Defined by 1.

Hey friends!

Wow, this past month and a half has been absolutely crazy. Having a license is both a blessing and a curse 🙂 I don’t know about y’all, but for me, 2016 is off to a great start. Jesus has been teaching me so much in these past few months and it’s been difficult yet so amazing. He has been teaching me a lot about Himself and His amazing love, but I’ve also learned SO much about myself. Now that sounds very self-centered and conceited, but it’s good & helpful to learn about yourself! One of my very best friends, Michelle, loves learning about different personality types and different characteristics of all kinds of people. A couple of weeks ago, she encouraged me to take this personality test, which I’m SO glad I took and highly encourage anyone to take. It is fascinating to learn about yourself and this test helps pick out some qualities or traits that you may have not recognized about yourself before. Through this personality test, as well as in conversations with others (which, if you haven’t asked someone before what you can improve on and how you can grow in life, you should.), and just Jesus Himself teaching me through Scripture, messages, songs, etc. I honestly feel like I have been able to see myself from a different perspective and figure out who I really am, as well as who I want to become. Going through this process and growth has been amazing, I have loved every second of it.

However, when learning about yourself, you’re learning the good, but also the bad. I know for me, I want to grow and be the best person I can be, which is great, but can also be very tough. But in order to become the best person I can be, it is necessary to learn what I can work on and get better at as a person. I have loved getting to know these things about me. However, as I have been going through this and learning these things, I’ve found myself trapped in insecurity and frustration. Instead of focusing on the good and encouraging things I was learning about myself, I was only getting caught up in how I’m not perfect and wanting to fix every flaw and every wrong or bad thing about me. I was being so hard on myself that I wasn’t focusing on any of the good qualities or talents I have been given. It was a really tough and discouraging spot to be in, because I was always frustrated with the things I would say or do as I was striving for perfection and setting standards for myself that I could not (and can never) reach.

As much as I wanted to be and as hard as I tried, I would never ever achieve perfection. Satan was catching me in this insecurity and reeled me into only thinking about myself and how I was not the person I wanted to be, instead of looking to God to see who He wanted me to be & how He created me. I learned through this that Satan will do anything and everything he can to get you to believe that you aren’t good enough. That you’re worthless and unloved. That there is no hope for you. And as ridiculous as some of those things may sound, it is SO easy to fall into that trap of believing those things. I began to forget how God sees me and instead started to believe the lies that Satan was feeding me. But as I was falling into this trap and believing those lies, the Lord reminded me that those things I had began to believe weren’t even close to being true about myself. No, I was not perfect, and yes, I still had those sinful and ugly parts to me, but those things did not define me or have to hold me down.

You might often hear that we are the sons and daughters of God. That is something we take (or at least I do) for granted, and it can sometimes just get tossed around so much that we miss the beauty and worth in that statement. We are the sons and the daughters of the one true God. The same Creator of the universe also created you, just the way He wanted you to be. He calls us His own, knowing how perfect He is and how far from perfect we are. How amazing is that! The Lord goes on to talk so much more in His Word about our worth and how we are created. He tells us in Genesis 1:27 that we are created in His image, and He tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). Jesus made us the way we are for a specific purpose. Our talents and great qualities about us, those were His idea and His creation. Our insecurities, our fears, our doubts, our struggles, those tough qualities about us – they are a huge part of our purpose here on earth as well. They are shaping us into the person God has called us to be.

The main thing I learned through this process is that no matter who I am or what I’ve done, my worth comes from Christ alone. I’m not perfect and I make mistake after mistake, but nothing or no one else can define me or tell me if I’m valuable or loved or not, because Jesus already proved to me that I am by dying in my place on a cross.

May we never forget that our true worth comes from Jesus Christ alone. No matter what, we are all still sons and daughters of Christ. We are a part of His family forever – and there is nothing that we could ever do to separate us from His love.

 

 

 

Broken People Welcome.

This morning at church, I was walking in the hallways of our elementary school environment called Upstreet. While I was walking, I passed a woman sitting with a lady on staff at this little table together. As I passed, I noticed that the woman was covering her face as she bawled crying. While she was crying, the woman on staff was praying for and over her. I don’t know why, but the Lord really touched my heart when I saw that. My heart broke and I immediately began to pray for her. I was blown away when I saw that, because it just pictures the local church so well. That right there is what the church is for. One thing said around GC a lot is that “the local church is a hospital for broken people.” Love that. Seeing that today really did something in my heart, and it showed me something so important:

You don’t have to have it all together to know and love Jesus. 

I think that’s something that is hard to understand sometimes, especially for me. We feel the need to act like we have it all together when it comes to our lives and our relationship with the Lord. It’s so easy to act like your relationship with the Lord is perfect – that you always feel Him close and never struggle or have doubts with and in your faith. But the truth is, some point in our lives, we will all have doubts in our faith. We will have ups and downs with Jesus, where one minute we feel like He is literally right there with us, and then, next thing you know, it’s so hard to feel Him near and to connect with Him. It’s so hard to understand why God does that. It can be so frustrating, especially if you are in the Word, if you are sharing the love and message of Jesus with others, going to church, etc. and you still can’t feel a connection with the Lord.

Right now, I am reading through the book of Genesis. I recently read Genesis 22, where God tells Abraham to take his son, Isaac, to the land of Moriah, and to give him to the Lord as a burnt offering. Abraham, confused but obedient, takes his own son to the altar and is about to sacrifice him, when God tells him to stop. He was testing Abraham to see how much he trusted the Lord, and Abraham passed the test. Abraham didn’t know what God was doing, or why He was doing it. His own son? Why would God ask him to do something like that? But instead of being confused and asking God questions, Abraham immediately obeyed the Lord and took Isaac up with him to the altar.

I’m sure that through that process, Abraham definitely had doubts in his faith. He probably had trouble trusting that His loving God would ask him to do such a terrible thing as sacrifice his own son. He didn’t have everything together as he led Isaac to that altar, but through the pain and confusion, he obeyed God and laid it all at His feet.

This really challenged me tonight as I think about this mask or image that we feel like we have to put up of ourselves with our spiritual life, and even our whole lives in general. I wonder what it would look like to stop putting on that fake self and hiding what’s really going on and instead, through the midst of the pain and confusion of life, laying it all at the feet of Jesus. This story proves that when we do lay everything at His feet, the Lord shows up. And when the Lord shows up, great things are bound to happen. Being a Christian is so much more than just doing all the right things – reading your Bible, going to church, etc. It’s about having faith and trusting Jesus in the good and in the bad.

The lady I saw this morning was just one of the many broken and hurting people out there. I don’t know why she was crying, and I may never find out. But the main thing is that although she was broken, although she was upset, and although she didn’t have it all together, she went to Jesus. She didn’t put on an act that said everything was okay. She gave it to Jesus, and I am confident that He will use that situation for His glory.

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Come As You Are – Crowder

3 in 1.

Well guys, I’m still trying to figure out how 2015 is almost over. I feel like just yesterday we were gearing up for the big opening of Gwinnett Church’s building and here we are, about to celebrate one year in it. I don’t know about y’all, but 2015 has been one of the best years yet. Junior year has been so fun (besides the school part), and the friendships that I’ve formed this year and the ones I’ve grown in have been amazing. The Lord really has shown up in my life this year, in so many ways.

I’m beyond excited for 2016 and all that it will bring. I know that Jesus has huge plans for this year and I cannot wait to see what He has in store. But before we go into the new year, I wanted to stop and reflect on what has happened this year. Back in August, my dad (who I love so much and am so proud of) gave a sermon on how “to remain is to remind.” This phrase has stuck with me since he spoke on it and it’s been so important for me as I grow in my relationship with Christ. He explained it like this: “To remain in Jesus is to remind yourself of Jesus and who you are in Him.” But he also gave an important point which I think is key for going into this year. He said, “When you are reminded of the faithfulness of yesterday’s God, you are given the courage to trust and believe the God of tomorrow.” That was just what I needed to hear as I was thinking about this.

I wanted to share three things with y’all that Jesus has taught me this past year. I think this year has been such an important year for me in my walk with Christ as the Lord has been so faithful in teaching and growing me. I’ve learned so so much, but I wanted to share the top three things that have really challenged me and reminded me of just how good God is.

First : Surround yourself with community.

I can’t tell you how many times this year I have said to myself: I just have the greatest community and friends a girl could have. Like I said earlier, I have formed so many new friendships this year that I am SO grateful for, and I have also seen LOTS of  growth in my already-existing friendships. As this has happened, I have constantly been reminded over and over how incredible community is and the importance of it. This year has not been an easy one, but I have grown stronger in my relationships both with people and the Lord which have helped me get through those tough times much smoother. Having a group of people to do that is SO necessary and beneficial, but I believe that community is so much greater than just that. In my life, I have seen community as a group of people that are going to walk and grow with you as you grow in your relationship with the Lord. The people that encourage you to trust when times are hard, the people that urge and remind you of just how important it is to spend time in the Word and grow in your relationship, and the people who aren’t afraid to challenge you in your faith and ask hard questions. I can’t even explain to you how important these people have been in my life and in my faith.

Second : Jesus can be and wants to be your very best friend.

Although this year has been full of growing and beginnings of relationships in my life, I can definitely see where there was a season of loneliness in my life towards the beginning of the year. I was going through some tough stuff, but now it is so evident to see how God was using those hard times to draw me so close to Him. Anyways, during that time, Jesus was teaching me that although I was going through those times, He wasn’t just my Heavenly Father, but that He could also be my very best friend. Yes, that sounds super cheesy and Christian-y to say. But for me, I had never looked at Jesus as my best friend. It gave me a new perspective as I grew in my relationship with Him. Some of the greatest things about having him as a friend and not just a Heavenly Father are that He will never fail you. He will love you through everything. He will ALWAYS be there to listen and to help. You can be confident that He is in control. And most importantly, He laid down His own life for us. That’s the greatest gift anyone could ever give.

Third : My worth is found in Christ alone.

This last lesson I learned is something that I think every person struggles with at some point in their life, whether they realize it or not. It’s so easy in today’s world to try and find your worth and value in things like social media, guys/girls, popularity, grades, talents, money, clothes, jobs, etc. None of these things are bad, they actually make us all different from one another, and with these things we can show our personality and uniqueness. However, these things can sometimes begin to become who we are. How we define ourselves. How we define others. And suddenly these things can be the most important part about us. But as time goes on and as we put more and more of our value and worth into these things, we see that they begin to fail us. They let us down and leave us feeling broken, unloved, and unsatisfied. But with Jesus, He never lets us down. Hebrews 13:5 puts it the best way: “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'” He alone will satisfy, and He will never leave us. This lesson is a lot easier said than done. But I want to challenge you guys to look at your life as a whole – what are you putting your worth and value in?

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As we go into 2016, I’m hoping and praying that at least one of these lessons I have learned will stick with you. I know I don’t have it all figured out and that there is so much more to learn from each of these things. But I hope this was an encouragement and/or challenge to someone out there. Happy New Year!

Swallowed Up in Grace.

I want to start off by thanking all of you for the amazing support you have given me in starting this blog. I can’t explain how encouraged and loved I have felt by all of your kind words and support through this. I’m so thankful for each and every one of you!

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I wanted to focus in on specifically one thing that the Lord has recently shown me that I often take for granted but should never forget how great of a gift it really is.

Thanksgiving is a time of year where we remember and remind ourselves of the things we are grateful for, both big and small. Something that I often think is small and take for granted is God’s grace. It doesn’t always feel like it’s that big of a deal, but it truly is one of the greatest gifts we have ever and can ever receive. But what is grace? One of the best explanations I’ve heard is “Mercy is when you do not receive punishment for something that you should. Grace is when you get something that you don’t deserve.”

God’s grace is found abundantly all throughout the Bible. His grace is never-ending, and God really proves that to us time after time and in story after story. We see grace first at the beginning of our story. God, after creating the entire universe, then created us – beautiful, perfect, and in His image. We were given the opportunity to communicate with the Lord and have a personal and intimate relationship with Him, which distinguished us from any other part of creation. Everything was perfect, just the way God wanted it. But then (you know the story), we chose to put our wants and desires over God’s. We sinned against God, and that perfection was gone. God could’ve stopped right then and there. He could’ve given up on us, sighed and said, “Oh well.” He could’ve moved on, created something or someone else in our place. But He didn’t. He punished us, but that wasn’t the end. He loved us too much to let us go. We were now separated from Him, but little did we know what He had in store to redeem us.

As time went on, not much changed. We see time and time again how God’s people, the Israelites, disobeyed Him, how they sinned against Him, and how they put the world as well as fake gods and idols before their own Creator. God sent person after person to help guide His people back to Him, and those people did help. But every time, we see the Israelites go back to disobeying Him and worshiping their “gods.” Throughout all of this, we see His mercy on us. He punished His people but He never gave up on us. Not once. He still loved us unconditionally, and He still wanted us. That just blows my mind. But it doesn’t even end there. This is where grace really comes in. God loved us so much that He decided He was going to tear down the barrier sin had created in keeping us from Him. And the way He would do this is by sending His Son to die for us. He sent His own Son to come down to this broken and sinful world and become one of us. And we treated Jesus the worst. We beat Him, mocked Him, we even crucified Him. Our own Lord. God’s own Son. How could God love us after all of that?! It’s so hard to understand, but He did. He loved us and cherished us the same as when we were first created. But that’s not even it! God wasn’t going to let death win this battle. He proved death wrong and rose Jesus from the dead. And through Jesus’s death and resurrection, we are given life through salvation. Not just an extra day or an extra 20 years of life, we are given eternal life. Eternal life that is perfect and sinless, just like God originally created us. So not only did God save us from death and give us grace for our sins, He also gave us an opportunity to receive eternal life with Him.

After the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, some believed and followed Him, but some still did not. Even today, the majority of people do not believe. Today’s society makes it so tough to be a Christian and live a life devoted to Christ. And even though we choose to follow Christ and call ourselves Christians, we definitely still need grace. We make mistakes and are so far from perfect. We mess up daily. We disobey Him, we do or say things that do not glorify Him, and we simply just put this world before Him. However, the grace of our God is greater than our sin. Romans 5:20 says, “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” I love what Pastor Steven Furtick says about this: “This is not a grace that simply covers our sin, but a grace that after it has covered our sin empowers us to rise up in victory, to overcome sin, to overcome the world, and to overcome the works of the devil.” We can overcome because of God’s grace, and because He is working through us.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, I encourage you to keep this message with you. He has given us SO much, and His grace is far more and better than we can ever imagine or could ever deserve. // John 1:16 “From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another.”

The Beginning.

Hey there! First off, thanks for visiting my blog! I’m really excited about this opportunity to write and share! I’ve wanted to start a blog for a while now for several reasons. Recently, the Lord has put some things on my heart that I have really been wanting to write about and share. I have shared some of those thoughts on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. but some of these things require more thought and depth than 140 characters (plus, I think people were getting tired of my really long captions :)). I have several friends that have blogs as well, and I’ve always been intrigued by the thought of having my own. Blogging is a really cool part of today’s world and society. It gives people an outlet to be creative, to share thoughts and ideas, and to even evangelize and just be a light for others. I know for me in the past, I’ve been very encouraged by certain bloggers or blog posts and I’m hoping and praying that my posts will be encouraging to at least one or two people.

The title of this blog is “Never Lose Our Wonder.” That may change eventually, but for now it’s something that I’ve thought long and hard about and decided that it is something that I want to constantly remind myself about. You’re probably wondering why I decided to name it that. Well, if you know me, (I hope that you know) I am a Christian. I’ve grown up in a Christian home my whole life, so I’ve always known about Jesus. I accepted Christ into my heart when I was four, and was baptized when I was in the third grade. If you’ve known Jesus your whole life like I have, you might have never had that extravagant moment where everything clicked in some miraculous way. You might not have a crazy past or a salvation story is insane and incredible. But there is nothing wrong with that. I have had to learn that myself, trust me. My point in saying all of this is that if you have grown up where Christianity is the norm and maybe where it’s never been new to you, it can be easy to forget truly how great and majestic our God is. I was reminded of this a couple of months ago, I heard this song, “Wonder” by Bethel, where I got the title of this blog from. The first time I heard this song, I was driving to school and began to just listen to the words and let them sink in. The message of the song is simple, yet so powerful. It is saying, “God, you are beautiful. May we never forget that and may the wonder of You never become normal to us.” This theme has come up in so many different areas of my life recently which has been both crazy and amazing. It has showed me how important this idea truly is.

If you look up the definition of wonder it says, “To be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe; to marvel at.” Sometimes in life it’s SO easy to pray or go to church or read your Bible and forget who you are talking to or who you are worshiping, and maybe even sometimes why you are worshiping. It can become so normal that we forget just how beautiful it all is. Not only are we children of the Creator and Savior of the Universe, but we also have the opportunity to have a relationship with Him. But it doesn’t even end there! This relationship you have the opportunity to have is not a one-sided relationship. Although it may feel like it sometimes, you are never talking to a God who turns His back on you or who doesn’t listen. He is always there, anytime, any place, willing to listen and willing to help. This God is the Creator. The Creator of everything. That’s a lot. Every person on this huge planet, every leaf in every tree, every little piece of sand, every star, He created it all. He’s so big and vast. But that’s not even all of it. He’s so detailed and personal as well. He created you just the way you are. Every characteristic, every talent, every feeling or emotion, He created that too. He is our Savior. He saved us from the enemy. He has overcome the world. He is that powerful. Nothing is too hard for our God.

That God who created everything and who is sovereign over everything, He is on your side. He wants to be your God, your Father, and your very best friend.

May we never lose the wonder of our amazing God. // Psalm 40:5