A Difficult Time.

There I was ten months ago thinking I understood the meaning of a difficult time. Complaining about the gas prices and having to work on Friday nights. There I was unaware of what the future held before me. “Hola como estas?” which is, “hello how are you?” in Spanish. How was I? How about what was I doing? In September of 2011 I said goodbye to my family and boarded the plane; I was headed to Costa Rica for nine months. “This is going to be so much fun and I am going to change so many lives!” was my thought process on the plane ride down. After arriving to this new and unfamiliar country, surrounded by thirty other American students who were strangers at the time, it hit me, this would be my home for the next nine months.

Two years prior was when I heard about this GAP program and decided to take a year off of school to go study the Bible and Spanish, all while making an impact on the lives of the Costa Ricans. Little did I know that my world was on the verge of being rocked. I know what you’re thinking; I went away on a nine months mission trip. In fact, that’s exactly what I thought too, until something began to change inside of me. After hours of Bible class, small group once a week, one-on-one mentorship, and sharing a room with three other girls, I slowly started to realize I wasn’t as good as I made myself out to be. There I was, putting MY life on hold, setting MY dreams aside, and for what? I faced the truth that on my own I could never be good, in fact, I had an evil heart that searched to please the world and nothing I did would ever satisfy me. At eighteen years old, having grown up in the church, and claiming to have been a Christian, I was struck with the reality that all of those years had been lived for me.

Within the first few months of being in Costa Rica my heart began to beat for different things. Suddenly I had a longing to know more about this God I had ignored for so many years and once He got a hold of my heart everything changed. The way I viewed the world, friendships, my family, relationships, and Christianity, all took a 180 turn. I now had to figure out what I was doing with my life. For eighteen years I had been fed the lie that I am to go to the best college, only to have the best job that pays the best; the lie that I have to be “somebody” and change the world as I climb the ladder of success. I was told to be independent and to not let anyone stand in my way. Well what if, standing in front of me, was the God of the world, the Creator of the universe? Suddenly I felt small. The Savior of my soul was asking me to give up the reigns and trust that He had better plans for me than I had for myself.

Not only was He asking me to turn in my future dreams, in exchange for something I couldn’t even see yet, but He was asking me to do it with a joyful heart. This trip was about ME making a difference in other’s lives, why was I starting to see that the reason I was in Costa Rica was so MY life could be changed; that I was the one who needed help? I was put through trials and temptations that, on my own, I would have given in to. Because I decided to lay down the ability to control my life, I was able to turn from these earthly desires and look to the One who has the power to save me from destroying myself.

From September 2011 to May 2012 I learned that my purpose on earth has nothing to do with me. The reason for my being is merely to glorify God and love others. I had to swallow my pride and throw away my self-righteousness and let God change me from the inside out. Realizing that God’s will for my life might not look the same way I had it pictured was hard to grasp. What I do know now, after developing a relationship with Jesus Christ, is that I wouldn’t want anything other than His will for my life. In the past nine months He has shown me the meaning of love and has taught me how to love people, with the right heart. He has shown me that giving up my life was the best exchange I could have made because with it came freedom. My chains are tied to Him forever and nothing can take that away. Those nine months were the hardest months of my life, but through it all I learned how to fall in love with Jesus.

So yes, paying for gas and working on Friday nights may be inconveniences at times, but I will do them with a joyful heart and never again will I let those inconveniences keep me from doing God’s will. My passion is to bring Him fame and no longer will I settle for what the world has to offer me.

           

This Life Is Not My Own

I have a testimony and it's actually not even mine to claim. It’s a story of how Jesus brought me out of darkness, how He made life out of something that was once dead. It's not about anything I have done or will do, but only what He did for me. John 15:16 says "You did not choose me, but I chose you..." Our salvation is not based on how good we are, what we do, or anything we say. We can't just one day choose to be saved; it's not up to us. God calls us to Him in His timing. When the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins, He allows us to accept this amazing gift of Truth and live a life only to glorify Him. This means letting go of future dreams, current friendships, and past mistakes. Surrendering every day from now until you die, living a life of worship for the One who created you. When you acknowledge that you were born a sinner with a bad heart and that you are in desperate need of a Savior to SAVE you from eternal punishment, that is when the Holy Spirit is placed inside of you. You become a walking temple, representing Jesus. If you claim to be a Christian, while still living for the world, that's when Satan gets a hold of you, tells you that you're good, leads you to go against God, and eventually fills your mind with lies that corrupt your heart. When Jesus lives inside your heart and you allow the Holy Spirit to change you, He will give you a desire for Him, which will lead you from sin. God says that if you love Him you hate sin. If you have the Holy Spirit living in you He gives you the strength to turn away and run to Jesus. We’re at war against Satan right now and it's very important that we understand how he attacks us. He knows us better than we know ourselves, but the cool thing is God is bigger and better and has the power to overcome Satan and all of his evilness. I know it's hard to find truth in a messed up world and hard to discern what's right from what's wrong. The thing I didn't have in high school was a love for God. I had a relationship with Him and thought I knew enough about being a Christian to just get by. As someone who has messed up big time, hit rock bottom more than once, and felt unworthy of God's attention, I have learned that the life God promises to His children is not easy. It actually gets harder. He breaks you down and show you things about yourself you have never seen. He points out the sin in your life, takes away what you based your life around, and then you find yourself wondering why the heck you gave up your old life? Aside of all of that, I can testify that it gets better and I’m not just talking about what you think is better. I’m talking about exchanging an old, selfish life, for something never imaginable. I’m talking about spending every day falling in love with someone who will never fail you. Someone who has crazy plans for your future, and wants, doesn't have to, but wants to pour His love on you. I have no idea why He would choose to save me and pick me up out of the dirt and bless me with the Holy Spirit, the Truth, and an eternal life in heaven! It doesn’t seem right to me and it's because it's not. I was never destined for heaven; I was born into sin and left with no way of getting rid of it. But God has invested in me; He gave the best He had, just so I wouldn't have to spend the rest of eternity in torture. He did it out of love, an agape type of love, one that gives without expecting anything in return, one that lasts forever, and one that loves with the understanding of not being loved back. After I realized what He had done for me, I wanted nothing but to devote everything in me to Him for the rest of my life. Nothing brings me more joy than hearing of how Jesus has changed people's lives because we can praise Him together for the change He brought upon our lives. I always thought it was what I had to do, what I had to say, and to realize, through scripture, that I had nothing to do with it, makes me love and praise Him that much more. I took the Bible for granted, even this past summer. Overwhelming, it left me having no idea where to start, but now, after having read the entire Bible cover to cover, I know the importance in educating myself. I was blown away that this document full of different books, written by different people, at different times, says the same exact thing. As I began testing different beliefs against truth, I was amazed at how wrong I had it. This isn’t just a book meant to collect dust on my shelf, it’s a love letter God wrote (through different people) to us, so that we don't have to figure it out on our own. You think about a house, the builders don't just up and start laying down cement and throw some wood together, no they follow a blueprint. It sounds cheesy but the Bible is a Christian’s blueprint. We are blessed when we spend time in His word, and over time you start to notice it becomes less like a chore and more of a desire. Then you notice the effect it has on the way you treat others, and soon you realize you have a love for people you never had before. You start praying more and waiting patiently for God's voice. And you look back and realize all those things you thought were hard to overcome, have suddenly disappeared, and it's because when you're so focused on Jesus you don't have time to worry about them. Life starts looking different as He gives you a new set of eyes. You start noticing the sin in other people and you want to change them, but you have to remember that you can't, and that He is still working on you. In fact, until the day He calls us to Him, He will continue to sanctify us and make us more like Him. It doesn't stop after you decide to sacrifice a week to go help a poor country, it doesn't stop after you read the Bible all the way through, it doesn't stop when you decide to save sex for marriage; it never stops. Yes He will bless you for those decisions, but when you're being made more like the One who is perfect, it takes a lifetime to even come close. It's not figuring out who you are, but whose you are.

My Desire

He’s my best friend and knows everything there is to know about me, my thoughts, my dreams, and my desires. He knows my temptations and weaknesses, my strengths and gifts. I have personally seen God change someone from having earthly longings to giving up those wants, in exchange for something greater than we could have come up with on our own. I will never go back to the life I used to live, it’s impossible.

God has taught me so many things in the past five months, one of which is that He has my entire life planned out, from who I will encounter tomorrow, to who my future husband will be. When I gave my life over to God I decided not to date, I wanted to know God better before I became engaged with an earthly relationship. Of course I had a list of attributes I desired my future husband to have, but what I didn’t see coming was how much God would change those desires. Something has changed within my heart and God has done more than just remold my desires. He has enabled me to be completely satisfied with Him. HE is my desire.

His Love

~ Through a single set of eyes I'm hard to see. From a greater perspective it's all I am to be. My existence is because of the Great I Am. Wishing to be felt by all that breathe, though many will live, die, and never hear of me. I’m a promise covering all sin. Death wins without me, but because of my power and ceaselessness, death is destroyed as life is lifted. Weakness and anger are blinded at my perfection and righteousness. I’m the love between God and His children. Between two worlds, I've always been and will always be. ~ Over and over I've read about it in the Bible, how His never fails, why is it so hard to see on earth? Its meaning has been lost in a sea of evil and people are giving up on the search. Maybe they're afraid of never finding it, but if they only knew the power of God's love and what it's capable of. It's more than just a feeling, it's a life style.

winter break in the states

On December 9th, 2011 I went home to an awesome family and began one of the hardest four weeks of my life. Walking into my home, the realization of how blessed I was, was all I could think about. As a looked around at all I had, I couldn’t help but thank God. Reuniting with my best friend brought tears of joy and many struggles I had never experienced before. I learned in the past few weeks how much I had changed from the last time I was in the states. My thought process had dramatically changed, the way I spent my time changed, and a lot of friendships changed. Being the older sister of two brothers can be difficult at times, but I continued to try to be the best example to them as I could. Being thrown back into the American way of life caused me to feel selfish, but because of a month of prior preparation through prayer, God gave me a love I would not have had otherwise. Temptations were stronger, trials were harder, but God’s love was the same. Through the hard times I was reminded that the God I fell in love with in Costa Rica, is the same God here in Georgia. I have never been so fully captivated by something so beautiful. Jesus has my entire heart and “my desire is burning like a million stars”.