By the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of Our Testimony!

Well yesterday was a missions morning with Faith that Works at West County and it was fabulous! I got to share what I will be doing in Australia as well as how the Lord called me to go there and through just preparing to share and everything, the Lord continued to guide me and reveal so much to me. For the first time I have an uncontainable excitement for this trip and great expectancy of all the Lord is going to do while I'm there! I got to share with two other precious girls who are both going off to do missions in India, one for the summer and the other for 2 years. It was so beautiful to me to just see how the Lord makes us each so different and puts these specific passions and callings on each of our hearts and how even in the body we just get to lift one another up and encourage and feed one another's passions. I ask for you to all be praying for these two girls as well in thier fundraising and trips. I am so blessed and thankful for the incredible women of God the Lord has placed in my life for me to learn from and just do life with. I love getting to learn what being a godly wife and mom looks like and let me just say I could not have better women to watch! 

I want to share this how the Lord has been teaching me through this verse: "When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." 1 cor. 2:1-4. This is Paul talking and I actually just finished wiritng a 15 pg. paper on Paul and his life and ministry and it is just so crazy because the more I learn about Paul, or any person really, the more I can understand why they are saying what they say and where their heart is. I love this verse becuase here is Paul talking...Paul the man who wrote 21 books in the New Testament and was so completely anointed by the Lord to preach the good news...yet he tells the corinthians that he did not come with eloquence or wisdom..that he was fearful and nevous to teach them. For me going on this trip there is a lot of fear about walking up to people on the streets and telling them about Jesus. Not to mention the fact that, I am still a baby in Christ and I certainly lack in much wisdom when it comes to the word of God since I havnt known it for long. And of course, I am not graceful nor eloquent at all when I get up to speak. But this is what Paul says...He resolved to know nothing but JESUS and he proclaimed the TESTIMONY about God. There are two huge things here. First, Paul had to know th Lord more then fear, more then insecurity, more then comparision, more then wisdom...He makes it simple...just put your eyes on Jesus b/c its not about you; this is all for the Lord. Secondly, Paul may not have had perfect words or a ton of knowledge, but one thing he did have was a personal testimony from his own experiences of how the Lord had changed his life. I mean Paul's story blows my mind b/c here is this man who persecuted and KILLED christians in the very churches where he now stands preaching. Crazy. It is also crazy that as I learned about his life, he grew up in a home which basically set him up to be against crhistianity and loyal to the jews only which is a whole other story but to say the least, Paul's life was never the same. In his conversion story in Acts 9, he talks about literally how God blinded him and then when he did what the Lord told him to Ananias came and removed the scales from his eyes...of course physically Paul could see, but more importantly spiritually he saw fr the first time.
So in preparing for Australia and sharing my testimony and telling people about Jesus, I am not going to have the perfect words nor do I have all the answers; but one thing I do know, like paul: once i as blind but now I SEE! I know that once I was hopeless and dying and now I have life, abundant life, and hope and purpose and a furture. once I was a slav to sin and now I walk in freedom and have been made righteous. No one can argue with what Jesus has done in my life. He is sooo good. and so much bigger then me! Ahhhh I love it.

Another thing the Lord has shown me lately is that ultimately, Satan's goal is to make us as ineffective as possible. He will do this by getting us to believe lies which leads to sin which leads to destruction. No matter what we struggle with, satan wants it to destroy us. He wants us to get to the point where we feel so hopeless and so purposeless that death looks like the best option. When someone is dead, obviously they are least effective. The crazy thing about this is, that as a nation, Australia currently has some of the highest suicide rates in the world and there is major spiritual warfare going on down there right now. So of course, the Lord knew this even when I did not, but He is calling me to a nation where it lierally is a matter of life and death for these young people I am going to get to minister to. And what a beautiful thing this is becuase I know that through my testimony and howthe Lord has brought me from that pit of destruction and death to where I am now...I mean by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our TESTIMONY we will OVERCOME! Oh I am just soooo excited to see as the Lord reveals just little glimpses of His will for my life and I am just overwhelmed by His perfect plans and will for me which are beyond anythign my mind could ever so much as dream. He is faithful and He is good.

Aside from everything He is doing and teaching me about Australia, He is ministering so much to my heart and restoring relationships that I have been praying for for a long time. He is continually bringing freedom to different areas of my life. Right now I am still waiting patiently with no fear and trusting Him to reveal to me His plans for me next year. But I know that even if I tried, anything I could come up with on my own or the ideas I have in my head will not even compare to what He already has written for me.

This Sunday, I will running my first 1/2 Marathon with my sweet friends Ashley and Holly. We have been training since December and I am soooo excited and ready to cross that finish line! The Lord has used these months of training and running to teach me sooo much spiritually which I definately want to share at some point. Please pray for our hearts and minds and bodies in this run! We will be running for Mercy Ministries which is so exciting b/c a year ago sitting at Mercy, I never could have imagined I would be running 13.2 miles for the very ministry which the Lord used to lead me to a life of freedom in Him! His plans are so HUGE and BEAUTIFUL!

Speaking of Mercy, last week my sweet sister in Christ Teresa graduated and tomorrow she will be moving to STL to stay with a wonderful family and I'm so excited to have her here!! This is on her grad day...

Last weekend I got to hang out with some wonderful girls and unfortunately the chocolate bar was closed so we filled up on Mexican and gooey butter cake instead!

My one picture from Easter...

Love these women of God the Lord has blessed me with!