Wow! It sure has been quite a long time since my last update! The reason being I have been CRAZY busy with soooo much schoolwork! The end of the semester is nearing and now all the big projects and assignments are coming together at one time. That is not cool at all :P Fortunately I'm doing pretty well with Algebra and Humanities (shocking, I know), but Oceanography does not have a particular liking to me, or me to it. Either way, it has been difficult balancing the amount of work for all classes and understanding the content all together. I got "F"s on my last two tests (and I'm not proud of it), but hopefully I'll do well on the last few assignments, exam, and the final project! I think I'll be fine with Psychology. It's not too difficult at the moment and the big stuff (save the final exam) are already out of the way.
Lately, I haven't been spending time in the Word and that for sure I am not proud of! With so much busyness and spending quality time with family and friends, it has been tough :P In fact, technically, I could be in it right now, but at least I spend time in prayer all the time, so it's not like God is entirely out of the picture; not by a long shot! I'm hoping to get back into the habit once again :) For the moment, I just wanted to update.
If anyone says that God doesn't care about the little things in your life, they are wrong! God cares so deeply and intimately about EVERYTHING in your life and you!! Just read Psalm 139 and you'll see! Recently, God has pulled together what I thought was chaos into now what I see was (and is) a lesson! Hindsight is 20/20 and that is absolutely true! I questioned what God was up to, but then I submitted myself to Him and He took control from there! Let me just say that things are really looking up again for me and others around me!
And about the discipleship I want to be doing, I'm not sure how it's going to go yet. Lord willing, I will be getting some "training" (not the most in-depth, but sufficient enough) in the New Testament, but I haven't gotten a call back in almost a week. Part of me is wondering if this is a good idea now or not. I don't know. I was so sure, but then I think my excitement kinda got the best of me and now I've put myself in a spot that I feel I don't belong in. Maybe not though. I've been praying and asking God if I should follow through with the plan, but no signifcant answers are showing. And now I don't even know if I want to go to a Bible college! It's like I'm sure and unsure at the same time of where I should go in my life. It's confusing and annoying. I'm starting to think that more prayer needs to be involved and less action at the moment...
April 20, 2011
April 04, 2011
Craziness
So now I'm back on Facebook and surprisingly I haven't been on it as much as before! Maybe it's because I got used to not going on it the past week? I'd like to think so!
During that time I focused on my schoolwork (boy was it stressful!) and I spent a lot of my time praying and getting into God's Word. Although, I wasn't in the Word as much as I hoped, but at least I talked to God throughout every day :) Putting away a distraction like Facebook was pretty sweet! I'm thinking once summer comes around officially (basically when school's out), I might be off it some more and try to hang out in person with friends and family. I think that would be nice! But for now, some of my friends' only way of communication with me is through Facebook, so it makes it a kind of convenience at the moment.
This past week was pretty insane! Never had a tornado alert issued over the loudspeaker at the library! In fact, they said it was the first time they ever had to do that, so I felt honored and privileged to a part of it, lol! It was kinda scary though because the clouds were really black and I knew something was up, or coming down. Then we gathered everyone that was in the library into the hallways, away from all the windows, and just waited for the storm to pass. I then texted friends and family who were unaware of the situation and let them know to take cover. It was scary. But it all turned out well :) A side story though: there was a guy there who was still on the computer while we told everyone to get off and get into the hallway, so we told him that it's not a drill and he had to get off right now. He got all mad and then complied and went into the hallway where he started complaining about how ridiculous this was because he was in the middle of watching a movie. Are you serious? Kinda messed up if you ask me, but whatever :P
Yesterday (Sunday April 3), I read a book called "Go Ask Alice". It's the real diary of a girl who gets addicted to drugs and it is absolutely eye-opening! Considering I'm getting into youth ministry, I wanted to read it in order to get a grasp of the crazy things teens are into nowadays and to understand what goes on in the world. In fact, the girl who wrote the diary, lived in the 60s, so even then teens were into messed up things! I encourage anyone to read the book, but be forewarned: there are very disturbing situations talked about and some heavy language is used in some of the entries. And what makes it actually sad is that this diary is of a real person; the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and circumstances. It made it more real to me. A very powerful book indeed; definitely hard to swallow.
And right now, I'm hanging around with gauze in my mouth because I got my wisdom teeth pulled today. I was scared at first, but I trusted God and asked for peace, which I got (but it may have been the nitrous oxide or the anesthsia, lol). Either way, I wasn't nervous before I got the laughing gas, so definitely a God thing :) So far the bleeding hasn't stopped and it's been ten and a half hours, but it is getting better! The pain is no fun either. But at least I'm missing school this week and I can just chill for now. I'm actually putting together a Bible study for me and my friend, so I'm having a fun time putting it together and asking the Holy Spirit for guidance. It's amazing all the things you can learn from only 10 verses!! The Bible is absolutely amazing and I'm just psyched to be getting into it! God is amazing for sure and He always will be!
During that time I focused on my schoolwork (boy was it stressful!) and I spent a lot of my time praying and getting into God's Word. Although, I wasn't in the Word as much as I hoped, but at least I talked to God throughout every day :) Putting away a distraction like Facebook was pretty sweet! I'm thinking once summer comes around officially (basically when school's out), I might be off it some more and try to hang out in person with friends and family. I think that would be nice! But for now, some of my friends' only way of communication with me is through Facebook, so it makes it a kind of convenience at the moment.
This past week was pretty insane! Never had a tornado alert issued over the loudspeaker at the library! In fact, they said it was the first time they ever had to do that, so I felt honored and privileged to a part of it, lol! It was kinda scary though because the clouds were really black and I knew something was up, or coming down. Then we gathered everyone that was in the library into the hallways, away from all the windows, and just waited for the storm to pass. I then texted friends and family who were unaware of the situation and let them know to take cover. It was scary. But it all turned out well :) A side story though: there was a guy there who was still on the computer while we told everyone to get off and get into the hallway, so we told him that it's not a drill and he had to get off right now. He got all mad and then complied and went into the hallway where he started complaining about how ridiculous this was because he was in the middle of watching a movie. Are you serious? Kinda messed up if you ask me, but whatever :P
Yesterday (Sunday April 3), I read a book called "Go Ask Alice". It's the real diary of a girl who gets addicted to drugs and it is absolutely eye-opening! Considering I'm getting into youth ministry, I wanted to read it in order to get a grasp of the crazy things teens are into nowadays and to understand what goes on in the world. In fact, the girl who wrote the diary, lived in the 60s, so even then teens were into messed up things! I encourage anyone to read the book, but be forewarned: there are very disturbing situations talked about and some heavy language is used in some of the entries. And what makes it actually sad is that this diary is of a real person; the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and circumstances. It made it more real to me. A very powerful book indeed; definitely hard to swallow.
And right now, I'm hanging around with gauze in my mouth because I got my wisdom teeth pulled today. I was scared at first, but I trusted God and asked for peace, which I got (but it may have been the nitrous oxide or the anesthsia, lol). Either way, I wasn't nervous before I got the laughing gas, so definitely a God thing :) So far the bleeding hasn't stopped and it's been ten and a half hours, but it is getting better! The pain is no fun either. But at least I'm missing school this week and I can just chill for now. I'm actually putting together a Bible study for me and my friend, so I'm having a fun time putting it together and asking the Holy Spirit for guidance. It's amazing all the things you can learn from only 10 verses!! The Bible is absolutely amazing and I'm just psyched to be getting into it! God is amazing for sure and He always will be!
March 28, 2011
It's Been a While...
Wow, it's been a while! I'm not sure what in the world was keeping me from updating for the past few days, but whatever it was, it sure did, haha! Well, quite honestly, there isn't a whole bunch to update on, which is surprising (considering the fact that it has been like a week), but there are still a few things. Last week was the busiest academic week I had and I thought I wasn't going to finish everything in time, but I somehow pulled it off two days prior to Sunday, so that made me quite happy! I was most impressed with my most amazing feat of writing my Humanities paper in two days and getting an A on it :D Pretty cool stuff though. I also had to do a post for Oceanography about evolution, so I presented "evidence" that supposedly supported the theory and then pointed out the flaws in the evidence. Usually I was using common sense about how the evidence wasn't adding up, but I did use a lot of scientific answers to refute the evolutionary evidence as well. I thought I was going to get a lot of hate posts against it, but so far none, lol! Also, it was the longest discussion post I did for any class (about 2000+ words)! Pretty exciting, I guess?? Fortunately, this week isn't so bad and I don't have as much to do, so I think the stress level will be relatively low. One of the big things I'm doing right now is staying off of Facebook for at least a week! I started yesterday and plan on going 'til next Sunday. Who knows? I might even go longer ;) The reason why I'm doing this "lent-ish"- type thing is because I have been on Facebook waaaayyy too much lately and it has distracted me from friends, school, and most importantly, my relationship with God, and that's what I wanted to avoid doing. So I figure that being off of Facebook for a week will probably do more good than harm in the long run. The ONLY reason why I might probably go on at least once this week is if/when I update saying that I updated this blog (which I do every time I update this). And if I do that, I won't be looking at notifications, reading friends' comments, accepting friend requests, or reading personal messages. Now Facebook is good and all, but I see one pretty darn major problem with it and it's this: it tends to take away the value of real friendships and communication. Like, sometimes I find it easier to chat with someone on Facebook rather than in-person and what do you think that will do to me in time? Probably give me even more of a problem with socializing and I'm currently trying to work on it, so FB would be pretty counter-productive. But really more importantly, I want to make sure my relationship with God is the top reason for my living here on this earth, not waiting around for a notification. So yeah, that's just me. But if you're like me and you find yourself on FB more than in face-to-face conversation with someone or just not doing anything else BUT that, maybe you should consider being entirely off of FB for a week and see what that does. I have to admit, it is kinda hard right now, but that shows how much I've been attached to it lately. I tend to struggle with idolatry at times and I kinda don't want to fall into right now or ever, you know what I mean? Oh, and I'm going to be preparing for discipleship of a middleschooler. Mainly, I'm going to be reading, interpreting, and learning more about the New Testament; getting a good Biblical foundation. I'm still praying about Bible college in the future, so we'll see how that goes. But I sure would like to go to a Bible college to get even better equipped for ministry. It's exciting though! May God have all the glory and not me :)
March 19, 2011
Just Another Update
So for the past three days I've been sick and not enjoying it at all. Fortunately I completed all the schoolwork I needed to do for the week, so that makes me quite happy amongst the icky feelings :P Today I went to work and it was no fun, but the day passed pretty quickly for me, thus making me deal with the boredom. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, but not when I'm sick, lol! It was all good though, and I got to get a little sleep today, although some dude from Louisiana kept calling me so I finally picked up and said that he had the wrong number. That settled that, haha! And last night I was doing a whole bunch of web cam "video blogs", I guess you could call it, in hopes of posting on of them on Facebook, but it never happened, lol! I figured, "I'm home alone, sick, and bored...I'll make a video". And not too long ago I was just reading some old Breakaway magazines that I have and man let me tell you, I love them so much! It's amazing what I learn whenever I open an issue! Pretty sweet for sure! :D
And last night before I went and crashed on my bed out of sheer weakness and stuffy noses, I went to church to meet up with Pastor Tim in order to give him my volunteer papers, so I'm quite psyched about that! :) I'm not sure what God is entirely up to right now, but at least He knows and I trust that whole-heartedly! I still continue to pray daily, asking Him if this is what He wants me to do because my biggest fear (among many of my biggest fears) is not consulting God before making a big decision like this and I just merely want to do the right thing according to His Will :) But I think it would be oxymoronic (if that's even a word) to be fearful over not following God's Will. I mean, shouldn't I NOT be fearful in this situation 'cause, after all, God IS in control. So, I'll definitely work on that :) God is truly amazing and it is totally worth every step of the way when trusting Him :)
And last night before I went and crashed on my bed out of sheer weakness and stuffy noses, I went to church to meet up with Pastor Tim in order to give him my volunteer papers, so I'm quite psyched about that! :) I'm not sure what God is entirely up to right now, but at least He knows and I trust that whole-heartedly! I still continue to pray daily, asking Him if this is what He wants me to do because my biggest fear (among many of my biggest fears) is not consulting God before making a big decision like this and I just merely want to do the right thing according to His Will :) But I think it would be oxymoronic (if that's even a word) to be fearful over not following God's Will. I mean, shouldn't I NOT be fearful in this situation 'cause, after all, God IS in control. So, I'll definitely work on that :) God is truly amazing and it is totally worth every step of the way when trusting Him :)
March 14, 2011
I'm Not Just Gonna Sit
So I'm super excited about an awesome opportunity! In about a week or so, I'm gonna get to volunteer at Pathways Community Church discipling a middle-schooler(s)! This is how it all came about:
Well lately (as you all know because I kept repeating myself, lol) I've been growing more and more passionate about Christ and youth ministry and I would like (and I believe God is calling me) to go into full-time youth ministry in the future. So I've been reading up on ministry and getting counsel about it and just getting the best knowledge that I can. I also have been thinking about going to a Bible college after I get my General AA at SPC and pursuing my AA in Biblical Studies. But all of that seems to be quite some time into the future and I didn't want to just sit there and wait (unless God wanted me to wait and He sure would let me know that) so I thought to myself, "I wonder if there is a way that I can somehow get involved in youth ministry right now; to get some hands-on experience, training, and to just serve in some way." I asked my youth pastor, Tim, if there was any need of volunteers in the ministry (to help disciple teens preferably) and indeed there is! So I got to meet with him today to get to know each other and to discuss ministry (and for me to sign papers, lol). I'm not sure what God is gonna do yet, but I know that if this isn't what He wants me to do, then He will close the door. But so far, it seems to be falling into place and quite frankly, it's kinda scary. Scary in the sense that it's a new thing and this is for real. It's kind of out of the planning process and getting into production now, which is totally different. Of course Satan comes in with attacks like making me doubt that I can handle this or feel like I'm not ready or "cut out" for it. I ignore these doubts and try to focus on God alone because I know that youth ministry is where I'm headed, I just want God's hand to be fully upon me and leading me to where I need to go. We'll see where this leads. And who knows, maybe this could be the start of the rest of my life; happening in a way I never thought possible! Only God and time will tell. In the meantime, I could use lots of prayer for strength, confidence, and complete faith and trust in the works of God, knowing He will supply me everything I need! I'm really excited and nervous, but I know it will be greatly rewarding in the end :)
Well lately (as you all know because I kept repeating myself, lol) I've been growing more and more passionate about Christ and youth ministry and I would like (and I believe God is calling me) to go into full-time youth ministry in the future. So I've been reading up on ministry and getting counsel about it and just getting the best knowledge that I can. I also have been thinking about going to a Bible college after I get my General AA at SPC and pursuing my AA in Biblical Studies. But all of that seems to be quite some time into the future and I didn't want to just sit there and wait (unless God wanted me to wait and He sure would let me know that) so I thought to myself, "I wonder if there is a way that I can somehow get involved in youth ministry right now; to get some hands-on experience, training, and to just serve in some way." I asked my youth pastor, Tim, if there was any need of volunteers in the ministry (to help disciple teens preferably) and indeed there is! So I got to meet with him today to get to know each other and to discuss ministry (and for me to sign papers, lol). I'm not sure what God is gonna do yet, but I know that if this isn't what He wants me to do, then He will close the door. But so far, it seems to be falling into place and quite frankly, it's kinda scary. Scary in the sense that it's a new thing and this is for real. It's kind of out of the planning process and getting into production now, which is totally different. Of course Satan comes in with attacks like making me doubt that I can handle this or feel like I'm not ready or "cut out" for it. I ignore these doubts and try to focus on God alone because I know that youth ministry is where I'm headed, I just want God's hand to be fully upon me and leading me to where I need to go. We'll see where this leads. And who knows, maybe this could be the start of the rest of my life; happening in a way I never thought possible! Only God and time will tell. In the meantime, I could use lots of prayer for strength, confidence, and complete faith and trust in the works of God, knowing He will supply me everything I need! I'm really excited and nervous, but I know it will be greatly rewarding in the end :)
March 10, 2011
A Missed Chance, But Not the Last
So yesterday, I did pretty much nothing since I'm on Spring Break and quite honestly, I feel very guilty about it. I always talk about how I want to make the most out of Christ every day of my life and here I was sitting in my room on the computer watching Youtube videos. Yeah, believe it or not, that's what I did practically all day :/ And to think, God blessed me like crazy to live that day and we're made to worship and enjoy Him and we as Christians have the duty of spreading the Gospel of Christ. I did not live that out and I wish so badly that I could that day back and retry it over. And I thought to myself: what if Christ came back at that moment and saw me just watching Youtube videos while I was blessed with a beautiful and free day ahead of me and didn't take that opportunity to go share the Gospel with someone in the community? I don't think He would have been pretty happy with that. I'm not even happy with that! And I know He isn't too pleased with what I did.
You know? I don't want to just sit around and read books, watch videos, and listen to sermons about living my life for Christ. That's all good, but what good is it if I don't even get out in the world and actually live it out? It's just like what James says in the New Testament, "Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says" (James 1:22). Lately I have been siting around and reading about living for Christ, but I feel like that just isn't enough. And really, it isn't. I wish I didn't have classes during the week when I'd rather spend that time in God's Word and sharing the Gospel, but I guess we have to work with what we already have and find ways to minister to others in our circumstances. And I think to myself, "That's probably why God has me where I am right now; to share the Gospel with someone who normally wouldn't have heard about it if I wasn't there." That's encouraging to think about and I challenge you with that thought as well :)
"Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." Ephesians 5:15-16
You know? I don't want to just sit around and read books, watch videos, and listen to sermons about living my life for Christ. That's all good, but what good is it if I don't even get out in the world and actually live it out? It's just like what James says in the New Testament, "Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says" (James 1:22). Lately I have been siting around and reading about living for Christ, but I feel like that just isn't enough. And really, it isn't. I wish I didn't have classes during the week when I'd rather spend that time in God's Word and sharing the Gospel, but I guess we have to work with what we already have and find ways to minister to others in our circumstances. And I think to myself, "That's probably why God has me where I am right now; to share the Gospel with someone who normally wouldn't have heard about it if I wasn't there." That's encouraging to think about and I challenge you with that thought as well :)
"Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." Ephesians 5:15-16
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