And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness ” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

listen to Shane and Shane – Your Grace is Sufficient

Joanna Weaver in Having a Mary Spirit

I don’t know why I’m blogging at 6:43 in the morning when I should be getting ready for work.  I don’t even know if people read this thing anymore. But lately I haven’t been blogging once again-distracted by the busyness of life or just simply not wanting to type. I read this quote from a chapter inside a book called Having a Mary Spirit by Joanna Weaver and it’s funny that I would read it last night after a series of events unfolded in my life. After truths were revealed to me and time let them settle in my heart. I realized that forgiveness isn’t as easy as just saying the third words ” I forgive you”

Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of the situation or my lack of knowledge that is causing my head to wrap around this several times over and over again but the conversation that I have with myself doesn’t get anywhere. Instead I know I must go to my father and seek forgiveness from Him first to truly understand what I must do. Though it is hard and I have to admit, it does really hurt, I don’t know what else to do. And in times like these (i actually don’t remember the last time that I was this hurt…) that I know I need to be with God.

I know this was vague but it was an attempt to say things out loud instead of bottling them up.

Jesus Lord of heaven,
oh I do not deserve
the grace that you have given,
and the promise of Your word

Lord I stand in wonder,
of the sacrifice You made
Mercy beyond measure,
my debt You freely paid

Your love is deeper, than any ocean higher
than the heavens reaches, beyond the stars in the sky

Jesus Your love has no bounds
Jesus Your love has no bounds
Jesus Your love has no bounds
Jesus Your love has no bounds

Ephesians 3:14-21 (NIV)

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

God You never cease to answer my prayers and give me guidance whenever I seek for it. Both this song and these bible verses came to me at a time where I was really unsure of a lot of things in my life…unsure of what God really wanted me to do. And I think what had happened was that I became very selfish in my thinking. I couldn’t look beyond what I would get out of a situation and I began to seek after the things that would please me. I had forgotten what God had given me in the first place. My walk was fine with God but I had completely forgotten about what the gospel is and I thought I had it all down when truly I was really hurting inside.  The one thing that I was working towards this year was living intentionally but I couldn’t do that once I had taken the gospel for granted.  I am completely thankful for grace and for the many second chances that God has given me.

It really is been a wow year. So many things have happened and so many things to come, life is never a boring moment and I’m still learning to expect the unexpected from God all the time. To always live intentionally everywhere I am and to glorify God through it all.

I am serving officially next year on servant team and my initial thoughts on this weren’t very positive. I was met with fear and concern from what my peers and my family would think and even thinking ahead of time of how things might turn out next year.

Amazingly though God has already given me plenty of things to reassure me that this is exactly what He wants me to do and experience next year and for the rest of my life. My thoughts and my fears continue to remind me that I will need God more and more and I continue to know Him more and more and do more for Him. I am excited to serve, excited to see what God is going to do for this body of believers and anticipating all the failures I will come across.  Nothing is certain and it will never be but there is always a hope for something good to come out of it at the end of the day.

From work, to academics, to friends, to boyfriend, and everything else in between God has certainly demonstrated his faithfulness and holiness in my life over and over again. He never fails to meet me wherever I am and reach out for me…this life wasn’t meant to be easy.  In church, we have been learning about the attributes of God and this past Sunday we went over the Holiness of God and indeed he is Holy.  I think it was a fitting sermon after senior banquet because just thinking about it the past few days and having some conversations with some people it was just so discouraging to me that it was so focused on themselves and not how God himself taught us so much through our time of trial. I was listening to this song on Pandora and I really liked the lyrics.

Listen

That was the first thing I wanted to say before I go on writing this post. I had just come back from an Joint Event with our fellow AACF sisters and brothers in Cal Poly SLO. It was super fun and tiring at the same time. But what it reminded me was how it was exactly this time one year ago that God began to change my heart for Jerry. That it was around this time, that God was shaping my life for a mission-minded life and that He was preparing me for something so much bigger than I had imagined.

I look back on the year, even when we weren’t together yet, and see how God has changed me and changed Jerry and it’s mighty incredible. SO many unexpected feelings and emotions, journeys and paths that God has brought up to. I’ve learned to really appreciate the honesty that we have in each other. That we’re not afraid to tell each other things though I can feel hesitant to tell at first. I’ve become better at telling him things and he’s been getting better at letting me know things. Among those things, God has brought us both to a better place, closer to Him and to each other.  I’m really thankful for all the things that has happened this year and will continue to happen in the future.

Praise God for who He is, for what’s He’s done, and for what He will do.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

Intentional living – was the one word that kept repeating over and over again in my mind during prayer meeting tonight. It’s not a new term that I’ve come across, but in fact it was a term that I was introduced to during my missions trip last summer.  I’ve been talking to people about feeling lonely to the call to do the things that has been on my heart because no one around me seems to feel the same that I do about particular people and part of that has to do with the fact that no one else hangs out or spends time with them like I do. What I’m talking about is my work place…I feel like I’ve matured and grown up too fast for what God has asked me to do and I was really frustrated with the fact that I had no one around me physically to share this burden with and I wanted so much to just enjoy the things of my youth…

In some ways I was almost angry with God for placing me in this position but as we were praying for the body today and looking back on some of my prayer logs, I realized that when I prayed for intentional living, I wasn’t being specific mainly because I didn’t know where God wanted me this next year so He gave me his best plan for me. It wasn’t entirely what I had expected because with it came so many emotions and things that I just wasn’t prepared for. Then God met me half way to show me that He doesn’t always call the qualified but He certainly qualifies the called. I knew that if I wanted to be intentional with people, I have to understand his calling for my life.

SO why Romans 12? I had at some point forgotten about how everyone has different girls, different talents, in the body. That God did not create us to be robots or all the same, that we are each different and unique. I was reminded to humble myself and remember that we are all different and that even though there isn’t someone directly here with me to share these burdens with, God is always there with me. I got tired of carrying these burdens around and he reminds me of Matthew 11:28. I was discouraged but He sent brothers and sisters to encourage me. I was lonely but He was still my friend. God always meets me wherever I need Him. I’m soo thankful that God is God and He has the ability to do these things for His people.

I pray that others and myself will able to understand what it means to be intentionally living and be humbled in the fact that we can’t do it all ourselves and that we’re not doing it for ourselves nor others; we’re doing it all for God.

Anyways one thing that I was kind of disturbed by was the fact that my coworker who Jerry drove home asked me if I was scared and claimed that I had been traumatized by the whole experience of seeing all my coworkers drunk, but to be honest I wasn’t. I wasn’t scared of them nor had I been traumatized, I was just further heart broken and sad for all of them because I saw them like that. How do I be a good witness in these situations and yet still be their friend in the best way?

Sometimes I really long for someone else who feels this calling to minister to the people in my workplace to be with me so that I can share all these burdens and stop being so tired all the time from seeing all these things. A part of me wants to be so accustomed to these events that I won’t feel the loneliness or sadness anymore but then I question if that’s really possible. And if it happens will I continue to pray for them and will I continue to care like I do now.

I am super excited for my new position next quarter but I am still extremely torn between my duties to both my fellowship and to my coworkers who are nonbelievers. In John 17, Jesus prays for many things: including his believers.

John 17: 20-26

“My prayer is not for them alone. 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. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

Lord I want to live for your glory, to see your glory, to proclaim it.

Living for Your Glory-Tim Hughes

listen

What good is it to gain the whole world
But lose your soul?
What good is it to make a sweet sound
But remain proud?
In view of God’s mercy, I offer my all

And take my life, let it be everything, all of me
Here I am, use me for Your glory
In everything I say and do, let my life honor You
Here I am living for Your glory

The road I’m on that leads nowhere without You
And the life I live that finds meaning and surrender
In view of God’s mercy, I offer my all

Seeking first the Kingdom
Seeking first the Kingdom
Of my Lord

Jesus thank you for already knowing what I would go through and praying for me. Thank you for thinking about me and giving me the encouragement to continue doing what you had come here to do. Help me to continue to make You known in this world.