Mrmm

No one knows my heart. I'm trying to figure out what I should be doing this year with AAIV since I'm a senior and about the graduate. But everything is shallow and surface level. Only once was I asked how my relationship with God was. I don't know what I want out of AAIV or what I will gain by staying there. I want to have someone who knows my heart and cares more than about my school or day. I want help. I don't know where to find that except in God, Justin, or Lori. These seem to be the only individuals who are concerned with me.It is quiet lonely since one I cannot see, one lives 2 hours from me, and the other is so busy (my problem too). I don't think I will grow if I stay here, I don't know if I will be loved and nurtured is I stay here. I know I can't help others grow or feel loved if I am seeking that and have not first received it. I'm just sooooo lonely. Having people know my surface but not know me. I feel like I'm in high school again.

Realm of Doubts

I'm not myself. I got caught up in a lot of questions and doubts concerning my faith. Solidly inside I know what I believe and if I were to say I don't believe I would be a liar. But there are so many skeptical/ cynical thoughts in my head.
Every time I hear sin, I scoff in my mind and think there is no sin.
Every time I hear a testimony I think of how it could just be coincidence and emotions.

Certainly living in a world where there is no such thing as bad deeds condemning your soul to Hell, and where your future is yours completely to control and enjoy would be...well happy/enjoyable.

Maybe I'm so diluted that I cannot function without the delusion of a religion? But that doesn't seem it.
It's not that I'm doubting Christianity as much as I'm doubting myself.

When I grew up surrounded by Christianity I doubted in my ability to understand the gospel and that I had prayed right, lived right, and was a Christian.

I realized later on salvation is based on Christ's work and not my work. And faith in Christ not faith in Sarah.

Now that I'm in college and surrounded by scientific reason (which in some cases is not reason at all) and chance, and do what makes you happy, I doubt that I'm thinking rationally when it comes to religion and my life.
Do I make up emotions and follow made up ideas? How do I prove to myself that God is real in a non biased way that is rational? Surely every response I say can be shot down, because it seems impossible.

But that is where faith comes in. For with sight there is no faith. And here I insert my "oh what an easy coup out. If it doesn't make sense say that you must have faith."

But I must say that it was during those times I lived in faith- the faith that perhaps this impossibility that there is a God and He happens to love me and died for me. And the evil we see in this world is sin, which should be punished. And that my rebellious heart wants so hard to convince me I am GOOD and I don't need to be saved- I have felt the most peace. I have seen the beautiful work on God through weaving together lives and stories of redemption, healing, and love. I have seen lives transformed to beauty, and watched as a timid weak Sarah grew into a strong woman who loved the Lord and loved people.

Now I feel like a sheltered person who loves nothing but myself and my future. This was me trying to go without God, to live without faith. To try it the worlds way and the worlds perspective. It is miserable. What's more is it is empty, lonely, sad, selfish. It is the opposite of who I was and want to be.

God keep pursuing my heart. Let me trust and have faith in you again. Use me in my weakness...and do not let me shame You or lead others to turn from You. I will cling to this impossibility of You. Do not let me be ashamed.

Dress Code

Sticks and stone may break my bones...but then again they will heal with time if set right...but words can eat at me for years.

Sorry if my blogs tend to be negative, but I feel no need to write unless I'm confused or needing to vent these days! If things are going well then no blogs are written. But I guess this is kind of good?

So I've never really thought about my appearance much (just like I never really noticed race until middle school), and tended to wear whatever. But after much discrimination over the past what feels like year? I've started to conform.... Ever since I came to college I put a little more effort into my clothes (I actually take 5 minutes to look for something instead of just putting on whatever I grab) but this is still nothing in comparison to most other girls I guess? So after being teased about looking like a grandma, wearing baggy clothes, having no sense of fashion....my heart started to take it a little hard. I looked at other girls who do dress "nice" (insert envy) and thought that maybe they were somehow more important, were more attractive, or had more worth than me. After all who wants to hangout with a girl who looks all mismatched? It's embarrassing right?

Eh?!? I can't believe I even got caught up in those thoughts! I've never really struggled with appearance or body image because I think everyone's beautiful, and not to sound conceited but I love the body God gave me! Sure it came with collapsing arches and other things I have to deal with but overall I'm blessed to have 10 finger, 10 toes, and for the most part a functioning body. And beyond all that there's a heart, and person unique from everyone. Not just me, but each and every girl and guy out there so unique and beautiful in their body type, character, and yes fashion sense (or lack thereof) haha!

So after further review I decided if I wanted to wear nice things it would be because I wasn't trying to please others. Nor trying to please myself (vanity). There are things I could wear that would make me look nice, but I tend to not wear them. Why? I feel more down to earth and more available to a wider range of people when I dress shabby I guess. After all it's the people who dress nice and seem to have it all together that scare me the most. Soooo assuming there are others out there like me, looking for someone who appears to be a simpleton, who cares nothing about dress code but the heart...I'll keep wearing my baggy shirts and mismatched hand-me-down cloths :D

Discontent Heart

So recently I've been feeling a lot of discontent in where I'm at in serving the Lord. Not because He hasn't been working or I haven't been seeking Him, but because I'm comparing myself to others... and my flesh is desiring to be praised and lifted up. My heart should be glad when I see others advancing the gospel and I am, but I also begin to see myself or the ministry God has given me as less than worthy and I feel jealous of others. Seeing pictures all over facebook of them serving or bonding with others it makes me feel deficient. I remember reading about this discontentment in The Lords Work Done in the Lord's Way.

"Why Restless?
In the past, we have had a couple of families on staff with us who left the ministry because they were dissatisfied, feeling as though they were not doing what they considered "real" ministry...Please understand. It is good to long to serve God in the best way we can. But discontentment, discouragement, frustration and grumbling just because we don't like what the Lord gave us to do is not good. We must be able to discern between truly desiring to please the Lord and our own restlessness and self-seeking. We must be able to discern what is motivating us in the work of the Lord. A lot of times we can be pulled in many different directions by the needs around us. And we can like it too. The work of the Lord certainly has its satisfaction for the flesh. There is the crowd of people, the results, the praise, the attention and the "thank-yous" all of these can really make the flesh feel good. We definitely enjoy the attention, the limelight and the sense of accomplishment and self-worth that come in ministry. But we are called to in serving Him must be rooted in pleasing Him and done out of love for Him-not our own gratification and glory. It must be for His....But the truth is, we all have the same problem-wicked hearts. we'd rather be one of the priests who are busy standing before the people, active in what is immediately needed. We want our ministry to look dramatic and effective. Our flesh wants to glory in the praise of men....We shouldn't worry about how things look, what people might be saying, or whether or not there are the results we thought there would be. Our number-one concern must be to know Him and His ways and to follow His lead. When we live like this, what happens, whether good or bad in man's sight, whether productive or useless in man's opinion has no bearing. We are not working for human beings. We are doing it because of our love for Him. It is ministry unto Him, and this pleases Him. Please, we need to evaluate what our motive has been in serving the Lord. Are we seeking to meet the need around us, or are we seeking to know and please Him? Are we controlled, motivated and energized by our talents and by opportunities that present themselves? Do needs and others' voices guide our course? Or do we really know, in our innermost being, that we are serving our King? Ask yourself these questions."

Yea so after rereading that probably three times I've realized my flesh has been wanting glory and praise. I want to be placed in a position to be serving where everyone will see. But that's all for the wrong motivations. I shouldn't be like the Levites in Ezekiel 44, but like the house of Zadok who sit quietly before the Lord, ministering to Him and concerned with only pleasing Him. I need to serve with the right heart, and not look for praise. May my pride be crushed and all glory given where it truly belongs! I can't say let me serve where no one will see, because then I remove glory from God, so fix my heart.

Church Shopping Day 1: Antioch Church

WHOA JESUS WHOA!!! This is something that was just bursting in my head while I was at church this morning.

So recently I had a conversation with my dad about spiritual maturity. One of the things that really stuck with me was my lack of depth, commitment, and service within the church I'm attending. So I've been attending Grace Bible Church which I really liked, and it served me during that season in life. Now I want to be able to be living out my faith not just on campus or within AAIV but with a body of believers in the church. I thought about getting more involved with Grace but I feel like it's so big... I might still look into their ministries but I will see.

So in response to wondering about being involved in a church I decided I wanted to look into smaller churches. The list was two long: Life Church and Westminster Presbyterian. One being a nondenominational church and the other one I had attended for a semester and a half. My discipler Meghan went to Life Church and said lots of good things about it including their life groups, and I know that there is good teaching as well as Sunday school classes at Westminster. But out of nowhere I ended up last minute deciding to visit Antioch because Lori had wanted to visit it the end of spring semester. From her experience with a girl who attended the church I could tell they were being moved by the Holy Spirit, and I definitely got that today.

So me and Jeff went to the Hilton Hotel on University which is where the church meets and went in. The church was probably 50-70 people big but that's because a lot were gone on missions. The church seemed really close knit which was kind of sad for us since no one went out of their way to meet us. I wasn't in the mood of stepping up and introducing myself today either so we just sat down. Today's service was not a regular one and consisted on worship then a skype conference/joint prayer time.

At first the worship songs were not really touching me, because I didn't know any of them and they were all contemporary (I like hymns D:) but over time I began to realize a lot of the lyrics were pulled from scripture and as I sang could remember the context in which it came making the songs more beautiful and meaningful. The last song had parts of Isaiah and it was just beautiful! Everyone worships freely there too whether standing, sitting, kneeling, and throughout worship I saw a two girls stop and just turn to a girl next to them and pray over her. It was really cool. After worship we talked with a group in India from the church all in the college ministry. They have only been there 7 days and they have shared the gospel with over 2000 people. 2000 PEOPLE. Yea, I was just wow. They just went out and talked with people on the street, rickshaw drivers, a middle school assembly, etc. There was testimony of God giving clues of who to speak to and leading a team to a red shop full of tricycles to a lady dressed completely in teal. They found her and knew this was the lady God wanted them to talk to, and it turned out she was a believer who needed encouraging so they prayed over her. A praise to God who gives the gift of healing was a testimony of a man with a split open toe from a bike accident. A team member prayed over him and watched as the skin began to grow over the toe and heal. This is the power of our God. We all as a church stood and prayed asking for God to do even more. I wondered how we could ask this when He was already doing so much. But then I remember He is God, and we were asking for exactly what he wanted and He would deliver. A thing to pray for is that they would know who is coming to the Lord. The people they have met in India are very nice and receptive, but to the point in which they agree with everything you say. That has been one of the toughest parts of telling who are saved on the trip.

We then talked to the group in Gulu, Uganda and even more amazing testimonies were told. The group came in with a heart to reach those God had already been preparing and who were hungry. They found 7 believers there and have started discipleship with them and encouraging them to go out and share their faith with others. Two girls were witnessing at print shops and ran into a lady named Grace who was in school to be a social worker they shared Christ with her and she became excited and asked if they could come out to a sight where a lot of university students met. Over the past couple of days they have started home groups with the university students (kind of our equivalent to discipleship+small groups) and now those university students have a couple more weeks before they leave to return to university where they will share the gospel. We again prayed for this group and for God to keep moving.

Both teams still have 4 more days till they return, and I'm sure many thing will still happen.

After this we worshiped and church was over. It was probably the most intense 1 hour church service ever! My heart was so full and my amazement in the power of our God and the perseverance and love found in these people who traveled across the world to share. Their love, obedience, and faith in God and reliance on the Holy Spirit was just so amazing. I kind of sat there for a while taking it in, and decided I wanted to visit this church again to see what a regular service is like as well as their teaching. The thing about these type of churches is the services is not where you get the meat, its in their life groups which are the heart of the church. So me and Jeff picked up a thing on life groups which we might look into after next Sunday.

Information on their beliefs and missions:
http://www.antiochcs.org/#/beliefs-and-values

First leg

Yea Happy 3 week anniversary!!! Let's see how things are 3-weeks after this...

I don't know how detailed I shall be on progress reports since I'm still dealing with the internal turmoil. But otherwise I've gotten to where about 80% of the time I view my guy friends as brothers. On the other hand when I think about the future I just feel sad and lost because I don't really want to do what I'm trying to do with the whole dental school thing. Just because of it being very helpful and practical ...which makes me still empty feeling towards a boring future.

Otherwise besides that. finals is killing me slowly. I've become a hermit that doesn't want to talk to people. Bah! Can't wait till that's over so I can be FREE!!!

Sometimes you can't go on until you see the purpose in things. Since I can't really see a purpose or end I'm trying to get to, I just have to keep stepping little at a time and hope that the future will be good.

Cork the Bottle

Working on re-establishing trust. I tend to be a very reserved person around strangers, but very open around friends. One of my problems is I tend to say everything on my mind and heart which includes things that are not mine to share. It feels like there are a lot of thoughts and emotions I'm corking up, but that's what I got to do so I can regain trust.

Baaa!!! I hate keeping secrets!