to transform us and make us kind, so that we could learn a little more about learning to love other people the way that He does. If you have any cool stories about how God is helping you learn, we would love to hear them! It's really important to have a sense of community with other people when you're growing closer to God, because then you not only have Him to talk to, you can also talk to other people who are going through some of the same things as you. Also, it is SO encouraging to hear other people's stories of transformation. For me, it really reassures me beyond a shadow of a doubt that God's spirit is out there and moving among us.

Another thing that came out of this past week was my quest to read an entire gospel in one sitting. I actually have a funny story about how that happened: I picked an afternoon with lots of time, and just as I sat down to read, my dad came upstairs and told me that we needed to weed the yard. Let me first say that weeding and I aren't exactly friends. In other words, weeding sucks. But then I remembered that I have a Bible app on my iPod, and that it has a feature where you can listen to it like an audio book. Let me just put it this way, weeding gets a whole lot better while you're having the Gospel of Mark read to you by a guy with a really deep voice; not to mention the fact that there was some awesome background music going on. All joking aside, I think I found the solution to doing mindless work that I really don't want to do.

Also, hearing Mark read to me gave me a completely different take on the story. Because that's what it is... a story. When you're reading the Bible yourself, you have time to think, reflect and study what Jesus is saying, or Paul's idea of love, or even that Psalm that always helps you through troubled times. But having the Gospel read to me made it a whole lot more like a really awesome story. Well, after I finished weeding, I went back inside and picked up where my iPod had left off and finished the whole story of Jesus (according to Mark) in one sitting.

Now let's back up and talk about where I got this idea. Last week, I was sitting in church and my pastor started to tell the story about how a seminary student was challenged to read a Gospel cover to cover in one sitting, and about how the man immediately fell back in love with Jesus all over again. He had been so caught up in the study of the Bible and learning how to be a Pastor that Jesus had kind of left the equation. But one small step later, he was back in love. How cool is that? Well, I decided to try it-- which is the reason why I was reading Mark in the first place.

It was amazing. Jesus was so much more real to me than he ever had been, and I realized how genius He really is. I fell in love with the fact that he told parables to really relate to the people he was telling them to, but them left them with no explanation. When his disciples asked him what they meant, he seemed genuinely surprised. "You don't understand?!". It was really charming to me. :) Here are some of the other teachings that really affected me as I was reading.

The first was when Jairus sought Jesus out to ask Him to heal his dying daughter. Now this is cool, because Jairus was one of the head honchos in the synagogue, and he took a complete leap of faith and trusted this guy he had seen perform miracles, but was supposed to hate. Jesus went with Jairus immediately, but got stopped by a crowd. In the midst of the bumping and jostling, He felt a woman touch his cloak out of faith that it would heal her. He stopped te entire crowd and after asking who touched His cloak, told the woman that her faith had healed her. (Which is an amazing story in itself) Well, just after then, some of Jairus's men found him and told him that it was too late-- that his daughter had died, and moreover that he should stop bothering Jesus. To which Jesus simply replied,

"Don't be afraid; just believe" Mark 5:36

Wow, right? That's what I thought. If I could just live by this, I would be so much better off. Don't be afraid, just believe. 5 words and Jesus had left me speechless! The next little snippet was when Jesus was being questioned by the Pharisees, who were desperately trying to prove that Jesus wasn't really the son of God, just off his rocker. They told him if he was really the Son of God, He could provide a sign from heaven to prove it. Then Jesus said,

"Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it." Mark 8:12

This is really hit me. Now that we have Jesus, we don't need God to make it rain for 40 days to prove that He is there. We can just open up our Bibles and see that. Does that make sense? We have the same proof just like they do, it's just written down. So why are there still times that we ask God to move mountains, when all he wants us to do is sit down and read the Bible so that He can move our hearts? The last verse that I really appreciated was Mark 10:15:

"I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will not enter it."

I love this verse. Children are, almost by definition, innocent. They also love stories and fairytales. These fairytales, while magical and whimsical, are untrue--but children adore these stories of fairies and magic and flying. On the same token, they are just as prepared to believe that Peter Pan flew as they are to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. And with their innocence, they believe with a gusto that we as (doubtful and over-analytical) adults should envy. What if we could believe like they do? Without any doubt in our minds that Jesus is real and that He loves us more than we ever know. According to Jesus, if we do this, we will surely go to Heaven. More specifically, if we don't try our hardest to believe with the trusting innocence of a child, we won't have eternal life with our Maker. This convicts me and comforts me at the same time. I don't have to analyze. I don't have to think or reflect or study. I just have to love God like He loves me and give him the absolute, unwavering faith that He deserves and I will get to spend a beautiful eternity with Him. Isn't that awesome?!

What do you think? I'd love to hear from you!

God, watch over your children as we take the next step into learning how to love your sons ans daughters more like you do. Remind us that Jesus's story was real and amazing and that He really, truly gave his LIFE for us. Convict our hearts, God, and help us to love you with our lives. God, make our lives one big showcase for the beauty that is your artistry and love. Father, help us to believe, just believe. You are so amazing, Father. We love you!!

The other night, while I was journaling, I had this realization. This realization that even though I was trying to sit down with my Bible every day, it was becoming an act out of habit and not out of praise. I was just going through the motions, trying to make it. How many of us read our Bible or talk to God, just out of a force of habit? How many of us just go through the motions? (You can't see it, but I'm being a mix of the kid in school who is practically jumping out of his seat, waving his hand, and the kid who is shyly answering a question for the first time and very slowly, almost shamefully raising his hand.)

And then, out of nowhere, that song by Matthew West popped into my head. So, I dropped what I was doing, picked up my computer and bought the song on iTunes. And then I did a quick Google search for the lyrics of that song so that I could read along while I listened.

This might hurt

It's not safe

But I know that I've gotta make a change

I don't care

If I break

At least I'll be feeling something

'Cause just ok

Is not enough

Help me fight through the nothingness of this life

No regrets

Not this time

I'm gonna let my heart defeat my mind

Let your love

Make me whole

I think I'm finally feeling something

'Cause just ok

Is not enough

Help me fight through the nothingness of this life!

I don't wanna go through the motions

I don't wanna go one more day

Without your all-consuming passion inside of me

I don't wanna spend my whole life asking

What if I had given everything

Instead of going through the motions?

(All of these lyrics are the property of Matthew West)

I think I probably listened to this song 10 times that night. And I realized that I haven't been feeling anything. I'm stuck in a rut of apathy, and I'm just going through the motions. Is there anyone else that feels like that?

Will you guys just pray for me, and for anyone else that you know or that you think might be going through this same thing? I just know that God wants infinitely more than people only seeking Him and His word just out of habit. Don't get me wrong, it's about the best habit you could have.... but I know He wants more than that. And more importantly, He deserves more. He created this beautiful, gorgeous, amazing place for us to live. He loves us constantly, and He will never stop. But to his dismay, He sat and watched people turn away from Him every single second of every single day. He wept over them, begging them to turn back to Him, because He knew that He could give them everything they could ever need. But they ignored Him. So he sent his son down to them, to try and make them realize. But they ignored His son too. So His son took all the blame. He saw that He couldn't stop people from sinning, so He took all of the blame. He died the single worst way that anyone could die. It was a long and painful death that Jesus, a man who had lived without any sins, didn't deserve even in the slightest. But He did it. For them.

Now, reread the last paragraph. But instead of reading "them", read "us". Or even harder, read "me".

God deserves our best. As we continue to learn how to be patient, let's not go through the motions. Let's take risks. Let's let God change us radically, from the person we are to the person He wants. He deserves it.

Project 1C134

Hello to all of you lovely people out there!

Happy Fourth (a day late)! It was amazing for me to think yesterday what it really meant for us to be celebrating the 4th of July. Not only is it a reason to hang out with friends and family and to watch fireworks, it's a great excuse to thank God for everything that he provides for us. 235 years ago, God gave a group of men the determination and courage to commit treason (an act punishable by death) to write a declaration of independence, and thus create a nation where people could be free. And to this day, he is (almost unfairly) blessing the people of America with everything they need to survive and much, MUCH more. On my way to work yesterday morning, I was just overwhelmed at how blessed I am to live in the United States of America and I just had an urge to share with you all how much we should be thanking God for. So let's try and keep that in mind the next few days as we go through our days. Let's give God the thanks and praise He deserves for the blessings that He gives us every single day!

Anyways, now on to this new project we have started. We're all learning to love other people and God in a way that would please Him more. Our first week's theme is Patience, a very difficult trait to learn. As my pastor likes to say, "asking God to teach you how to be patient is one of the most dangerous things that you can do. Expect a LOT of traffic in the days after that". All joking aside, this is so true. If you ask God for patience, He won't just make you patient right then and there. He will give you lots of chances to practice being patient, so it becomes a habit.

On our journey together, I think that it is important that we stay grounded in scripture, so that we aren't straying from God's actual word. When I was 10 or 11, I got this Bible called "The Student Bible". Inside, it has lots of little "notes" with information pertaining to the scripture that surrounds them, and articles about certain people or subjects that are being addressed. Also, in the back it has an index of topics covered in the Bible, along with exact passages where each topic is mentioned. In an effort to learn more about what God says about patience, I consulted this. The first verse (well, group of verses, really) that it listed was Hebrews 12:1-13. There were three different phrases that really stuck out to me. We're going to talk about the first one today, and the other two in the next couple of days. This is purely because I want to make my posts easy to read, and not too much to handle. Anyways, let's look at verse 1:

"let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."

First off, this is saying that we need to get rid of sin, but not only do we have to get rid of it, we have to throw it off. This doesn't imply that it's going to be easy, or that we can just shrug the weight of sin off. We have to throw it off, and get it as far away as possible. Next, we look at the last half of this phrase, the part that tells us we have to "run with perseverance the race marked out for us". Two things about this really struck me. Perseverance-- the race isn't going to be easy. Sometimes we're going to want to quit. But if we keep running with everything that we have, even when we don't feel like it, we'll get to the end, and the best prize of all: eternal life with our Heavenly Father! Also, the race is marked out. We're not running blindly in the dark, or in circles around a track. There is a very specific race marked out for us. The way I like to see it is like those video games. There are checkpoints to help you know that you are going in the right direction, but between the checkpoints, you have to have faith in the Maker of the race, and trust that He knows what He's doing, and more importantly, He would never mark a race that he knows you cannot handle. The race will be challenging, but in the end, you always know that there's another checkpoint ahead. All you have to do is keep your heart in it.

What do you think? I'd love to hear from you!

God Bless you all!

God, keep your children under your wings this week, as we look to you to teach us how to be patient. Give us many chances to learn, and let us trust that although it may be hard, our reward is great. You are awesome and amazing and beautiful, and there is nothing that we would like more than to be more like you. Thank you for everything that you ever have done, and for everything that you ever will do for us. We love you!!!

Welcome!

Hello. Bonjour. Hola. Konichiwa.

Welcome to something to LOVE for! This is a blog dedicated to exploring life with Jesus in community with other people. It is for talking about what God is doing in our lives, and for talking about what it would look like to follow Jesus more closely. And most of all, it is about sharing God's incredible love with anyone and everyone.

This blog is the brainchild of a prayer that went a little something like this:

God, I want to be closer to You. I want to feel you right here with me. And I want you to teach me how to love other people in the way that you do.

And then I was thinking about starting a blog. So I dismissed the idea (obviously), because my new thing is reading fashion blogs. And then I continued praying:

God, I just feel so disconnected from you. And I know that you've been telling me in the past few days to really focus on loving people better. So, God, tell me what to do.

And then I was thinking about starting a blog again.

Hey God. So, this blog thing. Is this real, is this You? Because sometimes I get distracted and think about other things while I'm praying.... so I need you to tell me if this is real.

And then I was thinking about starting a blog.

Okay. Okay, I'll try. But God, I'm not some amazing theologian. My relationship with you isn't even very established. What would I even write about.

And then I remembered this sermon that my pastor gave a couple weeks back, where he told the story of this man who was having some trouble getting along with his wife. So he took a close look at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and week by week, painstakingly asked God to teach him how to be each one of the qualities in this verse, so that he would learn to love his wife a little bit better. Now for those of us (ME) who can't just summon up random Bible verses from memory, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 goes a little something like this:

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (NIV)

So this man went through each quality-- patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not proud, etc.-- and slowly but surely, taught himself how to better love his wife. Well this got me thinking: What if I did the same thing, but on a 2 week-per basis, but instead of loving my non-existant spouse better, I just learned to love people. I mean, what better way to get closer to God than to teach myself to obey what Jesus said was the greatest commandment (to love God and love your neighbor)?

So here we go. Project 1 Corinthians 13:4 (1c134). And what I firmly believe God wants me to begin my blog talking about. So who will take the challenge with me? Who will learn to love?