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.]