brighter day!

I am not the same that I was a year ago, or even a month ago. I can't really say exactly how, but I wake up every morning knowing that the person that I was yesterday is not who I am today. It is as if I am going through spiritual puberty or something. My faith is being stretched in ways I didn't know it could be and I feel joy and love like I have never felt before. 
It is almost as if I am the person I was always meant to be but never knew I wasn't her before. I feel my light growing, not by my own doing but by the spirit. It is so amazing to live out the promises that the bible speaks, of how when I make less of me more of Him can shine and that is when fulfillment will happen. Full, I guess that is how I feel. Spiritually full, but yet still desiring more and more. 
My hope is that during this season you will experience a new freedom in our Father. That you will no longer be happy with a so-so relationship with God and start yearning for a passionate, I need nothing else, kinda relationship. One where you know that you can't but God can, where the laws of the flesh don't apply because you are a new creation. Where everyday is a new opportunity to become closer to your creator and every moment is a chance to pour more of yourself out for the world so that God can in turn pour more into you. Know that you, whoever may be reading this, I am praying for you. That you can grow more and more in love with our Daddy everyday.
Song of the day:
The way you love me- Anthony Evans.

Those of you who haven't, go read Hannah Thomas's blog 'We Build, We Break' because it is awesome and so is she. 

She posted this picture a couple weeks ago and I can't get it out of my head! It is called the flower of Sudan. I just found myself thinking about this picture and praying for her a lot lately. I wonder if she knows the Lord created her to be more beautiful than the stars, or that delicate pink flower she is holding. I wonder if she knows she is wanted, and at this very moment is being relentlessly pursued. I wonder if she knows that she is deeply, passionately, hopelessly loved. I wonder if I will see her in Heaven? The only thing I know for sure is that God loves her infinitely more than I ever could, and in that, I find my peace.

why?

happy is a yuppie word.

Comfort is not something we should strive for, it's something we should run from. With comfort comes apathy and in apathy there is no growth; if there's no growth, what are we doing?

People strive so hard to be comfortable. We want a good job with a good salary so we can buy our comfortable house filled with our comfortable furniture and a comfortably large TV. We want to be married so we don't have to be uncomfortable in loneliness. We want consistency because change is uncomfortable. While I was gone for a measly month this summer it was so hard to not talk about how we miss our favorite foods or our comfortable beds or our relaxing American toilets. We as humans long for comfort.

When we are comfortable, we become apathetic, we don't care enough to grow and we don't realize how much we need God. It's when we become uncomfortable that we become desperate for Him and we have to learn to find our comfort in Him. When we are uncomfortable we realize we can't do it on our own. Then comes dependence.

So go get uncomfortable! Give a little extra to your church, adopt a child, go on a mission trip, lead a small group, pack up your house and move to Africa. Whatever it looks like for you to be uncomfortable, whatever it is that you cling to so tightly that thought of letting it go feels like the end of the world, I challenge you to give it up. Wreck your life a little. Get desperate. Desperation leads to dependency and when you depend on God you give Him room to move in your life.

this video man.

this video could change your life, I know it changed mine.

a wasted life.

Lately, I have been feeling convicted.

Convicted about this luxurious life that I am living. Not that being blessed is bad, by any means; I think you should fully embrace what God has given you. But what I am talking about, is being wasteful.
I don't want to waste anything, but my innate, selfish mindset causes me to take way more than I need so that I will always have enough later. But in reality, most of what I save becomes wasted and this act is a complete lack of faith that God will provide for me all the things He has promised.  But that is a whole different blog.Anyways, as of lately, I have been extremely convicted by my wastefulness.  God has given me all dominion and authority on earth and he calls me to steward it well.  He asks me to be wise with what he has given me.  He says that if I can handle what he has given me wisely, he will bless me with more.  And even along with that; he has also been showing me that it is not all about money.  I am wasteful in so many other areas of my life!  And I think much of it comes from the Western culture and how I was raised in and how so many people in America have no perception or even worry about how much they waste.  I know that I didn't.  But what I realized is that we should be aware of our wastefulness not only because children die every day of starvation, or because most of the world lives in poverty;  but because God hates waste and in his kingdom, there is no waste.  Living a wasteful life is straight up disobedience to the Lord. And so now, I feel as though I am noticing every wasteful act that I do and I am convicted.   

"Why do I live the exact same way as the world?"  
"What is the point of seeing poverty if my heart is left unchanged?"
 

It is sad, because I have fallen back into into being used to living a wasteful life, and I think that it has affected  my desire to change my lifestyle. But now I just keep thinking how ashamed I would be if I acted this way in another country.

Even if I have all the money, materials, or experiences in the world to show for myself, what will I have to show to God?  What will I have to offer him who has given me everything, even my very breath? I have been so wasteful with both money and time and the truth is, there is no time to waste.  I am not promised tomorrow and today is already almost gone. 

Embrace the thought that we could do more to honor God with what we have.  He is so worth it. 

peace in congo.

http://www.fallingwhistles.com/
I wholeheartedly encourage you to get a whistle.

human trafficking awareness day.

Terms:
(In relation to the Red Light district in Bangkok, Thailand)
Human trafficking: moving of persons from one place to the next through force, fraud, and/or coercion for the purpose of servitude, debt payment, and forced sexual acts under coercions.
proxy husband- man who "takes on a prostitute" for an extended period of time as a forced sex slave or domestic slave. **In sex tourism these men will "rent" girls out for extended periods of time to be pseudo girlfriends during their vacation. Girls will act as tour guide, sex slave, domestic slave etc. 
Lady Boy: dresses, acts, takes on the persona of a woman.
"Ugly Girls" (A sign held in front of bars): if the ugly girls are bought and never return home, it's okay. Whatever happens to them happens to them. They are viewed as dispensable and not worth anything.


Victims: women, children, men.
Tactics: false marriage proposals; being sold by parents, neighbor, relative; kidnapped by traffickers.
Health risks: drug and alcohol addiction: introduced by traffickers.
Physical injuries: broken bones, bruises, STDs, AIDS: myths- having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS- (kids sown back up without anesthesia and sold again as virgins the next night), miscarriages, forced abortions
Psychological Harm: suicidal thoughts, suicide, PTSD, depression.

In Thailand:

• 66% of all men that land at Bangkok airport are there for sex tourism.
• 10% of profit from prostitution comes from Western Society. 80-90% comes from Thai men who see a prostitute on a regular basis.
• Guys at younger and younger ages are being introduced to prostitutes; 12-13 year old boys being introduced to sex by their dads who will take them to prostitutes.
• 1/3 of all Thai men and 40% of house wives have HIV/AIDS.
• 86% of male prostitutes are heterosexual men being forced into prostitution by family members.

This is the reality of the broken world we live in. 

"Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city" -Christ