I had some pretty crazy, emotional, good days for the past 4 days or so. It's been tough and my tears definitely ran down my face each one of those days. The one thing that God is really working on in me right now is my response to the certain situations I am in. For instance, I heard more bad news about my car yesterday and I could make two different choices on how my response was going to be for that specific moment. I could, a. chose to have that ruin my life and become extremely depressed or b. trust God that he has some sort of plan set in and only he can make my heart become peaceful again. Now I have to say I did both a. and b. I had some time to kill so I went to the mall because of a christmas gift card I got for borders. In the past I would go shopping when I felt depressed and it would momentarily solve my problems. Well, I walked through the mall and just become more depressed looking at people being happy with all their purchases in their hands and decided this is not going to make me happy. It doesn't matter what I get here. Only Jesus can fill this void that I am feeling. It was very easy for me to feel all of the things that are on that cross picture that is above. I just felt like I needed to respond differently. So, I walked right back out of the mall, got in my car, and proceeded to cry some more. I had to take myself out of the equation, and just trust in God. The things of this world will just pass by me and I need to just let go...let go of the things that make my heart prideful, controlling, materialist, self-righteous, selfish, etc. And it's hard. VERY hard. But yesterday was just one little baby step for me. My heart has a long way to go.

I just know that there is more in this world then the daily moments of frustrations I encounter. I've just been struggling with the way I deal with them. Do I respond in a Christ-like way or a Stacie-like way?

"And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God."

My heart is for God and for God alone. I pray that I will understand that more and more each day.

Church

Today represented what the church is capable to look like. Though they may disagree...

We had a lovely ice/sorta snowing a little bit storm today...but it was mostly ice. So this morning I woke up, used the ice scrapper, and drove on my merry way. As I was sitting in class the sky decided to spit up ice and it landed on all of our cars. We all left class and in stead of every man on their own being left to scrap our cars, everyone pitched in to help each other. It really was a beautiful, tangible way to experience how the church, in my eyes, should be. It was just a special moment for me to just be present in. :)

Nola :)

I heart these people, more then they know. They've taught me a lot and saw me grow in some crazy ways these past so many months! :)

The org. we served with was Crossroads Missions. So great!! :)



New Orleans. I just wanted to share some pictures of the trip I went on in Jan. My heart is burdened for the city, but I know that love and hope are central in that city. I am encouraged by the people I met there while I helped serve. I learned a lot from them.

Reality

I was walking out of work today just thinking about the world and how big it is and how small I am in it. I had some thoughts, which I questioned if they were selfish or not. I thought I want to travel the world...so I envisioned myself in different places, getting off the airplane, walking on the dirt path road, and just living up the place where I was at. I want to go to places where Jesus is needed. I want to experience the kingdom in a bigger way then I've ever experienced. But I became humbled when I thought I will only go where You want me to go. Take myself out of the mathematical problem and just use me. I will go anywhere, at anytime, just to see what this whole world is up to. The reality is God wants me in indy right now. And I am embracing that, cherishing it, because I know this will not be my home for long.

And I just re-read the line where I said I want to go to places where Jesus is needed. I feel that is my motto for life right now. I want to experience life in organic ways, where people can be people. I'm slowly realizing that my heart is here in the US...and I don't know what that means, except that this country needs to be loved just as much as any other country. My mission field is here. I just have a heart to see the kingdom come alive in real, authentic ways. But I'm only now starting to understand what that means in my life today.

"Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul."

"The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving towards all he has made."

Those two verses from Psalms have been my hearts prayer the past couple of days. I hope they are encouraging to you as they are to me. :)

New Orleans

I was a little nervous to actually go down to New Orleans to do the mission trip. It was definitely something out of my comfort zone...if you know me, you know I am not completely handy, haha.

I love seeing people living lives for Christ. People who have given up everything for the glory of the Lord. The team of people down at crossroads missions have a heart for new orleans. They want to see the mess be cleaned up and renewed. There are a total of about 120,000 houses abandoned in the city. Everywhere you look you will see destruction. A lot of the ares were already fairly poor, but katrina sure didn't help them out any. And my new friends at crossroads are building up houses for people so that they can again have hope. My biggest prayer while I was down there was for hope. There were some people that we talked to who have lost so much, but you can still see a glimpse of hope in their eyes. It's that hope that brought tears to my eyes. They still want to see their communities built up and taken care of.

I know that my heart broke so much while I was down there.

The cool thing was that there are so many organizations that are working together to help each other build up the city. That's definitely a cool thing to see. I love seeing the big church becoming one. That's how I believe the church should look like. Crossroads did a great job of just being present and sharing love to others. It was such a blessing to be able to work with them this past week. And while I was there I realized how much I have a heart for the United States (that's another topic I'll discuss later). I want to see the church as whole work together and accomplish great things with each other.

I will definitely do another trip like this again. My heart is being more and more transformed into a servants heart. :)

New Orleans

We're, the training school, going to be heading down to New Orleans bright and early tomorrow morning. I ask for prayer in our travels, safety while we are on the work site, and just time to share life with each other. We're going to be building houses, cleaning up the streets, and possibly other stuff. I'm excited about this because this is my first work missions trip. The great thing is I get to share this with people who I love dearly. I believe God will be doing some cool stuff with our group while we are out there and that excites me.

I'm also excited to see how God is continuing to help me grow in so many different aspects of my life. I feel like he has a hand on my life in a way I've never known before. The reconstruction is bringing out some cool, sometimes painful things, but it's making sense. God brings us things to our attention when we need it brought up to us. No earlier, no later then his perfect time. I'm learning.

Slowly getting it...

I think this so called blog will be fun reading material for me down the road. I'm finding that I may be the only one that reads this and that's ok...because maybe, just maybe it will help me process what my mind has been thinking. I thought two main concepts today...one excited me and the other was more painful, but will be good.

I'm realizing more and more that God has created me to be around people that don't know Him. I thought of that because a friend of mine is going to be joining this missions org. where basically everyone loves Jesus...and that made me really happy to think about. I think I'd like that later on in life and might just need it after church planting, hehe. Just kidding! But I feel more at home right now with people who have been burned by religion, the church, christians, etc. My passion is to build relationships with people and just love them. It's why I love volunteering at outreach so much. And that's why I just love having friendships with people, no matter who they are.

The other thing I am processing is my control of myself. How I still don't let people enter into my life whole-heartedly. That I don't allow people to speak words of affirmation into my life because that means I have lost control of my independency. If someone encourages me in something i have failed myself because i should have been able to do it and not receive any encouragement. Well, it's all backwards thinking. It's not allowing people to share life with. And it's painful for me to be figuring this out right now...but there is a reason why God put this one my heart today. I'm going to continue to process it everyday.