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I'm really quite awful at continually writing posts. I think I mostly just end up thinking that I spend too much time on it, or I just don't anything worth letting anyone else read. Which is mostly all true. Blogs are a little bit of a vain thing in some cases maybe even most cases. However, I do sometimes enjoy the idea of writing down my thoughts and feelings and having someone read it and relate to me, maybe it's just one of those weird things about this generation.

A few days ago I watched "Social Network" with two of my best friends/roommates from Walkabout last year. I really miss them. But Social Network was really interesting, I enjoyed it. After the movie we just sat in my living room talking about how interesting and strange our generation is. How a few years ago Facebook was just being invented and now you can say that all over the world and most everyone will know just what you're talking about or have one. Even our parents. It's not just a Noun now it has been turned into a verb, we have our own Facebook language. That's so interesting...There are all of these new things, and yet there's still nothing new under the sun. I don't know I think people and cultures and such are interesting.

I just transferred to University of Mary Hardin Baylor. It's good I think. Today was the start of my third week here. I ate lunch alone. Which is fine, that's actually the first meal I've eaten alone so far, and I feel like that's some what impressive. I have waves of liking being on my own and waves of being lonely here. I'm looking for a job. I think once I find a job I'll just become more busy and then I won't sit in my little kitchenette checking Facebook and Gmail, avoiding school work and then spending all day listening to Pandora and reading New Testament. However, so far that has been good for grades...so, maybe I should keep this up.

I'm living in on campus apartments, sort of. They're called "Flats" there is one big common room which has a small kitchenette(microwave, frig and freezer, and sink) and three rooms attached to it. There are six of us that share this space. It's not bad at all. I don't really even see anyone honestly. At least not during the day for any extended period of time. They're all sweet though, I like them. Chelsea is my roommate, she's really sweet. We get lunch most every day together and she's been cool to hang out with. We are starting a verse wall in our room. I'm painting pictures (just swarled paint basically) and she's writing a verse over. So far we have three completely finished and we just need to get more paper now.

I've been missing Walkabout a lot lately. Just camp and serving...yes even cleaning. My roommates here have actually called me a clean freak a couple of times, which is really funny to anyone who's ever lived with me.

Last week I went to dinner with my friend Jamie who I was friends with in high school. She is in school at UMHB as well, and actually happens to live in one of my neighboring flats. So, we went to dinner at the Cafeteria with her roommates. Her roommate, Molly, started asking me about how I'm liking it here, and I wasn't quite sure what to say. I told her that at this point I sort of just feel like it's just another experience to add to the past couple of years because a lot has happened and I've been through a lot of adjustment periods. She asked me what I've done in the past couple of years. I told her about moving to camp at the flip of a hat, and then deciding to stay for Walkabout and then deciding to stay for the summer and then not really having a big community in Dallas and just starting that community up and leaving to come here. Just a lot of transitions.

Recently I've been feeling like I should start supporting a compassion kid or kids alive kid again. And Wednesday a speaker came from Compassion international spoke in Chapel. 1) he did a really good job and he painted a really cool painting of Jesus and he was awesome. and 2) I've been wanted to support one...so, I did. And I've been feeling like I need to do it/want to do it because I want to stretch myself to trust God more with my money. To be more efficient with it, and trust that God will provide. However, I told my mom and she was not very happy. And I understand why...'cause I don't have a job and I can't seem to find one (this town is WAY too small to employ college students and all the surrounding jobs seem to be taken by last semester's students or don't fit my schedule). So, now I'm in the weird position of do I decide to continue to support her and trust God with it sort of defying what my mom wants. Or do I follow my parents guidance. I hate the awkward position of not knowing when to be a real grown up and make my own decisions and when my parents should still have full and complete authority over me.

Anyways, I have a lot more thoughts running through my mind but I feel like my ability to compose them into readable form is slipping. And this is long...

NEVER BE SICK AGAIN!!!!!!

This weekend I got sick...

I woke up Saturday with a horrible sore throat and headache. I Didn't think much of my head hurting, 'cause it's fairly normal for me, unfortunately. I had to be in the kitchen at 7:15 to start coffee and do guest help. I reluctantly got up, got ready for the day and stumbled down into the kitchen. I started the coffee immediately, it was a family retreat and they were already lining up for their morning coffee. One pot after another, I complete lost count of how much coffee I made, I know it wasn't close my record (I think my record was 30 pots of coffee in one meal maybe more), but it was still a lot.

After the guest help I did breakfast clean and then I was off to clean Mi Casa (the Eagle Quest Lodge) and the EQ bath house with Kent and Lezlie and Moses. Mi Casa wasn't bad so I decided I'd clean it up by myself, I just cleaned off the counters, moved some bike stuff and then decided to mop. I actually strangely enjoyed it...I usually hate mopping, but for some reason I was sort of enjoying it (I must have been sick!). After some cleaning it was off to lunch and meal clean, then Amanda and I went to the rock site to set up the ropes and belay for some people that might want to climb. Finally, after 4 hours of belaying I headed back to camp, exhausted and with the biggest headache I've had in a while. I looked really pathetic, so pathetic in fact that LA stopped me to ask how I was feeling. She told me to skip meal clean and go sleep and relax. It was 30 minutes till dinner and I didn't know if I could make it through the meal, I had gone to the coffee shop with the intention of checking my Facebook before dinner, but just ended up laying on the couch wonder how I made it through the day. My head felt hot but the rest of me was freezing, I thought my head was going to explode. I decided that it might be smart to check my temperature just to see and sure enough I had about 102 degree fever. And I was sent to my cabin to sleep. I got there, ate a little and fell asleep by 6 o'clock. I slept for a whopping 15 hours!!!

I don't think I've ever slept for that long before in my life, it was crazy!!! But I was really tired. Well, I spent that last day and a half in bed and now I feel a lot better, no my headache, or sore throat, only a cough that's no even too bad.

Anyways, all of this just to say, I missed my mom a whole lot. I always do when I get sick and she's not around, but I really missed her when I was walking to my cabin thinking my head was going to explode! When I was little and I would get sick she would always read me Morris the Moose, Morris Has a Cold, the last line of the book is "NEVER GET SICK AGAIN!!!!!!!!" We would always yell it together at the end of the book!

I Love You a Bushel and a Peck

This weekend we had a big bike race, and a climbing palooza thing. I don't really know anything about the climbing palooza, but I helped with the bike race. Saturday I was a Course Marshal, that was...exciting. Well, maybe exciting isn't exactly the word. But it wasn't horrible either. I just sat in between Boot and Wagon, making sure that no one cut the course, and writing down numbers of racers, just in case there were any protests. I sat there for about 6 and a half hours; during this time I played a lot of solitaire, and did a little bit of my Esther Bible Study, and then I read a TON of Crazy Love by Fancis Chan. It's SO good!

Today we had off, so Anna and Lezlie and I, being the only girls around, and seemingly the only people at camp at all, got Anna's computer, went to the Common room, and watched Julie and Julia! It was so good!
After watching it, I now have a deep desire in my soul to get married and make lots of amazing food for my husband! Haha. Who that man will be, and what I will cook, I have NO idea! But, it's ganna be awesome! :) (The song "I love you a bushel and peck" is now stuck in my head because of this movie, and I sang that song to Anna and Lezlie as I stuck dinner in the oven tonight).

I got hired this week for Headwaters! But I'm not going to be a counselor, I'm going to be the cook and photographer! I'm SO excited! I think it's going to be a great summer!
I've got a lot to learn and a lot of responsibility to step up to, but I think it's going to be great!

That's all for now,
Love you guys!!

One amazing week!

Rain Rain Go Away...

First off, Thursday we spend getting ready for our Mexico trip and then we were all able to have the rest of the afternoon off, so we cleaned our rooms and packed. I also fit in an interview with Erin! :) For the summer position I want as a counselor for Headwaters. Then all the girls spent some time getting all dressed up to go into town for a birthday dinner for Meredith! That was really fun. After dinner at Mamacita's, Kandace, Anna, Lezlie and I went to Walmart for some last minute shopping for Mexico. Well, we got in the car and all was well until it started POORING. It was raining pretty hard, and the lighting was out of control, it would light up the sky as if it were day for a second. After a few lighting built lit up the sky we decided to pray for safety driving the rest of the way to camp, it was still a good 40 minute drive. After praying we were okay, but the rain didn't really let up much, but we kept going and when we were approaching the 8 mile road into camp we started to worry about it flooding, so we prayed again. Everything was pretty slushy until we got to Mile 5. About a quarter of a mile past the 5 mile marker was a large dip in the road. We approached the water and stopped with the headlights shining on a part of the water that was clearly flowing. We weren't sure how deep it was, but we didn't feel good about flowing water at all, especially in Kandace's tini car! Lezlie decided she wanted to see just how deep it was, so she rolled up her jeans, crawled out of the car and started wading into the water. The water went to her ankles, and then her shins, and then to her knees and even a little past, and we she wasn't even to the deepest part yet. The water would have come up to the windows of the car probably. It was pretty intense. So, we turned around to see about driving somewhere with cell phone service. A couple of miles later, on the dirt road we decided to pray that some how we would get cell phone service on the road, or maybe just even before we got all the way to Garvin's or something. We prayed, and started checking our phones, we Kandace's phone is not AT&T, but it started to feed off of the AT&T tower! So, we called Jason. Right about the time we called Jason, LA and her boyfriend Matt drove up in their cars. Well, they tried to get the 1 Ton truck to get us, but they weren't able to so Jason told us to put a rock by the water and watch to see if it goes down at all because by the time we were able to talk to him a second time it was already about 11:15 and that was the time that the flash flood warning was supposed to be up. We were about to drive back to the hill we couldn't get past when the Amigo's that work at camp drove up in their van, and then another truck of three guys. Anyways, basically...the Amigo's tried to drive through it, after the truck had gone through (it had already gone down probably a foot by that time), but the van got stuck and flooded the engine...The truck ended up coming back finally. And after two hours of sitting on the dirt road we were finally home and ready to crash in bed.



World Mandate...

On Friday morning we packed up Meredith's car and camp's Impala and headed to Waco for World Mandate. After 5 hours of driving we finally arrived at Jonathan Berry's house were we stayed for the night. The conference lasted until Sunday afternoon, but most of us had to leave after the last session on Saturday because Sunday morning we left for Mexico. World Mandate is a missions conference, and it was amazing! I think the biggest thing I learned was just the power of prayer, and saw God's power intensified. What a mighty God we serve! It was really cool. Saturday morning probably spoke the most to me. Although, they were all amazing! But Saturday morning had me on my knees crying harder then I've cried in a long time! My heart just broke for all the people who don't know Christ's love!

Well, Saturday night the session was supposed to end at 10, but it kept going past 11. So, at 11 we decided we should leave and finally got to camp about 4 in the morning. I got to my room threw some stuff in my suite case for Mexico, and got about 2 hours of sleep until I had to wake up and get in the van to leave for Mexico.

Mexico...

Two hours later we arrived in Acuna Mexico. It's weird to cross the boarder like that. They didn't check anything no body even came out to talk to us, we just pretty much went straight through, and immediately it was different. There was no middle ground of sort of nice houses, or some English, or anything it was complete immersion. We first went to the Motel we stayed at, called Las Alpes, got our rooms and had a few minutes to chill because Rick and Jason could tell we were all pretty exhausted. Rick Lay was the missionary who took us. He is from San Antonio, but he works with RAM ministries and goes to Mexico fairly often.

After settling into our rooms a little bit we headed out to this church called "The Flood Church" it was in the middle of this little neighborhood. It is called the flood church because every time it rains it floods because it is in the lowest ground and all the water drains right into the church. They are now trying to gain funds to move the church next door where it is much higher ground. But these people are all so poor, they had a time of offering, and several people went up, but it maybe made about 5 American dollars. The church was probably really flooded a couple of days ago...

After the flood church we had lunch, took a nap in the hotel, woke up and went on to another church. At this church we had planned a few things for them. They were having a service and then a block party. This church is working on a building. They have their service outside right now, even though it's so cold! They sang and had the kids come up and sing and had some testimonies. Kent was able to share his testimony with Rick as his translator. After the singing we took all of the kids in the pastor's house for craft time and then dinner. Meredith made them hot dogs while we handed gospel coloring sheets with verses in Spanish on them to the youngest kids, and made gospel bracelets with the older kids! I realized how much I really miss working with kids! It was so fun, even though I couldn't really communicate with them...

The next day was Monday and we ate breakfast and were going to have a Bible study at breakfast, but ended up running out of time. Moses went to speak to this homeless man that was walking up to the restaurant asking for coffee. Moses stopped him and prayed with him. That was pretty cool. I was pretty proud of Moses and all of the Spanish he remembered, and his heart for the people, it was pretty cool. After breakfast we went to this store, much like a Walmart, and bought food for about 6 families. We then took them to a missionary there, she said we had bought too much stuff and we would be able to split it up into more bags, so we made a few more bags and began walking around the neighborhood. The first house we stopped at was sort of on this hill and it was real small house, but actually not too bad for the area. It had three rooms, but they had 10 people living in this tini house! 8 of these people are kids, and 6 of them are adopted because their mother committed suicide, and their father didn't want to keep them. One of the little boys at this house accepted Christ, his name is Gabriel and he is 7-years-old! :)
We also went to this house where this lady lived in this little ply wood shack which holds almost no heat at all and she had just had a baby 2 days before! She wasn't supposed to be up walking, but she was. She went into the house for a moment and then brought out the baby. The baby's name is Norma, she was tini and didn't look very healthy at all. We were all worried about her staying warm, she was wrapped in so many blankets you couldn't even hold her as you would a normal baby. They didn't understand that she needed to be held close so she would get your body warmth.

I was so wrapped up in what happened on Monday morning I can barely even remember the rest of the day. I believe we ended that day with a little bit of building. We went to this church, definitely the nicest church we saw, and they were building a new building for their kids. We helped build some bench's for the kids to sit on.

Tuesday, we went back and built more bench's and helped with a few other things.
Tuesday night we went back to the church after dinner and were able to attend one of the church services. They had worship, which was really neat 'cause there were a couple of songs that we knew in English, so while they sang in Spanish we were singing the same song in English. It was really cool to be able to worship with them like that! After singing we did our skit that we had prepared, and Amanda gave her Testimony. Then Jason said a little bit about Moses and his background and he played a song on the electric guitar.

Wednesday we were supposed to visit with another pastor in Mexico, but it ended up storming that night, and the roads were starting the flood. Jason and Rick decided that we would not be able to make it in to see them. So after sleeping in a bit we ate breakfast at this really cool restaurant and headed over to the drug rehab facility.
We walked into the drug rehab facility and they were worshiping. It was a really cool experience, these people just had so much joy. As we stood there clapping and watching them dance around several of the girls came up and linked our arms so that we would dance with them! They were so full of joy and so happy to be there worshiping together. After their worship time they had a couple of testimonies and them we were able to do our skit for them and then Moses gave his testimony.
The rehab place is completely sustained by burritos that they make and take them to town to sell. This place was really nice, and it is expanding!

Mexico was awesome. Before we went I had told Meredith that I wasn't all that excited about it, 'cause I've seen poverty and I felt like it was going to be more of a reminder rather then a new experience...I started praying that God would give me a heart for Mexico and heart for the people that we met...It brought a new meaning to ask and you shall receive. As I walked back to my room one night with Meredith she asked me how I was doing and how I felt, I told her I shouldn't have prayed for a heart for this country 'cause now my heart is so overwhelmed.

But you have to see an animal...Does Mexico count?

Last week walkabout took a trip to Big Bend National Park. Jason was in California, so Scott and Anne came as our leaders. It was fun to hang out with them more. The trip was good. I wasn't very excited for it at first, mostly because I felt horrible, and I was extremely tired.

The week before we had a group from a school in Houston come. It's a Jewish school and it was really interesting having them here. I went into the week excited, and a little scared to facilitate my first group of highschoolers, and especially highschoolers who don't believe what I believe, it's just different. But as the week went on I ended up getting more out of that week spiritually then I do when we have a christian group here with services and stuff. They were asking all sorts of questions...which was pretty cool 'cause I wanted to learn from them about what they believe but then they were so interested in what we all believe here that we would sit down during free time and just have long discussions about the Bible, I lost count of how many kids heard the gospel from all of us that week. It was pretty cool, but it made me really excited to read my Bible again, and not just read the Bible, but it made me really excited to study the old testimant. They also reminded me of how important Jesus really is. As I was telling the gospel story to one of the girls in my group she told me that they believe that you don't have to be a jew to go to heaven and that you can pretty much believe whatever you want (although I think it was a lot about doing good things too). I thought that was interesting, and a little sad. If everyone goes to heaven when they do "good things" then why live this life, what's the point, I'm so excited to live my life for God, for someone bigger then me. And I'm SO glad that I don't have to earn my way...'cause I suck!

Anyway, this group was interesting and even though we don't have the same beliefes they inspired me to persever through the parts of the old testimate that can sometimes get pretty tedious.

Well, that group was here from Tuesday until Friday and then we had part of Friday off after cleaning camp and then a retreat group came in and I worked Saturday morning until after lunch clean and then I went into town with Kandace and Robert and Josh. We went to TJ Max and looked for some warm things for the Big Bend trip, Robert bought socks, and then we went to church at Oak Hills. Max Lacadoe actually preached, which was cool, but I was a tad dissapointed... I talked to Meredith the next day and we sort of descided that sometimes we get disappointed by churchs because we listen to such good podcasts all the time here, and then we finally get the oppertunity to go to town and expect every sermon to just be amazing and blow us away. And when we don't get blown away we get disappointed. I don't mean to say that it wasn't good...it was just not what I was expecting. The sermon was about a few verses of Act 14 I think. And it was basically just the gospel, which was good, I felt like it was lacking an application for the believer, but maybe that was just me. After church we went to Bass Pro Shop, that was an adventure. I had never been to a Bass Pro shop before. Then we ate at Chick-Fil-A I miss that place! And then a little Walmart run and back to camp.

The retreat group stayed untill Monday, so the next two days was filled with lots of working with the group, taking them on the Sherpa, working the coffee shop, and cleaning meals. Monday we started cleaning right after lunch. We finished about 4 or 5 and then went streight to packing up for Big Bend.

Tuesday morning we packed up and left camp at about 11:30 or 12. It was a 6 hour drive to Big Bend, which wasn't too bad. I slept for a while, as usual, and we just hung out and listened to lots of music. After arriving and taking some pictures at the welcome sign we headed on to find out campsite for the next two nights.

Wednesday was a good day we got up, made breakfast tacos, and headed out to a short hike in a valley which I can't remember the name of, but it was where the Rio Grand comes into Texas. Then we headed on to hike The Lost Mine Trail, which is the second highest peak in Big Bend.

At the beginning of the week Scott assigned leaders for each day and Thursday was the day that Anna and I lead the group. This meant that we had the hiking book and the map to make sure we went the right way. Thursday was also our backpacking day so Anna and I had to make sure we didn't get lost going to our new campsite. The day started at the dark and depressing hour of 6:30. We got up and the stars were still out, no sign of the sunrise yet, but we woke the group up, ate breakfast, packed up and headed out. Starting our hike up Pennical Trail to the base of the Emery Peak Trail where we dropped our packs and summitted Emery Peak, the tallest peak in Big Bend at 7825 feet. After hiking back to our packs after Emery we had a short solo time and then headed on to our campsite, another 4 miles or so up and around. That day was a full 9 mile hike uphill...it felt WAY longer.

Friday we woke up at about 8 having gone to bed at about 8:30 the night before, but barrely sleeping at all. That night was way too long and 5 girls in a 4 man tent got pretty crowded. We packed up and headed back down to our original campsite in the chisos Basin with a view of the window. This hike was much easier, only about a 7 mile hike almost all downhill. My only complaint for this day was my ankle hurt pretty badly and I had to wear an ankle brace the whole day and be extra careful of tripping over rocks. We went to town that night to eat at a resturaunt/bar where we were the only customers for a while until one man who appeared to be a regular and finally a couple of others who wandered in for dinner.

Saturday we were all really excited to have slept in a bit, and have our packs on again, and were looking forward to the hot springs later on that day. First we went to the Sand Dune. It wasn't my favorite but Moses sure have a fun time playing in it. I hung out at the bottom and talked to Annie. After the Sand Dune we went on to the Hot Springs where we just relaxed for a bit. Then Robert, Amanda, Anna, Lezlie and I jumped into the freezing cold water of the Rio Grand and swam across to Mexico then jumped back in and road the current down to a rock where we got out and ran back to jump into the warm water of the hot springs. After the hot springs we went on another hike in the Grapevine Hills where we saw the famous Balanced Rock, which was not nearly exciting as I had hoped. But Scott, Robert and Moses had a good time ditching us to boulder and just climb some cool rocks.

Sunday we packed up and were headed out by 8:20. It was a cool trip. I'm glad I went.

And somewhere along the way I just hiked my cold right out of my system...

I found myself wondering if the uphills would've been easier if I hadn't felt horrible and had to blow my nose every few minutes. But dispite not feeling good at the beginning it was a really fun trip and I'm glad I went, but it's good to be home and it feels really nice to be clean!

This is a Map of the Chisos Mountains. Emery Peak doesn't look like the tallest..but it is. and The Lost Mine Trail is the other one we hiked, the the second tallest.

All of us after a long night at our backpacking camp site, NE 4.

We had an awesome view overlooking Mexico, where some of us ate breakfast.

Just Walking About...

Walkabout is going good. I'm learning a lot. It's really interesting, everyone here is REALLY different. Like just completely different backgrounds and personalities...everything.

Tomorrow morning I have to share my life story...I hope it goes well, and it's not too boring, I don't want to put anyone to sleep.

About a week or two ago I finally got an opportunity to clean my room pretty intensely. Well, I pretty much used my cleaning as a tool to procrastinate...But, it was good! So, here are some pictures of my room/little area.

We're just about to start a lot more classes, I think it's going to be good. But I think I'm going to miss have groups that we actually facilitate a lot too. I mean...idk. We'll just see.

So, I'm learning a lot about myself, and about working w/ other people too. Right now I'm reading a couple really good books! First I'm reading "Just Like Jesus" by Max Lacado, and then i'm also reading "Redeeming Love." They're both really good! I like them a lot. We're going to start reading some books for class, Jason said he just ordered "The Shack," I'm pretty excited about reading that one actually. I think it's ganna be really interesting! We're also going to read a book called "Under the Overpass" It's ganna be really cool! And then in February we're going to go to Mexico and then we're going to go to Waco to be homeless for a weekend.

Well, I have to go to class right now...we have a class on Christian finances with Stacie!

Just a few thoughts...

This summer at church we're going to do this big Gospel challenge thing...It's like this 6-week Bible study basically. There are a few of us that are doing this study over Galatians with Keith, and it's been really amazing, so Keith is having us help come up with questions and write this big gospel challenge. It's really exciting!
There's been a lot that has helped me and is continuing, and will continue for probably ever...to understand better what the gospel really is and why I really do all these things that I do. It's helping me to look at my motives and what I really believe and know in my heart and what is just a fact in my mind but hasn't made it to my heart yet. There's a lot that hasn't really made it to my heart completely yet...But I'm a work in progress! :) ...and will always be...
So, we were told by Keith to come up with a few questions or quotes and stuff for each week of the big gospel challenge. So, I thought I would sort of share a few of them with you. I've just been thinking about a lot of this stuff a lot, and even though it's stuff I knew before it just hit me with a whole new light.
The first thing that I was thinking about is how we all just think of the gospel as the "ABCs" it's just how we become a Christian, it's the story and it's what we believe in... but really the gospel is everything, it should be the basis for everything we do. It's our "A-to-Z" not just our "ABC."
Our book about Galatians says: “The Bible is not just the “ABCs” but the “A-to-Z” of the Christian life” (pg. 2).
Something else that is on that same page, and is actually all an excerpt from a preface on Galatians by Martin Luther. He said, “The gospel shows us that our spiritual problem lies not only in failing to obey God, but also in relying on our obedience to make us fully acceptable to God, ourselves and others” (pg. 2).
If you think about our sins really we cannot sin without breaking the first 2 commandments. Every sin is an idol which we put before God.
“Romans 1:25 tells us that idols are not sinful things, but good and basic things that elevated into being ultimate things. We look to them for meaning in life, for covering our sense of insignificance, for developing a “righteousness” or worth” (pg. 57).
We do this because we don't really believe in our hearts that we are righteous in God's eyes. We don't really understand God's love for us and we're saying that God is not good enough for us and we need something else to make our lives worth anything.
One question in particular that I thought was really good to make people think is “Why does a Christian obey God?” (pg. 76) Usually people might say they obey God because it's what's best for their lives...or because they know their supposed to. Or because it will please God. But these are not correct. Infact, I believe that we cannot please God anymore than He is already pleased in us. The answer is that we obey him out of love. We see the love that He showed us through His son Jesus, and we respond to that love. Not because we have to, or we should, or because God will bless us if we do, but because we understand the love that He has for us and we want to respond to His love. When you love someone you want to willingly serve them, you feel joyful in doing things for them and showing them love not because you have to or you need to win their approval but because you love them...that is how we should be for God.
I was wondering a while ago...How do I make this new understanding of being totally loved and accepted and seen as righteous in God's eyes go from my head to my heart. We had a big discussion about it in our Bible study and the answer ended up being...by experiencing God's love. And we experience God's love by spending time with Him. And making Him a big part of our lives. Not just someone we think about before we eat, or before we go to bed or wake up in the morning or whatever, but someone we think about throughout the day and talk to. We spend all this time sending random text messages to friends...well what if while we were doing that we started writing "texts" or whatever to God. What if we filled that time with thinking about God's love and how he expresses it to us? The big ending question ended up being:
How much time do you seek approval from others in comparison to how much you think about God’s love?
Something else is that I've been thinking about John 3:16 and how we always think of just the verse that everyone knows...but we don't really ever truely think about it. I was reading it today when I was going over these questions and things and I thought it was just a really cool passage. the part that struck me the most was actually John 3:16-21:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but has eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world throught him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."

“But the more you know of his infallible fatherly lover, the more you are able to realistically face yourself, your flaws and faults. The more you see your sin, the more precious and valuable you find his saving love and grace” (pg. 78).