The Lord provides!

The Lord provides and humbles, this is the truth.

Today I went to check the mail in our office (which also happens to be my place of residence) and I had 2 letters in my box! The excitement has begun because I usually get bills (the low point of being an adult). I open the first one to find an encouraging card from one of the parents of our teens here.

If you do not know I work for a ministry that is a residential facility for at-risk teens. It is a hard place to live and work but it is so beautiful to see the Lord begin to work in their lives, and we often get to see His transformation! Most days are good, but some days it seems hopeless, it is then when I realize that i cannot change these teens, I need to release them into the care of the Lord. Our Father is so great, He is the ultimate provider and healer and today He showed me a piece of that.

The letter was from a father of a teen, he encouraged me in working with these girls, and to not give up. He reminded me to walk along side them...isn't that what discipleship is? Walking along side one another. He told me if they could ever help me in any way, I could just ask.

God is so good, that is just the encouragement i needed today!

The next letter I opened was from my aunt. She has the most caring heart of anyone I have ever met, and she also happens to be extremely poor. She has learning disabilities, and poor health which makes it hard for her to make much money. She wrote me just to catch up and to let me know she had been praying for me. Along with the card she gave me a HUGE check. Something I know she cannot afford.

Now before she sent that I had been worrying about finances, which I had recently presented to the Lord. I gave it to him and stopped worrying about how I would survive. Just as I gave up control, it allowed God to work! Amazing how that works. I immediately started bawling, not only did he provide, but He did it in the most unlikely way. I was humbled right then and there, crying in the office at my job, completely blown away by my aunt and my God!

This reminded me about what I am recently learning in regards to living a simple life and giving more than what I have been given. I desire my life to be one of passion and a testament of how Jesus lives...I just hope I stay encouraged in this area because as American Christians I think we can easily get drawn to comfort and material.

It reminded me in scripture of this story (NASB of course)

Luke 21

¹And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury.

²And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins.

³And He said, "Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them;

⁴for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on."

My verse right now is this:
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Spring Break

Saturday marked the start of an amazing spring break. I have never had a week in my life to just relax. I have never been on a spring break trip or anything of the likes because well, I've always had to work.

Let me tell you how incredible the Lord is. He has worked this out so wonderfully. I had wanted a week to just do nothing. I needed to be someplace where there were NO expectations of me, that I wasn't pulled in any direction and that I could just be with the Lord. A time of rest, relaxation and restoration with my heavenly Father.

My friend Margo is incredible, and her family is too. They live in Louisville, KY and are out of town this week, so they said we could house sit and stay in their house the whole week. Not only did are they letting my friend Wendy and I stay for free, but they are letting us eat their food. They have so much fresh meat from a local butchery (FREE AMAZING STEAK!!!). Plus they left us the key to their car so we could use their car while they are gone. They really went above and beyond the idea of "make yourself at home".

Wow the Lord has blessed me greatly! He worked this out perfectly as He always does. I was worried and really there was no reason to worry.

Wendy and I went to church yesterday and it was incredible. The church is called Sojourn. If you live in Branson...it's like Harvest but more young people and better worship music. I loved the community aspect of the church. They gave us all name tags (ex. Lonley, Childless, Hungry) and then the pastor told us what the church will be involved in coming up. He asked us to break up into groups and pray for these things and the people in Louisville. It was such a beautiful picture of the body working together, loving together.

Each day, in my job, in relationships, and even this week of rest, I am reminded how faithful and amazing the Lord is. I hope that as you read this you can think of ways the Lord has been faithful to you. It is His character and He wants to reveal that to you!

My "day" off

Currently I am sitting at starbucks reading, writing, and of course checking facebook.
I just got handed a track...in Branson Missouri...I have a huge beastly leather Bible on my lap...does that kid really think I need a track?

What does that say about me? Does it speak that I don't look like a Christian? But then again, what does a Christian look like?

Or more importantly what does it mean about my heart, that I got so offended when he handed me a track? Honestly he is doing more than I do for God's kingdom. What do I do? How do I stand out as a Christian? I guess I don't. It's quite convicting this whole evangelism thing. The idea of it is brilliant and because I am in a relationship with our Heavenly Father my heart should be for evangelism and yet it's not.

Honestly I hate the idea of tracks, the giving of a little handout with little relationship/interaction involved. What is that supposed to do? But in reality it's scripture and it speaks...God speaks through it. It is His word. And obviously it strikes something within a person who gets a track...it did me. So it struck something different in me than salvation, but either way the Lord speaks.

I dunno just my thoughts about that interaction...maybe my view of tracks has changed? Maybe I am being convicted of my lack of love towards unbelievers...I need to share what is so freely and costly given to me.

Inside The White House

So, I thought I would try this blogging thing. I am not sure how often I will blog, or even what I will write about. Maybe it will be about what I am learning, what I hate, what I love, or maybe just the random thoughts that go through my often strange mind.

Sometimes I wonder what it would look like on paper if I just typed what I thought. People say sometimes that they want to know what goes on inside this crazy mind of mine. Maybe this will help them, or me to know what I am all about.

We Shall See...