Things suck right now. I don't even know why.
Please pray. I know I will be.

Praise Him

I wasn't able to go to IHOP this weekend with Dana and Tammy.
It's ok though. I just figured it was God's way of saying there was something else I should do this weekend. Maybe nothing profound, but I'm sure I'll find enjoyment out of whatever I do.

I don't have anything spectacular to say today.

I'm exhausted and am getting over being sick, but still am in love with the days that are set out in front of me.

Leaves are EVERYWHERE. I just want to jump in them.

Tomorrow I think a nice breakfast somewhere and maybe the Fulton St. Farmer's Market and some housecleaning sounds good.

I've gotten to a new point in my life; a point I never thought I would be able to get to again. But I have.

I can't go into specifics. I've talked to a couple people about it, but I'm just still so amazed at the power of God working in me to make me whole again.

Praise Him.

Love to you all.

nightmares

Do you ever have one of those dreams where it's so screwed up and you wake up sweating and in a panic and think that something awful is going to happen to you and everyone you know?

I just had one of those, and I can't shake it off.

Happy!!!!!!!

I am so happy.
So happy that God has come into my chaotic life and broke the chains.
So happy that I have real friendships/relationships with people...relationships that will last.
So happy that God has provided for me in more ways that I could ever imagine.
So happy that I have a God who is so faithful and will love me always until the end of my days.
So happy that I don't feel tied down to anything so that I may be free to live the life God has given me.
So happy for the new people I have met over the past couple of weeks.
So happy I have new opportunities coming my way; opportunities I could never even imagine having before.

This next weekend (thurs-sun) i'm going to IHOP in Kansas City with Dana and Tammy and possibly a couple others...this is something that I never thought would be a possibility for me or never even had the desire to go to before...but I can't wait.
I think once again God is going to reveal Himself full-force and once again my heart will be changed a little bit more.

Please pray for us.

Yay God.

I'm SO happy.

wow...

once again God proved Himself so very faithful.
After a few days of quietly struggling financially and wondering how I would pay some bills that are coming up, I finally gave up trying to find ideas and just gave it to God and prayed that He would somehow provide for me.
And He did.

David, my housemate, had gotten a couple pieces of mail for me so he gave them to me and one of the envelopes had my name and address typed out and there was no return address.

I opened it and wrapped up in a piece of paper was some money with a little paper that had "God Bless You" with a little heart typed on it.

No signature, no nothing. I have no idea who it was from or how they got my address or knew that I was in need.

So if it was you, and you're reading this, Thank You. From the bottom of my Heart.

God is so good!!!!

YES!!!

Isn't life just awesome?

Yeah...I'm pretty sure it is.

I am so blessed.

I just feel like dancing.

A quick thought...

Alex, Megan, Laura, Me, Meagan.

Picture taken by Mentor, Sister, and Friend,

Sarah Jayne

This is a picture of my amazing small group that I was in on our college-aged retreat that we just had this past Friday-Saturday through Crossroads Bible Church. Another 24 hours with God where no words would do the outcome of this retreat justice.

I don't have time to go into detail right now about it...

I will quickly say though, that I've definitely realized the importance of having some REALLY good, close, deep friendships with other girls my age. I never thought that was important until now.

It is very clear God's hand was involved in putting us together; our similarities to each other based on our lives could not be described as a "coincidence" but "God."

The rest of this adventure with God will be saved for a later posting sometime this week probably.

xo

Veggies, Rice, Chicken and Family

As I sit here at my computer at 10:46pm on Monday night, I can't help but wonder if all of this miraculous growth that I've experienced over the last week will last.

I know it's a day-by-day thing. I have to lay it down before my Father every single day. There will never come a time that I can give something up one time and one time only, and have that be that and my life will be perfect. NO way.

I struggle because I've lived a life of questioning and not trusting, and paranoia for so long, this seems almost too good to be true and I still have such a hard time trusting....anything or anyone...that I feel like there must be a catch.

Is God really that good? So good that He would take away my emptiness and fill me up completely without having strings attached? I'm not questioning His faithfulness in any way.
I am still just completely astounded at His goodness and I can't help but think about how much I don't deserve any of it. Surely there are better people out there than me; people who have been better Christians; people who have loved more fully than I ever have and probably ever will be able to.

I almost feel bad for feeling so happy and at peace.

Last night, after fasting for exactly 168 hours, I ate my first meal in 7 days. I was given the honor of eating it with some of the interns at the BR. Brooke made an exquisit mix of rice, sauteed vegetables and this AMAZING chicken that I could probably eat everyday for the rest of my life (i forgot what it was called but something with coconut, lemon flavor, and some other goodness in it).
Afterwards, I wanted to try to help in some way to repay all these amazing people at the BR for traveling along with me through this journey so I decided to clean. They were so appreciative of it, but all they wanted was for me to just come and sit and just be with them.

Is this the way life is really supposed to be? Is this the way people who live their life for Christ really are? People just loving each other and not doing things because they expect something out of it, but because they really want to?
I felt 100% loved...do you know how good that feels?

Along with getting to spend time with my 2nd "family" (so i call them), I also found out some awesome information that gave me even more possible opportunities for my future; opportunities where I can fully praise God with every breath I take for the rest of my life.
At this point, there's nothing I would rather do than to get down on my face and pray to Him and worship Him every second I have.

I was so afraid that with 24/7 being done, I would fall back into my old emotions and lose sight of the awesomeness of God's grace and power...but so far I havent, and don't really think I will.
Just like Cassandra wrote to me during prayer last night, I feel like God really has put a new song in me. And if I could, I would sing it at the top of my lungs for as long as I could.

I can feel it so strongly and looking in the mirror everday, I can even see it. I no longer look dead or stare into empty eyes and hate what I see. I can see this person who is so filled with the Holy Spirit, it almost pours out of her because of the Glow.
This would not describe me 8 days ago...or any days previous to that. I am so RENEWED.

So back to my first question:

Is God really that good? Yup.

It couldn't get any better than this...

Earlier this week I was talking to a few friends about how I am sick of doing things that I don't love and can't look forward to.
I didn't want to waste my life away and this included my current job situation.

I have been working at Malarky's on the east beltline as a server and have made NO money and have just been struggling so much.

Yesterday i asked my dear friend, Emma if her daycare was still hiring. They had called me a couple months ago for an interview but because of my schedule I couldn't go.

So yesterday afternoon I got a call from one of the head leaders of the daycare asking me to come in for an interview this morning at 10am.
I was able to have a couple hours of prayer last night and one of the things that I prayed for was for God to let me know where He wanted me to be. If this was the job I was supposed to have, then I would get it, if not, I wouldn't and I would keep waiting on Him to show me the path to go on.

I went to the first part of the interview this morning where I was asked about 20 questions (let me just tell you that I HATE interviews...i get SO nervous).
What was different about today though was that instead of trying to answer what I thought they would want to hear, I just was completely honest with them about everything and answered whole-heartedly.
After that, they asked me if I could stay a little bit because their second interview was to spend time in a couple of the classrooms and see how I interact with the children and other teachers/assistants.

I was in 2 classes with kids from ages 8 months-2 years and LOVED it.

When it was time for me to leave, they told me that Emma had spoken so highly of me before they were disappointed that I couldn't come in for the interview a couple months ago but they really liked me so they offered me the position and I start next week.

PRAISE GOD.

Last night I was saying how this week has been so amazing, that if I got this job, I don't think anything better could happen to me.

I am so thankful and blessed beyond belief.
I deserve none of this goodness coming to me.

I just wanted to share.

I am so filled with joy, all I want to do is jump around and dance and laugh the Holy Spirit laughter.

Tonight is the college retreat, and I think even MORE amazing things are going to happen.

God never ceases to amaze me.

xo


**THANK YOU EMMA FOR HELPING ME GET THIS AMAZING JOB!!!!!!**

My Testimony

Tony asked me to write a little bit of my testimony from this past week of 24/7 prayer...so I did, and I thought I would put it up on my blog as well since I am just SO EXCITED and filled with so much JOY. Some of it is a repeat from my post below but that's just because I copied and pasted.
Reading over what I had written, I realized that this was not me writing my testimony, but God, Himself, revealing His Awesomeness, Faithfulness, and Love through these words.

I am COMPLETELY transformed:

Coming into this week of 24/7 prayer, I was so lost. My emotions were running wild, my commitment to Christ was wavering back and forth, and I was completely on the verge of giving up on thinking that God had something amazing planned for my life.
I had no idea that He had something planned for this week of prayer and I had no way to prepare for it.

It started off this past Sunday at Crossroads; Rod’s first Sunday back after being in Israel. When he talked about drinking the Living water as opposed to the Stale water, something hit me so hard and I found myself on the floor at the front of the gym broken down and sobbing uncontrollably. The worst part is that I fit every characteristic of someone who drank from the stale water. This sickened me and at that point, I decided I needed to change things, but I didn’t know how.

Over the past few months, I had been dealing with so much loss and was so emotionally distraught, and had some hostile feelings toward certain people; people I didn’t even know. I had been so unhappy and discontent and felt dead and empty almost every single day that I woke up, it was getting unbearable.

That Sunday night, Chelsea invited me over for dinner at the boiler room, and unfortunately, something happened right before we ate and I got really upset and distracted. I almost lost it at the table so we went and talked it out for a while and I knew that it was time for me to make some big decisions in my life regarding how I treated others, thought of them, and just let go of things that were pulling me down. I just could not wake up one more morning feeling such despair over my whole life.

I went into community prayer that night feeling so unsettled and discontent. I had had enough, so I just cried out to God to make me clean and give me a taste of the living water because I was so sick of this horrible way of life that just got in between my relationship with Him. I wanted to make things right with certain people so at that moment I decided that I was going to go way out of my comfort zone and let God take over my life and heal what had been broken.

Not one minute later, God performed a miracle that only He could do. Someone I barely knew asked me to pray with them, and in that time, so much healing took place and I felt a huge weight lifted off of me, that I had been carrying around for months. It was amazing to be reminded that the discontentment and jealousy and negativity that I was feeling was all part of what Satan wanted for my life. He wants to destroy the love and relationship that is supposed to be between God’s children. God did not intend on any of His children treating each other with anything except love. This was so eye-opening for me.

After that happened, I was on this high and feeling a sort of joy that I’ve never experienced in my whole life. It was so encouraging and I knew I had prayer that night scheduled for 2 hours from 12am-2am so I could not wait to get back in there and rejoice and celebrate what He had just done for me. The room happened to be open at 10 so I went around 1030pm and stayed until 2am, and in that 3.5 hours, my heart was completely transformed.

A year ago when I signed up for prayer, I had no idea how I was going to make it one hour of that week just praying. That night was the fastest 3.5 hours I’ve ever had. I just laid there and cried to God, sang to Him, read His word out loud, and just praised Him over and over again for the loving kindness and mercy that He has given me, which I clearly have never and will never deserve.

Since that night, I have had extremely low moments, but overall, am walking around feeling the chains that have been holding onto me for so long, broken by God’s faithfulness. This week I have decided to give everything up and let God take hold of my life and do with it what He wants. Along with letting go of things that seemed so important to me, mainly people, I also have been fasting since this past Sunday. Between that and living in prayer almost every chance I’ve been given, I have never felt so full when it came to my life. I’ve already begun to feel God calling me to different places, and have been able to let go of so much of the pain that I had been holding onto for way too long.

I’ve never felt God’s presence in my life so much. Between my prayer slots and community prayer, I’ve been in that room praying to Him for about 10 hours, and having that intimate time with Him, just talking and being honest and honestly searching for Him and longing for Him in my life, has made me really feel what being a transformed follower of Jesus Christ is like.

Satan is always going to try to tear me down or get in my way or get me to question the Lord’s faithfulness. This will be a constant battle. But after this week of prayer, I am confident that I will forever be a whole-hearted, follower of Christ.

If someone asked me a few months ago where I would be today, I definitely would not have answered them with how I’m currently living my life. There is no way I could have fathomed feeling as loved and fulfilled as I am now. I feel almost lighter and can’t stop smiling. I didn’t even know how to pray before a couple months ago and didn’t have much faith in the power of it, but being given the chance to fill my life with prayer, is really how everything changed for me.

If what I’m feeling now is even a little droplet of what eternity with my Father is going to be like, I can’t wait for that day to come.

Psalm 30 is the exact description of my journey up to this point of my life.

Be Blessed, friends.

xo