Be Still

BE STILL! These are not words we have never heard before.  In fact, I am sure I use them all the time at school.  "Please just be still and listen."  Today as I was walking I was listening to The Wind (a christian radio station) they said the verse Exodus 14:14. "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."
      I started thinking about what does it mean for me to be still before the Lord.  Me... Be Still...I always have to be going or doing or thinking.  It is hard for me to slow down.  My schedule is always packed.  If I have a day where things aren't planned I still have things I am doing to fill my schedule.  Even when I am spending time with God it is hard for me to be still.  I pray, read, sing, but it is so hard for me to just shut all of that off and to listen.   This summer God has taught me a lot about just slowing down and taking in the beauty of the little things.  I did not do this by choice but, I believe He took all the busy things of my life away so that I was forced to be still.  If you are at full speed all the time you miss out on things and grow weary.  God has shown me that when I take the time to enjoy the little things like just sitting outside and listening to the bugs and looking at His beautiful creation like flowers, trees, stars, animals,and yes even weird bugs I find peace in where I am and in my life.  Now when I am sitting with someone I catch myself thinking man this is nice to just sit here and enjoy my time with that person.  If we are talking or just sitting I can just enjoy there company.  I am trying to figure out in a busy world, how to "be still." It is something that I intentionally have to do.  Which yes, in a way is planning and something else to do.  If I am not intentional about just sitting in front of the Lord and being still I miss out on how that fills me and sustains me. 
       I began to read Exodus 14 because I didn't want to take the verse out of context and miss the purpose of the whole thing.  This is a familiar passage where Moses is leading the Israelites out of Egypt.  The Israelites are getting scared as they are running from the Egyptians who have enslaved them.  They start to question why they listen to Moses and God.  Interesting to me how sometimes stories just mean something more or something different depending on where you are in life.  In life I think I sometimes try to run away mentally from all the endless thoughts in my head.  They lead me to anxiety and fear which is not from the Lord.  So lately I have felt like the Israelites running into the desert.  They ask Moses if he has led them out there to die because it will be easier to dispose of their bodies.  We all feel like this sometimes.  Like we are being led somewhere and we don't know why or where.  It is easy for us to go to fear first.  This is when Moses tells them, "The Lord will fight for you; you only need to be still." Powerful words right there.  Shut off your worries, anxiety, fear and know that THE all victorious one is fighting for you! He wants you to succeed and follow his will but, to do so you must have full confidence that God is working on your behalf if you are still and listen.  Take in His peace so that He may show His power.  When the Israelites calm down and trust God, he uses Moses to part the sea, give them a way to escape, and kills their enemy. Guess the teacher in me comes out because I just stinkin' LOVE when God uses a simple story to teach a powerful lesson.  "The Lord WILL fight for you; you NEED only to BE STILL." Exodus 14:14  So in a busy world where I feel like I am loosing.....God is fighting for me I just need to be still in that and trust it!

Dive in, Jump off, Slide down, or Climb up

So, I have been wanting to share my heart lately but, not really sure how to go about doing it.  Since Monday was my last day with school stuff I now find that I have time to reflect.  I am going to skip a lot since the last time I wrote was in December.  This year has been needless to say a roller coaster ride.  I found out I got my teaching job just two weeks before school.  This leads to some mad packing and unpacking! There were times as I was living by myself that I found the empty silence of my apartment hard to handle.  Sometimes the extreme of crazy at school to absolutely nothing at home just throws me off.  I have know the whole time that God had a great purpose in moving me.  I think God prepared me well for my move.  My heart was fully ready to serve him one hundred percent.  I struggled with being away from my friends and family that I love so deeply.  God taught me a lot about his love for me this year and in turn is allowing me to see that loving someone doesn't always look the same.  I came to adore my 21 (yup got a new one 7 days before school was out!) precious children.  They all mean so much to me! This year God taught me a valuable lesson about people.  We have all heard we need to pay it forward because we don't know what people are going through......well I had a chance to experience this head on.  I try to daily put on my God Vision Goggles on so that  I can see people how God does.  I am getting to the point promise ;) So Friday when I was saying goodbye to my kiddos I found out some very upsetting news about one of my students.  This little guy had a super special place in my heart.  Short version.....Another teacher and I had to go to the court house and talk to some people and report some things.  The not fun side of teaching.  I heard it all.....it's pointless.  Sadly nothing will happen.  There is no point.  You are going up a empty creek.  I knew that God had placed me here at Greenfield, in the third grade, with this student for a reason.  Maybe it was just to make a very important phone call.  Maybe it was to spend hours and hours praying and crying out to God.  I can't tell for sure but, I can tell you I was broken.  I am broken.  I have never felt pain and sorrow like that before.  I love this child.  I now experienced not even a little of the pain God probably felt when he sent his only son to die for us!  I wish I could say that my sweet little boy has a happy ending but, his story is still being written.  I can tell you that I pray for him everyday! God promises to take care of his children.  I saw this first hand when I went to Peru and am continuing to see this.  There are kids at my school that have to deal with so much more then I can even begin to understand.  God has given me his compassion and grace.  I am blessed to be where I am so that I can share God's light to them and give them a small piece of God's great love.  I know not everyone I love in life fully supports my decision to be here.  It's hard for me to take but, I am constantly reminded that I am not here to please them.  I am here to please God and only him.  God has taught me a lot about selfless love this year.  I am blessed with a very special someone in my life who was so openly trusted and had great compassion when I was so upset about my little guy!  I literally would pray that I could take him into my home.  I began to plot how to make this happen.  I pleaded with God.  If not me God, someone! He needs to get out of there.  It is still all a work in progress! I learned more about reckless faith.  Sometimes God calls us to do things that don't make sense to the world.  He call us to step outside our comfort zone.  He calls us to follow not knowing the outcome.  I didn't know what to do.  I wanted a simple answer.  I wanted to just go pick him up.  Point is....God brought me to the point where I didn't have time to think about what I was doing or the decisions I was going to make.  The whole time God just kept telling me to trust him and follow.  Not to say I wanted a nine year old boy.....but God calls us to be willing!  I didn't know what to expect but I dived in.  No I can not say he is staying with me even though I badly wanted that!  It doesn't have to be me but, I wanted someone to step up.  This is not my time but God is definitely working on my heart!  I believe he is preparing me.  I have to know how to pray for them! I have to know how to trust God and those in my life who I depend so greatly on for encouragement that God has placed in my life for a specific reason.  It's all about following God whole heatedly!  Get ready to dive in, jump off, or slide down, climb up where ever and whatever God wants!

Giving Up

When do you get to the point where you just want to give up and stop trying or where you feel like everything is going wrong and nothing will go right? For every person and every situation it is different. Everything depends on your mind set or your attitude. How I choose to take something means everything. As God followers we are called to be set apart. God has really been working on me with this over the past semester. This past week I have been on Christmas break and God decided to test me out on this. It has been very emotional to say the least. My heart often feels pulled different directions and I have a hard time figuring out what is best. I have learned to balance and I have to learn to please myself a little. Not in a selfish way but, in a way I can live with my choices I can't always please everyone so if I always try, it will be an endless cycle. So I finally made it home on Christmas eve. I was not feeling well but still very blessed to have a wonderful evening with my family. Still fought some personal feelings that night but God was showing me he blessed me with this time so I need to be happy where I am when he places me there. Christmas morning came and I woke up not feeling well, (my period doesn't work on my computer now so know some of these commas should be periods,) I was overcome with emotion, I laid in my empty room and cried, I am not home very often and now that I was finally home I wanted to spend as much time with them as I could, I was not a happy camper about being sick, I tried hard to see the positive, at least I was home where my family could take care of me, I slept Christmas away and woke up the next morning to find out my windshield of my car had been smashed in by someone with a floor lamp post of all things, Once again I am faced with the question "How am I going to handle this?" I could get mad but what good does that do? After calling my insurance and getting everything figured out they were able to come the next day to fix it, So I was trying so hard to see the positive, my insurance covered it, my amazing dad payed the rest, and it was able to be fixed fast! So pretty much the rest of the week has had me going to the dentist (which I hate!) but found out good news there- no cavities! I went to a walk in clinic for my cold and the cough medicine made me really sick, I was upset because I had lots of plans with people that all got messed up, I didn't understand why God would not listen to me, I was praying so hard to get better, My prayers had selfish motives, I went again to the doctor on Thursday and finally got medicine to fix my cold, My doctor also checked my iron which has been giving me trouble lately, The joys of being anemic, I was there for two hours just to return to another doctor that afternoon to have a ultra sound done, I was fighting a bad attitude all day, I kept praying, "God please just help me see the good", I was blessed to have insurance to cover everything and loving parents to take me everywhere, After having to drink more water then I have probably drank all month and almost floating away, I started listening to what was going on around me, The song lyrics "For if my God is with me then who could ever stop me,,,,,,what could stand against," came on the radio in the doctor's office, His peace filled me, As I sat next to my worried mother, I thought about how blessed I am to have a mom who cares, I woke up this morning with a splitting headache and not feeling so hot, Really just wanting this all to be over, I would take my third graders over all of this any day! I left my house at 8am to go to the hospital to get an emg, for those of you who don't know what that is,,,,,,,,it is a nerve test that uses a series of electric shocks and needles in your muscles to make sure everything is running like it should, The overall process took a little over an hour, My body still randomly will twitch from everything, It was not horrible just very uncomfortable, I had good news there that everything was fine, I was fighting the bad thoughts again of really I just got shocked and poked for an hour for nothing, REALLY, Man I hate the doctor, Then once again God filled me up and reminded me that this was good news, We were narrowing down the issue, I am now sitting at home resting and trying to get better, Needless to say it was not exactly what I thought my Christmas break would look like, Nothing went right but yet here I am and I am doing ok, God has a way of reminding us that he is in control and that how we choose to take things affects others, I am so blessed for all those people in my life who encouraged me and kept me positive when I really didn't want to, Still working on feeling better and still learning as I go! ;)

Putting Your Words into Action

So I have been wanting to write several times but, I always seem to find myself doing something else instead. I like to keep journals and look back on them every so often to reflect on life. Yes, sometimes I tend to over think things. I recently read over the last entry I left on here about trust. So now I want to share how it became very clear to me how my God is a very intricate and patient. So back in Feb. God was teaching me how to really trust him. As that time went on (Feb.-Aug.) I got frustrated with my job search and just where I was in life. I felt like I was not doing anything with the time God gave me. I know now that he gave me that time in my life...what I like to call my waiting period....to prepare my heart and mind for what was to come. As many of you know in August I received a third grade teaching job in Greenfield, Missouri. After my interview I had great peace that this was where God wanted me. I was full of mixed emotions but, I felt like God was always telling me to trust him and that he had a plan. I can see now that God was teaching me all about trust because he knew that I would need that. I took a giant leap of faith that day I said yes to the job. I had two weeks to move, find a place to live, and get my classroom set up when I had no clue what I was doing. I definitely see how God worked in the unknown. I was so scarred but even in that scarred feeling I was wrapped in God's peace. I had no clue what God was doing. There was days I cried because the unknown is just so overwhelming. God continued to give me a small whisper in my ear saying you need to trust me. I have a plan. Trusting became way more then words to me. I had to fully rely on him to provide me with everything I needed. I was blessed with loving people in my life who never let me forget that God was in charge. He used them to provide things for me not only to meet my needs but also emotionally. Going to a new city living on my own was a major step for me. I am still not sure I fully understand Gods plan and I think that is ok. I don't think he always wants us to know everything. He reviles things as they are needed. A very frustrating concept for me to figure out. Those of you that know me know that I am a major planner and don't like the unknown. So needless to say I go crazy when I can not be in control and when I just don't know. I have lots of time living on my own to reflect on what God is doing around me and with me. Sometimes the day gets busy and things get doing and you don't really think about what is the purpose in God giving me this day. How did I use it to serve him? This move has really just made my faith stronger. We go through trials in life to train us and make us stronger to serve the Lord. After all that is what it is all about anyway. I have been learning over the past month all about what denying my own pride and selfish ways. I have a tendency to think that I can do everything on my own. I will ask for help if I really really need it but, that tends to be after I make it worse by trying to do it on my own. I read in the book, Weird. There is a chapter that is all about our intentions in life. In life I live for myself having good intentions and that is how I justify things. I start off with a good thought, but there is a difference. Good intentions are really masking my own selfish ambitions. I have been working on how to move from good intentions in life to God intentions for my life. What does he want me to do with every second of my time and things that he has blessed me with. How am I praying for that to happen in my life? I am here to serve him and build His kingdom. What am I doing if I just live for the world and my life? The past oh six months of my life I feel like God has been tearing down walls that I have built up inside of me. Some of them I have been unaware that they even existed. I had good intentions but, you just can't go through life with only good intentions. This weekend I was blessed with the opportunity to go camping and just spend some time with people I am blessed to have in my life and in God's beautiful creation. When I look around and see the work of his hands...the stars that stretch on forever and ever and the beautiful flowers that are each made differently with such magnificent color and detail, how could I be so wrapped up in my own life. Humbling. So now I can see that God is faithful when we trust. He has never left my side even when I tried pushing him away. When I told him I could do it on my own. He was ever so patient with my stubborn attitude. As I continue to learn what it means to live out a life of faith fulling trusting my God, I am learning that control really is not important. That is just my own selfish ambitions that start with good intentions. Titus 1:9, "He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it." I am daily reminded by by my gentle savior that we are fighting a battle where he is victorious. Am I doing my part in the battle to encourage and lift up those around me? Am I using the gifts God gives me and the things he has blessed me with? It is a daily struggle to make my intentions God's and not my own. Ok that was a super long post. I just had all these thoughts bouncing around in my head that I wanted to share what God has placed on my heart. Prayers that I continue to seek God's wisdom on a daily basis on how to invest in his people and use the gifts and seek the purpose he has given me.

Trust is a Must

According to dictionary.com
TRUST is .......
Trust: –noun

1.

reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.

2.

confident expectation of something; hope.

3.

confidence in the certainty of future payment for property or goods received; credit: to sell merchandise on trust.

4.

a person on whom or thing on which one relies: God is my trust.

5.

the condition of one to whom something has been entrusted.

6.

the obligation or responsibility imposed on a person in whom confidence or authority is placed: a position of trust.

7.

charge, custody, or care: to leave valuables in someone's trust.

8.

something committed or entrusted to one's care for use or safekeeping, as an office, duty, or the like; responsibility; charge.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

What does it look like to to fully trust what God has in store for us. A question I feel like many people ask. Most people I know what to trust God, and they say that they do, but what does that look like?
Lot's of transitions are happening in my life right now. I don't even know what I am doing on a day to day basis. Trust is taking on new terms. God is teaching me what it means to full lean on him. He is the only one who can meet what my heart wants and needs. Today I am praying that God continues to reveal himself to me and teach me how to trust him. When you take that jump of faith outside your comfort zone into the unknown you are never disappointed. The safest place in the world is in the middle of God's will. I have so many thoughts going around in my head about what will happen in my future. Today I hold on to: God gave me today. He has a plan for my life each day. How am I choosing to use those minutes and days?
Just waiting around, applying for jobs for the Fall and trusting in God's plan for me. I am inching my way to the edge and getting ready to take the jump when God says it's time. Go!

Time Flies

Some of my girls from camp in CO

At a VBS presented by a Trujillo group

Playing Outside

Getting Ready for Movie Night

Tickle War! (I won!!)

Kailey and Jordan Wilson's Wedding ;)

Since the last time I have blogged I have been to Casa de Paz again, been a part of my twin sister's marriage and now am in my last semester of my undergraduate degree. I am student teaching in a third grade classroom in Stockton, Missouri. God has continued to mold my heart and prepare me for the future. He continually shows me his faithfulness and how He is the only one who can satisfy the longing in my heart. I'm not sure what he has in store for me once I finish school but I am looking forward to finding out.

Summer 2010:

June 4th- Kailey and Jordan Wilson tied the knot finally! ;) It was a beautiful wedding! God truely has big plans for these 2!

July- One of my very good friends, Christine, and I traveled to Pacasmayo to visit all of my beautiful children and friends there. On this trip I was able to help in the school. Christine and I were able to teach the preschoolers English class a couple times. We were also able to help out in the 1-3rd grade English classes. The kids there are the same as kids here in some ways but in others they are so different. They were all very responsible and respectful. The teachers there didn't have to keep lowering their standers for the students. They either did what they were suppose to or failed. My spirit feels alive when I am there! It was sad to return to find that some of the kids were no longer there. You have to hope that they are in a better place. Either way, I pray and tell God how thankful I am that I got to spend time with them when I did and ask that he protect and guide them where they are now. I got to meet new kids who immediately stole my heart <3>

August- The first week of August I was able to travel to CO with TPX (my church's youth group) Camp. Wow what an awesome experience that was. God showed me that he will equip me with the words and skills I need to do his work. I don't have to be afraid to shine His light and do his will becuase being in His will is the savest place in the world! The theme was OK GO! We know what we need to know and now we need to take action and follow God. My middle school girls (plus one hs girl) were awesome! They now have a special place in my heart! We had a lot of obsticles to overcome that week but God helped us climb big mountains!

The rest of the summer I was blessed to be working at my daycare, Christ Early Learning Center! There I was able to see my kiddos. It is so crazy how big some of them are getting. Some of them came in as babies and are now in Kindergarten and I have got to watch the whole process. It was a great summer and is becoming a great school year!

Home Sweet Home

I am getting ready to go out to dinner with my mom and dad. I just wanted to let you all know that I am home safe! Thanks for all of your prayers, support, letters, and encourgment! I love you all and can't wait to wait to see all of your beautiful faces!!!