Here's the backgound story:
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. Pharaoh will think the Isrealites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert." And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord." So the Isrealites did this.
Pause. First we see the Lord is at work and He has a plan and as He reveals it to Moses, He describes exactly what Pharoah will think - The Lord knew what Pharaoh would think, and used it to bring himself glory. He had an elaborate plan with the purpose of capturing the attention of the lost Egyptians... continue-
When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, "What have we done? We have let the Isrealites go and have lost their services!" So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldy. The Egyptians- all of Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen and troops- pursued the Isrealites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth opposite Baal Zephon.
Pause. The Isrealites were quick to obey God. God spoke to Moses, and Moses directed the Isrealites. It says they fled- They knew they were to get out of there. Then Pharaoh panics because Egypt has just lost their slave labor, so he sends his best chariots and horsemen to pursue the Isrealites. The Lord harded Pharoah's heart so that he would go after God's people; all perfectly orchestrated to make His name known among the Egyptians. Continue...
As Pharaoh approached, the Isrealites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Eghypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"
Pause. The Isrealites, after obeying Moses, who had been directed by the Lord, see the Egyptians marching toward them - and they are scared out of their minds. They begin to question Moses. They knew that God was speaking to Moses, and they knew they were to follow Moses's lead; but it didn't take much for them to doubt the plans of the Lord because it didn't look the way they thought it should. If they were obeying God, and doing what He had told them to do, then surely they should be protected, right? Nothing frightening should ever happen to them, right? Continue...
Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."
Pause. He took God at His word. Moses knew that what the Lord promised would surely come to pass- so He continued to lead his difficult people, encouraging them to hold on. "Do not be afraid" he told them... "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." Continue...
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Isrealites can go through the sea on dry ground. (He repeats himself...) I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharoah, his chariots and his horsemen. Exodus 14: 1-18
The story continues to tell of the power that Moses possessed because God had called him to deliver His people. Moses raised his staff and stretched out his hand over the sea and the Red Sea split in half and the water stood like a wall to the left and to the right of the Isrealites. As the Egyptians came in behind them, just as the Lord said they would, Moses stretched out his hand over the sea again and the water went back to it's place. The waters engulfed Pharaoh and his army; not a single one of them survived.
This is huge, people. Listen close! The Lord had a mysterious and marvelous plan for the Isrealites to be delivered from the Egyptians. God knew it was going to take a faithful servant, so he chose Moses to lead them. Time and time again, Pharaoh refused to let the people go, but God hardened Pharaoh's heart all along so that the Egyptians would know that God reigned over all. The Isrealites were tired of being in the desert, and they let the slightest bit of fear sweep over them and drain them of their faith- the Lord said, "WHY are you crying out to me?! Tell the Isrealites to move on!"
These people were literally looking their enemy in the eyeballs! Even when they doubted, God was still faithful. They were terrified, but still victorious because God cared more about catching the attention of the Egyptians than he did the Israelites fear.
Sometimes we face scary things - even when we follow the voice of the Lord, and we do just what He tells us to do. Sometimes, it doesn't look exactly the way we think it should. Sometimes He tells us "I am going to fight for you; you need only to be still." and Sometimes He says, "Let's go. We have to keep moving."
It is vital that we choose to walk by faith, and not by our mere sight. Our eyes and our spirits are too faint - we must put our trust in the Lord, and claim his promises over our lives. Sometimes the purpose of the plan is not to get our attention. Sometimes the plan is to use us as an instrument to gain the attention of someone else. We do not get to know all the answers; we only get to play a small and insignificant role in a furious and glorious love story. If the Isrealites had disobeyed God and stayed in Egypt because it would have been easier for them, they would have missed out on the story of God revealing himself to the Egyptians. The story ends like this:
And when the Isrealites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant. -Exodus 14:31
God's power is constant, and everlasting. It doesn't change from one era in time to the next... He is the same today as he was yesterday, and he will be forever. He is stronger than any cancer, any disease, any injury, any depression, any fear, any debt, any despair, any confusion, any frustration, any evil, any corrupt government, any sex trade, any broken family, any rage, any temper, any need... In fact, where we let God reign, those things must flee. We have authority over those things, because the spirit of the living God lives inside of us. Satan is exponentially weaker than we are. He has no power, and no reign. He is scared to death of the power in the name of Jesus. He trembles in fear. We HAVE to rise up, take authority, claim God's victory and promises, and give him the glory.
We don't get to know all the answers, we just have to trust that God's plan far outweighs our own - He knows exactly what He is doing, and he promises to protect us. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.
12.06.2011
11.24.2011
For Those of You with Empty Chairs
Thanksgiving day sometimes seems to be a more difficult day than a joyful one. Many of us treat it as a day off of work, or a nice break from class; a day for a feast and some football. A day when lots of family comes, and new memories are made... But I can't help but feel the heaviness for most of America on Thanksgiving day. I know there is a story to be told beyond the turkey and fat pants.
Many of us sit down for dinner with an empty seat at the end of the table. Maybe it's where a mom or a dad or a husband or a wife or a sibling should be sitting. A mom that passed away 9 years ago, or a dad that walked out. A brother that is in rehab, or a parent that lies in a hospital bed hundreds of miles away. We feel a sense of lonliness, or defeat on days like today. We know that we have an abundance of things to be thankful for, but there is a thick and overwhelming feeling of losing someone that way outweighs our thoughts of thanksgiving.
It's okay to feel that way.
“My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours… it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us more powerfully and personally." - Frederick Buechner
There is a man who has played an extraordinary role in my life. He became one of my biggest fans, and greatest friends when I was about 8 years old. He taught me all kinds of things in life; how to throw a football was one among many. He took interest in my life, gave me a nickname, told me jokes... He knew exactly what it meant to be a friend and to have a friend - He taught me more about investing in people than I have ever fully realized, and it wasn't by a lengthy lecture, but rather the way that he lived his life. A few years later, He was used to teach me the power of prayer. He was diagnosed with throat cancer, and was given 6 months to live. I was 11 years old, and I knew that the bible says that "by His stripes, we are healed" so I thought I would take God at his word, and began to proclaim that over this man. He was fighting a battle for his life, and I knew that as his friend I was fighting it with him. I also knew that God was for me, and that nothing could stand against me. Eight years later He is still alive, and I've had the opportunity to see him come out of the valley of the shadow of death, and into the land of the living. I've seen him regain his strength, and learn how to eat real food again. God was reteaching him the way of life, but in a new light. I saw hope in his eyes, and heard joy in his laughter. A couple months ago he was diagnosed with pre-luekemia. Tonight he continues to battle for his life. My heart has been broken this week. I knew that I wouldn't be sitting across from him at dinner tonight, and it killed me. I have no doubt that he will be back at that table next year, but his story paints a picture of the millions of people who easily identify with me and with him.
This isn't easy, people. It's tough. It's testing, and heartbreaking and draining.
The truth is that God still sits on the throne. He is the same today as he was yesterday, and he will be tomorrow. His Holy Spirit still dwells in us, and what satan intends for evil and defeat, God turns around for good. Sometimes it's really difficult to see the sun through the clouds; but it's always there. The truth is that you are not alone in your heartbreak or mourning or anger. It's okay that we feel those things, because it reminds us that we are human. We will deal with suffering and tragedy, but we get to walk in the land of the living, because Jesus already overcame the world. We are victorious. The truth is that tomorrow is a new beginning; a fresh start. It's a reminder that we are still alive, and we have a story to tell.
What did you learn from the individual that you're thinking about? Chances are they taught you that particular thing for a reason, and I believe that often times it's so that you will teach it to someone else. We have a role to play while we are here - We learn so that we can practice, and in return, teach.
You are still here for a purpose. Your story matters. Maybe it's time you tell it to somebody.
Many of us sit down for dinner with an empty seat at the end of the table. Maybe it's where a mom or a dad or a husband or a wife or a sibling should be sitting. A mom that passed away 9 years ago, or a dad that walked out. A brother that is in rehab, or a parent that lies in a hospital bed hundreds of miles away. We feel a sense of lonliness, or defeat on days like today. We know that we have an abundance of things to be thankful for, but there is a thick and overwhelming feeling of losing someone that way outweighs our thoughts of thanksgiving.
It's okay to feel that way.
“My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours… it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us more powerfully and personally." - Frederick Buechner
There is a man who has played an extraordinary role in my life. He became one of my biggest fans, and greatest friends when I was about 8 years old. He taught me all kinds of things in life; how to throw a football was one among many. He took interest in my life, gave me a nickname, told me jokes... He knew exactly what it meant to be a friend and to have a friend - He taught me more about investing in people than I have ever fully realized, and it wasn't by a lengthy lecture, but rather the way that he lived his life. A few years later, He was used to teach me the power of prayer. He was diagnosed with throat cancer, and was given 6 months to live. I was 11 years old, and I knew that the bible says that "by His stripes, we are healed" so I thought I would take God at his word, and began to proclaim that over this man. He was fighting a battle for his life, and I knew that as his friend I was fighting it with him. I also knew that God was for me, and that nothing could stand against me. Eight years later He is still alive, and I've had the opportunity to see him come out of the valley of the shadow of death, and into the land of the living. I've seen him regain his strength, and learn how to eat real food again. God was reteaching him the way of life, but in a new light. I saw hope in his eyes, and heard joy in his laughter. A couple months ago he was diagnosed with pre-luekemia. Tonight he continues to battle for his life. My heart has been broken this week. I knew that I wouldn't be sitting across from him at dinner tonight, and it killed me. I have no doubt that he will be back at that table next year, but his story paints a picture of the millions of people who easily identify with me and with him.
This isn't easy, people. It's tough. It's testing, and heartbreaking and draining.
The truth is that God still sits on the throne. He is the same today as he was yesterday, and he will be tomorrow. His Holy Spirit still dwells in us, and what satan intends for evil and defeat, God turns around for good. Sometimes it's really difficult to see the sun through the clouds; but it's always there. The truth is that you are not alone in your heartbreak or mourning or anger. It's okay that we feel those things, because it reminds us that we are human. We will deal with suffering and tragedy, but we get to walk in the land of the living, because Jesus already overcame the world. We are victorious. The truth is that tomorrow is a new beginning; a fresh start. It's a reminder that we are still alive, and we have a story to tell.
What did you learn from the individual that you're thinking about? Chances are they taught you that particular thing for a reason, and I believe that often times it's so that you will teach it to someone else. We have a role to play while we are here - We learn so that we can practice, and in return, teach.
You are still here for a purpose. Your story matters. Maybe it's time you tell it to somebody.
10.25.2011
Rejoice!
About a year ago I wrote a blog about the cool play on words with "PTL". The Lord had challenged me to Praise him in the times that I wanted to bathe in self-pitty; or dwell on the things that didn't look the way I thought they should. While sitting at a cute wooden table outside of starbucks with two of my friends, I glanced down at my plastic cup that was marked with the letters "P.T.L." We were discussing the heartbreak of investing so much in a relationship and walking away with very little to show for it, and in the midst of tears the sweet Lord said, "Kirby... pay attention. It's a season of singing."
Boom. Where I had begun to open a door for Satan to come in and twist my knowledge of the truth, Jesus quickly brought me back to reality. Don't misunderstand me, it is completely natural to have feelings of sadness or anger when we experience change in our lives... but I was at a crossroad: I could choose to drown in that broken heart, or I could choose to walk through the fire, singing and learning.
I do not believe that this is a lesson that we learn one time in life... I can speak only on behalf of myself, but this is one thing that I keep learning, day after day.
This semester began with a similar situation. An unexpected change came about in a close relationship of mine, and again I was at that same crossroad. This time the Lord wanted to teach me about contentment.
I think it's important to learn from the people in our lives; afterall, they have been placed there for a reason. I also believe this is why it is vital that we are vulnerable and transparent with each other, because we were all created with a desire in the depth of our souls to be known. If we don't meet that for others, we are missing out on abundant opportunity.
With that being said, I love the life of Paul in the new testiment. He was a mass murderer of Christians; didn't like them, didn't want anything to do with them... He did everything in his power to get rid of them. Then God wanted to use him, got a hold of his heart and literally transformed him. God took a murderer, dead in his sin, and made him alive in Christ; a man who became the greatest missionary to walk the face of the earth. Paul ended up writing most of the new testiment, allthewhile he was in jail, encouraging the church to live a life worthy of their calling. He had very little to live off of; he was beaten, and mistreated but he knew that he was only a servant of the gospel by the grace of God. He knew that it was his responsibility to get the message of Jesus to the gentiles. He lead by example, and he taught his fellow believers to always be ready for the time that Jesus comes back.
Philippians 4:11 says, "...for I have LEARNED to be content with whatever I have..."
Contentment is not when everything is perfect, and our lives are smoothe sailing. Contentment means that in the midst of chaos, and heartbreak and confusion, we have a peace and a joy that surpasses all understanding. It means that we Praise the Lord when it seems acceptable for our heads to hang low.
It means that we quit "waiting" for peace, and choose it. It means we walk in the will of the Lord.
"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Thes 5:12
"Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again - rejoice!" Phil 4:4
"Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all that He has done. Then the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds..." - Phil 4:7
I'm tired of this American Christianity. If you're comfortable, you're wrong. We spend our time asking God for opportunity, and when He brings it to us, we are too busy. We have comfortable jobs, a nice pay check, a pretty family and a big house; yet, we hold onto our posessions, because we worked hard for them so we "deserve" them. We spend billions of dollars on building churches around the globe, and invest in the "doctine" of multiple denominations, and forget about the people half way across the world that are hiding in an underground church, risking their lives to hear about the hope of God... We preach on the "hole" in our gospel, and at the same time we let Satan use us to dig the hole a little deeper. We use our dreams to create great things- from technology to non-profit organizations - but we leave the name of God out of it. We are obsessed with being "politically correct" and we don't want to "push" our beliefs or "convictions" on other people, so we refrain from voicing our opinions in our liberal classes and professional work places. We allow theology to make itself a wedge in our relationships with people, yet we call ourselves one body. Have we forgotten that there is only one way to God? Have we forgotten that we are the ones held accountable for the opportunities that He has put before us? We are foolish to believe that we are planted in certain places to go to school, or work from 8-5, or whatever else. We serve a God who perfectly orchestrates our steps, yet we are afraid to take them because we aren't "sure" if thats what He wants for us. We've gone from good intentions to laziness, and it isn't getting the good news to anyone.
Paul knew that He didn't have all the time in the world; He knew that Jesus was coming back, and he was going to be held accountable for the responsibilities the Lord had given him. He wasn't messing around. In fact, He was ready at any point.
Lord, forgive of us of our pasts. We are so unworthy of your grace, yet you lavish it on us each and every morning. Transform us the way you did Paul, and use us to make you famous. Teach us to be content, even in the hardest times. Teach us to be bold in our actions; remind us that you make all things good, and you place dreams and desires in our hearts for a reason. Create enough opportunity only for today, and open our eyes for only that much. Light only a little bit of our path, so we don't get ahead of ourselves and trip over our own feet. Convict us of the things that you don't love, and remind us to sing to you in every circumstance. Reveal to us your mysteries and shine your light through us. Light us on fire.
It's way past time, people. It's time to learn to be content, and to freely give what has been given to us. We don't deserve any of what we "own". We have one responsibility. It's time for the church to wake up; it's time for a revival. We can sing and dance and clap our hands in Heaven.
The only thing we can't do in Heaven is reach the lost.
Boom. Where I had begun to open a door for Satan to come in and twist my knowledge of the truth, Jesus quickly brought me back to reality. Don't misunderstand me, it is completely natural to have feelings of sadness or anger when we experience change in our lives... but I was at a crossroad: I could choose to drown in that broken heart, or I could choose to walk through the fire, singing and learning.
I do not believe that this is a lesson that we learn one time in life... I can speak only on behalf of myself, but this is one thing that I keep learning, day after day.
This semester began with a similar situation. An unexpected change came about in a close relationship of mine, and again I was at that same crossroad. This time the Lord wanted to teach me about contentment.
I think it's important to learn from the people in our lives; afterall, they have been placed there for a reason. I also believe this is why it is vital that we are vulnerable and transparent with each other, because we were all created with a desire in the depth of our souls to be known. If we don't meet that for others, we are missing out on abundant opportunity.
With that being said, I love the life of Paul in the new testiment. He was a mass murderer of Christians; didn't like them, didn't want anything to do with them... He did everything in his power to get rid of them. Then God wanted to use him, got a hold of his heart and literally transformed him. God took a murderer, dead in his sin, and made him alive in Christ; a man who became the greatest missionary to walk the face of the earth. Paul ended up writing most of the new testiment, allthewhile he was in jail, encouraging the church to live a life worthy of their calling. He had very little to live off of; he was beaten, and mistreated but he knew that he was only a servant of the gospel by the grace of God. He knew that it was his responsibility to get the message of Jesus to the gentiles. He lead by example, and he taught his fellow believers to always be ready for the time that Jesus comes back.
Philippians 4:11 says, "...for I have LEARNED to be content with whatever I have..."
Contentment is not when everything is perfect, and our lives are smoothe sailing. Contentment means that in the midst of chaos, and heartbreak and confusion, we have a peace and a joy that surpasses all understanding. It means that we Praise the Lord when it seems acceptable for our heads to hang low.
It means that we quit "waiting" for peace, and choose it. It means we walk in the will of the Lord.
"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Thes 5:12
"Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again - rejoice!" Phil 4:4
"Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all that He has done. Then the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds..." - Phil 4:7
I'm tired of this American Christianity. If you're comfortable, you're wrong. We spend our time asking God for opportunity, and when He brings it to us, we are too busy. We have comfortable jobs, a nice pay check, a pretty family and a big house; yet, we hold onto our posessions, because we worked hard for them so we "deserve" them. We spend billions of dollars on building churches around the globe, and invest in the "doctine" of multiple denominations, and forget about the people half way across the world that are hiding in an underground church, risking their lives to hear about the hope of God... We preach on the "hole" in our gospel, and at the same time we let Satan use us to dig the hole a little deeper. We use our dreams to create great things- from technology to non-profit organizations - but we leave the name of God out of it. We are obsessed with being "politically correct" and we don't want to "push" our beliefs or "convictions" on other people, so we refrain from voicing our opinions in our liberal classes and professional work places. We allow theology to make itself a wedge in our relationships with people, yet we call ourselves one body. Have we forgotten that there is only one way to God? Have we forgotten that we are the ones held accountable for the opportunities that He has put before us? We are foolish to believe that we are planted in certain places to go to school, or work from 8-5, or whatever else. We serve a God who perfectly orchestrates our steps, yet we are afraid to take them because we aren't "sure" if thats what He wants for us. We've gone from good intentions to laziness, and it isn't getting the good news to anyone.
Paul knew that He didn't have all the time in the world; He knew that Jesus was coming back, and he was going to be held accountable for the responsibilities the Lord had given him. He wasn't messing around. In fact, He was ready at any point.
Lord, forgive of us of our pasts. We are so unworthy of your grace, yet you lavish it on us each and every morning. Transform us the way you did Paul, and use us to make you famous. Teach us to be content, even in the hardest times. Teach us to be bold in our actions; remind us that you make all things good, and you place dreams and desires in our hearts for a reason. Create enough opportunity only for today, and open our eyes for only that much. Light only a little bit of our path, so we don't get ahead of ourselves and trip over our own feet. Convict us of the things that you don't love, and remind us to sing to you in every circumstance. Reveal to us your mysteries and shine your light through us. Light us on fire.
It's way past time, people. It's time to learn to be content, and to freely give what has been given to us. We don't deserve any of what we "own". We have one responsibility. It's time for the church to wake up; it's time for a revival. We can sing and dance and clap our hands in Heaven.
The only thing we can't do in Heaven is reach the lost.
8.30.2011
Bold
When I think of the word "bold" as a verb, I think of doing something that might take a little risk, or being confident in something that other people might think is crazy. I think of putting myself aside, and doing what I know is right, even when it sounds completely ridiculous.
Bold Prayer. Those two words together are a challenge. I've been learning about the importance of being bold when I talk to God. I think there is an interesting balance between humbling myself before Him and realizing how finite and tiny I am compared to Him and His furious, miraculous, wonderful love, and coming to Him the same way I would come to my earthly father: with urgency, and expectancy.
I think relationships are the most vital thing in life. I am a firm believe in the saying, "It's not what you know, but who you know." However, I did get a conversation once with a friend that insisted that intellegence and knowledge are two extremely important qualities to have when hoping to meet the right people... which I don't completely agree with, but that's another topic to discuss for another day. I believe that saying so much for this reason: We may have high goals set for ourselves, and with enough initiative and ambition, we have a great chance of achieving our goals. However, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has infinitely bigger plans for our lives than we could ever imagine, or guess or request in our wildest dreams. (Ephesians 3:20) I believe that He puts people in our lives to help us get from point A to point B to point C, and so on. If we set our eyes soley on our goal, we might get there in a straigh shot; but if we set our eyes on Jesus, He might take us on detours and we might meet people along the way who know exactly where to take us. At the end of our lives, we might look back and see the maze that the Lord has perfectly orchestrated for us- and that is the beauty of it. The Lord is so much wiser than me, and He knows just what I need, just when I need it.
I think it takes a bold attitude to relinquish our plans, and walk by faith. Some may call us crazy along the way, and we might be crazy... but how rewarding to live a lifestyle that glorifies God in every way, because He is the one that directs our steps.
I've been asking Jesus to put big things on my heart. It's easy to pray about the things that directly affect my daily life- whether that be my classes, or for healing for the people around me, or for my future husband. Don't get me wrong, those things absolutely need prayer- but I don't believe my prayer life should be confined to those things. I want to pray about big things, and watch God do big things. I want to see Him rock this campus, so I should be constantly asking Him to show me places that I should be praying for. I want Him to rock the face of Cambodia and their government, and their villages and that Red Light District, so I should be constantly praying over those things- for break throughs, and successful raids. I should be praying for those sweet, beautiful women, and those men who are held captive by Satan. I should be praying for that government and for justice to roll down.
If you're looking for something to enhance your life, try enlarging your prayers. It seems that I always see God in the most radical ways when I am praying radical prayers.
I love the story of Joshua, and I love how bold He was. Joshua 10 says this: On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: "Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon." So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being.
The sun stood still. Are you kidding? He knew what God had called him to do, and he know that all the glory would go back to God- He was fearless in asking the Lord what he needed. What faith...
Here is my challenge to you: Start praying for a "Sun Stand Still" prayer- Joshua was a mere human being, just as you and I are. He was anointed and equipped for a certain time period- just like you and I are. He was up against battles of his day that he could not handle with his human strength- just as you and I are. He saw God in a way that no other Human being has. I have the creater of the Universe, the great I am, the Author and perfecter of our faith, the Great Physician, the Almighty living inside of me- I have the authority to tell a mountain to move and it will. I have the ability to lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. I have seen blind people see, deaf people hear, the lame walk, and the prisoners set free; with my own eyes. Nobody could ever tell me anything that would make me doubt the power of the Holy Spirit. He can do outrageous things, things that no intellegence or knowledge could ever measure up to.
What would happen if we started praying for big things- for being bold in our conversations with Jesus, and expecting Him to rebuild governments, heal families, set captives free, purify minds... It might be uncomfortable, because He might call us to do things that people would see as crazy. I can only imagine the reaction Joshua got from his friends when he spoke to the sun, and told it to stand still. but man, I bet it rocked the life of every single isrealite.
Invite God to do big things; but when you ask him to, expect him to. He hears you, and He is especially fond of you. Be alert and ready for what Jesus lays on your heart to pray for. Asking for spare change and being timid will do very little for the world - be bold.
Bold Prayer. Those two words together are a challenge. I've been learning about the importance of being bold when I talk to God. I think there is an interesting balance between humbling myself before Him and realizing how finite and tiny I am compared to Him and His furious, miraculous, wonderful love, and coming to Him the same way I would come to my earthly father: with urgency, and expectancy.
I think relationships are the most vital thing in life. I am a firm believe in the saying, "It's not what you know, but who you know." However, I did get a conversation once with a friend that insisted that intellegence and knowledge are two extremely important qualities to have when hoping to meet the right people... which I don't completely agree with, but that's another topic to discuss for another day. I believe that saying so much for this reason: We may have high goals set for ourselves, and with enough initiative and ambition, we have a great chance of achieving our goals. However, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has infinitely bigger plans for our lives than we could ever imagine, or guess or request in our wildest dreams. (Ephesians 3:20) I believe that He puts people in our lives to help us get from point A to point B to point C, and so on. If we set our eyes soley on our goal, we might get there in a straigh shot; but if we set our eyes on Jesus, He might take us on detours and we might meet people along the way who know exactly where to take us. At the end of our lives, we might look back and see the maze that the Lord has perfectly orchestrated for us- and that is the beauty of it. The Lord is so much wiser than me, and He knows just what I need, just when I need it.
I think it takes a bold attitude to relinquish our plans, and walk by faith. Some may call us crazy along the way, and we might be crazy... but how rewarding to live a lifestyle that glorifies God in every way, because He is the one that directs our steps.
I've been asking Jesus to put big things on my heart. It's easy to pray about the things that directly affect my daily life- whether that be my classes, or for healing for the people around me, or for my future husband. Don't get me wrong, those things absolutely need prayer- but I don't believe my prayer life should be confined to those things. I want to pray about big things, and watch God do big things. I want to see Him rock this campus, so I should be constantly asking Him to show me places that I should be praying for. I want Him to rock the face of Cambodia and their government, and their villages and that Red Light District, so I should be constantly praying over those things- for break throughs, and successful raids. I should be praying for those sweet, beautiful women, and those men who are held captive by Satan. I should be praying for that government and for justice to roll down.
If you're looking for something to enhance your life, try enlarging your prayers. It seems that I always see God in the most radical ways when I am praying radical prayers.
I love the story of Joshua, and I love how bold He was. Joshua 10 says this: On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: "Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon." So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being.
The sun stood still. Are you kidding? He knew what God had called him to do, and he know that all the glory would go back to God- He was fearless in asking the Lord what he needed. What faith...
Here is my challenge to you: Start praying for a "Sun Stand Still" prayer- Joshua was a mere human being, just as you and I are. He was anointed and equipped for a certain time period- just like you and I are. He was up against battles of his day that he could not handle with his human strength- just as you and I are. He saw God in a way that no other Human being has. I have the creater of the Universe, the great I am, the Author and perfecter of our faith, the Great Physician, the Almighty living inside of me- I have the authority to tell a mountain to move and it will. I have the ability to lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. I have seen blind people see, deaf people hear, the lame walk, and the prisoners set free; with my own eyes. Nobody could ever tell me anything that would make me doubt the power of the Holy Spirit. He can do outrageous things, things that no intellegence or knowledge could ever measure up to.
What would happen if we started praying for big things- for being bold in our conversations with Jesus, and expecting Him to rebuild governments, heal families, set captives free, purify minds... It might be uncomfortable, because He might call us to do things that people would see as crazy. I can only imagine the reaction Joshua got from his friends when he spoke to the sun, and told it to stand still. but man, I bet it rocked the life of every single isrealite.
Invite God to do big things; but when you ask him to, expect him to. He hears you, and He is especially fond of you. Be alert and ready for what Jesus lays on your heart to pray for. Asking for spare change and being timid will do very little for the world - be bold.
7.25.2011
Refine Me
One week before I pack up the Max and head back to the wonderful city of Norman. I cannot believe that the summer has flown by... It seems like just yesterday I was packing up to come home. As I was driving around visiting a few friends, "Desert Song" by Hillsong United came through my speakers. That song represents so many great lessons. The second verse is powerful:
"And this is my prayer in the fire; in weakness, or trial or pain. There is a faith proved of more worth than Gold, so refine me, Lord, through the flame."
Boom. His unfailing love never leaves us nor forsakes us. I think that is a hard principle to grasp, because we think that once we find Jesus we will never experience hardship again. Sometimes we wonder, "Well, God, I'm doing what you have called me to do... So why is all of this happening?" or "I'm doing this for your glory, so why would you stop me from gaining the desires of my heart?" or "Why did this disease strike my family when we have made You the king of our lives?"
It's okay that we ask all of those questions because God knows our hearts, and He knows that we are a hurting people who don't understand what exactly He is doing... but the story doesnt end there. When we experience weakness, or trial or pain, God has abundant opportunity to refine us. We would never grow if we we didn't have to. We aren't a people who like change- We like things to stay the same, we like to be comfortable, we like to be safe.
We live in a dark world, and we weren't created to conform to the patterns of it. There is something significant about living for a God who is bigger than any weakness or trial or pain. We experience those things because we live in a dark place, but we aren't confined to it. We have choices that lie before us- we get to pick if we are stuck. We can't get ourselves out of the junk that we find ourselves in, but we were created by a God who can, and does.
I can't help but wonder how different my attitude and outlook on life would be if I was constantly viewing my life by the words of Verse 2. What if I took every single weakness, and expected God to refine me through that flame. What if we all did? How much more would we grow, give and invest? Our entire way of life would change. It would be a ripple effect, where our hearts are changed because we trust that God knows what He is doing; therefore, we would be sensitive to what He wants us to do for the people around us. How many more people would be moved by the Love of Christ, rather than be burnt by the rules of religion? How many street corners would be free of people screaming through megaphones about the wrath of God, and how many less would go homeless and hungry? I believe a consuming fire would be lit inside of us.
Verse 3:
"And this is my prayer in the battle, when triumph is still on it's way. I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ, so firm on his promise I'll stand."
He promises that he has wonderful and prosperous plans for our lives, yet we aren't convinced. He promises that we are victorious in Christ Jesus and that we have already won the battle because of the cross, yet we can't see the fruit, so instead we see that we have failed. That's so wrong.
As women, I think we find our selves more and more insecure with each generation. We try to fill that void with the uproar of "Women's Rights" and outrageous feminists. Yet, we aren't comfortable in our own skin. We buy billions of dollars worth of magazines and make-up to make ourselves feel better about our features and our body types, which in fact usually makes us feel worse. We alter our bodies to fit what is "beautiful" in the eyes of our culture.
Psalm 139 says, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made... your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
Song of Solomon 4:7 says "All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you."
Romans 8:17 says, "And since we are His children, we are His heirs; in fact, co-heirs with Christ..."
We are victorious, and we are conquerors. Nothing that satan has up his sleave could ever surprise God, or beat Him. He already won. It is time we stand on His promises, knowing that no weapon formed against us shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17)
We will certainly face hardship. We will fight emotional, physical and mental battles... Satan will do everything in his power to defeat us, but with Jesus we are unstoppable.
Today is a new day; it has never happened before. It might not be easy, but it's worth it. Acknowledge God's promises, and stand firm on them. He gave us His word for a reason; it holds the key to unlock the chains of this world. Run the race. Persevere. Let the Lord refine you through the flames of this life- In Him, You are victorious.
"And this is my prayer in the fire; in weakness, or trial or pain. There is a faith proved of more worth than Gold, so refine me, Lord, through the flame."
Boom. His unfailing love never leaves us nor forsakes us. I think that is a hard principle to grasp, because we think that once we find Jesus we will never experience hardship again. Sometimes we wonder, "Well, God, I'm doing what you have called me to do... So why is all of this happening?" or "I'm doing this for your glory, so why would you stop me from gaining the desires of my heart?" or "Why did this disease strike my family when we have made You the king of our lives?"
It's okay that we ask all of those questions because God knows our hearts, and He knows that we are a hurting people who don't understand what exactly He is doing... but the story doesnt end there. When we experience weakness, or trial or pain, God has abundant opportunity to refine us. We would never grow if we we didn't have to. We aren't a people who like change- We like things to stay the same, we like to be comfortable, we like to be safe.
We live in a dark world, and we weren't created to conform to the patterns of it. There is something significant about living for a God who is bigger than any weakness or trial or pain. We experience those things because we live in a dark place, but we aren't confined to it. We have choices that lie before us- we get to pick if we are stuck. We can't get ourselves out of the junk that we find ourselves in, but we were created by a God who can, and does.
I can't help but wonder how different my attitude and outlook on life would be if I was constantly viewing my life by the words of Verse 2. What if I took every single weakness, and expected God to refine me through that flame. What if we all did? How much more would we grow, give and invest? Our entire way of life would change. It would be a ripple effect, where our hearts are changed because we trust that God knows what He is doing; therefore, we would be sensitive to what He wants us to do for the people around us. How many more people would be moved by the Love of Christ, rather than be burnt by the rules of religion? How many street corners would be free of people screaming through megaphones about the wrath of God, and how many less would go homeless and hungry? I believe a consuming fire would be lit inside of us.
Verse 3:
"And this is my prayer in the battle, when triumph is still on it's way. I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ, so firm on his promise I'll stand."
He promises that he has wonderful and prosperous plans for our lives, yet we aren't convinced. He promises that we are victorious in Christ Jesus and that we have already won the battle because of the cross, yet we can't see the fruit, so instead we see that we have failed. That's so wrong.
As women, I think we find our selves more and more insecure with each generation. We try to fill that void with the uproar of "Women's Rights" and outrageous feminists. Yet, we aren't comfortable in our own skin. We buy billions of dollars worth of magazines and make-up to make ourselves feel better about our features and our body types, which in fact usually makes us feel worse. We alter our bodies to fit what is "beautiful" in the eyes of our culture.
Psalm 139 says, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made... your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
Song of Solomon 4:7 says "All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you."
Romans 8:17 says, "And since we are His children, we are His heirs; in fact, co-heirs with Christ..."
We are victorious, and we are conquerors. Nothing that satan has up his sleave could ever surprise God, or beat Him. He already won. It is time we stand on His promises, knowing that no weapon formed against us shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17)
We will certainly face hardship. We will fight emotional, physical and mental battles... Satan will do everything in his power to defeat us, but with Jesus we are unstoppable.
Today is a new day; it has never happened before. It might not be easy, but it's worth it. Acknowledge God's promises, and stand firm on them. He gave us His word for a reason; it holds the key to unlock the chains of this world. Run the race. Persevere. Let the Lord refine you through the flames of this life- In Him, You are victorious.
7.08.2011
Fully Alive.
"The glory of God is man fully alive"- St. Irenaeus
With Lindsey's hand in mine, and Cole less than an arms length behind us, we were ready to raid the Red Light District of Cambodia... The scene was alive and carried a heaviness that could not be mistaken by anything but Satan's leash. Men swarmed the streets with rage and lust in their eyes. They were angry, and looking for a quick fix to feed their earthly desires; any woman would do. The women were half dressed; little shorts and low-cut tanks... the look in their eyes told a very different story. A story of deep brokenness, a story that screamed for help. I could feel the beat of the music in my feet as I passed each open bar. To many, it was an invitation; to me, it was a reminder that there were women in that bar pleading for an escape. That was our mission. To create a night of refuge for these women; to give them the escape they needed... even if for just a moment. We snatched them from satan, and introduced them to Jesus; and here began The Night of Refuge.
Three days leading up to the Night of Refuge, Lindsey made her way to the bars of Phnom Pen's Red Light Disctrict. Each day she invested in the same girls of one bar in particular... She would tell them, "We are throwing you a party on Friday night! I am with a group of Americans and we would love to experience Cambodia, so we want you to come party with us on a boat! We are so excited to hang out with you!" Their response would start with a squeal of excitement and lead to, "A party?! Lindsey, that sounds so fun! We can't wait for Friday!" A relationship began to form between Lindsey and these girls. In no time there was a sense of trust; they looked at her as if they knew she would take care of them. It was like they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was different from anyone they had ever encountered... They were attracted to something about her, but they couldn't put their finger on it.
As we walked down the street, we searched for the bar with the girls that Lindsey knew. We knew we had found it when we heard the voices of the sweet women, "Lindsey! Lindsey!" We took 13 women out of that bar that night. Every single girl that was working in that bar came with us; unaware of the dream they were about to enter. We paid ninety-one dollars for thirteen women... seven dollars for each girl... for the entire night. As we told the Mommasons, female pimps, that we were throwing a party on a beautiful boat on the Mekong river their faces lit up. They said, "You don't have to pay for us, but can we come with you?"
We had been praying that we could reach the Mommasons with the message of Jesus.
The night consisted of loud squeals of excitement, endless chatter, silly dance moves and powerful dramas. As the women sat and watched our team present the drama of "Bondage" their walls began to fall, and their chains began to melt. They could easily identify with the girl in the drama who was being controlled by satan. He had a chain around her, tempting her with alcohol, money and men. As she struggles between the temptations and trying to get to Jesus, Satan continues to pull her chain back to him. Eventually she falls at the feet of Jesus and He takes her chain upon himself. He conquers the grave, and shows her that she no longer wears the chains because He took care of her. Now she gets to live in freedom, with Jesus, forever.
The women drank it in like a tall glass of water. They were thirsty of something real, something true. They had been deprived of anything with substance. They had been told their whole lives that it was their duty to sell themselves to make money for their families; but as they saw this drama, Jesus began to wash them of those lies. These women had dreams of becoming something big! They wanted to see the world. They wanted to get married, and to have babies by their husbands. They wanted to make clothes and style hair and apply makeup for other people... Each of them had talents and desires and dreams, the same way I do.
We are all the same. It doesn't matter where we grew up... We might look different, we might speak different languages, we might have different accents or hair colors or even styles of clothing. We might put our selves in categories based on where we go to school, or which neighborhood we grew up in, or even which country we call home... but there is a basic human principle inside of us all. We all dream, we all crave the feeling of love, and we all wish to be desired. It's the way we were created... As we told these women about the Man who wore white in the drama, Jesus, we held their hands and watched their eyes fill up with tears. Every single one of them said, "I hate my job. I hate the bars. I hate the men. I hate what they do to me, but I have a family that I have to support." Whether it was their mom, or their babies, every single one of them felt the responsibility of earning the money to support them. Seven dollars a night. Many of them asked Jesus into their hearts for the very first time; like never before, I saw a little piece of Heaven touch earth.
As we continued to explain to them what they were deciding to do, we told them that they were created to dance in white dresses, and that they are loved so deeply by the creator of the universe. We began to speak life over them, and breathe life into their dreams. We gave them cute notecards that had the numbers of rescue homes that would love to help them convert their dreams to reality.
The Night of Refuge was extravagant, classy, beautiful, pure, life-giving, and peaceful. It was the perfect ending to an incredible journey through the villages and streets of Cambodia... but it was only one little part that created a big picture.
Days before we stepped foot in Phnom Pen, we explored the villages of Kampong Thom. The land was full of beautiful, extraordinary Khmer people. With us were about 5 translators, our contact Sokhon and his wife, Esther. Each day we would wake up and head out to a new village. Outside of our van's windows were precious children, sitting on a tarp, patiently awaiting our arrival. They wore big smiles on their faces, loose clothing, and a joy that was contagious. We played, and face painted, and ran, and danced... We brought little trinkets to give to them to play with- among them were bubbles, hair bows, playdo, smarties...
I remember watching a little boy with a stick of smarties and three of his friends crowding around him... before we could get to his friends to give them their own stick of smarties, the boy was passing them out so that everyone got a few. He noticed as I watched, and offered me one... My heart broke. They have nothing, and they give so freely what is given to them. They care so little about their own well-being, and they would do anything to take care of their friend, or little brother, or mom. They truly embodied the heart of a servant.
The power of prayer is supernatural, and when we tap into the heavenly realm extraordinary things occur. As we prayed of each individual that needed prayer, we saw blind people see... People who had been in too much pain to walk, were dancing through the streets. Miracle after miracle was happening, and their expectation was replaced with awestruck wonder. Some had never heard the name of Jesus, but Jesus certainly knew their names. Now, we will have more Cambodian friends in Heaven... and because of their testimonies of healing, their friends will see the Glory of God.
Each part of the trip played it's part in the journey that the Lord had set before us. I encounted people that I would have never met, had I not been there. The Lord taught me things and opened my eyes that will forever remain with me. I will never forget those little faces that were blowing those bubbles, or the little hands that were hitting the balloons in the air.
I have never been more alive than when I was walking through the streets of the Red Light District, with exceptional women surrounding me. Surely, we saw the glory of God in that moment, and I will forever remember that experience as the one that helped me discover my divine calling in life.
I will be visiting many more Red Light Districts in the future; none of them are safe, in fact they may be some of the most dangerous places on earth. Afterall, we did enter hell for a moment to snatch those girls from Satan's chains. Jesus never said it would be safe, He only said "Go, and I will be your mouth. I will speak for you, and I will never leave you, nor forsake you."
Thank you for supporting me, and investing in the lives of so many Cambodian people. Your support introduced them to Jesus, and radically changed their lives forever. I hope you realize your impact on the world-
"God is not invisible when we come alive." - Jamie Tworkowski
With Lindsey's hand in mine, and Cole less than an arms length behind us, we were ready to raid the Red Light District of Cambodia... The scene was alive and carried a heaviness that could not be mistaken by anything but Satan's leash. Men swarmed the streets with rage and lust in their eyes. They were angry, and looking for a quick fix to feed their earthly desires; any woman would do. The women were half dressed; little shorts and low-cut tanks... the look in their eyes told a very different story. A story of deep brokenness, a story that screamed for help. I could feel the beat of the music in my feet as I passed each open bar. To many, it was an invitation; to me, it was a reminder that there were women in that bar pleading for an escape. That was our mission. To create a night of refuge for these women; to give them the escape they needed... even if for just a moment. We snatched them from satan, and introduced them to Jesus; and here began The Night of Refuge.
Three days leading up to the Night of Refuge, Lindsey made her way to the bars of Phnom Pen's Red Light Disctrict. Each day she invested in the same girls of one bar in particular... She would tell them, "We are throwing you a party on Friday night! I am with a group of Americans and we would love to experience Cambodia, so we want you to come party with us on a boat! We are so excited to hang out with you!" Their response would start with a squeal of excitement and lead to, "A party?! Lindsey, that sounds so fun! We can't wait for Friday!" A relationship began to form between Lindsey and these girls. In no time there was a sense of trust; they looked at her as if they knew she would take care of them. It was like they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was different from anyone they had ever encountered... They were attracted to something about her, but they couldn't put their finger on it.
As we walked down the street, we searched for the bar with the girls that Lindsey knew. We knew we had found it when we heard the voices of the sweet women, "Lindsey! Lindsey!" We took 13 women out of that bar that night. Every single girl that was working in that bar came with us; unaware of the dream they were about to enter. We paid ninety-one dollars for thirteen women... seven dollars for each girl... for the entire night. As we told the Mommasons, female pimps, that we were throwing a party on a beautiful boat on the Mekong river their faces lit up. They said, "You don't have to pay for us, but can we come with you?"
We had been praying that we could reach the Mommasons with the message of Jesus.
The night consisted of loud squeals of excitement, endless chatter, silly dance moves and powerful dramas. As the women sat and watched our team present the drama of "Bondage" their walls began to fall, and their chains began to melt. They could easily identify with the girl in the drama who was being controlled by satan. He had a chain around her, tempting her with alcohol, money and men. As she struggles between the temptations and trying to get to Jesus, Satan continues to pull her chain back to him. Eventually she falls at the feet of Jesus and He takes her chain upon himself. He conquers the grave, and shows her that she no longer wears the chains because He took care of her. Now she gets to live in freedom, with Jesus, forever.
The women drank it in like a tall glass of water. They were thirsty of something real, something true. They had been deprived of anything with substance. They had been told their whole lives that it was their duty to sell themselves to make money for their families; but as they saw this drama, Jesus began to wash them of those lies. These women had dreams of becoming something big! They wanted to see the world. They wanted to get married, and to have babies by their husbands. They wanted to make clothes and style hair and apply makeup for other people... Each of them had talents and desires and dreams, the same way I do.
We are all the same. It doesn't matter where we grew up... We might look different, we might speak different languages, we might have different accents or hair colors or even styles of clothing. We might put our selves in categories based on where we go to school, or which neighborhood we grew up in, or even which country we call home... but there is a basic human principle inside of us all. We all dream, we all crave the feeling of love, and we all wish to be desired. It's the way we were created... As we told these women about the Man who wore white in the drama, Jesus, we held their hands and watched their eyes fill up with tears. Every single one of them said, "I hate my job. I hate the bars. I hate the men. I hate what they do to me, but I have a family that I have to support." Whether it was their mom, or their babies, every single one of them felt the responsibility of earning the money to support them. Seven dollars a night. Many of them asked Jesus into their hearts for the very first time; like never before, I saw a little piece of Heaven touch earth.
As we continued to explain to them what they were deciding to do, we told them that they were created to dance in white dresses, and that they are loved so deeply by the creator of the universe. We began to speak life over them, and breathe life into their dreams. We gave them cute notecards that had the numbers of rescue homes that would love to help them convert their dreams to reality.
The Night of Refuge was extravagant, classy, beautiful, pure, life-giving, and peaceful. It was the perfect ending to an incredible journey through the villages and streets of Cambodia... but it was only one little part that created a big picture.
Days before we stepped foot in Phnom Pen, we explored the villages of Kampong Thom. The land was full of beautiful, extraordinary Khmer people. With us were about 5 translators, our contact Sokhon and his wife, Esther. Each day we would wake up and head out to a new village. Outside of our van's windows were precious children, sitting on a tarp, patiently awaiting our arrival. They wore big smiles on their faces, loose clothing, and a joy that was contagious. We played, and face painted, and ran, and danced... We brought little trinkets to give to them to play with- among them were bubbles, hair bows, playdo, smarties...
I remember watching a little boy with a stick of smarties and three of his friends crowding around him... before we could get to his friends to give them their own stick of smarties, the boy was passing them out so that everyone got a few. He noticed as I watched, and offered me one... My heart broke. They have nothing, and they give so freely what is given to them. They care so little about their own well-being, and they would do anything to take care of their friend, or little brother, or mom. They truly embodied the heart of a servant.
The power of prayer is supernatural, and when we tap into the heavenly realm extraordinary things occur. As we prayed of each individual that needed prayer, we saw blind people see... People who had been in too much pain to walk, were dancing through the streets. Miracle after miracle was happening, and their expectation was replaced with awestruck wonder. Some had never heard the name of Jesus, but Jesus certainly knew their names. Now, we will have more Cambodian friends in Heaven... and because of their testimonies of healing, their friends will see the Glory of God.
Each part of the trip played it's part in the journey that the Lord had set before us. I encounted people that I would have never met, had I not been there. The Lord taught me things and opened my eyes that will forever remain with me. I will never forget those little faces that were blowing those bubbles, or the little hands that were hitting the balloons in the air.
I have never been more alive than when I was walking through the streets of the Red Light District, with exceptional women surrounding me. Surely, we saw the glory of God in that moment, and I will forever remember that experience as the one that helped me discover my divine calling in life.
I will be visiting many more Red Light Districts in the future; none of them are safe, in fact they may be some of the most dangerous places on earth. Afterall, we did enter hell for a moment to snatch those girls from Satan's chains. Jesus never said it would be safe, He only said "Go, and I will be your mouth. I will speak for you, and I will never leave you, nor forsake you."
Thank you for supporting me, and investing in the lives of so many Cambodian people. Your support introduced them to Jesus, and radically changed their lives forever. I hope you realize your impact on the world-
"God is not invisible when we come alive." - Jamie Tworkowski
5.31.2011
Enraged.
Viewer Discretion Advised
Today I was texting with a girl that I am going to Cambodia with and we were discussing the money that is going towards getting women out of the sex trade while we are there. $1,400 of the money that came in for my trip is going directly to this cause; Praise God. Naturally, I was curious to know how many girls that money will "buy". Google is a great friend when I'm looking for quick information... What I found is disgusting. This multibillion dollar industry preys on what we know as "prostitutes". We believe them to be women; however, a good amount of them are little girls below the age of ten years old.
The going rates of purchasing these girls are sometimes as low as $2-$5 dollars for a half hour; $20-$25 for an entire night. To put a value on a human life is appalling; to put such a low value on a couple minutes to fulfill a fantasy is absolutely petrifying.
We fall under this illusion that men are simply looking for a quick fix for their corrupt lifestyle, but this is far from the extent of what goes on behind those windows and doors. These girls experience horendous circumstances that quickly suck the life and fight right out of them. They are robbed of their youth and innocence, and they are forever imprinted. If they refuse to take part in the "favors" for these men they are brutally beaten. In the article below one girl remembers how she was tied up with rope as they shoved crushed hot peppers inside of her; another time her owner tied her down and dumped hundreds of biting ants on her naked body. One girl describes her fear of being locked in a coffin with live maggots eating at her skin because she knew they had done that to her friend... One article tells us that many men are not only looking for sex, but violence as well.
If knowing that doesn't do something to your heart to make you want to move, I don't know what will. These women and children are crying for help. They don't know of any way out, and they have no choice but to give themselves away over and over again. Very seldom do they ever escape, and if they do find a way out many of them return to the industry. These girls are people. They need us to teach them how to work so they can feed their families. They need us to tell them they are beautiful and that they were created to dream and laugh and dance. They need to know that they can be redeemed; they are princess, and they deserve to be treated like it. These girls are not merely objects, they are daughters of the King.
I have no choice but to go into these very jaws of hell to help these girls. I don't believe I can do it all by myself, and thank God I don't have to. All I know is that I cannot sit comfortably in America, enjoying my pleasant lifestyle, when I know the suffering that these women and children are enduring each and every day. It stirs something in my heart- a holy rage if you will. Jesus really loved the children; I will not refrain from fighting on their behalf.
In a couple weeks I'll be walking through the villages and bars of Phnom Penh, Cambodia spending time with these very women and children. However, it cost money to spend time with these women. The more money we raise, the higher the number of women we can get to with the message of Jesus.
If you are interested in giving to this portion of the trip, please please do not hesitate to email me. Your money will go directly to investing into the lives of these women, and they will walk with us in Heaven for eternity. Please, they need your help.
My email address is - kirby.olson@ou.edu - email me, and we can discuss how to get the money to my team.
Below is the story of one sex-trafficking survivor Sreypov Chan, written by Abigail Pesta in the international news segment of a Marie Claire magazine. Sreypov's story of liberation has rippled into many more women being set free. Take a minute and read her story:
The road to Kampong Cham, a town about two hours outside Phnom Penh, is a bumpy one; punishing rains have left the dirt thoroughfare dented with colossal potholes. Sreypov, Chanthan, and I are on our way to a center for rescued sex slaves. Sreypov, who once stayed at the center herself, returns often to talk with the girls, all of whom are under age 18. Some are as young as 5.
As we bounce along, we pass oxcarts, open-air homes on stilts, bony goats, and naked kids playing close to the road. A puppy bounds out in front of our car; with no time to maneuver, we hit it with a thud, leaving it dead in the road.
At the center, called AFESIP (an acronym for its French name), several dozen girls are getting a lesson in hygiene from a nurse. When the class breaks up, the girls, dressed in their public-school uniforms—white cotton blouses, knee-length blue skirts—excitedly swarm around Sreypov, practically tackling her to the ground. The girls live at the center, which is run by a former victim of sex slavery named Somaly Mam, and attend a nearby school, as well as learn job skills like sewing and hairstyling.
Sitting on a metal swing with Chanthan on the grassy grounds of the center, Sreypov continues her tale. "At first, it was quiet," she says, recalling her initial days in the brothel. "Then one day, a man opened the door and said, 'Do you want a client?' I didn't know what he meant, but I knew it was bad. I said no. Then he brought me to a room for punishment." She pauses for a moment. "I had to drink the man's urine." The abuses escalated in the following days. She was tied up and covered with biting ants, whipped with an electric cable. Finally, she said yes.
Sreypov stares off into the distance, awaiting the next question. She is uneasy telling her story; it doesn't tumble forth freely, but rather comes in short, staccato, emotionless bursts. It's as if she becomes someone else to cope with recounting her own past.
When Sreypov saw her first client—"an Asian man with a cruel look in his eyes," she recalls—she changed her mind and said no again, and started to cry. Furious at her behavior, the pimp took his abuse to a new level, crushing up a handful of hot chili peppers with his foot and stuffing them in her vagina. Then he took a hot metal rod and jammed it inside her as well. "The pain was so terrible," she says. "I couldn't speak." Soon after, the client raped her.
Sreypov doesn't know if the client paid a high fee for her virginity; she never saw any money at the brothel. In general, sex with girls can cost as little as $5 (that's less than the $9 I paid to take a taxi from the airport to my hotel), but virgins usually command a far higher price. Clients can pay as much as $800 to $4000, according to the Trafficking in Persons Report. And virgins can fetch that price more than once, as the pimps often stitch up the girls (without an anesthetic) after the first time they have sex, so they'll scream in pain the next time, tricking clients.
After Sreypov's initiation into sex slavery, she spent the next few months imprisoned in her room, with a guard stationed at the door. If she didn't meet her quota of men for the day, she would be shocked with a loose wire from a socket in the wall. "On some days, I was so tired, I couldn't get out of bed. The men would just come to my bed, one after another, like a gang rape," she says. "I became numb. My life grew dark. I thought everything was finished for me."
Sreypov sits silently for a moment. Her eyes, distant a few moments earlier, now seem deeply sad. Chanthan looks over at me; then, as if to explain Sreypov's past, she sighs and says simply, "This is Cambodia." Chanthan, like many here, blames the country's problems on the Khmer Rouge, which tortured and executed as many as 2 million teachers, lawyers, doctors, and city dwellers—about a third of the population—during the '70s, in an attempt to turn the country into a purely agrarian society.
It's late afternoon, and we rejoin the girls in the center to say good-bye. They're entertaining themselves by doing a traditional Cambodian dance, with the older girls teaching the younger ones—among them, Sreypov's 8-year-old sister, Opekha. The girl is mentally disabled, but Sreypov was afraid her mother would try to sell Opekha anyway, so she brought her here. When we try to leave, the girls don't want to let us go. Even though they've just met me, they hug me, tightly. A pretty Vietnamese teenager whispers to me, "Promise you will never forget me."
That evening in the car, I sit in the backseat next to a tiny girl named Sreymach, who was sold as a sex slave a year ago, at age 5. She stares, wide-eyed, out the window as we hit the outskirts of Phnom Penh, its hotels and bars gleaming in the night. She is traveling to the city to visit a health clinic. She has HIV.
Phnom Penh's most notorious sex district is called the White Building, so named for an ominous, decaying, grayish-white structure that stretches over several city blocks. Its tenants are sex workers, many of whom have been booted from smaller brothels because they're either too old—in their teens and 20s—or too sick to be of much use anymore. With no education or job skills, they've had to find new pimps here.
We walk down the street in the shadow of the gloomy building, past vendors selling bright-yellow jackfruit, bike parts, dried nuts. All eyes are on us. A man on a motorbike trails our group a little too closely, watching. Sreypov is here to try to help women escape the sex trade. It's part of a job she took with Somaly's organization, after a job at a local clothing factory didn't work out so well (she worked for seven months there, but received pay for only three). In her backpack, she carries boxes of condoms and soap to give to the sex workers—which is why the pimps let her in. Her face looks remarkably calm for someone who is about to step into a reminder of her nightmarish past.
Down a dim corridor on the ground floor of the White Building, a dozen women have gathered in a cramped room, along with a few of their kids. An ancient relic of a TV blares cartoons. In a sleeping loft overhead, the walls are lined with posters of Thai movie stars and photos of mansions—inconceivable aspirations considering the conditions in this room, where perhaps a dozen women sleep. It's around 10 a.m. and the women are wearing pajamas and earrings, resting from the night's work. They look beaten up. Their garish evening dresses hang in the bathroom, beside a door frame that's been decimated by termites.
Sreypov, in a crisp white cotton button-down blouse, black pants, and white heels with sparkling silver trim, kneels on the floor as the women circle round. Sitting there, with her perfect posture, she looks like hope personified. When she introduces herself and describes her past, a man peers into the doorway. Then another.
Undaunted, Sreypov continues, inviting the women to talk about their problems. A painfully thin young woman with high cheekbones, long legs, and hair swept up in a loose knot says she was approached one night by a group of men. Afraid they would gang rape her, she sought help from a man driving by in a car. He opened the door and let her in, but then later raped her himself. Another woman in pink pj's says her stepfather raped her, then sold her to a brothel.
Sreypov says she understands—she was sold, too. Then she tells the women she can help them get trained for other jobs. The first woman is skeptical. She has kids and doesn't think a job as a seamstress will pay the bills. Sreypov tells her it's worth a try, adding, "My own future has changed." Later, she hands out boxes of condoms; a toddler neatly stacks them up.
It's hard to imagine why men would want to have sex in a place like this. It's joyless, grimy, dangerous. The reasons vary: Some local men believe myths that sex with a virgin brings luck or good health; foreigners are usually pedophiles or men who want to play out violent fantasies they've picked up from porn films. They know they can do so in Cambodia. Prostitution and human trafficking are illegal here, but officials are often paid to look the other way.
Our White Building visit continues in another sweltering room on the second floor. Sreypov and her colleagues pile their shoes at the door, a futile gesture of politeness and cleanliness in a room where the walls are splattered with stains and the hallway is littered with chicken bones and rotten vegetable scraps. The women here look younger and prettier than the ones downstairs. "They have foreign clients," Chanthan explains. "Some are married, but their husbands are their pimps." In contrast, the women we met in the previous room service local clients.
The mysterious man who followed us on the motorbike pokes his head in and stares—a pimp, perhaps? The women sit on the floor with their babies on their laps; one young mother eats noodles from a bowl. A teenager in a floral cotton top says she didn't have any clients last night and needs money. Another young woman with glittery purple fingernails and an ankle bracelet says she finds her foreign clients in restaurants. Sreypov listens and nods; she hopes that by developing a relationship with these women, they will eventually enlist her help to break free. If so, her colleagues would work with the authorities on a rescue mission or raid. It's a risky business, to be sure. Sreypov knows the dangers of angering pimps, but says, "I just want to help girls get free."
Later, after a lunch of coconut-curry fish with friends, Sreypov admits that it's hard to revisit the sex districts. But, she adds, even if she didn't go back to these places, the memory would still be with her. "I can never forget my past or the cruelty of those men. I'll never understand it," she says, sitting under a pagoda in a friend's leafy garden. "But I use it as power to push for change. I feel better knowing that I'm helping other girls."
Then she returns to the story of her own escape, years ago. "I knew ever since my first client that I had to run," she says. Of course, she also knew what could happen to her if she failed—she'd heard about girls being chained up for days or locked in coffins, covered with live maggots—but she didn't care. "They could kill me if they wanted," she says. "Death seemed better than that life."
One night, when her client was in the bathroom and the guard had left her door, she saw her chance. She bolted from the bedroom and made it as far as the entrance to the building, where she was caught. The pimp marched her to the torture room, where he strung her up, arms spread, "like Jesus," she says, and whipped her with a rattan cane until she bled, then rubbed hot chilies into her wounds. After that, the pimp sold her to another brothel.
As she speaks, a blustery afternoon storm kicks up, breaking the heat. She stares out at the downpour for a minute, then quietly describes her second attempt at escape, which went much like the first—she got captured, beaten, and sold to another brothel.
What gave her the nerve to run for a third time? "I knew if I stayed, I would get sick and die," she says. "I had nothing to lose." So one night, when her guard had left the doorway, she fled again. This time, she made it out into the street. She ran as fast as she could, until she bumped smack into a man, nearly knocking him down. "He grabbed my arm and asked why I was running," she says. "I told him everything."
She was lucky. He could have escorted her right back to the brothel to collect a finder's fee. Instead, he delivered her to a police station. There, she got lucky again: Corrupt police often return girls to brothels as well. Instead, the officers phoned Somaly Mam.
When Sreypov first arrived at Somaly's center for rescued girls in Kampong Cham, she saw the other girls and thought she had been sold to another brothel. "It wasn't until I saw them going to school that I knew I was safe," she says. She was 10 years old.
Sreypov's mentor, Somaly, sits in a bustling, bright-orange beauty salon in the town of Siem Reap, as a pair of former sex slaves brush and braid her hair. Her cell phone rings every few minutes. "My ear hurts," she says with a grin. "But I have to be busy all the time. It's how I survive." Somaly, who is in her late 30s, laughs easily, but she has lived a rough life. Sold into sexual slavery as a teen, she spent more than a decade in the brothels before escaping the trade with the help of a French aid worker.
She remembers Sreypov being angry when the two first met, which is not unusual for newly rescued girls. Some have been tortured so badly, they have deep cuts and welts or, astonishingly, nails hammered into their skulls. Little surprise, then, that they have "problems with authority," Somaly says. "You can guide them, but they have to learn things for themselves." Case in point: After three years at the center, Sreypov wanted to see her mother. The visit was brief, and painful. The mother claimed she didn't know Sreypov had been sent to a brothel. Her daughter didn't believe that.
Since then, Sreypov has formed a replacement family of sorts, with all the rescued girls. As for marriage and children? "I don't want that," she says, shaking her head. She can't imagine herself ever being with men.
To this day, her past haunts her in new and unexpected ways. The week I was in Cambodia, Sreypov's mother returned—knocking on her daughter's door for the first time in years. The mother's motives were unclear: Did she just want to see her daughter, or to sell her? Sreypov isn't sure. The incident left her in tears. But when she has a low moment, she says, she can always call her friends. And the bad dreams are fading; she hasn't had one for a couple of years now. "After I escaped, I tried to keep everything in, and the nightmares were the worst," she says. "But now I talk about it, I help other girls, and I don't hurt so much."
The path Sreypov has chosen isn't easy, she openly acknowledges. Telling her story will always be a struggle. But, she says, turning to me with a steady gaze, "If no one knows, nothing will change."
For information on the Somaly Mam Foundation, go to somaly.org.
What are you doing to reach out? to better someone else? to further the Kingdom of Heaven?
Today I was texting with a girl that I am going to Cambodia with and we were discussing the money that is going towards getting women out of the sex trade while we are there. $1,400 of the money that came in for my trip is going directly to this cause; Praise God. Naturally, I was curious to know how many girls that money will "buy". Google is a great friend when I'm looking for quick information... What I found is disgusting. This multibillion dollar industry preys on what we know as "prostitutes". We believe them to be women; however, a good amount of them are little girls below the age of ten years old.
The going rates of purchasing these girls are sometimes as low as $2-$5 dollars for a half hour; $20-$25 for an entire night. To put a value on a human life is appalling; to put such a low value on a couple minutes to fulfill a fantasy is absolutely petrifying.
We fall under this illusion that men are simply looking for a quick fix for their corrupt lifestyle, but this is far from the extent of what goes on behind those windows and doors. These girls experience horendous circumstances that quickly suck the life and fight right out of them. They are robbed of their youth and innocence, and they are forever imprinted. If they refuse to take part in the "favors" for these men they are brutally beaten. In the article below one girl remembers how she was tied up with rope as they shoved crushed hot peppers inside of her; another time her owner tied her down and dumped hundreds of biting ants on her naked body. One girl describes her fear of being locked in a coffin with live maggots eating at her skin because she knew they had done that to her friend... One article tells us that many men are not only looking for sex, but violence as well.
If knowing that doesn't do something to your heart to make you want to move, I don't know what will. These women and children are crying for help. They don't know of any way out, and they have no choice but to give themselves away over and over again. Very seldom do they ever escape, and if they do find a way out many of them return to the industry. These girls are people. They need us to teach them how to work so they can feed their families. They need us to tell them they are beautiful and that they were created to dream and laugh and dance. They need to know that they can be redeemed; they are princess, and they deserve to be treated like it. These girls are not merely objects, they are daughters of the King.
I have no choice but to go into these very jaws of hell to help these girls. I don't believe I can do it all by myself, and thank God I don't have to. All I know is that I cannot sit comfortably in America, enjoying my pleasant lifestyle, when I know the suffering that these women and children are enduring each and every day. It stirs something in my heart- a holy rage if you will. Jesus really loved the children; I will not refrain from fighting on their behalf.
In a couple weeks I'll be walking through the villages and bars of Phnom Penh, Cambodia spending time with these very women and children. However, it cost money to spend time with these women. The more money we raise, the higher the number of women we can get to with the message of Jesus.
If you are interested in giving to this portion of the trip, please please do not hesitate to email me. Your money will go directly to investing into the lives of these women, and they will walk with us in Heaven for eternity. Please, they need your help.
My email address is - kirby.olson@ou.edu - email me, and we can discuss how to get the money to my team.
Below is the story of one sex-trafficking survivor Sreypov Chan, written by Abigail Pesta in the international news segment of a Marie Claire magazine. Sreypov's story of liberation has rippled into many more women being set free. Take a minute and read her story:
The road to Kampong Cham, a town about two hours outside Phnom Penh, is a bumpy one; punishing rains have left the dirt thoroughfare dented with colossal potholes. Sreypov, Chanthan, and I are on our way to a center for rescued sex slaves. Sreypov, who once stayed at the center herself, returns often to talk with the girls, all of whom are under age 18. Some are as young as 5.
As we bounce along, we pass oxcarts, open-air homes on stilts, bony goats, and naked kids playing close to the road. A puppy bounds out in front of our car; with no time to maneuver, we hit it with a thud, leaving it dead in the road.
At the center, called AFESIP (an acronym for its French name), several dozen girls are getting a lesson in hygiene from a nurse. When the class breaks up, the girls, dressed in their public-school uniforms—white cotton blouses, knee-length blue skirts—excitedly swarm around Sreypov, practically tackling her to the ground. The girls live at the center, which is run by a former victim of sex slavery named Somaly Mam, and attend a nearby school, as well as learn job skills like sewing and hairstyling.
Sitting on a metal swing with Chanthan on the grassy grounds of the center, Sreypov continues her tale. "At first, it was quiet," she says, recalling her initial days in the brothel. "Then one day, a man opened the door and said, 'Do you want a client?' I didn't know what he meant, but I knew it was bad. I said no. Then he brought me to a room for punishment." She pauses for a moment. "I had to drink the man's urine." The abuses escalated in the following days. She was tied up and covered with biting ants, whipped with an electric cable. Finally, she said yes.
Sreypov stares off into the distance, awaiting the next question. She is uneasy telling her story; it doesn't tumble forth freely, but rather comes in short, staccato, emotionless bursts. It's as if she becomes someone else to cope with recounting her own past.
When Sreypov saw her first client—"an Asian man with a cruel look in his eyes," she recalls—she changed her mind and said no again, and started to cry. Furious at her behavior, the pimp took his abuse to a new level, crushing up a handful of hot chili peppers with his foot and stuffing them in her vagina. Then he took a hot metal rod and jammed it inside her as well. "The pain was so terrible," she says. "I couldn't speak." Soon after, the client raped her.
Sreypov doesn't know if the client paid a high fee for her virginity; she never saw any money at the brothel. In general, sex with girls can cost as little as $5 (that's less than the $9 I paid to take a taxi from the airport to my hotel), but virgins usually command a far higher price. Clients can pay as much as $800 to $4000, according to the Trafficking in Persons Report. And virgins can fetch that price more than once, as the pimps often stitch up the girls (without an anesthetic) after the first time they have sex, so they'll scream in pain the next time, tricking clients.
After Sreypov's initiation into sex slavery, she spent the next few months imprisoned in her room, with a guard stationed at the door. If she didn't meet her quota of men for the day, she would be shocked with a loose wire from a socket in the wall. "On some days, I was so tired, I couldn't get out of bed. The men would just come to my bed, one after another, like a gang rape," she says. "I became numb. My life grew dark. I thought everything was finished for me."
Sreypov sits silently for a moment. Her eyes, distant a few moments earlier, now seem deeply sad. Chanthan looks over at me; then, as if to explain Sreypov's past, she sighs and says simply, "This is Cambodia." Chanthan, like many here, blames the country's problems on the Khmer Rouge, which tortured and executed as many as 2 million teachers, lawyers, doctors, and city dwellers—about a third of the population—during the '70s, in an attempt to turn the country into a purely agrarian society.
It's late afternoon, and we rejoin the girls in the center to say good-bye. They're entertaining themselves by doing a traditional Cambodian dance, with the older girls teaching the younger ones—among them, Sreypov's 8-year-old sister, Opekha. The girl is mentally disabled, but Sreypov was afraid her mother would try to sell Opekha anyway, so she brought her here. When we try to leave, the girls don't want to let us go. Even though they've just met me, they hug me, tightly. A pretty Vietnamese teenager whispers to me, "Promise you will never forget me."
That evening in the car, I sit in the backseat next to a tiny girl named Sreymach, who was sold as a sex slave a year ago, at age 5. She stares, wide-eyed, out the window as we hit the outskirts of Phnom Penh, its hotels and bars gleaming in the night. She is traveling to the city to visit a health clinic. She has HIV.
Phnom Penh's most notorious sex district is called the White Building, so named for an ominous, decaying, grayish-white structure that stretches over several city blocks. Its tenants are sex workers, many of whom have been booted from smaller brothels because they're either too old—in their teens and 20s—or too sick to be of much use anymore. With no education or job skills, they've had to find new pimps here.
We walk down the street in the shadow of the gloomy building, past vendors selling bright-yellow jackfruit, bike parts, dried nuts. All eyes are on us. A man on a motorbike trails our group a little too closely, watching. Sreypov is here to try to help women escape the sex trade. It's part of a job she took with Somaly's organization, after a job at a local clothing factory didn't work out so well (she worked for seven months there, but received pay for only three). In her backpack, she carries boxes of condoms and soap to give to the sex workers—which is why the pimps let her in. Her face looks remarkably calm for someone who is about to step into a reminder of her nightmarish past.
Down a dim corridor on the ground floor of the White Building, a dozen women have gathered in a cramped room, along with a few of their kids. An ancient relic of a TV blares cartoons. In a sleeping loft overhead, the walls are lined with posters of Thai movie stars and photos of mansions—inconceivable aspirations considering the conditions in this room, where perhaps a dozen women sleep. It's around 10 a.m. and the women are wearing pajamas and earrings, resting from the night's work. They look beaten up. Their garish evening dresses hang in the bathroom, beside a door frame that's been decimated by termites.
Sreypov, in a crisp white cotton button-down blouse, black pants, and white heels with sparkling silver trim, kneels on the floor as the women circle round. Sitting there, with her perfect posture, she looks like hope personified. When she introduces herself and describes her past, a man peers into the doorway. Then another.
Undaunted, Sreypov continues, inviting the women to talk about their problems. A painfully thin young woman with high cheekbones, long legs, and hair swept up in a loose knot says she was approached one night by a group of men. Afraid they would gang rape her, she sought help from a man driving by in a car. He opened the door and let her in, but then later raped her himself. Another woman in pink pj's says her stepfather raped her, then sold her to a brothel.
Sreypov says she understands—she was sold, too. Then she tells the women she can help them get trained for other jobs. The first woman is skeptical. She has kids and doesn't think a job as a seamstress will pay the bills. Sreypov tells her it's worth a try, adding, "My own future has changed." Later, she hands out boxes of condoms; a toddler neatly stacks them up.
It's hard to imagine why men would want to have sex in a place like this. It's joyless, grimy, dangerous. The reasons vary: Some local men believe myths that sex with a virgin brings luck or good health; foreigners are usually pedophiles or men who want to play out violent fantasies they've picked up from porn films. They know they can do so in Cambodia. Prostitution and human trafficking are illegal here, but officials are often paid to look the other way.
Our White Building visit continues in another sweltering room on the second floor. Sreypov and her colleagues pile their shoes at the door, a futile gesture of politeness and cleanliness in a room where the walls are splattered with stains and the hallway is littered with chicken bones and rotten vegetable scraps. The women here look younger and prettier than the ones downstairs. "They have foreign clients," Chanthan explains. "Some are married, but their husbands are their pimps." In contrast, the women we met in the previous room service local clients.
The mysterious man who followed us on the motorbike pokes his head in and stares—a pimp, perhaps? The women sit on the floor with their babies on their laps; one young mother eats noodles from a bowl. A teenager in a floral cotton top says she didn't have any clients last night and needs money. Another young woman with glittery purple fingernails and an ankle bracelet says she finds her foreign clients in restaurants. Sreypov listens and nods; she hopes that by developing a relationship with these women, they will eventually enlist her help to break free. If so, her colleagues would work with the authorities on a rescue mission or raid. It's a risky business, to be sure. Sreypov knows the dangers of angering pimps, but says, "I just want to help girls get free."
Later, after a lunch of coconut-curry fish with friends, Sreypov admits that it's hard to revisit the sex districts. But, she adds, even if she didn't go back to these places, the memory would still be with her. "I can never forget my past or the cruelty of those men. I'll never understand it," she says, sitting under a pagoda in a friend's leafy garden. "But I use it as power to push for change. I feel better knowing that I'm helping other girls."
Then she returns to the story of her own escape, years ago. "I knew ever since my first client that I had to run," she says. Of course, she also knew what could happen to her if she failed—she'd heard about girls being chained up for days or locked in coffins, covered with live maggots—but she didn't care. "They could kill me if they wanted," she says. "Death seemed better than that life."
One night, when her client was in the bathroom and the guard had left her door, she saw her chance. She bolted from the bedroom and made it as far as the entrance to the building, where she was caught. The pimp marched her to the torture room, where he strung her up, arms spread, "like Jesus," she says, and whipped her with a rattan cane until she bled, then rubbed hot chilies into her wounds. After that, the pimp sold her to another brothel.
As she speaks, a blustery afternoon storm kicks up, breaking the heat. She stares out at the downpour for a minute, then quietly describes her second attempt at escape, which went much like the first—she got captured, beaten, and sold to another brothel.
What gave her the nerve to run for a third time? "I knew if I stayed, I would get sick and die," she says. "I had nothing to lose." So one night, when her guard had left the doorway, she fled again. This time, she made it out into the street. She ran as fast as she could, until she bumped smack into a man, nearly knocking him down. "He grabbed my arm and asked why I was running," she says. "I told him everything."
She was lucky. He could have escorted her right back to the brothel to collect a finder's fee. Instead, he delivered her to a police station. There, she got lucky again: Corrupt police often return girls to brothels as well. Instead, the officers phoned Somaly Mam.
When Sreypov first arrived at Somaly's center for rescued girls in Kampong Cham, she saw the other girls and thought she had been sold to another brothel. "It wasn't until I saw them going to school that I knew I was safe," she says. She was 10 years old.
Sreypov's mentor, Somaly, sits in a bustling, bright-orange beauty salon in the town of Siem Reap, as a pair of former sex slaves brush and braid her hair. Her cell phone rings every few minutes. "My ear hurts," she says with a grin. "But I have to be busy all the time. It's how I survive." Somaly, who is in her late 30s, laughs easily, but she has lived a rough life. Sold into sexual slavery as a teen, she spent more than a decade in the brothels before escaping the trade with the help of a French aid worker.
She remembers Sreypov being angry when the two first met, which is not unusual for newly rescued girls. Some have been tortured so badly, they have deep cuts and welts or, astonishingly, nails hammered into their skulls. Little surprise, then, that they have "problems with authority," Somaly says. "You can guide them, but they have to learn things for themselves." Case in point: After three years at the center, Sreypov wanted to see her mother. The visit was brief, and painful. The mother claimed she didn't know Sreypov had been sent to a brothel. Her daughter didn't believe that.
Since then, Sreypov has formed a replacement family of sorts, with all the rescued girls. As for marriage and children? "I don't want that," she says, shaking her head. She can't imagine herself ever being with men.
To this day, her past haunts her in new and unexpected ways. The week I was in Cambodia, Sreypov's mother returned—knocking on her daughter's door for the first time in years. The mother's motives were unclear: Did she just want to see her daughter, or to sell her? Sreypov isn't sure. The incident left her in tears. But when she has a low moment, she says, she can always call her friends. And the bad dreams are fading; she hasn't had one for a couple of years now. "After I escaped, I tried to keep everything in, and the nightmares were the worst," she says. "But now I talk about it, I help other girls, and I don't hurt so much."
The path Sreypov has chosen isn't easy, she openly acknowledges. Telling her story will always be a struggle. But, she says, turning to me with a steady gaze, "If no one knows, nothing will change."
For information on the Somaly Mam Foundation, go to somaly.org.
What are you doing to reach out? to better someone else? to further the Kingdom of Heaven?
5.24.2011
The Uttermost Bounds of the Earth
As I was thinking about those words, "the uttermost bounds of the earth" I was trying to decide where exactly that is. As the years go by, it gets easier and easier to travel. We have easy access to international affairs, and so it seems that the world is getting smaller.
Our generation has a grip on a world vision, and we have a desire and a need for adventure and discovery. My mom and I were talking about this one day and she said, "my generation grew up believing we needed to go to school, get a job, get married, and raise the next generation." Which does sound familiar, but I believe that we are no longer limited to that.
Of course I still want to go to school, get a job, get married and raise my babies- but I am hungry to experience the culture and diversity outside of the American borders. God didn't create only America... He created Mozambique, Kenya, Haiti, North Korea, The Netherlands, China, Japan, Denmark, Thailand, Cambodia, Panama, Nicaragua, Italy, Columbia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, Phillipines, Vietnam, Germany, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Turkey, Dominican Republic, France, United Kingdom, South Africa, South Korea, Myanmar, Spain, Ukraine, Sudan, Tanzania, Morocco, Uganda, Venezuela, Argentina, Poland, Algeria, Canada, Nepal, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Taiwan, Australia, Yemen, Romania, Syria, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Cameroon, Angolia, Kazakhstan, Burkina Faso, Niger, Malawi, Mali, Guatemala, Ecuador, Zamia, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Greece, Chad, Belgium, Portugal, Tunisia, Czech Republic, Bolivia, Rwanda, Hungary, Guinea, Belarus, Sweden, Somalia, Benin, Austria, Burundi, Honduras, Switerland, Isreal, Bulgaria, Serbia, Tajikistan, Papua New Guina, Libya, Laos, Paraguay, El Salvador, Jordan, Togo, Denmark, Slovakia, Finland, Singapore... and the list goes on.
Each of these countries represents billions of people on the globe. There is a fire inside of me, and I refuse to let it be extinguished.
In a couple weeks I'll be on a plane headed for Cambodia- I have no idea what God has in store for me while I am there, all I know is that I am going there to be a voice in the wilderness. John 1:5 says "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it."
No doubt, I will be doing scary things while I am there - but...
I am equipped.
"Though a thousand fall at your side, though ten thousand are dying around you, these evils will not touch you." Psalm 91:7
"For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12
"We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but never destroyed." 2 Cor 4:9
"And the same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus." Phil 4:19
"He will cover you with his feathers, He will shelter you with His wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection." Psalm 91:4
"We live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life." 2 Cor 4:12
We have been called to the uttermost bounds of the earth - we are equipped, and we are protected.
Each one of those countries is a home to millions of people. Each person has a story. Many of them have been silenced. It is my job to walk alongside them - to speak and fight on their behalf, and to introduce them to the man who sets captives free.
"You must do it, you can't hold back. You have enjoyed yourself in christianity long enough. You've had pleasant feelings, pleasant songs, pleasant meetings, pleasant prospects. There has been much of human happiness, much clapping of hands and shouting of praises- very much heaven on earth. Now then, go to God and tell Him that you are prepared as much as necessary to turn your back upon it all, and that you are willing to spend the rest of your days struggling in the midst of these parishing multitudes, whatever it may cost. You must do it! With the light that is now broken in upon your mind and the call that is now sounding in your hearts, and the beckoning hands that are now before your eyes, You have no alternative. To go down among the perishing crowds is your duty. Your happiness from now on will consist of sharing their misery, your ease in sharing their pain, your crown in helping them to bear their cross, and your heaven in going into the very jaws of hell to rescue them." -William Booth
Jesus went into the darkest of places. He was not kidding when He said, "Take up your cross, and follow Me."
Our generation has a grip on a world vision, and we have a desire and a need for adventure and discovery. My mom and I were talking about this one day and she said, "my generation grew up believing we needed to go to school, get a job, get married, and raise the next generation." Which does sound familiar, but I believe that we are no longer limited to that.
Of course I still want to go to school, get a job, get married and raise my babies- but I am hungry to experience the culture and diversity outside of the American borders. God didn't create only America... He created Mozambique, Kenya, Haiti, North Korea, The Netherlands, China, Japan, Denmark, Thailand, Cambodia, Panama, Nicaragua, Italy, Columbia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, Phillipines, Vietnam, Germany, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Turkey, Dominican Republic, France, United Kingdom, South Africa, South Korea, Myanmar, Spain, Ukraine, Sudan, Tanzania, Morocco, Uganda, Venezuela, Argentina, Poland, Algeria, Canada, Nepal, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Taiwan, Australia, Yemen, Romania, Syria, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Cameroon, Angolia, Kazakhstan, Burkina Faso, Niger, Malawi, Mali, Guatemala, Ecuador, Zamia, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Greece, Chad, Belgium, Portugal, Tunisia, Czech Republic, Bolivia, Rwanda, Hungary, Guinea, Belarus, Sweden, Somalia, Benin, Austria, Burundi, Honduras, Switerland, Isreal, Bulgaria, Serbia, Tajikistan, Papua New Guina, Libya, Laos, Paraguay, El Salvador, Jordan, Togo, Denmark, Slovakia, Finland, Singapore... and the list goes on.
Each of these countries represents billions of people on the globe. There is a fire inside of me, and I refuse to let it be extinguished.
In a couple weeks I'll be on a plane headed for Cambodia- I have no idea what God has in store for me while I am there, all I know is that I am going there to be a voice in the wilderness. John 1:5 says "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it."
No doubt, I will be doing scary things while I am there - but...
I am equipped.
"Though a thousand fall at your side, though ten thousand are dying around you, these evils will not touch you." Psalm 91:7
"For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12
"We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but never destroyed." 2 Cor 4:9
"And the same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus." Phil 4:19
"He will cover you with his feathers, He will shelter you with His wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection." Psalm 91:4
"We live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life." 2 Cor 4:12
We have been called to the uttermost bounds of the earth - we are equipped, and we are protected.
Each one of those countries is a home to millions of people. Each person has a story. Many of them have been silenced. It is my job to walk alongside them - to speak and fight on their behalf, and to introduce them to the man who sets captives free.
"You must do it, you can't hold back. You have enjoyed yourself in christianity long enough. You've had pleasant feelings, pleasant songs, pleasant meetings, pleasant prospects. There has been much of human happiness, much clapping of hands and shouting of praises- very much heaven on earth. Now then, go to God and tell Him that you are prepared as much as necessary to turn your back upon it all, and that you are willing to spend the rest of your days struggling in the midst of these parishing multitudes, whatever it may cost. You must do it! With the light that is now broken in upon your mind and the call that is now sounding in your hearts, and the beckoning hands that are now before your eyes, You have no alternative. To go down among the perishing crowds is your duty. Your happiness from now on will consist of sharing their misery, your ease in sharing their pain, your crown in helping them to bear their cross, and your heaven in going into the very jaws of hell to rescue them." -William Booth
Jesus went into the darkest of places. He was not kidding when He said, "Take up your cross, and follow Me."
5.03.2011
Hourglass
Maybe we are all looking for a little motivation. It's dead week for some of us students and it seems that we spend more time on facebook in this single week than we do all year. I know for me, I find things to do that I usually dread doing; running, showering, etc. Just about anything sounds better than sitting, trapped in a building with my nose in a book. We have little motivation until we realize we have only a little bit of time left before the exams. We realize that the sand in the hourglass is running out, so we force ourselves to get busy.
Luckily, we have an hourglass that we can plan our study habits around. We are given a date that we can put in our planners which reminds us that after that date, we will never have to worry about that material again. However, this is not the case in most other areas of life.
If you have been around for a minute, you've picked up on my passion for women who have been forced into the sex trade by human trafficking. There are also other issues that are heavy on my heart... depression, self-mutilation - all dealing with bondage and satan's strongholds.
Many of us don't deal with these issues today. Some of us have, some of us do, but none of us have to. We were not created to be held hostage by these horrific chains.
For those of us who do struggle with these issues, it is vital that we reach out and ask for help. We were not created to do life alone, and God never intended for us to figure out all of life's scary questions by ourselves.
If you have never struggled with these issues, perfect. If you have, and you've been set free, even better. We have to do something about this for our friends. We can never be sure when their hourglass will run out. We do not have time to mess around.
Currently, 27 million people are enslaved around the world due to human trafficking. The United States is the prime destination for sex-trafficked victims, and Oklahoma is the 4th leading state where sex-trafficking occurs.
Today, 1 in 5 teenage girls and 1 in 7 teenage boys partake in cutting themselves. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for people between the ages of 10 and 24. It is the 2nd leading cause of death for college students.
This is a cry for help.
Be intentional in everything you do and say to the people around you. You have absolutely no idea how close to the end of their rope they are - your words bring either heaven or hell to earth.
We have the resources to transform these numbers. These cases are real people with faces and stories. We must devote ourselves to loving people. People must always be restored. Invest your time into someone. Walk alongside someone. See that you are intentionally interrupting peoples' lives with the utmost respect, love and grace. Meet people where they are.
We don't have all day - the hourglass is running.
Luckily, we have an hourglass that we can plan our study habits around. We are given a date that we can put in our planners which reminds us that after that date, we will never have to worry about that material again. However, this is not the case in most other areas of life.
If you have been around for a minute, you've picked up on my passion for women who have been forced into the sex trade by human trafficking. There are also other issues that are heavy on my heart... depression, self-mutilation - all dealing with bondage and satan's strongholds.
Many of us don't deal with these issues today. Some of us have, some of us do, but none of us have to. We were not created to be held hostage by these horrific chains.
For those of us who do struggle with these issues, it is vital that we reach out and ask for help. We were not created to do life alone, and God never intended for us to figure out all of life's scary questions by ourselves.
If you have never struggled with these issues, perfect. If you have, and you've been set free, even better. We have to do something about this for our friends. We can never be sure when their hourglass will run out. We do not have time to mess around.
Currently, 27 million people are enslaved around the world due to human trafficking. The United States is the prime destination for sex-trafficked victims, and Oklahoma is the 4th leading state where sex-trafficking occurs.
Today, 1 in 5 teenage girls and 1 in 7 teenage boys partake in cutting themselves. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for people between the ages of 10 and 24. It is the 2nd leading cause of death for college students.
This is a cry for help.
Be intentional in everything you do and say to the people around you. You have absolutely no idea how close to the end of their rope they are - your words bring either heaven or hell to earth.
We have the resources to transform these numbers. These cases are real people with faces and stories. We must devote ourselves to loving people. People must always be restored. Invest your time into someone. Walk alongside someone. See that you are intentionally interrupting peoples' lives with the utmost respect, love and grace. Meet people where they are.
We don't have all day - the hourglass is running.
4.24.2011
Victory
Easter Sunday is the monumental day and focal point of our faith. As I think about the resurrection of Jesus, I can't help but think about the the way He was tortured and beaten on the Friday before... Isaiah 52 says, "his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness"... He was so disfigured that He was unrecognizable as a human being. I get sick to my stomach when I think about how that kind of treatment could be put on anyone, let alone the savior or the world.
He knew that all of that was going to happen to him, and instead of removing himself from the cross, He endured the pain. He hung there because He knew the affect it would have on the rest of mankind. He knew that the only way to redemption was through His sacrifice. Here's the coolest part: He took that place for me. Had it only been me that was going to walk on this earth after Him, He still would have spilled His blood for me. A sinner; unworthy; so extremely undeserving... I could never earn my place into Heaven, but the moment he let His son be crucified on that cross, He gave me the opportunity to accept the gift of free grace and enter into His family. He invited me into his family, and secures me in His love. I can't escape Him. I am His forever, and He is mine.
I think too often we see the outer shell of the lives that the people around us live and we feel like we can't compare to them; we think that they are so much more deserving than we are. The good news is: the ground at the foot of the cross is level for everyone. We are all saved by grace. There isn't a single one of us that is more deserving than the next... "and all of our righteous acts are like filthy rags..." (Isaiah 64:6)
The blood of Jesus washes me. His sacrifice saved my life. His blood is my victory.
It's easy to get upset when we think about the treatment that Jesus persevered through... but that is exactly what he did! He persevered! He rose again. He rolled the stone away, and went to go celebrate with His friends! He defeated death, sin, hell, satan... He destroyed all the things that come against us in life.
When we accept Jesus into our hearts, we are a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says that we are a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come. We are redeemed, and we are co-heirs with Christ. We are victorious in Jesus!
We are victorious in Jesus.
We live in this world, but we are not of it. We know that we are here to love and to serve people. We are here to sing praises, and to carry the good news to our peers; to our offices; to our campuses; to the homeless; to the widows; to the Nations. We are here to be Jesus to the world - We bare the name of Jesus.
Don't you ever forget that YOU were created in God's image. He sent His one and ONLY son to die for YOU. He endured through the crucifixion for YOU. He rose again for YOU. Through Him, YOU are victorious. Walk in Victory today - You are a new creation. His grace and mercy is made new every single morning. He loves you far beyond what You could ever imagine in your wildest dreams, and He marvels at Your beauty.
"Today suggests we're part of a bigger story, one in which Love wins." -TWLOHA
He knew that all of that was going to happen to him, and instead of removing himself from the cross, He endured the pain. He hung there because He knew the affect it would have on the rest of mankind. He knew that the only way to redemption was through His sacrifice. Here's the coolest part: He took that place for me. Had it only been me that was going to walk on this earth after Him, He still would have spilled His blood for me. A sinner; unworthy; so extremely undeserving... I could never earn my place into Heaven, but the moment he let His son be crucified on that cross, He gave me the opportunity to accept the gift of free grace and enter into His family. He invited me into his family, and secures me in His love. I can't escape Him. I am His forever, and He is mine.
I think too often we see the outer shell of the lives that the people around us live and we feel like we can't compare to them; we think that they are so much more deserving than we are. The good news is: the ground at the foot of the cross is level for everyone. We are all saved by grace. There isn't a single one of us that is more deserving than the next... "and all of our righteous acts are like filthy rags..." (Isaiah 64:6)
The blood of Jesus washes me. His sacrifice saved my life. His blood is my victory.
It's easy to get upset when we think about the treatment that Jesus persevered through... but that is exactly what he did! He persevered! He rose again. He rolled the stone away, and went to go celebrate with His friends! He defeated death, sin, hell, satan... He destroyed all the things that come against us in life.
When we accept Jesus into our hearts, we are a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says that we are a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come. We are redeemed, and we are co-heirs with Christ. We are victorious in Jesus!
We are victorious in Jesus.
We live in this world, but we are not of it. We know that we are here to love and to serve people. We are here to sing praises, and to carry the good news to our peers; to our offices; to our campuses; to the homeless; to the widows; to the Nations. We are here to be Jesus to the world - We bare the name of Jesus.
Don't you ever forget that YOU were created in God's image. He sent His one and ONLY son to die for YOU. He endured through the crucifixion for YOU. He rose again for YOU. Through Him, YOU are victorious. Walk in Victory today - You are a new creation. His grace and mercy is made new every single morning. He loves you far beyond what You could ever imagine in your wildest dreams, and He marvels at Your beauty.
"Today suggests we're part of a bigger story, one in which Love wins." -TWLOHA
3.29.2011
to be known...
I was watching a youtube video of a woman. She illustrates the story of the woman at the well that is written in John 4. A story about a woman who believes she is unworthy to be in the presence of Jesus and tells Him she is no fit to give Him a drink. He looks into her eyes and tells her He knows her and describes to her a place where she can drink water that is everlasting; a water that will quench her thirst... a drink that will satisify her soul. When she realizes the man that she is encountering, she wants everyone to know. She can't keep it to herself; the message is too powerful to not tell anyone. She discovers a fire that has been lit inside of her; a passion to spread the good news.
Tonight I was sitting in Brookies room with about 10 girls and we were talking about the things that were going on in our lives and the lives of our friends. We began to speak about the ways we are seeing God move within our friendships with our sorority sisters, our guy friends, our roommates and people we have never even met. We also talked about the areas of our lives that we are expecting to see Jesus intervene. Because we have seen it first hand, we are convinced that God has the power to transform anything we ask Him to...
At the beginning of spring break my roommate Rachael was staying at my house with me and my family because her parents were out of town. She has had some issues with her hearing, so she had gone to the doctor to have some tests done. The doctors had diagnosed her with a hearing problem that was going to result in her having hearing aids for the rest of her life; keep in mind, she is 18. (sidenote: the poor girl has all kinds of health issues. she was once told that she would live the rest of her life sitting in a wheel chair, but by the power of faith and the grace of God she gets to enjoy the simplicity of skipping.) Anyway, we had just gotten home from getting her blood drawn so they could run some tests, and Barb and Craig (my parents) were sitting on their bed when we walked in. We told them the story of the doctors concerns, and Craig was quick to suggest we lay hands on her ears and pray for her to be healed.
This past weekend Rachael had to go back home to have more tests done; the results of her tests showed that her hearing was equivelent to the hearing of any perfectly well 18 year old; elimating the need for hearing aids. The doctor was blown away, certain that what the results said was impossible. Jesus had something different to say about it.
How cool is it that Jesus knew everything about the samaritan woman who He found at the well? He knew she would be there; He knew she didn't have a husband. He knew she had been married five times, and that she was currently living with a man she was not married to. He knew she was a sinner, and he looked into her eyes and offered her hope. He offered her something solid, something distinct that she would never forget. The woman is an illustration of all of us.
Do you ever have one of those days, or weeks, when you feel like your actions are completely out of character? Or you get stuck into a lifestyle for so long that no one believes that you can change for the better? Have you ever been with a group of people who refuse to believe the best for others... and constantly talk about "reality"? It has to stop. In order to be the body of Christ we have to stick together. We must call forth the good in people, and encourage each other to be the best we can be. We are brothers and sisters, and we are only as strong as our weakest member. It is time that we act in a way that draws people to us. We have the gift of eternal life, and it's crucial that we give it away. When we wear the name of Jesus, we are constantly selling him to the world around us by what we say, do, watch...
Believe the best for people. Pursue people in a way that you're seeing who they are, not what they do. Be vulnerable. Let people see you. We were created for community. Ask God to intervene, and then watch Him. Through you, His power is spread throughout the world, and He is made even more famous.
I once read something that said, "God welcomes us to punctuate our faith with as many exclamation points as question marks. Be careful with the quotation marks." How are you selling Jesus? His message is a message of furious and redeeming Love.
Once you encounter Jesus, you can't escape Him. The torch has been lit; spread the fire.
3.07.2011
Completely Fearless
A couple summers ago I went to Amsterdam with six girls. The purpose of the trip was to get interviews for a Thesis paper that was being written about Post Traumatic Stress Discorder and the affect it has on prostitutes; however, the meaning behind it was much deeper. We were going because we wanted to intercede on behalf of the women who were behind the windows. We had no idea what would happen while we walked those streets of that dark yet beautiful city, but we knew we were called so we fearlessly walked through the alleys and pleaded to God on behalf of those women. It was almost as if we were invisible; not a single man heckled us or even acknowledged us. We were hiding in the shelter of the Almighty and walking through the valley of the shadow of death at the same time.
The day I left for that adventure, my friend wrote me a letter about the importance of the work that was about to be done in that city to further the kingdom of Heaven. He told me that the characteristics of a disciple were three things: Absurdly Happy, Completely Fearless and in Constant Trouble. These three things have stuck with me since I read them for the first time, and they are the epitome of what I strive to embody.
God proves Himself faithful every single day.
I was talking to a friend this weekend about the things God was doing in his life and his eyes lit up with excitement. I could see how eager he was to tell me about the way he was touching Heaven with one hand and earth with the other. He told me that he was a firm believe in that everything we own belongs to God, not only ten percent. As he often claimed his belief in this, he hadn't ever literally given everything he owned away. He told me that God had been telling him, "if everything belongs to me, then give it all to me." So, he literally emptied his account and put it into his Community Group account, which is used to serve people in the community by financially meeting their needs. He had $0.00 in his account, and thirty dollars in his wallet.
Most of you are probably thinking, "Sounds radical. How foolish of him to have no money to support himself, what is he ever going to do without being able to buy food or pay rent?" The coolest part is that God never calls us to do something that we can't handle. However, he does call us to do things that stretch us to the point that we can no longer depend on ourselves, our success, our jobs and our bank accounts. When we are absolutely reliant on God, we experience the fullness of His provision and His grace.
So, as he was driving down the street one day, he sees a guy on the side of the road kicking dirt. God tells him to pick up the stranger, so he turns around and asked the guy if he needs a ride. The guy gets in the car, and after a long conversation explains that he can't work because he has a disabled shoulder and his electricity bill is due and he doesn't have any money to pay it. so my friend askes him how much the bill is, and the guy says around twenty dollars. He pulls out his wallet, gives this stranger the thirty dollars he has left and he tells him to pay his bill and buy himself something to eat. He prays for this guy's shoulder and he tells him the power of prayer and encourages him to keep believing and to expect God for healing, and it will be his. When they arrive at the boy's destination, he gets out of the car and my friend is left with absolutely no money. As he told me this story, his eyes were big and he explained it as the most freeing state he has ever been in throughout his entire life.
"With every decision, we bring either Heaven or Hell to earth." -Rob Bell
He survied the next couple weeks by eating at school, and refraining from buying anything until his next paid check came in. He was completely fearless.
He knew that if he was going to say He was following God then he was going to do it with his whole heart. He knew it would be easy to preach, and not nearly as easy to practice, but he made the decision to trust in a God who had plans to prosper Him. He knew that the Lord is mighty to save, and he expected God to teach him that first hand.
It had nothing to do with explaining theology, or demanding answers to his questions... it had everything to do with being stretched to where he could bring Heaven to earth for one man who needed his electricity bill paid. It was the drive to take Jesus literally when He told his disciples, "drop your nets, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."
It may sound radical, it may even be radical; but what will our success driven, money hungry society turn into if we continue to let those things control our lives? It is absolutely crucial that we take a completely fearless approach to living - our eyes will be opened, our hearts softened and our horizons broadened if we give God the opportunity to stretch us. It won't be easy, and certainly not comfortable but it will change the world.
"...I will make you fishers of men." Matt 4:19
The day I left for that adventure, my friend wrote me a letter about the importance of the work that was about to be done in that city to further the kingdom of Heaven. He told me that the characteristics of a disciple were three things: Absurdly Happy, Completely Fearless and in Constant Trouble. These three things have stuck with me since I read them for the first time, and they are the epitome of what I strive to embody.
God proves Himself faithful every single day.
I was talking to a friend this weekend about the things God was doing in his life and his eyes lit up with excitement. I could see how eager he was to tell me about the way he was touching Heaven with one hand and earth with the other. He told me that he was a firm believe in that everything we own belongs to God, not only ten percent. As he often claimed his belief in this, he hadn't ever literally given everything he owned away. He told me that God had been telling him, "if everything belongs to me, then give it all to me." So, he literally emptied his account and put it into his Community Group account, which is used to serve people in the community by financially meeting their needs. He had $0.00 in his account, and thirty dollars in his wallet.
Most of you are probably thinking, "Sounds radical. How foolish of him to have no money to support himself, what is he ever going to do without being able to buy food or pay rent?" The coolest part is that God never calls us to do something that we can't handle. However, he does call us to do things that stretch us to the point that we can no longer depend on ourselves, our success, our jobs and our bank accounts. When we are absolutely reliant on God, we experience the fullness of His provision and His grace.
So, as he was driving down the street one day, he sees a guy on the side of the road kicking dirt. God tells him to pick up the stranger, so he turns around and asked the guy if he needs a ride. The guy gets in the car, and after a long conversation explains that he can't work because he has a disabled shoulder and his electricity bill is due and he doesn't have any money to pay it. so my friend askes him how much the bill is, and the guy says around twenty dollars. He pulls out his wallet, gives this stranger the thirty dollars he has left and he tells him to pay his bill and buy himself something to eat. He prays for this guy's shoulder and he tells him the power of prayer and encourages him to keep believing and to expect God for healing, and it will be his. When they arrive at the boy's destination, he gets out of the car and my friend is left with absolutely no money. As he told me this story, his eyes were big and he explained it as the most freeing state he has ever been in throughout his entire life.
"With every decision, we bring either Heaven or Hell to earth." -Rob Bell
He survied the next couple weeks by eating at school, and refraining from buying anything until his next paid check came in. He was completely fearless.
He knew that if he was going to say He was following God then he was going to do it with his whole heart. He knew it would be easy to preach, and not nearly as easy to practice, but he made the decision to trust in a God who had plans to prosper Him. He knew that the Lord is mighty to save, and he expected God to teach him that first hand.
It had nothing to do with explaining theology, or demanding answers to his questions... it had everything to do with being stretched to where he could bring Heaven to earth for one man who needed his electricity bill paid. It was the drive to take Jesus literally when He told his disciples, "drop your nets, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."
It may sound radical, it may even be radical; but what will our success driven, money hungry society turn into if we continue to let those things control our lives? It is absolutely crucial that we take a completely fearless approach to living - our eyes will be opened, our hearts softened and our horizons broadened if we give God the opportunity to stretch us. It won't be easy, and certainly not comfortable but it will change the world.
"...I will make you fishers of men." Matt 4:19
2.20.2011
Medals and Wash Rags
Today at church Pastor Clark was speaking directly to the men in the church about the way they are called to treat their wives, or future wives. As a girl it was easy for me to sit back and "Amen" every single thing he said - He talked about multiple issues that Men are called to take care of, issues that any of us women could talk about for days...
Towards the end of the sermon, He looked into the eyes of the Men in the congregation and said "Be her biggest fan." This struck a cord with me. It is a small idea that transforms relationships and ultimately lives. You could say that it's important to me because words of affirmation are important to me, but I refuse to believe thats it...
His main point was to be her biggest fan - but the subdivisions of this one point blew my mind and stirred my heart. The Holy Spirit was flowing out of him as he spoke about the way husbands should always call forth the potential in their wives. Here are some of the things he said that are worthy of note taking:
"Be her biggest fan. Your words should always bring more healing to her than hurt. We are all visionaries, and I know this because God is a visionary and we were created in His image - Ask Him to give you a glimpse of His vision for your wife's life. Tap into the presence and the power of God and catch a glimpse of the things God is doing in Her life. Listen to her. When we are fully being lead by God, we are leading our wives and our children to follow in the way of the Lord. He has plans for her the same way he has plans for you. It is our job and our duty as men to speak life into her and to encourage her, reminding her that she is dazzling and beauitful and worthy and flawless. When she is discouraged and battling insecurity and we say, "oh that's just how she is..." we are settling for what Satan has to say about her. God created her to wake up, ever single morning, in all humility and say, "I am the result of God's creation and I will walk with confidence in Christ praising Him for all He is, regardless of what comes at me today." As husbands, we must breathe life into her, into her dreams, into her potential."
What if, with every person we come in contact with, we looked them in the eyes and truly believed in their potential? Not just the people who have college degrees; not just the CEOs; not just the ones dressed in fancy labels; not just the ones who seem to be going somewhere in life; and especially not just the ones who might better us and help us out in return. What if we spent our lives encouraging and pouring ourselves into people?
When will we realize that life is not all about the things this world has to offer?! When will we acknowledge the truth that our lives come and go in a flash? we are here today and gone tomorrow... When will we stop carrying on comfortable casual conversation, and begin to rip off the masks and tear down the walls? When will our achievements and our trophies stop getting the best of us?!
I am so tired of the world getting the best of our generation. It's draining. Yes, school is so important and yes our resumes looks better when it has lots of pretty things on it... but man, how dangerous is it that Satan has such a hold on us that those earthly desires of being so successful and rich and achieved can consume us. When we will drop the rich, beautiful, materialistic lifestyle that we hold onto for dear life, and fall on our face before the Lord?
I don't just mean physically, I mean spiritually - we have to wake up. it's time we start doing what we are here to do. What are you investing your heart in? which kingdom are you so desperately clinging to? what are you putting your time into? What is defining you? What consumes your thoughts when you close your eyes at night? What consumes your thoughts when you're practicing piano, or football, or physics? What consumes your thoughts when you walk through the double doors of your dream job? Where is your life headed? Who are you speaking life into? Does it stop with your wife?
What will it take for you to exchange the medals of worldy success for a bucket of water, some soap and a wash rag?
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:21
You were created for victory. It may not look the way you draw it out in your head, but that doesn't mean you've failed. You are an overcomer, and you are victorious.
For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 1 John 5:4
How cool would it be to see Jesus and be able to look at Him, hand him the baton, and say, "Finally, after 2000 years, we got it done for you."
Do something about it.
Towards the end of the sermon, He looked into the eyes of the Men in the congregation and said "Be her biggest fan." This struck a cord with me. It is a small idea that transforms relationships and ultimately lives. You could say that it's important to me because words of affirmation are important to me, but I refuse to believe thats it...
His main point was to be her biggest fan - but the subdivisions of this one point blew my mind and stirred my heart. The Holy Spirit was flowing out of him as he spoke about the way husbands should always call forth the potential in their wives. Here are some of the things he said that are worthy of note taking:
"Be her biggest fan. Your words should always bring more healing to her than hurt. We are all visionaries, and I know this because God is a visionary and we were created in His image - Ask Him to give you a glimpse of His vision for your wife's life. Tap into the presence and the power of God and catch a glimpse of the things God is doing in Her life. Listen to her. When we are fully being lead by God, we are leading our wives and our children to follow in the way of the Lord. He has plans for her the same way he has plans for you. It is our job and our duty as men to speak life into her and to encourage her, reminding her that she is dazzling and beauitful and worthy and flawless. When she is discouraged and battling insecurity and we say, "oh that's just how she is..." we are settling for what Satan has to say about her. God created her to wake up, ever single morning, in all humility and say, "I am the result of God's creation and I will walk with confidence in Christ praising Him for all He is, regardless of what comes at me today." As husbands, we must breathe life into her, into her dreams, into her potential."
What if, with every person we come in contact with, we looked them in the eyes and truly believed in their potential? Not just the people who have college degrees; not just the CEOs; not just the ones dressed in fancy labels; not just the ones who seem to be going somewhere in life; and especially not just the ones who might better us and help us out in return. What if we spent our lives encouraging and pouring ourselves into people?
When will we realize that life is not all about the things this world has to offer?! When will we acknowledge the truth that our lives come and go in a flash? we are here today and gone tomorrow... When will we stop carrying on comfortable casual conversation, and begin to rip off the masks and tear down the walls? When will our achievements and our trophies stop getting the best of us?!
I am so tired of the world getting the best of our generation. It's draining. Yes, school is so important and yes our resumes looks better when it has lots of pretty things on it... but man, how dangerous is it that Satan has such a hold on us that those earthly desires of being so successful and rich and achieved can consume us. When we will drop the rich, beautiful, materialistic lifestyle that we hold onto for dear life, and fall on our face before the Lord?
I don't just mean physically, I mean spiritually - we have to wake up. it's time we start doing what we are here to do. What are you investing your heart in? which kingdom are you so desperately clinging to? what are you putting your time into? What is defining you? What consumes your thoughts when you close your eyes at night? What consumes your thoughts when you're practicing piano, or football, or physics? What consumes your thoughts when you walk through the double doors of your dream job? Where is your life headed? Who are you speaking life into? Does it stop with your wife?
What will it take for you to exchange the medals of worldy success for a bucket of water, some soap and a wash rag?
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:21
You were created for victory. It may not look the way you draw it out in your head, but that doesn't mean you've failed. You are an overcomer, and you are victorious.
For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 1 John 5:4
How cool would it be to see Jesus and be able to look at Him, hand him the baton, and say, "Finally, after 2000 years, we got it done for you."
Do something about it.
2.09.2011
My Adventure Book.
Have you taken the time to sit down and think about the adventures you want to experience in your life? Ya know how the world seems to be getting smaller? It seems that within the past decade or so, we have become a whole lot more familiar with the world around us... There aren't many mysteries anymore. It seems that everything has been seen; discovered.
In the movie UP the little girl, Ellie, has a book called "My Adventure Book" - even more, she has a dream. Her book is a tangible illustration of what she wants her life to become... an idea of the things she dreams about experiencing. She doesn't want her life to be mediocre. She has big expectations.
A couple weeks ago I was at a women's conference at Journey Church and my heart was overwhelmed while I stood with hundreds of women in the presence of God. It was as if we were all living the way we were called to. As women, we have all experienced the chaos and drama that comes along with girl friends... and as I grow up, I learn more and more the importance of us women sticking together. I've said it before, we have to stick together. As I stood in that sanctuary with those women, I knew God was there in the room with us. We sang with one voice. When I heard the band play the chords of How He Loves my heart melted. How powerful for a room full of women to be claiming the truth that We are His portion, and He is our prize. Even though we all struggle with the things of the world - insecurity, heartbreak, self destruction, bitterness, regret... We were confessing, as a body, that when we thought about the way that God loves us, we could no longer contain those things.
We are loved beyond any measure we can fathom.
My heart keeps going back to a sermon I heard about a week ago about how unique each of us are. We talked about big names like Martin Luthar King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln... people who painted masterpieces with their lives. Courageous leaders who were bold enough to go into broken places. People who recognized their calling, even more their duty, and pursued it because not pursuing it would be too dangerous. People who knew their lives were temporary - and refused to let it go to waste.
I think we were all created to be artists. I think God longs for us to use what He has given us to paint something beautiful; something breath taking. I think he intended for it to be a whole world full of masterpieces. Different paintings, due to different ideas and creativity. I refuse to believe that he intended the world to be full of mass-produced 'color the number' paintings...
We were created to live in the brightest hughes
He delights in our beauty. He loves us more than we can fathom. He gifted us with unique creativity. He creates things for us to discover.
dream big. experience life. discover. be bold. paint a masterpiece. you have nothing to lose.
In the movie UP the little girl, Ellie, has a book called "My Adventure Book" - even more, she has a dream. Her book is a tangible illustration of what she wants her life to become... an idea of the things she dreams about experiencing. She doesn't want her life to be mediocre. She has big expectations.
A couple weeks ago I was at a women's conference at Journey Church and my heart was overwhelmed while I stood with hundreds of women in the presence of God. It was as if we were all living the way we were called to. As women, we have all experienced the chaos and drama that comes along with girl friends... and as I grow up, I learn more and more the importance of us women sticking together. I've said it before, we have to stick together. As I stood in that sanctuary with those women, I knew God was there in the room with us. We sang with one voice. When I heard the band play the chords of How He Loves my heart melted. How powerful for a room full of women to be claiming the truth that We are His portion, and He is our prize. Even though we all struggle with the things of the world - insecurity, heartbreak, self destruction, bitterness, regret... We were confessing, as a body, that when we thought about the way that God loves us, we could no longer contain those things.
We are loved beyond any measure we can fathom.
My heart keeps going back to a sermon I heard about a week ago about how unique each of us are. We talked about big names like Martin Luthar King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln... people who painted masterpieces with their lives. Courageous leaders who were bold enough to go into broken places. People who recognized their calling, even more their duty, and pursued it because not pursuing it would be too dangerous. People who knew their lives were temporary - and refused to let it go to waste.
I think we were all created to be artists. I think God longs for us to use what He has given us to paint something beautiful; something breath taking. I think he intended for it to be a whole world full of masterpieces. Different paintings, due to different ideas and creativity. I refuse to believe that he intended the world to be full of mass-produced 'color the number' paintings...
We were created to live in the brightest hughes
He delights in our beauty. He loves us more than we can fathom. He gifted us with unique creativity. He creates things for us to discover.
dream big. experience life. discover. be bold. paint a masterpiece. you have nothing to lose.
1.17.2011
Sprinkles of Grace
January 17th. A new day. A new opportunity. It has never happened before. It is perfect. Flawless. New.
As I think about the things that I want 2011 to be about, my mind wonders to all the possibilities that this new year could bring. Anything could happen - it's kind of like a blank canvas. Endless possibilites with challenges and friends behind every door. Every thing I encounter throughout the next twelve months are choices of blessings or curses. Of course I will come face to face with heartbreak and obstacles, but I rest assured that every single circumstance and situtation will be beneficial. God is cool in that way - He uses all things to teach me.
2011 is a going to be a year of expecting a lot more from God. I talk a lot about spare change... spare change is worthless.
2010 taught me that when given the opportunity, people love to give. It taught me the importance of relationships. 2010 was the year I graduated from highschool and started college. It represents a great change in my life. The end of one chapter, and the beginning of a new one.
It started with bringing in the new year with my very best friends - banging pots and pans and yelling at the top of our lungs... Shortly after that Valentines Day rolled around - my dad was my valentine... I was the luckiest. Then my birthday snuck up on me and my seventeenth year of life was coming to an end.
Sidenote: Seventeen was my favorite year because I discovered my passion against human sex-trafficking and recognized the call on my life to reach the broken women of the world and to offer hope. To remind them that they were created to dance in white dresses. That there is more to life than darkness. That they were created to sing and dance and praise Jesus. That they are beautiful and perfect and flawless. That they are the daughters of the Most High King... and that they are forgiven. I think we all need that reminder. We all need to be saved by grace.
Anyway, I was excited for a new age because I was ready to put those passions to work. It was the best birthday - the celebration started the night before as my friend took me to Norman to worship with Hillsong United. The next morning was saturday, so I was blessed to spend the whole day on the back patio with my family and my best girlfriends, cooking out and laughing at each other. It was a preview of the year for me... I knew the Lord had already provided for me and He would continue to as the year progressed. May 14th was a day I'll always remember, as it was the day I graduated from the best highschool in the nation. I walked that stage proud as I'll ever be to call myself a Union Redskin. I got to listen to and vicariously live through my best friend as she gave the "Redskins for Life" speech - and she rocked it. After that day began my last summer before College. It was a summer of celebrating people. I was a nanny, so I exercised my love for children ;) and ended up falling in love with those kids. There is something about the faith of child... they taught me a lot about life. Whether it was "make-believe" tea parties or dancing to Hannah Montana - they found joy in the smallest things. In August I started my first semester of college! I went through Rush and found some of the best friends I could ever ask for. I acknowledged the fact that I had the free will of picking where I wanted to be - but discovered the plans of the Lord and watched them unfold as I began to connect with all new friends. He knew just what he was doing, and continues to pour blessings upon me. My cup overflows. I was given the opportunity to be a part of a musical with all of my new pledge sisters, and a whole new group of boys, whom I had never met. Little did I know they would become some of my best friends as well. Singing was never a talent that I was blessed with, but I had the time of my life pretending :) It seemed as if I was meeting new friends every time I turned around. As I look back on my Spanish class, a few people come to mind and I laugh. I'll never forget the new friends who loved to make jokes about "PTL"ing all the time."PTL for scrunchies. PTL for big curly hair. PTL for PTL" they would say. Whether they realize it or not, they weren't only speading the PTL, but they were Praising the Lord :) Nevertheless, we were instant friends! The year was wrapping up, and I spent the majority of the last few weeks of the semester in the Library. I've never been one for silence, so it was a challenge... but when you're not allowed to laugh it makes everything that much funnier. The night I got home I bathed in the peace of knowing I would be home for an entire month with no class or tests or studying to worry about, and soaked in the blessing of being amongst my parents, my sister, and one of my very best friends. The next night we made our way to Cains Ballroom to hang out with our friends Needtobreathe - and we sang our lungs out, exclaiming "this is my favorite one!" to just about every song they played. I loved spending Christmas with our family friends, who have become a whole lot more like family than friends... and just as it began, 2010 ended with the greatest friends laughing and bringin' in the new year. It was a year of joy and renewal. It was jam packed with creating new life-long friendships. I look back and smile on all the things God must have orchestrated for me, because I could have never created them on my own. I learned that I was a daughter of the King. That's all I am, and all I need to be. I was broken, softened, and refurbished. Sprinkles of grace scattered throughout the journey.
2011 is a new year. A new opportunity. It has never happened before. It is perfect. It is flawless. It is a year of expecting more from God. It is a year of asking, expecting, recieving, giving, planting, watering, reaping. It is a year of being spontaneous, of loving without having an agenda and of rocking out like my life depended on it. It's a year of seeing Jesus in everyone, and watching as the promises of God unfold in my life and in the lives around me. It's a year of freedom and liberty. 2011 is a year of growth; a year of stretching.
Here is your challenge:
May you be uncomfortable this year. May the Lord stretch you in big ways. May you find yourself on the edge of your seat, watching in awe at the wonders of our King. May you touch heaven with one hand, and earth with the other. May you always stand in the gap for people. May you extend grace to those who do not deserve it. May you experience the grace Jesus died for you to recieve. May you have the time of your life with the people you love. May you live the highest extreme of abundance. May you always be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer (Romans 12). May you live vulnerably, giving all that you are to be the living body of Christ.
2011 can be anything we want it to be. We have choices of blessings and curses before us. There are no limits. Choose blessings. Walk in abundance. Declare liberty over your days. Ask. Laugh. Be childlike in your faith. Wear love. Pray without ceasing. Look at every person as if they were Jesus. Sing. Run. Persevere.
May you encounter Jesus, and may you look back and see His sprinkles of grace.
As I think about the things that I want 2011 to be about, my mind wonders to all the possibilities that this new year could bring. Anything could happen - it's kind of like a blank canvas. Endless possibilites with challenges and friends behind every door. Every thing I encounter throughout the next twelve months are choices of blessings or curses. Of course I will come face to face with heartbreak and obstacles, but I rest assured that every single circumstance and situtation will be beneficial. God is cool in that way - He uses all things to teach me.
2011 is a going to be a year of expecting a lot more from God. I talk a lot about spare change... spare change is worthless.
2010 taught me that when given the opportunity, people love to give. It taught me the importance of relationships. 2010 was the year I graduated from highschool and started college. It represents a great change in my life. The end of one chapter, and the beginning of a new one.
It started with bringing in the new year with my very best friends - banging pots and pans and yelling at the top of our lungs... Shortly after that Valentines Day rolled around - my dad was my valentine... I was the luckiest. Then my birthday snuck up on me and my seventeenth year of life was coming to an end.
Sidenote: Seventeen was my favorite year because I discovered my passion against human sex-trafficking and recognized the call on my life to reach the broken women of the world and to offer hope. To remind them that they were created to dance in white dresses. That there is more to life than darkness. That they were created to sing and dance and praise Jesus. That they are beautiful and perfect and flawless. That they are the daughters of the Most High King... and that they are forgiven. I think we all need that reminder. We all need to be saved by grace.
Anyway, I was excited for a new age because I was ready to put those passions to work. It was the best birthday - the celebration started the night before as my friend took me to Norman to worship with Hillsong United. The next morning was saturday, so I was blessed to spend the whole day on the back patio with my family and my best girlfriends, cooking out and laughing at each other. It was a preview of the year for me... I knew the Lord had already provided for me and He would continue to as the year progressed. May 14th was a day I'll always remember, as it was the day I graduated from the best highschool in the nation. I walked that stage proud as I'll ever be to call myself a Union Redskin. I got to listen to and vicariously live through my best friend as she gave the "Redskins for Life" speech - and she rocked it. After that day began my last summer before College. It was a summer of celebrating people. I was a nanny, so I exercised my love for children ;) and ended up falling in love with those kids. There is something about the faith of child... they taught me a lot about life. Whether it was "make-believe" tea parties or dancing to Hannah Montana - they found joy in the smallest things. In August I started my first semester of college! I went through Rush and found some of the best friends I could ever ask for. I acknowledged the fact that I had the free will of picking where I wanted to be - but discovered the plans of the Lord and watched them unfold as I began to connect with all new friends. He knew just what he was doing, and continues to pour blessings upon me. My cup overflows. I was given the opportunity to be a part of a musical with all of my new pledge sisters, and a whole new group of boys, whom I had never met. Little did I know they would become some of my best friends as well. Singing was never a talent that I was blessed with, but I had the time of my life pretending :) It seemed as if I was meeting new friends every time I turned around. As I look back on my Spanish class, a few people come to mind and I laugh. I'll never forget the new friends who loved to make jokes about "PTL"ing all the time."PTL for scrunchies. PTL for big curly hair. PTL for PTL" they would say. Whether they realize it or not, they weren't only speading the PTL, but they were Praising the Lord :) Nevertheless, we were instant friends! The year was wrapping up, and I spent the majority of the last few weeks of the semester in the Library. I've never been one for silence, so it was a challenge... but when you're not allowed to laugh it makes everything that much funnier. The night I got home I bathed in the peace of knowing I would be home for an entire month with no class or tests or studying to worry about, and soaked in the blessing of being amongst my parents, my sister, and one of my very best friends. The next night we made our way to Cains Ballroom to hang out with our friends Needtobreathe - and we sang our lungs out, exclaiming "this is my favorite one!" to just about every song they played. I loved spending Christmas with our family friends, who have become a whole lot more like family than friends... and just as it began, 2010 ended with the greatest friends laughing and bringin' in the new year. It was a year of joy and renewal. It was jam packed with creating new life-long friendships. I look back and smile on all the things God must have orchestrated for me, because I could have never created them on my own. I learned that I was a daughter of the King. That's all I am, and all I need to be. I was broken, softened, and refurbished. Sprinkles of grace scattered throughout the journey.
2011 is a new year. A new opportunity. It has never happened before. It is perfect. It is flawless. It is a year of expecting more from God. It is a year of asking, expecting, recieving, giving, planting, watering, reaping. It is a year of being spontaneous, of loving without having an agenda and of rocking out like my life depended on it. It's a year of seeing Jesus in everyone, and watching as the promises of God unfold in my life and in the lives around me. It's a year of freedom and liberty. 2011 is a year of growth; a year of stretching.
Here is your challenge:
May you be uncomfortable this year. May the Lord stretch you in big ways. May you find yourself on the edge of your seat, watching in awe at the wonders of our King. May you touch heaven with one hand, and earth with the other. May you always stand in the gap for people. May you extend grace to those who do not deserve it. May you experience the grace Jesus died for you to recieve. May you have the time of your life with the people you love. May you live the highest extreme of abundance. May you always be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer (Romans 12). May you live vulnerably, giving all that you are to be the living body of Christ.
2011 can be anything we want it to be. We have choices of blessings and curses before us. There are no limits. Choose blessings. Walk in abundance. Declare liberty over your days. Ask. Laugh. Be childlike in your faith. Wear love. Pray without ceasing. Look at every person as if they were Jesus. Sing. Run. Persevere.
May you encounter Jesus, and may you look back and see His sprinkles of grace.
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