The power of Prayer...and the power of love

The past couple of days I've been thinking a lot about the power of prayer...and the power of love. What is prayer? Prayer is a conversation with God. Talking with God where ever we are. Getting on our knees, or bowing our heads, or just coming reverently before God as we walk along. Prayer is an amazing tool we have. We can intercede for other people when they need us to. We can talk to God about anything. Yes...God already knows what we're going to say, but it's building a relationship with God. He loves us and He wants us to talk to Him. Prayer isn't just talking to God though, it's listening to what He has to say also. It's sitting reverently and hearing God tell us his answers to things...what He wants us to do or..NOT to do It's showing God that we LOVE Him and we want to spend time with Him. 

The power of Love....One of my favorite verses in the Bible, as most people know, is 1 John 4:8. "Whoever does not know God does not love, because God is Love" we belong to God...if we are fully His...we will have compassion and love for everyone, because God loves. It's a difficult thing to do sometimes. I know for me...it's a huge deal for me. I don't always love everyone. I don't always love myself--and sometimes I have to spend a day to remind myself that I need to love ME. I'm not saying that in a vain or conceited way...I'm saying it in the sense that if I do not love myself--it's going to be really hard...almost impossible....for me to love anyone else. Love comes from knowing God and spending time with Him. Seeing His love, and then being proactive with that. 

I didn't get the chance to hear the bullhorn preacher on the mall yesterday--but I hear a lot about him. Mainly that he did not preach love, as most of them do not. I'm not judging every bullhorn preacher...I'm not going to say that I love any better than they do...I'm simply stating that if Love is not felt in the manner in which these preachers are trying to share Christ--no one is going to listen. A friend of mine told me that he didn't want to preach the "fluff" or "tickle" anyone's ears. He simply wanted to preach what the Bible said. The Bible is written by the creator of Love!!! God LOVES us unconditionally...His goal for us is not eternal damnation--He wants everyone to know and Love him as passionately as He loves US. Those who do not accept God will go to hell, yes, but that's never God's intention. Christians need to love. To share the hope of the gospel. To PRAY without ceasing. 

As the semester has started again...I want to cover our campus in prayer. Blanket it with the love of God. I don't know what will ever come from that, only God does...but it will require compassion for the people on our campus. I know CCF is huge on prayer walking...and at first I had a hard time with the prayer walk thing because I really felt like it got redundant after a while--however prayer can never be redundant. Prayer is powerful...and God listens to our hearts. If our hearts and minds are focused...God will answer our prayers the way He wants to. 

Making God known throughout the nations

"What if you had to tell someone the most important thing in the world, but you knew they'd never believe you?"


This is a line in a movie I just watched this morning called
Deja Vu. It's a great movie and if you get the chance, try to watch it. You pretty much have to pay attention to it the entire time in order to understand what it's about, but it's really good.
This line made me think though. What if you had to tell someone the most important thing in the world, but you knew they'd never believe you? Isn't that how Christians live out their lives? Or at least that's how we're supposed to live out our lives. We hold the most important, vital information in the entire world...That Jesus Christ is the savior of the world...and accepting and believing in Him will give eternal life.
Not everyone believes us. In fact...a lot of people do not believe in the Christian faith. Yet--we're supposed to share it anyway.

I don't know I just thought this was a cool quote that parallels with the Christian faith...Think about it.

National Student Conference 2008

I just returned from the National Student Conference in Evansville, Indiana. It was amazing. I went to several workshops that really made me think. The trip in itself was just long, and very exhausting both mentally and physically.
Friday we left Greenville at 8:00 a.m. and picked up the other three NC schools in Chapel Hill...we stopped basically every two hours which was absolutely ridiculous, but the fellowship on the way was good =). We stopped in Grayson, KY Friday evening and then got up early Saturday morning to drive the rest of the way to Indiana. Saturday evening Mark Nelson (standingonthedesk.blogspot.com) started the conference out with the thought of "shalom" meaning "peace"--it was really a great sermon speaking on having peace within our relationships. Our relationships with Christians and non-Christians. He also spoke on the verse that says "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me"--everyone seems to interpret that as a very harsh verse...meaning...we have to go to Christ. However the awesome thing is Christ comes to us and meets us where we are...shalom =).
Sunday started the workshops and I went to "Loving Outside the Box" which was really awesome. One of the things that really stuck out to me in this workshop was that America has some of the loneliest people. We are all so closed in, and we bottle stuff inside us...we won't talk about stuff. But we don't look for the lonely and the hurting...those are the poor people along with the homeless. It taught me to watch for the lonely...the hurting...the hungry...the homeless. It was absolutely awesome. People are hurting everywhere. Who am I to judge? I just need to love like Jesus. I also went to "God's Will..debunking the myths" which basically spoke on how our lives are not mapped out by blue prints. We can not say we know what we're doing in our lives...We have to stop looking at the big picture...and trying to figure out our futures...and start living day-by-day. When we look at the big picture we start to focus on ourselves, but when we focus on day-by-day we start focusing on God and his will starts to open up to us. I then went to a workshop called "What does God really think is important" and it basically talked about the emergent church. It was good but went way over my head.
Those were the main workshops I went to...I also went to one about accountability and learned a lot about how to be accountable to people and hold people accountable without making them feel bad, and without making them think it's a court session. Overall the things I learned were great and really made me think. I know God will use me, and already is. We left Wednesday morning, and then our group spent the night in WV. We left WV this morning and made the rest of the trip home this morning. Today I spent a lot of time in thought...chewing on what I learned this week...and kind of having a quiet conversation with God about how he'll use me this year. I had my ipod in, my praise and worship music on, and for the five hour trip home it was me and God. It was pretty awesome.
This was my week...it was awesome and I know those of us who went can teach others also.

While in Indiana I bought a book called "the shack". It is probably the most amazing book I've ever read. It's a Christian novel, but it takes away all the cliche ideas of a Christian novel. It talks about an intimate relationship with God and seeing God's three intity's...when I finish reading it I'll write a post about it and try not to give it away.

Expectationless Expectations

The past few months I've been learning from a great friend of mine how to have "expectationless expectations". Basically saying to go into everything realzing that...I may have expectations but not to get let down--then I won't get hurt. To just go into every situation with an open mind.
It's a harder concept than I thought it would be. I say that in the sense that...it's changed me a lot...by having expectationless expectations I'm able to live my life more and not focus on old friends...or old relationships. I'm able to love myself the way I'm supposed to love myself. The way God has called me to love myself. I can't exactly say it's always easy. Last night I really struggled with it. I'm realizing how hard it is for me to be around friends who I used to be better friends with. It's hard for me to be around friends who know a lot about me...and who Did a lot for me. However I also am learning that intentions behind actions aren't always what they seem.
I'm learning who I need to trust. Right now I have a couple of people who I really trust with my heart. Above all I trust my heart to God--He knows who I am...He knows everything about me, and yet he still rescues me and loves me despite any faults I might have. I'm learning that I can have friends who I can hang out with and enjoy my time with without them knowing everything about me...But I'm also learning how to surrender to myself in certain circumstances. I'm learning all of this through one of God's greatest servants, and one of my greatest friends. I'm excited to see how God's going to use me this coming school year...He's changing me each day--and I know He's going to rock my world in a big way. I'm grateful for the new relationships that have come out of old circumstances...and I'm blessed beyond belief.
Expectationless expectations...sometimes hard, but so far always worth it.

The prayer of a child

This Weekend through the beginning of this week I worked at Roanoke Christian Service Camp. For 46 hours I was with about 70 or more 6 and 7 year olds. It was amazing, but exhausting. My group was the purple dragons. The theme of our two days was "Kung Fu Christians" and each time we did an activity the kids earned a new "belt". It was really exciting for them to know they had earned something. Yesterday morning before they left they all earned their black belts. We had 10 groups, and each group had 8 kids.
They certainly tested my patience, but also helped me learn what I'm in for when I become a teacher. All the kids are so different. They all come from different back grounds (yes at this age they even have a background, and I learned that real fast). They are all at different maturity levels. They also all have this huge faith that is so unreal to me. They're so innocent...and to them it's easy to believe in this God who is taking care of them. I loved watching them as they listened intently to us when we taught our lessons. They all answered the questions and got so excited when they got the answers right.
I had one little girl in my group who tested my patience a whole lot. Whenever I would call my group together I would count them and I would always end up with 7. The 8th child would be this little girl who would either be with another group...or wondering off by herself...or just not listening. I really had a hard time being patient with her--and toward the end my patience had really worn thin....but I had to remember that she was 6. She was the youngest of all my kids in my group...and the most immature. But she had already told me her story, which broke my heart. She got on my nerves, but she had a huge heart. She loved to be around people...and loved for anyone to listen to her....that included God.
Each time our group got together we would pray at the end, and I would always ask my kids who wanted to pray and she was the first child to raise her hand. I loved to hear her pray. She was so thankful for being at camp...and always wanted to thank God that she was able to be at camp, and able to make friends. She had real love for God that I wish we could all have.
In just two days I learned a lot about the vulnerability of a child. I learned that they love to love and be loved. They love God. They love to talk to anyone who will listen. They're SO grateful for what they have (most of the time)...and their minds are being molded by how we help mold them. Children are precious.
In the bathroom they have scripture posted all over the place, and one of the verses that I kept seeing everytime I went in the bathroom was 1 Timoth 4:12. "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity."~I loved seeing that verse and realizing how true it was for our campers and for all of us. These kids set just as much of an example for me as I could for them...and it was absolutely awesome.
So as much as these kids exhausted me, and tested my patience--I was serving them...and learning from them. Loving the way God wanted me to love...

God is LOVE

So...over the past couple of years of college I've been learning a lot about how much God loves me. I've always found it hard to understand that this all powerful God of the universe could love someone like me. I've screwed up. I'm a dirty sinner. But over the past year I've really fallen in love with how much God DOES love me. I'm a princess. I'm a daughter of the greatest King of all time. Not only does He love me, but He IS love...and that is amazing to me. So this past November I started thinking about getting another tattoo--but I couldn't really figure out what I wanted. I knew I wanted it to be meaningful...and I knew I wanted it to be something to describe me. I am a huge fan of "To Write Love on Her Arms". It' s a Christian movement that was started when a few people decided to help a girl in need. It is basically a group who is called to suicidal/depressed people who need to understand the concept of love. To learn more about it you can go to www[dot]twloha[dot]com. So I finally decided I wanted to have a tattoo with the word "love" in it. It took a while until I finally came to the simple yet powerful statement in 1 John 4:8 which says "God is Love". 3 words that mean SO MUCH. I decided that was going to be my tattoo. God is Love. However I wanted it to be unique. It took a little while longer until I came across the Greek for it which is "Theos Ein Agape"--I thought that was cool but it took a little while longer still before I found the actual Greek writing. That's when I decided to get my tattoo on my foot, so in February I went and had it done. It has sparked a lot of questions, and that's my point. To have people ask what it means so I can open up a discussion. God is Love. God loves me, and He loves us all. It describes my relationship with the almighty creator, and it describes me in the sense that I'm passionate for the hurting and I want everyone to know what it's like to love and to be loved.


So the whole point of this post is to simply show the picture of my tattoo because I thought a friend of mine had seen it, however she had not, but I also wanted the meaning of it to be known.

Sometimes it's good to boost the esteem

So I was reading a friend of mine's blog and decided I'd do what she did. I like to compliment people all the time...however I never really think about myself and maybe things I MIGHT appreciate about myself. So here goes...5 things about myself

1. I have really pretty eyes. I've always been very self conscious about the way I look, however I have always thought that I have beautiful eyes--I started wearing eye-liner when I was in high school and got into musicals, and really LOVED the way my eyes stuck out with the eye-liner. They're hazel, but the green sticks out more than anything.
2. I'm very self-conscious about my teeth, but I love my smile. I feel like I have pretty lips that kind of compensate for my not so great teeth.
3. I don't honestly care what people think about my tattoo's and piercings. I love the fact that I can speak out through art on my own body--and I like that mine are hidden when I want them to be--yet speak out about my faith. I especially love my tattoo on my foot. It's in Greek and it says "Theos Ein Agape" which means "God is Love"--it's a great conversation starter.
4. I am very short, but I like being short. I used to hate it, but now I realize it makes me who I am.
5. I'm not overweight--I'm kind of average. I've grown content with how much I weigh and my body type because I know it's the way God made me. I don't eat a whole lot, and I'm not a fan of sweets so I know that I'm not "pudgy" because of what I eat--it's just the way God made me.

The end =)