A Time to Fast

Alrighty, so I wasn't actually going to post this but my mother requested a post about my fasting so, here ya go madre!

This past week my friend Vic decided she wanted to fast at some point and asked that I would join her. I'm gonna be honest and say I wasn't super excited about it. If you know me at all you know that I love to eat. But, I said "sure," figured it would be good for me and this past Sunday (aka yesterday) sucked it up and did it. Guess what? IT WAS FLIPPING AWESOME. Really, though.

Now, I've fasted before but never for the right reasons. I know that when you fast there should be a purpose to your fasting. There should be a desire to grow closer to or learn from God in some area. But, last time I fasted it was purely fasting for fasting's sake and it was terribly hard. As this Sunday came around I was getting a bit nervous wondering how I was gonna go an entire day without food, much less learn anything from it. (Did I mention that Sunday is the one day a week we get a free dinner? No? Yeah. No bueno. ) However, the night before I felt called to fast about discernment in my life and decided that's what I would do.

Ya'll I wish I could describe what an incredible experience it was. I woke up late (so that i'd have less time thinking about  my hunger), went to church, came back and called mi madre while everyone else ate lunch, went to 2 meetings, had some intense Quiet time with God, went to dinner, and then just cleaned and really dove into the word with Vic. Here's the thing. When you're attempting NOT to focus on your hunger time with God gets a lot more serious. You learn that you have to depend on God to make it through the day because without him you'd absolutely give in. It's an awesome experience. Every time I got hungry i'd just start to talk to God about life and it would help SO much. But more importantly was how obvious God made it that He listens to us and cares about what we have to say.

The discernment I was fasting over was my desires versus God's desires. As in, I know what I want out of life, and they're not bad things, however I struggle to determine whether i'm trying to fit God's plan into my own, or fitting myself into God's plan. So the entire day that was my focus in prayer. I won't get into specifics about what I was praying for but there was one request I made at the beginning of the day about some things I needed to change in my life that I KNEW I couldn't (and still can't) do on my own and God immediately answered it. It's an ongoing struggle and throughout the day as I was put into situations where I had to deal with it I watched as God stepped in and helped me get through without losing my focus on Him. I wish I could fully explain how incredible it was. I could literally feel the transformation. It was so reassuring to realize that God DOES hear us and DOES respond when we call on him in faith.

Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.
Matthew 7:7

Thoughts...

Just a few thoughts from today that I felt like getting out

1. Animals are considered to be BEAUTIFUL. Think about this. We go to zoos, aquariums and even have an entire channel devoted to them. Now, how ridiculous is it of us to think that we ourselves are not insanely beautiful if God created ANIMALS to be beautiful. How insane is it that we have even moments  where we feel ugly when God takes the time to worry about the beauty of even the flowers in the fields. Don't believe me? Check out Luke 12:28. GOD LOVES US. He created us with the hands of an artist. With love, purpose, design, excitement. He delights in who we are because we are beautiful.

2. I really need to work on respecting God. Funny, because I normally think of myself as being a pretty respectful person. Having grown up with teachers for parents, I learned fast how much disrespect hurts people. But, I was reading through Numbers 15 today and when I got to verse 30 the words just CRUSHED me. I am so terrible about sinning with defiance. Honestly, how much worse is it when you KNOW what is right and choose to do otherwise. How selfish, cruel and just disrespectful of us is that? Yet, even in the past few days I can think of multiple times where AS I was considering doing something I thought, "Well, this isn't really right, but it's good for this moment. So, just this once, then I won't do it again next time." hahahahah How ABSURD! Does it really matter if I don't do it next time if I've already completely disrespected the person, or in this case, God in that moment? I think of all the times I've been angry with my sisters for doing something I've told them multiple times not to do and watched them do it right in front of me. How hypocritical is it of me to not forgive them for those things, or to reach out in anger when I do the exact same thing to the God of the UNIVERSE on a day to day basis. Ridiculous. Thank goodness He is also a God who forgives....
             Hebrews 10:17


3. Morning quiet times are the best! I am NOT a morning person but around here when your apartment gets up you do too. And honestly, it's been awesome for my quiet times because I've started becoming the person who can't go back to bed once i'm up. Crazy right?? I read a verse today about how Christ was dealing with a bunch of insanity from people (per usual) and woke up in the morning and sought out a quiet place. Even Christ needed some time away from everything in the morning to talk to God. Maybe it's just me but being that I'm really beginning to realize how much i need morning quiet times to start off my day, it's super encouraging to see that Christ did it too. I love when God gives you stuff like that just when you need it.

الحمد لله  

Created by Yahweh

I wish I was better at these posts but there's always too much to tell and half the time it's impossible to describe what's going on. So I apologize for the consistent lateness and length of these posts. Here are the highlights of the past week:

July 4th!

For the 4th of July we had a BBQ near the Bay where we live. We all made dishes, had lots of games going (football, death hack, frisbee, soccer, you name it), and were able to invite people we had met throughout the week, whether that be coworkers, students on campus or just people at the beach. It was an awesome night of food, hanging out, and getting to watch 5 different fireworks shows over a bay. It was also just an amazing reminder of how much God has blessed all of us in giving us the chance to be here. 

July 7-10
So, on the 7th we had women's night and being that this was our first women's time without staff, one of the girls got to speak. Ya'll, I WISH I had her talk to give to people. She spoke about being created in the image of Christ, but instead of talking about how it's what's inside that matters and that's how we're created in the image of Christ, she talked about looks. It was FABULOUS. Honestly I wish I could send it to every girl I know. And heck, guys for that matter. She came at it from the perspective of an artist and it was quite possibly the best talk on image that i've EVER heard. Honestly I'd love to discuss it further with people. So if you all are interested let me know. I'd love to freak out about it a little more=] Anyways, the REASON I wanted to tell you all about this is to set up how awesome God has been this week. Body image is not something i've ever felt like i really struggled with but after hearing that talk God completely called me out on some areas that I do struggle with it in a totally different way. (Part 1)

THEN, the next evening another friend spoke at FNL about freedom from the sins that hold us back from growing in our faith. Well, because of the talk the night before I knew exactly what that sin was for me and was wrestling with it throughout the talk. It was honestly one of the harder talks I've listened to while being here for a few reasons and completely God ordained.

Finally, on Sunday, our pastor talked about how so often we attempt to take the sins that we struggle with and change ourselves for the better and just end up getting frustrated because nothing happens. Surprise, surprise that's exactly  where I was at while listening. But he just spoke on how we cannot change ourselves and have to give it up to God because only he can change our hearts. It was awesome to watch God work in those 3 days and take me from recognition of my sin, to realizing it doesn't have to hold sway over me forever, to realizing that I cannot change myself on my own. Sometimes you just have to look a little harder to see how God's working=]

EXTRAS
 When we went to UCSD this Monday some awesome conversations took place. First, on the bus, my friend Vic and I started talking to this older gentlemen who i SWEAR might be the world's most successful man. his name was Rye and he was born and raised in San Diego, his father was in the Navy and died in the Battle of Midway. He himself was in the marines for a bit, then worked at NASA and then owned an airport for a bit. He married a woman from New Zealand and retired there but is an attorney and currently working on a major case in the federal courts about water company corruption in California, while simultaneously writing the screenplay for a movie called The Battle of Midway (2014) starring Harrison Ford and directed by George Lucas. He's then been requested to possibly help work on a screenplay for a movie called Sharpen your Knives about a woman who gives up everything to go to culinary school abroad. His daughter happens to be a Professor of Chinese at Stanford and his son is a doctor. No big deal. He's just the world's most interesting man. Oh, and did I mention he was a super legit Christian? No? Oh yeah, well he was. If nothing else, the people we get to talk to here are incredible and hearing their stories is one of the absolute best things about sharing our faith.

Later we also got to talk to agirl named Monica and a guy named Daniel, though neither were Christian both believed in God and were so open and willing to talk to us about faith. At the end of our conversation with Monica she even asked whether or not we needed suggestions of good places to go to find people to talk to and pointed us in the right direction! God uses people, even if they're not aware of it. Daniel on the other hand was interesting because he was ridiculously knowledgeable about many things and was definitely searching for God and wanted to find out about religions and who people thought God was. His family and girlfriend are all Christian and so we're just praying that God works through them and continues to draw Daniel towards himself.

Last night I went downtown with some friends and we just all hung out, watched a movie and generally enjoyed chilling out somewhere that wasn't La Jolla, Santa Clara, Old Town or Mission Bay. It was great=] Tonight my prayer team has organized a Concert of Prayer and although i'm a bit nervous it should go over really well and I can't wait to see how God uses it. Tomorrow a bunch of friends and I are going to the San Diego Zoo!! I'm unbearably excited=] I LOVE zoos! Anyways, so that's pretty much my life thus far this past week. I love you all and cannot wait to catch up with everyone when I get back!

Isaiah 40:28-31

Set a Fire Down in my Soul that I can't Contain, that I can't Control...

SO much has happened in the past week that I've wanted to put out there for ya'll, but I just haven't been able to  figure out how I'd put it all into words. Well, I still haven't figured that out but I've decided I should at least attempt, so here we are. So I'll just a list a few of the awesome things that happened...

Women's Retreat
Last weekend we had men and women's retreats. So traditionally, when the guys leave the girls do somemthing fun for them as they return and then the gents reciprocate. So, the guys left on thursday and came back friday night to banners, food, letters of encouragement and just an absurd amount of decoration in Man-Land (where the boys live here at project).

Then, all of us ladies got to leave that evening and we returned on Sunday. We like to assume that the reason our retreat was longer was to give the guys more time to think about what they'd do for us=] I'll be honest, when we left for the retreat I wasn't super excited. I tend to have a lot more fun hanging out with guys than I do with girls and even though I ADORE all the amazing women i've met here at project it was hard to convince myself that it was going to be all that fun. WRONG. Women's retreat was AMAZING. I got to know so many more of the girls here and made some great new girlfriends. They took us to a campground in the middle of the desert with a sweet playground (fastest slide i've ever been on), an obstacle course and a pool. I can't talk about everything that went on, but suffice it to say that it was an incredible retreat and by the end I wished we could stay longer. However, as soon as we got home we couldn't have been happier o be back=] The boys had cleaned the main rooms of our apartments, left us flowers and a big bowl of chocolates. Then,  to top it off they had invited us to a formal, "Welcome Home Dinner". So, that evening we all got to dress up, be escorted to tables, served Stromboli (made from scratch might I add), salad and dessert by the lovely gents. It was such a fun evening and definitely a wonderful welcome home=]

At the Women's retreat

One of our servers=]

Leadership Roles
One of the coolest things about Summer Project is the fact that half way through the summer, the staff leave. The idea is that much like Jesus did to his disciples, the staff teach us what we need to know about how to lead and do things on our own here and then leave us to go out and live it. So, at the beginning of project we are split up into different ministry teams. Each team is led by 2 staff members--one guy and one girl. Then we have 4 people that are head of the project overall. So, when the staff leave others have to fill those roles and students take on those leadership positions and become the summer project leadership team. I'm on the Prayer and World Vision ministry team. Which, is already God giving me a second chance since I was asked to think about leading the Prayer Group at school and ended up deciding not to. God has an amazing sense of humor. Well, about a week ago my DNA (small group) leader, Beth, came up to me and asked me whether i'd like to accept the role of the female head of the Prayer and World Vision Team. It was SUCH an incredible, humbling and encouraging blessing to know that they felt like i was someone who would do well in that position. I was ridiculously excited but that pretty much fell to pieces that evening. Every sunday we have a project-wide meeting where we all get together and go over some announcements and whatnot and then end it with prayer. Well, I had previously signed up to run the prayer time at the end of the meeting not realizing that i was going to be announced as the female head of the prayer team right before that. GAH. I was sitting in my chair FLIPPING OUT as I was waiting to go up. I don't mind talking in front of people but this was my first time doing it here and RIGHT after being announced as a leader. I was feeling the pressure (which of course no one else actually was thinking much the less worrying about). But, it went well and it was so encouraging afterwards to have a few friends that i really respect come up and tell me how well I did and how excited they were that i'd gotten that position. It was just such an amazing God moment.

Our Head Leadership Team=]

Incredible Night of Reflection
Every week we have a NOR or a Night of Reflection where we just spend a couple hours with God. When I first got here this summer, one of my main struggles had, in all honesty just been completely taken from me. It was incredible. But in the past week and a half it's come up a lot and i've been having a really hard time understanding why I can't just let it go. But this last tuesday I got the chance to sit out on the beach and truly talk with God. If you've never had the chance to just tell God everything you feel and cry and laugh with Him. I highly suggest it. I don't do it often as I wish I did, but every time it is an incredible reminder of HOW GREAT our God is. Especially given my ability here to just sit and enjoy God's creation. Heck, a DOLPHIN swam by as I was doing this, AT SUNSET. Yeah. God is incredible. Anyways, to wrap up this little section, i'll just say that while i'm still struggling with some things I know that God is with me though it and that as it says in Isaiah 41:10--


Do not fear, for i am with you. Do not dismay for I am your God. I will strengthen and help you. i will uphold you with my righteous right hand.


And, so, I won't

.

Staff Farewell Banquet/Departure
The other evening was the staff farewell banquet. It was just a fun time to get dressed up and honor the people who have been pouring into us over the past 4 weeks. They have been such a blessing in our lives. But, knowing the people that have been picked to replace them i'm REALLY excited to see where God takes this project. We have so many incredible leaders among us and even more who are beginning to see and make use of their leadership potential. I truly believe that God gives everyone a gift to use for the his Kingdom, and in the past week as our leaders have stepped up and begun running things on their own god's hand has been incredibly evident. I cannot wait to see where the rest of this summer takes us.=]

During the Staff hunt.

                                              Set a Fire--AWESOME song.