Why We Pray

  I have always struggled with prayer.  I could never understand why we would make requests to God when He already knows them. Why would I tell Him what He already knows?  It didn't make sense.  I knew that you were supposed to pray, I wanted to pray, but I just couldn't understand praying.

  With these recent changes God has made in me, He has taught me different things. First, He taught me how to utilize things we have been given, things we can achieve, etc.  Things that I will be talking about in the future.  Then, He began teaching me about prayer- He still is.  As I learn the key to prayer, why we pray, and how to pray, I want to share it with you all, for any of those who struggle as I have.

  So far, Dr. Tony Evans' sermons have been amazing in helping me with this.  I went through a sermon series on prayer, then a series on making God first in your life.

  Communication with God is extremely important.  Often, one problem we have can be causing a ton of other problems.  Example 1:  Your power goes off and you try to flip different switches on and off, then you realize a flip has switched in your breaker box.  That one switch caused everything to shut off. Example 2: A medication reaction is causing you to have ten different side effects.  You have all of these problems, and you don't know why.  You think you're sick, you think you're depressed, when all along it was just that medication.  One problem can cause so many other problems.  With that, lack of communication with God can cause a million other problems in your life and your walk with Christ. Isaiah 65:24 "It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; And while they are still speaking, I will hear."  Before you prayed it, God already answered it. So you're not praying for God to do something that He hasn't already done.  You will make your prayer to Him, He will hear you, and you will pay your vows.  You will also declare a thing, and it will be established for you; So light will shine on your way.  Job 22:27-28

  A good example of explaining prayer is this; Imagine your netflix, itunes, or whatever you use to access your movies.  They all have a set amount of movies that you can access.  The movies already exist, but they don't just show up on your screen.  You have to order it. Now, you can pull up your netflix without ordering anything, but you can't watch anything or use anything.  You don't create a movie when you order one.  You are taking what was already there for you to use. Technology is so advanced that thousands of people can all use netflix at the same time.  They can all order and watch movies at the same time without overwhelming the system or causing it to not work.

  Praying to God and making your requests known, is pulling down what God already had planned.

 When there is something wrong in your life, pray to God, access what God is so ready to give you.  Call to Him.

  Also, God wants your attention.  He wants you to talk to Him, make Him first.  When something goes wrong, He wants you to go to Him first and find out what He thinks of the situation.  Not your best friend, special someone, or mom or dad.  He wants you to go to Him first and find out what He thinks first.  Doing this saves you from all of the drama, and who knows, by going to Him first, maybe He'll make it go away so quick that you won't even need to go to your family or friends about it.  God has the power to make it go away while your friends and family do not.

 So, we have learned that by praying, you are accessing what God is ready to give and that by praying, you can go to God with your problems and find out what He thinks about it, instead of what everyone else thinks about.  From just those two things, (I'm sure there's far more) I think that praying is pretty important!

 I feel like all my life as a Christian, I've been running in circles.  Up a hill, then down a hill.  Up a hill, then down a hill.  I feel like God has picked me up like a mother would pick up her baby who has wandered away, and has placed me back where I am supposed to be.  Not only that, but He has given me the tools I need, the pack I will need, and has told me that I will not be traveling alone.  He will travel with me, He will come with me on this journey, and help me through it.  How amazing is that?  God is so, so amazing!

Deuteronomy 1:30-31

30 The Lord your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31 and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.’

Isaiah 46:4

Even to your old age, I am He,
And even to gray hairs I will carry you!
I have made, and I will bear;
Even I will carry, and will deliver you.

I can't walk this road without you, you cannot go it alone
We were never meant to make it on our own
And when the load becomes too heavy and your feet to tired to walk
I will carry you and we'll be carried on   Rebecca St. James - I'll Carry You

The Truth About Depression

I've been thinking all week about what I wanted to post next on my blog, I wanted it to be something uplifting and encouraging, but I wound up really struggling this week and it made me wonder if maybe that would be a good thing to talk about.  What I am about to talk about is very raw for me and, honestly, this isn't the sort of thing I talk about, but if it helps even one person out there, then it's worth it.

Disclaimer: I do not want pity, "I'm so sorry"s, or anything of the sort for what I am about to confess, the only reason I am confessing these things is to show how amazing God is and to help others who may have these problems and have never talked to anyone.

I've struggled with depression for a long time now.  Depression can be caused by many different things; health problems, medications, trauma, loss, your brain not producing enough of a chemical called serotonin.  All of these follow under the categories Chemical Depression and Environmental Depression.   For me, mine probably comes from many different things dealing with chemical depression; my health, my medications, etc.  The current cause is a medication interaction, which I am thankful for because at least I know it will go away.

 The more scientists study on depression, the more that is being revealed about just how physical of a condition it is.  It was something I never could understand for the longest time.  How could you just not want to get up?  How could you just lay around and do nothing all day and be okay with it?  But then, next thing I know, I'm in the exact same boat.

Depression has many symptoms.  For me, I no longer want to do anything, I feel hopeless, stop eating, and sleep all of the time.  When I don't have depression, I have an extreme drive, I'm a work-a-holic, I always have to be doing something, and I have a lot of energy.  I spend my time working, studying, working out, healthy/productive things.  But when my depression flares up, that all goes away.

Though I take medication for my depression, this week some stress came up at work, my health spiraled, and Satan attacked me the best he could, so I fell back into a depression.  Later, I realized a lot of the depression came from a temporary medication.  I didn't want to do anything or go to work, I had lost my appetite, but what bothered me the most, was it was all physical.  Inside my head, I was with God, praying, studying His word, and trusting in Him.  Sure, I was upset having my health spiral and stress at work, but I knew it was Satan attacking and I knew that with God, I would be protected and would be able to win this spiritual battle.  Inside, I was content, yet these feelings and these physical symptoms wouldn't go away.

I feel as if I've always come out of battles with Satan broken, battered, and often beaten.  This time, I wanted it to be different.  I wanted to take up arms, take up the armor of God, and fight.  I'm fighting hard, and I will continue to fight.

Now I will speak about the spiritual aspects of depression.  Many Christians do not believe that depression is a real, physical thing.  Often Christians think that it is a spiritual war.  I believe that it is, just like how any other illness can be turned into a spiritual battle.  Imagine when you get sick, you're feeling down and yucky.  Wouldn't Satan use that?  Wouldn't that be the prefect time for him to try and trip you up?  That's exactly what he does.  Mental illnesses are a very real thing, and Satan loves to jump on the opportunity.

Now, this leads to the big question; how do you fight depression?

Disclaimer: I am not a mental professional by any means, these are just things that help me and have helped me spiritually, physically, and mentally.

1.  Take care of yourself physically.
Taking care of yourself, physically, something that has really helped me.  If I make myself eat healthier, work out, and stay hydrated, I feel so, so much better.  If I eat a ton of junk food, it makes me feel yucky, and that's the last thing anyone needs when feeling depressed.
Also, try to dress nice, don't let your depression sink into the way you dress.  Put on a little bit of makeup, do your nails, dress pretty.  Little things like that can really help.  Try to pamper yourself a bit.  Take a hot bubble bath, give yourself a mani and pedi, put on a face mask.  Anything that makes you feel good. Drink a hot up of tea, or some hot cocoa.

2. Take care yourself mentally.
Don't let other people bring you down.  Surround yourself with good people who will bring you up.  Try not to scroll through and read the dramatic posts on social media, stick with uplifting things.  All together, try to stay off of social media as much as possible unless you are seeking out uplifting posts.  That being said, read a book, listen to music, go outside.  Sunshine and fresh air helps so much! Don't be afraid to loosen up and have fun, goof off, be silly! Hang out with friends.  The biggest key is that you have to make yourself do these things, because you're certainly not going to want to.  If you actually get out there and make yourself do things, for me at least, it makes a big, big difference. Also, try to keep your room/house clean.  Lack of clutter really helps with stress.

3.  Take care of yourself spiritually.
Another major thing is taking care of yourself spiritually.  Stay in the word of God.  So often when I feel depressed, I won't want to go to God.  I'll feel too down to talk to God about it.  Listen to sermons, read the Bible, pray.  Keep God as much into your life as you possibly can.  Use Him as a blanket! "He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart."  Psalms 91 This is one of my absolute favorite verses and it is so, so true.  I imagine a mother hen covering her chicks with her wings.  By keeping God in my life though my struggles, it has made the biggest of changes.  Something my favorite pastor Dr. Tony Evans says, we need to stay full in God.  We go to church on Sunday and get filled up, but then we usually don't eat again until the next Sunday.  Imagine that you are a car, we go to the gas station every Sunday and fill up, but then we don't go back for a week, so when we do go back, we are running on empty.  Don't deprive yourself of something that can help you so much!  

To help fight depression, I listen to 2 Tony Evans sermons a day, I try to pray as often as I can, I keep God in my mind throughout the day, I listen to Christian music during work, and I watch Christian youtuber girls, and I communicate with Christian friends throughout the day.  It's amazing how much it helps to surround yourself with Christ!  Lately, just praying has helped a ton with fighting these emotions.

My mom always tells me to "tap on the glass".  What she means by this is that there is something far bigger going on than what you see in front of you.  There is a purpose for everything and God has it all.  It's hard to remember, especially when you're feeling down, but it's so so true! 


Don't handle depression by denying it's there, or by covering it up.  That doesn't mean you have to announce it, or anything of that sort.  Come to terms with it so you can begin to heal.  If you bury it, you can't heal.

Something Dr. Tony Evans said in his sermon, "Overcoming Emotional Strongholds";  Emotions respond to what we think. Emotions have to come from thoughts. Who controls your thought life controls how you feel.  If the devil is controlling your thinking, then you will feel like how he wants you to feel. If God is controlling your thinking, then you will feel like God wants you to feel. Emotions piggyback off of thoughts.  This is why we surround ourselves with Christ, instead of sins and the world.  

That's all I've got for this. :-) This was a longer post than I meant it to be, but I hope this helps someone out there. ♥ Below are some links with more information on depression including a video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGJzPBjK67w
http://www.webmd.com/depression/

"28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30






  
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The Journey of Being Saved by Grace

Hey everyone!  As I've stated before, I really want to start blogging again and put more focus into it.  I have a few of reasons for this;  The first reason being that I love writing and I haven't been able to do it much lately, and through texting and short messages, I worry about my grammar downgrading, so through this I can keep up with my writing "skills" just a small bit.  The second reason is that God has done a lot in my life lately, and I want to be able to share how great our God is.  I don't expect many to read, but anyone who does and is impacted in some small way by what God is teaching me will make it well worth these posts.  A third reason is that through writing these posts, I am able to study on the things I have learned about God and I'm able to get a lot more out of it and really learn these things through sharing it.

In this post, I mainly want to discuss the spiritual journey God has led me through.  I will start from the very beginning: When God saved me at 12.

When I was 12, I began to go through rebellious phases.  Now, rebellious phases for me have never been anything terribly big.  At that age, it just consisted mostly of a negative mindset, listening to very worldly music, among other sins.  Right when it was beginning to sink deeper, I remember some bad things going on, and where I would usually want to go sin, I wanted God, not something I had ever wanted before.  I remember praying to Him and begging Him to forgive me of my sins.  Not a super duper amazing story, or anything like that, but God saved me from a lot then, His timing, as always, was and is perfect!  If He hadn't saved me then, I would have fallen down a very dark path and I probably would not be here today.  

Through my walk with God, I have always struggled, like everyone else, but for me, I always struggled to really feel the need for God.  Whenever things went wrong, I always became angry with God instead of clinging to Him, when things were good was the only time I would really pay God any attention.  Praying was always a struggle for me as well up until recently.  

As I got older, I began to want God more and more, and mostly, I wanted to serve Him.  I still struggled a ton with an actual relationship with God, but I did want to make Him happy and serve him, which led to my year with AmeriCorps.  I wanted to serve, but didn't have the money for a missions trip, then I found AmeriCorps and knew it could also help with my future.  

The first 2 rounds of AmeriCorps, I, on and off, was roughly sticking with God and honoring Him as well as I thought I could, even though there weren't many Christians around me.  I had the mindset, at least, that I was serving for God.  I attended churches in every city I went in and got a lot out of it.  My campus city, Vicksburg, MS, was the main church that helped support me through my time in AmeriCorps.  

When I reached my last round, Satan attacked me, and he attacked hard.  I fell far from God and did a lot of wrong.  By the end of it though, I won the battle, thanks to God.  Looking at it now, God tried so hard to get me to listen to Him, but I just wouldn't and it breaks my heart.

That leads to the present time, I suppose.  After graduating the program, I struggled a lot with God and was just very angry and depressed spiritually.  That's when God changed everything for me.  It started small.  I started to try and listen to sermons a couple of times a week, my heart and mind was focusing on God more, and then He began teaching me Himself.  I began to want to tithe and that led to a whole lesson on tithing and the importance of it.  Next, He had me learn about the armor of God and the importance of it and began showing me just what all is there for me that I just have to reach out and grab.  After that, he taught me prayer in a whole new way that I never knew. Then, an idea started to form as to why God was teaching me all of this.  God doesn't do things without a reason. Yes, these are important things to know, but God has to be glorified, so I wanted to know how to glorify Him.

That led me to the idea of mission work.  I have a goal now to get into mission work, and maybe through that I'll even meet the man God has picked out for me.  I also knew that in the mean time, God can be glorified through the sharing of His amazingness, which led me here as well.

In future posts, I plan to post different things on my beliefs and what God has taught me.  I also plan to post some fun things too, such as just life things, fun moments, recipes, etc.  

I hope you all enjoyed this post, please give it a like and follow! ♥

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a
future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Life After AmeriCorps

Hello, everyone!

I thought I would get back into blogging again during my free time.  I really enjoy being able to write and I think this is a very productive way to do it!

So, from the end of November up until mid-March or so, I spent time recovering from my concussion, taking care of my brain tumor and thyroid problems, and other health concerns I had.  A lot... I know!  But I am very well now!  Even with health problems, I know that God will use it to glorify him.

Once I started to feel a bit better, I began to search a bit for a car so that I could get a job, but things went a bit backwards! At the clinic I go to for a majority of my health, the receptionist whom I have gotten to know over my time there asked if I was looking for a job.  I told her when I got a car I was planning to get a job, so she gave me an application.  I filled out the application for Clinic Reception and turned it in, meanwhile I searched for cars.  I wound up getting a car, and the job! Specifically I spend half of my time working under a wonderful doctor doing her scanning and paperwork stuff, and the other half of my time working in physical therapy helping check in patients, registering them, and keeping all of the rooms cleaned and stocked with supplies!  I'm also, soon to be, going to be a fill in receptionist for the clinic itself.  I'm really enjoying the work a lot!

In my spare time with that, I've been spending a lot of time with God, which I plan to go into in my next blog post, also spending some time with Helen and Nathaniel, and studying- a lot!  I've kept busy, which has been nice!

That's about all for now! Soon, I plan to post about the changed I've experienced with God, which will be a fun topic!







“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?"  Matthew 6 :25-27

Round 3

This round has been great so far! I have about three weeks left here, then a week back on campus before graduation! My new team has been wonderful and I've also made a bunch of new friends as well!  I'm pretty close with a few of my new teammates, one being my new sister/partner in crime!  She and I, together, made friends with some people on another AmeriCorps team that are staying in the same hotel as us!  I, also, on my own, made friends with a bunch of students from South Korea who are visiting for a few months.

We are currently in Atlanta, Georgia, but have been and will probably continue to do a lot of traveling!  We started out working in a warehouse helping prepare for any disaster that might come.  Right after being trained on what to do when a disaster hit, Hurricane Joaquin started to grow.  We went to Fort Bragg, North Carolina and helped receive trucks full of supplies for the disaster.  Once that was taken care of, we started to head back.  We made it to Florence before having to stop, that was the day the major flooding hit.  A dam broke 15 minutes from where we were staying.  There was a county-wide curfew in place, so we bunkered down and waited out the storm.  The next day, we had to go through Columbia in order to get back to Atlanta.  There, we got to see firsthand just how bad the flooding was.




Once back in Atlanta, we began supporting the JFOs and DRCs that were being set up for the disaster.  JFOs and DRCs are Joint Field Offices and Disaster Recovery Centers, basically headquarters for the disaster for FEMA
. 


In Fort Bragg, we were able to stay in my hometown of Fayetteville.  It was wonderful to see my hometown, but also very hard.  We were working 15 hour days, counting driving time it was 16 hours.  We were spending all of that time in the cold rain with little to no shelter.  It was like being home, but not able to touch it.  The positive though, was being able to see one of my closest and longest friends.  I am hoping that if we go back, which we are expecting, that maybe we won't work as long of hours and I will be able to see my old home and some more family friends and old friends.  Another cool side was that growing up, I lived outside of Fort Bragg and was only able to go in every once in a while as a civilian.  Coming

back, not only was I now an adult, but I was working in areas of Fort Bragg that not many people get to see! The photos right above are pictures that were approved that were taken in Fort Bragg!



We've all been given a wonderful chance, thanks to our POC (boss), to do cool jobs and interview employees in FEMA.  I am currently working with FEMA Security learning how to do fingerprints. 


Outside of work, I've been able to enjoy hanging out with my new friends, my new team, playing games, watching movies, going out.  We've also been able to do a few really cool ISPs including Beat the Badge where we helped set up and take down a 5k for Emergency Response.  There I was able to meet and get a picture with a SWAT Team.  I was also able to go to the Netherworld, an amazingly awesome Haunted House!  It was by far one of the coolest things I got to do!

We also got to participate in Trunk or Treat as well! It was my first time dressing up, since we don't normally celebrate Halloween, so I really had a blast!


Besides that, that's about it! I am just now finding this at 04/17/16 and am going to go ahead and post it! When I originally was trying to post this, I couldn't get any of my photos to actually go in...

 Anyways, Hope you guys enjoy this months late! We all graduated and moved on with our lives, doing different things now which I will speak on in my next blog!

And lastly, here are photos from graduation! 

 This one is walking into work for the last time! 

Super Late Update

OK, I know it's been a while... A long while...  So here is what's been happening.

About a month and a half/two months ago, I had an accident on the job.  I was still working at Red Cross and I noticed a bunch of thirty pound boxes were on a broken pallet and were stacked incorrectly, so a volunteer and I went to go get a better pallet to restack the boxes.  As we were setting the new pallet down beside the broken one, all of the thirty pound boxes fell, landing on my shoulders, back, and head.  The weight of the boxes pushed me to the ground and I wasn't able to get up until the boxes fell off of me.  I sprained my wrist, knee, and ankle, severely bruised my other knee, and received a concussion. 
A couple of weeks after my accident, my sprains were healing up but I was having a lot of other problems such as serious memory problems.  AmeriCorps talked to me about taking a medical leave so that I could recover.  I said I would think about it, but would take the weekend to try and recover.  I spent the whole weekend in bed, trying to rest.  Sure enough, by the next week, I was fine again. 
After a week of being perfectly fine again, I was contacted and told I was being sent home for a medical leave.  I explained that I was fine, but they wouldn't listen.  Once home, I realized that they make coming back very difficult.  A lot of doctor paperwork and visits.  After a month, I finally made it back to AmeriCorps.  After coming back, I expected for things to go back to normal, but... no.  A bunch of teams were rearranged, including mine, so now I am on another team.  At first I was devastated, well, I still am, but I'm more optimistic than before.  The people on my new team seem really nice and awesome, they've welcomed me with open arms, so I'm hoping for the best!  There's only eight weeks of AmeriCorps left before we graduate! 

Week...... Yeah, let's go with Texas and Floods!

I don't feel like counting weeks, so I'll just start going by normal titles.

We were originally supposed to stay in Mississippi in a town about 50 minutes away from our Vicksburg Campus.  That changed to us travling around Mississippi.  We would be working with Red Cross helping with fire awareness, setting up smoke alarms, etc.   We were to deploy on Tuesday and we would be quite close to the ocean.  Monday, we were told that we had to pack our things and leave immediatly for the disaster in Texas.  Within 3 hours we were in our van off to Austin, Texas.

Austin was absolutely beautiful.  We didn't get to see too much of it due to us being shipped straight from Austin to Houston.  Our FEMA POC (point of contact) told us he didn't want us stuck in an office working, he wanted us out in the field.  So in Houston, we got to do just that.

Here in Houston we are working with the American Red Cross.  We are on 12 hour shifts down in a warehouse.  We load and unload trucks full of supplies like clean-up kits, comfort kits, food, water, snacks, diapers, gloves, wipes, etc, etc.  We also get to, sometimes, deliver these supplies as well.  On one day, I was able to go door to door offering clean-up kits to different home-owners.  One man, when he came to the door, was holding photographs in his hand.  You could tell he was very destraught, and at first, told us no thank you to the clean-up kit.  But after a moment, he told us he would like one.  He told us he was currently trying to salvage photographs in his home...

On Sunday, I was able to go in an ERV (basically a Red Cross ambulance full of food).  We went down a neighborhood honking our horn and speaking through a speaker announcing that we had food and drinks.  It felt almost as if we were an ice cream truck.  Many, many people came to us.  Most of them did not speak English, so communication was a bit tricky.  They were either of hispanic descent or Asian.  One lady was using a walker, so I helped carry food into her garage.  She looked upset and she told me that her power was off and that she was "off".  You could tell she was very scared and unsure.  I wished I could've done more to help her.  I asked if there was anything more we could do, but she said no.  She was very grateful for the little help we could offer.  Almost everyone we spoke to was.

In a county outside of Houston there are homes still underwater.  Roadways that looks like a river.  People are having to use boats to travel, or are having to swim.  On top of this, Dallas had to open some of it's flood gates, sending water to this community that's still underwater.  Now, on top of all of this, a tropical storm has touched land today.  Tomorrow is when it is expected to hit Houston.  Prayers for this would be appreciated.

All in all, I am absolutely loving this work! I can't imagine this work being any better! I love the people I am working for and they have been very kind to me in return.  I have been given an amazing oppertunity to really help people.  As I like to say, I'm not here to change the world, I just want to help one person at a time.  And with this oppertunity with Red Cross, I have been given that chance to help.

Last thing, this weekend, we will either be staying in Houston for a few more weeks, or will be headed back to Austin to go to a FEMA JFO (Joint Field Office) where we would be working in our specialty roles.  For me, that would mean Logistics, which means I would be helping set up shelters, that sort of thing.  Some of the other specialty roles are things like damage assessment, helping set people up for FEMA money, office work, people work, that boring-I mean fun- type of stuff.   

<----- An ERV