All I want right now is: 

-a really good book

-some sunglasses

-a towel

-the beach

and some peace and quiet. Some time to think, time to write, time to just be. 

A little piece of encouragement

It hasn't been the easiest week, to say the least. Lots of stress, exhaustion, and heartache. But tonight, I got a little encouragement from one of my Alphies :)

They were all leaving and one of them pulled my aside and said, "I just wanted to tell you that I think you're doing a great job. I am so glad I got put into your group and love hanging out with you." 

Talk about feeling good about yourself ;) 

I just love how God gives us little gifts of encouragement and support when we're going through hard times. He sends little angels to reveal his love. It's really a beautiful thing. 

Sleepovers, pictures, and laughter

This weekend could not have been better. :)

On Thursday night, Megan and Katie Hill came down to APU and visited. We all just had a blast together, eating food, taking pictures, and laughing SO hard. Friday morning, Katie Hill and I drove down to San Diego to see Lauren. It is the last time the three of us will be together until Christmas (hopefully Thanksgiving!), which is really sad. We went out and got frozen yogurt and talked forever. I love how real our relationship is...We talked about absolutely everything, down to our struggles and ways we need to grow. And ended our conversation talking about how blessed we are to have the friends that we do, the three of us and other friends from home as well. Going to college, we all realized how amazing our friend group was in high school. How spiritually mature everyone was and how incredibly lucky we are to have had the support we did. It just amazes me. God blessed us in so many ways. And I feel especially blessed with those two. Their hearts for the Lord and the joy & laughter they add to my life is just wonderful. 

Then we said goodbye and drove back to APU, where Katie Hahn and Megan were. So we had another sleepover with the four of us. :) More pictures, talking, and laughter. Man, I love my friends. They left the next morning and, I'll be honest, it was really hard for me to say goodbye to Katie Hill. Ever since our friendship began, she has been someone my heart just completely connects with and we've never been more than an hour apart. I don't know how we're going to do this...her being in Seattle. But I am so proud of her. Seeing how faithful she's been these past few months, when it would be so easy to give up...wow. She is an inspiration. She never complains and despite her hard situation, is the most selfless person I know. And I'm so excited for this next leg of her journey. I know she is just going to rock it up in Seattle and I can't wait to hear about it...like a proud mama :) 

And then yesterday, my mom came down to APU and we had a sleepover!! It was so wonderful to see her. We went to Pasadena and went shopping, went to Cheesecake Factory and then came back and had a movie night in my apartment! :) Then this morning, we got some Starbucks and went to Barnes and Noble to just relax. It was so much fun. 

Overall, as you can probably tell, it was a great weekend. :) I feel so blessed by all the people God has surrounded me with. It's more than I could ever ask for.

Checked Out

I am a little frustrated at how inconsistent I’ve been with this blog since I came to school. I suppose it’s only natural…I have started school which adds hours upon hours of classes and homework. And I got my Alpha group and have been hanging out with them! So much fun. J But I still wish I had more time for this. To just write and get my thoughts out. For me, writing is just as essential as sleeping or eating. I crave it.

I’ve been feeling pretty checked out lately. I haven’t felt well rested since beginning of August probably. And there have just been so many things happening in the past month that I needed to be mentally & emotionally present for, and now that all of that is dwindling down, I find myself just kind of going through the motions. Going to class and not fully engaging or even conversations with friends...I don’t know what it is but I feel like I have nothing left to give. I have poured myself out to so many different places and I am just in a place of desperation for the Lord to refill me.

My life has been good though. Lots of fun, exciting things. I am absolutely in love with my Alpha group. I have 4 girls and 1 boy, which is funny since we’re supposed to have 10-12 students. It’s also funny because it is so typical of APU’s guy/girl ratio. J But it’s been just a joy to see all of their personalities light up. And they all get along with each other so well, which is something I really prayed for. Thank you, Lord. We’re having our first official meeting next week and I’m planning on sharing my life story with them...I’m a little nervous but I think it will be a good way to just put myself on the same level as them: a complete sinner who has no idea what they’re doing. Just trying to please Jesus and enjoy living throughout the day.

For anyone who actually reads this, if you get a chance or remember, please pray for wisdom and the ability to just really hear God’s voice. There’s so much going on right now and I just feel like I’m too bombarded to process any of it. Like I said, completely checked out.

This verse gives me comfort though. Maybe, if you need it, it will give you some as well…

“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death.” –Psalm 68:19-20

Checked Out

I am a little frustrated at how inconsistent I’ve been with this blog since I came to school. I suppose it’s only natural…I have started school which adds hours upon hours of classes and homework. And I got my Alpha group and have been hanging out with them! So much fun. J But I still wish I had more time for this. To just write and get my thoughts out. For me, writing is just as essential as sleeping or eating. I crave it.

I’ve been feeling pretty checked out lately. I haven’t felt well rested since beginning of August probably. And there have just been so many things happening in the past month that I needed to be mentally & emotionally present for, and now that all of that is dwindling down, I find myself just kind of going through the motions. Going to class and not fully engaging or even conversations with friends...I don’t know what it is but I feel like I have nothing left to give. I have poured myself out to so many different places and I am just in a place of desperation for the Lord to refill me.

My life has been good though. Lots of fun, exciting things. I am absolutely in love with my Alpha group. I have 4 girls and 1 boy, which is funny since we’re supposed to have 10-12 students. It’s also funny because it is so typical of APU’s guy/girl ratio. J But it’s been just a joy to see all of their personalities light up. And they all get along with each other so well, which is something I really prayed for. Thank you, Lord. We’re having our first official meeting next week and I’m planning on sharing my life story with them...I’m a little nervous but I think it will be a good way to just put myself on the same level as them: a complete sinner who has no idea what they’re doing. Just trying to please Jesus and enjoy living throughout the day.

For anyone who actually reads this, if you get a chance or remember, please pray for wisdom and the ability to just really hear God’s voice. There’s so much going on right now and I just feel like I’m too bombarded to process any of it. Like I said, completely checked out.

This verse gives me comfort though. Maybe, if you need it, it will give you some as well…

“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death.” –Psalm 68:19-20

All who are thirsty

All who are thirsty...

God, I am so thirsty for you. For your power to just rain down and reign throughout.

Come Lord Jesus.

Come like a tornado.

Show me my weaknesses, in order to replace them with more of you.

Teach me that compassion is not a feeling, but an action. 

You are good, holy, loving, humble, merciful, forgiving, mighty, just, understanding.

Beautiful.

Remind me that I'm no better than anyone else,

Just a forgiven sinner.

Come and listen to what He's done for me, you, us.

Oh, to spend just one day in His courts.

You hold all your children in your hands,

Every hair accounted for.

How He loves us so.

Bridges Debrief

Okay, so a lot of people have been asking me about Bridges, wanting to know how it went and what we did. Also, I never process better than when I write down all my thoughts so this will be a good debrief for me. For those of you who may not know, Bridges is part of my Alpha Training and it’s a week spent in San Francisco, doing different sorts of ministries, mainly revolving around the homeless district (the Tenderloin) in that city.

To be honest, the first part of it was hard for me. We went to the YWAM base in San Francisco, which is the same place I went to all four years of high school for spring break missions trips. I was really disappointed when we pulled up to the building. I thought that, because I had been before, my experience would be different than every other person on this trip. That it would somehow be less because nothing was new for me. I couldn’t have been more wrong but that’s later in the week J. It was also a weird experience because I was so used to being in that place with people from CPC/Ventura and now, here I was with all my friends from APU. It just felt like my worlds were colliding. I would walk in, expecting to see Tyler or Kalie or my mom, and instead saw people from Azusa. Very, very weird.

The first morning, we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge (my first time ever!) and it was actually a really neat experience. I really prayed that God would humble me and take away any pride I may feel from having been there before. And also that I wouldn’t become lethargic about the week and just assume God wouldn’t be able to teach me anything because of my previous experience. And boy, did he answer my prayers. He moved in huge ways and not only opened my eyes to things, but completely changed my heart.

Something I’ve always had a really hard time with is God’s justice. I just feel like there is so much brokenness in the world: children dying of poverty, broken families, women & children forced into slavery (whether that be sex trafficking, sweat shops, forced labor, etc), people living on the streets…and so much more. And it’s just all around us. So a big part of my faith has been trying to understand how God chooses to administer His justice. There are so many things that are so unfair and just heart-breaking and it doesn’t always make sense to me that a loving, merciful, just God would allow these things to happen. And it’s also hard not to feel guilty about it. Like, spending an entire day serving homeless people lunch and hearing their sad, sad stories and then getting fed a gourmet feast…it just felt wrong somehow.

And why did God bless me with two loving parents? A house to live in? A country built off of human freedoms? It just doesn’t make sense to me. So I spent a lot of time this week really praying about that and searching for some answers. I haven’t found a solid answer yet…and probably never will…but did find peace in the fact that God is all-knowing and even when I can’t see it, He has a plan.

Another thing I really dealt with was choosing God’s plan over my own. So often, I get really caught up in planning my future that I just completely leave God out of it. And it will even be with things that should be solely focused on the Lord. Like, ministries I want to get involved in or ways I want to serve…I don’t always pray about it and ask God where He wants me. I will instead just choose where I think I have a passion. And it’s not even that I should just be consulting God about it; I should be coming to Him with a blank slate, fully willing to serve in whatever capacity He calls me to. Which is definitely not easy, but now that I’m aware of this, it’s something I can work on.

And now, perhaps the biggest thing God did in my life and the largest way He answered my prayers from the bridge that morning…One day, we went on a prayer walk to Union Station. We stopped once we got there and Amanda (my AC leader) told us to take a couple minutes to just walk around and see what the Lord opens our eyes to. While we were there, there was some sort of jazz festival going on. There were hundreds of people sitting around, getting dinner & drinks, hanging out together just enjoying their luxurious evening. Then I walked around to the back of the stage and saw two homeless men, sleeping. And my first thought was, “How typical.” I just felt like, “These people are all out there having a wonderful evening while these men are suffering.” And I began to pray for God to open their eyes to the brokenness merely 10 yards away from them. And God, in his divine voice, gently said, “What about your eyes?” And it just completely hit me: Sure, my eyes are open while I’m on a mission trip but what about at home? I complain about San Franciscans ignoring the Tenderloin District but I go home and avoid the Avenue or bad areas of Oxnard. I’m no better than any of them. So then I began to pray for God to open my eyes. That I would realize my sin and turn from it. And the two things I heard the Lord say to me were “You cannot live an ordinary life” and “You could do so much for me if you would just try.” I’m often so busy and think that one missions trip a year is “enough”. But God wants my eyes to be open all the time. On a Tuesday afternoon while walking to class. All the time. And while I was sitting among people I would normally feel so comfortable with, I felt God saying that I can’t live this way. That I need to do something extraordinary. I want to love the people that the world says are unlovable. I want God to take my life, this broken and ordinary life, and do something radical with it. Something revolutionary. Something extraordinary.

On the last morning there, we were taken back to the Golden Gate Bridge. This time, we walked the opposite way across it and just prayed over the past week. For me personally, it was incredible. First of all, it was the most beautiful day. Perfectly clear and warm...which is such a blessing from God, to see His beauty in such a tangible way.

But as I walked across, I just kept singing the song “How He Loves” by Kim Walker. And I realized that my desire to live an extraordinary life, my desire to serve God, should come from a deep and innate thankfulness for how much He loves me. I was a sinner, damned to hell and He saved me from that. My desire to serve Him should come from a grateful spirit and an awe of how much He loves me. I know I just said that, but it was just such a powerful truth in those few minutes. God loves me more than I could understand. He saved me from hell. Yes, absolutely I want to spend the rest of my life thanking Him for that. It’s like marriage: wanting to spend the rest of your life with someone, just to express how much you lovethem. How much more should it be that way for God? But it’s not only how much we love Him, but how thankful we are.

So now that I’m back home, I’m trying to figure out what it means to live an extraordinary life. And how to serve Him best with my life. It’s definitely a process and something I need to pray about a lot, but I really feel like just in the past few days, my heart has changed. That God really has broken down SO much of the pride I had and replaced it with gratitude and humility and selflessness. Of course, this journey is never over and I am far from perfecting these areas in my life but being aware of this is just the first step. And, for the first time in a long time, I’m so excited about how God is going to break me and re-mold me. What a joy.

Sorry if this was all over the place. I’m very much still processing it all and haven’t fully grasped it. Truthfully, this was part of my debriefing just for my own heart. So thank you for listening J To sum it up: God is so unbelievably good and I can’t wait to learn more about how to live as an ordinary radical.