November 11th

Hello all! This week was GBF (Global Bridegroom Fast) and it flew by! I had nice week though, spending alot of extra time in the prayer room due to no classes is always nice. God really has been blessing me by giving me insight into my bible reading time. We are required to read our bibles here and for a while it was a checklist to check off for me, but lately it has been just the opposite. I have found myself taking a lot longer to get through my daily reading because the Lord pours so much out to me when I take the time to carefully read his word. So this week has been a time of quietness in my heart and spirit. I have hung out a lot less with people and have just spent some alone time and at first it was a little weird for me because I did it without deciding, it just sort of happened. But as I was reading my bible this week, the Lord confirmed this "quietness" in me. I was reading 1 Peter 3: 4,5 - Instead it should be that of your inner self the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. - I believe he gave this to me to show me this season that he wants me to go through and also to challenge me in the way I make myself beautiful. Beauty in our culture is such an outward thing but this verse starts off with the fact that it should be of our inner selves. I was just so challenged with the amount of time I spend a day making myself look beautiful compared to the amount of time I practice a gentle and quiet spirit before the Lord. So I have found that by having a quiet and gentle spirit has enabled my thoughts to come into order, I think so much more clearly! I guess that is just a side note, but a big thing I realized through this is it's not always coming before him with a mouthful of words to pray or spirit of boldness although those things are good. But sitting before the Lord in quietness and having a gentle spirit, I think allows for submission to take place in our lives, to the Lord and to others. Which submission is a whole other thing that the Lord has placed on my heart as well but I won't get into it hehe! I'm just excited to see the fruits of taking on a gentle and quiet spirit. Well you are all in my prayers and please let me know if there is anything I can bring before the Lord with you!

November 4th

Hey everyone! I hope you had a blessed week! This week was another great week for me. I finished up my last week of my Eschatology module and it went well. This week was one of the rather intense weeks as we learned about the judgments that God will pour out on the earth. As we came into a deeper understanding, I learned that these judgments are his acts of mercy on people as he tries to give them one last well actually several last chances to turn to him before they are cast into hell. This just really showed me how God is after us, and how far he will go to get us. I began to apply this to my own life, realizing that God will do everything it takes to bring me into perfection, even if I have to go through times that aren't so comfortable or pleasant, he will do what it takes to make me complete! Just like a parent disciplines their child to make them realize that a little pain now is nothing compared to alot of pain later on. The amazing thing is, that this realization brought me into a deeper understanding of his love for me. He literally won't relent until he as all of us, he's after me and won't quit molding me and making me! I am blessed to have a father that cares about me so much, he is the most consistent in all he does to make sure I get there. My heart came into a new reality of him this week, I loved every minute of it! There is a song that Misty Edwards sings that says: "Set your love as seal upon my heart, for there is love that is as strong as death, jealousy demanding as the grave, and many waters cannot quench this love" This is straight from Song of Solomon 8:6-7 and it shows us how intense the love God is for us! My prayer is that God takes all of us deeper in this relentless love he has for us!