Friday, August 27, 2010

Sunrise

This morning I got up to watch the sunrise. It's kind of hard to see, considering that our entire property is surrounded by trees, so I stood in the read. Now, if you live in a place where there's a lot of traffic, you're probably thinking I'm nuts. But we live on a dirt road, traveled by about 2 vehicles an hour, which you can hear approaching from literally a mile away. Anyway, I stood in the road and talked with the Lord for a little while, while watching His beautiful sunrise. It was wonderful!Psalm 113:3 From the rising of the sun to its going down, the LORD’S name is to be praised.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Hello all! God has been SO good to me lately! About a week ago, life seemed really hard and wearisome. I felt distant from the Lord, and it felt like He wasn't feel as real and present as He truly is. Then I realized... I had hardly even read my Bible for several days! No wonder I didn't feel the Lord's presence! I decided to listen to a sermon on my iPod while doing my chores. Actually, I decided to listen to the first part of a 6-part sermon called "True Gospel," by Paul Washer. WOW. It is amazing! Through it God gave me a greater grasp of His holiness, my sin, Christ's sacrifice, and His amazing love and mercy. I was listening to Part 4 last Saturday, doing some chores, and praying. About half-way through, the Holy Spirit started to do a major work in me. I just fell to my knees and cried, realizing how great my sin truly is. Even after the sermon was over, the tears continued to fall as I spent much of the afternoon with the Lord - praying, singing, and reading His Word. Oh, it was so wonderful! My joy was restored as I read in Scripture of God's amazing love and forgiveness.

The Lord has been drawing me closer and closer to Him, raising my standards, purging me of sin, and ripping idols out of my life. Let me tell you - being carved into His image is not easy, and it's usually quite painful. But oh, the joy it brings! There have been a few things I have faced even in this last week that have been very hard, but He is such a Comforter, such a Friend! Please, please pray for me - it's often difficult and painful to let Him smash all of the idols in my life, but it's so necessary! I'm falling more in love with Him, and praying that I will be more like Him. He is so good!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

My, oh my!

My goodness! Life has been good but very busy lately. I turned 15! So now I'm all old and wise and mature and all that - NOT! :-) God's been doing such amazing stuff in my life!

For my fifteenth birthday, I had 4 of my very close freinds over - Kyla, Emily, Kara, and Kelsea. Great girls! We stayed up til 5:00 AM (or later ;) ). We atched 4 episodes of my very favorite show ever - Sue Thomas F.B.Eye. It's about a deaf woman who's an F.B.I. agent and it's really awesome (minus a couple of moments in a couple of episodes, which I do not give my approval to.) Also, we did our nails, talked laughed, sat around the fire, and took a walk out to the beautiful field with the windmills, which I do believe I have mentioned before. It was asuch a wonderful time!

Cody is back from Circle C! I missed him SOSOSOSO much, as you know! He's such an amazingly awesome brother. :)

Erik is moving to Kentucky in less than a month!!! Wow... it seems so crazy. He will be 6 miles away from the Creation Museum, which is why he's moving there. That way, he will be able to work at the office. He's bought a little 2-bedroom house, and we're going down in a couple weeks to help him get it fixed up and ready to live in!

Our youth group went on a camping tip this past weekend. It was really neat! We stayed at the home of one of the guys in our youth group - they have a big yard and were very generous to let us all camp out there! We went rafting on the Genesee river at Letchworth, and we also went hiking and swimming there to. It's SUCH a beautiful place! For those of you who are reading this and are not from New York: Letchworth is a state park with a huge gorge and some spectacular views! God's creation truly is amazing. I grew a lot closer to God this weekend, too!

Today is my dad's birthday! We didn't do much for it though. :( We wanted to, but life's been so crazy that we didn't end up getting anything ready in time. So we will probably celebrate it more another day.

Cody, Erik and I went to my wonderful friend Abby's presentation about her missions trip to Mexico this evening. She went on a missions trip to Chiapas, Mexico this summer and tonight she told us all about it. Afterward we all stayer around for a while and had a TON of fun!!

All in all, God had been really, really amazing lately, and has been teaching me a lot about standing up for my faith - especially when it costs me something! I need Him so much... may He get all the glory in my life!