Tonight as I entered through the doors of the place that forever changed my life long ago, I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes. Everything here is moving, constantly. I listened to the musicians and worship leaders prophecy over us and I listened to the voices around me lifted in song, all singing, 

"When I move my body,

When I move my feet,

When I open my mouth,

The darkness flees"

This movemet, and this action is what I've been missing. This consant shift and change- This Ramp that lifts us from one level to another. It isn't the people, or the ministry team, or the cool lights and the church building, but it's the constant movement that keeps us going in God. Standing still on the staircase or dragging my feet won't get me to the next level. Struggling with who I am inside as I look at my past or let this world influence me won't advance me further toward God and his glorious love. Tonight Jake Hamilton said, "We don't need the world. The world needs us. We wait for approval from them, and wait for them to take our hand and pull us on a platform and say "Good job," but you don't need their approval. Your Heavenly Father gives you his approval daily as you seek Him. You can't change a world and fit in at the same time."

The one thing that the enemy has been trying to steal from me here lately is my identity, and my devotion to Christ and my determination to change the world. In the midst of my distraction, he's twisted truth into lies. Lately I've not thought about giving up in my walk with God, but stepping over and messing around with things that will destroy myself in the end. I've tried fitting in with the world and looking cool and "lightening up" and "just having fun". But honestly, the only thing that matters is Him, and this is what I've forgotten. None of these other things I run around daily trying to accomplish matter unless he is the center and the artist of this painting. The approval that other people try to give me don't matter compared to Him. He is life eternal. And this is only day one. 

So here's to Change and rememberance. Here's to the next 2 days of Ramp, and our final moments in 2013 before we blast into a year of advancing and transformation with a fire burning in our hearts and a new song on the horizon. 2014, here we come. 

Growing up.

Turning eighteen wasn't exactly the milestone I pictured for the longest time. I figured that it would mean I could virtually do whatever I wanted to without having to consult everyone or be afraid of "getting in trouble" for staying out past midnight. While that's right and all, I'm slowly learning the harsh reality of what it means to be responsible for your own actions and the consequences of making my own decisions. Tough and defining Challenges have pushed their way to my face here lately- challenges that question everything I've been taught and challenges that question my well-being. And I'm at a point where I need to look situations in the face and say either "Yes" or "No". There is no in-between or lukewarm area. There is no neutral island or a "Hang on while I ask my mom" because my mom will tell me, "Well what do you think is right?" There is no one to blame for my mistakes or my boundaries but myself. And when making decisions, there is no one foot in each world. There is no going half-way with an idea then turning around if it doesn't work.
Being forced to make solid decisions is scary for someone who is naturally inconsistent and indecisive. Sometimes I overthink things and refuse to take a chance. Other times I think "haha YOLO" and put myself in dangerous situations. I've had sit-down talks with more people in the last six months than I have in my entire life, which I'm grateful for in a sense, because my leaders, friends, and family genuinely care about me. But I'm not even in the real world yet and I'm having to make these adult decisions that I don't feel ready to make, and people aren't holding me to a low standard because in the past I've worked up that high standard. I don't even know what I want to wear tomorrow and I have to remember to wake up in the morning and make good decisions during the day or else I could lose my job, my position at church, my good grades or my college opportunity. All of this in a nutshell is Responsibility. Sometimes I shudder at the word because part of me wants to avoid it so that I'm not obligated to make a decision that could harm me. The other part of me wants to reach high heights, and so I search for responsibility.

...The only thing I can look forward to at this point is my mom still being willing to make me breakfast for the next 7 months before I take off.

Lord, help me. 

Don't Blink

Tonight on stage, in the middle of this choir performance, in the middle of all of these people, half of who I didn't know and will probably never see again, I blinked. The first semester of Senior year is over at the end of this week. This was my last Christmas choir concert, and I didn't want to be here. I didn't like choir anymore. I've had a really bad attitude about everything and it was obvious. I didn't even want to be in school. But I heard this voice on the inside that said, "Cherish this moment, because you're going to miss this."
It's true that I haven't had a good attitude about this year. Sometimes I catch myself acting like the typical person with a bad case of senioritis and I don't do the right thing, and I don't care, and I say the wrong things and do stupid things. I keep dreaming about leaving and moving to Kansas City, which isn't bad, but sometimes I walk into class and I've thrown my shades on and put life on autopilot while I take a nap, as if this year didn't apply to me and as if I had no purpose in coming to school. One morning I was complaining about how much I hated riding the school bus, and how I tried to avoid it at all costs, and my friend Hannah told me that riding the bus was a chance to witness to people, and coming to school was the same opportunity. I think about those words a lot. The hardest thing about this year has been staying awake.

I want to find reasons to do things instead of to not do things. What I'm saying is that I don't want to think "Oh, I'll never see these people again anyway so it doesn't matter." I want to find a reason to pray for that guy in the hallway who is on crutches because I'm leaving and might not see her again, or sit next to that girl that nobody likes because these moments are few.
Nowdays When I open my bible and pray, it's as if I'm taking a long, needed rest and drinking cool water from a familiar stream after running ten miles. The water and rest sustain me, but I need more of it more often in order to finish out this race strong. I don't want to barely make it through my last year of high school. I want to run.
 We have 5 more months to impact Oakland High school for Jesus.
We have 20 more weeks to be a light to people we probably won't see again.

Thankful: day 18

So since we're 18 days into November, the month notable of Thanksgiving, We started a 5-things-a-day list of Things that we're thankful for at the Slab last week. 

Before tomorrow morning hits, here we go:

1. Great leaders and mentors who genuinely care.

Sometimes I stop and ask myself "What now? Is God actually working through me? Am I where I need to be?" And my leaders are there to support me and remind me of God's love. I don't have to be having a good hair day to sit in front of my leaders and talk to them about life. I don't have to always answer "Good" when they ask "How are you?" Because honestly, I would be lying if I always said Good. They're there for me to open up to and to guide me. God confirms so often that my leaders and close, spiritual friends are in my life for a reason. 

2. Acoustic music. Because who In the world can go through a fall season without it?

3. God's tiny whispers of love and confirmation throughout the day, even on the rough days.

4. Warm beds. 

5. Mrs. Tucker letting the Slab use her classroom this season. She's so quirky and cool. 

Start off the day in thanksgiving, and end the day in thanksgiving.  For each day in life is truly something to be thankful for. 

I've Prepared a Place for You, Even in the Storms of Life.

The season is pressing down on me.
I can get frustrated, I can fight, cry, throw a tantrum like an angry toddler, ask why and try to run away to escape my circumstances. I can wrestle like Jacob did, because of my lack of understanding. But there's something about sitting down in the middle of the storm and accepting that the rain is pouring down. I don't know how long the storm will last, but I'm here in the middle of it and I'm going to get wet. I will sit in the storm. I will accept defeat, throw down my pride, because I'm not strong enough. I'm a tiny paint drop in this world that makes up the rest of the picture. Even still while I sit in the rain, God isn't just standing there watching me get wet and laughing at my weakness. He's made a place for me, and You. He is my shelter, my refuge and my strength. He's putting his wing overtop of me. But I wouldn't know that he's my shelter until I sat down and accepted that I'm not strong enough. I am weak and broken. I will never be enough. But he is enough for me, and he is limitless. God is outside of the confines of our minds, and for us to even try to wrap our minds around Him is impossible and foolish. I can no longer put confidence in my ability, because in my own power, I can do nothing. But through His anointing and grace, and in His power, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. I am only who I am through Him.

Tears have indeed been shed this week. Tears of stress from severe opression and persecution, and asking God those "why" questions, tears of joy and inspiration from seeing someone radically praising Jesus during our Sunday morning service for the first time in a long time, and tears of goodbyes from friends who move away one by one. But all I can say is that maybe he's carving out a place in me for more of Him. Maybe he's closing old doors and opening new ones, paving new paths and shedding a new kind of light. Maybe my next tears will be tears of thankfulness. 

Selah

It's the little things that remind us of the past, and how much we miss it. And surely because of this, better things are yet to come. So let us keep our heads up and Take a moment to Selah- To pause and ponder his greatness, and his love that we can't wrap our heads around.
It only gets better from here.