*Give Thanks Always*

I have so much to be thankful for. I have a wonderful family! I am very blessed to have such a wonderful family! My parents do all they can to make sure we have the things we need! My parents have been such a great encouragement to me while I have been in college! My dad has worked extra to help pay my school bill. My mom has always been there to encourage me no matter what!! My sister and brother in law and brother are great! I am very close to my siblings and I love them so much! I have amazing friends! I don't see all of them often, but I love them all! My college buddies are helping me get through! They make things fun and interesting! My best friend who lives far away is always an encouragement to me when we talk! I am most importantly thankful for my salvation! I am very thankful that the Lord save me at a young age,and I had the privilege to be raised in a good christian home, and go to a great christian school! I can not possibly list all of the things that I am thankful for, because God has done so much for me! I want to remember today and everyday to be thankful always for all things good or bad!

God Is My Focus

Recently I realized that I am only living to please one person, I am only here for one purpose and that is to serve my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I knew that before but just within the past few days God has opened my eyes to that reality and I am striving to keep God first in my life. It seems like lately I have gotten off track and lost my focus. I want God to be my focus, He needs to be my number one in every area of life. I realize now that if I keep Him as my focus that everything else is going to fall right into place: school, work, friendships, relationships, finances, family, everything in my life. Most people that know me know that I am constantly talking about meeting that "special someone" and finding the right one, and I have let worrying about that consume my every thought and in the meantime God has dropped way down on my list of priorities and I have lost my focus. I forget about the most important thing of all. I spend so much time worrying, complaining and being negative that my focus has been shifted. I realize now that I need to put God first. My number 1 focus every minute of every day needs to be on Him and how I can please Him. I want God to consume my thoughts. I want to talk about all the good He has done for me instead of dwelling on the things that haven't gone the way I wanted them to. I also realize that worrying does nothing for me, but make the situation worse. I know that there is a reason for everything. And I know that my struggle with keeping God first was to teach me that I need to keep my focus on Him. I now realize that that "special someone" isn't going to come my way until I can learn to keep my focus on what is most important. These past few days I have been struggling with some things and although those things are still there and I am reminded of them often, I am going to keep my eyes on Jesus. With God as my focus everything will work out according to His plan. If you took the time to read this, Thank You! If it encouraged you, please leave a comment. =) Isaiah 26:3

God's Been Good

I complain way too often, and I have no reason to be complaining! I have had more blessings than heartaches. As I look back at just these past few years I can see how God has been so good to me. I am so blessed with such a wonderful family and so many other things God has blessed me with, but I tend to dwell on the negative and on the things I don't have and the prayers He hasn't answered the way I wanted Him to answer them. It was while listening to a song that my brother(Adam)told me to listen to that I decided to write something new on here. The following lyrics were such a huge encouragement to me and I hope they can be to you as well, this is just the chorus: "God's been good in my life, I feel blessed beyond my wildest dreams when I go to sleep each night, though I've had my share of hard times, I wouldn't change them if I could, cause through it all, God's been good." I can't even begin to tell you all of the good He has done in my life. I feel so ashamed at how often I complain, because He has truly blessed me. It takes a reminder every now and then to realize how much He really has done for us. If you take a few minutes to look back at your life, you will as I did realize that there has been more good than bad in your life and God has truly been good to you. You have been blessed beyond your wildest dreams, and you will truly see that through it all God has been good. And then to think that it is all undeserved, we didn't do anything to deserve all this goodness, when you sit back and think about that it will truly change your life, and your perspective. We have all had hard times and we will continue to have them, but they have come into our lives for a reason, to teach us something. "God has been my Father, my Savior and my Friend, His love was my beginning and His love will be my end. I could spend forever trying to tell you everything He is, but the best way I could tell you is this: God's been good in my life, I feel so blessed beyond my wildest dreams when I go to sleep each night, and though I've had my share of hard times, I wouldn't change them if I could cause through it all, God's been good" I hope this encourages you to be thankful for all that God has done for you. Hearing that song truly changed my perspective and I am going to strive to be more thankful and not complain.

"All things are become new...." 2 Corinthinans 5:17b

Lately this verse has been on my mind a lot. I have read this verse so many times and I memorized it a long time ago.......but never had I really noticed the last 5 words of the verse.....ALL things are become new. I believe that once a person is saved ALL things will become new. Old things will pass away. In our world today we have people who are making professions of faith but aren't living a life that reflects that. I believe that there is an immediate inward change once a person is saved, but I also believe that there is an outward change as well. I understand that this may take some time, but I believe that if a person is truly saved they will strive to change and make a complete turn from their sin and start following their Savior. Part of salvation is repentance and repentance is turning away from your sin. This does not mean that you will not sin anymore and that you will be perfect, one day you will be, when you get to heaven. But if you are truly saved you are going to strive to please the Lord and you will feel very guilty and very bad when you do sin. I am no perfect and I do make mistakes and I DO SIN! But when I do I feel very upset and I have a terrible feeling every time I am doing something wrong. I am praying that I can be a better Christian, I am going to be honest with you I need to change some things in my life, and I am praying that the Lord help me in that area. I want to make a difference in this world. I want to convice others that this verse is true, all things are supposed to be made new. We need to live our lives in such a way that people are not going to be surprised to see us in heaven. We need to be a witness and be a testimony to a lost and dying world. We need to be the ones who will stand up for what is right and make a difference. If we don't who will?

"Worry-Free"

I don't know about you but I have a problem with worrying and it sometimes can control my life......lately I have been trying to instead of worry, just trust Jesus. There are many things to worry about in this world, and if I 'm not careful I can spend hours just sitting and worrying. I have come to realize that if I trust the Lord about the situation then I know everything will be ok. I want to share a personal experience story.......I am a senior at Bible College and I have struggled every year so far with my school bill. For my Freshman and Sophomore year I attended Atlantic Baptist Bible College. I struggled to pay my school bill. My dad did a lot of work to help me out but I still couldn't pay it off. The Spring Semester of my Sophomore year I was told that I might not be able to come back if I did not pay most of it off, so I worked that summer but knew I wasn't going to make enough so I began to look at my other options, I applied to Virgninia Baptist College and I was set to start there for my Junior year, I was pretty upset about having to leave Atlantic. I was leaving many friends and one very close friend behind. I was very unhappy with Virginia Baptist at first and I didn't let myself like it at all. I now had two school bills to pay and was not making enough money. It was during that semester after hearing of some wonderful news that I truly learned about what trusting Jesus was about. My dad had gone to Atlantic to talk to the president about him doing some work to help shave off some of my school bill( I just want to tell you now that my parents are so awesome, my dad is still to this day working extra so he can give me money for my current school bill and my mom is always there to encourage me!) back to the story......it turned out that there was a misunderstanding and they were upset that I hadn't come back there and they didn't understand why I didn't. My dad tried to explain, and the president told my dad that they did have some work he could do but they didn't have the money to buy the supplies he would need to do the repairs, so they gave my dad that wonderful news I was speaking of earlier. The Administration of Atlantic Baptist Bible College decided to erase my balance of $4,700.00. When my dad told me I was in tears, I was so relieved. I was so thankful to the Lord for what He had done for me. I couldn't believe it. I learned that day that I don't need to worry about anything, God can do anything! When I told my brother the news he said wow, God can do exceedingly abuntantly above all that we ask or think. We all worry, but if you sit back and think about it, what does it help? It only makes the situation worse. I learned that God is going to take care of me, I still have my days where I wonder if my current school bill will ever be paid off, or am I going to be able to graduate next May, but then I remember what He did for me with my previous school bill. "Is anything too hard for God, who's got a problem beyond His power to solve, are there situations He's not the master of, Is anything too hard for God?" If you took the time to read this, thanks and I hope it helps you and encourages you.