"When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you..."

Isaiah 43:1-7



The Message (MSG)


Isaiah 43


1-4 But now, God's Message, the God who made you in the first place, Jacob,


the One who got you started, Israel:


"Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you.


I've called your name. You're mine.


When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you.


When you're in rough waters, you will not go down.


When you're between a rock and a hard place,


it won't be a dead end—


Because I am God, your personal God,


The Holy of Israel, your Savior.


I paid a huge price for you:


all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!


That's how much you mean to me!


That's how much I love you!


I'd sell off the whole world to get you back,


trade the creation just for you.


5-7"So don't be afraid: I'm with you.


I'll round up all your scattered children,


pull them in from east and west.


I'll send orders north and south:


'Send them back.


Return my sons from distant lands,


my daughters from faraway places.


I want them back, every last one who bears my name,


every man, woman, and child


Whom I created for my glory,


yes, personally formed and made each one.'"

people

recently, i have been thinking a lot about people. all the people in my life with their different make-ups, ambitions, purposes, loves, passions, needs, wants, desires, relationships, views on life. i feel like i am made up of all of these people, all that they are in my life, all that they do to my heart. i have such a hard time wrapping my mind around who God is, and i know the more days that i walk with Him, the closer i am to knowing exactly who He is. But i forget that we are made in His image. people are literally a small glimpse into the beauty of the Lord. people are beautiful. when i take a moment to actually look at the hearts of people, all of them, i am astounded. even the people i could never see myself being friends with or even liking at all, i find that if i give them the time of day, there is so much beauty to be found.
this is really a reminder to myself, i mean, how often do we as human beings pass by our fellow humans without even thinking anything more than the oh-so-common thought about ourselves? or the even more common judgmental thought, assuming that we know exactly who people are. i walk by the same people everyday in the hallways of my school, and i bet that if i gave one or two of them some time, found out about who they are, i would see beauty.
when i stop judging and start loving, i see beauty.
God has called us to love. God has called us to see the beauty in His people.

change

its amazing how God can change a person in just 2 short weeks. i swear to you that i'm not the same person as when i left the states. i love that God has molded me into more of the girl of God i want to be. i can't wait to see what God reveals to me over the course of this trip. i love being far away from the distractions of the US.

update

guess what? i love nicaragua. i love God. i love the feeling of being close to Him, its so much easier down here where theres nothing but heat and mosquitos to distract you. just thought i should let ya'll know that i God is continuing to work like crazy in my life...its AMAZING to me how much He can do in such a short amount of time. my word of the day: encouragement. God sure knows how to encourage His creations, and recently i have been getting encouragement like crazy.
thanks for reading!
more later : )

places only God can take us

so im here (please excuse the lack of punctuation, keyboards that are spanish and english and really hard to use..). sometimes words just dont describe adequately what im trying to say...this is one of those times. you know what im talking about? im just lost for words at the places God has taken me within these 5 short days. im different than i was when i got here, im new and fresh and can take a deep breath and say thank you to the Lord for knowing what i needed. and i get to spend 3 more weeks here!! AH! thank you for your prayers and for reading. more later when i can figure out how to express myself.

more than a trip

i realized that i should probably share about the amazing opportunity i get to take. on sunday i am flying down to nicaragua to be a photography intern for my uncle's nonprofit organization  Amigos For Christ. this will be my fourth time down, so i am familiar with the place and the process and the people, but this will be my first time going down by myself and being an intern. I'll be down by myself for a week, then my family will fly down for three weeks. so in total, i'll be there a month. what i would ask is that if you are reading this that you would pray for my safety and that i would be seeking God hardcore and serving others like it was the last day i could do so. Right now i need so much filling up in so many different way that i feel like i am going on this trip for myself. but i want to do this for others and for Christ. please pray that my heart would be in a place where God can work with it exactly how He wants and that i would open to whatever He speaks to me. thank you so much for reading and supporting!
i'm leaving sunday night, and i'll try and blog as much as possible while i'm down there, as well as put pictures up from the trip once i'm back to the states.

just some really good tunes to calm the soul

beautiful music here

i just don't think i'll ever get over you- colin hay

from last night

i don't know if you've ever heard the song how he loves us by david crowder*band. I have been listening to it for the last few minutes over and over. when it first came up on shuffle, I didn't really think much of it, and I skipped to the next song. I didn't want to listen to the one after so I skipped again, and a different version of how he loves came up, so I thought maybe I should go back and listen to the original. I hadn't ever really listened to the begining of that song (the church music version) but it starts with only the sound of people talking. Tons of conversations going on. it leaves you wondering what will come next after all the chatting. and then the piano enters and he sings "he is jealous for me". I had never taken into account what all the talking meant. we live our lives everyday without even thinkin for one second about Gods CRAZY love for us. And yet if we were to simply stop listening to the constant noise of this world and tune into the Lord, we would be able to hear Him saying "i'm jealous for you". Go look up the lyrics to that song. It is mind boggling. It doesn't just say "how he loves the nice people" or "how he loves the christians" its says "how he loves us ALL". We're all being loved by God unconditionaly, despite our constant conversation and how much we ignore Him.

HE IS HERE

goodness gracious. i know i have not written on here in ages. my life has been filled to the brim with EVERYTHING. good, bad, sad, happy, etc. i have thought about everything. i have doubted things i never though i would. i have even questioned God and His mercy. i have wondered and wondered. i know it's normal, i just have never experienced the darkness extreme doubt. i KNOW for a fact that satan thinks he can tear me down, and has been trying, and won't stop. in the name of Christ the Son Of God Our Father i speak against that. i might as well make it official over my blog that satan has no power against me because if God is for us, then who can ever stop us?
anyways, tonight i experienced worship and everything i needed. close family friends gave me words that i have no doubt were from God. You know that silence that we as Christians experience in certain seasons? the kind where we just feel like He's not there. Well i've been there for a good chunk of time. But getting words from God is like a cool sip of water after being in a dry desert for a long long time.
there has been a lot to soak in for me tonight, all wonderful things, so i'm not quite ready to go into detail, i don't know if a blog is the place for that, but what i must say, if nothing else i wrote got into your head, hear this:
God is here. He's real. He is carrying us all. He is our Father. Sometimes i think we as Christians forget that our God is for us, and He is right here with us. He cares enough to give us spiritual gifts and talents and friends and family and sunshine and trees and smiles and flowers and a cool breeze when we are feeling too hot. More than anything else, he cares enough that He gave His Son, His perfect, wonderful, beautiful, everything-in-one Son, to us. to US. us little stupid humans who are so full of ourselves and what we want and think we need that we can't seem to get passed it. God is FOR us. He is for us little tiny humans, in everything we are NOT, he sees us worthy of being saved by a perfect spotless lamb. He IS love. he doesn't just love, or know love, He IS love. We did not define love, we simply get to watch it unfold in front of us as God paints us a picture of what it really is.


PLEASE watch this video of Francis Chan, it really answered a lot of my questions:
click here 

eating cereal and thinking about neediness

you know when you come to that point where you're just lost? even just over something small, but eventually, i think we as people hit that spot where we're just like "hey, i'm human, i can't do this" or "i'm at a loss for what to do next". on our own, at least, we're all going to hit this point, i am sure of that. i've been hitting this point so much recently, i'm needy. i'm a human being. God created us with a need for Him. i toss scenarios around in my mind, replaying conversations and situations where i could've done something better of different, but it comes down to the fact that what happened, happened. worrying won't change a thing. God has a plan. i think sometimes i focus so hard on DOING the right thing, quiet time every morning, reacting correctly to certain situation, etc., that i forget that God is in control, not me. He supplies for our neediness.