Spiritual Growth for Spring.

Last week was a wonderful start to Spring. I was pleasantly surprised with a night at Color Me Mine with Nathan, went to Peet's for some tea and conversation with Elizabeth, and enjoyed my first Ben and Jerry's milkshake on Friday. Everything about the week was wonderful but then I felt like I took a major emotional dive at the end of the week. I usually don't have conflict with my parents, but this week I did. My attitude was really bad and I was disobedient to them...even though they didn't do anything to offend me. It was just that feeling you get sometimes when you seem to have no idea why you want to crawl back into your bed and cry until you fall asleep. And last night, that's pretty much what happened when I came home from a family friend's house. When we got in the car after a long night with them, my parents confronted me on the poor behavior I had for the past couple of days. We discussed the issues but it still wasn't fully resolved. By the time we got home I just didn't feel like talking about it anymore and I decided to get ready for bed. While in the midst of doing so, I couldn't help but cry. It  had been bottled up for a couple of days and I finally just let it happen.
It was a tough feeling to feel like my parents were disappointed in me. I normally don't walk around the house with a stinky attitude and a scowl on my face like I'm mad at the world. But I ended the week on a bad note...a really special and beautiful week that didn't need to end the way it did. My mom and dad both made it clear to me that they had seen a huge difference in my demeanor through the couple of days and how I've been handling my life right now when it comes to priorities. I must admit that I, sadly, have been failing to prioritize my life appropriately. Although they are fine with me spending time with friends, I can't seem to switch gears to work mode when I'm home. But rather, I'm distracted and messy with the other things that are of importance. Realizing the state if my emotions, I had some quiet time to reflect on my heart. And I found some really sad truths there. I've been slacking off majorly on the One thing that should come before all; my relationship with Christ. And when this happens, when I get far from Him, I lose my sense of conviction on the things of this world that I struggle with. I lose the desire to spend time with Him in the morning, I become too lazy at night to pick up my Bible and read a few verses to ponder when I'm laying in bed. I blame no one else but me for this spiritual laziness. But lately, I have been feeling drawn to spend time with the Lord and to work on our relationship. Which I now am trying to put more time into. This makes complete sense, but when I further myself from the Lord, I have a big change in attitude and perspective and it affects my personality. The result has been more drastic than other times when I've felt far from Him. It's basically like an inward battle right now. Wanting the intimate relationship with Him, but the conviction is rough on the way back. It's my selfishness getting in the way because I simply don't enjoy conviction (like everyone else) but it has to happen in order for me to grow.
So although it was a rough night last night, things are resolved with my parents after I apologized and had further discussion about what's taking place at the moment in my life. I'm really going to try to get my priorities in order and not lose sight of the important things in the midst of the transition I'm seeking.
Pray for me, please :)

Rain, Rain, Rain!

As much as I am really excited for Summer to come, I am so happy rain is the forecast for the weekend! I want to enjoy the gloomy weather as much as I can before the sunny and hot weather comes for the summer time.This weekend is also going to be pleasant because I get to see my best friend Elizabeth for coffee :) I haven't seen her in quite a while and now she is licensed with her dream car! I'm excited to see her and catch up!

30 Hour Famine

This past week went pretty well, though the CAHSEE testing wasn't the most exciting way to spend my time. The greatest part of the week was by far my first 30 Hour Famine experience at Trinity. I was really blessed with a great group of sweet and funny people making up our "Ethiopian tribe". The whole point of 30 Hour Famine was to experience fasting for 30 hours to feel uncomfortable and hungry like much of the people starving in foreign countries. While doing this, we raised funds for World Vision by going to homes in need of yard work or some other form of help to gain donations. Some individuals stayed at the church to do the car wash while there was also a yard sale going on. On Friday night, we had a great time at the "Dancing Upon Injustice" event with loads of amazing dancers all to help the famine's cause. After, we gathered back together and headed into the sanctuary for worship and devotionals. It was so awesome to reflect on the night and have the quiet time before we headed back to our assigned room. One of the fun things we had to do Friday night was to build a shanty, the card board huts that homeless people have on the sidewalks and what a lot of people have as their shelter in struggling countries. Though we had a lot of laughs trying to construct a house out of cardboard boxes and trash bags, it was pretty eye opening to how blessed I've been with a home and a bed and I don't have to build a shanty on a sidewalk. We failed at building a stable one and it ended up collapsing on the floor of our room. So one of our tribal members used a lemon crate box for a bed, that snapped in the middle of the night while others spent the night under tables or in little huts they built for themselves. It was a really fun experience!
We woke up early on Saturday and had morning worship before we started the day which was such a blessing. Then we went to houses and did a whole bunch of work. When we got back to the church we had the "1:30 experience". They gave us all a bus ticket to the public city buses and each group was assigned a market where we would go and try to buy food to feed our tribe with a dollar per person. This gave us an idea of what it must be like for those in other countries who try to get food with less than a dollar a day. We ended up getting a package of warm tortillas, 2 packages of Oscar Meyer deli meat, and a bag of shredded cheese. I don't think I've ever been so excited for a meal as simple and inexpensive as this :)
It was really cool how our group just worked together. We went back to the church to have our last devotional for the 29th hour of the fast and also went over what we learned from the famine. Then we broke up into our tribes again to finally eat our "feast". Before we ate we read the passage about Jeses' fast for 40 days and 40 nights, yet by the end of it He was focused on how men do not live on just food but also by the Word of God. It gave us a really good reminder before we ate together.

It was such a fun experience and I'm so grateful I got to participate in the event!

So, this past weekend was definitely a great one! On Saturday, I got together with a new friend, Nicole for some conversation at a local coffee shop. Just recently I met her and she is just so sweet and such a fun person to talk to! I was amazed at the many things we have in common with each other and time flew by so fast just talking about life experiences and also laughing over a few funny stories about ourselves. I was so blessed to have spent the time getting to know her more.
After coffee, I went to Knights of Originals with friends. It was really fun to see and also neat to see some classmates from Jr. high I hadn't seen since graduation. I'm really happy I got to go to Knights of Originals for the first time.
Sunday started with a great morning at church. We're going through Philippians with just 3-5 verses per week and I love that due to the depth that's in each small section. We touched on humility yesterday and the song "Humble King" was included in worship. Even though we hadn't sang that song in forever, I had been thinking a lot about it this week due to my Thursday night women's study. It was neat once again just to see how it fit perfectly with what had been on my heart during the week.
Now it's Monday and this week I have CAHSEE testing at school. A little nervous about the math, but I've been hearing it's practically 4th grade level. I still hope I pass on that! ;) Even though I have testing, I think this will be a great week!

His Sufficient Grace.

This week has been a wonderful start of a new month. I can't believe that it's March already!

                                                                             Source
Currently, I have begun reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. All I've read so far is just the preface and chapters one and two, but even with that little amount, I feel as if it's completely changed my thinking pattern this week. He is such a gifted writer! I'm going through it with a close friend and that makes it even better. We discussed the book over tea this week and it was just such a blessing to see what penetrated each of our hearts. We ended up with some of the same things highlighted/bracketed in our books, but also some different points that we discussed. What an amazing experience it was to simply talk about Lewis' writing and be able to relate on such a deep level as Christians.
After our time together, I had my community group with my family and church friends. The topic of the night came from Philippians 2:1-4 where we focused on throwing away our selfishness and truly considering others more important than ourselves. How we treat people on a daily basis and how to conduct ourselves correctly in relationships according to God's Word were points in the discussion. A great question that our group leader asked us was, "How can you check your heart to see if you are acting selfishly?" The one answer that popped in my head was asking ourselves if we are serving the people around us out of love. Healthy relationships are made with serving each other like Christ would. A lot of times, I notice that I have a lack of a servant's heart and I'm more obtained with my needs wants.
Lastly, I heard a wonderful Wednesday night message at Trinity Presbyterian tonight. It was so amazing to see how it related to Lewis' points and the discussion of my Tuesday night group. The topic was on the way we think of other people. Many times, we view ourselves more valuable than others and see no reason why God wouldn't bestow grace upon us. This comes from looking at other's sin and comparing it to our sinful lives. Or the opposite; thinking we are lower than others and therefore believing we are undeserving of God's grace because of the things we've done. But both are wrong. We are all sinners and we are all unworthy of His abundant grace. But the beauty of it all is that He never fails to give us grace time and time again and His grace goes on forever. We closed with replacing our usual, selfish mindset to one that is looking at other's sinfulness with the hope and truth that God's grace is sufficient for them just as it is for my sinfulness.
So awesome how everything tied in together! And so encouraging!