God is Faithful

It is the end of another school year. As I begin to reflect on the past year I begin to see some themes that appear. To be quite honest this has been a very hard year but I look back and I can see that I have grown through this time. A year ago today I was packing my bags moving out of Shatford with a sad but hard heart. It was during the summer months that I struggled with whether I wanted to follow Christ. I was struggling with what I believed and why I believed it. God finally gave me the choice, do i choose him or do I chose to live life my way. I didn't realize that when i chose to follow him that he would take me down a road that would be rough and long but would bring me closer to him. At the end of July, my family found out that my mom had cancer. That changed my world. I can't explain what I felt at the moment the doctor told us the news. My world was turned up-side down. I suddenly didn't know if I was even going to return to school in the fall. I moved into school in September with feelings of uncertainty and apprehension. It has been a long journey. Trials and tribulations. This year has been a time of testing and growth. God is building in me character. He is not done. I have lots more to learn. God is showing me that he is in control and that I need to trust him and his timing. He has asked me to surrender things that I was scared to give up. It meant that I was not in the drivers seat anymore but through it all God has proven that he is faithful. I desire to be a woman after God's own heart.
The verses of the year:

"2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.

I am not, but I know the I AM

EASTER

My favorite holiday. EASTER. What makes me so excited is to be able to gather with fellow believers on a Sunday morning and rejoice with each other because of God's great love and grace we are now able to be sons and daughters of the living God. What Jesus did on that cross is amazing and i hope I never lose sight of that, but even more important is what happened on Sunday. He rose from the grave . He defeated death. What I think is an awesome thing that our church decided to do this past Sunday, is to have a baptism on Easter. I cannot put into words what I felt. It was so powerful and so exciting. The joy on their faces when they came out of the water. God was present in that place. I could sense the joy on his face seeing his sons and daughters profess through the act of baptism that they choose to serve him with their lives. It was also a time of freedom. I think as a body of believers we felt the freedom and the chains being lifted because of what Christ did on that Sunday so very long ago. We realize how extravagant his love really his and the extreme measures he took to get our attention.

Chicago

This weekend I was able to head up to the great windy city of Chicago. It was amazing. I LOVE big cities. Chicago is one of the top cities that I love. Of course New York City is my number 1.

Anyway. I went with about 30 girls from the social work department. It was a weekend of cultural diversity and an urban experience. It did not go exactly as planned but it allows for a great story as you will see. We were split into groups of about 4-5 girls and we were dropped off at certain points in the city. Well we were all dropped off in the south side of Chicago. My group gets out of the vans and we start walking. Not even a block later a cop car pulls over and asks us if we know where we are and if we are lost. We say that we are trying to get to the train station to get on the train to go to Fullerton street. Well they were not happy and they told us to get into the car. We were unsure if we should do this but we got in. They started asking us questions and why the f-ing reason we were in that neighborhood. We proceeded to tell them that it was a school trip. They proceeded to cuss out our professor(who was not with us by the way). They then told us that we have to contact every group and let them know where they all were so that they could pick them up. They then dropped us off at the train station and we went to get our tickets. As we were waiting for the train two more cops came and started talking to us. They would not let us get on the train till the other groups showed up. Come to find out that this is so called the murder capital of Chicago and that three people were shot on Tuesday night and we were there on Friday. It was a predominately African American neighborhood. I didn' t realize until after this trip how much race really plays into how people are treated. We then jumped on the train and found our way to the place where we were staying. The rest of the trip was exciting and I learned a lot. We went to Emmaus Ministries , which is a ministry that works with male prostitutes and works to try to get them to change. Their main focus though is to reach out to these guys and to be like a family to them This is an amazing ministry and God is doing great things through this ministry. They really are practicing what they preach. They are the image of Christ. They have the attitude of Christ and are reaching out to the unlovable. It is so awesome. It makes me want to get off my butt and do something. I am so sick of this whole religion thing and how we just hang out with people that dress and act like us. Like there is this certain mold that we have to have. We sit in our nice pews with dressy outfits and call ourselves Christians. There is a world out there that is hurting and needs to see Christ in us. We are called to be barbarian Christians.
We were also able to visit the International Center for Krishna Consciousness which is a branch off of Hindi. It was interesting to see how they worshiped and what they believed. Its amazing that Christianity is embedded into every religion. In many ways they are preaching Christianity and don't even know it. Some of what they believe is not right and is twisted but it was interesting to see it. We may not agree with what they believe but I think that we still need to respect them. I think they know more of the Bible than I do. That should encourage me to become more knowledgeable about the Bible. One of the last things that we did on this trip was A play or musical called Memphis Soul. It was amazing. It was in this little theatre in Uptown Chicago but it was incredible. Their voices were amazing. They did an excellent job.
I learned so much on this trip. I will talk later on what I took away from this trip.
Sorry for such a long post