Category: For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord

Recently, thirty-two of us from Cru drove to Katy, Texas to spend a week helping to restore homes that had been damaged by Hurricane Harvey. This was an incredible experience and a great way to spend my Spring Break. I could talk about this trip for hours, but I am going to do my best to consolidate it into something simple and readable here.

We left Fort Collins around 7:00 pm on Friday, March 9^th and returned around 8:00 am on Sunday, March 18^th.  We were split into three vans. The vans were crowded and the drive was long but we were excited. When we arrived in Katy on Saturday afternoon, quite a few of us were surprised by what we saw, or more accurately, what we didn’t see. At first glance, the city seemed fine. There were no collapsed buildings, no houses in ruins. In fact from the outside the houses looked great and the architecture was impressive. As we pulled into the parking lot of the church that would be hosting us for the week, some of us began to doubt the point of us coming. Did these people actually need our help?

It didn’t take long to realize the answer to this question was yes. The two volunteers from the church we worked with throughout the week told us what a challenge the past six months had been. The people were exhausted, and despair weighed over the city. But these two men believed God could use us to change Katy’s morale. And they were right. The next morning when we all attended church, we were overwhelmed by the amount of people walking over to thank us for coming to help. Some even had tears in their eyes. It’s amazing how God used us to give others hope again.

Each day that we worked we were split into different groups and had different work. Sunday afternoon consisted of yard work for my group while others did dry-walling. Monday was my favorite work day. The all-female group I was a part of cleared debris from people’s homes. What we grabbed varied from wood, to doors, to tiles, to ovens, to even a toilet. We filled three industrial sized dumpsters in one day. We filled three industrial sized dumpsters with what were now the broken pieces of people’s lives. At one point we came across a yearbook so badly damaged that it couldn’t be opened. Not everything that was lost could be replaced. On the outside the houses seemed fine, but on the inside, it was broken. People are like that too.

On Tuesday I spent the day with a group of people painting. We managed to paint  nearly the entire inside of the house before we ran out of primer. And then that night all the guys cooked and served dinner and wrote notes for all of us girls. After all the hard work they put into helping the residents of Katy that day, they still found the energy to put forth such a thoughtful gesture. I am so thankful for all of them and for how clearly their love for God shows.

Now Wednesday was Beach Day. We spent the day on a beach in Galveston. We were divided into teams and competed in soccer, sandcastle making, and a race. My team came in 3^rd… of three. Oh well, we still had a fun time! Beach day helped us all feel refreshed for our last two days of work.

Thursday morning, I helped set up for a community lunch for one of the neighborhoods that had been affected by the hurricane. During the event I was in charge of an inflatable obstacle course for the kids, which was a blast! One light that God brought from this tragedy was that it brought people together; people within the neighborhood, or even people from Katy, Texas with some college kids from Colorado State University.

Friday, our final workday, was bittersweet. The group I was in scrubbed tiles and did yard work for a woman involved with the church. In the places where her walls and floors were ripped up, she and her family wrote different Bible verses. Her faith was incredible. And as quickly as the work day began, it ended. That night we celebrated the week by going out to dinner. When we returned, we went outside and did some swing dancing, which was a lot of fun, just like our downtime during the week always was. Throughout the week, we would spend time doing worship, processing the day, and breaking out into small groups. But the rest of the night, we would have free time which was spent playing card games, playing kickball, and watching movies – the kind of things that create and grow friendships.

Going on service trips like these build bonds that last forever. New friendships were made and current ones were strengthened, as was my relationship with God. At the start of this trip I was anxious because I didn’t know exactly what to expect and because I was worried I’d only cause more damage to the homes because of my lack of experience with manual labor. But I went in with open hands. And God filled them.

If you’re intrigued by this post and looking forward to what I’ll write about in the future, you can expect a new post every Saturday. Also, if you feel inclined, feel free to leave a comment below about what you think. Thanks for all your support and I hope you’ll come back next week. Stay Amazing!

Last week I went with Cru, the campus ministry I am in, to a conference in Denver. It was a great time to connect with God and with friends. While the sessions we attended were incredible and convicting, the story I’m going to tell about one of the things God revealed to me has nothing to do with any of the sessions. Instead, this story is about a game some of us played during the second night of the conference.

The game is called Sardines. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game, Sardines is basically like reverse hide-and-seek; two people hide together while everyone else searches for them. When somebody finds them, they proceed to hide with them and this continues until everyone manages to find them. It’s a fun game, especially in the hotel we were staying at because it’s third and fourth floor are filled with dozens of possible hiding spots (A side note: neither of these floors had rooms where guest actually sleep, they are used for conventions and conferences like ours so we where not bothering any guests!).

Now before the start of the game, one girl wanted to emphasize the rule no hiding in the stairwells, because last year people hid in the stairwells and it became a hassle for those who were still searching. In the end, everyone agreed, no stairwells, and the two guys left to hide. Knowing these two guys and the fact that we had just emphasized to rule about no stairwells, I had a feeling they were going to hide in the elevators, just to show that they’re ‘rebellious and edgy.’ I voiced this thought to a few of my friends who were playing but no one else agreed to check there. Not wanting to be isolated from the group, I chose to bypass the elevators and instead search the two floors with my friends. Sure enough, we did not find them. We texted the guys, asking for a hint. Their response was “We are somewhere between the third and fourth floors.”

Again I thought, they must be in the elevator! But again, everyone doubted me. So just as before, I went with a few friends and searched all over the floors again, in many of the same places we had already checked. By this point others who were playing were growing frustrated and were convinced the two hiders were cheating. We all stood by the elevators, with some people deliberating over whether or not to end the game. That’s when we heard one of the hider’s shout someone’s name. And the voice came from the elevator! And still, no one believed they could possibly be hiding in an elevator so everyone took off. Except me.

I stood and waited. The elevator opened. Sure enough the two guys and someone who found them earlier were sitting inside. I hopped in. Within two minutes everyone else finally found them. There was a debate as to whether or not the guys followed the rules (which they did, no one said no hiding in an elevator and they made sure it only went to the third and fourth floor!) and another round of the game ensued shortly after. However elevators were banned, mostly because they move up and down so quickly that being in one for an extended period of time can make you feel pretty sick.

So you might be wondering, what’s the point of this story? Trust your instincts? Get rid of all loopholes when establishing the rules of a game? Nope. During this game I was so worried about being separated from the rest of the group that I didn’t go and search where I was supposed to. I checked the same places over and over, expecting different results. But if I had found the guys right away, I probably would have gotten motion sickness (I’m telling you those elevators are something else!). Sometimes God calls us to go somewhere where we may not be comfortable or do something that others may not support. But it’s the path we have to follow. It may seem daunting initially, more so than leaving your friends during a game of Sardines at a Christian conference, but it will produce results. Searching through the same areas of your life over and over again hoping for new and better results is illogical and unproductive. Even if no one had been in that elevator, I would have at least found one more place the two guys were not hiding.

The next time you think you should check the elevator, check the elevator. The next time you think God is telling you to do something, do something. Because with both scenarios, you’re bound to find something.

If you’re intrigued by this post and looking forward to what I’ll write about in the future, you can expect a new post every Saturday. Also, if you feel inclined, feel free to leave a comment below about what you think. Thanks for all your support and I hope you’ll come back next week. Stay Amazing!

I apologize for the lack of posts this past month. Between my schoolwork and the fact that I was experiencing what I like to call a ‘one-fifth life crisis,’ I just did not have the energy to write. But I’m back now! And today I am going to discuss my one-fifth life crisis. It’s like a mid-life crisis, except that I’m only twenty, and if I live to be one-hundred then I have lived one-fifth of my life so far, as opposed to one-half.

As I have said in previous posts, in many ways, I was not the typical kid. Most middle-schoolers have no ideas what they want to be when they grow up, or they do but then proceed to change their minds a dozen times by the end of high school. From there, many still may be undecided about what they want to do by the time they graduate high school or even during their first year or two in college. I however, decided on my future career in 7^th grade. After being a prosecutor in a mock trial during history class, I wanted to become a lawyer. And this idea stuck with me, all through middle school, all through high school, and all through my first two years or college.

One day I would become a federal prosecutor. I would get to ‘put the bad guys in jail,’ I would say proudly when I was thirteen. Family, friends, and many people from my high school always told me I would make a great lawyer someday. And this plan seemed perfect. Or at least it did until about a month ago. I began to question my desire for becoming a lawyer. Did I want to do it because I still had the desire? Or did I want to do it because it’s been my plan for several years. Well, I have come to a conclusion; I have no idea.

I am a fierce planner. I like to know what’s going on at all times and constantly be prepared for the future. It’s not uncommon for me to plan out all of my outfits for the week and even create some backup options because of the unpredictability that is Colorado weather. Now, I realize I take planning to the extreme, but I also realize that I am not the only one who creates big plains for their future, then finds that God is calling them to change it up, and then fears relinquishing the control they believe they have of their future.

I’ve noticed that God doesn’t typically reveal His entire plan for somebody all at once. One of my friends says it’s like walking in the woods at night and your flashlight can only light three feet of your path at a time. We all want more than those three feet, heck we’d take three miles if God would give it to us. But we only need to see three feet so that is what God shows us.

Sometimes it’s better for us to focus on what’s right in front of us as opposed to everything at once. Because keeping our minds fixed solely on the future can make it far more difficult for us to pay attention to what God has provided for us right now. I am still struggling to give up control and let God lead me, but I know He will do a much better job at guiding me, than I would.

God has recently put teaching on my heart. Although I have known I want to be a teacher, I always considered it something I would do after being a lawyer and raising a family. But it’s possible that God wants this in my future sooner than I thought. And so, I am adding a history education major and it’s going to take me an extra year to graduate. Maybe I’ll still go to law school and one day ‘put the bad guys in jail,’ or maybe I’ll teach a bunch of middle-schoolers all about my favorite subject right after I graduate college. At this point, the only one that knows the answer to what I will be doing after I graduate is God. For now, I am just going to stay focused on the three feet in front of me and be excited for whatever it is that God has planned for me.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” -Jeremiah 29:11

If you’re intrigued by this post and looking forward to what I’ll write about in the future, you can expect a new post every Saturday. Also, if you feel inclined, feel free to leave a comment below about what you think. Thanks for all your support and I hope you’ll come back next week. Stay Amazing!

I used to check the news everyday. Then I began wondering why it was called ‘news’ when just about everything in it was ‘bad news.’ Reading about, or watching all of the bad in the world was becoming highly upsetting to me so eventually I stopped checking the news. But the thing is, the evils of the world are still out there whether I know about them happening or not. And some of the worst evils are inescapable.

Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, everything going on in North Korea, the Manchester bombing at Ariana Grande’s concert, and the Las Vegas shooting are a few horror stories of such magnitude that hearing about them is unavoidable. The other stories that are impossible to avoid are the ones that hit close to home, the ones that hit just a few blocks from home.

On Thursday morning I woke up to a series of texts and emails from the CSU PD. There was a shooting right outside of campus, within walking distance from the school. As the day went on, details about what happened began to emerge. One girl was injured but will recover, three people, including the shooter, are dead. Among the victims was an art student at CSU. She was supposed to graduate this December. I didn’t know her, and I don’t believe any of my friends on campus did either. But the atmosphere on campus this past Thursday and Friday was not a joyful one. And me not knowing her or anyone directly impacted by this shooting doesn’t make what happened any less tragic.

When these horrific things happen, it can be challenging to see God. But He is there, He always is. He’s with the first responders. He’s there when people tell the stories about what and who they’ve lost, and is forever entangled in the memories people have of those who have been lost. He is the light in the dark. It is truly fascinating how noticeable a bit of light can be, even when darkness surrounds it. In fact, the darkness is what makes the light stand out.

In a campus-wide email that CSU President Tony Frank sent out he talks about light.

“Each of you is a unique light with the badly needed potential to brighten our world’s dark places – both large and small.”

That special light inside of all of us is God. It may shine in some us differently than it does in others, but they all originate from the same source. God can use us to aid in a tragedy – no matter the size. The question is, will you let Him?

To those who have been affected, whether it was this shooting in Fort Collins, or another event, your pain does not go unnoticed. Your grievances, and your sense of loss are all valid. I hope that somewhere in all of this darkness, that God is using someone to act as a light for you.

If you’re intrigued by this post and looking forward to what I’ll write about in the future, you can expect a new post every Saturday. Also, if you feel inclined, feel free to leave a comment below about what you think. Thanks for all your support and I hope you’ll come back next week. Stay Amazing!

During the numerous Sunday church services I have attended in my life, I’ve heard quite a bit about God and Jesus. Don’t get me wrong – they’re extremely important but I wish that the churches I’ve been to would spend some more time discussing the Holy Spirit. After all, it is a part of the Holy Trinity (hence why it’s called a ‘trinity’). There’s three parts to it, and yet for some reason we seem to give the majority of our attention to two of them.

One of the reason the Holy Spirit may not be brought up as often is because it’s such an abstract concept when compared to God, or to Jesus. Jesus was a living, breathing, man who walked upon the earth, and God is the creator of everything, but the Holy Spirit can’t exactly be summarized in this way.

“The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgements about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgements, for, ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” – 1Corinithians 2:10-16

Yeah, I know that was kind of a long set of verses, but they help spell out what the Holy Spirit is and why we have received it. The Holy Spirit is essentially the Spirit of God; it is our way of being able to discern what is and isn’t Godly. It dwells in all of us and by listening to it, we can go forth knowing that we are being led by the Lord. It is like a conscience in the sense that it tells us right from wrong. This is a gift from God that rests inside all of us that speaks His wisdom.

I always used to think about how once I died and went to Heaven, that I would get to go around and ask all the disciples about what it was like to spend time with Jesus. But then one day, I was at a Bible Study prep meeting and one of my friend’s said that all of the people who died before the Holy Spirit arrived are going to be eager to listen to us tell them what it was like to have the Spirit of God inside of us. It may be the final piece of the Holy Trinity, but it’s still just as important as the other two parts, and I hope more churches and ministries take the time to discuss it.

If you’re intrigued by this post and looking forward to what I’ll write about in the future, you can expect a new post every Saturday. Also, if you feel inclined, feel free to leave a comment below about what you think. Thanks for all your support and I hope you’ll come back next week. Stay Amazing!

The parable about the Prodigal Son, found in Luke, is one of the most popular biblical stories and is a commonly used example for explaining the unconditional love God has for us. To sum it up, a father has two sons, one asks to receive his inheritance early, blows all of it, and then returns to his father in the hopes of being able to work as a servant. Instead, the father rejoices at the return of his son and prepares a feast in his son’s honor. This is the short version and it is missing a key part of the story; the other son. The other son makes an appearance towards the end of the story;

“Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf!’

But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore, his father came out and pleaded with him. So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at anytime; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends, But as soon as this son of yours came, who has dropped your livelihood with hariots, you killed the fatted calf for him!’

And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me and all I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be good, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’” – Luke 15:25-32

I can’t possibly be the only one who has found themselves at times relating more to the Prodigal Son’s older brother more than the Prodigal Son himself. I can’t possibly be the only one who’s been in situations where I’ve followed all the rules, and made all the right choices only to see the rebel come out on top. No, I can’t be the only one. And yet, we push aside the part of the story about the older brother and focus solely the Prodigal Son’s happy ending.

The reality is we are all the Prodigal Son. His brother is also the Prodigal Son. There’s no way he always did his father’s bidding with a smile on his face. He may not have physically left the farm like his brother but he’s done it in his heart several times. And so have all of us. Even if you’ve never flat out run from God, you’ve turned your back on Him, as have I. In God’s eyes, all sins are equal, so all of us, the older brother included, are no better than the Prodigal Son.

But the good news is that while we are all Prodigal Sons, we also all have a Father who loves us unconditionally, We can make thousands of mistakes, each worse than the last, and God will love us anyway. It’s such a relief to know that no matter what I’ve done or am going to do, that I have a loving God to turn to. And if you, dear reader, haven’t sought out that unconditional love, I sure hope you do.

If you’re intrigued by this post and looking forward to what I’ll write about in the future, you can expect a new post every Saturday. Also, if you feel inclined, feel free to leave a comment below about what you think. Thanks for all your support and I hope you’ll come back next week. Stay Amazing!