Hello, everyone! Lately, I’ve been EXTREMELY busy (dictated by all caps…), so I apologize first and foremost for my lack of posts!  To be quite honest, I’ve been going through a spiritual lapse.  Today, though, I just had an awesome intervention by God! It was like peace, yet strength, was running through every fiber of my being.  I was amazed by the love God has for me and I fell in love all over again.  I began to think about how lowly and worthless my praises are in relation to the greatness and grace of God, and how he STILL accepts me with open arms.  There is something that is inexplicable about the presence of God.  It’s just… beautiful!

If you’re having trouble right now, this is a great verse I just looked over.  Even if you’re not in any turmoil, this is still a reassuring Word!

2 Samuel 22: 17-19 

“He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.  He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.  They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support.”

Don’t worry. God puts us through these trials so that we put our faith in him!  He will be with you the entire walk, and will not leave you!  Put your faith in Christ, and you will come out of your slump stronger than before.

Work harder! Play for HIM

I will glorify God for all that He has given me and the strength that I have in Him!

The Olympics are a series of events that top-class athletes train for every 4 years. So much pain and suffering is put into training for the reward of placing for a medal, or even getting to participate in the games.  My pastor preached an awesome sermon about relating the Olympics to our walk with God.  

Swifter. Higher. Stronger.  That’s the Olympic motto.  How can we relate that to our relationship with Christ? Simple.

Swifter: The way Olympic runners stride so swiftly is amazing.  Training to become skilled runners involved sacrifice.  Cutting out things that would add extra weight to their bodies, like food, or literal body weight, allows them to run more swiftly. Rid your self of things that will weigh you down or keep you away from God’s plan.  Shed sin and temptation, and things that you know are your vices.  Without these burdens, your walk with God will be more comfortable and less rocky.  

Higher: Olympic athletes reach new goals and push themselves to rise higher both literally and figuratively.  In our walk with God, we should always look ahead to the ‘next level.’  We should always look to find more ways to serve God.  Reach out to more people, and grow closer to your Lord and Savior.

Stronger: Repetition of exercise is what built up strength for the athletes.  As they continuously pushed their bodies to the limit, they became strong.  Our walk with God can be made stronger simply through perseverance.  It is never easy at the beginning, but as we continue to work through hardships and burdens, we begin to find strength in our God.  If we continue to trust in Christ, we will find strength!

Go out and become Olympic-ready in your sport and your walk with God! Swifter, higher, and stronger, play for HIM!

Switchfoot’s coming to my House of Blues this October! WOOHOO!

There is only one that I aim to please, and His name is Jesus Christ.  There may be crowds and crowds of people cheering my team and I on, but if God is not on my side, then my efforts mean nothing.  

There was this guy my freshman year. Lets call him *brandon* He was a senior. He saw my sadness, and my insecurities and took advantage of them. I was upset because I never had anyone. No one to call my own. He used this to his advantage and messaged me on facebook one day. He told me he liked me. He was also not Christian. He was of the Pagan religion, wiccan.(Oh! and he belived he was a werewolf) My thoughts “wow someone actually likes me” I had never noticed him before but hey he likes me. So what! Well we talked for a weekend, he even went as far as telling me he loved me from the first time he saw me. And for a fifteen year old girl who yearned for love this wasn’t something to look out for, this was something romantic and ever so sweet. He told me things like I was beautiful and pretty.     Things i had ached for my entire teenage life. A couple days after my friend (lets call her *susan*) who was friends with him, and his ex, told me he had a girlfriend. I had no reason to doubt her. She had been there for me since the beginning of the year. I confronted him. It was true. He had a girlfriend. After that I let him go. Or so I thought. I found out he had kissed one of my other friends. (lets call her *carol*) It didn’t bother me when I heard about it. It acctually surprised me greatly because she knew he had a girlfriend. (carol was also a freshman, susan was a senior) Later on that same night, as I sat at the computer going through my regular routine, I started thinking, and I started feeling really sad. I thought about how I had let him go, and how much I really liked him and I started crying. Other than sitting there feeling sorry for myself I did nothing about it. A week later brandon’s girlfriend found out about carol. The two broke up and carol and brandon were going to begin seeing each other. So after that brandon wouldn’t meet carol’s parents, so their friday night plans got cancelled. That same friday i got a call from brandon. He asked if i wanted to hangout for a while. I hadn’t heard about what happened with carol, i just knew that they were over. So I said yes, and he drove over to my house and we sat on my porch and just talked. Then the conversation got personal. By the end of the conversation right before he left, he kissed me. I was thrilled. I mean this was my first kiss.
     Not long after he kissed me, maybe a span of a couple days to a week, he got back togehter with his girlfriend. But we didn’t stop. I was too emotionally invest already. During this time he was not only “seeing” me, he was also seeing carol and unknown amount of other girls. He was truley bad news. But those of us that were “with” him were already too emotionally attached to stop it. Even though we knew it was wrong. This continued for months. A few weeks before school ended carol and brandon got into a huge fight and things ended with them for good. But things still continued between him and I. He graduated and went to basic training for the military.
    Before he left while he still had his phone, we continued to talk. The topics of our conversations got more, and more personal as we continued talking. Subjects and topics I never imagined to have at the age of 15. He even went to as far as asking me to marry him! He being 18, I 15 After he left for basic training we still kept in touch. The “relationship” never ended. We wrote letters back and forth. I let him in to the depths of my emotions. I gave up who I was for him. That summer between freshman and sophomore year I lost who I was. I was as far away from Christ as I’d ever been in my life. I saw no point to religon. I mean I had grown up in a christian home, I had always had christians views and morals, but I never had a relationship with Jesus so I never understood what good this religion was doing me. It came closer to the end of summer about mid-august, nearing the time that brandon would graduate basic training and get his phone and laptop back. While my mom and I were in the car one day, I asked her if we still had the old webcam that used to be hooked up. She asked why, I simply told her I just wondered and she saw through it. (She always knew about brandon, and how he was wiccan. However to this day i can still not tell her that he had a girlfriend. I will always be ashamed of that.) She was not happy. She knew I should not be involved with any boy that is not a Christian. We got into a fight. I was crushed.
Bawling I went over to my friends house for a little while, to cool off.
    A week or too later after the fight had layed heavy on my heart, I was looking into old videos from my youthgroup and how they even spoke about being involved with nonchristians. I knew what I had to do. With the support of my mom, and my best friend carol, I wrote him a letter breaking it off. I was done with it. It was over. I’ll never have to talk to him again. Simple, easy, clean. Oh was I ever so wrong. I sent that letter mid-august. for about a month, things were good, calm. Then he got his phone back, and his laptop. He wasn’t happy. He told me he attempted suicide because of me. He used everything he could to make me feel guilty. Hearing from him again I started to miss him. Missing that “love”. I made the mistake of telling him this. He told me that we could be together again if I didn’t tell anyone. After he told me this I asked him “what about his girlfriend” (which was one of the main reasons I had to break it off) He replied and I quote “what about her?” I took a few hours to reply to him  but i finally told him i couldn’t do it again. So he told me goodbye and to be glad it wasn’t forever.
    Somewhile after that he messaged me on facebook, after I started healing once again. He told me he was sorry, and that he loved me. I had to be honest with him. I told him that the other main reason we couldn’t be together was because of my religion. (i still didn’t really have a relationship with Jesus at that point) He went off on me. Started swearing, and saying horrible things that to this day still hurt me. He bashed me and my religion. That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. After he logged off and said I’m lucky he would still talk to me, I unfriended him, blocked him and never
spoke to him again.
    After that I was crushed. The lowest of low. They say that sometimes you need to be at rock bottom to realize you need the Lord. For about a month I went into a depression. I was starting to get into religion, but still not develop that relationship. about a month later I was at the Family Christian Book Store. I picked up a book called “The Young Lady In Waiting; developing the heart of a princess.” This book truly transformed my life. Opened my eyes to the fact that Jesus is the ultimate Bridgroom. He is the one and only who can complete us. I began to heal. I truly began to develop that relationship I always longed for. Except this time it was with Jesus.
    I’ve had a few slip ups since then, I’ve fallen, but I am now repatching my relationship and really full heartedly going after Jesus. About 4 months ago (April 13, 2012) *brandon* passed away. From what I read he had a rare cancer. During my time of healing I had prayed for him. I prayed that he found Jesus. I’m not sure if he ever did because after that
day that he said those horrible words, I never spoke to him again.
    I know it was really long guys, but if you took the time to read my testimony thank you. It took me about an
hour to write it. I never wrote it out this in depth before, so this was all for you guys. God bless!<3