Grace.

Something that I have been learning a lot about ever since the beginning of camp this last summer is the grace of God, as well as what grace looks like coming from ourselves. I probably will not do it justice here, but I'll try my best to explain what it means to me. Also, this will most likely be all over the place and considerably long. I'm just kind of a scatter-brained person, so please bear with me.

First off, thank the Lord for His grace and mercy, as well as being renewed day by day. I long to extend to others the love, grace, kindness, and mercy that my Savior extended to me when I first chose to believe in Him. I want to forgive and give grace as He has. One thing that I have come to realize more and more lately is the fact that this world needs all of those things, as I hear about the turmoil going on everywhere, and I need to show those attributes to absolutely everyone. My life should be lived to glorify the Creator alone - nothing else - and show others the need for salvation. My entire purpose is to tell the world about Jesus, which is exactly why He has placed a passion within me for the broken-hearted and lost to see His face.

Since my sophomore year of high school, God has shown me His compassion and said that He wants to use me to show that same compassion to others. He has revealed to me what it means to mourn over the sin of the world, and it breaks my heart every single time that I see its ungrace. I do not believe that the way to go is using revenge and having grudges, holding things against others, or placing judgment upon others. I believe in grace, I believe in forgiveness, and I believe in second chances. I believe that this world needs Jesus, who was and is the perfect portrayal of all of these things. This is exactly why I want to do ministry.

Every single day I rely on that grace that I have been shown. I need it immensely, more than anything else, because without it I have nothing - my life has no purpose. If it wasn't for God's grace and love, I would be lost and searching for something to fill the void within my heart and soul, and without it I would still be. But I have found a love that will never leave me, forsake me, nor let go of me because He makes me worth it - He says that I am worth fighting for. Whenever I think of that, I am truly perplexed because I know how much I fail Him and I know of the sin that I commit daily. I have pushed Him away, putting Him on the back-burner several times, but He is still there, waiting for me to be in His presence again. He has given me second, third, fourth, fifth - so many chances that I couldn't even begin to count them. And He has never given up on me. I always get these lyrics stuck in my head whenever I think of that: "I may be weak, but Your Spirit's strong in me. My flesh may fail, but, my God, You never will." BOOM. Truth. (Also, if you can't tell, I really love quotes and song lyrics and will use them a lot.)

The thing that astounds me the most about grace is the fact that it makes absolutely no sense. There is no justice in it because it pardons and chooses to forget the past wrongs or faults that have been committed rather than seeking to regain anything. In a book that I have been re-reading called "What's So Amazing About Grace?" by Philip Yancey, which I very strongly recommend, it states this: "Forgiveness has its own extraordinary power which reaches beyond law and beyond justice... Justice has a good and righteous kind of power. The power of grace is different: unworldly, transforming, and supernatural." WHOA. How can that not astound me? Grace is so different from anything that this world has to offer and it goes above and beyond righteousness and justice.

Each and every day we experience the ungrace of the world, seeing the pain and destruction that it holds. Revenge is said to be put on people who have committed a wrong to you, to get them back for what they have done. But what if we were to react differently? What if we were to forgive our perpetrators, allowing ourselves to let go and move on? Don't worry, I know that this is easier said than done. Trust me, I know this full well. Our human nature and reflexes choose the exact opposite. But, then again, everything to do with grace is unnatural. And I firmly believe that it can become habit, both grace as well as forgiveness, and we can never stop learning something new about grace as long as we live.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is filled with that grace. I mean, just look at the Scriptures, especially the New Testament and more specifically the gospels. It is so filled with the grace of God that it's overwhelming. In fact, it is excruciatingly overwhelming, but in a glorious way. The story of Jesus' life, death, and Resurrection screams out humility, love, forgiveness, and grace. And He is the perfect example of sacrifice and loving kindness, portraying selflessness at its finest.

Each summer at camp, they have all of the staff memorize a chapter out of a book of the Bible. This year they had us choose one out of Ephesians, which made me extremely nervous, but excited at the same time. I mentioned this a while back, but I suffer greatly with memorization. I am just plain terrible at it, but I memorized the entire chapter and recited it. Say whaaa'? Yeah, I was surprised. But anyways... The chapter that I had chosen was Ephesians 2. This chapter is now one of my favorite chapters of the entire Bible because it lays out grace perfectly. In the first section it says that we were "dead in the trespasses and sins in which [we] once walked," seeking after the things that are only temporary, "carrying out the desires of the body." We "were by nature children of wrath..." So where is there hope? Where can life be found? Well, it does not stop there. It continues on by saying that even though we were spiritually dead, because of God's mercy and great love for us, He gave us life! And there was absolutely nothing that we did to deserve it - nothing at all. It is by His gift of grace alone that we can be saved. And how ravishing, how amazing is that grace that He has lavished on each of us. What an incredible gift that we have been given.

Before I came to know Christ about four and a half years ago, I was His enemy. I was so full of sin and wickedness, chasing after the things of this world and extremely materialistic, rejecting goodness, and running in the opposite direction of where He was. I was destined for destruction until He saved me. He showed me what true life was and that one day I could live in complete joy with Him forever. He showed me that He is enough - in fact, He is more than enough. His grace showered over me, He broke the chains, and He set me free from the slavery, entanglement, and bondage of everything in my life. The Lord chose to look past my ugliness and chose to behold beauty. He took my pain away and showed me that there indeed was a better way to live life, and I can say with confidence that I still choose to follow after Him; His Holy Spirit dwells within this heart and soul of mine. I have a hope, a rock that I cling to at all times. Because of the kindness and mercy of Christ, I have been washed clean and can stand before the throne of the Almighty because He sees me as spotless. He loves me despite me.

Now, grace calls upon the injustice that we can overcome within ourselves. But what of the injustice of the things that go wrong all around us and in this world? What comes to mind for me is modern-day slavery, which includes human sex trafficking and debt slavery; abuse - verbal, physical, and sexual; homelessness, hunger, and deprivation of any physical needs; and the list could go on and on of the horrendous things that happen all around us. But really, what of all of those things? How can there be grace in those situations? Well, that is exactly where we as Christians would come in. All of the people that experience those things need someone to help them out of that pain, showing them that there is hope and love for them, and His name is Jesus. It starts with grace and mercy being extended, maybe even physically taking them out of it ourselves (which is what I hope to do one day). The question is taken even further: Can someone's deed and sin be so repulsive that it is beyond the realm of grace? To answer that I must say a big NO. Not one sin is truly worse than another. A repenting man is a man that God wants. I mean, just look at Paul, who called himself "the chief of sinners." He murdered Christians, but then he turned away from that life and believed in Jesus. Not only that, but as you look in the rest of the gospel, God used him more than any other Christian, despite what he had done. Why? Because he was forgiven and he was washed clean. It didn't matter anymore what he used to be! He became a new creation! Hello, 2 Corinthians 5:17-19; you are marvelous. 

A few weeks ago I went to a concert with a friend, and the concert was dedicated to a) sponsoring children in poverty around the globe through an organization called Compassion International, and b) the fight against human sex trafficking, more specifically in India, by the International Justice Mission. (Those things are exactly what I want to help with, so I was reeeaaal excited to hear about people fighting against them!) One of the artists, Bebo Norman, told a story about meeting his sponsor child for the first time, as well as his family. As he spoke to the father, he had asked him if there was anything else that he would want for his family. The man looked around, seeing all that he had: a tree filled with fruit for his family to have food, clean water only a few minutes away, and his shelter - a small hut. He then turned to him, telling Bebo that he now had Jesus, each of his family members also having accepted Christ, "so what else could I need?" And, truly, what else could he need? What else could we need? All that we need is Christ. That is why I am whole-heartedly of the opinion that those who are physically poor can understand even more-so than any rich person their true deprivation. Why? Simply because they lack what they have physically, so they can more easily see what they lack spiritually. That also brings to mind the point of materialism, at least to me, which I will talk about at a later time.

We all lack something... until Christ comes into our lives. The void in our hearts is a black hole until Jesus saves us. And, like I said before, nothing other than the Lord can fill the spiritual poverty within ourselves. How many different ways can I re-phrase that... But it is just so important and true to get that! And I cannot stress that enough, especially to our society today. We all crave the love and grace that God alone can provide, no matter who we are or where we may have come from. And His grace is just what we need.

I could continue to go on about grace, and I definitely would love to. But f'real, just go and crack open the Bible to the gospels to look at Jesus' life. That is where you will find the spitting image of a man that portrayed grace in everything that He did. He dined with tax-collectors, He let an adulterous woman go free and said that her sins were forgiven (also embarrassing a whole bunch of pharisees), He caused the lame to walk, He raised the dead to life, He let a woman shunned by all of society touch His robes and proceeded to heal her, He turned ordinary fishermen into His disciples, He pardoned the sin of many men while He was alive, and in the end He died and rose again for the sake of many so that we may have eternal salvation. If you don't see grace there, I don't know where else a perfect example could be found. Read through the first section of Ephesians 2, including the second just 'cause it's really great as well (I actually put it on the end of this). Check out Romans, more specifically Romans 8, while you're at it! Look deeply into the letters that Paul sent to the churches. Grace is sprinkled all over the New Testament! And God wants it for you, too. It is tangible for us here and now. If you are craving grace, go to the cross of Jesus Christ and you will find it there.

I like Iowa.

Life is so weird. And a little insane. Especially mine, 'cause I pretty much never know what is going to come up next. I do things, they don't work out, then God is all like, "Well... there's this! There you go!" And I'm like "What? I mean, that's cool!" Then I go for it, and it somehow works out! Which is awesome. His plans are so much better than my own.

Speaking of which... It looks as if YWAM is a no-go for sure. I talked to the people that I needed to about my loans, and there is really no way that my loans can be deferred during that time. This news was pretty disappointing to me, but I feel more at peace about it now than the first time. I definitely would have loved to go and have three months of straight-up Jesus time, fellowship, and then two months of spreading the gospel and seeing God work in a country unknown to me, but I suppose God will be doing something else with me! No matter what, He has been extremely faithful to me and proven to me time and time again that I need to trust Him with all of my being; He wants me to surrender absolutely everything to Him at all times. Doing so has proven itself to be harder than I would have thought, which is surprising to me; however, I know that His love makes it worth it all.

Recently an opportunity came up for me that came out of nowhere, and I was honestly a bit too stubborn and weary to think of it as realistic. A few of my friends that go to Iowa State had been talking to me about an empty room in their apartment as of the end of this year, and they invited me to live there this coming semester. At first I thought that they had been joking, but, low and behold, they were not! Sooo... I am planning on moving there this coming January and going back to school, at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa majoring in Sociology. Wait, whaaat? Uh, yeah, I really don't know how that all happened. It just kind of did. Seriously, God never ceases to astound me with things that seem so random to me. He also pitches a really good curve-ball.

Perhaps I'll go to YWAM Denver once I'm done with school, going into other schools there, too, but we'll just have to see about that! If it would work out then, nifty! If not, there will be other ministry opportunities for me. I know that God would not have presented the opportunity to me if it would never happen; the door is still open for another time, kinda like China from a while back. One of my friends from back home is actually going to the base in Denver for the School of Communications and Graphic Design, so I'm suuuper stoked for her to go! I wish I could join her, but... well, ya know. In time. I'm just learning to take everything step by step.

At the end of this summer, I was told a piece of wisdom that I have held onto dearly ever since: Sometimes God only allows us to see what is right in front of us. Everywhere around us may be dark, but He lights the path just before us, and that is all that we really need to keep going. That is exactly how my life has been ever since this summer, where God has continued to tell me that He is worth seeking, even though I may not know where I am going and be blinded enough that I won't see the big picture. I haven't allowed myself to just sit here and let things that haven't worked out knock me down; instead, God has given me more strength to push past the obstacles to get where I need to be. He has given me the heart to keep going, even when I didn't want to anymore out of uncertainty. Fear won't take hold of me any longer, because I have a God that goes beyond my circumstances.

A passage that I have stuck by ever since last year is Proverbs 16:1-9, and it starts out by saying this: "The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord." This verse is later reworded in verse 9, but the message remains the same: "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." Another one is this, verse 3: "Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established." These verses are my life.

All-in-all, I am an inconsistent being following a consistent and gracious God whose plans for me are greater than I could ever imagine. How crazy is it to think that a God, so holy and worthy of all praise, chooses to love an unworthy creature such as I? And, not only that, but He chose to forgive me and have mercy on me, then wants to use me to share His love to the nations, and He has placed within me His Holy Spirit. WHOA. That is the big picture that I had forgotten about.

My request from you is prayer, and lots of it. Specifically for me to grow closer to God, trusting in His sufficiency and provision, and figuring life out one step at a time. I also ask for prayer that I will be able to have complete faith and trust in Him, because He knows what He's doing.

Also, thank you to everyone that has been following this journey with me! I suppose a new one awaits me in the state with "Fields of Opportunities."

Back to square one.

It is now November. Actually, it has been November for eleven days now, but yes, it is now the eleventh month of the year. And, to be honest, last month was one of the most trying months of my entire life. As I would say in regards to whenever things go wrong, life kind of threw up on me. More than once. My entire family, not just me, has gone through so much that I would have never imagined until it happened. From the end of September until now, my life looks entirely different - not even close to the same that it was then. But, despite the difficulties and more bumps in the road, God is still faithful and His love is unconditional.

Throughout this last month and the last couple of weeks, I have been trying to figure out what it is that I will do this coming spring. It seems as if YWAM is, surprisingly, being chucked out the window. The reasons? Finances. Again. But just in a different way this time around. Because I stopped going to school at Northwestern and I had loans there, they are now haunting me and I technically have to go back to school by the end of January or I will have to start paying them off. I am going to try to see if they can even be deferred during the time that I would be at YWAM because, honestly, I cannot afford to pay them off while I'm there. I literally do not have the money, which really sucks. Because I knew that this would be a possibility a couple of weeks after I found out that I couldn't go to YWAM in October, I have tried contacting both YWAM and the loan folks. YWAM took a little bit to get back to me (three weeks, actually), saying that I needed to talk to the loan people. Then I e-mailed them, coming back with a reply saying that the school would have to be Office of Education approved. So, with this, I will check with YWAM to see if they are OE approved (which I don't think that they are, but it's worth a try). If they are not, then I would have to take a survey thingamajig to see if it's even a possibility for the loans to be deferred. All-in-all, from what I see right now, YWAM just might not work out this January.

Due to this being a factor, I will be applying for a few different colleges. Some schools in Minnesota or any other state with reciprocity would probably be my way to go, since they all would be in-state, and Iowa State is still on my radar. No matter what, if I am supposed to be there, I will get there somehow. All that needs to happen is my effort. If I really want something, I need to try, even if that means failing again. Even though some things may have fallen apart or not worked out, I am still blessed beyond measure.

My faith and trust in God has been tested beyond the limits that I thought I had, but I know that He does not give us more than we can handle. He has given me so much more strength than I knew existed. I have recited Romans 8:28 to myself whenever anything is thrown my way, clinging to the truth that God has promised me. With everything, I must pray without ceasing; I must rely on God and His direction, realizing for myself the ultimate goal. Ever since YWAM did not work out in round one, I struggled with remembering my purpose. Why did I even want to do YWAM, exactly? Why do I want to do ministry and become a missionary? Why do I want to help people? Why does the pain and injustice of this world hurt me so badly? Why do I mourn over sin? What does compassion even mean? What does it look like? Why do I care so much? These are all questions that I have had to ask myself time and time again, along with many more, and it lifts me up a little bit every time that I am reminded. No matter what, I cannot give up on what I know God has called me towards, even though I don't know where to go just yet. He has called me towards a life of ministry and serving Him as well as others, so that is what I will do wherever He places me. And that may mean that I am dirt poor for the rest of my life, but I honestly could care less. I must continue fighting and keep my chin up, relying on the Lord for everything that I have. In these hours of doubts, I still see Him. And He is beautiful. And He is everything.

As I decide what to do, I ask for prayer for myself, as well as my family. There is much healing to be done in the brokenness, restoration to occur. I ask for prayer that I grow in Him, my faith becoming even stronger and for His strength to reign over my weaknesses. I long to become like the One that created me, in kindness, goodness, selflessness - to be sanctified day by day, my heart breaking for what breaks my Savior's. He is more than enough for me, and I need Him more every day.

"This is my prayer in the desert,
when all that's within me feels dry.
This is my prayer in the hunger and need:
My God is the God who provides."