Living Love

I'M HOOOME! :)

Ah, GA camp, WHAT A WEEK! I got the opportunity to hang out with an AMAZING group of 11 5th (almost 6th) grade girls this week! They are all so beautiful, so funny, and taught me in so many ways. I am so thankful that I got the opportunity to go to GA camp with them and learn about God's Love. I just LOVE acting like a kid again, and being free to not fix my hair, not wear makeup, say and do crazy things, and not be judged for any of them. That's the beauty of being with children, they love you no matter what you look like, or how big of a fool you make out of yourself...and let me tell you, I LOVE that kind of love.

The theme of this camp was Live Love, living out God's love to others. I am still in awe that my last post was about wanting to learn how to love like God, and loe and behold, the camp theme was just that. Man, God is good.

It would take me forever to describe everything about this week, so I'll try to make it short and sweet. The focus of GA's is missions. When I say missions, I mean internationally, locally,and even in your neighborhood. It's all about sharing Christ's love with others. The girls learned how to tell the plan of salvation, I stood tearfully in awe of the Savior God as a camper was saved in front of me, and God fulfilled my prayer of learning how to love like Him; all while rock climbing, swimming, playing at a park, dancing, singing, and canoeing with my girls.

The first night at worship, our focus verse was 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, the love verses. The speaker gave us a challenge, fill in the word "love" with your own name:

"Miranda is patient(false), Miranda is kind(most of the time), Miranda does not envy(false), Miranda does not boast(mostly true)"...I think you get the point, speaking a bunch of lies, or half-truths. When you fill in the verse with your name, it's so eye-opening. It made me realize that God is love, and God's love is ALWAYS patient, ALWAYS kind, etc. and in order to love like Christ, we have to let go of things such as envy, and arrogance.

The next night, I learned that EVERYTHING is God's plan, and in order to fulfill what God wants, I have to surrender my plan. "Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening"- 1Samuel 3:9. That's a tough thing to do, but in the past 4 weeks, I have seen the evidence of what God does when you surrender your plan.. He finds your joy, and teaches you through things you could never imagine, and He deserves every ounce of the glory for that.

Needless to say, I had an even more incredible week at GA camp, and I am feeling so blessed to have been given the opportunities I have been given, and I am just overwhelmed by God's love and Grace :)

I love you all!

ps. If you wanna hear more about GA camp, let me know! :)

Finding Love

So, late night with my best friends... AMAZING.

One of my bestest guy friends, Taylor, came home today from younglife summer staff in Colorado. We got to hang out, just like old times, with all of our other buddies. We had such a tight group of friends growing up, and it's an amazzing feeling to find that again. :)

Taylor kept saying, "I love you guys" over and over again tonight, oh how I missed him! It showed me how absolutely blessed I am to have the friends I have, and to have had some of them since I was 5 years old..crazy! Gah, "A friend loves at all times" Proverbs 17:17, these friends are some of the only people I can truly say love me for me, ALL of me, ALL the time and always will. I'm SO blessed!

While in CO, Taylor was a horse wrangler. He named his horse Agape. Agape is the ultimate love- The love of Christ for mankind, a divine, unconditional love. Got me thinking.. how lucky am I? To know that God loves me more than I could ever begin to fathom. "God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us!" -Romans 5:8. What an amazing love. The goal I was inspired to have is to show others that kind of love. An unconditional love, that knows no limits. I want to love like Christ loves.

Tomorrow, Monday, I leave for GA (girls in action) camp with good ol' FBC Allen. I'll be a sponsor for 3-6 graders! :) It's a 5 day camp of all girls, learning about God's love, agape, and learning how to show that kind of love. SO cool that it came at the perfect time. I guess that's another thing, God really knows how to plan. My hope for the week is that I can show my girls Christ's love, that love that knows no boundaries. I am so ready to see what God has in store for the week! Prayers would be appreciated! :)

Love you all, see you in 5 days!

Finding Joy

well, I started this thing as a means of expressing myself and what's happening in my life. I've felt like I should for a while now, but I just finally convinced myself! :) This first post is going to be looong, so bear with me :)

Anyways, 3 and a half weeks ago, I let go of my first love and my best friend, after 3 years of being together. It's still hard to believe and hard to deal with sometimes (understandable?). We both knew it was time. Time for me to find myself and my individual faith in Jesus Christ because I was becoming dependent on the faith he had. It bites that in order for that to happen, we both had to be broken hearted, but God promises that "He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds" -Psalm 147:3

A few days earlier, and a few days later, I got even more news to cope with. My cousin was diagnosed with cancer (thankfully only stage 1), my uncle had major surgery on his heart and is killing his body with cigarettes, and my mom had a mole removed that was possibly pre-cancerous. While it looked like my world was really crashing down, and crashing down HARD, I have never felt so much joy in my life (weird?). God was so evident throughout it all, and what a faithful God he is! I believe now, more than ever, in the power of prayer.

1 Peter 5:10 says, "And the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered for a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." --How awesome is that? This verse was my saving grace. To know I would be restored was so encouraging, and I have been restored. I won't say fully, but I'm still in the restoring process.

The past week was VBS at good ol' FBC Allen.- WHAT AN AMAZING WEEK! Words can't describe it for me. I taught a class of incredible 4th graders, with an incredible group of women and young women. We had so much fun dancing, and singing, praising the Lord. We had some awesome conversations with these 4th graders, conversations that went WAY deeper than VBS curriculum could. IT WAS INCREDIBLE! I have never had so much fun at VBS before and I actually got to be a part of children's decisions to give their lives to Christ! How cool is that?! My life has been changed!

One child very extra special to me, Ashlynn (my favorite 9 year old, ever) gave her life to Christ this week! I could not be more proud of her! I've known her since she was born and babysat her since. I love her :) Her mommy is my unbiological big sister/bestfriend. Jennifer, if you read this, I'm proud of you too! :) What a big day that was for Ashlynn, and myself because I got to celebrate with her!

All in all, life is good, God is great, and I'm loving every second of it.

well, that's it for now,
-looove.