Dying to live

Check it out, I finally figured out the comments thing. I'm such a moron sometimes. Haha. Thanks for your prayers, kids. My day off last week was refreshing, but what really got my perspective right was going to the camper altar call on Wednesday night and getting to see the fruit of our labor. Seeing lives change is far more rich than any reward I could receive and far more important than my little difficulties. God's been helping the relationships too. He's so amazing. This week He's been helping me learn to focus. Nyah, I need to remember to take care of myself though. I got dehydrated today and was out of commission for a good couple of hours. I can't serve Him when I'm sick and sleeping. ::makes googly eyes:: My entry isn't going to be terribly long this week. I still don't feel top quality and I need to go to bed. I give my testimony on Wednesday morning. I need to work on that tomorrow. Some of the girls were here last week, and there are different things that God's working on in me this week, so I don't want to just repeat what I said. I guess it's more of a discussion than a testimony. I talk about myself for like two seconds, but my goal is to challenge the girls, not to drone on about me. Last week, what stuck out about the time I had with them was the discussion after I spoke, not me speaking, and that's how I want it to be. I want to be a vessel that God can work through. That's one of the hard parts of being a performer. Sometimes I get so caught up in the performance aspect that I forget that I'm not really the one living. You know the song Tourniquet by Evanescence? Christ is my suicide. I've died to myself and He has taken over. Well, that's the goal anyway. I take over pretty frequently and life ain't too hot when I do. ::shivers:: Mmm, well kiddos, I gotta run to Lullaby Bay. Know that you have my love and remember that I'm praying for you.
   James 1:19-20
"My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires."

How I long for you

Hey Kiddos,
  Yay, we got some new and exciting things in blogger like fonts 'n colors 'n stuff. :-) Maybe I'm a freak. Guess what? I've got Philippians 1:1-11 memorized. That's a lot of verses, gonna keep working on it though. Maybe someday I'll have all of Philippians. How awesome would that be? It's cool to have something to work on during the trail rides so that my brain doesn't fry. Please keep me in your prayers, personalities are conflicting at the ranch and I don't want to snap at anyone. Pray that God will give me His perspective. Eternal perspective. Seen from heaven's view, a couple of people ticking me off is not a big deal. The point is to love these kids and point them towards the truth. It's hard to try to follow after wisdom and it's so easy to be stupid. Life seems like such a big deal. It's more like pre-school though. I won't really start living til I get to heaven. The purpose of my life is to bring glory to God and point other souls to Him. I want to live for Him. Do you have any idea how much He loves you? Kids, I can't even... I want you to know Him so bad. This life hurts. I don't know how so many people go through their day to day lives without having God to rely on. I barely make it when I'm relying on my own strength instead of His, so I have no clue how people go their whole lives without Him. I've got to run, my dear, but know that I love you. Keeping the faith.
   Philippians 1:8-11
     "God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ - to the glory and praise of God."

Long ago

Me and my brother. It's prolly about ten years ago. Ain't we cute? ;-)

God is faithful

Dude, I'm exhausted. Actually, I'm tired. But that's ok, cuz I've got a whole day to rejuvenate. Man alive, God's amazing. Ok, so I went with some of the counselors at RVR to do their laundry, but one of the guys needed to cash his cheque first so that he'd have money to pay people back and to be able to clean his stuff. We ran over to Wal-mart at like 9:45, but he's from out of state, so they wouldn't cash it that late or something. While he's inside trying to figure it out, the rest of us waited in the car and were talking about a question that had been brought up in a Bible study. No one could remember where exactly the passage was, so we whipped out a Bible and were paging through, trying to find it (we knew the general vicinity, just not the exact reference). The guy in the car next to us sees us and comes over. He asked if we were reading the Bible and then if we were Christians. We answered guilty of both charges (well, we just said yes actually) and he was like, I'm a Christian too. He gave us his card and he was an assistant to the pastor or something. We asked him if he knew where the passage was, so he pulls out his Bible and starts looking too. Adam (the guy trying to cash his cheque) comes out at this point and tells us it's a no go. The people in the Wal-mart said to go the liquor store to cash the cheque (weird, huh?). One of the counselors gets out of the car to say bye to Ted (the assistant to the pastor) and tells him why we were at Wal-mart. The guy pulls out a twenty and gives it to us so that Adam can do his laundry. We get back in the car and all Adam can say is, "Guys, I'm so blessed, you have no idea." Kids, God shows up in the most random places. He's doing amazing things at River Valley. Keep us in your prayers. www.rivervalleyranch.com I hope your summer has been amazing so far!
Philippians 1:4-6
"In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."