You Make Beautiful Things

     As I have come to grips with the fact that I have actually graduated from high school, a new reality has shaken me. I am awakened to what is really important to me and what is not.
     One of the many things that is important to me is the people that God has blessed me with and placed in my life for special reasons. The other night I had a bonfire at my house where I had a couple of my friends come talk about their adventures with YWAM and going on outreach to India. It was both hilarious and insightful to listen to the two of them exchange stories. Hearing one of them say, "Did you get to visit the third largest mountain in the world?" and then the other would say, "No, but did you get to go sledding?" This is not all the outreach entails, obviously. My outreach will involve teaching hygiene classes, sharing my testimony and much more which is also what these two had to do. I remember one of these friends sharing a story about coming upon a man who was lying by the side of the road literally dying and yet no one would touch or help him. His (YWAM) team took the man and found medical help. THAT is what I call really important. Looking around the fire that night I was amazed at the influence that we as believers can have on unbelievers and what God is able to accomplish through his people if we would simply let Him in.
     Two of the friends that were by the fire that night have had amazing transformations through their high school years. Listening to one of my friends talk about how badly the church needs to be more united, I was amazed at how true I have found this to be. One of the biggest aspects my friends' transformations was the fact that their friends, who were believers, never gave up on them, prayed for them and didn't judge them for their past mistakes, but chose to listen and then correct at the same time. Truth, forgiveness and love are amazing and uniting forces. 
        I call this post, "You Make Beautiful Things," after the song, by Michael Gungor. One of my favorite lines from that song is, "All around hope is springing up from this old ground. Out of chaos life is being found in You." There was hope springing up from the dirty ground around the fire that night as we ended the night praying together and encouraging one other. Although, the older generations may be skeptical that kids like us do not exist, who sit around a campfire and worship and pray together like we did that night, the older generations  need to not set such low expectations of what we as young adults are capable of. Through fellowship like this together and not being quick to judge one another we are able to bring others into community and relationship with Christ. This is what we are called to do as a body of believers, this is real love. I want to challenge you as readers to ask yourselves, young or old, "Am I setting low expectations for myself in my walk with Christ? What do I truly think that God is capable of doing through me?" Conviction is good, it's healthy, but as individuals we need to walk out of that conviction and embrace the reality that we are forgiven and loved. This truth is what is important to me, and I hope to you. Anything that distracts us from this truth falls in my "not important" category. Through walking out of the distractions and lies the world hands us and walking into and realizing the hope we truly have, it becomes our mission as believers to share that hope with our community, family, friends and the world.

Gratitude for Community

I am so grateful for the people in my life who make me laugh. In my last post I wrote about my last track meet, which went very well. As I had talked about there being much pain in running, there can also be a rush of joy as you realize what you are truly capable of. I will never forget running my last lap of the 4 by 8 and hearing a teammate cheer for me yelling,"You only have 350 meters left to go!" This is not the most helpful information to hear as you are finishing an event, but it did make me laugh! As there are many "lasts" as a graduate and a finished track season is one of them, my prayer is that there will never be an end to the friendships, as well as to the memories that have been made and stories that will be retold as the years go by. There is truly no place like home and as I will begin my DTS this fall I can look forward to, Lord willing, coming home to these people. I am so grateful to hear my coaches say that they really do want us to come back and visit. At the same time right now I can look ahead. I am already getting so excited thinking about being in Idaho in the mountains and eventually off to India.
       There is meaning and purpose behind each aspect of our lives. My prayer for the CA community, from where I graduated, is that they would continue to do the next thing in love, to have gratitude for each other and that when I would come back from India and visit, that there would continue to be joy in everyone with whom I have shared so much and so many memories.