when everyone else is partying.

When I was in the airport last weekend, I was reading my Bible.  underlining... writing notes... book after book.  Philippians.  Galatians.  Ephesians.  1 and 2 Thessalonians.  Got home - 1 Timothy.  Just reading reading reading.   All the way home from school today,  my heart was praying, "God just change me... make me different.

It's sure been hitting me lately how so many of my friends are off partying, changing, going after the world... kids I've grown up with, kids I just met.  I don't go to a Christian school and I see stuff.  I saw stuff last semester in the hallways, I hear people talking about life after death, demons... it sends me to my knees.  I realize just HOW MUCH of a battle we're in.  I want to be different.  

One of my friends I haven't seen since last semester came up to me during lunch today and I got up and gave him a hug.  I miss these people so much!!  Right after, my phone rang and it was one of my friends from church.  I answered and she was just crying and crying.  She was in a car accident this past year and really messed up her back and is going into a treatment today where they're putting all these needles into her back for an hour... she was so so so scared.

I just fell back into my chair and my heart broke. We prayed together and we talked for a little bit until I had to go.  Also today, one of my sweet friends from 4-H is my partner in Psych.  I love her to death and talking with her about how to deal with our research project since we are Christians... just all these things.  God is changing me with these things.  I am realizing just how much every every every single day this is not about me.  This is not about me and I am just an instrument.  

So lately, I've been really thinking about what it means to be salt and light.  I spend just as much time with non-Christians as Christians.  I realize how much time I need to be in the Bible not as a duty but because my heart needs it and I desire it.  I need it.  I want it.  When I am in the Bible and reading and reading, I do not want to stop.  I just want to relentlessly pursue GOD... His LOVE is so strong so strong so strong. I'm starting to see what David means in Psalms by my heart longs for Jesus.  It's changing me. <33

I got a text from a girl I just love so much that I haven't heard from in a really long time... she asked me to pray... told me how she took a knife to her Bible.. just how much she is struggling with God really hearing her.  I realize just WHAT A BATTLE we're in.  It's changing my focus. I just want to be a person filled with prayer.  I just want to pray more.

There is this boy in my Psych class and he was homeschooled as well and just by LOOKING at him you can tell he is different.  You can tell he loves God.  He just GLOWS Jesus.  He is always smiling, always respectful, always full of encouragement for people and I can tell he is always praying.  It totally just makes my day to be around that.  Jesus is doing something in this generation and it's changing my focus.

I've been praying for a long time for wisdom.. wisdom on how to be a friend, how to love, how to share Jesus... but I realize now in reading the Word that Jesus is calling me to trust..  I'm praying that He will lead my steps.  Death is beaten.  Jesus is alive.  Freedom is here.  Freedom is in Jesus.  I want to take that to the world.  It's changing me.  It's changing my focus. 

Lately, I've been realizing how I just don't have a desire at all to listen to bad music anymore or party like a bunch of people I know.  Jesus satisfies and is CHANGING me.  This desire that burns in me is to show Jesus.  to live Jesus.  to be like Jesus.  it's changing me. 

As I was praying on the way home about allll of this, a song came on the radio that I have heard so many times.  For some reason I really listened to the words and I totally just went "oh my goodness.  woah." 

haha it was one of those

knock my socks off moments. 

I want to share it with you all.  It's what is on my heart.  It is what is playing in my mind.   It might be the senior year of high school and so many people I know are fleeting away down paths that destroy... but this is the prayer of my heart.   I've bolded the things that really stuck out to me the most...

And I won't try to pretend

I've got it all figured out
I don't have any doubts
I've got a busted heart
I need You now
Yeah, I need You now

(Chorus)
Hold on to me, hold on to me
Don't let me lose my way
Hold on to me

I am the wandering son
Your love is never enough
I keep chasing the wind
Instead of chasing Your love
I'm screaming out Your name
Don't let me fall on my face
I've got a busted heart
I'm in need of a change
I'm desperate for grace

Hold on to me, take all of me
Don't let me lose my way
Hold on to me

Broke Your heart a thousand times
But You've never left my side
You have always been here for me

You never let me go
You never let me go

these are the verses me and Val are memorizing right now...  it's really encouraging me.  reminding me what matters - to keep going - to keep loving on people... and that this is NOT ABOUT US but about God.. this power is from God.

it's beautiful to be an instrument for Jesus. <3 I need God I need God I need God I need God I need God I need God.

⁷ But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. ⁸ We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. ¹⁰ We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. ¹¹ For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. ¹² So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. //2Corinthians4:7-12