Who am I?

As I listen to How He Loves over and over again, tears roll down my cheeks. My heart longs for my co-workers at Holiday Inn to know and feel what this song is portraying! I sing it at the top of my lungs as a cry out to the Passionate, Intimate, Loving and Jealous Father. That He would rain down His overwhelming and unignorable grace, love and mercy over my co-workers. Daddy, speak through me! Let Your words be what comes from my lips, let their hearts be open to what You want them to hear.

I had a dream last night. (good sentence huh?) My boss, Suzanne was in it along with a lot of other people, but the part of my dream that I will tell involves Suzanne. I was on my way over to her house because I had asked her if she needed prayer and she said yes, so I headed over. When I got there she was sitting on her deck/stairs with her sister and little boy. Her sister asked me where I go to church and so I told them that I went to House of Prayer. Her sister and son ended up leaving shortly after and so it was then just Suzanne and I. I began to pray and she joined in. Not long after starting to pray, the question of "who am i?" came to my mind. I then began talking about how Awesome God is, how he created the stars and us, and with that how He loves us and is Jealous for us! I caught myself going on and on and thought to myself am I just talking now, but I looked at her and she was intently listening with tears welling in her eyes.

I can't even describe how much I just want her to know how much her Father loves her!

So the who am I question came into the dream because I was thinking about it last night. After expressing thoughts last night to an amazing listening friend, the question arose in my head. I told her the fears that I had about this up coming school year, and as we were walking out of Mickey D's late last night I began to think "who am I to fear?" That fear that I have been feeling comes from not trusting that He has everything under control. Not trusting and believing the words of what He told me at sunday leadership meeting for IV last year (4-17-11), "Hey guys! I GOT this! I got this! I got it...really I do. I got this." Who am I to not trust Him? Like in my dream, He created the stars, all of them! He is in total control! He is the Beginning and the End! Yet, the One who created all of those stars, created me. And loves me.

He shows His love, affection, and intimacy for me in much greater ways than a man who is madly in love with his new wife to be. His love for me is more intimate than a dark room lit by candles and a wedding ring. His proposal to me, and to all, was and is the death of Jesus. And it doesn't stop there! He rose from that deathly hallow for us. He pursues us now by sending His Holy Spirit to meet us in this mess. AND the One who gave his life, Who took the sin of the world down to the grave with Him, is coming back for His bride!

So, who am I? (as you read this, believe it because it is for you!) I am His! I am His daughter (son)! I am His portion! I am His bride, the love of His eternal life!

So when this is true then there is no room for fear, except of Him, and there is no room for the lack of trust in Him!

haha. Thank you Jesus!

A testimony of how Awesome God is!

This is a quick recap of what happened when Suzanne and I went out to Toasty's after friday night worship last week. :)

Ok guys and gals, here's the story of God's awesomeness!! :) Im really bad at not being detailed...so it's kind of long..but i cant help it! haha.

So for those of you who didn't know this, Suzanne and I went to toasty beaver's bar after FNW (we got there around 10ish). We met up with one of Suzanne's friends and sat in the bar part of the bar (there is also a dance floor part of the bar in another room) eating pizza and attempting to talk to each other. We quickly figured out that it was difficult to hear and therefore was slightly difficult to have important conversations where delails are important. haha. God was definitely with us in those conversations with both of Suzanne's friends (one ended up coming a little later) and I definitley think it opened up some more doors for another time of interaction!

Anyways, it wasn't very packed at first but once 11:30 rolled around people started to flood in. I know for me, and Suzanne said this was the case for herself as well, that it felt as though we were supposed to do something instead of just sitting at the table looking at the people. So as the night went on we continued to ask God, "who should we talk to? what are You doing God?" And we heard nothing. Some of my other friends ended up coming later in the night and so I went into the dance floor part of the bar with them and Suzanne, during part of that split, decided to go outside.

On Suzanne's way back into the bar, she was stopped by a guy (John?). She ended up figuring out that one of the guys that lives in the REM house that she works at is his uncle, and she asked him what she could be praying for and he said that he wouldnt die while working.

While Suzanne was having this convo with John, I was sitting at a table in the dance floor area, just waiting for God to tell me something. I was soon invited onto the dance floor by another friend that was there and began to dance with her. She introduced me to one of her guy friends and then soon left us two to dance. ha. It was cool to get to know someone just slightly while dancing. Then one of his friends came up to us and he introduced me to her. Nothing more happened, but I know that these new relationships that were being built last night are just more open doors!

Suzanne and I were headed out of toasty's around 2:30, which is when they close, we step outside and it was raining slightly. I couldnt help but think of the verse that stuck out to me earlier in the night on the Thoofts wall: "Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth." As we were walking towards Suzanne's appartment and away from the bar, my head kept turning back to the crowd of people that were standing right outside the bar door. I kept thinking to myself, "did we miss something? is there anything else you want to do here, God?" We walked a little farther, just about to cross the street and Suzanne suggested that we just stand where we were. So we stood in the rain. Soon after we heard this girl talking and we turned around and realized she was talking to us. She was pretty drunk and one of the first things that she was telling us was that she noticed us and that throughout the night she continued to look at us sitting at the table. She was talking about driving home, but Suzanne offered to give her a ride to her house. haha....oh boy, im getting excited again! As we pull up to her house, she offered for us to come in. Suzanne and I look at each other, and say yes! Little did we know that we would end up staying there until 4:30 in the morning! :)

She was quite talkative! As the night went on the conversation began to get deeper and deeper. It was maybe about a half an hour in that Suzanne posed to questions for heri. The first was the exchange of numbers, so that she has another option other than driving drunk home and the so that when she is bored we can invite her to things. The next was if we could pray for her and her family. She accepted the invite and we went and sat down in her living room. For me personally (I dont know about you, suzanne) but this is the point where God totally annihilated my assumption of what He was doing and what was going to happen. First Suzanne prayed, then I prayed, and then immediately after I was done, out of tears came the cry out to God from her! I was so overcome by God's power and love for her that I began to cry as well. After we were done praying, she became even more open and shared even more of her story. God has been persuing her like crazy! We figured out that close to when she first came here 5yrs(?) ago she had checked out intervarsity but stopped going because she didnt want to feel like a hypocrite. One thing that sticks out the most to me in all that she said, was that she knows that going to the bars isnt going to solve her problems. she said as well, "I know im not going to meet any good....well, other than you guys...I know im not going to meet any good people at the bars." She was so blown away that God had brought us together at the bar of all places! :) She was like, "it's like God knew that I need you guys!" oh, man; oh, man! God is so crazy! We also invited her to come to church with us and this week i think she will be coming with me.

So, as we looked back on the night and in a sense debriefed with each other, we quickly realized that both John and our new friend were being affected by God's presence. The atmosphere around them began to change, and so did they! Our new friend's language began to less full of swearing as she began to feel God's love for her, I felt this sense of peace and hope within the space we were in. Another interesting thing is that looking back to all of the people we interacted with, they all came up to us! :) God was already there before we got there! He had already been working!

There are more smaller details that were pretty awesome too, but you can ask us if you want to more!

God has CRAZY love for people, and the majority of people don't know it! Let us be avalible for God to use us in the darkest places!

I never know where to start whenever I write on this. Guess I need to write on it more often and that might solve that "problem". To say the least and to kind of sum it up, I feel as though I have grown more in this past week than in my freshmen or sophomore year! Not all has been easy, but most definitely worth it! My heart, my soul is more and more hungry for my Father's face--I don't even know what to do with it all.



I will expound on one major aspect of this past week.



First off...a little background. For the past two years I have felt as though God has had something for me, a gift that I wasn't aware of yet. I have known that I am gifted in encouragement, but there was something else. I couldn't figure it out! Well I am a very visual person, always have been, so when I recieved my first vision from God, I didn't know what to do with it. I questioned, was that me? Did I just make that up? I honestly had been, in a sense, ignoring them because I claimed them to be part of my visual thinking.



Like I had stated in the last post, this past month has been insane. Just a couple weeks ago I decided to step out of my role as a small group leader. I was getting incredibly drained and I had been feeling like God was calling me some place else, where...I didn't know. After having made that descision I had to ask myself the question, "now where?". I didn't seem to "fit in" anywhere. So, in this search of pretty much trying to figure out a large chunk of who I am, I was asked the questions; "where do you find joy, what weighs you down, what fills you up?" Those questions intruiged me! I couldn't answer them right away. So thus began my observing of myself.


***this post wasnt finished when i started...and that was awhile ago, but im going to post it now just for the heck of it.lol even though i dont think points were finished.***

No Words.

I don't even know where to start. The past months? Weeks? How bout days. I will summerize though that these past couple of months have been quite the ride. Many--many--tears, laughter, joy, pain, light and darkness, and so much more! I have grown more than I even realize right now. I, in a way, felt as though I was in the growning pain years of childhood again. Excited that every week another half inch taller, but at the same time, my body aches. This past week...discription: bipolar. Spiritual attacks all around me, constantly. Tuesday was the lowest of this past week containing past troubles and present trials. I broke just a little. I let Satan get a hold of that tiny hole, and he expanded it rapidly! I felt my flesh begin to take over with its desires. As I talk with those around me, we realize that it isn't just a few people randomly struggling or getting attacked, the war is getting more intense as the days go on. I see all around me oppression. But that is not all. I see Hope! I see this white satain fabric come from the sky, and gracefully fall upon the campus, embracing all that is near it. It doesn't just stop there though! The white, pure grace falls upon and covers the city, then continues to move towards surrounding areas, the river taking it with power down the US. As the week went on, my brothers and sisters encouraged me and spoke truth to me. And I thank them for that! :) With questions I had racing through my head, I went to the Bible to try and find the answers. With this I was lead to other verses. The main couple verses that I, in a way, had an epiphany with were 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. I have read countless times verses 9-10 but this time I decided to read before that. "Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messanger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness". Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." The part that got me was that Paul was given a thron in his flesh, Paul pleaded for God to take it from him, but instead God replies with "My grace is sufficient for you..."! This hit me in an entirely new light! All we need in our trials and pain is God's grace. It is enough! I also realized, if God gets glory when I am weak, if His power is made perfect in my weakness, then bring on the weakness. For when I am weak, then I am strong! Not only all of this, but for the past month if not more, I have been trying to figure out where God wants me and what He wants to do with me. What has God gifted me with? How do I use those gifts to the full potential God has for them? I think things are just starting to be revealed and I am unbelievably excited! Though, I find myself at times being impatient and wanting to know now. But I trust that God will reveal what He wants, when He wants, and it will be perfect! **God, use me to the potential you have for me! Clean me out! And fill me a new! I want nothing of me and all of You!**

I Don't Even Know What Day This Would Be. :/

This past Sunday, the 24th, was pretty awesome for many reasons. One, it's always nice to chill and fellowship with friends. Another reason, God is awesome! :) Every Sunday night there is InterVarsity leadership meetings. Usually starting at 6pm with a donated delicious meal, then moving into talking about leadership skills, and ending the night with Bible study prep/TNF prep and other "ness". This past Sunday night looked a little different. We started at 7 and ended a little after 8, instead of 9:30. What was planned was to prep for what we had to, whether that be Bible study or TNF. It was good and all, but it was after we were done doing what we usually do that recharged me AND my fellow brothers and sisters there!
We ended up sharing our hearts on the regular meetings, and just in general our hearts on how InterVarsity is supposed to be student lead, but as of right now, isn't. The passion started to rise. I shared how I was excited to finally see a glow in everyones eyes and how this was the first night out of the entire year that I had seen this! I was so excited and energized that I started to shake. :) haha. As we continued to talk, Michelle asked the important question; "What's next?" And that was definitely the right question to ask. It didn't really get answered right then and there, BUT I believe it will not be forgoten! To end the night we ended in prayer, holding hands as a united body of Christ.

Today was...um...ok. Had breakfast with Ali(which was good!), went to class, took a nap, ate lunch, went to class, went to prayer(which was also good), was bored, read some of Captivating(which was good :) ), saw Bea!, was bored again so continued reading, and then the time came for small group. I was getting a hold of people to see if they were going to come and respons? No. I do admit/confess that I didn't do my job on informing one of the girls of when it was, so my asking was really last minute, but once again I was discouraged. I felt the discouraging thoughts and lies flow into my head, and I didn't try and stop it. I felt tired of fighting the battle. I knew I did not, whatsoever, have the strength to fight against the lies Satan was piling in my head, but God did, and did. I told Gabi and the Holy Spirit totally spoke through her saying: "You are a warrior remember? Warriors don't win unless they fight w/ all their heart!" I began to cry, which was much needed. She then quoted a song we have claimed our theme song for the year, We Win by David Crowder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS9TZxvbi9M This song also reminded me that we have already one this battle that we are fighting! We already know the outcome, we win! Satan has no hold on us, because he has already lost! :) HA! Therefore, I will press on! Jesus lead on!

Day 6

As you can tell...Im not very good at doing this every day. :/

This weekend, including monday because we didnt have school, was awesomely fun for the most part. I didn't have any homework that I could do so sat. was semi slow. I went out with Ali to get some summer job applications and hung out with Kathryn, Jordan, Rachel, and someone new..Stephen. We played nerts and had green been casserole, which was delicious!

Sunday, I went to the covenant church with a large group of friends and after the service we were blessed with a free meal! The "sermon" itself wasn't the most exciting and I(along with everyone else I was sitting with) didnt agree with everything that was said. Rachel, on my right, leaned over during the service and said, "where does it say that in the Bible?" I was thinking the same thing! Then a couple minutes later, Molly Bea, on my left, leaned over and made some comments around not agreeing with what he was saying. After the service we all started talking about how we were going to do some research when we got home on the subject, infant baptism. I still haven't found any scripture saying that we should baptize our infants. But I also think that infant baptism isn't something to argue over. But talking about baptism got me really excited to get baptized in the spring! :)

On with Sunday. After we got back from church, Kathryn, Camille, and I went down to the laundry room to do some laundry. What came from this "adventure"? Clean clothes and a 2 hour worship jam session! :) We sang and played guitar as people walked in and out of the laundry room. Super fun! Later on in the day I went to leadership meeting for InterVarsity. I was very excited to see Kathryn and Mel at the meeting. The topic we talked about was what the outreach week was going be themed around for this semester. The decision was unanimous. The theme for this semester is going to be around depression and lonliness. It was exciting and joyous to see other students getting passionate about what we could do this semester! I was slightly saddened at the same time to see leaders sitting in the room with blank stares on their faces...as if they couldnt hear what we were talking about. BUT! God is going to do something huge this semester! He has already begun His wonderous works! After the leadership meeting, Mel, Kathryn and I went out to get two 5$ pizzas for our small movie party we were about to have. Jordan, Matt, Sami, Kathryn, Mel and I all packed into Sami and I's dorm room and watch Aladdin together on a tiny t.v. :) Once again, super fun!

On Monday I went sledding with some awesome people! Even though it was the least amount of people that have come to this event in the past three years I would claim it to be the most fun! I didnt bring my camera, so I was actually able to fully participate in the fun. After sledding was done I went to cantabria with Kathryn and then came back to spontaneously cook french toast for 12 hungry friends! :) which was fun as well. I had to quite cooking early to help phone to raise money for BreakAway scholarships. The phoning didnt go as we were hoping it to, BUT one person did say that they were going to donate, so that is most definitely a plus! And it was good to get experience for the possible future of having to do A LOT of phoning to raise support for myself and the campus. :) After all that was over I hung out with Kathryn and Camille until Kayla called to invite me to go to walmart with her. The chat I had with her was hard, but good. God is good!

Today...has been.

It sucks to get hurt. I sat waiting. At first I was excited, but then after an hour that excitement slowly disappeared and turned to sadness. I had been forgotten about. About 2 hours before this I was walking back from my class and felt "down". I knew that this feeling had come from the lack of time spent with My Father. As I was figuring out if my thought of being forgotten was correct, the pain inside grew. I had once again been let down by a friend. But this time I didn't want to try and find another friend to make me feel better, I wanted and longed for the Only One who is there for me all of the time. I had immediately thought of Isaiah 49:15-16:

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me."

I went to my room and the Holy Spirit comforted me as I sat and cried. At the same time I was feeling the sadness, I felt horrible for the fact that this(being forgotten about) is what it had to take in order for me to spend time with the Holy God who is Jealous for me! I do very much forgive my friend! And I love her very much! And I know that Im forgiven for not spending time with My God. As Im writing this post this song came on :) One Thing Remains! So totally fits!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g4HXXi2R4

As I waited for 8 o'clock to roll around, to lead small group, Kathryn stopped by and it made me smile. Cheered me up. The time came to go downstairs for the Bible study. And I waited. And waited some more.(guess today was the day for me to wait...) No one came. I text some people and the one person that said they were coming decided to go to an auction that the school was putting on, and others didnt reply.

I felt myself becoming discouraged. But I wasn't about to let satan in the tiny crack that there was, so I decided to go around oak hall and pray, maybe even meet some new people. Well...I made around one wing and then decided to chill in the lobby area and continue praying. I didnt meet anyone new, but it was still quite nice to spend sometime alone with God.

A little after 9, Kathryn had come back from visiting another friend and we continued to hang out. We went to the C3 to get some food and I ended up getting some cookies! :) delish! Kathryn and I sat in the kitchen and waited for the cookies to bake. We were going to play cards, but Kathryn thought of something better to do :) We took turns reading Psalm 119 and 39( I highly suggest taking time reading and meditating on them!) The first batch was done and we each had a cookie...soooo tastey! While the other batch was baking, I asked Kathryn if she wanted to go around the floors and give the others away, and she replied with excitement. So that is what we did for the next 30/40 min. We met some new people and chatted with our brothers on 4A. This definitely topped the night off well!

"The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." ~Deuteronomy 31:8

Day 1...and 2...and 3...

So, Sami, my awesome roommate started this daily blogging thing...so I decided that I would try it as well. At the beginning of my Junior year in college I decided I was going to journal everyday until the college year was over. Yeah...I made it only until mid fall semester. So lets try this again, electronic style.


These past few days have been, to say the least, awesome! :D They have been filled with new friendships, laughter, games, dancing, amazing conversations, prayer and worship, and so much more! But the top of them all!!...a spiritual birthday!

This new semester has come with excitement and a thick presence of the Holy Spirit. Change is coming, revival is near, it is now! There are visions and talk of unity, of revival, of change, of great things, of break throughs, throughout the students, staff and community members of Bemidji.

Tuesday, I sat down with Brittany and Adam to talk about what we wanted to see for the oak small group and the conversation consisted of a stomach turning statement: "we are going to split entirely into three seperate small groups, meeting all together once a month." When I heard this, like I said, I wasn't to thrilled about the idea. It made me uncomfortable. But I wanted to and did trust the decision that the two of them had made about the split. The time of night came along and small group started. The majority of the main members were there and as the night went on my heart was starting to change. As I saw the unexpected reaction of all of the small group members there, I started to become excited along with them. Excited to reach the lost. The passion was rising within me once again. I left my freshmen friends that night, not only seeing the full potential each and every one of them have had from the time I first met them, but also seeing the desire in their eyes to reach out to those who need Jesus!

Wednesday was good, but I'm skipping to Thursday. I'm continually being blown away by the fearlessness of one of my closer freshmen friends. How she goes up to complete strangers and a few minutes later has a new friend! k....skip ahead to 8pm. TNF. Last semester we would go around and attempt to gather people to come along with us, but as the semester went on, sadly it eventually ended up being just Adam and I walking to TNF. What happened? Well, to move on from the past, I will tell you what happened this past Thursday. After walking past the lobby area with Adam and Steph(a wonderful freshmen) sitting and waiting I went back to my room to grab something. When I walked back out into the lobby, who was waiting for me? Probably about 12 freshmen along with Brittany and Adam! I was most definitely caught off guard. But praise God! The night goes on and God truely did speak through Terry, the speaker for the night. The passion inside continued to grow, not only in me, but in many others as well!

Now Friday! After I was done with classes, I hung out in the union with my friends, of course. :) As we sat and ate, we discussed our thoughts and excitement that we had from TNF, the night before. We then started to pray, crying out to God, praying that He would move in us, through us, and around us, stirring up the hearts of those who know Him and of those who don't. About an hour later I saw one of my closest freshmen friends(the one I was talking about in the beginning of the previous paragraph) up at the coffee shop, so I went up next to her. She was excited once again about the new friend she had made, and invited me to go and meet her new friend's other friends. We ended up sitting with them and getting to know them for about an hour or so.

Later on that night was the big game night we had planned for an outreach event. I wasn't really sure what to expect for the night, but God totally showed up and the 50 some people (the majority of them being new faces!) that came had a rockin' time!! There were board games, video games, music, laughter (a lot of it!), prizes, spontaneous dancing, and new friendships! The game party started at 7 and went until around midnight, with an awesome spiritual birthday starting shortly after! :D Might I mention that the majority of those 50 some students stayed for almost that entire 5 hours. A couple of my friends had planned to do some musical worship right after the games and we had originally thought it was going to be maybe 5 people, but it ended up being about 13 or 14 people worshiping and it most definitely ended with a bang! :) Like I've said a million of times in this post, we all got to welcome a new sister into the family of God! And we ended up going to perkins from 12:30am - 3am to celebrate. Awesome times!!

So what have I learned from this past week? That God is faithful! When we pour out the love from within us, He will fill us right back up, so we can pour it out to others again! That there is never a better time, than now, to make new friends, to love people. What is the worst that could happen when you go up to someone and introduce yourself to them? They say hi with an awkward expression, oh no! That's so scary... Think of the impact you could make in their lives, the way the Holy Spirit could work through you to bring them closer to the Only One who can save them. That we go through our day and make choices, choices we think aren't that big of a deal.(for example going to worship after the game night, instead of going to bed or watching a movie...we can play the what would have happened game; would we have a new sister in Christ?) The point I'm getting at though is that God uses the choices we make in His plans for us. How honored are we that He would do that! I could go on, but those are just some of the things I've learned and thought about this past week.