I'm Back..

Wow, I really need to catch up on this thing. Boy, has the Lord been doing some crazy, cool stuff in my life lately. Every day is an adventure, life with Jesus is anything but boring!  I came back from an amazing amazing summer in Central Asia, where the Lord blew me away. When I have more time I will post some sweet stories and some pictures. Right now we, Chi Alpha, are in the middle of our most busiest time of the year and that is the craziness we call Welcome Week! Its basically pure madness, no sleep, lots of coffee, and hanging out with precious, lost freshman. I LOVE IT! There is nothing like sitting and talking with sweet girls, who just have no idea what the Lord has in store for their lives. I am very excited about where the Lord is taking us this year. The harvest is plentiful!  I have no other way of explaining it other than an intense anticipation with a few butterflies of what it feels like walking around our campus right now.  The Lord is going to do something HUGE! 

JOY

Brace yourself friends, this stuff is rich, please read it all, its worth it! I was reading in Christ of Every Road by E. Stanley Jones (highly recommend anything this man writes) a couple of days ago and these paragraphs have stuck with me, so I wanted to share them. Ok here we go...

"Joy of the Spirit is no cheap joy. It has scars on it -- radiant scars! It is joy won out of the heart of pain. Those who know it have found one of life's deepest and most transforming secrets: the transmuting (transform) of pain into a paean (any song of praise, joy or triumph). Sorrow becomes not something to escape; WE CAN MAKE IT SING! We can set our tears to music, and no music is so exquisite, so completing. The early Christian learned immediately and at once the truth which the philosopher Royce puts in these words: 'Such ills we remove only as we assimilate them, idealize them, take them up into the plan of our lives, give them meaning, set them in their place in the whole.' When their heartstrings were stretched upon some cross of pain and the winds of persecution blew through them, then from this human Aeolian harp men heard the very music of God. THEY DID NOT BEAR PAIN, THEY USED IT!"

Good huh? One more!

"In a Friends' meeting in Vienna I found myself rising and saying: 'For many years I have worn a cross upon my heart, and this cross has made me. But recently it has been lifted and I miss it and I find myself asking for another cross.' 'What a terrible prayer to pray!' said a friend walking out of the meeting. Yes, it was, but it would have been more terrible not to pray it, this, if we want to know the fourth dimension of life (which is pain, he talked about it earlier in the chapter). I found myself praying recently, "If wounds must come, I have only one request to make about them--let them be clean wounds." If we can keep away from our wounds the infection of complaint and sourness of spirit, they will heal quickly and leave glorious scars!"

AAAAAAH, that stuff is soo good. Turning pain into a joyous song, who would have thought?

New Year, New Beginnings

It's been a while. I need to hop back on this thing. Well, the title says it all. It's a new year and with a new year comes new beginnings. The Lord has really pressed home with me the fact that, although last year was not bad by any means, I really do need a fresh start. A fresh start with a lot of things in my life: my house, my small group, my job, my school work, lacrosse, my relationship with Him, EVERYTHING! Oh and how the Lord has been good to me. This new semester has started off with quite a bang. I was blessed with a new job, that I am loving and being stretched at all at the same time, if you can imagine. I am loving my small group more and more each day, although I'd like to see them more than I do, the time I do get to have with them is amazing. We are learning so much together, thank you Jesus. School on the other hand is kicking me! My education classes are very difficult, but something that I have to constantly remind myself is that without these classes I can not do what the Lord has in store for my future.

Lately the Lord has been revealing to me that I must have a refreshing of His Holy Spirit. I need to experience the Pentecost. I've been reading through the book of Acts and just recently finished it. I love how the disciples have just seemed to go nuts for the Lord. I picture in my head them just running in all different directions to all different nations and cities filled with the joy that only the Holy Spirit can give. They forgot their fears and just simply shared what Jesus has done in their lives and what He did for them on Calvary. As I read, I felt their urgency. To them sharing this love was not a compromise. I always knew that Paul was an amazing man but actually reading it for myself was mind-blowing. He showed me that their truly is power in our testimony. He wasn't being rebellious, he simply had a passion for people to also be able to experience the Lord as he did on the road to Damascus. And he was not afraid. At one point the other disciples were telling him not to go to Jerusalem because they knew his fate, this is what he said in response to them, "What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of Jesus Christ." BAM!

What am I willing to do? What am I willing to give up? What am I waiting for?