If everyone relys on others to take action, nothing will ever be acomplished.

Being seventeen and only months away from graduating high school, I have been asked several times what my plans for the future are.  I have been struggling with that decision for a while now.  After coming home from my Scotland mission trip this past summer., I wanted to go straight into mission work. I began to desire to help people in need, love those who feel unlovable, and share the love of Christ with them.   I had shoved the idea of college to the back of my mind thinking, Well, I can spend thousands of dollars going to college, or I can spend it going to other countries and doing work that I am passionate about.  I prayed for a while about the decision of my future.  And I was confused, because every time I asked him if I could go to Africa right after high school, I heard a firm "Not yet."  I argued about it too, God, if you give us the desires of our heart if they are pure and good and in your name, why cant I go?  I kept hearing, "Not yet."  Frustrated I gave up for a few days and began to mope.  We all have those moments in our lives where we question God, and this was one of them for me.  He had given me this calling in Scotland, one I had to adjust to, and was not to fond of at first.  And now that I had gotten comfortable with it he was going to tell me to wait?  Uh oh.  There it was.  I had gotten comfortable.  I prayed once more, asking God to reveal his plan for me, in his own time.  And that no matter what it was, I would be obedient.  Not even an week later I was on the Internet looking at random colleges.  I was trying to keep an open mind, but honestly I did not like any of these colleges.  Don't get me wrong, most of them were pretty, and had fantastic majors but nothing caught my eye.  Until I stumbled across a school called Gardner-Webb University, a small Christian School with fantastic majors and activities.  For the first time, I actually was interested.  I continued to look around the website and decided to send them my general information and possibly start applying.  It wasn't until after I had done that, that I figured out that I had no idea where it was.  Sad right?  So I looked, Boiling Springs, North Carolina.  I was not to keen on the idea of the cold at first, but just like the call to be a missionary, this quickly grew on me.  A few months later, I got my acceptance letter,  went to visit Garder-Webb and made the final decision to go!  And I am completely happy and confident about my decision.  Ever since I was accepted everyone began to ask me about my major.  After more prayer I made the decision to be a double major in Mission Studies and Sociology, with a minor in World Religion.  So as of now, this is the plan, unless God steers me in a different direction.  But I feel confident that I am heading down the right path.  Wanting to be a Missions Major in college, has led a lot of people to ask me why.  I struggled with answering this question for a while, not because I did not know the answer, but because it is hard to put into world the overwhelming passion the Lord has given me.  I logged onto facebook earlier today, and read a statas posted by the organization Living Water.

"More people in the world have cell phones than access to a toilet."
Wow.  Having access to a toilet is not something I think about daily. So I did some research and found some other surprising facts.

• "22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world."
• "At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day."

• "Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names."

• Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.

• Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day.

For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:

·         640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)

·         400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)

·         270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)

• 15 million children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or United Kingdom)"

• In developing countries some 2.5 billion people are forced to rely on biomass—fuelwood, charcoal and animal dung—to meet their energy needs for cooking. In sub-Saharan Africa, over 80 percent of the population depends on traditional biomass for cooking, as do over half of the populations of India and China.

When I read all of these statistics, my first reaction was why and how?  Why did I go through life daily and not realize the amazing blessings God has given me?  Why do others have to live like this?  And then I asked myself, what am I doing to help them? How can I make a difference?   I did not put these statics up here to make anyone feel bad.  It’s the truth.  This is what is going on in the world around us, and most of us including myself, fail to notice. This is why I want to be a missionary.  I want to make a difference.  I want to take the blessings the Lord has given me and share them with others.  And I firmly believe that the Lord has placed this on my heart for a reason. I realize that the Lord has not called everyone to overseas missions, he calls everyone in different ways. But I firmly believe that this is mine.   He has also steered me to college so that I can become better educated in the world around me, and more stable and prepared.  And now I am content, not comfortable, but content.  

"And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."  Matthew 28:18-20

I was not made to be normal....

I was made for so much more than that. 

I know I have not posted in a while.  The past few months have been a spiritual roller coaster for me.  I was on such a "spiritual high"  after Scotland.  But after being back a while, I let the things of this world get to me, and started falling again.  It was not until I visited a friend, that I realized that I had gotten off track. She asked me a simple question "Do you want to be normal?"  My instinctive response to this would have been yes, but judging by her face, I went with no.  And she went on to explain to me that she views the typical Sunday christian as a "normal" Christian.  Someone who talks about God on Sundays, but when Monday rolls around He is shoved in the back of their heads.  The impact of my actions finally hit me, and I came to the realization that I was becoming "normal" again.  I was heading down that road, and I needed to turn around.  I prayed that weekend, more than I had prayed in a while.  And I don't want to be normal.  I want to be that person, that's heart is so sunk into the Lord, that anyone has to find Him, to find me.  I want to be the women that strives to admit my mistakes and work hard to change.  I want to be that women that has a healthy fear of the lord.  The women that will stop at nothing to stand up for what I believe in and will pray and love in all situations. And I after thinking about all of this for days, a voice popped into my head saying "Whats stopping you?"  And I discovered, the only thing stopping me, was me.  So, that moment, I stopped saying I want, and started saying, I am becoming.  Walking with Christ takes a lot of time, effort, patience, willingness, and love.  I can do it.  I just can not do it alone.  And the beauty of that is, I am never alone.