Just Stop

I've noticed recently that I don't stop long enough to enjoy the things around me.  Within the past two weeks, so much has been happening but I don't slow down long enough to appreciate any of it.

When it snows, I'm too preoccupied with how I'll get to school instead of stopping to see how beautiful the snow on the trees was.

When we took my little sister prom dress shopping, it hit me for the first time how much she has grown up. I mean, for Pete's sake, she's a junior in high school!  When did that happen?!

Looking back on all of this, I realized I've missed so much in life!  It makes me wonder, how much in the past 20 years have I missed?  I haven't said to myself "just stop." My daily routine consists of mostly work and school. And I have four hours every night to do homework or pick up my room.  This leaves no time for anything else.  I don't get out anymore to take pictures, I haven't picked up my guitar in so long I wonder if I'll ever be able to pick it back up, I haven't met my new nephew yet, and I barely see the man I love.

The things I love most in life, I have missed out on.  It's almost been a month, and I haven't had the time to drive two hours to see my new nephew, and I have to miss his baptism and my niece's birthday.  If I don't have time to see the people I love most in life, what am I doing?!  What else am I missing out on?  Will my nephew ever know that I didn't go see him in his first few months of life?  I'll miss all of his firsts.  My niece is growing up before my eyes- every time I see her she gets bigger and bigger.

So before you end up as the person who misses out on their family and what life could hold, just stop. Stop and look around before you see yourself becoming the person who doesn't remember what real fun is.

Into the wild...

While driving to pick up a friend this afternoon from downtown Rochester I had time to think...more than usual.  I thought about the recent introduction I allowed for my parents to have with my amazing boyfriend of now 3 months and some change :]  But after all of that I felt as though in the end I had even let my own family in to close.  There judgements and moments of intervention for the rest of the time I was home on break was personally overwhelming.  It seemed as though they couldn't conceptualize the decision I was making, and that I was truly happy. But on this particular drive today I thought of this,  I was beginning to discover something new...I was going into my own wild and nobody else will be able to experience that except for me.

Now don't get me wrong I revere the words of the wise but there comes a time when they are simply that, just words.  Don't worry I will never be so in love that I will forsake all that I know or have been guided in, but there does come a time when I must grow and see beyond what others see into something greater.  Who really knows the plans that God has for us?  How can they possibly recognize the vastness of it in such short amounts of time, even when you can't?  These are simply questions that I thought about and meditated on.  I allowed for my thoughts to reach those murky muddled grounds that they seldom go.  And although sometimes it may seem full of brush and prickly annoying things we must go there in order to discover who we really are.  

In the end I think going into the wild doesn't mean you lose all capability to comprehend right from wrong it just means you are willing to take risk at a greater and wiser aptitude. So now it seems that I will be going into my own wild, whether any one or everyone understands it doesnt matter.  I have a greater power with me, stronger than the authority of kings and queens and bigger than the entire universe.  With time we will all see, and for me I think I'm ready to take an adventure like never before.

One Heck of a Night

I haven't written in a while because I felt uninspired, and unmoved.  I felt like I didn't have an outlet to put every thing God gave me in to.  

It's like filling up a car with gas.  Unless you drive your car and burn that gas up, you can't fill it up anymore.

That's what I've felt like for a while.  After the One Thing conference at The Father's House (which was AMAZING, by the way), I went to church.  As I was standing there during worship, I realized that I didn't have any more room to put the Spirit.  I was already full and hadn't used any of my "gas."  

My best friend and fellow Cru-leader and I met with our mentor today.  As I was telling her this, she said, "You should find a place to spend some of your 'gas' and maybe Cru could be where you could spend some of what you're being filled with."  And tonight I realized just how on spot she was with that remark.  

Tonight Robert's Cru met up with U of R's Cru.  And it was really awesome.  I was so far outside my comfort zone. I was in a group where I knew no one.  But we were all connected in our faith.  In my group, we all shared where we were uncomfortable with the future.  For me, it's working with inner city teens and being a cop. I have no idea how I'm going to do it, I only know that God is faithful and will bring me to it and through it (sounds cliche, but I'm totally serious).  

But it didn't just end with UofR.  On the way back we were all in the van joking and laughing and talking. I don't know how we got on this topic, but our third leader asked one of the guys in the group to share his testimony sometime, so in our last 5-10 minutes, we heard this man's testimony.  

I don't have words.

This man has seriously done and been through SO MUCH. 

And I learned tonight, for the first time, how absolutely powerful a testimony can be.

Everything that this man went through, everything that he did, everything that happened to him not of his own fault, and God's grace makes his story so incredible.  

It gave me hope.  

To hear that twenty-three year old's testimony- well, something that powerful changes your life.  And it reminded me of why I got involved in this in the first place.  It's because people don't know how GREAT God's love is.  They don't know that they can be forgiven and washed clean.  They don't understand that someone already died so they don't have to.  

So my prayer and challenge tonight for all of you reading, is to reach those who are apathetic and un-churched. Reach those who don't know who God is and show them how great His love is.  Tell your story, and don't be ashamed, because you've been washed clean.