To Truly share and show Love.

My family has come a lot closer this past week. This past Sunday night my sister Carrie had a stroke. This wasn't expected, but it wasn't completely out of nowhere. She's in a rehabilitation center right now regaining movement of the left side of her body.
You don't realize how often you use the left side of your body until it stops working.
You don't realize how much time is given to you before you use it up.
Lately I have been back into a season where I feel that God is teaching me about love, sacrifice, and time again. I have often found it difficult to show love to people through my actions and words some days. I've felt bad because of teenage junk and I've thrown myself pity parties. I've been selfish. I've taken the things I have for granted and I feel that God is revealing to me what it truly means to have those things.

I was listening to a friend talk a Slab the other day. She said that a lot of times we take people for granted, and so often we're quick to judge and ignore people that God put in our pathway for a reason. Those people could be annoying; we could think "Why the heck did God put me here with these people?" and we can spend time getting so impatient with people and annoyed by them and snap on them for no reason.
 This sounds cliche, but really think about it for a minute.
Really ponder these thoughts:
Do you even know what that person could be going through?
Did you ever stop to think that God has you sitting next to them for a reason?
 Maybe it's to help them with something big or maybe it's just to smile at them. Afterall, every action you make bears a consequence. However, this thought isn't to cause pressure because Lord knows how often we screw up and say things we don't mean. But it's to inspire a change in how we live on a daily basis.

Consider the people that surround you, and consider what you do. Because the time we have here on this earth is so short and so quickly spent. I don't want to live a life constrained by things that don't matter and things that waste my time. But I want to make sure that these moments are well-spent. I want to say kind words to people. I want to compliment them, even if it annoys the crap out of other people and they call me a suck-up. That's just a negative term for kindness, in my opinion, and there isn't anything wrong with kindness.  I want people to know their beauty and their highlights and I want to be sweet to them.


So guys, here's to a week of getting stronger and a time of loving more. Here's to a week of learning to dance in the rain.

Wisdom Cries Out in the Streets (A Personal Testimony)

To be honest, I really don't like talking about myself or posting things that are too personal. There's a lot of things that are unnecessary to even waste my time writing about. But I've picked out a topic that people point out about myself and have asked me about, so just in case you were wondering, here goes.



People often tell me that I'm an old soul. I hear people (several different people that I may know well, others that I don't know very well) tell me that I'm very wise. They remark about how mature I am. They tell me that I don't sound like I'm sixteen when I write and that I don't act like a normal sixteen year old. They don't think I look sixteen, either. So I guess I'm going to write about why this is, or why I think this is I guess.

I think that when we are getting in God's face (like going into our "prayer closets", basically spending time in both simple devotion and deep prayer on a daily basis) we grow a lot more than we expect, even as young people. The holy spirit that lives on the inside of us teaches us things in this prayer time.
 We are constantly feeding on the word of God.
We are living off of it.
We are listening to worship music, lifting up our hands daily in worship and thanking God for who he is every single day.
We may be having a rough day and the morning didn't start off the best, but we whisper "Thank you Jesus for helping me adjust my attitude today". 
These things help you grow more than you think.
You will grow when you are constantly communicating with the Lord. He made us to grow, and made us to never stop growing.

I had begun in youth group when I was like thirteen and I would feed off of what our youth leaders would tell us and what our pastor taught. I look up to elders and prayer leaders because they have wisdom and I want the same wisdom and spirit of intercession to live in me. I would feed off of the retreats. I didn't want to go to a youth retreat and come back home so that things would turn back to normal. I wanted to live in that constant feeling of being forever connected with God's heart no matter where I was or where I went. I wanted to rock the boat and I had developed an intense desire for God to use me to reach people, without selfish ambitions or pride.

 One time I started praying for people I knew needed help and that needed a rekindling of their fire. The summer of 2010, the summer before my freshman year, I would spend at least an hour and a half in my temporary bedroom at my dad's house each night praying for a list of people, and praying for Oakland high school which I'd never been to yet. Praying, worshiping and reading for an hour and a half by yourself isn't easy for the first few times. Don't think it's going to be the most amazing thing in the world your first time if you haven't done it before. You have to want it.
I prayed that God would give me vision to reach out to high school students ("What 14 year old even prays about that?" Someone once asked me.) I prayed for revival. I prayed for fire. I prayed for souls. I prayed for intense encounters that people would have in school. I prayed for the gospel to spring fourth. And even after returning home to Tennessee, I prayed about these things in my prayer group at church. Spending an hour and a half with God every night for an entire summer will cause you to grow intensely, and after you start you just don't want to stop.

Just to clarify, I wasn't the most intense spiritual person you'd ever met. But I will say that maybe I sound like one because God put these desires in me after I asked for them. You don't have to be extremely spiritual to get all of this, because I know I wasn't. I just asked.

As I grew in prayer, by hooking up in prayer groups at church, watching my youth leaders and the elders and "prayer leaders" of the church and with Christian friends, I realized that I needed to drop some things that were seriously hindering me in my walk with God and my growth and from reaching out to others. It was a big list that I didn't want to give up, but that I had to. It was time to clean out the closet. So I did.
And it really hurt.
Actually it hurt so bad that I was like "God, why can't I just kill myself now? Seriously?"
But as I quickly learned to adapt to my new environment, after throwing off the heaviness so that I could run my race (Hebrews 12:1-2) I noticed that I felt lighter.
I realized that it was okay to be alone.
That God could encounter me intensely when I was by myself in my bedroom.
That I didn't have to carry people that I didn't have to.
That I didn't have to stay in this immature mindset. That I could grow.
That change was okay, and that I can never get comfortable in one spot.

Change is okay. Especially when it's constant change.

So after I threw these things off, I separated myself from people more often and would spend more time with God. "How boring" one could say. Well, the first couple of times, maybe it is. But when you ask the Lord to stoke a passion in you, he will.



The thing is though is that I asked for wisdom. I asked God to give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation of his love and of his word (read Ephesians chapter 1). I wanted to grow. I was like "God, I'm giving everything to you, literally everything that I've ever clung onto, because I know that when I hand it to you, you will take better care of it and show me what to. You know more than me. Your thoughts and ways are higher than mine."

Even if you don't know where to start, pray for wisdom and revelation. He listens. He really does.






The biggest revelation I got to gain wisdom and understanding was this, if you want the truth.

Gain an eternal mindset and cast off the things that are temporary and that don't matter in the long run.

If people are hindering you with your walk with God, no matter who they are to you, separate yourself from them. I'm serious. Because they will screw up your walk with God and it won't be very pretty....

Obey God at all times. If you have a bad feeling or conviction about something you're doing, stop it.

Read the word. Sing the word. Say with word. Pray the word. Know the word. Live the word. 
Every single day.
Make it your life.
Seriously.
Like if you don't read the word and spend time in worship and prayer today then you're going to get grouchy because you didn't eat today and you're going to starve. That's how I look at it.
I don't care if you have no time at all in your schedule and you have to give up a little bit of sleep to do it. Either kick something, anything, off of your schedule, fast social media to gain 20 extra minutes to spend with God instead of wasting your life feeding yourself with stuff that in the end just doesn't matter, drop an extremely high level class at school that is taking up wayyyy too much of your time if needed (yeah, I just went there). But if you want wisdom you HAVE to live in the place of prayer and worship. Constantly. I'd rather have time with God and give up sleep than have more sleep and no word. It effects your attitude. Every day.

Sounds like a lot. It is. But how bad do you want it? How bad do you want to live out the word, and how badly do you want wisdom?

Well, you decide for yourself.

 

Have you ever felt...

That overwhelming feeling when you find yourself away from everything you've ever known in something that you feel like you've barely felt the surface of?

Everytime I leave home, I can never get used to it. But the beauty I find in it is that getting out of my comfort zone and put in a crowd of people I'm not usually around brings me closer to Jesus.
Why?

Jesus didn't stay in Nazareth forever. He traveled and went outside of the cities. When he was old enough, he left his mother and father behind and everything he ever knew to set out on a journey to become closer to his heavenly father and to reach people. He even went away to fast and pray, because it can be difficult to do that around familiar surroundings. Sometimes we have to leave our comfort zones and shake it off to realize how much bigger and different things can be.
Shaking off comfort puts you outside of the box, and even though it may not feel too good for a while, every minute will be worth it. Murfreesboro isn't the only place God called me to stay in forever, even though it's my home and what I'm used to. I know I'm called to reach other places, and although I'm not too sure where I'm suppose to go to after high school, I do know that wherever it is, it will have purpose and glory.

So here, while I'm away, I'm making some lists and extending my hand as far as I can to people that need someone here. And it'll be worth every minute.

[26 days left]