How God is working in me lately.

God has really been teaching me a lot of lessons lately and i would like to tell you all what has been put on my heart. Unless you go to school with me you probably dont know whats happening in my life, so let me fill you in. Basically everyone around me is sick or somewhere around the world doing something dangerous. and not just like cough cough sniffle sick. my aunt and uncle are living in Tanzania for ten years bringing the Bible to 6 unreached people groups. my friend is moving to Zambia for 6 months to preach to the people there. My cousin and his wife are desperately trying to have a baby but cant. my friend's dad has cancer in both his lungs and isnt reacting well to the chemo. my friend from dance [13 years old] was diagnosed with skin cancer a week ago. my 3 year old cousin abigail was diagnosed with leukemia at the beginning of this year. she will be on chemo until she is six. her hair fell out on christmas.

whew... so there it is. my life in a paragraph. well as you can imagine my trust in God was really faultering by the time all this started happening. i mean i can understand most of it the people preaching but my aunt and uncle have never been gone for ten years before. and my cousin. she is three years old. the whole family is christian and of all of them why this little girl? i just couldnt rap my mind around how God could do this to such a little girl. i couldnt believe it was all a part of his plan. i mean SHES THREE! but i was reading her moms blog [shelly] and i couldnt help but get angry because her trust in God is so incredibly strong. she's always saying, "God wouldnt give me a struggle i couldnt handle" and "if this is God's will then let it be done"

i couldnt understand. a young mother was just told her three year old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia and shes saying let it be done if its gods will. i cant help but think that if i was in that position the only thing i would be thinking is HELLO! GOD? WHERE THE HECK ARE YA? i mean i was really truly angry at God for doing this to my cousin. but there were two things that helped me rebuild that strength in my trust. 1. the next day i opened up the blog to see how she was doing and there was just one picture with a caption under it. it was a picture of my cousin laying in her hospital bed praying and the caption said "i didnt tell her to i just walked in and saw her praying"

this was the first time i really understood the concept of having faith like a child.
2. i opened up my bible to read [i know shocker you can actually read a bible when you arent at school or church] some of the book of proverbs and i came to [my now favorite verse] Proverbs 19:21 "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails."

if i got to choose, if my plans prevailed my cousin wouldnt be sick my family would be home with me my cousin would be able to have a baby my friend wouldnt have skin cancer my friends dad wouldnt have lung cancer BUT....

-if life was perfect how would we ever learn?
-if we were fine why would we need salvation?
-if we werent tested how could we ever relate to one another and GROW?

ok im done ;]

hannah

judgement

hey all,

something has really been on my heart lately. so i have no job [no this will not be a pity party this is crucial to the story] and i get no allowance so other than birthdays and holidays and odd jobs here and there im pretty much broke. Each week at church i go to the 930 service for highschool ministries, then the 1100 service our whole highschool ministry goes out to pizza. for this i bring five dollars. the change i have from lunch i put in the offering at the night service. well let me tell you. i dont always get a lot of change whether it be because i buy a piece for someone else or because i get a drink rather than the free cup of water. well anyway.... i sit there everyweek with the rest of the highschool ministry at the night service waiting for the offering basket to go by and not a single person will put in a thing but ill put in my 27 cents and i will be the one getting the dirty look from the ushers!! im sorry i dont mean to be mean to the kids who dont give anything thats their choice. i dont think the ushers should give them dirty looks either but to give me a dirty look for giving all that i have, i find that so awful. it really makes me feel bad about myself when i put in my spare change and get a glare as if im some lowlife just trying to make an obnoxious noise putting all the change i can in the bowl. this week all i could find in the bottom of my purse was a penny. so i put it in the basket cuz i figured a penny is better than nothing right? but no the usher yells at me and makes a rude comment looking at me and saying "ooo rough week? you really only have a penny?" this really hurt me because there were probably 12 adults [mostlikely with jobs] sitting next to me who didnt put in a thing. can someone please explain how this is rational because i truly sometimes think about not putting in what i have just because i have never given my change without getting a dirty look or a mean comment. why should i be the one yelled at?

never assume

ok so "never assume" is something i learned in geometry from my teacher mr alford BUT that is not what were talking about. So all the time at my christian school teachers say things like "i dont know if all of you are christians" or "i bet there are some of you that have not accepted christ" and all the time ive looked at them and thought, "yeah like maybe four people in our whole campus" i mean seriously why would you go to a christian school if you arent christian? it's not like its that great of a sports school or that great of a drama school or that great of an academic school, but we definately base everything we learn off of the bible. So i just assumed there was the odd one or two who arent christians at our school. never would i stop to think one of the "odd" people are one of my friends. but there's this guy i have been talking to for a while who's really been trying to turn his life around becuase he used to be a really angry kid and hated our school and his friends and family [this is not an unusual occurance at our school, i dont have a single friend that doesnt either hate our school, the people at our school, or their family] and i just figured like oh hes going through a really hard time. and so i would pray that he would turn back to god. there it was... the assumption. turn BACK to God. how the heck would i know if this kid new christ before he could have grown up hating our beliefs and never had accepted christ but that NEVER occured to me until tonight. What made me see this tonight you ask???

i looked at my phone and saw one missed message from this kid. i read it and he told me that he had finally read his bible in his bedroom last night and at last ACCEPTED CHRIST! my friend became a christian yesterday and this whole time ive just been assuming that he has been one all along.

I am so happy i got to experience my friends joy as he told me that he had found the love that gets me through the day. It is incredible because he said in the message that he wanted to tell me because im the one that would care. WHAT! of course i care he just accepted God! we arent even that close of friends really but it made me think. if im the one that cares then would all of his closer friends not give a crap if he told them? i mean i cant picture someone telling their friend "i accepted jesus christ as my lord and savior last night!" and that friend responding "... so? why would i care?" that is so incredibly heartbreaking! i know his friends and some of them are christians. [not an assumption i know they are] how sad is it that not everyone thinks that we would even care if they accepted christ? that some christians would just be judgemental of the fact that it took them so long! this is truly tragic

we, as christians, need to show eachother how much we care that's who we are. our whole religion is based on LOVE and if we dont care when one of our friends accepts christ then i dont know what to think! Let's join together in love and unity. [i know im a hippie so dont poke fun.]

love all

so many peope wonder why christians have such a bad name. I have come to the conclusion that it is because of the people who say they are christian as a default. It's become like "if you don't have a religion then say youre christian!" and a lot of people don't realize how harmful that is to the christian community. If a non-christian says they are christian and then goes off and acts like a non-christian then WHAM someone thinks that how they act is how christians act. thankyou. id like to tell all who will listen that not all christians are jerks. Also, another reason is because of the christians who for some reason have forgotten that even if we are christians we're sinners too. there is no excuse for looking down on a non-christian or even another christian for struggling with a sin. HELLO!? we ALL sin. just because you think that they're sin is worse than yours doesnt make that true. for example. I am a devout christian and i have friends who are gay. no, not the term we have made it today to mean every negative thing ever, but literally homosexual. Recently I have had a TON of people tell me that they obviously werent christians because they are struggling with homosexuality. Now this should bother you, it certainly bothered me because is it not true that God views all sins the same. there is not a good sin and a bad sin. They are all equally bad. So, how is it that people think that someone who lies a lot but knows its wrong and is trying to change is any better than someone who has homosexual tendancies but knows its wrong and is trying to change? It's the same and by saying otherwise you are judging and making others want to do anything but be a christian. try accepting them. not telling them you think what they are doing is ok, but telling them in love that you don't think what they are doing is right but you still love them and dont think you are any better than them. you should just want to help. i am not saying that i never do this i most certainly do and its awful of me but i know what im doing is wrong and im a sinner but ill always be striving to change. thanks again to my wonderful friends who keep me accountable! <3

Lack of Seriousness in Chapel

this is actually the issue that inspired me to create this blog. I go to a christian school where every wednesday we have chapel. its like church at school. well, the thing is, the speakers we have had come teach us have gotten worse and worse. this bothered me a little last year but i figured its not aweful so why do anything? but at this point i seem almost morally obligated to say something. two or three chapels ago we came in to see our speaker, an old man who was a professional recorder player. all the chapel was was him playing his recorder and then giving us a lecture about pilgrims. Not once. NOT ONCE was the Bible even mentioned. i was horrified. he was indeed an inteligent man but what has it come to where the bible isnt mentioned in chapel? i, and a few other student are writing the board to speak out against this. Even if you take a random survey at our school, i have no doubt that 90-95 percent of students consider chapel either naptime or another studyhall. How and when did chapel completely lose sight of worship? I'm on the worship team at school [i lead the singing] and all but once we've been canceled. I'm truly afraid that we have stopped seeing the real importance of fellowship and worship. and this makes me legitimately sad. I ask you now is there anyone else out there who has the same problem at their school or church?