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!