Things I Have Learned

I have learned many things about life, God, && myself in the last month so I decided to make a list:

1.      God is always in control no matter what and if you ever think He is not. He always has a funny way of telling you He is.

2.      God always thinks I’m beautiful, even if I don’t think so.

3.      Friends are the best and are always there no matter what. Even when you calling crying and just want someone to listen.

4.      Jesus is my best friend. Whenever I am feeling alone or sad, He is always there to talk to. Which I always take for granted.

5.      Sometimes it’s better to be quiet.

6.      Too much talk is bad.

7.      There are a lot of lies in this world, so we need to fill our self with truth.

8.      Kristyn Harvey is my cousin and my best friend. She is my favorite person to talk to no matter what and the one that is always there.  I don’t know what I would do without her.

9.      Other kids my age brag about being at college but I know God really wants me here.

10.  My Family is the best && I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

11.  My dad is such a great example to me and I am so proud of how far he has come

12.  My mom has the most caring heart I have ever seen and will serve people with all she is. I defiantly got my servant heart from her.

13.  My sister really is my best friend. Even though she ticks me off sometimes I love her more than she will ever know.

14.  When you try to fill that special whole in your heart that is supposed to be for Jesus with something else. It is really hard to get back to the way it was before, but the trip and the destination is so worth it.

15.  I have so many great adults in my life, which I really look up to.

16.  God has a great guy and a plan for me better than I could ever imagine.

17.  Everything is in God’s time not mine.

18.  I realized how when you start really loving people, your prayer list becomes really long but you really enjoy praying to God for them all the time.

19.  That after you get out of a relationship and are so used to hearing words of affirmation, it is really hard to adjust to not hearing all the time and not searching for them in someone else. I realize God is the only person I need to think I’m beautiful and love me.

20.  Jesus needs to be King in my life and every day I learn something new about who He is.

21.  Christian music is awesome && about all I listen too!

22.  Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.  My pain and suffering is nothing compared to what Jesus went through so it is selfish to dwell on my sufferings.

23.  I need to rejoice always, in everything.

24.  Journaling is the best way to let everything out and sort out everything you are thinking.

25.  Love is to be vulnerable. Which I hate that feeling but it’s true. To truly love people sometimes you gotta risk your heart and never give up.

26.  God might want me to go to Bible College but I’m still praying. He will lead me.

27.  There are a lot of broken people in this world and simple things can make there day

28.  That I struggle with pride && every day I have to lay it down and remember it’s all about Him and not me.

29.  Beautiful is on the inside, God just wants your heart.

30.  That with God you can do anything, even run 3 miles when you think you can’t haha J

31.  That not everyone is going to be your best friend but you can always love them

32.  I have been learning about loving selflessly with expecting nothing in return. It is so hard but it’s what I long for.

33.  My heart is with Jr. High even though I love my 5’s class on Sunday mornings.

34.  I have really learned what surrender is && it is defiantly an everyday thing.

35.  I am not perfect and sometimes I’m too hard on myself.

36.  GOD iS LOVE && love always wins

I'm not Religious

“Life is a journey, not so much to a destination, but a transformation. Looking back doesn't it sometimes feel like our richest times come right in the midst of our hardest? But God made us to life in community, to laugh and cry. To hurt and to celebrate with each other, no matter what we’re going through. And transformation is tough, and we don’t always end up where we think we will. But we have to remember, that even when we struggle to believe in Him, He always believes in us. He fills our lives with purpose and passion, if we just let Him. And the best part of the journey is that the God of the universe sometimes allows us to play a part in changing the world. Isn't that a trip?”—To Save a Life

This is the quote that is used at the end of the movie To Save a Life, in the last week I have watched this movie four times. It never gets old and every time God opens my eyes a little bit more to what it means to truly love others the way that Jesus loves us. In the last month God has taught me a lot about who he is really is. Another one of my favorite quotes in this movie is when the youth pastor goes up to talk to the main character Jake in the movie, Jake says “ Well that’s cool but I’m not really religious,” The youth pastor replies “ That’s okay, I’m not either.” I love this line so much. This is actually what God has been teaching me, it’s not a religion it’s a lifestyle. I dated a guy for a year and he is Mormon, towards the end of our relationship he really made me question what I believe. He trapped me in questions I didn’t know how to answer. I felt like wow I really don’t know how to defend my faith. This feeling ate at me, I wanted so bad to understand. I wanted to get to know everything so I can never feel like that again. In the end, God told me He had a bigger and different plan for me. I followed him and let go of a guy I really loved and care about so much. Since then I have had this fire in me to learn more about different religions compared to my own. After my research, I found out that religion just makes me really mad. It is so crazy how there can be one truth and then all it takes is one human to say that they believe this and then a whole religion is started. Just because you believe it doesn’t mean it is true. I just can’t wrap my head around how someone can look at the bible basically look at God and say this isn’t enough. I know now that God is more than enough for me. It breaks my heart that people think that going door to door to pass out books and trying to save people will get them to Heaven. It breaks my heart that people think good deeds will guarantee you a spot in Heaven. Yes, good deeds are important but good deeds flow from a relationship. A relationship with Jesus Christ, the King who left his throne on high to die for your sin, is the only way to get to Heaven. I have realized you can’t put God in a box and say “well this is how God does things.” He is God; he can do whatever He wants. He could have let us die and have nothing to live for but instead He gave us something to live for. Religion is just a label, a label that holds you back. You know why Christians are so stereotyped, it’s because people don’t live like true Christian. It doesn’t matter if you have the biggest church around and so many people attend. It doesn’t matter if you have a band or an organ. If going to church doesn’t change how you live your life, then why go.  So you can sit on a church pew and gets your one a week fill of God. NO! It is so much more than that. Christianity is a lifestyle. I am reading this book right now called The Irresistible Revelation by Shane Claiborne. In one of the chapters he talks about how in college he got really involved in going downtown and loving on the homeless people. He talks about how he really experienced a true church community. It was an abandon catholic church that the homeless were living in. In that church they had a sermon taught every Sunday, as a group of people seeking God they sang worship song, and they used whatever food they had as communion. It doesn’t matter where you are, God is everywhere. This is such an amazing picture of His church.

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair. ~G.K. Chesterton ♥

This is such a great quote. God has taught me all about love, His love. I know that people won’t know who God is if I don’t love like God does. You can shove religion at people and get really defensive but they will only know we are different by our love. The bible is just a tool that God uses different for everyone which is so cool. Every day God teaches me something different about who He is and every day I learn more about His unconditional love.

Agape..

WRCC Food Pantry, this ministry continues to open my eyes every day. In high school I used to serve every Thursday but since college started it has been harder to make it every week. I have been trying to go a lot more lately and every time it is so rewarding. I love greeting all these lovely people with a smile on my face. Even though they are struggling and have to task for help, they are happy and thankful. The past two times I have went, I decided to pick one person each time and spend the whole week praying for them. The first person who stuck out to me was an older lady who has such a selfless love for her family. As we walked through the aisles, she continued to tell me about her life. She gets up a five every morning and spends it doing the laundry, the dishes and eventually she gets herself ready before she gets the kids up. She has one daughter living with her and two grandbabies, one in diapers. She tells me how she is a bus driver and after her long day’s work dealing with kids she comes home to make dinner for three, two of them not even hers. She continued to tell me how she cannot wait till her daughter gets her life together because she feels too old to be a mom again. I look into this woman’s eyes and saw how exhausted she looked. She took on a challenge when she didn’t have to. Her strength and love to take care of her grandchildren inspired me so much. She really opened my eyes to the unconditional love of Jesus. This last week I helped at the pantry again. I stood in line to get another person to help through and the lady passes me a name card that read: Norma. Out walked this frail old woman that I just wanted to hug because she was so cute. It was her first time at the food pantry. I explained the process of how everything worked. Her information card said how she had eight people in her family. We talked about her kids and her grandchildren. When choosing what to put in her bag, she would always say “well I like this but I know the kids will eat this.” She put her wants and desires aside for her kids. Seeing her do this for everything she pick up, made me want to give her what she wanted because she totally deserves it. Norma loves selflessly and people can learn a lot from her, I did. Both these women showed me God’s love, just by going about their daily lives. Every time I got to the food pantry, I love just loving on all these people. Sometimes it’s hard when they don’t speak English, but it is so worth it. I have always had a serving heart, which can sometimes get me in trouble. Sometimes people get so wrapped up in serving that they forget why. I know when I was younger I would serve a ton and I always forgot the reason why. Since my relationship with Jesus Christ has grown, I know why now. God has giving me such a love for people, that I used to have but lost sight of. But now I know I serve to show people who Jesus is. We are called to be the hands of Jesus on this Earth and really living that out is so amazing. So if you are ever free on a Thursday afternoon from 3:30-5:30pm you should come with a humble heart and have God open your eyes. You can sit at home wondering why God allows people to go hungry and to suffer or you can stop wondering and start doing something about it.

God is EVERYWHERE!

Right now at this point in my life I feel like there is a handful of people who are really pursuing God with everything they are and other that have really fallen hard. My eyes have been opened and I see all the brokenness that only God can fix. Through everything I know that God is there and that He is never going to leave me and that is so comforting. I know some days are hard and you feel like giving up but no one ever said you had to do everything alone. I bought the new Matthew West cd a couple of weeks ago and I love it so much. There is this song on their titled “Strong Enough.” In the lyrics it says “Lord, I need you to be strong enough for the both of us.” The Lord is where you get your strength so you don’t have to do anything on your own.  Another thing God has taught me is that He is not a feeling. I have always heard the saying “I don’t feel close to God” I never thought anything of it, until last week I was talking with my good friend Kat Ho and we just had this awesome talk. God showed me that He is not a feeling. He is so much more than that. God’s joy and peace is a feeling. But God Himself is real, He is everywhere. If we all just open our eyes, we can see God everywhere. I love looking at the sunrise in the morning and up at the star filled sky, these are Gods creation and every day and night God paints a different picture in the sky. THAT IS SO COOL! How can people deny God when He is everywhere, but I guess you can’t open your eyes until you open your heart <3

My Challenge

Lately, God has been teaching me a lot. God showed me that I have been holding back for awhile.  God showed me how closed up my heart has been and how I spent more time being angry then loving people the way He wants me too. God placed another challenge before me. He told me to let go of someone I really cared about, someone I let get really close to my heart. But I took on that challenge no matter how bad it was going to hurt and I went with His will and not mine. In this past month since I followed where God was leading me, I have drawn so close to God and really found out who He is. My heart right now is so open to love, something it has been closed up to for a long time. Things happened my junior and senior year of high school that made me harden my heart and not let anyone get close to me. I let my fear of being hurt stop me from loving people the way I was supposed to.  I have really fully experienced God’s unfailing love and His endless joy through every situation.  I have been reaching out and really loving on people. I have realized that every day is a day to serve Jesus, that serving is a lifestyle not an only to do on Sunday’s kind of thing. Every day you can impact someone’s life. Even a simple smile can change someone’s day. My eyes have been open to the people who need the love of Jesus in this broken world.  On Wednesday of last week my little sister, Shelby, and I went on a long walk and had this amazing talk about God and what He is doing in both of our lives.  It was awesome because in a way, God is teaching us both the same things. After that long walk and talk with my baby sister, God really laid on my heart my unopened challenge card from CIY. I knew exactly where it was, in my keep safe box under my bed. My sister walked in my room and I looked at her and said “I’m going to open my CIY challenge.” She was so excited for me and sat right next to me. In my hand I held this little green envelope, my heart was beating fast and I was scared and anxious about what challenge lie ahead  for me. When I opened my card it read:  Go to www.ciy.com/believe, get a group of friends and volunteer at a Jr. High Believe near you next spring. I was so excited when I read this card. After I read this I immediately Facebook messaged our Jr. High pastor and told him all about. He messaged me back later that night saying he would be so glad to have me.  It is amazing how God works. He showed me His love and opened my eyes to see people the way He does. Then he places Hannah in my life to show me how much I love young girls. I have such a passion for young girls and I just want to love on them. I want them to never doubt how beautiful they are and see how truly precious they are to God. This challenge is just perfect for me and God knew that. I can’t wait to see what is in store and that next week  He showed me what He had in store.  I went to church that Sunday and was talking to one of the Junior High Leaders, Shelli Morrison. I have always looked up to Shelli and have admired her love for the eighth grade girls and juniorhighers in general. I told her one Sunday that we would need to get lunch soon and just talk. This last Tuesday Shelli and I met for lunch before I had to go to school.  We talked about life and what God is teaching both of us right now then finally it got down to the real reason that we got together. Shelli told me about the purity retreat that happened last weekend and how many of the junior high girls were struggling with self-esteem. We talked about how we both really wanted to make a change and invest in these girls. We are planning to start a program that helps all the girls get connected and invite the highschoolers and even college girls to love on these junior high girls because we have been there. We know all the hard struggles and how hard it is to find a place to fit in.  It is so awesome how God works. He gave me a challenge to spend a weekend with a bunch of junior high kids and now He has given me a way to get to know these kids before CIY believe. I am so excited to see where this ministry leads because I know this is where God is leading me. Every day God teaches me more about His love!

Where It All Started..

Everything that God is beginning to do in my life now all started at CIY this summer. CIY is a weeklong youth conference where all the highschoolers stay on a college campus and even stay in the dorms. We have worship twice a day as well as amazing speakers. This CIY was my last one since I was a senior. I thought about my past experiences at CIY. This being my fourth year, I decided it was not going to be about me. I just wanted to get to know the freshmen girls more and branch away from my friends to make some new ones. I loved spending that week getting to know the freshmen a lot better, it was awesome. On the second to last night I had this girl come up to me and ask if we could talk. Of course I said yes. It was one of the freshmen girls that I got to know during the week, but I didn’t really get a chance to invest as much time in her as I did with the other girls, so I was taken aback when she came to me. Her name is Hannah and I had only known her because we took a mother-daughter class together in the summer and I know her older sister. As Hannah and I sat down to talk, I found myself wondering what this would be about. We just did small talk at first. We talked about school and what Hannah thought about her first year at CIY. It finally got down to why she really asked to talk to me. Hannah looked at me and said, “Claire, will you be my mentor?” This question totally caught me off guard. I have never really talked to her that much and I realized that my actions made her really look up to me. At first the title “mentor” really scared me. It sounds so official and like something I could never be strong enough to be. But I took on this challenge and I was so excited to get to know Hannah better and really love on this beautiful girl. I knew this what God wanted me to do. On the last night at CIY everyone is given a small envelope. In that envelope is an unknown challenge. If you choose to open that card, it is a promise to God that you will fulfill that task. The last night everyone was waiting anxiously to open their card and see where God was leading them. As Justin sat in front of all of us, he told us that he wanted to wait until we were back home so we can open them in front of our whole youth group family. That Sunday we were having a special evening Awake to talk about our week at CIY and finally open our cards. I had all weekend to pray and think about if I was going to open my card or not. After talking to God, I realized He didn’t want me to open my card. I felt like right now being a mentor to Hannah was the challenge that God wanted me to focus on. What was really cool is Hannah went up to open her card. Her challenge was to find a mentor and be a mentor to someone else. It is really amazing how God works like that.  Since then Hannah and I have gotten closer and God has given me so much love for this amazing young girl. Every time we talk she inspires me so much. She is only a freshman and has such a strong faith. I know as a freshman, I was not as strong as she is now. You know the phase that God uses the weak to lead the strong, well this is totally true here.