Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Haiti, VBX, Half-marathon training,

   It's been a while since I've posted a blog entry...
 A couple of weeks ago at church we had VBX and I worked with the 2-3yr olds. Let me take a side-step and say it was so much fun watching the preschoolers learn about the greatness of God. One thing that completely warmed my heart was when we did "offering time" each night, the kids would get so excited about giving their money to help others. The other thing that was a blessing was seeing kids worship with their families on the last night of VBX (family night.) 
     Last week was a particularly hard week in the training for the half marathon and the giving up of the mountain dew. I have to be honest that there times when I was ready to give up on both simply because both were hard. But God brought to mind Philippians 4:13 which says "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." I kept praying God give me the strength. On Saturday I was able to run five miles (without stopping) and as of right now as I am sitting here typing this blog, I have only had one caffeinated beverage (and yes it was a diet mountain dew) today. This journey of giving up the diet mountain dew will continue to be hard but I know that God will give me the strength to do what He has called me to do! (and he will do it for you to if you just ask for it!!)
   Next update: HAITI...Can't believe it's so soon!!! I leave in 23 days (in just over 3 weeks)!! I am so excited about what God is going to do there!! Here's how you can pray for this journey to Haiti:
        1) pray for protection of the team members (physical & spiritual)
        2) pray that we would all be able to raise the amount of financial
             support necessary...
        3) that God would be begin to soften & prepare the lives to be
            changed by the Gospel




              

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Update on Summer goals/plans

     I love how the LORD likes to use analogies in my life. For example, as I was running today I was focused on making it to running for thirty minutes without stopping. I ran on a treadmill and throughout the run I kept looking at the screen to see if I had reached my endpoint. As I was reflecting on my run today Philippians 3:14, which says "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call in God in Christ Jesus," came to mind. The analogy, which is a very commonly known one, that the Lord reminded me of was that this life is like running a race and that we press on toward a prize (in running the finish line and in the Christian life it's Heaven.) Yes, I am beyond excited that I have reached the first part of my goal in the half-marathon training in being able to run thirty minutes without stopping. I am also thankful how the Lord is teaching/reminding me of scripture as I work toward the goal.
     As for "water goal", the drinking more water and reducing the amount of Diet Dew I drink is going. I've slowly increased the amount of water that I drink but the amount of Diet Dew is not decreasing.
    I have picked back up on my reading through the Bible in a year this week. The Lord has used this as well to teach/speak to me. I am reading a chronological plan and right now I'm towards the end of the book of Job. Each of Job's friends try to offer explanation to Job for the suffering that he is going through. One thing I've noticed is that his friends are not edifying, or building up, Job in his faith. As I reflected about how this applied in my life two things came to mine 1) I pray that I am edifying to my friends in their faith and that the Lord would show me how to be better at this and 2) I am thankful for the friends God has placed in my life who speak truth to me but at the same time edify me in my faith.


  As for a Haiti update: I am working on & hope to have my support letters out this weekend. I can't believe that journey is only six weeks away!!! Please begin to pray with me for Gospel opportunities & for changed lives.


Tuesday, June 5, 2012

"I can do nothing without Christ"

           My main purpose when I decided on my goals for the summer were to glorify the Lord with what I was doing. Little did I know that He was going to be teaching me lessons through them. I have started running (my goal is to get to 30 min of running without stopping this week so that I can start a half-marathon running plan next week) and it has been hard. It has been hard on the endurance part. I get five minutes in & I feel like I just want to give up. My goal of cutting back on the Diet Mountain Dew and drinking more water has been hard. The Lord has shown me why it has been hard. That is because I try to do all these things in my own strength. One of my favorite verses is Philippians 4:13 which says "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." If you think of that verse in opposite terms "I can do nothing without Christ," it makes one think of what Philippians 4:13 is talking about...Everything I set out to do can only be done with the strength that Christ gives me to it with, NOT WITH MY OWN STRENGTH! Something that I am going start praying is "God give me the strength to accomplish these tasks & remind me when I am trying to do it on my own strength." 


Though it's been hard, I am thankful that the LORD is teaching me the lesson of "I can do nothing without Christ!"