Yahweh Jireh

Back at the end of July there was a sermon by Josh Mann that rocked my world, and many others who heard it as well. I took a lot of notes and got a lot out of it..there were about 3-4 things that hit me the most, but the one I'm going to write about is when he said we can put our hope in the fundraisers, in the support letters but overall, our trust needs to be on God. I felt like that was directly for me because I had been discouraged with the way fundraising had been going with my trip. I had been super busy, and working as much as I could, we did a garage sale and I had just sent my support letters out. I knew I wanted to trust God, but for some reason I was thinking that what I was doing is how God was going to bring in the money for me.

What Josh said changed where I put my trust a bit. Yes, I was still going to work as much as I could and if people felt lead to support me, I believe it was a tug on their hearts from the Lord...But I had to believe that it was going to be GOD that provided me with the finances to this Calling. Gods will is Gods bill...right? So, I kept trusting!

August went by and combining finished up. Now I would just be working at Jamba unless I could find more work, but it was near impossible for someone to want to hire me for just a month. In this economy, businesses want to hire the best of the best, and someone they know that will be able to stick around for a while so that they don't have to pay so much to re-train someone. So I worked at Jamba Juice as much as they needed me, and picked up others shifts as I could. Then I got a call from Hot off the Press in Canby, OR. My friend Kayla works there and it is a scrapbooking ware house. They just realized their new catalog so business was very busy for them. Kayla knew I was looking for temporary work so she gave them my number! I was able to work there and at Jamba, putting in about 12 hour days for a little over 2 weeks! God provided for me there.

Then, I was thinking one day, what if the money doesnt come in? Should I look into a cheaper YWAM closer to home? Keep working and do YWAM or Capernwray in the winter? I didn't want to think about it to much because everyone I had talked to believed that ABS was what I was supposed to do, but satan tried to attack me many many times and what was about to happen next is something Satan doesnt life at all! I felt God had told me to remember how I got accepted and that it was because of him I got into the fall school..this is what He wanted me to do so it'll happen, in the fall, like he said.

About an hour after I was thinking of a different option, my sister called and said that Mom and got an e-mail from the school saying there was an anonymous donor that will pay the remaining of what I dont earn for the program! I was so happy! God totally came through and provided. It wasn't my letter, it wasn't my garage sale or pop can drive, it was completely the Lord who put it on someones heart to help me out!

It's difficult for me because I don't know who it is, but I know thats the whole point right? I want to give them A huge hug and thank them over and over and over again and let them know how grateful I am that they are paying such a hefty price to help me out! I wish words described how thankful I am, for their donation, but also for everyone else's donations!

Then a couple days later I was booking my flight-this is also a long story, but to sum it up....The first fllight i booked was wrong, the next flight i was about to book was $2,400!! but it was the cheapest I could find. then somehow my friend Kalia got online right at the right time and had found one for $1,400 and we booked it through her ASAP and I saved all that money!! Wow, God is good.

Then another couple people knew I didnt have much spending money, and they donated a hefty amount so that I could have a good time. I put some of that towards school, have all my gear and I'm Soo happy the ways God has provided for me. The verse that keeps popping up everywhere I go this weekend is Matthew 6:25-34 Do Not Worry

²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^{a]" style="line-height: 0.5em; ">[a]}?

²⁸"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Yahweh Jireh. Thank you for being my provider. I will never forget this time in my life where you have provided for what you called me todo! Thank you very much, and please bless those who have helped me out so much.

http://salemalliance.org/574262.ihtml (josh's Sermon)
-sacred places and then Breakthrough by Josh Mann.

Heaven on Earth.

This Summer while we were combining, Thomas, Kristen and I would read a book and then rotate it around for everyone else to read. My favorites that I got read were Sex God by Rob Bell and Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist. I'll save what I learned from Shauna another day because her book was incredible.

In Sex God, one of the main things I took from it was a comment that Rob said about bringing Heaven to Earth. So often we say "Today was hell," or "that was HELL!" We say this when we had a bad day, or when things go wrong..or to take it more literally, when we feel that the presence of God is absent.

Rob asks what about bringing Heaven to Earth...? And it hit me, there are so many amazing days where the holy spirit has been so thick during worship, or driving in my car. Or I saw something through a different set of eyes that made me finally realize what God had been trying to tell me all along and I am over joyed! How come we never say, "Wow, today heaven was on earth!"

There was a day when Kristen said it, and I couldn't agree with her more! Tom, Kristen and I were driving home from combining and there was a guy sitting on the side of the road where we take our exit into Salem. Thomas asked if we could see what he needed and give him a hand. We prayed for protection and for the words from God to be said to the guy before we stopped to help him out.

To sum up the whole story, we were able to help the young boy out the best way we could by feeding him dinner, bringing him breakfast and a sack lunch the next morning and offering him a helping hand in Salem where he could pick up his feet. He decided he wanted to keep his travels headed down South so we helped him out with a bus ticket to Eugene. We prayed and prayed for him. In the few hours we got to know him, we fell in love. It was a kind of love I had never experienced before, but saying good bye was really hard. By the end of our time with him he was smiling and laughing.

We filled out an envelope for him to write to us when he got to wherever he was headed and I prayed that somehow we impacted his life.

About 3-4 weeks after we helped him out, I got a letter in the mail that looked my hand writing on the envelope and I was so confused why my handwriting had addressed the envelope. And then I remembered!! It was JOhn, he had written to us! He was in southern California and he remembered to write to us! It was so great to hear from him. He drew a picture and sent a little snapshot of himself. I called kristen and Thomas and we were so stoked to hear back from him.

After we got to know John a bit, Kristen said "Today, heaven was on earth." And it was, somehow, God used that time. He changed me with it, and it was risky and Thomas really stepped out in faith by asking us if we minded seeing what he needed. Ill never forget John or that day. I think about him lots and I pray that I'll meet him again in heaven.

Thank you lord for bring Heaven on Earth.

Sacred Places.

In church this summer they did a series on sacred places. It was really good, even though I didn't catch all the sermons, but one sunday I was able to sing in the big church and be apart of leading our congregation to the throne through worship. It was a great experience and I got to see my HUGE church in a new way.

Anyways, the pastor stood up during an announcement or something and

asked about sacred places. I looked up at the row of students sitting in the Balcony where a few of them combined with me this summer. We all kind of looked at each other and smiled, and then afterwards all talked about how our sacred place this su

mmer was definitely our combines.

Theres something almost magical about combining. Call me crazy cause I sure do! Who would of thought that sitting in a huge machine tractor thing going 1.4 mph back and forth forever could be magical. I dont think its combining itself, its the 11 hrs a day I get alone with myself and God. Its the landscape placed before me that I wish I could capture with my camera,

but even the highest form of technology could never come close to capturing the beautiful sunset that is different EVERY night, placed just right between the trees with a stack of hay bales in the distance. This is what makes the country image before me breathtaking. During the day, the clouds stack on each other with the blue sky behind them and its amazing!

I love the experience I had on the farm this summer. It made me take a step back and remember how detail oriented God is. His creativity is so much more real and bringing more insight and understanding than any piece of art I have ever looked at. So he created that sunset and images set before me every day...and he created me? whoa. not only did he create me, but he is still working and forming me. He is there whenever a tree lim falls off, or if it starts raining and the clouds cover the sun and stars, but somehow with that change of scenery, God makes that beautiful too!

He is so definite in what he does in my life that sometimes I look past what he has already been doing and creating in my life and only see the change and the pain that the fallen down tree brought. Or I see that tree fall and get so mad that he messed up what I thought was beautiful in my eyes. When really, in His eyes that tree was blocking something even better to come, or still be created.

The relationships I made through combining were also super great! I learned so much from Thomas, Ben, Rolf, Kristen, Duane, mike and so many others that I got to work with! I will never forget the summer I spent in my Combine and how it became such a sacred place. I miss those days but have been challenged to set aside time alone to be still before God, and remember that HE is God.

He wrecked my plans, so that I can be more wreckless for his.

What an incredible Journey God has lead me on so far. I'm terrible at writing so there is no better way for me to start this than to just jump right into it.

This past year was my first year out of High School. I lived at home, worked at Jamba Juice and attended Chemeketa Community College. I tried to get into the feel of Chemeketa and enjoy my time there, but it was horrible. I learned a lot, but not in my classes, just about life not always going the way we had expected. It was life outside of College that I was challenged, and it isn't until now that I am able to look back to see what God might of been trying to do, and possible how different my year could of been if I would of given 100% of my life up to him in the first place. You live and learn though right? He has used every single thing that happened this year to benefit me now, in the long run or more importantly-benefit himself.

I love the saying "He wrecked my plans, so that I can be more wreckless for his." I find it to be completely true in my life. I read it off a friends Facebook and it hit me so powerfully! Thats exactly what he did this year, as well as many others of course. I had ideas and things I desired. The biggest thing I thought I wanted was to go to Ambrose University in Calgary, Alberta. I have awesome friends and a lot of family there and I thought for sure Ambrose is what I wanted to do for fall 2010. I knew it would take a miracle to figure out loans and student visas and everything that comes with going to University, especially one out of my country, but I thought thats what I wanted to do. I also had the travel bug, but It was so important to me that I be in Calgary, I was willing to wait until later to travel, maybe do YWAM or Capernwray-Just get me in the Christian studies program at Ambrose!!!!

This is where God Steps in and informs me that he has something completely different for me. I had doubts and didn't feel a whole lot of peace about Ambrose, but I ignored it. Someone told me about an Adventure Bible School in New Zealand through the Bible program Capernwray. I applied for the fall ABS and to finish the term up with the other students. I didnt know if thats what God would want me to do, and I was extremely discouraged. It was between Ambrose, Capernwray, or another year at Chemeketa...and I had no idea how I was going to afford anything other than Community College, or how to hear Gods voice in what I was supposed to be doing.

So this one Tuesday morning, I went to meet my accountability group that I met with every Tuesday morning. My young but super wise leader told me to ask God for on specific thing, and that in one week he would either open that door, or completely shut it, and then I would know. I had no idea what that one specific thing should be, so I prayed and fasted all day for a direction to even be praying towards. (this is all new to me by the way-trying to actually hear his voice and making an effort to hear it.) That night I e-mailed Capernwray about my application and there was a few steps I guess I never completed, one of them being a reference form. Oh, and theres only one spot left in the school, and applications keep coming in!!! So I figure everything out, and I'm the first to get my application complete. (Theres more to this, but basically it was a God thing that I got all that done that night!) Then when I woke up the next morning, I felt zero peace about going to Ambrose. The thought about being there in the fall made me want to throw up, which isn't common when I think about being in Canada. I took this as my answer that I needed to be praying that in one week I would get accepted to Capernwray, if that be what God has for me in the fall.

So many people were praying for me, people would text me and say "hey, ive been thinking and praying for you a lot today, I hope things are going well!" and I didnt even tell everyone what I was doing. Monday night the following week, I get online to check my E-mails and my acceptance letter was there! woot woot! In one week God revealed that this is what he wanted me to do. Now it was just trusting that he take care of the rest.

Another confirmation was I prayed that if I wasn't supposed to go back to Chemeketa, some how I wouldn't get my scholarship back. As discouraging as it was, I didn't get to keep my scholarship because my grades weren't high enough, and I had tried to keep that as an option if for some reason God wasn't finished with me in Salem. But it confirmed that this was the direction I was supposed to go.

Wow. Thats a long post! But this is also how I got the name for my blog, "living for today." Im sick of planning sooo far ahead, making unrealistic plans that never come out the way I want them. All last year I lived in the future and just wanted out of Salem and I couldnt see all the incredible things God was using me for. I tried to see them, but I was stuck on getting out of here. I believe God has a plan for everything, and that he will use every situation Good or bad to bring him glory.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9

I can't believe this more after this past year. His power has been made SOOO perfect during my weakness. Praise Jesus for sharpening us up even when its hard and we can't see whats going on.

So thats how he wrecked my plans, so that I could be more wreckless for his, and boy, I sure am enjoying living for today and being lead by my Savior.