independently dependent on God

Family & Friends... hello!
How are you all?

Before I say anything else, happy belated birthday to the coolest guy I know!


I've been been wanting to update you all for a couple days now, but I've been keeping busy and haven't gotten around to it until tonight. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. :)

Well, nothing too extraordinary has happened in the past week, but every day brings something new! Sunday night I was able to try out a small group through the church of college students. A group of about 25 met at our leader's house. The group is going through a Bible study on the gifts of the Holy Spirit - wisdom, understanding, discernment, knowledge, speaking in tongues, interpretation, and prophesy... (there's some I forgot I'm sure.) So we had a really interesting discussion on a couple of those. I was able to make some connections with a few of the girls in the group that night, and then some of us were able to hang out the following two nights. Monday night we went to a community pool, and last night we went to this place called Sky High Sports, which is a gym with different areas each with trampoline floors and walls. In one area you could play dodgeball, another area you could do flips into a pile of foam, in another area they had a trampoline aerobics class going on, and in the last area it was just a free jump around zone. It was so fun, but my body is so sore from it today!


Do we have anywhere like this in Indiana? If so, you should probably look into going. I kept thinking of some of my younger cousins while I was there, and could see them having a blast in a place like that!


I decided Wednesdays are my favorite days because we have our intern meetings in the morning, and then since everyone is around there's always someone to go to lunch with. Now I'm not just saying this to be nice... but all the other interns are so great! I enjoy them more every day I'm around them. Today was also special for me because I had the opportunity to share with everyone at the beginning of our intern meeting. Kyle had asked several weeks ago if I would share a little about how God worked everything out for me to have the opportunity to serve at Saddleback this summer, and I was glad to do it. Some of the other interns will have an opportunity to share their stories in the following weeks I believe, so I look forward to hearing from them as well.

In preparation for any kind of public speaking, no matter how casual, I always like to write out what I want to say to kind of organize my thoughts. As I was writing out my story last night, I was reflecting on what God taught me through that season of uncertainty this past spring while I was waiting for answers and plans to come together. I wanted to share with you some of what God taught me during those months and what He continues to show me every day, so allow me to skip ahead through my story (which most of you are already familiar with) and fast forward to my implications.

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If I can encourage you with anything from my story it would just be to not back down out of seemingly impossible circumstances, but to allow God to journey through your desires with you. And I don’t mean to say that if God’s on your side then you’ll always get your way. We all know that's not true. I mean for years I've been dreaming of adventuring out on my own and learning how to be independently dependent on God, and yet every summer up until now I’ve ended up working on the family farm back home -haha. But as I held onto this desire, I just told God “Hey, maybe now isn’t the right time, but when it is can you please address this desire and maybe use it for your glory somehow? Or if not just rid me of this desire altogether.”

The other thing I learned from going through this time was the value of having prayer partners in your life. I’ve always felt blessed to have parents who have prayed over my life, but when it came down to such a specific thing and when I felt like my voice wasn’t enough, it really gave me strength to know I had them backing me in prayer when it became too frustrating to even pray for myself.

After getting plans secured and coming out here and everything, there’s definitely even been days where I’ve doubted that this is where I’m supposed to be. There are days I feel so burdened with guilt, questioning why I let my parents make such an investment in supporting me for yet another 3 months, as if 22 years hasn’t made a big enough dent in their pockets. But God is so faithful in giving me reassurance. On the road trip out here it was often through a song that would come up on my ipod, usually something with lyrics about packing up and moving to California - haha. But He would use those songs to remind me of my desire and assure me that he started this in my heart a long time ago and it was part of his plan. Other times it’s through one of my new friends stopping by the office to talk to me or giving me a hug, and by those gestures giving me assurance that even if I travel over 2000 miles away from everyone I know and all that is comfortable, He will still put people in my every day life to love me and to make me feel comfortable and part of a family. Learning how to be independently dependent on God… that’s how I looked at my calling for this summer and our Lord has been shaping me so much through that.
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After I shared at the start of our meeting, the chief of staff spoke to us and he made the point, in reference to my story, that so often God doesn't use our successes to teach us, but instead uses our failures, and periods of waiting, and times of no clear answers to shape our character. And ultimately God is much more concerned towards our character development than our circumstances.