Where to begin?

Woooooow! How do you begin to describe the plethora of feelings one has when they are rocked, first by God and what He wants them to do, and dealing with all of the crazy emotions and stress of taking steps toward that, then adding to it the incredible, unbelievable, overwhelming amount of support by their family and friends?

I mean seriously, come on. Who am I to have such amazing friends and family? Who am I to have a workplace jump behind me immediately upon hearing about the World Race? Who am I? Nobody. But that’s not true, is it? And I’m talking to YOU, my blog reader, right now too, because you’re amazing and don’t ever let any single person in your life tell you that you don’t matter, that you don’t have a purpose, that God doesn’t love you as much as He loves everyone else around you. Do not believe it.

God has created you for a distinct purpose. He loves you with an everlasting love! Sure, He’s called me to the World Race for this season of my life. And I’m getting pretty darn excited for it too! I’m still processing this past weekend and the past month and how this has all played out. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever come down from this high I’ve been on…because I’ve realized without a doubt that none of this could have happened with Jesus. Plain and simple. Done. Just walk away. No more words needed. JESUS! Woooow. He deserves ALL of the praise! He draws us close to Him, whispers to us, drenches us in His love. Sit and soak Him in, ask Him to come, and He WILL. He loves YOU. You are precious to Him. I wish I could say that in a stronger way so you could actually tangibly feel His love the way I’m feeling it right now. It’s the love He has for everyone.

Keep after Him. Keep seeking Him. DO NOT give up. Seek His face, and He will come to you. There’s no formula…it’s just humbleness before God. I am nothing Lord, I realize that so obviously…but I can’t help but yearn for You every minute. You are everything my soul desires! I want to feel Your arms around me, holding me tight. I want to trust You more. To not be so wrapped up in this world. Help me to know what it’s like to be truly FREE in You. To let go of my insecurities, my fears and anxieties, and just simply trust in You. To walk forward in what You have placed me in right now, and to keep walking toward the dreams and desires that You have placed in me. I am made for more, for greater, and especially to worship You. Help me to do that! I love You!

This is my prayer for me and you. Thank you for reading my blog, for your promises of support for the World Race, for following me and encouraging me and being such amazing friends to me. I can’t ever express how much it has meant to me and will mean to have you all by my side as I go through this next adventure the Lord has placed before me. Ultimately, this is ALL for Him! To God be the Glory and ALL praise through this and all future generations in ALL nations! Amen and amen (as Pastor Rob would say :D)

Be blessed today. Just soak in Jesus. He IS with you, I promise. Yearning to be close to you. Let Him love on you today 🙂

I need to start fundraising soon. If you would like to support me, click on the link to my World Race blog now on the right side and go to the “Support Me! :)” link. Or just click here. And while you’re at it, sign up for e-mail updates on my WR blog 🙂 I would love to have you follow me on my journey as I prepare and process everything along the way.

God heart

God is Lord of your heart. He knows your deepest wishes, your biggest dreams, those parts of you that you never show the world because if you did it might call you crazy, or psycho, or just lame. God is a God of the small and the big. Those little dreams you have, however insignificant, are important to Him. He knows the desires of your heart. Wait for Him. Draw near to Him and He’ll draw near to You. Let Him surprise you with how big He is. Enjoy being HIS. Don’t let the world tell you that you have to read your Bible for so many minutes or pray for so many hours a day for Him to hear you and draw near. Those things are good. In fact, they’re necessary and incredible and should be practiced daily, yet…wow…we all mess up. We go for weeks, perhaps months without truly digging into the Word, without spending passionate time in prayer, instead glancing at a verse here and there and praying tiny little prayers about needs and wants, sometimes for others, but if you’d admit it, mostly about you and your struggles and pain and frustrations. That’s a frustrating place to be. Because you know you can be better. And you want to be. But your flesh gets in the way and you give in to it too much, you know this, yet you still do it because it’s comfortable. It is a war against our flesh. But we can let the frustrations and feelings of unworthiness bog us down. Keep fighting. Keep praying.

Let the King of the Universe love you for who you are, not what you do.

Because He’s calling out to you to see Him every day and to hear His voice. He loves you with endless passion. I wonder if we could see the heavenly realm, if we’d be horrified by the extent of the battle fought for us every day. Satan is sneaky. Those feelings that you’re never going to make it, you’ll never be good enough, you’re not pretty enough, you’re insignificant and no one really truly loves you…those are LIES. I am talking to myself just as much as anyone here. Seriously, it’s a battle.

One thing I have really been impressed upon doing lately is just to let myself enjoy being with God.

I don’t have to do anything. Just simply be. Rest. Soak Him in. I don’t think we give Him enough chance to really get through to us in our days. We’re always going, going, going, off to the next thing. Ignoring, truthfully, because we don’t want to have to take the time to focus on Him. It’s such a battle!!!!! But remember, Jesus wins. Truth, love, grace–it triumphs. God is good. He loves you so much. Let Him simply love on you today. Listen to Him. Talk with Him. Rest in Him. He’s waiting.

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!

A little rawness

[I’m feeling a little raw today. So I thought I’d be real with you.]

I am fully human. I go through periods of anxiety, of wondering what’s next, of always waiting for something. These times of waiting are usually (eventually) followed by a period of peace, of being okay with the “right now,” being fully in the moment, realizing that life is too precious to waste a second of it. But other times it seems like it all goes together and I don’t know what I think anymore—all these things get muddled up/mixed together in my brain and I’m left wondering if I really have the ability to think straight, or if this happens to everyone (because no one talks about it!). But through it all, it’s SO good to know I have a God who understands me better than I understand myself! He is my hope! He is fully aware of my feelings and knows exactly where I’m at in this very moment—today—and He has a plan for me. I know it’s better than anything I could dream up. But why, oh why, is it so hard to wait? I’m so sick of waiting.

I’ve realized lately—why do we always wish our lives away? Why are we always, without fail, waiting for something? For what’s next. Why is it so hard to just BE?
You’re a kid and you wish you were a grown up. You can’t wait to turn 12, then it’s 16, then 18, then 21, then 25, then all of the sudden you wonder where the time went.
You can’t wait until you can drive. Then it’s college. Internship. Your first “real” job. The day you finally start dating “the one.” That first kiss. That engagement ring. The wedding day. The honeymoon. That 1^st child. That big vacation. The huge promotion. Retirement. Then you’re left wondering what happened. How did all of that life go by so fast?

Maybe it’s so hard to be content because we know we’re made for something greater than who we are and what we’re doing right now. I know I just want to jump leaps and bounds to be this incredible, selfless, always joyful and happy, hour-long-devo-in-the-morning, glass-is-half-full type of person that I want to be. Key word: want. I might portray that to you every once in a while, by God’s grace, but it is truly Him at work in me and nothing of me, at all, because as a human, my selfishness and cynicism and frustrations and anxieties very often take over before I have time to realize what has happened.

There’s so much more to life! To being fully alive through Christ, because He made me to be ME. He made me to be fully present, right now. I know I will keep failing, but I will keep trying, keep placing my focus back on God, keep surrendering to Him. I can’t do this on my own. None of us can. Only through Him who gives us strength can we truly be all He has called us to be! That takes time. I know it’s natural to wonder. God didn’t make us with brains that know it all. We’re constantly learning and adapting. But God is good. He made us for greater than we could ever see ourselves being. Perhaps that’s why I can sense the calling to be greater, but I have no idea how to get there. Because the only way is through God. He has the PERFECT timing, though. Maybe I need to learn how to be okay with wanting and waiting, and how to sit still and just soak up God’s presence even then. Even if I do feel otherwise. Feelings are not always trustworthy, but God does use them.

[That was a lot of jumbled-up rawness…hope you could make sense some of it!]

A New Day

I have started a new blog! Just seeing what the blogosphere looks like from this side of things. I still have my “iamaredhead” blog, and I’m keeping it, because I love it. Don’t know what I’ll do with 2 blogs…but hey, we’ll see what happens 🙂

I’ve entitled my blog “writtenforapurpose” because that’s my goal for my writing. I want to write for a purpose. I want it to be God-centered, God-focused, and it’s also a dream of mine to write for non-profit ministries and missionaries and travel to tell people’s stories around the world. I want to get the word out about sex trafficking, about AIDS, about hunger, about poverty, about clean water programs and church plants and all the above. Like I said, it’s a dream. A big dream, and I’m not sure how to get there…but I know I’m supposed to write, so write I will. This blog is raw me. Raw God. Raw life. I hope that as I write whatever I write here, that you get something out of it.