It is the Purpose of the Lord that Will Stand

"Many of the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand."
     - Proverbs 19:21
I'm writing this on Thursday evening, full aware that I will not be posting this until Friday. It is surreal to think that this is where I am already. I'm writing because I have big news!

I have a job!

My internship ended this Wednesday, but for the past couple of weeks I have been in talks with the school that my church is connected to about a job opportunity. And I will say that this is an opportunity that I didn't really see on my radar, but the Lord has a funny way of turning us around just when we think we've got it straight.

I'm going to be a high school English teacher!

Those of you who know me know that I was looking for an Elementary position. This is a little bit of a different setting. Nevertheless, the Lord has provided this position and I am so elated to accept! I will be teaching Freshman and Sophomore English classes as well as the Freshman and Sophomore ladies Bible class.

I am so excited to find out how the Lord is planning on using me this next semester. My days have been taken up with printing, cutting, laminating and coloring decorations for a secondary classroom. It is impossible to find decorations for secondary classrooms!

I just wanted to announce it here and to say that I look forward to the next semester!

Love Always,
Christina

Is it Well with Your Soul?

It was several years ago that I sat on a porch in the humid Central America summer heat. A group of us were wrapping up a month of serving the Lord through missions. We sat together and worshipped, cried and praised a good God for the work He had done. The leader of the missions organization sat amongst us and charged us to not forget. His simple question tied into the song we had just sung:

      

          "Is it well for your soul? Will it be well with your soul?"

He talked about how we would be returning to a world of distractions, where we would be thrown all kinds of opportunities to forget what the Lord has done for us. We would forget to trust in the Lord's plan for us, and wuld doubt His goodness. He charged us to write it down, set a reminder, do anything to remind you to ask yourself "Is it well with your soul?"

The night I set an alarm on my phone to go off every 15th and 30th of the month at 12:00 PM. The first few months I was faithful to text my fellow missionaries when I would receive my reminder. I would ask the question and we would all reply with a resounding yes. The trip we had just taken was still fresh in our minds. Months past, and my texts to others faltered and eventually stopped, but I still received the reminder. I would ponder the question and come to a yes or no answer. The Lord would convict me and it would cause me to come face to face with my own shortcomings. 

Well, this past Sunday was the 15th, and faithfully my phone lit up with the six simple words that have convicted and comfored me in times past. "Is it well with your soul?" My eyes glanced over the words, but my soul did not respond. I turned off the alarm and looked away from convicting words that my spirit did not want to hear. I looked up from my phone to face my fears and shortcomings alone. I have been bearing the weight of my sinful, imperfect life on my own, and I have had no time to ask if it is well with my soul. 

I wont bore you with details of my failures and shortcomings, but recently I have been driving myself into almost panic attacks because I have been trying to take control of my life and I have not been seeking the Lord. Brothers and sisters, I come to you honestly saying I have been neglecting the Lord and trying to live life on my own. This reminder came at a time that I wasn't ready to face the Lord.

I decided that God could wait for me, I had no time for Him. 

He decided differently. 

This morning, I walked into staff devotions at the school I am interning at and one of the teachers was giving  devotional about straying from our shepherd. She talked about a sheep named Shrek that wandered from his shepherd and lived in a cave for six years before wandering back. When Shrek returned he had grown fleece that weighed more than 60 lbs. The story ends with Shrek being sheered, which was better for his health anyway, and returning to the watch of his loving shepherd. 

She mentioned that sometimes, we can hide from our own shepherd, and we end up bearing the weight of the world on ourselves. She had pieces of paper with this Scripture:

     Matthew 11:28 - "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke i easy and my burden is light."

On the paper is said to write down the burdens that you're carrying unnecessarily. I decided to be honest and started writing. Before I knew it, half of my page was full. I looked down at all of the burden htat I refused to give up to the Lord and felt like weeping. But, this time the tears were not out of self-pity, but of realization of just how far I had wandered from the Lord. I was so worried about all of these things, and instead of trusting the Lord I held onto doubt. 

And it was then that she played this song:

And it was then that I realized this was the Lord trying to wake me up. Every failure, frailty, stress and uncertainty that weighed me down came off of my shoulders as I laid them at my Father's feet. I just needed to let go of pride and realize my Father wanting me to trust in Him. He is the only one who can give rest. 

Friends, I write this as a reminder for myself and for those of you in doubt right now. His burden is light, he is our loving shepherd. 

I will simply ask you, and request that you ask yourself:

Is it well with your soul?

Always,

Christina

The "Gift" of Singleness

Hi friends, it's been a little bit since my last post. I think that's typically how life goes for me, I'll be on it for a while and then things get busy or time gets taken up with other things and I forget to write here, forget to go to the gym, forget to wash my car (it needs it badly). I'm a bit of a head case and I understand this, but I also know that people can't be perfect, so while I will try to fix issues I have I'm not going to beat myself up about them.

I was inspired to write today because of a topic that was studied by my girls discipleship group last night.

Singleness

We're going over the book Disciplines of a Godly Woman in the high school girls discipleship I work with and so far it's been a really great book. I've read it before, I myself went through it as a high school girl and I remembered gleaning a lot of wisdom from it. It's been a good study and it's prompted good discussion, especially last night.
The chapter we covered was the Discipline of Singleness. I wanted to spend a lot of time talking together about this chapter because I think it's something that is constantly under attack, especially in high school age and up.

In this chapter Mrs. Hughes brought up singleness in a way I had never looked at it before and I wish in my high school days I would have known.

Now, some things have changed in my life since my last post, the most dramatic one would be that I have gotten into a relationship. Wow, that sounds so dry. I was sitting here trying to figure out how to put it out there without seeming too lame or gushy and weird about it, but it came out like how my grandmother would explain it. He's really fantastic, actually, and I am very very happy with how things are turning out. He's actually a guy I've had interest in for a long time, but the Lord is faithful to display His Sovereignty and even though we both liked each other for a little while, He didn't open that door until His timing was right.

 I am grateful for our relationship and he means a lot to me, but I know that in the Lord's eyes I am still "single". The Bible does not have the designations of "single", "dating" and "married". And I'm sorry close knit, conservative, Christian families, there's really not even "courting" mentioned. I'm not ragging on families who choose the courting route, but I also think what some may call courting and what some may call dating are similar if not the same. But I digress. The Bible basically has the designation of "single" and "married". The only thing that changes you from being single to married is an actual marriage. Not an engagement, not a promise ring, not moving in with someone, not having sex. A marriage. Legal and binding. "He looked deep in my eyes and told me he's going to stay with me forever and ever. He's my hubby." That's so sweet that he said those things! Did he say it in front of an official with witnesses and a legally binding contract? No? Oh, okay, well then, no.... no he isn't your hubby. And please do not fall into the thought, it leads to comfort in potentially sinful things. Treat him like a brother until you've signed those papers and said those vows.

Now, the real issue I see here for us single gals is that we've fallen into questioning "Has God given me the gift of singleness?" This causes girls to freeze and panic and think "Well I definitely want a relationship, would God really give me the gift of singleness?" Does this sound familiar? Does this sound right? How can we call something a gift but when we think about it, it causes us to retract in fear that it may be what God wants for us.

I think our problem is that we're looking at it wrong. We're looking at the gift of singleness as something that the Lord places in our lap and we have to deal with forever. But let me tell you, fellow Christian, if you are single today you have the gift of singleness. I think we tend to look at men and women who are in later years and are still single and we tend to think "Well, the Lord gave them the gift of singleness but He definitely didn't give it to me." And we are making a huge error here. Let me try to explain.

If we are saying that the Lord hasn't given us the gift of singleness, we are saying that while we are single, the Lord is withholding something good from us. How horrible is that? The Lord withholds no good things from us! Single Christian, the gift of singleness may or may not be a permanent part of your life, but please start seeing that you do possess the gift of singleness in this moment and there are great things to be done with it! Singleness leaves room for so much opportunity to serve the Lord in ways that married people can't.

I thank the Lord for the gift of singleness He has given me and I will thank Him for the gift of marriage if and when He decides to bestow it on me. In life the Lord doesn't throw the gift of singleness in your lap saying "Haha! You have the crappier gift, deal with it." No. He hands you the gift of singleness saying, this is my gift to you, use it well. And if one day he exchanges that gift for the gift of marriage then it is your task to use that gift as well. But until then, see yourself as blessed! You are single! Able to do work for the Lord in mighty ways. Do not see yourself as not fit for the gift of singleness, because according to the Lord, right now you are.

Love Always,
Christina

They Call Us the Crazy Ones

So this thought has been floating around in my mind for a while now and I thought I would attempt to coherently put it down in words so that I can communicate it better with people. 

We'll start off with a "What in the world?" and probably end in a "Kids these days".

Adults, remember when you were little? I mean really little and you used to watch your parents, grandparents, older siblings, etc. enjoy the freedoms of being older than you? Maybe it was at night time when the oppressive regime of bed time would take place and you would beg and plead and whine to try and stay up just a little bit later. I remember knowing that if I pretended I was falling asleep in my parents' laps they would let me stay out, but in reality I wanted to see the end of the particular Seinfeld episode through half-closed eye lids. 
Or being forced to sit at the kids table and always wondering why you weren't allowed to sit with the adults, hear the adult-talk and feign an air of maturity as you cracked a joke that had the whole table roaring. I always knew they wanted to hear my thoughts on Molly's foolish behavior in the most recent of American Girl I had just read. But I was never given the chance to share my thoughts because I was stuck at a table full of kids who thought reading was "so boring" and that I was "so weird"... I digress.
What I'm getting at is there was always this nagging idea that once you got to a certain age, once you were an adult, you would be able to do whatever you wanted! Stay up late, drive a car, eat whatever you wanted whenever you wanted, go to parties, live by yourself, do things by yourself. The list goes on and on, the world today tells you that you will be happiest when you have complete and total freedom and you've done a little bit of everything and anything! 
The world has this mentality that being an adult means you get to do everything! Excessive alcohol? Fine! Drugs? Just be careful! Sex? Of course, are you a prude? Sin isn't a word in the growing population of today, sin is something of the past and today it's just "finding yourself". We excuse our sins because everyone else was doing it or we weren't as bad as some other people we knew about. How else are we supposed to learn until we've made every mistake in the books, right? Why teach young people about responsibility? Why teach them that choices have consequences, both good and bad. And the consequences range from something as small as, you should go to bed a half hour earlier because you have to get up early, all the way to if you do those drugs you will most likely get hooked and lose your life as you know it, literally and metaphorically. Or as I like to reason "Don't do ____, because you will get pregnant and die." No that's not really how I make decisions... But that is probably my second favorite quote from that movie.
An excuse I often hear is "I'm not hurting anyone." I'm not hurting anyone if I'm getting drunk before legal age (even after, getting drunk just isn't good). I'm not hurting anyone by sleeping with my boyfriend. I'm not hurting anyone by smoking weed. I'm not hurting anyone by lying to my parents, in fact I'm helping them, if they knew the truth they'd be crushed!  
To quote some songs that are popular right now:

It's our party we can do what we wantIt's our party we can say what we wantIt's our party we can love who we wantWe can kiss who we wantWe can sing what we want

... 

Remember only God can judge yaForget the haters 'cause somebody loves ya 

...

This is all we got and then it's goneYou call us the crazy onesBut we gon' keep on dancin' 'til the dawn'Cause you know the party never endsAnd tomorrow we gonna do it againWe the ones that play hardWe live hard, we love hardWe light up the dark! 

Responsible people worried about remaining righteous have become known as "haters" and that if you try to tell someone their wrong, you're oppressive or bigoted or judgmental. 

First of all this lifestyle sounds horrible to me. People are always singing about staying up and out all night and partying and going crazy. I was in bed by 10:30 last night! I don't mean laying in bed getting ready to sleep. I mean eyes closed, hard breathing, teddy bear under my arm and limbs askew ASLEEP. And it was fantastic. I recently stayed out past midnight with some friends. It was the first time in a LONG time I had. And while I was enjoying myself I remember watching my phone turn from 11:59 to 12:00 and thinking "Hey! I haven't been out this late in a long time! Woo! Go me!" and literally by 12:10 I was asking my friends if we could go because I was ready for bed. 
Second, the type of "fun", or what I'll focus on, "happiness" that the world tries to find in their freedom mentality is so temporary. You can find it even in the songs. They talk about partying all night only to "Do it all again" because in reality the happiness that they receive from a night of doing whatever doesn't last them long enough so they need to do it again and again. 
The very fact that doing whatever you want or "self-indulgence" has been proven to only offer fleeting happiness in the example of Solomon. 
A little background on Solomon: 
Solomon was a king of Israel. He was a very successful king. So successful that he could pretty much have whatever he wanted. It's documented in Ecclesiastes, that he pretty much had whatever he wanted. He decided to test himself by giving himself all that he desired. Women, money, material items, alcohol, whatever he felt he wanted he gave to himself.   

 I xsaid in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.1 2 I ysaid of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” 3 Izsearched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on afolly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. 4 I made great works. Ibbuilt houses and planted cvineyards for myself. 5 I made myselfdgardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees.7 I bought male and female slaves, and had eslaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of fherds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and ggold and the treasure of hkings andiprovinces. I got jsingers, both men and women, and manykconcubines,2 the delight of the sons of man.

9 So I became great and lsurpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my lwisdom remained with me. 10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart mfound pleasure in all my toil, and this was my nreward for all my toil. 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was ovanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing pto be gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11)

What is his conclusion? It was ALL vanity. He would have been out there, with the party people, doing whatever he wanted, taking whatever he wanted. And at the end of the day, after he had what he wanted he realized what it was all worth. Nothing.
Now you may be saying "But I don't want to live like that forever, just live a little while I'm young. I'll stop when I'm older." But what worth is that to you? What is it worth to waste your life now? See, we tend to think that wasting a little time of worthlessness is inconsequential. But we're wrong in this assessment. The Lord warns against doing things we consider to be secret or not hurting anyone.

You felt secure in your wickedness,

you said, “No one sees me”;

your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray,

and you said in your heart,

“I am, and there is no one besides me.”

But evil shall come upon you,

which you will not know how to charm away;

disaster shall fall upon you,

for which you will not be able to atone;

and ruin shall come upon you suddenly,

of which you know nothing.  (Isaiah 47:10-11)

Love Always,
Christina 

(Side note: I wrote this a while ago and I realized I never posted it before. I don't remember why I didn't but I thought I'd share anyways. I still feel the same way about it all)

Christmas Day, Every Day

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Or, day after Christmas :)

I hope that each and every one of you was able to enjoy the holiday simply because you are alive and well and God has shone mercy down upon you by giving you another day to live and breathe! Even if the day didn't turn out to be as "magical" as you would have hoped we always have something to celebrate.

That's actually where my post is going and it's a conviction I have in my own heart of treating Christmas day as something "special" when it's really not.

Waking up yesterday morning I was happy because:

1. It was 9am and I had been able to sleep in
2. It was my first day off in a while and the thought of no responsibility was exciting
3. It was Christmas day!

Now unfortunately, the child-like thrill of Christmas has kind of tapered as I've gotten older, but it's

still a great day and I love it. It's a day I know that I will get to spend with family, however it works out. And it was a good day, opening presents, hanging out for a while and heading over to my Aunt and Uncle's house for some family dinner and more hanging out. I love my family, we may not be as functional as I used to think we should be, but I love them all.

But there was an underlying thought throughout my day that I just couldn't shake and I actually woke up thinking about this morning. For most, Christmas is a holiday that is only significant because of the boost in the economy by the purchasing of gifts, and the ability to see family that you may not be able to see regularly. It also symbolizes the close of the year, with New Years following shortly behind to ring in another year of the same-old. But for some of us, Christmas day is something to celebrate for different reasons. For some of us, Christmas day is the day we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It symbolizes the day that God sent His son to be the payment for the sins of us who wouldn't be able to pay the price ourselves. Yes, even those who don't even realize and on other days would never say they agree with the gospel, celebrate and sing songs like "O Holy Night" and "O Come All Ye Faithful", and place nativity scenes in their houses or even in their yards. They'll attend their Christmas Eve services and hold candles and sing songs they know by heart but don't understand in their heart. Everyone can be Christian on Christmas.

But, fellow Christians, do we celebrate Christmas the day after? Today, December 26th, 2013, did you wake up with the same satisfaction and joy at the thought of Jesus Christ being born into the world to pay for your sins? Let's not be naive enough to think that December 25th is THE DAY Christ was born. With different calendars and misinformation, December 25th is most likely not the actual calendar day that Jesus was born, but it's the day we've designated as "Christmas Day". So why is December 25th so different? Now, disclaimer, if my words sounds passionate or harsh it's because I speak these to myself and I'm calling myself to make a change, but the question I found myself asking is this:

Why do I not wake up every morning as if it is Christmas day?

Christian, for us every day is Christmas day! Just because today is not December 25th, does it make it any less true that Christ was born, fully God, fully man, to earth through a virgin with the purpose of dying on a cross to cover my sin and yours all to the glory of the Father? Why is it on Christmas we'll talk around the table about the miraculous birth of the Christ and marvel and pray thanking God the Father for sending His Son, but the day after we need not talk about it. Does December 25th somehow make the story more entertaining, more amazing? Has it become the thought that we know December 25th will come again next year, so we'll save our amazement, our celebration of the God-man coming to earth for that day, but today I need to focus on me and what I have to do today and it's not Christmas so I don't need to celebrate it?

Sometimes I feel like that is how I think. I'm too busy, and it's not Christmas day, so I'll save those thoughts for later. Why don't I keep a nativity in my house all year round? What about the nativity is for Christmas day only?

"In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

(1 John 4:9-10, ESV)

I've decided I want to wake up every day in the same frame of mind that I do on Christmas day. Today is the day I celebrate the coming of the Christ who died on the cross to fulfill the payment for my sins. Today is the day that I celebrate that Jesus was sent to earth, and that God chose to love us in the fact that He gave us the payment for our sins.

I think I'll try and look at it this way. Christmas day is a reminder, not just a single event, but it should be a day to come together and look back on a year full of gratefulness over the fact that I am a wretched sinner, and God deemed it fit to send His Son in my place and to pay the price, of which I could never pay.

Another disclaimer: I understand that there are people out there who treat Christmas this way, and I said before this post is mainly a reminder and  conviction of mine, so more than anything I'm saying this to myself.

I'm excited for tomorrow because it is another day that the truth stands: Christ was born on earth, to be a blessing for man. :)

Love Always,
Christina

Note to Self: It's totally worth it

FINALS ARE OVER AND I AM OVERJOYED.

Hi there,

I'm a little bit excited, just took last final for the semester today and my brain is happy to be free of the stress-overload. I loved this semester and I am thrilled with where God has me, but I am happy for the break.

I've been at a point where as working on papers and projects and notecards and trudging through hypothetical classroom situations and thinking about all of the hours I am going to work my first year of teaching and how often I'll be sick and blahblahblah... and you just have to stop and think "Do I really want to do this?" It's like... if I reeeaaalllyyyyy think about it and break it down to the fact that my life will be crazy busy and the paycheck wont be glamorous and not all of my students are going to like me, and not all of the parents will agree with me, and I'll probably cry sometimes from stress. Is this something that sounds like fun to me?!?!

No. The answer is no.

When I look at it from that view, I want to hike my CCC-appropriate length skirt up and run as quickly as possible.

But then I have to stop myself and think: Is it worth it?

And the answer is most definitely yes. And to come to this conclusion I have to remind myself of a few things. So this blog entry here is a bit of a reminder to me and maybe an encouragement to some of you out there, no matter what your major/career may be.

What made me choose this major?
Okay so to answer this question we have to go back to little me and ask "Christina, what are you playing?" to which I would answer SCHOOL AND I'M THE TEACHER YOU NEED TO SIT DOWN. Okay I don't know if little me was as abrasive as all that but I was very much into my teacher character. I was homeschooled and had no idea what real classes were like and honestly the thought enthralled me and I felt like it was some big mysterious world to be discovered. But, even from a young age I had an interest in being a teacher.

But that interest soon died.

I got older. Being a teacher became less "cool" than it once was. I also went to school and fell into the whole "teachers make life hard" type of opinion that seems to spread through a class like wildfire. Like literally, it's the most stupid thing ever, I had some really amazing teachers in my academic career and I took them for granted because it wasn't "cool" to appreciate your teachers for actually TEACHING you something. I am not a smart woman.

So we'll fast forward to the summer of 2010. I'm graduated, thinking about pursuing a career in marketing, or dentistry (long story with no point) and preparing to go on my first missions trip to Central America. I had always desired to go on a missions trip, so when my church's youth group announced they were going, even though I wasn't in the ministry at the time, I decided to jump on the chance to go. I'd never really committed to anything like that before, I just filled out the paperwork and handed it in with a prayer that if God wanted me to go He'd make it happen. Then I get contacted to come to a meeting and next thing I know we're planning and doing fundraisers and we're all set to go. It was crazy really, but God is so good and knows exactly what I needed.

I don't know exactly what I expected, but I didn't expect to have my whole life turned around because of one 10-day trip, but it happened. A lot of things happened which I can talk about in another post, but specifically the Lord blossomed a deep love for the kids there and a desire to work with them more. There's a small school right next door to the church plant in El Salvador and I fell in love with the kids. I can't explain it any other way than the Lord created a love in me that I didn't know that I had and it was the kids in Central America that helped me to see that.

It was crazy and fast and I knew that Central America would always be a part of my life in some way. I knew I wanted to go back and I wanted to be with the kids and be able to see them. Then, the Lord being as faithful as He is brought the idea of teaching back into my life. It seemed to fit perfectly! They're still in school during the summers, are looking for English teachers, especially from America, and I would have a place to stay with SOS. There's was a lot more to the decision than just all that, but it was all too perfect and turned my life to decide to become a teacher.

The next couple of years I continued to go to Central America in the summers the next time for two weeks and then a month.

The two weeks trip something awesome happened that just further solidified my decision to be a teacher. Hours before our team was ready to leave we're informed that we are going to need to come up with a week long VBS presentation to do with the kids in the village we were going to be working in. OKAY! No problem! We decide to grab whatever materials we can and then just put together a program on the plane ride over!

We arrive in El Salvador and get ready to drive over to Honduras the next day. Our main goal was to serve in Honduras by building a house for a sister in the church over there whose husband had passed away leaving her pregnant and with young children. When we arrived in Honduras the group of us, including some people from other churches, sat on the back porch and talked about the next day's activities. This included door-to-door ministry to be headed up by Paul, and building the house, which we had a gentleman on our team who was good in construction so he was heading that project up. ike was talking about who was in charge and to choose where you were going to go, and for the VBS and program for the kids if you wanted to be apart of that, well Christina is in charge of that one.

My brain came to a slow stop and I just looked at him and I think the next word out of my mouth was "What?". Basically I felt like I had no idea what I was doing but I knew I didn't want to back down. Okay, if I'm in charge... I'm in charge. It was daunting, but I was ready to take on the challenge. We came up with an idea for activities and a Bible story to act out. We had a translator assigned to us and chose a person to give the gospel. We set up people ready to act out the skit and filled out bags with candy, toys and bubbles.

The experience was unlike any other I've had. Kids would come to this large field with soccer goals and swarm around us ready to play Mica or Shuca (tag) and other various games. Also they went NUTS over the bubbles. Literally we'd all stand at one end of the field and blow the bubbles so they caught in the wind and the kids would chase them everywhere and GO CRAZY. I've never seen kids react like that to bubbles, it was fantastic.

We would play games and then have them sit down to present them with a skit and with the gospel and it was awesome to see how intently they would listen. As the days went on we noticed more and more of the parents would stand or sit in the field to hear the stories and the gospel shared. It was such a great experience. We gained more and more kids each day and we would always play crazy games and share the gospel and just love them. One of the last days we were there it started to pour, but instead of leaving the field we just turned it into a muddy game of futbol and had fun just being kids with them all.

Our last day was one of the hardest days ever for me. It was breaking my heart to know that maybe some of these kids I would never see again. They weren't church kids so there was no guarantee that we would be reunited, and I had loved every one of them. It still hurts to think about, because some of those kids I haven't seen since, but I'll never forget them. I pray the Lord grabbed a hold of their hearts and has drawn them to Himself.

This may sound like an advertisement/endorsement for Central America... well maybe it is, but it's so worth it to go! It changed my life. God uses missions to serve the missionary as well and He has definitely served me through it. 

These trips encouraged me to become a teacher, join my church's youth ministry as a leader, which has been a great blessing in itself, and to work with kids in any way shape or form.

The Lord has planted a love for children that not everybody understands, and I get that and that's okay. The typical response when I tell people that I want to teach, and that I want to teach young children is "Oh I'd never be able to handle kids that young. I'd go crazy." Or something of the like. And I simply smile and tell people that I understand, but that sometimes I prefer the company of children rather than adults. 

I think it's of the greatest importance to give the gospel and to be encouraging our younger nation for Christ! They won't be children forever, while neglect them in their youth? The Lord will choose when to move someone's heart, being young does not mean faith cannot be real to them. The experiences I have had so far in studying to be an elementary teacher have been some of the greatest! I have loved every moment of it, even the hard ones. 

When a child looks up at you and with a bright smile hands you a handmade bunny on a stick and hugs you telling you that they love you, you cant help but smile as your heart melts and you hug them back. They're so trusting, so sweet. I know they can be terrors, but it comes with the territory. I think we neglect the younger generation because we see them as being incapable of understand or comprehending complex situations. Sure, they're growing in cognitive abilities (I should know my exam today is ALL ABOUT it) but they're capable of so much more than we challenge them to. They can fully grasp and accept the gospel, these are still little souls that need to be saved and if one way I can give them the gospel is through a classroom, I will do it. I want to challenge kids to believe more in themselves than the rest of the world does. If it's going to take one person in their corner telling them they can do it, I want it to be me. 

This is how we build a stronger generation. Not by simply pushing them through classes because they "need to pass the state test" but because I know every child has an ability, a gift, that God has given them and they can find that talent that they have a build on it. I want to be a teacher because I know the crazy college classes, the long nights and times I want to cry are worth it in the end if I can be an example of Christ to some classroom at least once in my life. 

I just needed to encourage myself and thought I'd post about it.

Love Always,

Christina

Grateful in Every Season

Hi there,

It's been a while.

It'll be four months tomorrow since my last post, and I think we can correlate the beginning and end of a school semester to be just exactly that.

Life has been busy, and challenging, and stretching and all together wonderful and full of grace and joy and love. The Lord is cleaning me out. Sort of a late "spring cleaning", if you will, of who I am and the things I hold onto. It's really amazing grace when I look back at who I was at the beginning of this year and to who I am now. Now, I'm not perfect, far from it, but I am different. Last time this year I looked back at a year of struggle and failure and the revelation of a wicked heart and looked forward in fear at a year I could see being no different than the last. I was holding onto my doubt that God is a gracious God, capable of forgiving and sanctifying me. I was relying on my own power to push me through, and was putting God off as an afterthought. I would come to Him after my methods or my strength failed. I would seek Him after I had tried in all my power to control the situation. I wasn't seeking Him first. But, through a long list of battle and struggle, and stubbornness on my part (people say I rival my grandmother's stubbornness... when I get to heaven I'll be sure to thank her for it) the Lord was gracious enough to pull me out and to bring me alongside Him again. Not only that but he made something wonderful out of the ashes of my sin and is laying foundations for wonderful things to come and I am so excited!

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So, for today's post I wanted to talk about something that has recently come to my attention because of a study that my study group at church is going over. We're studying a book called Trusting God by Jerry Bridges. It's been fantastic so far and just what I needed for where I'm at as far as being sanctified. The Lord has proven Himself trustworthy time and time again and I still doubt! I'm crazy! I know! My group meets on Thursdays to discuss the chapter for the week and this weeks chapter happened to be God's Power over Nature. The chapter started out by talking about how God is in control of nature and natural disasters. You know the age-old question, "If God is such a good God, why do these horrible things happen?" Earthquakes, tsunamis, fire, etc. People have their differing thoughts, the Bible will point us to trusting God as a good and all knowing God, but that's not the main point I ended up focusing on. As I was reading I came across a sentence that made me stop and I literally interrupted my mom from an episode of Judge Judy to exclaim "Mom! When we complain about the weather, we're sinning!!!" Simple as it seems it was like a DUH moment like someone had knocked me on my forehead in a matter-of-fact way. Saying it out-loud and thinking about it now it makes it seem totally obvious, but it was a thought I never considered.

Complaining, in and of itself is sinful because we're essentially saying we deserve more than what we have, or we deserve a better situation. Let me tell you straight up right now, none of us deserve a better situation than what we have going on right now. We deserve worse if anything.

It was said in the discussion of the chapter that we often look towards the catastrophic "acts of nature" and declare that it's God's judgement or that it was God's hand, but do we not see that every act of weather is the hand of God? The sun rising in the morning, the cool breeze that relieves you on a hot day, a heavy rain in the middle of the night. It's not just the disasters that God purposes and controls, its even how often the trees rustle because of a gust of wind has picked up. When the sunshine hits your skin on a cold day just enough to make you feel warm and smile, God was purposeful in that act of nature.

Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; Sing praises to our God on the lyre, Who covers the heavens with clouds, Who provides rain for the earth, Who makes grass to grow on the mountains. He gives to the beast its food, And to the young ravens which cry. . . Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! For He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your sons within you. He makes peace in your borders; He satisfies you with the finest of the wheat. He sends forth His command to the earth; His word runs very swiftly. He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes. He casts forth His ice as fragments; Who can stand before His cold? He sends forth His word and melts them; He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow (Psalm 147:7-9, 12-18).

I think the issue is that we treat nature and everyday life like routine. The sun will rise, the sun will set. I will wake up when the sun rises (or more likely my alarm goes off) and be upset about it and roll around in bed pretending there's a way for me to slow down time and sleep for another hour. We can kind of get into this thinking that everything will happen the same and God kind of has nature on a spin and only sometimes does He put His hand in there and mix things up a bit. But this is so wrong! We need to realize that every day, every rising of the sun, every rain drop, ever rustle of the leaves is God actively working in the world to cause it to happen. And for this we should be grateful!

The Sunday before Thanksgiving a friend of mine spoke for our youth groups Sunday school and talked about being thankful and grateful. Towards the end of the message he brought out a list of things that we should be thankful for, but probably wouldn't think about being grateful for. One of those listed that hit me the hardest was "I am thankful for my alarm clock because it wakes me up in the morning and means I have another day to live and serve the Lord." Basically, be thankful the alarm wakes you up because you have another day!!

See one of my bad habits is this: I can find any reason to complain about the weather. Living in Florida, it's very easy to remark about how humid or hot it is. Although I enjoy some time on the beach I'm often remarking about how I'll finally be happy once it's cooler and I can wear sweaters and close-toed shoes. But then, guess what... Once winter begins I'm complaining about how cold I am and how it'd be nice if it were a bit warmer! I'm just being ungrateful, my heart is focused on me and myself.

Nature is not independent of its Creator. Every day, creation must look to Him for His provisions: The young lions roar after their prey, And seek their food from God. When the sun rises they withdraw, and lie down in their dens. Man goes forth to his work And to his labor until evening. O Lord, how many are Thy works! In wisdom Thou hast made them all; The earth is full of Thy possessions. There is the sea, great and broad, In which are swarms without number, Animals both small and great. There the ships move along, And Leviathan, which Thou hast formed to sport in it. They all wait for Thee, To give them their food in due season. Thou dost give to them, they gather it up; Thou dost open Thy hand, they are satisfied with good. Thou dost hide Thy face, they are dismayed; Thou dost take away their spirit, they expire, And return to their dust. Thou dost send forth Thy Spirit, they are created; And Thou dost renew the face of the ground (Psalm 104:21-30).

 When I complain about the weather I'm saying that I don't trust God's sovereignty, or I don't think He has chosen what is best. Now those words exactly would never come out of my mouth, but just by complaining I am living them out! We must focus our beliefs and live them out in word and truth. Even in the cool breeze or the hot sun we are experiencing his sovereign grace over us. The mere fact that he blesses us with what He does is amazing.

So this Christmas season I encourage you to praise the God and Lord of nature! He is actively involved in our everyday lives just with the fact that he told the sun to rise this morning to shine on us and give us grace. I want to find ways to praise the Creator by enjoying His nature even on the hotter days. And I hope you choose to do the same and look at life more purposefully just because of what's around you.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday, I promise to write soon.


Love Always,
Christina