Category: Wisdom

This weekend was great! Here are some pictures! =)

Friday morning, I woke up at 5:30 and went out to get a t-shirt that was my ticket into midnight madness. That afternoon, my mom, sister, and I went to get our nails done which is something that never happens with all three of us. Then my mom, my grandma, and I went to the Cheesecake factory with the ladies of my parent’s small group. It was such a good time hanging out with them and spending good quality time with my grandma and mom.

Later that night at Midnight Madness was great! The pre-party was definitely the best part! Bands, DJ’s, giveaways, dancing, [throwing the little red, chik-fil-a balls at peoples heads ;)], carrying bon bon on my shoulders!!! It was tons of fun! The actual Midnight Madness was good, just a little too late for my liking. At 11:30 I was ready for bed and it hadn’t even begun yet. and the fog machine was crazzzy, but altogether it was great! It was fun to actually be involved on campus again. 🙂

The next day I slept in and then went with my family to the beach to celebrate my Sister-in-Laws birthday! It was great (besides my dad not being there). It was another one of those moments where I felt like an adult. I am not sure what made this time different than any others, but it felt different. It was nice.

Among nice conversations and laughter, the beach was beautiful that day…the sound of the crashing waves, the cool breeze, the sound of the birds and kids playing in the distance, the beautiful sunset, everything…It was amazing! I got to take some pictures of my sisters and brothers. Got to hang out with cousins and family. It was perfect. Much needed and a great time with family.

 

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Today was a good day.

I prayed yesterday that the Lord would give me times in the word with Him that were fruitful and that they would be quality times, not quantity. He did just that today and it was so wonderful.

I read Psalm 33 and 1 Peter 5 and it was wonderful.

It was the perfect setting. Sitting on a couch with friends next to me. coffee in hand. music playing in the background. the sound of people around me in the coffee shop. and my journal.

I opened Psalms and one of the first things that caught my eye was this, “he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.” (Psalm 33:15 ESV)

The word FASHIONS stuck out to me. The word fashions is not a normal word. It has so much meaning and depth. The word infers so much more than make or create, but rather that there was detail and thought put into it. I looked up the word fashion and it said to “make into a particular or the required form.” This infers detail. This infers thought and creativity. It is not something that is just thrown together. It is meticulously thought through and designed.

Something else that struck me about this passage was the verses prior to this one. Verses 1-11 talk about how great and big the Lord is. They talk about how powerful and great he is. Verse six speaks of how mighty the Lord is: “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.”

The huge, mighty, powerful, wonderful, and great God who in his own power can create by his very breath takes the time, detail, and creativity to fashion my heart.

wow.

This is mind-blowing.  

Well, it’s been awhile.

Life has been INSANE, to say the least.

So much is happening around me and I feel like it is taking me a while to catch up.

My hall is amazing. My girls are such a gift from the Lord this year and I have needed them so much. They have been encouraging, loving, helpful, funny, goofy, spontaneous, and so much more. I always say that they are my new boyfriend because they take up any free time that I would have, but giving them that time has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

Where to begin….

God is so good. His Gospel is so good. Where would I be without both?! It seriously amazes me so much to see the effects of the Gospel in my own life and the lives of others around me. Yesterday, I wrote a status that said something to the effect that I was thankful to see old and new friends doing so well. This comment was not just a general statement to the people I interact with who are succeeding in school, jobs, families, etc. This statement was specific to those I see around me who have allowed the Holy Spirit to enter into their lives so intently that they have been changed and affected by the Gospel and its power in a major way. This change is evident in how they view themselves now in relation to the Lord. This change comes from a correct view of sin and the grace that the Lord has lavished upon us. My pastor says over and over again that an internal change from the grace of God evidences itself by the external. This has been so awesome to see and so amazing to experience. I am grateful for the Gospel in my life, for people who model the gospel for me, and how the Lord shows His goodness toward us.

~~~

I feel like I have little to update my life on because my life right now consists of…dorms, dorms, class, dorms, dorms, church, church, class, church, dorms….. but life is so exciting and being to spend time with all these girls is so rewarding. I am thankful.

Some fun facts about this year:

1. there is a bear that lives on my couch…  
2. I am learning how to crochet…               
3. I get to study with this girl because we have soooo many classes together….  
4. I am learning the hard lesson on how to relate to people properly. I am learning what correction looks like and how Jesus modeled that for us in His word. I am learning what it means to be gentle and how to expect the best from people and how grace and mercy can be an effective tool in showing how to live a God-honoring life
5. Today is October 1st and I can’t believe it….Where did September go?!
6. I get to go to Seattle in less than a week….EMILY and Colbie in one weekend. Can’t get much better than that. 
7. Disneyland is still one of my favorite places…. Glad that hasn’t changed.

To Be Continued… =)

The last month of my life has been one of the most amazing, crazy, busy, hard, fun, etc. months of my life. I have been through training, staff bonding, hall decorating, hall walk thrus and condition reports, many caf dinners/lunches/breakfasts, meetings, prep for this year, many tearful conversations, many more laughter filled conversations, laser tag, sky high trampoline gym, beach trips, bonfires, reading, PRAYING LIKE CRAZY!!, organizing my room, learning learning learning…

Then my residents moved on to the hall and all the last month of craziness all became worth it. I can honestly say that I love my residents so much! Each and every one of them. Each one is so different, but each one is so great! In the last week, I have found chocolate, cookies, and the latest French bread, underneath my pillow. hilarious and great surprises. They make being a senior living in the dorms so special and I am looking forward to the rest of the year.

Anyways, I am sure I will have more updates on what I am learning and what the Lord is teaching me soon! Until then, enjoy the pictures!


To Be Continued… =)

So I feel as if I have had such little time to spend blogging or even journaling in the last 3 weeks. My heart starts to grow really weary when I don’t get a time to let it all out. So here I am blogging on a nice Saturday off of the normal RA (resident assistant) training.

A few updates since I last blogged. My good friends the burns’ are moved into Lancer Arms…Such a relief for me, I can’t imagine how it feels for them. So now we are neighbors. So nice!

Two really sweet and super cute volleyball players moved on my hall. I am excited to get to know these girls a little better! So now I am no longer alone on this longgggg hall!

My staff is really awesome. I love the other women I get to work with so much. It is different than last year, which it most definitely should be, but getting used to this transition will be good and the Lord will work and move through that experience.

Other areas of life are interesting. I am in a different time of transition and it is a little harder than expected (to be quite frank). Not that it isn’t good, cause the Lord is definitely providing lots of learning experiences, but it is hard, still. I am looking forward to time passing because I keep hearing that ‘time heals all wounds’ and that ‘as time goes by it gets easier and easier’–Here’s to that being true. I am thankful for the days that the Lord has provided for me and looking forward to seeing Him be glorified through this time. The Lord is so good and so faithful and that hasn’t ceased since all of this began. That is so refreshing to remember!!!

Onto another subject, the dorm wide theme will be “unshaken” derived from Psalm 62:5-8. my hall theme has been decided and it stems from this video (if you haven’t seen this video, watch it NOW!!!). I am using muted colors like pink, tan, champagne, white, etc. Flowers every where. Beautiful verses that depict the Lord and his goodness and his life and freedom giving gospel every where! I am so looking forward to sharing with you all the finished product. Keep tuning in to see more updates about the hall decorations.

Looking forward to also sharing about what the Lord will be teaching me and drilling into me while I embark on the next year of my life…my senior year of college (whoa. weird to write.) 

Here are some recent pictures! Enjoy:
 

To Be Continued… =)

So, since I haven’t posted in a long time, I figured today would be a great day to do that.

What is new in my life, you ask?

Well, right now I am sitting in my dorm room, 147C, and enjoying the quietness of the hall after an amazing night of bon firing with the 2011-2012 Res Life family. It is my first night here and it hasn’t quite hit me yet that my summer is over and the school year/training has begun.

I am sure at 7:30AM tomorrow, it will hit me.

I am so excited for this opportunity. The Lord has blessed me with an incredible staff and new RD and I am thrilled to see what he is going to do!

It is almost like the hall is a clean slate. There is nothing in the walls, no one in the rooms, nothing in the desks or dressers, no clothes in the closet…nothing. There is so much potential. There is no where to go but up. There is nothing to do but to improve.

In some ways that is so comforting, but in another sense that scares me to death. What the heck have I gotten myself into signing up to be the RA of twenty-something girls who know nothing about CBU and might not know anything about Christ. I am supposed to be the person who gives a good presentation of both of those things. I feel no where near qualified.

BUT, in my fear and anxiousness, I remember that Christ is good and that Christ is sovereign. He always has and always will provide. He died on the cross to bring me life and to rule in my heart. That is no light thing. He is the Lord of the universe and he is residing in my heart. If I allow him to rule in my heart and guide my life, there is no telling how far I’ll go and how high I can jump. That is not to say there won’t be trials, because there will be. But, the Lord is going to walk me through each and every one of them and is going to use all the experiences I go through-like living in the dorms with twenty-something girls-to grow me, stretch me, expand my view point, break me, teach me, encourage me, love me, guide me, and so much more. The Lord is on my side, and if I obey him in this new experience as a freshman RA, he will provide the fruit. I need not worry, be anxious, or be fearful. He will provide.

So, the Lord loves to just awaken my heart every time I open the book of Psalms. He really is the perfect provider and I love it. First of all, Psalm 1 is amazing:

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” (Psalm 1 ESV)

It is amazing for several different reasons. For one, it is a short, sweet road map for a believer to live his/her life. If we, as believers, delight in the law of the Lord, in his word, we will bear fruit and prosper. What an amazing promise from the Lord!!!!!!

I spent some significant time journaling about this here subject and one of the other things that stood out to me was the part that talks about the wicked. It says that they are like “chaff that the wind drives away.” That line left me with my jaw dropped all the way to the floor. So often, even when I call myself a believer, I find myself being like “chaff that the wind drives away.” My emotions travel from happy to sad, from mad to content, from sad to overjoyed, or visa-versa. Even as I was reading that chapter couple mornings ago, I was angry and mad and frustrated and quite frankly over it. The Lord convicted my heart and calmed me down. As believers we are called to be different than the rest of the world. We are to be ‘not of this world.’ Our emotions need to be this way too. Living with our emotions and lives like chaff that the wind can simply blow away is most definitely of this world. We have been given the peace of God and joy in Him. That is not a small gift; that is remarkable. That is incomparable.

How do you be of Christ and not of this world? How do we take our thoughts and emotions captive? How do we not let ourselves be like “chaff that the wind drives away?”

It is plain and simple.

The answer is verses one to three:

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.

 The answer is in this promise (John 16:33 ESV):

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

So,  basically:

To Be Continued… =)

I have been studying this passage this week. It has been a joy!! I just wanted to share a couple things that the Lord has illuminated in my heart this week through this passage:

• Worship comes solely from the Lord. Anything we do comes from the strength of the Lord. (verse 3)
• In order to gain Christ, we must lose all things. (verse 7-8)
• Righteousness of God is born of faith and faith only. It is even dependent on it. (verse 9)
• Though Paul had a lot of success in life, or as he calls it “gain”, he considers it loss for the sake of Christ. (verse 4-8)
• Paul realized that that “gain” in life was righteousness from the ‘law’ and in order to have the righteousness of God that is dependent on faith, he had to lose and even be willing to give up the things of the world. (verse 8-11)
• Our goal as believers is to worship the King, glory in Him, and place absolutely no confidence in the flesh. (verse 3-4)
• Gain in this world, even religiously, is righteousness of my own that comes from the Law. (verse 4-5)
• We count all things as rubbish so that we may know him, the power of the resurrection, and that we may share in his suffering. (verse 10-11)

More on Philippians 3 later as I study this passage and the remainder of the chapter next week. Obviously this isn’t any deep theology, but just observations.

Any body else read through these passages and found observations that they would like to contribute?

To Be Continued… =)

Forewarning: This post is going to be a little on the longer side…the Lord is just too good for a short post today!! =)

So, today was a good day. It was one of those days where you just wake up and know the Lord is going to move and work. That became true very quickly.

A little recap – I woke up and got ready in record time with spare time to spend in the Word. It was so refreshing to wake up and unexpectedly have extra time. The Lord provides. I left for work craving more time with Him. I prayed that the Lord would give me the opportunity to spend more time with Him throughout the day. During lunch, I ate with my mom. She got to work late so ate lunch quickly so she could clock in and get to work to start her day. Thus, I got an extra 30 minutes to spend in prayer and reading through some Psalms. Then, I even got to share a couple of those verses with friends (via twitter – ps. I’ve fallen in love with Twitter. Never thought I’d see the day. I swore against it for a while). Then, at about 2:30-3:00 someone walks into ResLife. I look up and my good friend Ashley walks through the door. Such a sweet, sweet surprise.

After work ended, I go to Starbucks because I have about an hour and a half before I have to go tutor one of my youth girls. I walk in, order my usual [Grande Iced Caramel Macchiato Upside Down Light Ice – just in case anyone wants to ever get me one randomly – totally kidding 😉 ]. I start to walk to the counter to wait for my drink and I hear some say “Sarah!!” I look up and my friend Jessica is there from church. She ended up having a half an hour or so to talk before she had to leave so we went and sat at a table. It was such a good and encouraging conversation. The Lord is just teaching us both similar things – how to submit to his will no matter how uncomfortable or out of our plans that is. The Lord knew we both needed that conversation. -Thank you, Lord, for bringing us both to Starbucks today!-

She had to leave. As I was walking back to my table to start journaling and spending time with just me and the Lord, what I had wanted to do for the majority of the day, this man who was sitting next to us pipes in and tells me that he overheard our conversation and that he thought it was awesome that we both have traveled so much at such a young age (that is totally true- the Lord has totally provided and blessed me with those opportunites, he is good!!). He went on to explain that he was a believer and that he had gone to Harvest for a long time and is now at an Eastern Orthodox church. He said that listening to our conversation, and how we were so committed and driven by our faith in Christ, made him want to get back to his faith and be more serious about the God he claimed to serve. I encouraged him to keep seeking out the truth of the God of the Bible and to filter all things by the truth of the Word and the Gospel message! So awesome to see how the Lord works….he is so faithful to provide for everyone always. Sometimes we need to be more open and aware of the things he is doing in our lives. I have the tendency to just try to fix everything and plan everything on my own that I lose sight of what he is doing and how he is working in my life. Or so driven on my own desires and plan of spending my own one on one time with the Lord when he had encouraging conversations for me planned!! I am thankful that he opened my eyes to them and allowed me to have the time to have those!

I left after that conversation, went to go tutor, got to spend some good quality time doing ALGEBRA!!! Secretly, I have a love for that subject. I know I am a nerd. I am okay with that. I had braces. I now have glasses. And I love slope intercept form. Don’t judge. =) I used to want to be an algebra teacher until I found out I had to do all other kinds of math in order to teach just that subject. At least I still get opportunities to help people in it. I seriously really really enjoy it. I would do math all day if that was okay. Anyways, that was over, I went to youth group and Walter taught because Brandon is in the Philippines. He spoke on exactly what I needed to hear and be reminded of. He spoke of how we need to be unified in Christ as the church and how that love and unity should define us because Christ gave up his life to do so. One section he taught on highlighted Philippians 2. This is what I have been studying in my times with the Lord the last 2 weeks. It was so awesome to have studied that and been able to see the ties from the front of the chapter to the back. The Lord has been so faithful to provide me with wisdom and understanding in those times with him. He has illuminated so much.

The theme that the Lord showed me this week is that in love and service to others (believers and unbelievers) needs to be characterized by humility. Christ, by coming to this earth and dying on the cross, humbled himself by taking on human form when he was the omnipotent God, took on all of our sins so we could be guilt and blemish free. AMAZING! Then later on in the chapter, Paul is talking about his own life and how he pours himself out as a drink offering to sacrifice himself so that others might be strengthened in their faith (verse 17). Also, AMAZING! This is what we need to do as believers. In verses three to eight, it talks about how the we are to do nothing out of selfishness, basically, and how we are to follow the example of Christ and lay down our lives for others, even to the point of death on a cross. This example is phenomenal and mind-blowing!

He points out in vv 14-16 how we are to not complain or question anything that happens in our lives. This goes back to the conversation that I had with Jessica. Part of submitting to the Lord’s will is accepting with joy all that the Lord has for us no matter the consequences in the world or the change of our own plans for our lives. It says to do everything without questioning. We do this because if we were to question it that would show that we don’t trust the Lord. When we trust the Lord, we end up shining as lights in a crooked and twisted generation (vv. 15).

Lastly, it says that we are to hold fast to the Word of Life. SO CRUCIAL!! If we do all those things, but don’t hold fast to the word of life, we miss the point. We are doing all of those things for the wrong reasons and wrong motives. Everything we do – living selflessly and loving others in humility – has to be driven by Christ’s grace and mercy in our lives. We must and have to be fueled by the gospel, otherwise all of this work is going to fail. Works that are driven by legalism and our own power are worthless (Ephesians 2).

I had my own plan for the day, how I wanted it to go, how I wanted to spend my time, and the Lord totally changed that around. He made it so much better! I tweeted earlier that I was “excited for a new day… Looking forward to all the twists and turns this life brings and all Lord has to teach me through the process!!” He sure did throw in some twists and turns and taught me so much through that process. The Lord is good! He ALWAYS provides!!!!!

 

So, more recently at work I have been going through old files for students who lived on campus. It is pretty interesting. In the old applications, students included pictures of themselves in the application – Oh, how the styles have changed. It is not the most entertaining task I have done, but it is cool to see where people before me have lived.

This really got me thinking about life and how soon, in less than a year, I will be one of those old files that the next receptionist will go through, trash all the old condition reports, put my name on a sheet of paper, and shove it in some file in the store room not to be looked at again for years.

How did the last 4 years of my life fly by so quickly? And even more, what have I done here at CBU that will go on past a file that will soon be replaced with the next freshman girl?

It made me really excited for this next year. I don’t want to just be a mediocre RA again. I don’t want to be just another student in the CBS major that just does enough work to get me an “A.” I don’t want to be just another college friend who was here today and gone tomorrow after graduation. Life is completely and utterly fleeting. Soon, my life will end, and I will be just a speck of dust that the next generation will walk on. Life is interesting that way.

I am still really pondering and brainstorming this idea. But, I need to find my identity solely in Christ since soon life will end and I will know nothing but Him.

How can we live for today to impact tomorrow? How can we make an impact on this time in History? How can our life not just leave with us when we die, but travel past the grave? How do we live in the knowledge that Christ is all we need and our only identity since our lives are fleeting?