Missing My Brother and His family

Having a talk with one of my grandmothers last night made me realize how blessed I am to still have my brother living even though he is so far away and see through some pictures from this past year that God could call us home at anytime. You dont truly appreciate your family until you cant see them for weeks on end. With my brother in the military and me being called into ministry being away from one another is certainly something we are going to have to get used to. Having two absolutely amazing nephews and a wonderful sister-in-law makes it a lot harder. Especially when your nephews call you and tell you they miss you and love you which of course melts you. It also makes it harder when you only have one sibling and you are extremely close to him/her. During this time of being apart though you learn to appreciate the time you are together a lot more and then in turn you cherish that time and it holds you over to the next time you see them. It teaches you not to take the time together for granted as so many families do now days. Also it makes you pray harder that God keeps them safe and brings them back home safely.

Sharing Jesus with People

God gives us opportunities to share Jesus with people each and every day. Although for many Christians including myself this is not a strong point, however we are still asked by God to heed each opportunity that comes our way cause we never know when the opportunity that is opened to us is going to be that person's last chance to receive Christ before they are ushered into eternity. God always stands right by you in those times, but in the end it is always worth it to see someone give their life over to a loving and caring Savior who sticks closer than a brother. So remember next time you have the opportunity to share Christ with someone just pray and trust God to open doors and give you the right words so God can tug at the person's heart through the words that He says through you and remember He is there with you the whole time.

Blessings

I was thinking today just how truly blessed we are...We have our sight, we can touch, taste, smell and hear. These are just a few things that we take so for granted everyday unless we have a problem with one of these. As anyone with any kind of illness will tell you it brings these things and many others into a whole new light. It helps you to understand more of how quickly your life can be taken away from you, but as a Christian our lives are not really taken away because we go from this life into the marvelous glories of our heavenly Father whom we have waited so long to see.
I have also realized how blessed I am to have two absolutely amazing and handsome nephews that are both extremely healthy...Praise God!!! As well as a brother, sister-in-law, mom and dad and many other family members that are very healthy. God has blessed us in more ways than we can count and a lot of these we take for granted on a daily basis.
Being away from CBC has also made me realize how truly blessed I am to have an awesome best friend and lots of other great friends at CBC...As well as many amazing professors who are there every step of the way to help you if you need it, they have so much concern for each of the students and it is so evident. Also just how blessed I am to have an amazing adoptive family at college who loves me. All of these things we take for granted all to often and sometimes God has to bring us down to build us up so He can show us just how blessed we truly are.

Going Back to Bible School

Although God gave me a peace about leaving school...To leave Central Bible College on January 25th was hard, but its so exciting to know that I will be able to go back to on campus learning in August. I am so excited to start back learning in the classroom and with one on one contact from the professors who are absolutely amazing God fearing people. God is so good. I am so excited also to be able to spend time with my adoptive family and best friend as well as other friends there on campus that God has blessed me with and that I am so thankful for. God has even blessed me with more friends at the school since I left...What an undescribably awesome God we serve.

Illustrated Sermons at our Church

We had an illustrated sermon this weekend at Phenix City First. More than 50 people raised their hand to receive Christ for the first time or to rededicate their life to Christ. Which is just one of the many things that I have gotten to experience since I came home from college this semester for health reasons. Also three weeks ago we had another illustrated sermon which was called "heaven or hell." About 100 people gave their life to Christ or rededicated their lives in this one, including my Aunt Judy whom we have been praying for gave her life to Christ and my cousin and I got the awesome opportunity of helping lead her in the sinner's prayer along with my pastor as well as praying that God would sustain her in her Christian walk. Leading anyone to Christ is an absolutely amazing thing and feeling and leading one of your family members to Christ that you have been praying for builds your faith so much and gives you that same great feeling along with praising God for another soul that has been saved by the amazing power of Christ.

A Life with Meaning...No matter the Circumstances

This is not for a pity party or for anyone who reads this to feel sorry for me in anyway, however it is to get some stuff off my chest that I have been dealing with. I have thought many times how to live a life with meaning even while dealing with having a chronic illness. Being diagnosed with about seven different illnesses since the age of 15 doesn't make it any easier either. The best way to describe how to live a life with meaning no matter whether you have a chronic illness or not is having Jesus Christ as your heavenly father. He always brings peace to you in the midst of the storm and no matter the circumstances you may face. Having a chronic illness, however, can many times put questions in your mind like Why me, God? or Why now? or Why at this age? or Could I have done anything differently to keep from getting this? or What did I do to deserve this? and all of these are logical questions and should be expected to be asked by anyone living with a chronic illness or any illness for that matter.
Just to give you a little bit of history...I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease on December 13, 2007 after about six months of being sick and not knowing what was going on and many doctors visits. Now after almost two years of dealing with this they still haven't been able to find a medicine that takes all of the symptoms away, which anyone that has been through a situation like this can tell you it gets very frustrating after a while. However God is and has been still there and He is and certainly has still been faithful. For those of you who are reading this and don't know much about Crohn's disease in short it is an Inflammatory Bowel Disease characterized mainly by abdominal pain and diarrhea, but normally has many other symptoms and you can read more about it at ccfa.org. Not realizing it at the time, but God was going to use this not to break me, but to make me into what He had in His plan for me to be which I now know is a hospital chaplain and without going through this and God helping me to develop the desire to help others who are facing similar trials and tests I still would not know that. So thank God for the trial even in the midst of it.
No matter the circumstance you are facing just know that God is more than able to help you and get you through this time...No circumstance is to big for my God.