Happiness is Temporary.

You can say, "I just want to be happy.", but why would you want happiness when you can have joy?

Happiness doesn't last forever. Joy, however, that lasts forever...if you choose it.
You cannot have happiness without sadness....just like you cannot have cold without hot.
You cannot have wet without the dry.
You cannot have day without night.

All of these are merely the absence of the opposite.
It's only cold because there's the absence of heat.
It's only dry because there's the absence of wetness.
It's only night because of the absence of daylight.
Happiness is only the absence of sadness.

There's only one thing in this world that's forever: God.
He is unchanging.
He is mighty to save and move mountains.
He cannot be shaken, and nothing takes him by surprise.

When Jesus was on earth I'm certain that he felt everything we feel as humans.
He came from divinity into humanity and experienced the limitations we have as humans.
He felt sorrow, happiness, joy, betrayed, hungry, sleepy, etc.
He understands us.
He understands our emotions.
He won't be mad at us if we get mad at him.
He understands.

He understands sadness and depression.
He sees us in our highest moments in life and in our lowest.
Through all of this, through all the roller coasters in life, God is unchanging.

He doesn't experience mood swings.
His Law remains the same.
His love will stay unconditional.

If I could say anything to you at this very moment it would be to look to God to help you.
I am but a mere human and can only give you so many pep talks about guys and love before it gets old. I'm not supposed to handle all of this, because I'm not qualified to. You can tell a counselor anything. It's confidential and they will give you the highest advice any professional can give.

Maybe you haven't found someone to marry because you're not where you need to be.
There may still be something God wants you to work on before you take the next step in life.
You can focus on school, focus on graduating. Focus on starting up a great career for yourself. Get your license and buy a car. Make lots of new friends, GOOD ones who are GOOD influences. Get rid of any bad friends that cause you to have low self-esteem, the ones that abuse drugs and alcohol, and avoid sex at all costs.

Maybe I can explain it better...
I know you...
You get your hopes up, only to be let down every time.
You see so much potential in every guy, and they always end up failing you because they can't give you what you want. Your standards of men aren't high, but they always fall short because they're suffocated. Suffocated by the love that you want to give them...which isn't a bad thing. Love is very good, and very exciting, but man's love comes nowhere close to comparing with God's love. I really hope at some point in your life that you experience this love because right now I can tell that you haven't....and you haven't truly experienced love from guys either. If anything, the opposite.

I was watching an online sermon series called, "Love, Sex, and Dating" by Andy Stanley. It challenged me to rethink my concept of love, sex, and dating...obviously. Dating is nowhere in the Bible, for starters, so where do you get your foundation for dating from? That's a good question, and he answers it. I'd probably butcher it if I attempted to tell you that right now though considering it's been a year since I watched this. Sex....well, it's way more emotional than anyone ever thinks it is. That's what I hear, anyway. When God created sex, He did so within marriage. Anything outside of marriage is very dangerous and has drastic consequences, for one: rape. This isn't something to just take likely. You need to tell your parents, and if you don't, I will. I can't see you hurting anymore, and you need to get the help you deserve. You owe it to yourself to take better care of yourself. You owe it to your parents, and to the friends around you. When you dump all of this stuff on us we don't know how to respond and you don't get the help you need. You only get hurt friends, hurt family, hurt emotions, and you live in this victimized state of being....until the next guy comes. Then you think he will somehow fix all of your problems, and nothing matters more than being madly in love with him. Let me tell you that it just simply is false.

The next guy comes along...
By the second week of meeting him you're already "in a relationship".
You barely get to know each other, but by this time you've already been physical to some extent, even if it's just kissing.
UGH. It just upsets me.....coming from the perspective of someone who has never had a boyfriend. Let me show you what it looks like from the outside....you'll probably get mad, upset, hurt, but it has to be said. I'm not sorry, but I'm sorry I haven't said it sooner. I feel like a bad friend for not telling you these things sooner because that means you've been hurting for longer.

You get way too emotionally attached TOO early in any friendship/relationship.
The only way to fix this is to really just protect yourself. I know everyone is always telling you to put down your guards, and to not have barriers or walls between you and other people, but for the sake of your situation I'm telling you to SAFEGUARD yourself for the future. Proverbs 4:23 says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." This verse is SO important because it's soooooo true. You have to protect yourself, or you're going to keep getting hurt....and eventually there will be nobody there to catch you, give you a pep talk, and listen to all your boyfriend stories. I can't stress it enough. You owe it to yourself to have self-respect and dignity and learn to tell guys, "No.".

Develop boundaries.
Any and all relationships have boundaries.
Marriages don't just develop overnight, and to protect your marriage and make it stronger you have to have boundaries. Why not start making boundaries now while you're dating that will roll over into having a great successful marriage one day?
I'm not here to tell you what those boundaries are, but you have to make them. I will help you, if you need. We can make them together. We need boundaries in our friendship, just like you have boundaries in the relationship you have with your parents.
Develop boundaries to protect yourself....
Here's a better way to think of it: We have fences in the playground so little kids don't run into traffic and get killed.
...I feel like you keep jumping over the fence and get hit by a different car each time.
STOP jumping over the fence and learn to play where it's safe.
It's as simple as that.

Develop yourself.
In all honesty, you're not the person I remember meeting. You've changed a lot, and granted, that's been like 3 years ago....you're not the same. I'm not the same. We all change, in good ways, and possibly bad. Change is a fact of life and it's inevitably going to happen. Nothing stays the same, so why should we?
I do miss the old you, though.
I miss the talks about God.
I miss our conversations that had no profanity in them.
I miss talking about other things besides MEN. Or sex, for that matter.
It's especially hard because you freely, openly talk about your lifestyle, while you know I'm blatantly trying to live a different one. I don't believe in sex before marriage. The Bible says it's wrong, and if you look around in this corrupt world you see many of the effects of it if you're willing to open your eyes. It creates a bond that's only meant for a spouse. When you do get married one day you will have to look at your husband and tell him all the bad things you've done, and how many people you've done them with. If you think about your future husband right now, what would you want him to be doing? Would you want him to be having sex with a different girl every night? No, you wouldn't. Would you want him to be saving himself for you? Yes, you would.
Would you want him to be struggling with STD's? NO. You absolutely would not.
Would you want him to be worrying about if he got someone pregnant or not? The answer is no.
Why would you have it any different for yourself?
You deserve self-respect. Respect your body. Your body deals with the consequences of it's sin.

Ephesians 5:3 says, "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people." God desires that we treat our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto Him. Sex is unholy if done outside of marriage, plain and simple. The sad part, is that you know this stuff. I could quote Scripture all day, but until there is a change in your heart none of this will help you.

You need a change of heart...
God wants to heal your heart....because He knows how many times it's been broken. And it makes him sad.
You are a child of God, but there are a lot of things that are separating you from God, and they have been for awhile. I've just been too chicken to tell you.
I want what's best for you. I'm not upset at all by writing this....and I know you may be upset with me for awhile for being brutally honest with you. But as your friend, I have to let this out.
I want to see you do great things in life...and I miss the optimistic girl who wanted to see these things happen.

Just know that you deserve more.
You deserve better.
But before God can bless you with a man to take care of the rest of your life, you have to take care of yourself. Spiritually, first. Emotionally, second. Everything else comes after this..

Philosophy is Getting Good!

I've been reading my Philosophy textbook all day today.....can you say headache?

Well, I have to do a discussion board post in each unit, and there's about 3 questions I have to answer in the unit. This unit is about God's existence. The assignment was to find a current organization that does not believe in the existence of God and present your case for the existence of God to them using arguments and points from the text. I chose the Atheist Alliance International organization and after analyzing their vision and mission statement I've found that, ironically, most of their core values are Biblical principles. For example, purpose, compassion, responsibility, and freedom. However, as expected, they base their lack of belief in God on "hard evidence" and proof of the scientific method only.  They believe we should use reasoning and rational thinking for our beliefs, while, I do not disagree, I question what their organization is built on. It is, in fact, to me, a contradiction to say you have Biblical core values yet do not believe in the existence of God. Irony. :)

Anyway, I guess I'm just blogging about what I learned today. Literally, I spent ALL DAY on this reading and assignment. I'm not sure why it took me so long, but I really thought about how Atheists have no reason to not believe in God. He's so evident...and the human mind can only go so far.

One of the arguments I presented was Augustine's argument from truth to them, as follows:

(1)   There are some necessary and unchangeable truths (ideas) such as 7+3= 10.

(2)   But a finite mind, such as mine, is not unchangeable.

(3)   An unchangeable truth cannot be based in a changeable, finite mind.

(4)   Therefore, there must be an infinite, unchangeable Mind (that is, God) which is the basis for all unchangeable truths.

I guess I'm just excited to learn about Philosophy and to actually be understanding it so deeply! I'm rather impressed with myself. Anyway, I would explain to this organization that their core values are direct Scripture and commands from God. It's commanded that we love others and have compassion on them. God gives us purpose and freedom. I don't see how we can have any of these things to their full potential without God. Freedom without God is indeed not freedom from ourselves. If God does not give us purpose in this life, do we still have a true purpose?

The mind is fallible. It cannot understand everything, which inhibits reasoning to be absolute...ever. The mind if finite...while God is infinite. We will never understand everything about God, and there are only some mysteries that we couldn't fathom if we haven't sought them ourselves through religious experiences...such as, the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, having a relationship with Jesus...etc.

So...I just really enjoyed this assignment even though I spent an inconceivable amount of unwanted time on it.

My advice to you is to know what you believe...why you believe it....and how to debate and argue anyone who stands against it. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying we should go about sticking our noses in every debate about God we can find because that may ultimately push others away. The Bible does teach about being quarrelsome with others, and about keeping the peace.

Just some thoughts. :)

[Baja, Mexico] 12 dias!

I got my passport for Mexico in the mail today!!! :D
This is a praise report because I went to the post office to get it like a week and a half ago....
I thought it would take 3 weeks. And well, I'd be gone to Mexico by then!
Praise the Lord that it came in on time. Phew... stress relief.
God always has good timing. And early this time. haha!

Anyway....about Mexico... about MEXICO.......ABOUT MEXICO!!!!
I'm getting more excited the closer it gets, however, yesterday I did not wake up feeling like this.
Let me just start off by saying that missionaries have my utmost respect. Not that they didn't before, but they have even more of it now.
Raising funds is difficult....in a crushing economy and recession (ish) it's hard to find support, but God always provides.

I am just not a fan of fund raising. In high school we had to fund raise for EVERYTHING!! And I'm just not that creative anymore...also a tad bit burnt out if I'm honest.
Oh, and this trip ended up being more than I thought it would.
First, I was like, "YAY!! I won a trip to Mexico!!!"
Eventually it was me realizing I had to pay for the entire trip myself, I was just the lucky person chosen to go along with 229 others from 49 huge cities.
What an honor!

I can't believe I even won this trip... when I texted in at the concert I had no idea that I'd actually be going a few short months later.
I'm praying that God really moves and really opens my eyes to see more like Him through this trip.
We'll be building houses for the people in Baja, and I was online checking out some testimonies from previous trips and it looks absolutely amazing!

Schedule:
• July 14 –Depart for Baja
• July 15 –Train for mission mission trip in Baja
• July 16-19 – Minister in Baja
• July 20- Spend the day touring Baja
• July 21– Depart for home and change the world

I'm so EXCITED!!! Not gonna lie, I've been sort of a nervous wreck about raising funds and I HATE asking people for money, but I realized they're more eager to do it than I thought they would be. However, others turned out to be more reluctant to give than I thought... it works out I guess!

So, I leave Saturday, the 14th to fly to San Diego. I have a layover in Dallas, Texas on the way to San Diego and back, but both flights are only like an hour and a half long so it shouldn't be too bad!
I have soooo much anxiety about flying alone.... I've done it once, but airports freak me out.
Lots of people...
So many gates...terminals.....etc..
I have no idea where I'm going half the time.
It's just stressful.
Pray that I have peace, and that everything goes smoothly and that I don't miss a flight of anything crazy like that. :/

15th: I honestly have no idea what training will be like.
I assume we will be practicing a little bit of Spanish in there somewhere?
Good thing a generous man gave me a Spanish Bible to study over before the trip. :)
Oh, and I hope to bring some stuff to give away to the natives. :))
Yo necesito practicar espanol mas!!!

Oh, and the best part of this trip!?
The weather is anticipated to be 65-70 degrees during the day! And 58ish at night.
I might....just might....get to wear a hoodie while I'm there. Oh goody. And it's windy there. PERFECT!

July 20: Tour of Baja!? DOES IT GET ANY BETTER!? Oh my....souvenir shopping. Gah.. an entire day dedicated to strolling in my sunglasses. Freakin' sweet.

July 21: Head home! I hope to have the best tan ever! lol.
Ultimately, I want to say that I worked hard to build houses for the people of Baja.
I hope to have made a few friends, and to have talked to many about the saving love of Christ.

I know this will push me, spiritually, physically, emotionally, and what I'm most afraid of.....socially.
Pray with me as I have PAINFUL anxiety about this trip. A whole week out of the country, probably not having as much contact with people, making connecting flights, and learning how to build houses.
I know this trip will be worth all the money you gracious people have donated! I thank you so much for that!
I hope to take LOTS and lots of pictures and I hope to be able to tell each one of you individually how much you impacted this trip!

Yesterday I looked up the leaders of the trip. I feel so much better! The website also has a list of stuff to pack! I'm a horrible packer and always wait until the night before to do it with the help of my mom, but this time I want to be a big girl and do it myself. :)
There's also a suggested list of basic Spanish phrases we should practice before the trip!
"Can I pray with you?"
"What do you think about God?"
"Jesus loves you."
There are also ways to start practicing giving your testimonies.
Oh my gosh... this is gonna rock.

Ok, that's it.
Pray for me, please, and thank you for donating!!! :))
My life is about to change....in a very good way.

Baja, Mexico, see you in 12 days!