The Only Way To Explain It...

" 16-17This is how we've come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God's love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.
When We Practice Real Love
18-20My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.

21-24And friends, once that's taken care of and we're no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we're bold and free before God! We're able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we're doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God's command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us."
- 1 John 3:16-23



I don't have a lot of my own words right now and i'm finding that i really don't even have sentences to put together to fully explain my heart condition...all i know is that i see that i am in the middle of a process and it's good.

It's hard, challenging and I find myself wanting to be stubborn sometimes but here's the truth - God gave me his holy spirit. Not for my own benefit either! It's so that God can be seen through me. I am a body that has God's living spirit inside of me and i cannot keep it in anymore by covering it with negative thoughts.

So what do I do? I fight, I stand firm and I live fully alive through the good, bad, and ugly. God gave me the gift of being at Northwestern where things are totally out of my comfort zone, yet it totally fits me. He is giving me this time to totally devote my heart to him, to make my heart a dwelling place for him. This is the time in my life where i seek him with ALL of my heart and completely depend on him like i never even imagined. It's hard..because i'm fighting with my flesh like none other but SERIOUSLY this is do or die.

And as Nike always says I will "just do it."

why? Because there is truth rooted into my heart [which i am SO thankful for - praise God for such a great VB community!] and I will NOT deny it any longer.

welp...here i go, knowing i will stumble and fall but its okay.

I Wanna Walk In The Light...

So Lately, well actually i would say all my life, progressively I have been living in a negative thought life. Now some would call this torment, and don't get me wrong i would agree...BUT these are thoughts that i have brought on myself. Sure it was started with torment, but really this has been an issue that has been here pretty consistently.
I remember a message my youth pastor spoke on, basically saying how the little things in our life where we disobey God become big things. I see this in my life right now. Every negative thought i have had has turned into a big lump of negativeness that truly has affected every spot of my life. Living in negative thoughts produces negative feelings, which then produces negative actions or the posture of being stuck.
So first off i don't believe that this means that because i have been in my negative thoughts that God has not been able to use me. I believe that because i have been seeking God that he has shown me that these thoughts are here and that those thoughts are NOT from him...therefore they need to be rooted out of me. These negative thoughts are a "family curse"...for all those who have been to valleybrook =P. I know now that i have a choice...
This brings me to the epiphany i had tonight while chatting with my mom. In english the other day my teacher was talking about the fact that God IS light and how God is not LIKE light, but IS light. There's a difference and it really changes the way that we as Christians look at life.
If God is light, then in order to live with God we must live in the light. Now this may seem quite obvious and maybe even repetitive to some but it really isn't! Why, you ask? because i think so many of us think that we must be at a certain point in our walk with Jesus to finally be "christian enough" or "worthy enough"...that we get our "in" with him. Like we must go through a series of tests and then get accepted. that is SO false!!!! The TRUTH is, God IS light - and once we truly surrender our life to him then we ARE in the light!!! We will always be in process until we meet Jesus. The thing is that a lot of us tend to focus on the darkness instead of staring straight ahead at the light, that gets brighter and brighter as we grow in Christ.
I encourage every one of you to take a step forward - to walk into the light, to leave every piece of darkness that you are aware of in your life and walk in faith - in the fullness of God's power that he has given us. This is the only way that we can give God glory, surrender all to him, and let his light shine through! This is something that is still very raw to me, but i know that my God is a good and faithful God and he cares SO deeply for his children. He IS the perfect father and will take care of all of our needs in HIS perfect timing.

"This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light.." - John 1:5

"12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love." - 1 Corinthians 13: 12-13

Joy in a desert place

Ya know how when you ask God for something, he tends to give you it in a weird way. Well last night i got myself in a situation where I really only gave God a "half eaten apple" and out of that he showed me my sin in the situation. Now instead of picking shame, or torment, i chose joy. God is cleaning out my heart, and dang it is humbling but not decaying. To live for God, you must sacrifice the desires of your own human heart -- that's what i believe. Then he will burn away the bad desires and bring life to the good ones.

"Obey my voice and i will be your God and you shall be my people. and walk in all the ways that i command you, that it may be well with you" -Jer 7:23

All My Crummy Apples

So I have come to the realization that the whole time i have been at northwestern I have brought some baggage along with me. Coming from my old church, i was shown such a good picture of God and community. But i realized that i was too rooted in my church and not rooted enough in God. Now i dont want to take away from the amazing things God did do through me being a part of that church, but it is what it is. Every where you go and everything you do is going to be flawed. That doesn't mean it can't be God honoring.
That brings me to the baggage that i brought a long with me. Because of the great community I had back home and my brokenness, I went into college thinking that i was this amazing christian that really knew a lot about life. haha...was i wrong or what?! I believe that God really wanted to show me how wrong i was. So basically i have had this mentality that I have to get life right, but in the bible it clearly states that i can't. I know that it says that I am made right by my faith, which is encouraging.
What really made me stand in awe is that anything i give God is good. Nothing i give him will be holy enough for him. And that's not discouraging, that just shows that God is perfect and I am not -- more humbling then anything. At church my pastor put it perfectly today - he said that when his friends daughter got him an apple from the apple orchard, it was half eaten by the time it got to him. Once getting it, he did not yell at his daughter, but fully enjoyed the apple and thanked her for it. God is like that -- he will take my "half eaten apples" and make them into something beautiful. So no more comparing, no more trying to "get it right". It is time to open my eyes to who God is...I need a new picture of God. I want God's love to go deep into my bones -- and honestly i don't think i'm gonna stop until i get there.
It's like i'm sitting in the air port with all these suit cases surrounding me, and instead of rolling them along side of me as i walk out to fly, i'm leaving them there and running to my destination.
I'm not sure if anyone actually reads this, but whoever is - i want this for you too. I crave for each person on this earth to KNOW this kind of love deep in their bones, to the point where they cannot contain it. they must act out this love, not in fear or performance but because they couldn't imagine living their lives for any other cause. MAN that get's me going and gosh i pray deep inside of me that that kinf of fire will ignite in every person on this earth.