Eucharisto.

The Lord has really been teaching me a lot lately about being grateful. And not just grateful for the big things either, but for every little seemingly insignificant thing. I wrote a post back in June talking about this journey I'm on towards achieving this goal, and I wish I could say that I'm there....but I'm really not. I guess I didn't realize that it was so hard to remember to thank God for things. I mean truly, I owe Him everything. EVERYTHING. The air in my lungs, the clothes on my back, the food in my stomach, the ground that I walk on. None of it is my own, and yet I use it thoughtlessly as if it's rightly mine. Well it's not. . . . None of it is. It's all a gift. Even my ability to live and think and dream is a gift.

So if this is all true, then WHY is it so difficult for me to remember to be thankful?

The answer is quite simple really. It's because I'm self-centered. I'm just plain inconsiderate, and I'm starting to feel like the spoiled-rotten daughter of a rich CEO who doesn't think twice about all the amazing things her father gives her. And I know I'm not alone in this one either. When is the last time that you honestly thanked God for something that is usually overlooked by you or by others? If you make this thankfulness a daily practice, then I admire you, you are something that I'm aspiring to be. . . . but if not, and if you're just like me, then how do we get out of this mess? How do we become grateful? How do we remember that these lives are not our own?

I wish there was a simple solution. To be honest, I don't know how to fix this problem. I don't even have the slightest idea. But I know who does. His name is above all others, and He is the perfect example of gratefulness, even in the toughest of situations. His name is Jesus Christ. How amazing is it, that even on the final night before His crucifixion, He broke bread and gave thanks? The cross was before him and He knew He was going to die a painful death. . . .yet he STILL gave thanks. (1 Corinthians 11:24) It's incredible really. How amazing is it, that when 5,000 hungry people came to hear him preach, the Lord gave thanks and was able to provide more than enough food for everyone? (John 6:1-13) Amazing things happen when we give thanks!

"Eucharisto (thanksgiving) always precedes the miracle." -Ann Voskamp

So the big question here is "How?" I really don't know how. . . but I do know that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Even though I know I'm going to keep failing at being thankful, I know that the Lord is my rock and my stronghold. Even when we fall short in the area of thanksgiving, He still loves us just the same. This week I challenge you to be more conscious of the things God has provided you. I challenge you to thank God for the little things and the medium things and the big things. I'll be doing this challenge right along-side of you. . . I can't promise that I'll do it perfectly, but I pray that God will help me all the way. 

Change.

As I'm sitting in my half-packed up room listening to music and trying to avoid getting out of bed, I'm thinking about all the change that will be happening for me this year. I'm really excited to get back to Bethel University and start my Junior Year, see all my friends and get back into the swing of things, but going back to Bethel means that my family is one step closer to possibly moving. For those of you who don't know, my dad was apart of the big Boise Paper layoff that happened recently in International Falls. He's currently searching for a job, which means he most likely won't won't work in Int'l Falls any longer . . . my parents will probably have to move. I'm living in the Mpls area so I'm not technically moving . . . but I still won't be able to call good ol' I Falls my home. No more International Falls winters (which may sound like a good thing to avoid but I'm truly going to miss them). No more Freeze-Your-Gizzard-Blizzard-Run. No more seeing all the ice houses on Rainy Lake once it's frozen over. No more jumping into the lake through a hole in the ice. No more "It's snowing in May!" No more driving "Hotlaps" with friends around town while catching up on all the latest gossip. No more City Beach in the summer. No more small town 4th of July parade. No more being able to watch the Canadian fireworks in the boat. No more Bass Tournament. No more "It's snowing before Halloween!" No more familiar streets. No more.

After high school I wanted SO badly to get out of this small town, but now that I know that my family won't live here much longer, part of me doesn't even want to go back to Bethel . . . part of me wants to stay here in my familiar room, in this familiar house, surrounded by a familiar neighborhood, in this familiar town filled with familiar faces. There's nothing wrong in wanting things to stay familiar . . . right?

"For I know the plans I have for you" declares the Lord. 

"plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

 plans to give you a hope for the future. 

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, 

and I will listen to you. 

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart.

{Jeremiah 29:11-13}

I have probably heard this verse about a million times. No lie. Between church services, Sunday School lessons, confirmation classes, Bible Camp, and graduation cards, this verse has crossed my path more times than I can even count. Regardless of how many times I've heard it though, it still hasn't lost any of its truth. God has a plan. Even though I'm really good at messing up and doing things wrong, and even though things surprise us and seem really bad at the time, God still has a plan. And not only does He have a plan, but he has my best interests at heart. I heard my mom talking to a friend about this whole moving situation just the other day, and she said "You know, this just means that God is done with us here. He wants to send us somewhere else now so he can use us there." That truly is the perfect perspective to have in this whole situation. While many families in town are seeing this layoff as a reason to be angry at God and blame him for what's going on, my parents are able to turn to God and say, "Okay God, what do you have for us next?"Their attitude is probably the main reason why I haven't spent too much time thinking about all that I will miss from this town....until now that is. BUT even though there's a lot I will miss, I'm so excited to hear about all the new things God will be doing through my parents in their new town (wherever that may be). With this new job, new town, new neighborhood, new house, new church, and additional friends my parents will be making, comes NEW OPPORTUNITY to reach out and accomplish work for Christ. That's so exciting! And it's for that reason, that I'm sad to be leaving International Falls, but I'm more just excited to see what God has around the corner. 

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, 

and are called according to His purpose.

{Romans 8:28}

Happy Friday!

Hey everyone! So remember when I said I was going to write a new post every Sunday? Well . . . turns out that's harder than I thought, especially when I don't have anything on my heart to write about. Since I'm still pretty inconsistent with posting on Sundays, I'm going to do random short posts when I don't know what else to write. Those short posts may contain a picture, quote, video, or something that I saw during the week that I enjoyed. Here's the first one! A quote that I found from Leonard Ravenhill that I absolutely adore. Have a great Friday! 

Wherever I go, I want Christ to be magnified.

I don't want somebody to say, "If that's Christianity, I don't want it."

I don't want somebody to say, "You know, the way you live - you blur the image of Christ."

I want those people to look through my life and say, "I see Jesus Christ."

{-Leonard Ravenhill}

Grateful.

This morning I am feeling....especially grateful.

I'm grateful for the sun streaming through my windows and onto my tan carpet.

I'm grateful for my alone time with my Savior this morning.

I'm grateful for my small leather bible filled with underlined passages and notes in the margins.

I'm grateful for the smell of my mom's fresh baked blueberry muffins.

I'm grateful for the potential of today. 

God is so good! And right now I'm feeling especially grateful to Him for all He has done, and continues to do in my life. 

Today is a great day.

Authentic Relationship.

I've been reading through the gospels lately, and something has been bothering me. As I turn page after page, each chapter documents the historical moments of Jesus life on earth, and His spoken words are a bright glaring red. But theres this quiet discontentment in my heart that has made me ask myself a difficult question.... Am I reading, studying, and underlining to gain knowledge about Jesus, or to get to know Jesus?

You see, the difference here between the two is tricky, because knowledge can be and often is gained within the growth of relationships. However, I see Christians (myself included) repeatedly content with head knowledge rather then knowledge of the heart. We often don’t realize how meaningless all of the church attendance, Christian book reading, and dare I say- even Bible reading is, when the words only sink into our heads and fail to pierce our hearts. Most of the time we don’t even realize how fruitless this knowledge is until it's too late and tragedy strikes.
As I was considering what I would blog about today, I began to review in my mind some of the stories I have read, about the life of Jesus in the past few days. He healed the lame, had compassion on the sick, and he loved the unlovable. He said, “follow me” and broken people followed with confidence, leaving everything they had behind.
Not surprisingly, some of the best human minds can't fully understand all that Jesus was and all He accomplished during His short life here on earth. We can’t even begin to wrap our minds around the unconditional love that radiates from His character- especially not in today's culture where we are so busy judging, living our own lives, and ignoring the needs of those around us. But what we often forget, is that we have the unthinkable opportunity to not just know about Jesus, but to know Him intimately. To be on a first name basis with our Savior!

Honestly, I forget this unbelievable privilege of Christianity far too often. Sometimes my prayer time  gets pushed to the bottom of my overwhelming daily “to-do” lists. Sometimes, I hurry through my Bible reading, trying to digest the passages quickly like fast food eaten in the car on my way to the next thing on my agenda. I get so busy in my own little world, that I stop listening, or rather stop caring, about what His plans may be for that day for my life. My day turns into "oh, I'll spend time with him later, I'm just so busy right now.." or "I'll do my devotions first thing tomorrow, I promise!"
I was thinking this morning about my friendships. I’ve been blessed with some really awesome, lifelong friends. When I'm with my close friends, I love to be with them. I love to laugh at inside jokes. Love to talk about the new celebrity gossip. Love to enjoy movies, concerts and food with them. I love to experience both the mundane days and the adventurous days. Would I be content with reading a book about them without the actual experience of being around them? Absolutely not. I would be devastated if my only means of getting to know my friends relationally was by reading a few brief pages documenting their days, what they said, or where they went. In other words, a Facebook style relationship with my best friends would leave me feeling miserable.

So then why as Christians, do we live as if such a relationship with Jesus is acceptable or even beneficial? It’s not knowing about Jesus that leads to a changed life....it’s real authentic encounters with Him that does. It’s a daily personal encounter with a magnificent God who knows all about you and me, and yet chooses to still love us more than we can imagine, that takes our messed up lives and makes them something God-glorifying. It's that kind of relationship that changes lives. Investing in an authentic relationship with Jesus brings us hope in despair, peace beyond understanding, and a wellspring of joy! It simply begins with a hungry heart, a sincere cry out to Jesus to know Him intimately, and an investment in quiet, solitary time with His word and prayer. Jesus died so that you could know Him, not just to know about Him.

"So, do you have a boyfriend yet?"

Now that I'm in college, I feel like I get asked this question by every relative and adult that I know. Seriously, it seems like I can't go a week without someone asking me if I've found "THE ONE" yet. I got asked this question by someone I ran into the other day at the supermarket, so I just smiled and said no, and then we continued our conversation. While I was driving home though, I began to think about it and it really bothered me. It doesn't bother me that I'm currently single, in fact I'm actually enjoying this time of singleness. It bothers me that people seem to think that finding a boyfriend should be the priority of my life. Why is this? 

Well lets take a look at one contributor....the media. Almost every TV show, movie, book, magazine, and song out there have finding your soul mate as the main focus. Since a HUGE majority of them talk about love and romance, it teaches us that those things are two of the only things that matter in life. Now I'm not saying that these things are wrong at all, but since when did they become the point of life? We've all been brainwashed into thinking that the point of our lives is to go through school, find a boyfriend or girlfriend, get married, have kids, raise them, and then spoil our grandkids. This sounds like a great life, but that's not the reason why we were put on this earth. 

The purpose of our lives is to glorify God, and not anything short of that! I wish people would start asking me how God is working in my life, or about my relationship with Him, rather than my relationship status on Facebook. I know that my purpose is to grow in my relationship with the Lord, and let Him reflect through my life, not to just find a nice boy to marry. If I do find a Christian man to marry, then that's wonderful! But if I don't, then it's not the end of the world! That's not the main purpose of my life anyways. God can do marvelous things through marriage, especially since it represents God's relationship with the church. But what good does it do if you get married without realizing your original purpose? I'm not going to speak like I know anything about marriage since I've never been married before, but by looking at my parents, I know what a relationship is supposed to look like. My parents absolutely adore each other, but they still put God first. God is their first priority in life, and because of that, their relationship reflects Him. If I do end up getting married someday, I want a relationship like that....I want my husband to love God more than he loves me. 

I believe this mixed-up-priority business is also a contributor to girls with low self-esteem. I know SO many girls who find all their self-worth in boys, because they've been tricked into thinking boys are the key to happiness. If we go through life thinking that we NEED to find a boy or else there's no point to our lives, then we will be absolutely miserable! Every time you get rejected, you feel worthless. When you're single you'll think there's something wrong with you. It's not healthy to be thinking this way. When you start finding your worth in the Lord, that's when you can find joy in every situation. 

So when it all comes down to it, if I find a man that I believe will help me fulfill my original purpose in life, then I will be more than happy. But if I don't, it doesn't matter because my purpose in life still remains the same....to Glorify God.

Distractions.

Distractions. They have a way of creeping into our lives. Sometimes we don't even notice them until after they have come and gone. Distractions are tricky things... you see, they all have this way of seeming really important at the time....It's only afterwards that you realize the amount of time you wasted. In my life, my smartphone is a large distraction to me. Not only do I use it for texting and calling, but I have social media apps such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I have one or two games, Snapchat, my email, the internet, YouTube, and Spotify. These can all be useful apps, but in my life, they're more of a distraction than anything else. How many times have I sat there looking at my phone screen instead of talking to someone else in the room? That's an opportunity wasted! How many times have I scrolled through my newsfeed on Facebook instead of reading a book or doing something that actually holds value? Another opportunity wasted! These things aren't bad in themselves, it's when we let them take over our time that they become a poor choice. Facebook and Twitter wouldn't be such large time wasters for me if I didn't have them on my phone. 

So here's the plan....I'm deleting them. I'm getting rid of everything on my phone that distracts me. My phone will basically consist of iMessage, the calculator, and flashlight. I'm just so sick of wasting my time! God gave me this life so that I can LIVE it not WASTE it! I don't want to look back at my life and wonder what I could have done differently. I want to enjoy it now and take every opportunity God gives me, to live my life to the fullest in the place where I'm at. I wish I could say that my phone wasn't a problem for me, but honestly, it is. And there are obviously a lot more things I can be doing in order to accomplish this goal of minimal distractions, but my first plan of action is against my smartphone. I'm excited to start this challenge and begin accomplishing tasks that I would've been distracted from otherwise. So here are my goals. The short list of things I want to do over the summer, without my smartphone there to distract me.

1. Read more books!

I. Love. Reading. I absolutely adore it. This summer, I would LOVE to tackle my reading list. So instead of going online to Facebook, Twitter, or my personal favorite: Reddit, I'm going to dedicate more time to exploring books.

2. Get to know a new person EACH day!

So this might sound like a ridiculous goal, but I'm really looking forward to this one. I love meeting new people! I'm working as a tour guide this summer, so I meet at least 5-10 new tourists each day. However, meeting them and getting to know them are two different stories. I'm going to actually take the time to get to know them beyond just their names and where they're from. A lot of pretty amazing people come through my tours, and it's about time I take advantage of that and let them impact my life in any positive way they can.

But now here's my challenge to you. Figure out what's distracting you! Is it your laptop? Is it a game? Is it the TV? Or maybe you're like me, and your distractions come from your phone. After you figure out what's distracting you, it's time to make the decision......do you want to continue letting that object distract you? or are you going to do something about it? If you would rather keep things the way they are, that is 100% fine. I just know that in my life, I will benefit greatly from removing all the distractions I can. The choice is absolutely up to you! I know that I'm not going to regret this, and I hope you won't either :)