Satisfy me.

I am learning so much recently.
It's ridiculous to see how much I am not usually satisfied in Christ. When He, of course, is the only one who will satisfy. And because of this I fall into selfishness so easily. My prayer right now is to be broken of that.

Another thing that not only is a constant longing of my heart, but also I am so excited about is to see revival on A&M campus. I truly am expecting it. I want to be part of it. But am content to let God use me in whatever way He sees fit. But I am ready. and expecting. and insanely excited. If you want to know specifics of why I feel this revival is coming soon, ask me, because God is blowing my mind lately. And the only explanation is that God is on the move on this campus. In huge ways. I'm blown away. and, once again, excited. I feel so blessed to be seeing this happen.

Pray for our campus. Be trusting and expectant.

You are loved.

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This God - His way is perfect.

I'm not so much looking forward to school and work. On the other hand, I can't wait for the awesome things God has in store for this year. I'm nervous and excited about upstream, and am so ready to see what God will do. I have learned so much here at a&m in just a year so I'm pretty pumped to see what will be next.

Impact was incredible. God moved. It was so cool to just see God work. I'm so blessed to have been a part of it.

Right now, I'm learning to trust. Kristin is at TIRR after 3 more brain anyeurisms. She is in a near coma state right now. God showed me at Impact how sweet it is to trust in Him, and I am working to constantly put that in to practice now. In this situation and in many others with home and school.

Psalm 18:30 says "This God- His was is perfect. The Word of the Lord proves true. He is a shield for all those who take refuge in Him."

I'm clinging to that. I encourage you to do the same.

You are loved.

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I'm worth it.

In an earlier post I talked about how I was hurting and how it was a good thing. I feel like that deserves an explanation and will lead into a lot I have to see this time.
Usually when I have thoughts of my dad or what he has done or anything to do with him, I feel hurt, but I cover that up by feeling fear which I cover up by feeling hatred. That night when I wrote, and any time since them, when I think of my dad, I have made a conscious decision to not be angry or hateful or fearful, so I am left with feeling only hurt. It is hard. Clearly, it hurts. But God is so faithful through it to hold me and just totally consume and comfort me. It's insane.
As far as my dad goes, after learning that I am called to love him and processing and contemplating that for a couple weeks, I decided to write him a letter. If you want to know about it, ask me. I'd be more than willing to tell you. Not only was it freeing, but it keeps me accountable for acting correctly and loving him in the future.

About a week after writing this letter, I was sitting just resting in my Jesus a little bit, and all the sudden I heard Him tell me "More than you need to forgive and love your dad, you MUST forgive and love yourself." Now, I knew I hated myself, but I didn't realize it was that serious. What is funny is as soon as I thought about that for even a minute, I told God that I can't. I told Him that there is no way. I'm going to make this long story short. I wrestled with this for about a week. I have gone to a counselor a couple times this summer to start the process of forgiving and loving my dad fully. She gave me the homework of making a list of things that I need to forgive him for. At the same time, I decided to make a list of reasons I hated myself. After talking over the list about my dad with her, she saw the list about myself and asked me about it. I told her, and we talked about it. After praying, she said that God wanted to show me something, and that I needed to be aware and hear Him. As I sat there with my Daddy, He gave me a picture of calvary. As my Love hung on the cross, I sat kneeling beneath his feet. As blood poured out of Him, it continually washed over me, and then flowed down the mountain. It was cool, because immediately after I got this picture, I had someone sitting write there (my counselor) to talk it out with. What I told her was that His blood was continually washing over me. That though calvary was a certain time and place in history, it's work is eternal. Of course this is a basic truth, but so incredible when we really grab ahold of it. I told her, that what God told me through this picture was that not only am I covered by Christ's blood, but that Christ's blood is Christ (I don't know if that makes sense, ask me about it if you need to). So I am completely, and continuously covered by Christ. He told me that He sees me this way, and that I need to learn to see myself that way. That shocked me, because I knew God saw me that way, but for me to need to see myself that way was a completely different mindset for me. I am covered by Christ. I need to see myself as beautiful, just as Christ is beautiful. Clearly, by beautiful, I am not simply referring to physical beauty.

I am learning to not think of myself as worthless, but rather that I am worth it. I AM worth it.

You are loved. and You are worth it.

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trusting and expectant.

John 3:15 in the message says “and everyone who looks up to him – trusting and expectant, will gain real life, eternal life.”
The other night I was talking with Brittani. She is the girl leader at the internship. I was really really struggling with depression and I asked her to come and pray truth over me. After praying, we were talking and she told me this verse. We came to the conclusion, that I always believe God CAN fix my life, and deal with my family situation and take away my depression, but I don’t ever believe he WILL. That is a problem. God desires good for me. He desires to bring healing and restoration to my life. I always think that believing God will change my situation is getting my hopes up. But that is just silly! My hope is in Jesus Christ. How is it even possible to get your hopes up about something if my hope is in Christ?
I realized I am called to be expectant about the stuff going on in my life. I need to trust that the situations will change. Because they will. We just don’t know when. If not in this life than in eternity. God will change my situation, because He loves me. And I need to believe that.
I realized that I have the right to be excited about this. I have the right to have joy and be excited about God bringing restoration to my family and healing my hurt and taking away my depression, because it will happen. I should be excited. I’d be crazy not to be.
That is the third thing I learned. The end.
Since then I have read so many more verses relating to this topic that are so encouraging. Por ejemple:
Psalm 37:5 says “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.”
And
In Matthew 9:29, Jesus says “According to your faith it will be done to you.”
This has encouraged me so much and more or less changed my perspective on life.
You are loved.

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joy.

I have so much more I need to write and tell yll. So much that it's crazy. and upsetting that I still don't have time to write it.

Today... I am hurting. A lot.

Believe it or not, that's a good thing. and a long story for another time.

I am also struggling so much with depression.
and therein lies something I learned most recently.
God has given me an immense amount of joy by following Him, and giving me the Holy Spirit. It's a fruit of the Spirit. therefore I have it. Instead of allowing myself to admit depression and just give into it all the time. I need to claim joy for myself.
the end.

pray for me guys. the next couple days will be a fight. Thankfully, the Lord will fight for me, I need only be still.

You are loved.

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Desperate.

No real time to do this since I'm about to go serve dinner. At least I think that's what I'm about to go do...
I had an awesome experience today though. I hung out with a homeless lady named Shirley for about an hour. It was so cool to just show her that someone cared. And through that, that ultimately God cared. I realized how needed it is for people to love on desperate people. It really pointed out the scripture the interns have been studying which is Matthew 5:3 - "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." It's crazy how much easier it is for desperate broken people to get it, and that's what people like Shirley are. They are poor, needy, desperate and broken. It was an awesome experience.

You are loved.

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Here we go.

Ok I actually ended up having a couple minutes. I just never know what my schedule might be! Even now I have no clue how long I have to try and write.

The last three weeks has been a continual process of learning and growth. The first huge thing I learned was on the evening of my first day off. I was very frustrated by situations happening at home, and tried talking to the girl that is the leader of us girl interns here. Here's the thing about this girl, she has a habit of speaking truth whether you want to hear it or not. I remember by the end of the conversation being very frustrated, but throughout the next few days, I reflected on what she said and began to understand. (Keep in mind that a lot of what I have learned has built on each other and kind of run together so I might repeat myself a bit). I realized that God desires to fix my situation. His will isn't that I continue to live in a situation that is hurtful. He wants for there to be healing and restoration. I had never really thought about the fact that God doesn't like the situation that I'm in anymore than I do. On the other hand, He loves everyone affected by the situation, and wants there to be healing in all of us. Somehow that kind of blew my mind. I know God loves me and wants the best for me, but I just always thought that this was the life He gave me so He must want it that way. Yes, He is sovereign and there is a reason for this. But that is because He works out the evil for good. I believe that He hates to see me, His dear child, hurting. Another thing I realized that night, the part that frustrated me most, was that in order for there to be healing in any of my family, there needed to be encouragement between us. We tend to talk constantly about how miserable our lives are and how we wish it was this way and we wish it was that way. Instead of that, learning to be thankful, and encourage one another in our pursuit of God could completely change the atmosphere of some of our situation. I still don't know exactly what that looks like and I know it will be extremely difficult to begin doing, but I feel it is what I am called to. I have a position in my family where I am one who takes care of things and has a lot of responsibility. I need to use this responsibility, well, responsibly. I need to learn to love on and encourage every member of my family.

That was my first lesson.

The second lesson happened last week. This time the leader of all of the interns, James, was talking to us and just pouring out his heart. He is one of the most solid people I have ever met, and I am so blessed to be able to learn from him this summer. He was talking about loving people. Now what is interesting about this is that loving people is my passion. I LOVE people. So as he is talking about this, I'm thinking yeah! I love people. I got this, right? heh. oh angela. Anyway, so as he is talking he starts saying that we are called to love people no matter who they are. He said no matter who they are, how much they hurt us, emotionally, physically, whatever, it doesn't matter. We are just called to love and serve them. For some reason this time, it clicked. It doesn't matter how hard it is or how much it hurts, I am called to love my dad. So as I'm thinking this, I think 'but if I love, I open myself to being hurt.' and then the words 'turn the other cheek' come to mind. That, too, clicked. Think about how vulnerable a position that is! after someone slaps you, and you just turn your other cheek and say ok, hurt me again. that's insane! but what I am called to do. I am called to love and serve and turn the other cheek. I am also called to go above and beyond expectations. My family is gonna have a hard time with my trying to love and serve my dad. It might really upset them. This is when James started talking about if a person asks you to go a mile with them, go with them two. so it doesn't matter what my family or what my dad expects, I do only what God expects. I go above and beyond the expectations of people.

That was my second lesson.

I know these all seem so simple and fundamental, but it was just one of those situations where everything finally clicked.

It seems I am going to have to save my third lesson for another time.

You are loved.

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Clinging Tenaciously

Hey my friends.
So God has been doing a ridiculous amount in my life thus far this summer. I have been trying to keep people updated and keep updated with people, but due to my limited amount of free time in my schedule, it's been difficult. Therefore, I decided to make a blog. I don't really have time to do anything cool with it at this point so it's whatev. It's just gonna be plain.

I named it clinging tenaciously because of my desire to be like Jacob who wrestled with God, and clung to Him until God blessed him. Though he was wounded, he tenaciously clung to God in the struggle. That's my goal. So yeah, that's the story there.

So hopefully I'll be able to update soon on what God's doing in my life, which is in fact...a good amount of difficult and life changing things.

You are loved.

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