Body so small, With faith so big.....

Recently in my life I have been tested with having faith. Not that I haven’t had faith in the past, but I have not the type of faith that will get me places. So many different things have occurred in my life over the past year that have tested my faith to extreme measures. Getting into the school I wanted, being able to pay for the extremely high cost of that school, family issues. There are so many things that require faith in our lives on a daily basis. I was just not understanding the type of faith that I needed.

So over the summer I went to a christian summer camp, the same one that  I have been going to for years. Camp Gilead! This camp runs from the ages of 8-18. The majority of the week, well actually all of the week the younger children stay completely separated from the older teenagers. This year one night they decided to have the teenagers go into the night chapel with the junior campers. Lets just say God moved and my life was changed. More so wrecked!

I got to see so many young children, (many of whom I know) crying out to God and worshiping him. With so much faith and persistence, with the same faith that they believe that there is a jolly old man named Santa that manages to fit into a chimney christmas eve to give them presents, and with the same persistence that they have when they really want a candy bar, or to just stay up 5 more minutes. 

This type of faith was the most refreshing thing that I have ever laid my eyes on. To see a child so young barley able to wrap their mind around who God is and what he does yet believing so much that he will meet with them. This made me think “What is wrong with me? Why do I not have this child like faith?”

So something inside of me began to shift I wanted this faith I longed and yearned for it. When I got home from camp about a week after my mom had gotten a message from one of her friends that works with an orphanage in San Lucas, Guatemala. They have been asking us to go and visit them and come work there for a couple years now and nothing has ever lined up. My mom mentioned it to me as she always does and thats when it hit. “This is what God wants me to have faith for.” So I looked at her and said, “We are gonna get there!” and she just said “okay.”

The next morning I looked up plane tickets and nagged my mom telling her we are gonna go. It instantly became my passion, more so my obsession. Everyday I began looking up information about Guatemala and the orphanage and telling my mom something and telling her that we are gonna get there that I have CHILD LIKE FAITH. 

So now it is the test the letters have been sent, prayers are being prayed. I have Faith and believe that I will get to Guatemala. My child like faith started with the sight of children. When will your Child Like Faith Begin? 

“He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain,‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” - Matthew 17:20

And then I realized............

Today I spent the last day of my summer with some of my favorite people. On an amazingly beautiful island. I got to go to Block Island. My day started with me being amazed at the view that I had driving up. Driving through connecticut and Rhode Island as the sun was rising through the fog was an amazing sight. 

Throughout the entire day I would just stop and gasp at the amazing glory that God was placing around me. From the cool squid at the “aquarium”, to the amazing waves crashing on the shore of the black sand beach, to the drive home on the ferry with the sun setting over the ocean, and being able to look out for miles and gaze upon the sun-kissed ocean. Awestruck was the only thing that I could feel.

For someone to think that there is not a God, is just beyond me. There is no other explanation for the amazingness that goes on around you. On the drive home in the car we were listening to the XM radio and Casting Crowns “Life song” came on. (for those of you that are unaware of this song the link is at the bottom) I began singing the words at the top of my lungs with it being a song that I have sung for years now. When it hit me..........

“Am I truly meaning the words that I am saying? Do I really want my life song to sing for God.”  Then my attitude changed while singing the song, I was not just effortlessly belting out the words I was singing them and meaning them. “Let MY life song sing to you, I want to sign your name at the end of each day knowing that my heart was true, let my life song sing to you.”

There is power in the words that we sing and say. We do not realize that just singing along to a ever so familiar tune while driving home exhausted from a long day can have so much meaning. I no longer want to live my life song each day not doing everything I can to glorify my creator. I want to take up every single opportunity that I have to glorify and praise my true father. My life song from this day forward will be sung each and every day for God to live out my purpose in this world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaia32TsPq0

Lost, But Not Alone

Being new to this whole blogging things is really intimidating, sitting behind this computer screen not knowing what the reaction will be. I am just an 18 year old girl getting ready to start this journey called life, can I really truly impact someone? Well here is my first try at it. I hope that you read and take in every word and attempt to connect in whatever way possible.

So a little bit of background on me I was born in PA and my parents were pastoring a church. When I was two my parents had gotten a divorce and my father stepped down from pastoring. So I literally was born into my faith I wasn't someone that needed to find my faith, well this is what I thought anyways.

Growing up my mother was always adamant about having my brother, sister, and I go to church every Sunday no matter what you were at church. If you were sick you got sick there and all of the "super holy prayer ladies" would pray for you. Of course at the time I found this extremely annoying but now I am so incredibly thankful for it.

So every Sunday I would go to church and every Sunday I would follow the same routine sing a few songs, raise my hand, always give the answer "Jesus" in children's church, " I mean come on you are at church so that has to be right." It wasn't until three years ago that I finally realized I was doing it ALL wrong and when I say it ALL I mean it. 

I was never the girl that went out and partied or hooked up with every guy. I was worse I was the girl that was the perfect Christian inside and outside of church, that walked around judging and condemning condemning every other person around me for not believing what I was believing, this became the most dangerous thing. Instead of living out my duty as a follower and believer of Christ I just let people know I "Loved" Jesus and then made myself seem better than they were. It got to a point where I fell into a deep and dark depression. I was at my lowest point I still put on the good church girl face that everyone expected and I hid my depression so well. 

For me it was something that I was used to hiding behind my anger at my father. Hiding behind the fear of never being loved. Hiding behind whatever I could yet making it seem like I had it all together at all times. I was LOST, I was brought to the point where the devil was stealing every bit of joy that I had inside of me and he was feeding me lie after lie. I was sitting in my room one day in the dark alone with no one home and I was getting ready to create the first mark on my body to get rid of the internal pain. I began screaming and crying out to God like such a fool asking him to take me from this darkness that I didn't want this for myself. I was LOST but I was NOT alone for in that moment God came and he rescued me he took away every pain that I was feeling and told me that I needed to come to this place to realize what I was doing wrong and what he meant to me.

So if you have been there or just simply feel lost with all of the chaos going on around you cry out to God because he has your back he is there cheering you on the entire way. He has mapped out your story and is just waiting for you to uncover the pages one at a time. This next part of our journey we will not be alone.-Michaela

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=722zPX1npcA