Changing things a bit

I just changed up the look of my blog to something with a tiny bit more depth and personality. Hopefully I’ll be able to personalize it more as I spend more time on here, but it’s good for right now. I like the parchment paper look, like you could reach out and grab it right off of the screen.

Now I have a question for you. It seems random but just go with me on this. This blog has been full of random, and it’s yet to be seen if I’ll be able to keep up with it the way I’d like to. Oh well…but it’s how life is for me at the moment 🙂

If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?

For me, the answer has always been Thailand. The place where my heart is, even though I’ve only set foot in the country for no more than 3 days. There’s something about it that grabs me, that keeps me thinking of it day after day after day. The people, the experiences, the yearning to go back and the desire to reach this sweet nation with the love of Jesus.

Perhaps your place is also a place of the heart, or very simply someplace you long to see and experience, a place where you have family and friends, a vacation spot, a place with a specific need that’s within your skill set, etc.

But what is it? Maybe my question is more along the lines of, Where is your heart calling you? I think deep down inside of each of us is a longing for more. We all have a hole in the depths of our being that is only filled with the forgiveness and love of Jesus, who died on the cross for us, taking away our sins, and then rose again from the dead so we can live in heaven with Him forever. Once that hole is filled, you find peace. Contentment that can only be found in Jesus. But there comes a time when He will remove that contentment and fill you with restlessness…a yearning for more of Him, a desire to move mountains for Him, to shine the love of Christ to others, but you’re not sure exactly what that means or how to get there. And slowly, ever so slowly (He’s really good at helping me build up my patience, haha!) He’ll start to reveal what His plan is for you, but only so far as the next step. He may give you a brief glimpse farther into the future, but it stays hazy until He’s prepared you and prompts you to move toward that.

It’s an interesting, scary, exciting, wondering place to be. It’s weird. The sensation of knowing God is calling you to bigger, to more than yourself, to something only He can do through you and that you can’t ever imagine doing on your own, but only with Him working in you and through you–it’s crazy and goes against every human instinct. The instinct to be safe and secure. To prosper in this world. To make money, have a close-knit community of friends, a nice house and nice car. To fit in and not draw attention to yourself by being “too” different. When you follow Jesus, He begins to push you out of the world and into His. He loves us so much that He wants more than anything to use us for His glory. Whoa. Think about that. God is SO big. He made the universe and the millions of galaxies with just a few words. Yet He loves us. And wants to be with us and wants us to be His hands and feet. Just wow.

So where is He taking your heart? What has He placed in your heart that burns within you? That little flickering flame of an idea or dream that is too big to even put into words. For me, it’s just an image, compiled of a bunch of different dreams and ideas and places and people, that I can’t even begin to put into words yet. But maybe it’s good to try. Write it down, tell it to God, speak the desires of your heart to Him. You might not feel that He hears you, but He does.

Not so into this

Blogging has been a struggle for me lately, not gonna lie. I’m pretty sure it’s just one part of a multi-faceted attack by the devil on me. It’s been a struggle to write, a struggle to blog, a struggle to process things, a struggle to feel emotion and excitement, a struggle to remain confident that this is where God has me. And I believe it’s because I am on the brink of moving, of changing, of actually beginning to put action behind words and dreams. It’s because I’m taking steps toward something huge, totally bigger than myself. There’s a lot that’s going to go into it and it’s scary and crazy and sometimes, actually all the time lately, I find myself thinking “who am I to even think that I can do this?” It’s going to take a lot out of me. But…dun dun dun…I think that’s the point. A lot needs to be taken out and removed so that God can pour into me what He wants to be used for His glory.

My dad has been an extreme encourager for me during this time. He’s constantly reaffirming me and he’s really good at reminding me about my passion and who I am in Christ and who he and my family and friends see me as and capable of. To have him and my mom and family and friends behind me in this is extremely amazing.

One step at a time.

**Disclaimer. I apologize for being so mysterious. Some of you are just plain confused right now, others will know what I’m talking about immediately. All will be revealed in due time 😉 Love you all!

All Things Missions

Where to begin? There’s so much to write about. First things first–I am VERY excited for THIS this weekend–the Desiring God conference!!! This is an annual event put on by Pastor John Piper, and as far as I can tell or know about it, it is phenomenal (I’ve never attended before now…so I’ll let you know how it goes :)). This year’s theme is “Finish the Mission.” So naturally me, my rockstar parents, and awesome lil bro are in attendance. Did I say I was excited yet? Well…I am.

There’s a lot of back-story with this. Perhaps the best way to start is to simply tell you that I have a HUGE heart for missions, if you hadn’t already figured that out. What I mean by that is for as long as I can remember, I’ve always just simply wanted to shine God’s love to the whole world. And I’m a huge helper. Helping is actually one of my spiritual gifts and I love to do it, to get behind people and help them lift off into something greater. And I love to write–but now we’re getting off topic. *rewind* Let’s try this again :-P.

One of my hugest life desires is to show others God’s love. Whether that is simply holding a child and loving on them, or serving in some capacity, that’s how I see it. Just loving. And that has segued into hard-core missions heart syndrome. I will try and post more about that later, so you get to know me a little better.

Over the past year, my parents re-received the call to missions that they’ve had and known of for the past 25 years. They’ve spent all of those years raising me and my siblings, which is definitely a missions call in itself. They have always known they had a call to missions. They thought that that would be what they did once they were married. But then kids happened, and they knew they were called for that season to raise Godly kids. I am so thankful for my parents, they are no less than absolutely amazing. So…back to re-receiving their call.

Let’s just say some hard things happened, and God really got a hold of my family in an awesome, incredible, real and tangible way. It’s been unbelievably awesome and I can’t even begin to tell you how blessed I am to be a part of this family. Anyway. This all brought about an idea for a lifegroup (what my church calls small groups/Bible studies). My good friend Hillary was talking to my mom one day at church, and they just happened to brainstorm an idea for a missions lifegroup, right there in the church lobby. At first Hillary’s husband Bob thought it was a silly idea, “who would want to come to a missions lifegroup?” he asked…but very soon afterward God told him that it really was a good idea…and my dad was also all for it, so the 4 of them set off to start it. Since then, over the past year, it’s been so far beyond amazing that I can’t even put it into words and do it justice. I told my dad about a month ago that “I wish I could just put this lifegroup into a box and package up all of the goodness so others would understand how incredible and lifechanging and inspiring it is and want to come.” That pretty much sums it up.

We’ve been going through quite a few awesome books. (The Missionary Call, Spiritual Warfare & Missions, etc) and we’ve been having real-life missionaries come and speak to us and tell us about their experiences. The Holy Spirit is so present and real that it blows me away every time. Every time the lifegroup meets, there is always crying involved because the Holy Spirit is there. It is AWESOME. Things have moved along and more people have joined the group, and long story short, we now have the missions lifegroup at 2 of our church campuses (can you say sa-weet!) and we have split it up into 2 different groups, as well. We found that we were trying to do too much with the group, that we couldn’t read an awesome book and have a discussion about it AND have missionaries come and speak at the same time, because it ALWAYS ended up with the missionaries talking the whole time, which is absolutely incredible and life-changing.

So we now have 2 groups going over the books, and 1 open to the entire church to come hear our missionaries speak and give them a platform to share more deeply their ministry, their passion, their heart for the world, and give our church the chance to know more about them (more than you normally find out in a 5-spot).

So anyway, all that to say that it is completely normal and probably almost expected that we would attend this conference this weekend 😛 I am really excited for it. I am excited for our missions lifegroups. I am soooo pumped to see what God is going to do in us and in our church. Missions is already a huge part of our DNA, but I know it’s about to become an even bigger part of it.

So there. I’ve blabbed on for 772 words and counting. That’s a lot for a blog. I apologize. I think I like this topic just a little bit. 🙂 Would you keep us in your prayers? There’s a missions movement going on here, and it is SO exciting!

And while you’re at it, check out the conference and take a look at these awesome speakers! Also…another thing I can’t get enough of: World Race blogs. If you don’t know about the World Race…better check it out ASAP. It’ll rock your world.

More later. Peace!

I know this isn’t conventional…

…and it’s probably blogging taboo, but I posted a “song,” if you will, on my other blog that I wrote a couple months ago and just am curious what you think about it. It’s a cry to awaken passion. To BE the Lord’s hands and feet. To follow Him wherever He leads. I don’t know. I just felt I should post it. So I wanted to share it with you.

You can check it out here:
http://thatgirlwithredhair.blogspot.com/2011/09/this-is-love.html