God's Beauty.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil--this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that we will revere him.

Ecclesiastes 3:11-14

When my professor asked our Art Appreciation class "What is art?" there were a lot of various answers. My immediate response was "everything". We were mainly discussing paintings and sculptures in class, and my philosophy is that anything can be art--it doesn't have to be beautiful and it doesn't have to make sense. What matters is that someone felt an urge to express something, or tell a story or make a statement. During my quiet time today I started thinking deeply about it. As I was sitting on a bench looking out at the New River, I thanked God for His beauty. It is all around us. Beauty is most evident in the aesthetic way, but it mostly resides in people. How we treat other people, how we view God's world, how we listen and help those in need, etc.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

The more time we spend with our Lord, the more of His beauty we will see. I'm often reminded of His beauty in moments like I had today. I decided to get out of my apartment and to sit by the river. Once I got there, I thought I had made a mistake. It was too hot, there were tons of people around, and bugs were flying all around me. I read some of His word and intended to leave when I looked out in front of me. I just stared in awe at the river and the trees surrounding it. I was calmed by the sound of the water flowing and the leaves blowing. It was at that moment that I started having a silent conversation with Jesus. I was thanking Him for reminding me of His beauty and asking Him so desperately to never let me forget it. During this time it started getting more breezy, the bugs moved elsewhere, and the people passing by were no longer a distraction. Near the end of my prayer I heard a soft rumble of thunder. This, to me, was God's way of letting me know that He was listening to me and He was responding. While there are some not so beautiful things in the world and there are so many things that we don't understand; I think they just help us see and appreciate the beauty around us that much more. For example: the Crucifixion of Christ. It was brutal, ugly, painful. But He suffered for us. And He resurrected! He carried our sin, our pain, our mistakes, our disobedience; and died for us. And not only that, but he rose for us! He gave us hope and love. There is no other beauty than that of Christ.

"I see you there hanging on a tree
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne
Soon we will be coming home
You’re beautiful, you're beautiful" -Phil Wickham

So what is art? E.H. Gombrich, a non-religious art historian said "There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists." While E.H. Gombrich was not a Christian, his statement was more accurate than originally intended. God is the ultimate Artist. He is our Creator, afterall! We are his art. And to be like Him we must also be "artists" and use whatever spiritual gifts He gave us to show His beauty, love, and grace to others. The results are not only more "art", but a life with Him. We will mess up sometimes, and those are the ugly parts. Others will make mistakes and they won't make sense to us. But ultimately our Father created EVERYTHING. And He is beautiful and everything He makes is beautiful.

So my prayer for us is this:

One thing I ask of the LORD,

this is what I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD

and to seek him in his temple. 

Psalm 27:4

 

 

God's Love.

These past couple of months I've been trying to understand things--going through a phase I guess. And one thing I've continually prayed for is for me to feel loved and to show love to others. I'm a quiet person at first and I really want to reach out to more people. To have community. So I've been praying for boldness and love. But during this phase I've been really hard on myself. I realized I needed to step up. And I also realized that I wasn't receiving love from anyone else. What helped me realize all of this was Blue Like Jazz. Donald Miller said "God's love will never change us if we don't accept it." And it's true. I've been longing to change but it never seemed to happen. I don't always accept love from other people nor from God.
A big part of accepting God's love is to accept myself for who I am. All of me. I feel that women continually compare themselves to others--wishing they had their hair, their body, their brains, talent, confidence, personality, faith...it gets EXHAUSTING. And often I, and many others, feel that so-and-so is better because so-and-so is this-or-that. This is distorted thinking.
"For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:7

 Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. -1 Peter 3:3-4

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we are comparing our behind the scenes to everyone else's highlight reel" - S. Furtick

The reason I feel the need to write about this is because this is something that I, and the rest of the world, struggle with the most in life. It's something that I have been praying over for a long time, and now all of a sudden I keep finding these words from God and others on the same subject. God loves us so deeply. We are ALL beautiful. We live in such a broken society that focuses too much on the importance of outward appearance. It's nearly impossible to live in this country, as a woman, and to not have any insecurities. I've grown up seeing women on TV and feeling like I could never look like that. And now I constantly feel the need to wear make-up wherever I go. Most women do. We don't feel pretty unless we are covering our natural beauty and also our insecurities. It's sad. Our world is so broken.
Type in "natural beauty" on Google and the first thing that pops up is an article called "15 Ways to be a Natural Beauty"...really? We are all already naturally beautiful. Yet I am so broken in this area that I actually read through the article to figure it out for myself. The point I'm trying to make is that each of us are beautiful in our own ways. God made us each individually and gave us talents to use for His Glory. If you don't believe me, check out Psalm 139. We must not only accept ourselves for who we are, but also lift each other up in fellowship and community. "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God." Romans 15:7
My prayer for all of us is to love ourselves, each other, and most importantly our Father. And to also allow ourselves to be freed from numbness so we can feel the love that others and God have for us.

"How many are your works, O Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures." Psalm 104:24

Joppa, Alabama

Everything happens for a reason-- I believe that with my whole heart. Even if we don't understand it.

At the end of April, Alabama experienced a series of deadly tornadoes. Buildings were destroyed, trees were down, and the death toll was shocking. It's hard to think of a reason why God would let something like that happen. But after my trip to Joppa, Alabama I witnessed some of the blessings He provided to these people that have helped them cope with their losses. God works in mysterious yet beautiful ways.

My team and I spent five days in Joppa. Our assignment was to rebuild a house that was completely destroyed in the tornado. There were two families that needed help and two teams that were there to serve. The first family was an older couple who had spent three years building their house themselves. They lived in the house for around five weeks before the tornado came and completely destroyed it. The other team was assigned to them. The second family was who our team primarily helped. This house belonged to a man whose stepson was in the house alone with his two children during the tornado. The three of them saw the tornado coming and hid in the bathroom. The entire house was destroyed, but they walked out without a scratch. Before the tornado, the stepson was an atheist. He walked out of the destroyed house as a believer.

It wasn't difficult to see the path of the tornado in their area. There were trees uprooted and destroyed clearly displaying the path. It was emotionally hard to hear all the stories and to see all the damage done, but truly amazing how strong these families were throughout the week. After the third day, we had two walls up. That night a terrible storm came through with 75 mph straightline winds. The next morning it looked like another tornado had hit-- there were even more trees down, store signs everywhere, and a long line of telephone polls were down. But the saddest part was that by the time we got to the site, we saw that one of the walls had gotten knocked down and destroyed by the storm. We then had to evacuate to a safer place because another storm was coming through. It soon passed, but we weren't able to get much done for the rest of the day because of rain. I felt sad for the family, but they were so calm and strong throughout the whole thing. Instead of being frustrated, they just started back to work on that wall and worked even harder than before. They were so inspiring.

By the end of the fifth day (the last day), we had almost all of the walls up! After working hard for a while, some of us broke off to hand out quilts to nearby families who were affected by the tornado. We went door to door and handed out these hand-made quilts from another church in Alabama who prayed over every single knot. This was the hardest part of the trip. Talking with, crying with, and praying over these people who had lost everything. Their stories were heart-wrenching and it is truly amazing how strong they are. That evening, Pleasant Grove had an appreciation dinner for all of the teams. (This little church really provided for us that week!) At the dinner, both families stood up and gave speeches about how grateful they were. It was so emotional--I think almost everyone in that room was crying.

Now, I know it doesn't seem like there were many blessings from what I just wrote, but trust me. One of the days we were working on the house, a neighbor came and talked to us. She was telling us about how pretty much everyone in their neighborhood had damage from the tornado. She also told us that before the storm, no one on their street was talking to one another. They didn't get along. As she was telling us this, we looked up to find three neighbors helping build the house. The tornado brought them together. We also learned that the storm had brought seeds and planted them all around their area. They were growing pumpkins, corn, tomatoes, and other foods that no one had even planted. So even though they lost everything, God planted these seeds that provided them with food during these hard times. 

What these people went through is unbelievable. It's amazing to me how they are still standing--and how they are each slowly coming to Christ. I hope I can come back next year to help them/help more people like them. These families are the ones who fall in between the cracks. They don't get a lot of help from people because they live in such a small town. That hurts my heart.

Here is a prayer I wrote in my journal on my last night in Alabama:
"Lord, please help these people. Please send more to help them rebuild their homes and lives. I pray with my whole heart that they come to You. That they find You, Lord. They need You and You are helping them out in more ways than they even know. You are so graceful Father, and loving! Thank you for this trip. I needed it just as much as these people needed my help. It's all You. I pray I can take what I learned back home with me and that I can tell others what I have experienced. And that I can tell others of Your miraculous ways--Your blessings in disasters, Your blessings in all things. You give and take away, but You are always here for us. You don't let us go. You take care of us and hold us. I can't put into words how grateful and thankful I am for You, Lord. And I pray again for these families. They need You. In Your loving name, Amen."

There is no way I could have written everything from that week on here, so if you want to hear more details just ask me!

Some of the damage from the tornado

The house at the end of the week

A shed we built for the stepson to keep all of their belongings safe

This Summer

This summer has been interesting, to say the least, in my walk with Christ. The beginning of summer started out hopeful! I was finished with the busiest semester ever, celebrated the college graduations of my boyfriend and my sister, and I had applied for a few jobs that I thought were definitely going to work out. It was imperitive for me to get a job this summer. I wasn't able to land one last year, but I thought definitely this summer something was going to happen . I soon realized that God had other plans for me. After applying to a couple places, I still felt hopeful. A week went by and I hadn't heard anything. So I applied to a few more. After a little over a month of this, I realized that I had applied for seven different jobs and not heard a thing from one of them. It seemed no one was interested in hiring for part-time positions for only the summer. I had struggled with this for a while. Why would God not want me to have a job this summer??
After speaking with a few people and extensively praying, it became easier to understand what God had intended for me to do this summer. After having such an emotionally/ physically exhausting and busy semester, He wanted me to REST this summer. That may sound strange to some people, but it's what He called me to do. Not be lazy and do nothing, but proactively rest; enjoy this free time for myself and to spend it with family, friends, and most importantly Him. Proactively resting this summer has often meant stepping out of my comfort zone and leaping towards Him. Because I don't have a job, I have been able to do other things that He has called me to do.
I recently attended the Deeper Still Conference in Louisville, KY for women in mid-June. It had been mentioned one morning at Valley Bible Church (the church that I attend at school) that a group of women were going together and were hoping more people would go with them. At the time I was disraught over what I would do this summer and was looking for something, anything that I could do to further deepen my walk with the Lord. This was an answered prayer! I knew I was going to be home for the summer and this conference was about an hour away from my house. It would also give me the opportunity to get to know the other women at the church better, which was also an answered prayer. I quickly signed up. However, this was definitely out of my comfort zone. I only knew one of the other women going.
The three main speakers at this conference were Kay Arthur, Priscilla Shirer, and Beth Moore. All three sermons were very different from one another, yet all pertained to things that I had been struggling with recently. Here is a list of the main lessons that I learned that weekend:

1) I am still learning. I have sinned, a lot. But my sin is not who I am supposed to be. We're supposed to learn from our sins, not keep repeating them. I can't let guilt defeat me. God loves us too much for Him to let that happen to us.
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4: 9-10

2) The Sabbath day = leaving room for God. Use the free time I have this summer to spend with the Lord.
"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

3) Do not compete with one another! Learn from each generation, and in my personal case, find a mentor. "Every generation is another step closer to Jesus coming back." -Beth Moore.
But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all
generations. Psalm 33:11

This conference was tough, but so so awesome! I not only  heard what God had been trying to tell me for a while, but I also got closer to other believers. Definitely answered prayers! When I got home from that weekend, I  found out the Bible study my sister goes to was doing "Discerning the Voice of God" by Priscilla Shirer. Katie invited me to join for the summer, and I leapt at the opportunity. (Again, out of my comfort zone. I only knew my sister in this Bible study.) But it has been so rewarding so far. I have also been volunteering at my church (St. Luke United Methodist) by helping with worship-which has been amazing! That was also a prayer God totally and completely answered. I definitely want to help with worship more often. But all of this has lead me to a mission trip. I recently was given the opportunity to help with tornado victims and their homes in Alabama, which I accepted. In the first week of August I will be going to Alabama (not sure exactly where yet) doing mission work (not sure exactly what yet). There are many unknowns for this trip, but I feel God leading me there. I'm at peace with this, but it still makes me a little nervous. Just pray that I can trust Him with my whole heart and not have any reservations. He will provide!
So that's been my journey with the Lord this summer. Long post, I know, but I felt I had to share. Look for a post about my trip to Alabama in a few weeks!

Germany

This last video is from our time in Germany. It shows clips from our travelling, Karneval, hotel, etc. We spent the most time in Cologne the entire trip, it was quite the experience! I know zero German, so that was interesting along the way. But experiencing such a different culture was so amazing and I feel so blessed to have been able to go to all of these places. The world is a pretty spectacular place :)
PS sorry this video is so long...but we did stay here the longest!

Paris

Paris was my favorite! We stayed there for two days, saw the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Moulin Rouge, and tons of other extraordinary sights. I love it there! Here is the video :)

Europe!

Sorry it has taken me so long to finally post about Europe...
It was an awesome, amazing trip!! I loved going there and experiencing new things. Although I was sick for part of it, the food wasn't always what I preferred, and we got lost a couple times...it was still a great experience and I would like to go back soon!
So instead of writing about every detail, I made videos for each of the places we went. If you want to know more specifics you can read my sister's blog or just ask me! These videos aren't necessarily in order, as the first one I'm going to post is from Amsterdam which we went to later in the trip. We were there only for a day and I went to Anne Frank's house and the Van Gogh museum. I hope this gives you a little bit of a glimpse of our trip! Paris and Germany are to come...

also, this is when I lost my voice, don't judge...