27 Million

God had a plan for me to go to Passion 2012, but it didn't come together until the first week of December.

I stumbled upon Beth Moore's Living Proof Ministries blog back in September, and they had a blog up that was Beth's heart to send 1000 women to Passion 2012 who couldn't afford it. There was no way I could afford to pay for Passion to go. I felt like I should apply, not knowing what would happen. I applied, 10 minutes later I got the email saying I received a scholarship. I thought, well okay God if you really want me to go I have to find a hotel, a ride, and people to go with. But I was trusting in Him, well sort of. He was on the back burner. I looked on our Hilton Employee rate website and there's a room at the Hampton about a mile away from the Georgia Dome for $29.00 a night for the EXACT dates I need. "Okay God, I have a hotel, now I need a ride."

So it's October and my best friend and I aren't talking, so she's out of the picture. Another girl I knew was flying with her parents. Great, I have no one to go with. Well my best friend and I work things out in November and she mentions she wants to go to Passion, well we started figuring things out. I have the hotel, one of her friends works for Allstate and got us a rental car for 9.00 a day. (AWESOME!) So it looks like we're going to Passion! God wanted me there, and He made it possible. Well it's second week of December and I'm not getting hours at work, and money is tight in my family so I had no idea how I was going to pay my share of the hotel and parking, and gas. So I send some emails to people in my church asking if they know anyone who can help us. The never responded. I emailed Living Proof, and tell them that I can't find anyone to sponsor our hotel, if you know anyone who can. I sent this email, like middle of November. I got a response December 23rd. The response was Living Proof will pay for your hotel, send me your confirmation and all that. PRAISE THE LORD. He worked that out too! My parents gave me cash for Christmas for gas. God really wanted me at Passion 2012. It's January 1st and we're on the road to Passion with everything worked out, Praise God!

I'm at Passion and I'm loving looking around and there being 44,000 18-25 year olds there worshipping God and proclaiming His Glory. My favorite Christian artists in the world were there: CHRIS TOMLIN! Charlie Hall, Hillsong, Lacrae, Christy Nockles, Matt Redman, Kristian Stanfill, and David Crowder Band. It was amazing. And the speakers, Beth Moore, Francis Chan, John Piper, Christine Cain and Louie Gigilio of course. Seriously so amazing.

Louie opened the conference talking about Luke 7&8 about God stopping our funerals! He really opened my eyes about the power of Christ. God doesn't want us to die, but to live for him! Francis Chan talked about just doing what the Gospel says. His sermon was so simple yet so eye opening. We sometimes think, "Oh they'll do it." NO! Just do it yourself!

And John Piper blew my mind. He talked about the supremacy of Christ. He said that Freedom is being so in love with Christ that you do exactly what you want to do, and it is accords with His will. There will be no struggle in Heaven to obey.

Bam. If we're living in Christ's will, we'll do what we want but it'll be of Christ. How powerful is that?!

Beth Moore, John Piper, Louie and Lecrae read the book of Ephesians one morning and it was powerful. Such an amazing book of the bible.

Our mission, or Do Something Now, was talking about the 27 million slaves that are in existence today. 27 MILLION. more than ever before. Louie's goal for the 44k of us was to raise $1 million dollars for this cause. People were waiting in line for hours to give their money, broke college students. We raised $3.1 million. To God be the glory.

It really opened my eyes of how blessed we are to live the lives we live. How it's our generation that will stop this. Our generation will rise up. We will change the world and create FREEDOM for people.

One of the songs that we heard for the first time at Passion was incredible. It talked about waving our white flag, and the war is OVER, love won. It was so powerful for me. Because God already won the war, we are free.

God moved at PASSION and I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to go! I am searching for a community to get involved with and grow in my faith and learn more about the love of Christ.

Passion 2012, was life changing. I can't wait for Passion 2013, I hope you will join me in praying for those who went, and the world tour Passion is going on. God is so good and moving in our generation!

Blessings and Praise to HIM!

Overcoming Bitterness

Bitterness is poison. You can't hold hate and love in your heart at the same time. Hate and bitterness is poison and toxic.

Ben Stuart's talk from a few weeks ago is really powerful. It's called "Overcoming Bitterness."

A few main points I got from it:

• A proper understanding of God's sovereignty gives you the power to forgive.
• Forgiveness is making the decision to not hurt them
• The reason why you're so bitter at someone in your past who hurt you is because they had a power over you and you don't like the fact that an evil person did that bad thing which has power over your life.
  
• You keep telling me you got past it but you didn't, your bitterness there is ruining your story now.
• That very act you meant for evil, God meant for good.
• The person who hurt you doesn't run your story, God does.
• I have the resources to forgive you because you don't run my story, God does.
• When I get power, I use it to love. I don't use it to hurt people, that's crazy.
• The powerful God forgives and I can forgive that person.
• You can forgive when you realize you have a loving and sovereign God.
• Forgiveness you can do alone, reconciliation takes two.
• Reconciliation comes when two people can speak grace and love.
• Reconciliation happens when you speak truth, "Your hurt me." "Yes I did." And then you extend grace and I'm sorry and I'm not retaliating. You come to them with grace and truth to reconcile.
• Living a life of grace and truth and I can forgive you because of the Sovereign God working in my life.

This podcast was so good. It's definitely life changing... I definitely learned a lot from this one podcast.

There's only so much you can do to repair a relationship. In AA, they say "clean up your side of the street." That's all we can do sometimes. Like it says in the bullet list, it only takes you to forgive someone. But I know that it has to be honest to let this go. If it's not, it's pointless.

I definitely learned a lot.
Thanks Ben..

God bless,

Beginning Again

People make mistakes, and sometimes it seems an apology isn't enough to repair the damage. But, I feel that it should be accepted and you should be able to forgive someone or that shows some bitterness. If someone can get the courage up enough to apologize and mean it because they know they screwed up, you should accept it and move on. Maybe this means that person will never be in your life again, but the least that you can do is end on good terms, rather than hatred.

This happened to me recently and it's changed my view on life, drastically. People walk in and out of my life often, but the people who stay are ones who changed my life. I think time away from people is a good thing. The last week or two all I've had in my memory are the good times, the times I laughed, acted stupid, and was happy. Does that mean I'm unhappy? Not at all. I hate when I know I screwed things up, and apologizing isn't enough for certain people, but I guess that shows me something.

I'm just at this hard spot, because with the people I had a falling out with, all you wanna do is everything in your power to fix it, but sometimes that just screws things up. I guess sometimes saying sorry is all you can do. I know God has this situation under His complete control.

You can't just throw out memories so fast, and maybe that's a good thing. Memories of anything keep us alive. Good memories are essential to life. I'm grateful for those good memories with certain people. Of course, I want nothing more than to fix what happened, but what can I do?

The last couple weeks have been well, different. It's weird not having that one person you can text and just talk about all these things with. It's weird having to almost remake friends. But, it also reminds me how precious friendships are. And how precious new beginnings are. I'm grateful for new beginnings, and new chapters. I'm sad to close old ones, but grateful for new ones. I've learned a lot in the last couple weeks, and I don't regret one thing that happened to bring me to this place, now that's something I didn't think I'd ever say.

Also, everything I've been reading on my Tumblr and Pinterest Quotes relates to this situation right now.. Funny how that always works out.

I'm so blessed, even though I've lost a few friends in the last few weeks, I'm blessed.

Maybe those friendship will be healed in time, because people make mistakes. We're human, which is why Christ had to come to Earth. Thank God for that.

Have a good week,

"Not everything turns into what it’s supposed to be and not everybody is supposed to just walk out of your life. Sometimes surprises and second chances do happen.. And when they do, you’ve gotta not be afraid to let them happen."

"You should never forget about the past, everything happens for a reason. Instead learn from the past, learn from your mistakes and learn from every experience in life. Never forget those that have changed you either for the good or the bad because they have made you who you are. Always remember that life is meant to be tough, to challenge you, and to make you stronger."

Heaven

How can one describe their emotions on that Tuesday morning 10 years ago?

I was merely in 6th grade, and I remember specifically that the principal came over the speaker and told the teachers to turn off the news. As soon as I got home, our family is glued to the TV and news. Seeing the images of the plane crashing into the second tower is forever burned in my memory.

I am fascinated by 09/11, just from the reactions, and the news. Our nation really changed that day. We now have to get to the airport 2 hours before we take off, and we now can't have this and that. Think about how much this day effected our day to day.

Do I feel safe? I think so, but then I start thinking about how close I live to the shore, and the refineries, and that's scary. The people that hate the US, will attack again I believe, but what can you do?

This morning in church we sang Because He Lives, and it's so fitting. Because He Lives I don't have to live in fear. I'm confident that the Lord has a plan and is watching over this great country.

I came across a very touching tribute that keeps up with a girl from a year after the attacks until now...



I can't wait to fly away and meet some of our American Heroes from that day.

Be blessed, and may we never forget 09.11.2001.

Peace and grace,

I see

Changes.

I can't place my finger on them, but I see them. I find myself wanting to get up and go to work, I find myself wanting to wash clothes and help. I find myself dealing with things I haven't dealt with before.

Tonight I was listening to one of my CDs I made in my car, and I came across this song. It had so much more meaning and real

In my own little world it hardly ever rains
I've never gone hungry and always felt safe
I got some money in my pocket shoes on my feet
In my own little world
Population me

I try to stay awake through the Sunday morning church
I throw a twenty in the plate but I never give 'til it hurts
and I turn off the news when I don't like what I see
it's easy to do when it's
population me
What if there's a bigger picture
what if I'm missing out
What if there's a greater purpose
I could be living right now
outside my own little world

Stopped at the red light, looked out my window
Outside the car, saw a sign, said "Help this homeless widow"
Just above this sign was the face of a human
I thought to myself, "God, what have I been doing?"
So I rolled down my window and I looked her in the eye
Oh how many times have I just passed her by
I gave her some money then I drove on through
In my own little world there's
Population two

What if there's a bigger picture
what if I'm missing out
What if there's a greater purpose
I could be living right now
outside my own little world
Start breaking my heart for what breaks Yours
give me open hands and open doors
put Your light in my eyes and let me see
that my own little world is not about me

I'm self-centered. I recognize this and accept it, and this song is reminding me that it's not about me, it's about the world we live in. The song was just a slap in the face. Thank God for the beauty of the cross. I was saved for HIS glory, and saved to bring GLORY to His name.

As I heard this weekend, "Thank God I don't get what I deserve."

Thankful for the cross, and the freedom I have in Christ.

Blessed,

Lyric People

I read quotes, it's what I live off of. I absolutely love them. It's why I got a Tumblr, to basically keep my quotes in one place. Anyways, the other night I read a quote and I absolutely fell in love with it.


"You know, I’ve got this theory; there are two kinds of people in the world. There are lyric people and music people. You know, the lyrics people tend to be analytical. You know, all about the meaning of the song. They’re the ones you see with the CD insert out like five minutes after buying it, pouring over the lyrics, interpreting the hell out of everything. Then there’s the music people, who could care less for the lyrics as long as it’s just got, like, a good beat and you could dance to it. I don’t know, sometimes it might be easier to be a music person and not a lyric person. But since I’m not, let me just say this: sometimes things find you when you need them to find you. I believe that. And for me, it’s usually song lyrics."

This quote is ME. I analyze everything, and I don't even listen to the new CD, I read the cover back and forth, and analyze it. What the artist said, who they thanked all of that. It makes me either feel like I can relate to the artist or not. For example, Taylor Swift's "Fearless" album's cover was simply amazing, it had this posted in it:

To me, fearless is not the absence of fear.
It’s not being completely unafraid.
To me, fearless is having fears.
Fearless is having doubts. Lots of them.
To me, fearless is living in spite of those things that scare you to death.
Fearless is falling madly in love again, even though you’ve been hurt before.
Fearless if walking into your freshman year of highschool at fifteen.
Fearless is getting up and fighting for what you want over and over again…
even though every time you’ve tried before, you’ve lost.
It’s fearless to have faith that someday things will change.
Fearless is having the courage to say goodbye to someone who only hurts you, even though you can’t breathe without them.
I think it’s fearless to fall for your best friend
even though he’s in love with someone else.
And when someone apologizes to you enough times
for things they’ll never stop doing, I think it’s fearless to stop believing them.
It’s fearless to say “you’re NOT sorry,” and walk away.
I think loving someone despite what people think is fearless.
I think allowing yourself to cry on the bathroom floor is fearless.
Letting go is fearless. Then, moving on and being alright… that’s fearless too.
But no matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it.
You have to believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after.
That’s why I write these songs. Because I think love is fearless

LOVE. I absolutely love that whole paragraph. She's so real, and that's why I fee like every song she writes, is about my life.

I just love lyrics, they all have this incredible story. Even if they are with misplaced beats, and horrible chords. It's a story that someone needed to let out. The other night it was late, and I was watching TV and the Brooks and Dunn special came on where artists gave tribute to them. They have this one song that Jennifer Hudson redid, and oh my it's powerful. Even Maya Angelou thinks so. It's called "Believe." Just go look it up, it's so good. My favorite line in it though:

I can't quote the book
The chapter or the verse
You can't tell me it all ends
In a slow ride in a hearse
You know I'm more and more convinced
The longer that I live
Yeah, this can't be
No, this can't be
No, this can't be all there is

I believe. I trust. I hope. I live.

Blessings,

The time where everything is being repeated..

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I read quotes all the time. While I'm at work, when I get home, pretty much all I do. I don't know why, it's just something I do. (Better than drugs right?)

Well a few days ago I found an amazing quote, and I posted it on my Facebook, well then the other day I was surfing the web again and found it AGAIN, then just now it came up AGAIN. I think there's something behind all these shenanigans... Here's the quote

The essence of life is not being perfect, impressing people, or succeeding at everything. The essence of life is simply making mistakes and learning from them, surrounding yourself with people that love you when you're being yourself, and getting through the failures so that you can continue improving.

I think this quote is my life quote at the moment, because it really does speak to me, and influences my life. It's got some truth in it as well. I don't know, but I really like it.


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