It's Been Awhile

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve last posted on here.  I really don’t have a point in this, just talking about what’s happened in the past month or so. As I write, I guess we’ll see if any themes come up.

Since I last posted on July 21^st, a crap ton of things have happened. First, Leadership Training ended, which was sort of an emotional train wreck (AKA involved lots of crying). On August 4^th, 4 other friends and I made the 24-hour drive back to Ohio, which was definitely a test of perseverance. Upon arriving back in Ohio, I was able to go home for less than 24 hours like I mentioned before, which was still a blessing despite how short it was.

On August 6^th, I moved into my room on campus and started RA training the day after, which lasted 2 weeks. Then we had our fall move-in, classes began, and the campus church I attend, h2o church, kicked off the fall semester with a lot of different events.

To say the least, it was a whirlwind of insanity, and the only reason I’m able to sit down and write this blog post is because it’s finally calmed down (after 3 weeks!). The quick transition into RA training was very difficult, partly because I was grieving the end of LT and the end of last year, which I hadn’t had time to grieve fully when it happened back in May, and partly because of the drastic environment change. The lifestyle I was living changed completely in a matter of days. I went from working 40 hours a week and doing ministry all the time to sitting in a classroom all day and learning about how to do RA things, which I had already learned the previous year.

As my residents moved in, classes began, and the kickoff of my church happened, things got a little more overwhelming. But by this point, I had become more accustomed to the environment change. What really began to overwhelm me was the mass of people I would be encountering and building relationships with this semester.

I kid you not, I sat down and listed all the groups of people and individuals I would be relating with this semester. I have my life group, which is a bible study of 15-25 people through my church. I also have my residents (about 22 people) and my RA staff (33 people). Then I have my many friends from h2o, people in classes, my 1:12 partner through the well (a mentor-mentee relationship), and a few other certain relationships that I feel will be very important to pour into this semester.

This was so incredibly overwhelming to me. Since the first few weeks of school have passed, I have been able to finally be alright with all of this, but at the beginning of the semester, it was particularly insane because I was having to learn new names everywhere I went, and it was hard to retain all the names (plus, I’m a visual learner, so that doesn’t make it any easier).

Near the end of LT, one of my good friends, Kim Shearer, told me that she felt that this upcoming semester was going to be relationally challenging, that we would all be challenged to build relationships that would stretch us in may ways, and she was absolutely right. Much of the stretch comes from the magnitude of relationships I’ve had to build, but much of it has also come from God speaking to me through these relationships.

If I haven’t mentioned this before, I believe that God majorly communicates to me through people, and he’s definitely been teaching me a great deal about myself through the relationships I’ve been building. He’s also greatly encouraged and convicted me through these people in my life.

In general, I’ve been feeling majorly convicted lately. For instance, a few weeks ago, I was talking to my friend on a Saturday afternoon, and he mentioned that he was doing homework. Not only was he doing homework, but he was actually finishing assignments. After that had been mentioned, I felt greatly convicted about not getting my homework done that day, so instead of hanging out with friends that night, I decided to go back to my room and finish my homework.

Ever since then, I have had much more motivation to actually get my homework done on Saturday, partly so I won’t have homework to do on Sunday (I’m trying to make Sunday a Sabbath day). This has also helped me to not procrastinate on assignments and to start them early instead.

There are many other specific examples I remember, but in general, I’ve been feeling so convicted. In times where I try to be perfect, God has been showing me how far from perfect I really am. My eyes are continuously being opened to how imperfect I am, how much control I try to have but don’t have, and how selfish I really am.

Another thing that God has been teaching me is that people are important. They are important because they are His children (Genesis 1:27), and he loves them so infinitely. If I want to show the love of Christ in my daily actions, I need to love everyone in the most sacrificial way I can. I will be honest, the way I sometimes treat people in my mind is completely evil and disgusting. How can I be so cruel?

Because of this, I have recently been struck by this verse, which I came across a few days ago while I was reading.

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in

your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.”- Psalm 19:14

Right now, that is truly my prayer. I want nothing more than for this to be true in my life, especially in my heart. So, I guess you could say that’s where I’m at right now. I’ve been stricken by my own conviction, but I have hope that the Lord is somehow going to redeem my life, and some hope that he will use my life to encourage people and lead people to Him. 

Let my life be a light for others, so that they may know the Love of the Lord.

Letting Go

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on my blog. Since the beginning of July, things have gotten crazy around here. I feel like it’s partly God working intensely in my life, and me trying to do everything I want to do here before I leave.

And now, it’s almost the end of my time in Colorado. It’s crazy to think about how quickly time has gone by. Two weeks from tomorrow, I’ll be headed back to Ohio to move in for the beginning of RA training- and it looks like I’ll be able to have one night at home between returning from Colorado and going back to school, which is such a blessing!

Because it’s nearing the end of the summer, people have been asking me about what I’ve learned and how I’ve changed. A few days, I was asked what the title of this chapter of my life would be, and today at work, a friend asked me if I thought I had changed this summer.

Both of these questions caught me without an answer and sort of pushed me into a time of reflection, and I’m assuming these questions were brought up because God wants me to start thinking about these things. What would the title of this chapter of my life be? And have I really changed that drastically?

I sure do hope so. That’s how I want it to be- I want to return to school and have the people in my life notice the life change. I’ve thought about this question, and I would say yes, I have changed.

Sometimes, it’s hard to figure out how, but I would say that I entered the summer as a perfectionist and a control freak. I already knew about my problem with perfectionism. I remember being upset for not being perfect when I was little, and my mom telling me that nobody can ever be perfect. That was the first time I’d ever heard that (thanks mom!).

But me, a control freak? I thought I wasn’t, but God quickly showed me that I was. I came into this summer having a set plan of what I wanted to learn- I wanted to learn how to fight against the spiritual forces of darkness, I wanted to learn how to love better, and after it was all over, I wanted the fall semester to be perfect. I soon realized that I wanted everything to be perfect.

Soon after I realized I was trying to control everything, I had a mental breakdown. And then a couple weeks later, I had a more intense mental breakdown, to the point where I would have rather not been in Colorado or even alive for that matter. At that point in the beginning of July, I had become so crippled with fear of not being able to control things, like the end of the world, future relationships, and future ministry.

During the time I was going through that, I was given some great advice that really helped me through- we need to focus on God’s truths now, and not worry about the future or the outcome of anything. So, what do we know now?

That God loves us (John 3:16) and works all things together for our good (Romans 8:28), We can trust Him (Proverbs 3:5-6), and He will fight for us (Psalm 20:11-13). There are so many other truths I could list here. One of the truths that really brings me peace is that the Lord knows more about us than we know about ourselves, and that he knows what’s going to happen before we do.

It talks about this in Proverbs 16, verse 9, which says, “The heart of man plans his way but the LORD establishes his steps.” So, I am reminded that no matter what I try to plan and control, I still don’t know what will happen, and many of my plans will probably be uprooted.

But the best part about it is that despite how many of our plans God crashes to the ground, his plan is always going to be better, because he knows us best and knows what’s best for us.

So, even if the world ends tomorrow, it is the best plan. Even if I never get married, it is the best plan. And so, as I near the end of the summer, I would say the title of this chapter would be “Letting Go.”

It’s not a very exciting title, but it does justice to what the general theme of this summer has been. God has been teaching me to let go of control, and to let him handle everything. All I have to do is put my roots in his truths right now, and be faithful to him in the present. How things will end up is not a thing to be concerned about, because God has it all under control.

So, I’m really hoping I can keep this mindset when I go back to school. Honestly, I hope I can keep growing in everything I’ve learned. Also, one of the things I really hope for is that people notice a change in me from when they last saw me- I feel like many times in life, the people that know us notice things about ourselves that we would never be able to notice. Even if I can’t see the change in my life fully, I can trust that God will bring people into my life to help me realize how much I’ve changed.

That’s all I have for now. I’m talking about the summer being over and I still have two more weeks out here. I want to do all I can while I’m out here- next week, I will be hiking Long’s Peak with a group of friends on Thursday (as long as the weather cooperates), so please be praying for that.

I also hope to get a few more hikes in, including another sunrise hike. On Tuesday, a group of friends and I went on a sunrise hike to Estes Cone- it was beautiful! I’ll have to post those pictures soon. And I forgot to mention that I hiked that while having strep throat. In my defense, I didn’t know I had it yet.

So, my summer has been phenomenal so far, despite some valleys in my life, but that’s ok because God uses those valleys to refine us and shape us. I have two weeks left, and I’m about to go make the best of it.

Psalm 20:7-8- “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.”

What Does My Heart Break For?

This is one of the questions I came here with. I wanted God to show me this, and I wanted to figure it out. And he has answered this question, which has been part of my prayers.

You see, over this past year, God has been slowly pushing me towards the realization that I may be best suited to enter the ministry field when I graduate college.

For my close family who is finding this out right now through this post, please don’t feel offended! This really isn’t something I’ve been sharing with many people. I’ve only been talking about it with a few close friends here In Colorado as I have come to this realization. And I also want to be honest with you- this may very well be the direction my life will go in.

Anyways, as I began to realize this, I was a little upset because ministry is such a broad field. You see, I’m the kind of person who likes to focus my efforts in one specific area- I don’t like to spread my abilities all over, I would rather develop them in one area, so me asking God where he wanted me specifically in ministry was a huge deal to me.

And of course, He answered me- Let me tell you, it is such a blessing to have a faithful God. Although we may not always see how he is faithful to our prayers, he still is, even though we are unable to see it. For these two things are true:

Hebrews 10:23- “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

1 Corinthians 13:12- “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

So, in many ways, God is always faithful to us. This is a season in my life where I am able to see God being faithful to my prayers in abundance, and it has been awesome.

God’s answer to my prayer was actually not surprising- I might have already known what he was going to tell me in my subconscious mind, but He hadn’t specifically revealed it to me yet.

This happened when I was talking to my friend Michelle one night about what we had been learning at LT. Michelle really has a heart for women’s ministry, so much of what she talked about was about women’s ministry and how excited she was to learn about how to serve in this field.

As she was talking to me, I began to feel a want to know where God wanted me specifically in ministry. Mind you, this had actually happened numerous times before in our conversations, so this time, we looked into it.

She asked me, “What are you passionate about?” and my first natural response was of course, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

For those of you who don’t know, my Dad grew up in the Upper Peninsula (UP), so every summer since I can remember, we have always vacationed there, and made lots of memories there as a family. It’s a really special place to me, and partially because it reminds me of my dad, who passed away when I was 16.

So naturally, this brought up my dad. From that point on, Michelle began to talk about having a heart for the fatherless. I don’t remember everything she said, but I do remember her being really excited about my life and the purpose God had for me.

It was honestly a really interesting experience, because what happened was that Michelle was way more excited for my calling in ministry than I was, which I knew was God speaking through her to reach me. As I’ve said before (I think), God speaks to me through people, and this was absolutely a testament to that alone. Michelle being excited for me was God telling me that He is so excited for the destiny he’s given my life. How awesome is that!?

But i’ll be honest with you, my reaction was kind of dull. I knew that this made complete sense- my father had passed away 3 years ago, and because of that experience, I would be able to help those who were going through the same thing.

Not only that, but I can help people who have issues with their fathers- you see, someone doesn’t actually have to lose their father to be fatherless- a father could be emotionally absent, physically absent, or could just not be as involved with his children’s lives as he should be.

So, I know that with what I have experienced, God has crafted me to have a heart for the fatherless. Don’t get me wrong, this is really awesome, but right now, I just don’t have that passion in my heart yet, and to be honest with you, I’m not sure why. You’d think that after 3 years God would be able to grow that passion in me fully, but I guess it wasn’t his timing.

And that is something else I’m learning too. God does things on his own timing. Right now, I don’t believe that I’m completely healed from this yet. I know this because last summer, I thought I was fine, but God proved me wrong when I went to Michigan. I probably cried for the entire first week.

So, now that I know God does things on his own timing, I know he’s going to bring this issue up more fully in the future so that I may heal from it when he intends me to, and this also means that he’s going to give me a passion for it on his own timing too.

This is a very strange place to be in, to know what you were made to be passionate about, but to not fully have that passion yet. Again, it all comes down to Proverbs 3:5-6- I have to trust God with this completely.

And what’s really cool is that everything has been lining up for me to grow in this area of ministry. In my project group, almost everyone has some type of dad problem. One of the girls in my life group has gone through a hurtful situation involving her dad, and I have been able to help her through some things involving that very closely.

In addition, I get to go through a 5-week workshop that talks about the beauty of pain, and there are probably numerous other things that God has put into place for me to grow in this area.

Right now, I know God has told me this so that I can begin to prepare for the future, even though the passion in my heart is not fully on fire yet.

Regardless, I am really excited for this. As I continue to grow in my relationship with Jesus, I’m noticing that I’m gaining a greater sense of destiny for my life, which is such a blessing! And I know I’m not the only one. This sense of destiny comes with growth in a relationship with Jesus, which is a wonderful thing.

Genesis 50:19-20- “But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Surrender

It all started this past Saturday evening. We were having a Life Group hangout where some other ladies in my life group and I had a really good conversation about trusting God for everything.

God had already begun to challenge me to trust him, and to trust not in my own understanding like Proverbs 3:5-6 says. As were talking about this, we got on the topic of being led by the Holy Spirit and doing whatever God tells us to do.

One girl in my life group mentioned this cool quote that says, “How can we do anything radical for Jesus if we’re the ones defining what’s radical?” And so after discussing this, the 3 of us decided to challenge ourselves – to wake up every morning and to tell Jesus that we will do whatever he tells us to do, no matter how crazy it may sound.

I was expecting Jesus to tell me to do something really strange, maybe something like what Beth Moore was called to do in this story she tells about her being called by the Lord to brush an old man’s hair (watch the video by following This Link- it is totally worth it!) My friend Michelle showed me this video at the beginning of the summer, and ever since watching it, this is what I think of when I think of doing something radical where I have to trust in Jesus for everything.

So, those are the kinds of situations I was expecting, but Jesus had something else in mind. I can now honestly say that I had no idea what the heck I was getting myself into.

As you may know if you’ve been reading my blog, one of the things I want to learn how to do this summer is to fight against the lies that I believe that have been taught to me by Satan. They are lies I didn’t even know were lies, and this summer, I want to learn how to fight them.

But on Monday night, I was talking with my friend Michelle, the one who showed me the hairbrush video, and she was talking to me about the difference between focusing on God’s power and focusing on Satan’s lies. She had told me that a lot of her friends, whenever they were having problems, would focus on Satan and say, “he’s doing this in my life and I need to fight it!” And it made her wonder, why don’t we focus on God’s conquering power in these situations instead?

And that’s when I realized what I was doing wrong. Every time something would go wrong, I would focus on putting the blame on Satan and trying to fight him. I knew that God was more powerful than him, but I was forgetting that because I was focusing so much on trying to fight Satan.

I think this comes from my belief that you have to know what the problem is in order to fight it. I was focusing on knowing what the problem is, but so much that I was trying to fight it myself instead.

And I had begun to realize that I couldn’t fight it myself. This had been coming up in every other aspect of my life too. Again, if you’ve been following my blog, you’ll remember a post from April where I obscurely explained how God revealed something crazy to me. Because God had told me something that was going to happen in the future, I was trying to control what I learned and how I grew this summer so that I could be ready for when that time came.

Needless to say, it was not working. Trying to control everything and do it myself to hide my vulnerability was getting me nowhere.

And so with all of this, God completely broke me down on Tuesday night. I had come to the point where I didn’t know how to fight anymore. I didn’t know how to prepare myself for the future, which I so badly wanted to do, but I couldn’t. All this was producing was worry and stress.

On that Saturday night, I told God that I would do whatever he told me to do, no matter how crazy it sounded. And He told me to surrender everything to him, and to give him all the control.

Now that is what I call insane.

When this happened, I was like, how do I do this? I realized that you don’t surrender one time and then you’re completely surrendered forever. Because of our sinful nature, we will try to take control again, so in order to surrender, we have to wake up every day and give everything to God.

This is really challenging for me. It’s extremely difficult to do that when you may somewhat know what the future holds, but It’s lifted a huge weight off of my shoulders. So now, my challenge is to surrender. I’m giving the fighting and the control to God, and so far, it feels awesome.

And I’m also realizing that my mom was right. My mom doesn’t like it whenever I mention Satan, and I understood that, but in a way I also did not because of how important I believe it is to know what the problem is so that you can find a solution and fight effectively.

But now, I understand a lot more because I’ve learned that if we focus on Satan too much, we begin to lose sight of the power of God. And it’s much more powerful to trust in the power of God to conquer everything for us, because we can’t do it alone.

So that is what God is doing in my life right now. We’re almost halfway into LT, which means that the summer is almost halfway over! I’m personally not ready to go back, but I know that when I do go back, it is going to be awesome. And I know that God is going to use these remaining 6 weeks to do crazy things in my life and in everyone else’s life. I just have to surrender it all to him and let him take control.

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”- Psalm 46:10

Closer to the Sun

Today, two friends and I hiked a mountain called “Teddy’s Teeth,” which is named after Theodore Roosevelt. Not only were they the most historical incisors ever, it was also the highest altitude I’ve ever been at, and it had the most beautiful view.

We began the day with no map of a trail. You see, Teddy’s Teeth is right across from the YMCA property, so we thought we’d just go straight up the mountain, even when we knew we would have to go through some private property.

This proved to be kind of difficult, as we would hide behind rocks if a car came down the road, or we would try to avoid houses so we wouldn’t get caught.

Well, on the way up the mountain, I was getting pretty angry that it was so difficult to get up the mountain. We stopped to pray that we would get up safely without getting caught, and then I began to apologize for being so frustrated with everything. I told my two friends, Christina and Stacey, that I was sorry they had to hike with me.

Here I found myself being sorry for my existence again. After a long and good talking-to from the both of them, and some crying from me, we proceeded up the mountain.

At around 10:30am, we finally got to the top of the mountain. It was the most beautiful view I had ever seen. We ate our lunches up there, and then spent about another hour and a half at the top, which I decided to spend reading my bible and thinking about life.

I came to the realization that this was the closest to the sun I had ever been, literally. And next week, I was going to be even closer (we’re trying to slowly hike to higher altitudes so we can hike long’s peak at the end of the summer). Not only was it the closest I had ever been, but it was the most beautiful view I had seen.

And then I was able to realize that my walk with God was going to be similar this summer. I came here to get closer to the sun, the son of God, and I was going to. However, from my experience climbing that mountain, I realized it was going to be hard, really hard.

But when I get to the top, I’m going to be closer to the Son of God, and the view and the journey is going to become more beautiful as I become closer to the Son of God, no matter how hard the journey may be.

This verse has really been a cornerstone verse in my life for the past few months:

Proverbs 3:5-6- “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

And with everything I have said, I realized today that I may not see how I will get immensely closer to God this summer, but with whatever is happening right now, I can’t trust in my own understanding, because that will not define the outcome, or my future. It will always get the hardest before it gets really good again.

So that is what I learned today on my hike to Teddy’s Teeth. We also took the wrong path on the way back, which landed us in this random campsite that offers horseback riding up trails on the mountain. From there, we had to hike back to the YMCA, which made today’s hike 8 Hours long. No big deal really.

If you take anything away from this, I want you to remember that you can’t trust in your own understanding, or what is happening right in front of you. It might seem bad right now, but it always gets worse before it gets better.

So right now, I plan on trusting that I will get closer to the Son of God this summer, no matter what circumstances I am in. And I plan on getting closer to the sun with every mountain I hike, no matter how hard going up the mountain may be. I will make it to the top.

It's going to be beautiful

“I trust not in my own understanding, My life is in the hands of the maker of heaven”

-Will Reagan, “Nothing I Hold on to”

I'm In A War

Insecurity- Lack of confidence or assurance; self-doubt

I’m going to be honest with you all. So far, LT has been mentally exhausting. I’m finding myself in what you would call a spiritual rut, or in truthful words, a painful battle of the mind against Satan’s lies.

At first, I thought I was having trouble giving myself grace, and to tell you the truth, I’m not exactly sure where that came from, because my good friend Christina Green helped me realize that I was really doing nothing wrong.

What I mean by this is that whatever I thought I was doing wrong, I was actually not. You see, I have this huge problem with saying sorry for virtually everything I do. For example, today at work, one of the kitchens I cleaned took a really long time to clean, so I apologized for it taking so long. In reality, I hadn’t done anything wrong, and kitchens just generally take a long time to clean.

I can give you countless examples of me saying sorry for things that I shouldn’t be. I apologize for talking about certain things or bringing them up too often, being crazy like I do on a normal basis, accidentally bumping into someone. Honestly, I apologize for things so much that in essence, I am apologizing for my very existence.

I realize this, and I know that it’s a heartbreaking fact of my life right now. I’m literally apologizing for my existence. Nobody should have to feel like they need to do that. Yet I do.

For some reason, I believe that I am an obnoxious person that is a bother. I believe that everyone is able to do something, but I am not able to. I am simply the one left out. I believe that I always need to be changing who I am and working towards a better me, because I am simply not good enough. I never believe I am good enough.

And in all these things I am apologizing for, I am not actually doing anything wrong that warrants an apology. For so long, I thought I was having a massive amount of trouble giving myself grace for my wrongs, but Christina said to me that I wasn’t able to give myself grace simply because the situation didn’t warrant for it. In other words, there is no grace to be given in a place where no wrongs have been done.

Instead, she was able to point out to me that what I really needed was a suit of armor and a gun instead of grace - these things I was apologizing for were not wrongs, they were insecurities.

And I should have known the whole time, right!? After all, the last blog post I wrote was about fighting. I knew this summer was going to be about fighting, but I forgot all about it after I posted about it.

So really, this is just me coming back to the reality that I need to keep on fighting. Satan is one tricky man, and I will be honest- he gets me every time. But because Jesus has already won, I will always be able to overcome Satan’s lies, no matter how much time it will take.

So, I’m off to fighting again. Please pray for me, because this is really difficult and mentally exhausting. If I could describe it, I would say that my brain is being mutilated by forks- that’s how much I think, and that’s how intense the battle is.

“Therefore take up the whole armor of God.”

Fighting

Yesterday, to kick off and prepare for Leadership Training, we had an LT retreat for the entirety of the day. There were three parts to the day. The first was called upward, or focusing on your relationship with God. The next was called inward, where we focused on relationships and spent time with our project groups. The last part of the day was called outward, where we focused on reaching out to people who don’t know the Lord yet and being lights to the world.

The entire day was wonderful and really set the stage for the entire summer, but what I want to talk about specifically was the part where we went “inward.”

For those of you who don’t know, a project group is basically a bible study that meets once a week for an entire day. Within those groups, we have life groups, which is a smaller, closer group of people who will get to grow especially close during the summer. For you BG folk, you could equate this to fusion and a cell group.

During the “inward” time, our project group was discussing ways to grow closer over the summer. The one goal I remember us specifically discussing was the goal of confrontation. If someone has a problem with someone else, then confront that person about it. This absolutely builds stronger relationships and community and is a great goal to have. Sounds easy enough, right?

Not so fast. Although it may sound easy, and we may know it is the correct step to take, it is one of the hardest goals of them all when it comes down to it. When this came up, I felt specifically motivated to really emphasize how much we will have to work at this and keep each other accountable in order to achieve this goal.

I know from experience that this is not easy. At the beginning of last year, our RA staff created a list of rules to live by for the school year. One of them was to confront each other about problems directly, and to not talk behind each other’s backs.

It was a goal that made sense, but was way too virtuous because none of us ended up following it at all. There came a point around the month of February where the avoiding of confrontation became especially bad. Because of this, the talking behind each other’s backs increased. Needless to say, it was not a good month.

From that experience, I learned that it’s never enough to just really emphasize that we need to keep a goal.  In order to keep a goal as difficult as confrontation, we have to fight for it. We have to be armed with all of the spiritual warfare the Lord gives us before it hits us.

And it’s no surprise that this goal is one of those especially hard to achieve ones. Confrontation is one of those tools that are most successful in building relationships up and breaking down barriers between people. Because Satan hates good and fruitful relationships, he is going to try everything to trick us into avoiding this.

And so, there’s only one thing left to do. We have to fight.

And after this “inward” time, I was left with a desire to fight. I began to realize that if you want to live as a strong Christian woman or man, you have to be willing to fight. And I am so thankful that the Lord has given me this desire. I had already known that fighting was important, but I was never motivated enough to consistently fight.

If you leave this page with one thing, I want it to be this. I want you to leave knowing that you have to fight if you want to sustain as a Christian. Heck, you have to fight even if you aren’t religious at all. Life sucks, and we are stuck in the middle of a war between Satan and God. Satan is the initiator, and he is tricky. You have to fight.

So fight for your friends, your relationships, your community, your family, your church, the lost and broken, your future husband or wife, your current husband or wife, and yourself. Fight for anything that comes to mind. Become prayer warriors for these people, for the world, for things to come, and for what God wants you to fight for.

You have to fight! Prepare yourself for war, and fight anything and everything. As for me, I’m preparing myself for a summer, and more importantly a lifetime of fighting. I know that’s what it’s going to be. Will you join me?

Ephesians 6:10-13- “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”