Saturday, April 27, 2013

Pray for the Middle School Generation.

This is an excerpt I wrote in my journal when I was 12 and in 6th grade.

"There are so many thoughts whirling around in my head right now. I guess I'll start off here.
Ever since I turned 11, my life has become worse than I'd ever imagined. Mainly ever since I entered 6th grade. We have a group of rejects in my grade. I hang out with them because I'm rejected, too. Some non-rejects will come up to me and say hi or just be nice or whatever but most of the time it isn't like that. Me, Nick, Ethan, Levi, Ora, and Savannah tend to stay away from other people. We're not completely rejected, but we group together.
I'm worried about the future a lot. Like I said in the beginning, since turning 11 everything has changed. When I was younger I was a weird, happy, normal kid. And then I wake up to be this confused, sad, put-down person that everyone hates. It feels like I'm so misunderstood and broken. Nobody loves me.
This is another thing to figure out- there has to be a bigger purpose in life. There are many questions here unanswered, but they can't stay that way. I have to answer them, figure them out on my own, but I can't do it alone. I want God to send me a dream... maybe he will if he's still listening.
I wonder how I'll survive. Most people thing suicide is the answer. I don't think it's the answer but sometimes I wish it could all just end. A lot of people think drugs and sex will fix everything, but it doesn't. There must be another way, and I have to figure it out! I'll go til the world's end to find out why I'm here and if I even have a purpose."


 


When I was in middle school, I identified myself as a reject.

Reject; noun:
"The person or thing that is rejected or set aside as inferior in quality."

Inferior.

"One of lesser rank or station or quality; a characteristic of low rank or significance. Falling short of some prescribed norm."


"Sorry, you're not good enough." was the lie that I was fed in that time.
 "Nothing you can do will ever make you qualified to be somebody because YOU don't have what it takes to be whatever you want to be. You don't deserve a purpose in life or a future because you just aren't as good as everyone else. You're below everyone else and you deserve nothing."



Being fed a constant lie is dangerous. It hurts and kills on the inside. When the truth isn't revealed, you become blind, wandering around with your own idea of what the color purple is without ever having seen what it really is in its true state. You start to assume things to your own lack of knowledge.

Lack of knowledge is the death of humanity.

Lack of knowledge was the death of that 12 year old girl from Coffee County Middle School who hung herself last week.
That girl took her life because she didn't know that she had divine purpose. She didn't know that she was fervently loved, and fearfully and wonderfully made by the almighty God. Even though she was bullied and got a lot of crap from the other kids in her school, no one looked her in the eye and told her that SHE was the generation that would shake the earth, and that SHE had a future and a hope. No one told her that she deserves to live because there is a God the loves and desires her heart no matter who people say she is.

I am 17 now and sometimes struggle with the same thought. You're not good enough. But I know that it's all deception. When I encountered the love of Christ for the first time in my life, it literally took these "scales" off of my eyes and I could finally see. I felt like I could breathe without pain on the inside of not understanding who I was. I didn't want to "end it all" anymore. I stopped wanting to slit my wrists. I stopped writing depressing poetry and I stopped crying myself to sleep. Because someone looked and me and said "You have a divine purpose and a God who loves you. You are the generation that will see a revival of love." Not just the warm fuzzy love you feel on the inside, but the love that has the power to break a generational curse that says "You aren't good enough and nobody loves you."

And so this is my prayer: For those who don't know their purpose to encounter the love of God and to rise up into their calling. It's a journey, and no one's journey deserves to be cut short because of deception and lies. We each have a destiny to fulfill and, and it's big.



Thursday, April 25, 2013

Alleluia, Holy are you.

When Banning started praying over the schools on Tuesday night at the Jesus Culture concert, AND when he started talking about prophetic musicians and praying over the musicians/songwriters, I think I almost exploded. God is raising up prophetic musicians in our generation across the earth to release a new sound. I went to ATC music academy last summer so that I could learn more about what prophetic music is, and I never thought that I would end up studying and hearing about it so much, but it's so real. I feel like I'm hardly beginning to skim the surface of what it really means to prophesy the sounds of heaven through song. I feel like deep inside I'm suppose to uncover it and teach others what it means while learning it myself. This is a generation of spiritual song-birds springing up. And more importantly, this is the generation of Jacob, the generation of those who will seek the face of God. The generation of lights coming out from under the basket.
I love how he said that when you turn on a light in a room, the darkness has no choice but to go. It isn't like you're standing there watching them battle, because the light automatically rips right through it. I had never really even thought of it that way. I
And Chris Quilala sang a song that says the words,
"I will climb this mountain
with my hands wide open"
When I thought about climbing a mountain with my hands wide open, it seemed like a foolish idea. How can you climb a mountain without hands? Surely you will fall going up a steep mountain with just your legs working. But that's the thing- you have to trust God. You have to surrender your idea of what gravity (or circumstances) are and you have to trust that his yolk is easy and his burden is light. You can't trust your own understanding of physics verses the one who created them. Climbing the mountain with your hands wide open and trusting him is a ton easier than doing it all by yourself. The biggest thing is trust in him. Not in people alone. Not money. Not in work. But Him.

So this is it. This is me climbing this mountain with my hands wide open.
This is me believing for that last $900 that has to be in for the remainder of my Kenya trip next week. God's gonna provide everything.
This is me climbing out of the valley I've been going through.
And finally I'm almost to the top.





Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Laying down burdens, picking up faith.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Matthew 11:28-30

It's the simple things that can be so easily over-looked.

I have slipped into some serious crap over the past couple of weeks. Partially because I've allowed myself to and partially because I began settling for what is around me rather than changing it. I've always said that I want to be a thermostat, not a thermometer. I want to change what's around me for the better, not leave it the way it is and not do anything.
 My family has been going through a lot of problems and challenges this month specifically. Accident after accident. Problem after problem, literally in layers. I'm pretty sure that this is almost the worst I've seen it. I feel like it's an attack, like the devil is trying to blind everyone, including me, so that we settle for what our circumstances declare rather than what God's word says.
Complacency is really easy, and that's what I've had problems with. It says that you don't have to care. Complacency says that You don't really have to be a thermostat. Sometimes it's okay to be a thermometer. Besides, just laying back for a while isn't going to hurt anyone. Loosening your guard and your morals isn't going to mess up anything. Accepting things is okay. Wanting to be like everyone else is okay.
But is it really okay?
This is where I stand. In the middle of this family crisis and in the middle of the last week of raising the most money for my trip to Kenya.
I've felt like panicking and quitting, but that would require me to say No. And I won't do that. I'm not quitting. Even if a tornado comes and rips my house apart and takes all of my stuff with it. Even if the day before my Kenya money is due I still don't have enough. Something is going to happen. Something always happens. Not because I'm looking through the eyes of an optimist, but because God's word promises and he always keeps his promises, even when everything looks hopeless. I love Jesus. Even when I'm frustrated because I don't have a car. Even when I don't make perfect grades. Even when my family is the way it is. Even when I make bad choices and when I mess up.
He still loves me.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Dreams of Freedom.

I dreamt that we were somewhere where no one was suppose to find us. We were sneaking around a place where if people would find us then they would do something bad to us, like either kill us or put us in a confined camp.
We took every pathway we could to find this mountain, and finally we found the path, and we climbed it. While we climbed, we talked about life and how things happen sometimes to make life what it is instead if what we think it should be. We talked about faith. We talked about struggles. We talked about the Why and the Why-not.

Then we made it to the top.
And I put my foot down on the tip.
And when I looked around, I could see the entire world around me. The vastness, the beauty, the colors, and the sound of wind. A picture in my mind that I never wanted to let go of.

I knew we were suppose to be quiet so that they (whoever they were) wouldn't hear us, but I didn't care. I knew that no matter who heard me, I was on top of a mountain and I knew that we were free.

I lifted my hands in the air and felt the rush of wind, closed my eyes and let out a victorious shout. Like the shout and laugh you would make when you were on top of a mountain and felt completely free of anything and everything that had ever happened.

And then I woke up.