Happy Easter!

Relentless

Tonight, I was at a gathering of most of the churches in my area. It was to be a night of fellowship. I sat behind two kids. One couldn't have been older than 4 or 5, and the other was probably about 7. During worship, the 4 year old was going at it. He was jumping up and down, waving his arms and singing along. I could tell that his brother was getting embarrassed and tried to get him to stop. But this kid, he was relentless! And he kept going at it. Then, soon after, his older brother's heart softened and he started jumping around and dancing with him. It was beautiful. God spoke to my heart at that moment. He was telling me that even though the world will try to make us stop chasing after Him, we should be relentless. We shouldn't stop pursuing Him. We need to keep going strong. And if we do, other's will see that we love What we're living for, and they might start to join in. We shouldn't settle with being lukewarm. We should chase after God, and be amazed by what He does.

Concert:)

I haven't posted in forever!!!
Woah...I've been sooo busy lately! With school and homework and everything...I never seem to have the time to be online!
Last week, I even went to a concert! And not just any concert, but a TENTH AVENUE NORTH concert!!!
It was amazing<3
Moriah Peters and Rend Collective Experiment opened up for them. They were awesome too! I love Moriah  Peter's song Well Done and Rend Collective's Build Your Kingdom Here.
The lead singer of Tenth Avenue North spoke before each song. It was amazing...there was one point where he was talking about how when his kids want to be held, they'll lift their hands to him to get him to pick them up. Then he asked for everyone to raise their hands at the same time, and to ask God to hold them. It was such a beautiful and intimate time of worship. If you haven't been to one of their concerts, you should go to one! :)

My Wish by Rascal Flatts

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,Yeah, this, is my wish.


My Wish, by Rascall Flatts.

I love this song so much...I mean it almost brings me to tears sometimes. It's not particularly Christian, but it's so beautiful, and to me it means something to do with Jesus. My Wish is so beautiful, because it talks about life. I guess I'm just rambling here, so yeah haha.

But for real. Jesus' wish for us is that our lives are amazing and that they turn out to be more than we could ever imagine or fathom. Jesus wants our dreams to stay big, that we can do great things for His Kingdom. He wants our worries to stay small and for us to trust in Him more. He doesn't want us to carry more than we can hold, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He will carry our worries for us! And most of all, He wants us to have the knowledge that Someone loves us. That Someone who created the Heavens and the stars, that Someone who invented life itself, gave everything to show that He loves us.

This song makes me kinda sad sometimes too. Have you ever watched a whole series of a show, and then you watch the last episode and feel a small void afterwards? It's like theres a teensy bit of emptiness inside. Or if you go on to a different part of your life, say you move schools, or you move states. And it's the next chapter of your life. And you feel that little ache inside you. Part of you is aching for the past. 

For me, well my best friend moved a little over a year ago. She moved from a small(ish) town in the midwest to Florida! Right outside of Orlando! She literally goes to Disney at least once or twice a month. When she first told me the news, (about her moving) in November of last year, I couldn't hold the tears back. My mom later told me that if you had looked at my face at that moment, you'd a thought someone had died. I probably overreacted, but what can you do? At the moment it felt like my whole world had toppled over and ended. We had only known each other for a year, and she was already moving! I couldn't believe it. She was excited about moving to Florida, and why wouldn't she be? I felt like I had gotten the bad end of the deal, until I realized that that means I get to go to Disney when I visit her! :) Looking back, I know what I was doing wrong. I invested a lot of time into my relationship with her. I don't regret it, but what I do regret is not investing enough in Jesus. I didn't nurture my relationship with Him as much as I did mine with her. It's so easy to put something earthly before something Heavenly. I guess it's because the effect is immediate, and Heaven seems too far away. But I now know that if I had invested enough into my relationship with God, I wouldn't have felt so empty inside the day she left. Now that I've gotten used to her being gone, I realize that all my fears were stupid. We're still great friends! Maybe even better than before, but only because we have God at the center. That way, when we care for our friendship, both of us are strengthened in our faith too:)

My friend is visiting in February, and I can't wait! It's going to be awesome:) Jesus has been so faithful in helping me get through this. i sometimes miss her a lot, like when I see things on TV that we used to watch together, or when I find a note or two that we passed during class:) But God is enough to help both of us get through it!

The moral of the story here: Put all your trust in Jesus and the overflow of your relationship with him will pour into the rest of your life.

Steal My Show by tobyMac

If You wanna steal my show
I'll sit back and watch You goIf You got somethin' to sayGo on and take it awayNeed You to steal my showCan't wait to watch You go, oh, ohSo take it away Steal My Show by tobyMac

I love this song so much! It illustrates completely how I’ve been feeling lately.Recently, my heart has really been to be a mouthpiece for God. That’s what my whole blog is about; being available for God to use me to reach people.Many of my friends and people from my church have told me that I should be a pastor. That’s confirmation of what I feel called to be. It comes as a surprise to many adults and other teens I know. It’s not really considered normal for a teenager to want to be a pastor. But they all tell me that I’m qualified to do it with God’s help.The truth is, they don’t see the ways in which I fall short in my life. Very few of my friends see me in the entirety of my life. Most of the people from my church only see me in my church life. Most of my school friends only see me in my school life. Very rarely do my friends see my home life. They don’t see me having trouble getting along with my younger sisters, and they don’t see me forget to do my daily chores because I’m too busy checking up on Cory and Topanga on Boy Meets World. My church and school like are mostly connected, but I sometimes have trouble acting like the same person at home.I don’t know why but it seems so much easier to be patient with my friends at school than it is with my family at home. Maybe it has to do with the fact that we know how our family members fall short. Living with someone really teaches you thinks about them that you can’t see out in public. People do things in the privacy of their home that they wouldn’t do in public because there isn’t any fear that an outsider might learn of it. But what if we could treat our siblings as we would each of our friends? With kindness and being slow to anger. Hard? Very. Impossible? No. We need God’s help. We can’t do it on our own.I’ve been called so many things as a highschooler. “moral”, “religious”, “too-good”, “goody-goody”. So many of these things were meant as insults, but I always take them as compliments. They brought to my attention that people see something different in me, and they recognize it. I want God to help me be more different, to the point where they don’t just see Jesus in me, but they recognize that it is Jesus. I want them to know that the difference in me is Jesus and that He can change them too. I don’t want them to think I’m “good” on my own. The truth is, without Jesus, I don’t know if I would even be friends with the same people. I want to have such a radical faith that people don’t just see it, but they are drawn to it. I want people to thirst for Jesus when they see my life. And I don’t want them to think that I’m better than them. I want them to see that I am weak, like them, but that Jesus is my strength.I want to be able to love people radically. Including those in my home. I want to love Jesus at home as much as I do in church and in school. I don’t want to be two different people anymore. I want to be one person, with an unshakeable faith and love for Jesus. When people look at me, I don’t want them to see me. I want them to see Jesus.I just want people to see Christ in me. I don’t even care if they know my name as long as they get to know my God.

Speaking The Truth in Love

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. -Martin Luther King, Jr.This quote means so much to me because it is so true. Many people might think of this quote differently than I do. But this is my blog so I’ll tell you all what it means to me :)What are the things that matter, that Christians have become silent about?Well, lets think about that for a minute. What are some things going on in the world today, that we have become silent about in an effort to keep from “Offending” people?Sin mostly...well, actually, sin entirely!We see someone we know living a life of sin, but we don’t say anything in fear that it might offend them. We see a fellow Christian, doing something that God clearly says is wrong, but we don’t call them out on it because we don’t want to make them feel bad. I’m not saying to go out into the world and point out ways that people are sinning.I’m saying that we need to be more about loving people to the point where we speak the truth in love, even if the truth might sting a little bit. If we remain silent about sin, then our lives are meaningless. God cannot use us unless we are making ourselves available to him to make disciples.Maybe you have a Christian friend that swears a lot, and its effecting their witness. Maybe you should bring it to their attention. But do it in a kind and loving way.Or if you have a friend who doesn’t know Jesus. Tell them about your friend Jesus who changed the way you live your life.Remember to pray about things before doing them. Sometimes, when people get offended, it means they feel convicted. So don’t let the fear of offending someone hold you back from speaking the truth! Would you rather offend someone to heaven, or flatter them to hell?