Perfect Pumpkins (and people)

Sometimes I learn the most valuable life lessons and spiritual truths in the most unlikely places. I love how God reminds me that He is everywhere by teaching me awesome things in everyday situations. This happened a few weeks ago when I visited a pumpkin patch with my youth group. We were each supposed to pick out a pumpkin and carve them together later that evening. We do this every year, and it's one of my favorite fall youth activities. Anyway, I am not extremely picky about picking out pumpkins, so I pretty quickly found one I liked. I put my name on it and added it to our wagon. However, one of the other girls in my youth group, Emma, was having a little trouble finding a pumpkin. I decided to help her, and we started walking all over the pumpkin patch looking for that perfect pumpkin. She looked across the field and said, "That looks like a good one!" We walked over to the pumpkin only to discover that one side was covered in bruises, so we moved on. We then found a pumpkin that looked perfect. It was shaped perfectly and from what we could see it was smooth and ripe. We thought we had found the perfect pumpkin. However, when we rolled it onto its side, we saw that part of it had rotted, leaving a big hole. That was pretty disappointing because everything else about it looked fine! After a while, I saw a pattern developing. So many of the pumpkins that looked perfect from a distance were actually bruised or rotting away on the inside. It was at that moment that something occurred to me. I looked at Emma and said, "that's just what it's like with people. Some people just look absolutely perfect on the outside. It seems like they have everything going for them and they don't have to worry about anything! But in reality, the most perfect-looking people are usually the ones that are broken and hurting the most." I have found this to be true over and over again! I used to look at other girls and think "She's perfect. I can never be that good." It sure seemed that way to me. She was popular, beautiful, and always had the cutest clothes. She was good at dancing and sports and all of the boys liked her. Plus, she made good grades. Some girls are like that, and there's nothing wrong with any of those things. But I think what gets us most of the time is that we don't see the whole story. We have no idea what's really going on in that girl's life. She could be crying herself to sleep at night because her parents just got a divorce or someone in her family is sick. She could be constantly struggling with insecurity because she feels like everyone is watching her and waiting for her to mess up. She could be dealing with depression or anxiety. She may have lots of friends, but none that she can really count on when she needs someone. We need to remember that absolutely no one has a perfect life. Everyone has been hurt in life and everyone has a story. Some people struggle outwardly, and some people keep it all locked up inside and act like they have it all together, but the reality is that no one is perfect. Instead of looking at someone and thinking "That person is perfect. I'll never be that good," we should be thinking, "That person looks like they have it all, but I wonder what's really going on in their life? I wonder what happens when they go home and they're all alone?" I have found that I need to be praying for all of the "perfect people" in my life instead of being jealous and competing with them, because most of the time, they are the ones that are hurting the most. I'd say I had a very successful day in the pumpkin patch, and thank you, Emma, for enduring a little miniature sermon :) This is a picture of Emma and I after she finally did find "the perfect pumpkin":

If Then

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." Evil is prevalent in this world. Lives are being lost, marriages are being broken, children are being abused and abandoned, and people are becoming complacent and indifferent. We sit back and use "that's just the world we live in" as an excuse not to do anything about it. The sad truth is that most of us, if we were honest, just do not care. We're being pulled into the overwhelming current of sin, and we figure we may as well just go along with it because it's not worth the fight. Those of us that do care and want to do something about it feel powerless and too easily give way to discouragement. The fact of the matter is, God's children were NEVER called to a life of comfort and complacency. True Christians should absolutely refuse to sit back and say "that's just the world we live in!" Instead, we HAVE to get re-aquainted with the fact that if we will get on our knees and truly seek the face of God, He promises to hear us and heal our land! It's time to get angry. We as Christians have lost sight of the importance and power of zeal and righteous anger. This is different from worldly anger; worldy anger only leads to war, division, and death. Righteous anger, however, leads to revival. It leads to Christians standing up and declaring that we are NOT going to be deceived by the devil or put up with his schemes. Instead, we are going to "put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, [we] may be able to stand [our] ground, and after [we] have done everything, to stand" (Ephesians 6:13). The devil works very, very subtly these days. So very often, we compromise without realizing it. We put things ahead of God all the time, and we've accepted the belief that "it's not that big of a deal" and "God understands that I am busy" and "Things are different now than they were in Bible days." Times may change, but God's Word does not. He states very clearly that "[our] enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). I fully believe that the enemy is working 24/7 these days, but I don't think he's having to work very hard. We don't stand up and try to fight him; rather, we give in to his temptations to shrink back and not take a stand for Christ with the excuse of "God will forgive me. He doesn't expect ME to be the one to fight Satan." The moment we start believing this is the moment our devotion to Christ begins to weaken, if it even exists at all. We cannot be halfheartedly committed to Christ. We're either all in or all out. He doesn't want lukewarm Christians claiming to know Him. He calls us to "take up [our] cross and follow [Him]" (Matthew 10:38). It's a very serious and bold thing to claim to belong to Christ. This means we are devoted to Him and are willing to follow Him and do His will no matter what. It doesn't mean going to church and reading the Bible every once in a while. Christians must stand up and show the world that there is a Way, there is Truth, and there is Life. He is Jesus. The world will not know Him if we don't show them who He is. In these progressively worsening times, as evil is becoming more and more normal, Christians do not have the option to sit back and leave it to the pastors and missionaries to stand up for Christ. It's going to take a major revival of Christians all over the world constantly falling to our knees and earnestly seeking the One who promises to hear us. We must refuse to become indifferent. We must "fan into flame the gift of God which is in us" and become a warrior for our King (2 Timothy 1:6). He has not called us to a life of comfort, but of commitment to the Kingdom. It's never too late for revival. #IFthen "Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the Word planted in you, which can save you." -James 1:21

Firm Foundation

Every building has to have a foundation. Without it, the building would most likely fall apart. You can't build something without a foundation. It might be okay for a while, but eventually, a lack of foundation is inevitably going to cause a variety of problems. I have found that the same is true in our lives. We need to have a solid foundation to build our lives upon, one that will not and cannot be shaken. God really gave me a wake-up call on this one recently. I'd like to say that I have been building my foundation solely on Christ, but I've realized that this is not the case. Especially over the past few years, I've built my foundation on what other people think of me. I've been obsessed with it. If I say or do something that I think may have slightly offended someone, I immediately assume that they hate me, and this causes me to be depressed. If I started to feel good about myself, I would look at someone else and think, "she's better than me. I'll never be as good as her." I would be almost paranoid to be around certain people because I was scared I would do or say something stupid. You can see where this could easily become a problem, because as human beings, we aren't going to be perfect. We can't. We're going to offend people, there's always going to be someone better than us (and we're going to be better than others at certain things), and we are going to embarrass ourselves! Instead of walking on eggshells and being consumed with what other people think of us, we need to focus on who we are in Christ! I started thinking about it, and I realized that other people are going to disappoint me. After all, it's not their job to make me feel valuable! Instead, my foundation has to be built on Christ, in Whom I will NEVER be disappointed. He says I am loved, valuable, His treasured possession, and worth far more than rubies. I always wondered why I could never seem to find the joy that Christians are supposed to have, and then I realized that this joy shines through those who are consumed with Jesus and building their foundation on Him. If I'm building my foundation on anything other than Him, I'm going to end up depressed and constantly longing for more than the opinions of others have to offer. Jesus IS the firm foundation. I have decided to start rebuilding my life's foundation on the one He has already established.

A lesson in cleaning...

My mom decided that today was going to be "cleaning day." Rather than complain, I decided to just go with it because there is a corner in my room full of clutter that I've been needing to deal with for a long time now. I tried to ignore it, but it never went away. I said to myself, "I'll go through it eventually," but I never did. But, today was the day. I started pulling things out and going through them. There were binders full of papers from school/church from up to two years ago! It ended up taking me an hour to go through all of it! I ended up finding some pretty interesting stuff, and while it was actually kind of fun looking through all of my old papers, by the time I was done I had a giant stack overflowing with, well, junk. I separated everything into two stacks: things to keep and things to throw away. Do I even need to tell you that the "Throw Away" stack was MUCH larger than the "Keep" stack? I got the biggest trash bag I could find and started filling it up. As I did so, I realized how out of hand things had gotten in that corner. It had started small. That was my designated "school corner" in which I kept all of my binders/textbooks, but over time it became my "everything-I-can't-find-a-place-for corner" and I just let it build up until it was just a giant mess! I thought to myself, "how did I let it get this bad?" You might find yourself thinking the same thing, whether it be about the condition of your house or the condition of your heart. I began to think that a lot of the time, our hearts look a lot like that cluttered corner. Maybe we're still feeling guilty about something we did in the past and have never dealt with. Maybe we're holding a grudge against someone who has wronged us in the past. Maybe we're bitter about the direction our life has gone. Whatever it is, I think it's time to sort through the junk and be set free. It's easy to ignore it and hope it will just somehow disappear, but the reality is quite the opposite. If we let it go, the junk will just continue to pile up until our hearts are hardened and we become indifferent. See, I didn't realize how bad it was in that corner. It didn't jump out at me when I walked into my room; rather, it was a PART of my room. I got to where I didn't really even notice it. But once I cleaned it out, my room all of a sudden looked so much nicer! It felt more roomy and I definitely noticed a huge difference. In the same way, a lot of the time we don't realize how weighted down we are. But oh the freedom we will experience when we take the time to sort through all of the clutter in our lives! If you know you have some clutter that needs to be dealt with, let today be the day that you bring it to light and get rid of it! If you can't think of anything, examine yourself carefully. You're bound to find something that needs to be dealt with. Like I said, you may not realize it's there until you sort through and experience a freedom that comes from Christ alone! "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:1-2

Washed Away

My family and I are spending a few days at the beach. One of my favorite things to do is go stand near the edge of the water, dig my feet into the sand, and watch as the water comes up and washes the sand away. It's a complete cleansing; like my feet never touched the sand. In an instant, my feet are completely clean! It's such an amazing thing to watch. As I stood at the shore letting the waves sweep over my feet, I realized that Jesus does the same thing. We trudge through the sand of life for so long, and He calls us to the ocean of His love where He washes our sins away and makes us completely clean. In an instant of accepting His grace and unconditional love, we are made new. The "sand" in our life is completely washed away and we are free. I love to make visual connections to spiritual truths, and this one was particularly powerful. Have you been walking in the sand too long? Is it time for you to be clean? Run to His never-ending love that washes us clean and covers us like an ocean. "But if we live in the light, as God does, we share in life with each other. And the blood of His Son Jesus washes all our sins away." 1 John 1:7 (CEV)

The Thief

For years now, I have battled insecurity, doubt, fear, pride, and jealousy. I could never understand why. I always thought "Since I belong to Jesus, I shouldn't struggle with these things! I should be able to find my fulfillment in Jesus!" This just made it worse because then I felt guilty. No matter how many books I read or how many people I talked to, I could never shake those feelings. I never truly opened up enough to find healing. Recently, I talked to someone about this. God really used her in my life and revealed to me that all of these things I struggle with are lies from Satan. I had never looked at it that way before, but it's quite simple and so true. The reason I continue to struggle is because Satan has been filling my head with lies for the past several years, and I've believed those lies. I had never tried to fight him before. After my conversation with this sister in Christ, I felt as if I began a journey. A journey toward finding my confidence in Christ alone and living my life completely for Him. Being a true, sincere friend and letting go of the need to constantly compete with others to prove myself "good enough." Recognizing the lies for what they are and declaring them as such. Let me be honest: Ever since I began this journey just within the past week, the devil has really hit me hard. He knows that God is at work within me and that I truly desire to honor Him through this journey, and he is going to do everything in his power to see to it that I am defeated. But God has given me so many reminders that Satan is a liar and that I can fight him with the truth of God's Word, and those reminders keep me on track. A few days ago, I came across Revelation 12:9 which states that the devil is the "deceiver of the world" or "the one that leads the world astray." This makes it very clear that all of the insecurities, doubts, fears, and everything else we face are LIES from the enemy. He is diligently working to tear down all of those who are seeking to further the Kingdom, which means that we have to diligently stay in the Word, our Sword, and cling to the truth. John 10:10 says "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." I am still working on getting this truth firmly planted into my heart. I still have ups and downs. I still have moments in which I'm overcome with insecurity and feel like I'm not good enough. In those moments, I have to pray fervently and declare out loud "That is a lie!" If you are struggling with believing Satan's lies, I encourage you to join me on this journey. Don't let The Thief (Satan) steal your joy.

Hi there!

So...I finally decided to start blogging. I'm really excited about sharing my hopes and dreams and most importantly, sharing the truths that God teaches me as I face trials and different experiences as I grow into the woman of faith that He wants me to be. I have a passion to mentor young girls and inspire them to live for Christ in today's society. I am a quiet person, and I come across as being very serious, but I love to meet new people and build strong relationships with others. I am looking forward to leading a Bible study group at my school this year, and I'm praying that students will respond and also want to start a revolution in our school. I have no idea what my future holds, and the thought of it is actually very intimidating, but as I delve deeper into God's Word, I am reminded that He who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6.) I hope you are encouraged by the posts you read in this blog and are inspired to draw closer to Christ and join me on this journey toward knowing Him better and better each day.