Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Attainable Worship

Another corporate fasting day; I love these days. It’s so amazing to see hundreds of people fasting in unison to better the kingdom of God. The day is full of prayer and worship. I especially love “lunch” hour; we head to the auditorium and worship and pray as one. An hour fully devoted to seeking God’s call; it’s life changing.

You can learn so much from these precious hours of worshiping the Lord; especially having no food. I had never fasted before I came to the Honor Academy, but I would recommend it to everyone. It’s an amazing experience to be one-on-one with the Lord and seeking him full heartedly.

As always, I love the worship music within this hour; our bands are definitely gifted. But that’s not what amazes me; what amazes me is how people can come so close to the Lord and be engulfed by him that they don’t care what others might think around them, they just want to worship him. I desire that, I desire that personal connection with Christ; to stand in his presence and worship him fully, no holding back.

There’s a girl I envy a little; she has such an amazing relationship with Christ, that when she enters into his presence she’s so over joyed that she bursts into laughter. She will be worshipping the Lord fully and she will just begin to laugh. It’s such an awesome sight to see.

Within this special hour of worship fasting, there are so many people worshiping the Lord and lost in his presence that it blows me away of how powerful Christ really is. No one cares if people are watching, no one cares if their dance distracts others, no one cares if their singing is off tone – no one has fear of man! All they want to do is worship their Lord.

It’s breath taking.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Creativeness

Have you ever noticed that so many people can be classified with a certain “characteristic” but be completely different then everyone else that’s labeled with that? There are so many characteristics of people: artsy, athletic, romantic, comedic, thrill-seeking, determined, goal oriented, etc.; the list can go on and on. But have you noticed that each person who has this characteristic, skill or talent doesn’t match another?

I know that might be an odd thing to observe, but I’ve noticed that a lot since being here at the HA. There are so many people with the same characteristic/skill/talent but they are completely different then the next person. There might be two people enthralled with music; it’s their life, their talent, their gift, but in no way are they the same. One can sing higher then the other, play the drums faster, play the guitar better, etc.; in no way are their skills/talents the same – isn’t that amazing!

Think about it: there are how many people in the world; and each and every single one is different, not one is the same. Let’s not even talk about skills at the moment, but not one person looks exactly the same – even twins don’t have everything identical. Not one person has the same complexion

Imagine how much time, energy, and thought went into creating every single person.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Phone a Friend?

Since the training session for TheHopeLine over a month ago, today was the first time I had actually gone to help. There was a rather big group of first timers, they gathered us all into a group and separated us into pairs. We were given a computer and set to the task of watching videos; fun no? We sat there for about an hour and half watching video, after video, after video. We watched how TheHopeline works, how to use the phones and the chats, how to answer phone calls and tons of other little important information.

It’s so cool to have the privilege to be a part of such an amazing organization. I know how important it is to just have someone to talk to; to get built up emotions out or to get someone’s opinion. I can’t wait to start answering chats and calls!

That will have to wait for a bit however, I still need to shadow and once I shadow then I’m out on my own.

Scary isn’t it to think of me giving people advice and leading them to Christ.

Father’s Approval

I love how my favorite place to sit is the one place with the most red dirt, bugs, noise and traffic; ironic isn’t it?

The one place that I feel the most solitude at is one of the busiest places on campus. It’s odd with what calms us isn’t it? Things that we wouldn’t think that we would like, do or care for often are things that are our favorite. It’s just another wonderful thing that God has His hand in; another thing that God worked everything out without our knowledge.

Have you ever wondered if God gets a kick out of how He created us? Think of how much fun and joy God has in creating a person. And how God makes our character and personality to work (or sometimes not work) perfectly together. I wonder if God placed corks in us to give Him joy; in a sad mean dry humor kind of a way.

I mean have you ever noticed the gifts, talents or joys that you have sometimes have flaws in them that you need to over come? A saying that a roommate and I always say is: “God gifted writers with bad spelling.” I mean imagine how much joy God gets out of watching a writer with great talent struggle with having to spell.

I can imagine God chuckling to himself while the editor of the writer corrects their work and every other word needs to be corrected. But then I imagine how wide of a smile and how bright He beams when the writer’s work is done, finished, published and printed.

 Imagine how proud God is of that! Imagine God bragging about no matter how much we had to go through we struggled through it and completed the task. He beams knowing that we overcame a hurdle in our life and have grown.

He’s so proud.

And if He gets a good laugh along the ride it’s worth all the falters right?

Friday, October 10, 2008

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let is SNOW!

Two weeks had finally passed since me coming back to the Honor Academy from going home for my step-mom’s funeral. Within this time period I had been going crazy without my laptop; the laptop was destroyed in the car accident on my way to the airport to go home. This entire time I had been without my laptop and was dying.

Waiting impatiently for this day to come, as soon as I was able to go to The Cell to grab my box, I ran to the room to get it. Grabbing my box I ran to a table and grabbed a knife from the kitchen to open the package. Digging through tons of packing peanuts I found my beloved laptop wrapped in bubble wrap at the bottom of the box waiting to be used.

You thought me receiving the box of clothes from home made me happy; imagine that times 5,000. I was so happy about receiving my laptop that I raced through eating my lunch and ran back to the office to turn the laptop on and to hook it up to the Internet; carrying the big box of packing peanuts with me.

Getting into the office I rearranged my desk to plug the laptop in and to get the Internet and then waiting patiently as my laptop made tons of updates. I looked at the box of packing peanuts as I picked up a handful and threw it at my coworker; he smirked and threw them back. Within seconds we had a mini packing peanut war.

At lunch another coworker suggested that I throw them all over our manager’s office; “Let it be like snow,” she said. I told the coworker that I had the mini war with about the idea and he was all for it. I then went over to my supervisor and explained the idea to her; I wanted to do it, but I didn’t want to get in huge trouble. Before I could even get my entire plan out, she was out of her chair and running to our manager’s office. I grabbed the box as the male coworker followed us into the room.

Within seconds the entire office was covered in a freshly set inch of “snow.” We all laughed as we saw what we had done. Thinking of what we could do to make the snow even more awesome we ran to the computer to print off snowflakes. Running to the printer, grabbing succors and tape; we cut out all the snowflakes and plastered them all over the walls. We then grabbed an iPod and speakers as we placed Christmas music on, turned off the light and closed the door. As the other three coworkers entered the office we rushed them over to our manager’s office to show them what we had done; all of them bursting into laughter. We then all ran to our desk’s waiting for out manager to enter.

The supervisor, who sits in front, placed Christmas music on as the rest of us waited to wish our manager a “Merry Christmas.” Our manager walked in as the supervisor started to sing a Christmas song. He slowly walked threw the row of our desks as we all wished him “Merry Christmas;” he looked at us and stood in the middle of the room: “What are you all up to?” We all smiled as we got back to work. He then walked to his office and opened the door as the sound of Christmas music greeted him.

He turned on the light, walked in and then walked right back out with a devilish smile on his face: “You all are insane!” We all cracked up into a roar of laughter. After about 10 minutes we all were called into his office for our daily team meeting; and for corporate clean up.

It might have been a hassle trying to pick up all the crushed packing peanuts, but it was so worth it to see the look on our manager’s face.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Coffee Pot

Isn’t it funny how you can be doing something so simple and it will trigger a memory and it will bring a smile to your face. I often find myself walking to the water fountain at work to fill my water bottle; my coworker and I always go together so we have someone to talk to in the long awkward hallway.

Well today, we walked to the water fountain and I filled my bottle as I waited for my coworker to go to the restroom and to come back; as I was waiting I started to drink my water. I guess I was thirstier then I thought because before my coworker came out of the restroom I had drank the entire content of my bottle; and it’s a pretty big bottle. I laughed to myself because I couldn’t believe I had drunk all that water that quickly. As I started to refill my bottle a memory came back to.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table one morning waiting for my mom to serve me breakfast when she went to make herself coffee, she grabbed the pot, filled it up and started to laugh. I looked at her and asked why she was laughing. She then told me that the night before she was making my dad coffee and she had become thirsty so she started to drink the water out of the freshly filled coffee pot; before she knew it she had drank the entire coffee pot of water and had to completely refill it. I stared at her and laughed; she was always so odd. And then we wonder where I get it from? Ha ha.

As I continued to refill my water bottle I started to laugh out loud when my coworker came out of the restroom. She looked at me and asked why I was laughing; I told her the story and she started to laugh also.

Aw happy-odd memories, not only do they bring you joy but they bring it to others too.