Fellowship

   

   Tonight at CLEAR, we went over part 4 of Francis Chan's Basic series. I'll admit, I haven't been getting much out of this series as of late. This is due to multiple things, mostly personal, so I can't say anything against this series. But this lesson finally hit something I could relate to.
   At times, it can seem overwhelming, even impossible, to think of completely giving your life over to God. Having Him in complete control is hard. It's not because you don't want Him there. The whole idea can be a huge weight on your life. Constantly evaluating your life to make sure God is controlling every part. But that's why He gave us the Holy Spirit. If you access it, it gives you strength and is constantly working in your life to make you more like God. This journey, however, isn't meant to be traveled alone. Our mission as Jesus states in Matthew is to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." But we're meant to accomplish this with the church. Not the building you meet in every Sunday, but the body of Christ. All believers. And this is where fellowship comes in.
   To me, fellowship used to mean the thing we did as a church during picnics and fun activities. Talking with my Christian friends. That pretty much summed it up. Not really any different from what I do with my non-Christian friends. But Francis defined fellowship as something deeper. As the church, we should share everything with each other, bearing each other's burdens. Our fellowship as a church is being a family. Caring for one another. It was said that fellowship and transparency go hand in hand. That's a little scary, but it's the true unity we should have in the church. We need to have each other's backs.
   Besides it being necessary for our personal walk with Christ, why should the church be such a display of family? You can't tell forgiveness. You can only show it. And when others witness the love believers have for each, and the forgiveness we give to our family when they wrong us, they will see Christ's love. Our unity makes the message believable.
   To accomplish God's mission, we need others with us. We need to show Jesus to the world by the way we interact with each other. We weren't meant to live in isolation. The church was meant to be a greater unity, a deeper love, a family.

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

John 17:20-23

GNO - Good Times

   I've been MIA for a few days... This would be because of a day of fun, a day of sleep, and a day of busyness. We'll start with the fun first :)

   Girls' Night Out!!!

   This night was super fun. We had our hair and makeup done by a fabulous woman from our church; we traveled to one of the girls' house to have dinner (lasagna - my favorite!); then we put on our fancy dresses, went to a fancy restaurant, and drank fancy drinks (I had a Cinderella!) and ate fancy desserts. As I said, SUPER fun :)

   Two lovelies from the young adult group in our church came to do the devotional for us. They had just come back from Passion and decided to give us a condensed version of Beth Moore's speech on the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. That little passage somehow brought everyone out and almost everyone was giving some insight or opening up about something. I think we finally had our "bonding moment" as a group - and we also decided that GNOs should be more often than once a year; we're aiming for another one in, perhaps, April!

   We watched some videos I had put together from past GNOs; Just Dance was played for about 15 minutes (they were a very hilarious 15 minutes); we played Quelf, which is, I'm pretty sure, the best game ever invented; an even funnier game of What If came about (this game is a tradition at all girly get-togethers); we doodled on the faces of some sleepers; we *sorta* watched Saw (I fell asleep...).

   Breakfast was a feast. But we found out that we were going to be delayed on returning home. The night had brought us 4 inches of snow and the roads were a mess. But nobody complained about the extra chill time, of course. We eventually made it home :)

Getting hair done!

Makeup!

Sisters :P

Another set of sisters :P

Caught that at the perfect moment

In case you didn't recognize the lovely on the left, it's Miss Natalia from The Journal of Natalia Rose!

 Black eye shadow makes a beautiful mustache ;)

FOOD!

Cheers♥

The Temporary and the Everlasting

   So last night I had a huge breakdown - but a good breakdown. I think sometimes I just get overwhelmed emotionally and, on very rare occasions, it just brings me to my knees and makes me praise God. Not whine, not complain, not ask for things I want, but just legit praising and worshiping of Him. I pray that He may be pleased with my miniscule offering, all that I have to give Him; just a small taste of my thanks and gratefulness.

Yes, I am so attractive.

 

   I read through a few Psalms, just randomly opening my Bible and hoping to find something that may express my praise in some way. I eventually got to Psalm 23, a very familiar passage - ya know, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..." etc., etc. But I really read it, each phrase individually, and for the first time, I think I really comprehended what it said.

 

 

  I'll spare you my findings, but one thing that really hit me was in verse 3: "he restores my soul." And that's not a past tense statement. It's present tense. And for those of you who slept through English class, that means that it's presently occurring - it's still happening! (Well... maybe that's not technically what the present tense means, but I think it's what this verse means!) In the hard times, the times of sorrow, when you can't take one more thing, He completely restores you and recharges your spiritual battery. He gives a peace that no one else can give.

 

   One last gooshy thing: God never changes. Change has been something I have always had a very hard time dealing with. And especially recently, things have been... a little overwhelming. I haven't been adjusting well to all the changes in my life, and every day has been breaking me down more and more. But I've truly discovered the peace in an unchanging God. He can't change. It is impossible for Him to change! And in a world and life that is always flipping something another way, it is extremely comforting to know God will never change! Friends can move away, family members will leave this life, children grow up, but God will always be there, always the same, always God.

   On a much lighter note...

   MY BESTEST FRIEND CAME HOME!!!!!

    Rachel, the girl who has been living in Germany for 4 months, FINALLY came home for Christmas!! Best Christmas present ever. And as depressing as it is knowing she'll be going back in a few weeks, I've found such amazing comfort in our unchanging God, who won't ever leave me and can give me to strength to handle anything.

 

 Model poses :P

   Oh yea, just FYI, these pictures are from tonight's youth group, uh... gathering. We had an interesting time... yea.

 

 

 

We played a very dangerous game of Spoons. Three people were bleeding in the end... I was one of them.

 

The lovely lady returned home :)

 

And I don't care how disgusting I look in this picture. I only care that we have finally been reunited ♥

Christmas Party

   Last night was my youth group's annual Christmas party. It was filled with enough punch, cookies, and pizza to last us till next Christmas!

   The day started out a bit stressful. I was in charge of making pizza (which I've never actually done by myself), and I was making some fancy gluten-free dough. And since I was preparing it at my grandma's house, I didn't have half the ingredients up there, so my mom had to bring everything up... after she came home from the store - an hour and a half before the party.

   Someone had left the yeast out on the pantry shelf and it must be frozen at all times. That was the first sign of bad things to come. We were hoping the yeast wasn't rancid. My mom was awesome enough to make the regular pizza dough for me, and my sister and brother grated most of the cheese. But after my mom was finished mixing all the ingredients together, she discovered that one of the ingredients was not like the others. The dough didn't taste too yummy.

 

   It was assumed that the yeast was bad and if that was the case, we weren't sure if we would have time to run to the store. My mom decided to try out a different flour just in case that was the problem. At the same time, I was afraid that my gluten-free pizza dough wasn't going to turn out right. I'd never made it before and wasn't sure what it was supposed to look or taste like!

   I walked down to my house (in the dark. 'Twas scary O_O) to grab the gift certificate for my youth leader and some more cheese. The whole way down I was praying to God that things would work out. Eventually I told Him that I trusted Him in whatever happened, whether we had pizza or not. I trusted Him to work everything out for good.

   When I returned, slightly more calm than before, I walked into the kitchen and my mom says, "Everything's fine." It was only the flour that we were using, and a different flour fixed everything! And on top of that, my pizza dough (that I was convinced had failed) worked out too! It was extremely pasty, but after baking it and discovering it baked fine, we made topped it with cheese and pepperoni and, in fact, received several compliments on it! Praise the Lord!

   In the end, everything was a success (even my untested punch). More things than what were mentioned caused me to become very stressed out that day, but all worked out for good.

   What I learned? Trust God - always.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Romans 8:28

   And today's lesson? Never mentally complain about washing the dishes - it results in a fork prong under your pinky nail.

Cheers♥

Books & Things

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So the book sale today ended up not being so bad! We got there about 11:30, got in 12:45, and left at 2:00! All things considering, it wasn't bad AT ALL. I saw some friends, found some awesome literature, unfortunately didn't find my Doctor Who book, but still had a not so bad day.

   We went to Sam's Club, I got a Coke Icee, ate the healthiest I've eaten in forever (I had a salad for dinner. A SALAD.), and I feel pretty awesome! I even attempted to do some cardio this morning. It still felt awesome to finally get out and exercise!

   I found a really awesome video series from the Harris brothers' Rebelution site! I was so encouraged to hear about the stand their taking to do hard things and make sure the teenagers in America aren't wasting their youth in laziness. They're rebelling against the standard that teens have been held to nowadays. They're saying that teens can do amazing, important things and make a difference! Anyway, it's awesome. Check out this video and the rest of the series!

I'm getting kind of excited about all the things I have to plan. For a while I was feeling really overwhelmed and discouraged, but I've gotten this sudden interest to go all OCD and start organizing and planning some events! There's my youth group's Christmas party coming up that's going to be held at my grandparents'; the Christmas program is in a little over a month and there's still SO much to do for that; Girls/Guys Night Out is after the new year and plans will have to be made for that pretty soon. So yea, I'm psyched!

Cheers♥

Hated for Saving a Life

 

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Song Stuck-In-My-Head: Someone Like You by Adele

New TV Show Obsession: The Walking Dead

   I'm not gonna lie - I just wrote up a hugely long post, but decided it was too much, so I erased it all. Thirty-one minutes of my life erased by a button. I copied it just in case this one doesn't work out though. ;)

   This is now my third try at writing this post. *Sigh* Too many ideas.

   Okay. So tonight's message at youth group? Really good. Our regular youth pastor didn't speak. Instead, a man who is supposed to eventually be taking over much of the weight of the job spoke. And I have to say, he did a really fantastic job. I have proof of that - a page and a half of notes (compared to my normal half page. I'm sure you were all momentarily confused). Anyway, you touched on some really good points. Sometimes things get a bit repetitious when you have the same eprson speaking on the same subject for six months. I mean, our youth pastor if absolutely amazing, but sometimes it's good to shake things up a bit. This did the trick. He even got the parents involved (tonight was for the students and parents) which we haven't done in a while. Usually they just sit there, but tonight at the end we sat with our parents and asked them to pray about one thing for us. It was something new and put a little less pressure on us kids and more on the 'rents. (gotta make 'em sweat a bit too, ya know? ;) I have a bunch of new things that I can really apply to my life and it was a huge encouragement to really get something out of it.

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   I had an interesting time at Wal-Mart. Since we've upgraded from a mini-Wal-Mart to a mini-Super Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart has a grown in its a occurrences of interesting happenings. Today it was a combination of trying on Star Wars masks, having a light saber/ Nerf gun war, and playing football with my brother in the aisles. Oh, and my grandma drive her scooter cart into the wall trying to park it. I walked away and tried to pretend I wasn't related to her. It was pretty dang funny though :p Oh the memories you make at Wal-Mart.

Cheers♥

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