to make his voice known...

I believe this summer is going to bring a lot more change...

Even between the last few months there have been so many changes. A lot of things were good at first and I set myself out to determination... then there was a long period of time where things got very difficult. I believe this past year has been a time of pruning... cutting things off of my life so that I can grow more.

I look back on what things were like 3 years ago and how they are now. Before then everything felt so familiar, and now there are even faint smells and feelings that bring me back to the goodness of those days... and there are whisps of a memory that bring me back to the dark places. I'd encountered God a little bit when I was a little girl, and I would listen to what my dad would tell me about the holy spirit and it excited me. I so much wanted to be like him- a person with a life committed to God and committed to living out and encountering the supernatural.

As I grew I started losing passion.I started wondering who I was and I wondered what purpose I served on this earth. When I was younger, around 10, 11, and 12 I was the weird girl. I was the laughing stock that was always picked at and made fun of. In 6th grade they tended to pick out the outcasts and isolate them and make fun of them, and unfortunately, I was one of those people. The people I hung out with cut my self-esteem down to nothing until I thought I was a worthless person.
That's one of the biggest reasons why I can't stand seeing other people get picked on now because they look or talk funny or act weird or they're an "outcast".
Because I know what it's like; I was that girl.
I got involved in things I shouldn't have and prefer to never go into detail about.
I was lost, and the truth was I'd become a floater. I had a trust for God but I was scared and, honestly, I was lost in this darkness I had no escape from. I wondered what it would be like to cut myself, but I never did it. I wondered if life would just be better if I died. I had panic/anxiety attacks because all of the stress and fear would close in on me at once.
It was a dark place.
But I had to change.
And I did.

I returned to church, going with Angie and Billy. Those were the days when we would just ride back and fourth to church in Angie's black camry with the windows down. We'd show up at the "church" which was Barfield elementary at the time. Billy and I would pull out the chairs and set up the projector, then Soy, Jenelle, Rachel, The Luttrells, Lindsay and others would come and we'd all hang out. Those were the nights when I started finding out who God was because I encountered people filled with the holy spirit, and the love of God shined through them onto me and showed me what it really meant to live a life of constantly encountering the real, true God. I remember we'd lay in the floor for what felt like forever after worship just soaking up the presence of God.
I remember feeling God's consuming fire after they layed hands on me at the Ramp my first year. I don't know what happen between the time we entered that fire tunnel of Ramp leaders laying hands on us and between the time I stumbled out crying with rivers of living water flowing out of me, but it happened. The holy spirit consumed me and changed me.
I soon discovered intercession and found who I was and what my purpose was in this- being a voice crying out in the wilderness. Between then and now- with youth camps, trips, movements, new experiences, new friends and what it's brought me to, I can hardly imagine what the next few years are going to be like. Getting more familiarized with the spiritual condition of my high school and bonding with other Christian students with passion for Jesus and to be a voice crying out in the wilderness of our campus is my calling for these next few years. It's the dream- for it to spread and make his voice be known.