A Life That is Not My Own.

Season of Favor.

All I can do in the season in my life is be thankful! I was crying earlier today because I am so overwhelmed by what He has been doing. I know it has been a while since I have blogged, and this is my weak attempt to catch you up. Words really just cannot describe the incredible joy I have. I am tired everyday but every second is more that worth it! The Lord has taken me from one of the hardest and driest seasons of my life last semester to the most fruitful time I have ever experienced.

Last semester I lost 20 pounds strictly from stress and depression, I was in my own personal hell and only one person knew it. My parents got a divorce after 28 years of marriage and it shook my world. Everything they have taught me was no longer valued. I felt like I was going to lose my parents and my brothers and sisters and all I could do was sleep, cry and pray. My problem had become bigger than God in my eyes and my heart was aching. I covered it up with friendship and relationships and had false joy and to my greatest attempt to be strong in my own strength. In that hard season I heard a message and one line the pastor shared has not left me, it was God promising me something that I now understand. The pastor said, “The hardest winters bring the best harvest.”

My hard winter has turned into the greatest harvest!

This Summer everything began to shift, my dependence was on the Lord again. I was craving His presence and word. Day by day burdens were becoming light, I learned the art of casting all my anxiety on Him. I was feeling Him so close everyday and He was restoring my joy again.

I knew at the beginning of this semester that this was going to be my harvest, I remembered the Lord’s promise for me. I had no idea it would be this incredible. For starters, last month I was given a new car. GIVEN!I didn’t pay a dime for it! It’s an 08 Hyundai Accent and only had 64,000 miles on it!(I named her Layla) A woman in the church felt like the Lord was telling her to give her car to someone and got in touch with the church and my leadership and they chose me to receive that incredible blessing! On top of that, my old car sold for $800 only 2 weeks later, which has gone straight to paying off my tuition. PTL!

Also, I have stepped into more responsibility with worship, they I am thrilled about! It blows my mind that Church of the Highlands trusts me with a microphone and lead God’s children into worship. Last week I had the honor of leading a song at our All Staff Meeting, where all of the staff from all campus’ join and worship, hear a word and fellowship together. I lead worship for all the pastors and staff and got the thumbs up from my Worship Pastor. Just a few weeks ago my senior pastor, Pastor Chris sat in on a Highlands College Chapel and gave me knucks and said, “you got pipes!” Haha! That was huge for me! I got to lead Mark Zschech(Darlene Zschech’s husband) into worship. And last night my life and calling all made sense when I led Place of Freedom for over 2,000 youth at Motion Night.

Two and a half years ago I cam to motion and wanted to be on that stage and lead worship and last night that along with prophesies that have been spoken over me took place. I was so nervous but as soon I stood in front and opened my mouth I have never been so comfortable and so sure that THIS is what I was created for. It was incredible and I will never forget it, because I will spend my life in awe of being called to do that.

My hardest winter was worth it all! and greatest thing of all, I have forgiven my parents, my siblings and I are still close and my heart is so softened to all of them. God restores so much and it is only by His grace that my life is where its at. I know that I am going hit hard winters again maybe harder than last semesters, but seeing the fruit of this time around will keep me going.

That is me leading front stage living out my purpose last night! Amazing huh?

Feeding my Spirit

Well I am done with fasting and praying and I feel great! This time of focusing on the Lord and discovering what He needed me to do to have a more intimate relationship with Him was a success. I didn’t really say a whole bunch about what or why I was fasting and a lot if it is personal stuff but something so great came from it that I want to share. I started fasting August 5th and finish on last Sunday. During the 21 days I really wanted to clear my mind and figure out some things that I have been dealing with. The solution of it all came on the Sunday that I finished the fast and the Monday following. It wasn’t a big huge epiphany but it was something in my heart that was confirmed through friends.

I think we struggle with so many things that can be avoided, but avoiding it may not be that easy, its going to cost something. Everything is a result of what we feed our spirit and some of us need to go on “spiritual-diets” or even better, life change. Diets are temporary actions to get temporary results but I don’t want temporary time of peace, I want a life time of it so I have decided to completely change my “spiritual eating plan” for good!:) I feel weird saying all the “diet” talk so here is what I mean…

Hebrew 5:14-6:1 “but solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity.”

So during this fast the main thing i fasted from was secular music. Music is a HUGE deal in my life. I am always looking for different styles, genres, artist and all that. I especially love anything I can dance to! My favorite thing to do is drive with my windows down, hair blowing all over, some awesome dance music blazing through my speakers and me singing at the top of my lungs and dancing as much as I can without wrecking my car.  I have always love current music just because of the fun beat and creativity. But last Sunday I was having a conversation with Leigh, my home sponsor, and I was telling her that my worship has gone to another level when I wasn’t listening to secular music through the fast. She started telling me how she used to listen to it a bunch but she realized that it wasn’t feeding her spirit anything good so why was she putting it in her body. She says since she has gotten rid of it she has to force herself to listen to it every now and then to stay current with the music creativity. My mind was running during this conversation and on the drive home. I was starting to think of lyrics that I was putting in my mind and artist who dishonor God.

The following day I had another conversation about this same topic with a close friend of mine and she simply told me that as a worship leader I needed to be careful what I let into my life cause what I let in will overflow in my relationship with God. I understood then that the Lord was trying to tell me to stop, that this is the answer to my prayers and fasting.

On my way home I felt him say gently in my spirit, “let go to your Ipod.” Immediately I freaked out trying to make excuses to keep certain songs on there; to work out to and drive to. I knew that the enemy was trying to make me question what I KNEW had to be done. So I went through my itunes and deleted over 800 songs that were not glorifying to God. Such a hard thing to do but each time I pressed “delete” I knew I would be blessed for listening to Him and OBEYING!

This concept isn’t for everyone. Some people can listen to this music and not be effected. This is my own conviction and what God wants for me. The point I want to get across is that we need to be aware of what we bring in our lives; relationships, music, and things we watch on tv. It is the things we think are “insignificant” but doing them on a consistent basis that effect our lives, for the good or bad. Something as small as lyrics to songs were keeping me from growing deeper in my relationship with God. Just like it says in Hebrews, we need to start feeding our spirits the RIGHT things so we can grow, gain muscle and be a great weapon against the enemy.

So I encourage you to be bold and ask God to search your heart and see if there is anything that is keeping you from moving forward. Once he does and you obey there is so much freedom. I know for me, its gonna be hard to not listen to a fun dance song but I am willing to sacrifice it for the peace only He can give and knowing him more.

Short update.

This was my first week back at Highlands College and I am exhausted! I have started my degree classes they are actually pretty awesome! I am doing homework that is reading articles and interview about figuring out your calling! Not something every College student can say. I am doing what I love, learning things that I am passionate about and growing intellectually and spiritually. I am so honored that I get to do this. although I am super exhausted from the crazy amount of homework I am still glad that it is based on Jesus and not worldly stuff.

Other than that I will be starting my small group this week and super thrilled! I am leading a small group of 1st semester worship track girls just to help develop them in their calling and help them as they step into a different stage in their life! It is so unreal that I am in my last semester of Highlands College and I am considered a leader in Worship track! I am so pumped to be involved with development of these other girls it is going to be awesome!

That’s all that is really going on right now, I’m so tired so I am keeping it short this week, nothing too in depth  :)

I hope you all are doing well