Warrior of the Mighty King

Around this time tomorrow, I will be at the airport getting on a plane to New York City. I will be meeting up with a friend named Lauren who was also an intern this summer with me. My bags are almost completely packed. Two days after Lauren and I get there, another missionary named Tosha is coming to work with Urban Impact (in January the name changes to Urban Nations Outreach). We will hit the road running. When we get there, there will be a mission team from Texas there so already we have a busy schedule. Please pray for all the UNO missionaries and staff members: Larry Holcomb and his family(Linda, Josh, Victoria, Ben, Grace); Camille, Loukia and Ajay; Rebekah; Tosha; Lauren. There are also many, many volunteers that help teach ESL classes and I cannot begin to list all of their names but God knows who they are so please lift them up in prayer as well. Pray that God will be their strength. Pray that they would be shielded from the enemy. Pray that God gives them wisdom to know w...

I'm a murderer. I have killed many a people. In my heart. With my thoughts. With my eyes (you know that look that could kill). One night I had a dream. A very vivid dream. This person I knew was murdering another person I knew. Now this would seem like a very scary dream, but I was seeing this dream through different eyes. It was disturbing, not scary. I asked God to reveal this dream to me and he did. Oh buddy, did he. The dream was a teaching moment on this scripture: "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." 1 John 3:15 Ouch. The people in the dream were sisters. Sisters hating each other. Man, I've hated people in my life before. I don't want to hate anymore. I want to love deeply. Let's remember God's deep love for us and let us reflect that love and show it to others. Let's choose to love. Let's look through God's eyes when we look at people. Let...

One day I came home and told my family that God had called me to New York City. What a shock that was to hear. What a shock to everyone at church. I had been called to a place where I had said in the past that I would never go to. Before, I had no intentions of stepping my foot into the big rotten apple. But last spring God changed my heart. God showed me the beautiful ministry of Urban Nations Outreach. God showed me the beautiful immigrants that he created. Those immigrants humbled me in so many ways. Their need for the Gospel is so great. They showed me proper attitudes when my attitude wasn't Christlike. I desire to show them more about the Gospel.  So I've learned to finally not get upset when people ask the following questions: "Why do you want to go there ?" "Are you running away from your family?" "Did you find a guy up there?" At first, these questions burned me up to my very core because I had expected people to be more encouraging and ...

On October 22, 2005 I was blessed to receive a new born baby sister. I was 16 years old at the time. In this day and age, old enough to be her mom. So I had the chance to see every stage of her life. I was able to babysit her when she was an infant. I rocked her. I fed her. I changed her diaper. She spit up on me, drooled on me, and pooped on me... yeah you read that right. I know that's gross but it's real. We had a strong bond. She has grown so much. She started crawling, walking, reading, and writing at early ages. Her vocabulary is massive. She knows words that college aged students do not even know. It's amazing. She's so interested in learning about new things. She plays soccer now. She just turned 8. Eight years old. Wow. It's been eight years. That's so crazy. It feels like just yesterday when I held her in my arms. Sometimes I want to keep her this age forever. I don't want her to grow up and face all the difficulties that life will throw at her but...

Deep wounds. Broken relationships.  Harsh words.  I've caused all these things. I'm an evil human being. I've got stories that I want to hide from the world. Stories that everyone has. Stories that make us  who we are. Stories that God uses for His glory. God uses our filthy stories. God forgives our evil intentions. God loves us deeply. Deeper than the ocean. He loves us so deep even with our sin. People may shun us because of our sin. But God loves us. He forgives us. He forgives the lies we tell. He forgives the gaping wounds I've caused. He tells me I must forgive. Wait. But.. No buts.  His son's blood washed my sins away and continues to every time I fall to my knees in repentance. I should want to forgive others. But sometimes I don't. Sometimes I like holding a grudge. ¡Que feo! How ugly! That reveals something ugly in me. An ugly attitude. That shows where my heart lies. My attitude should be that of Christ. And Christ died for our sins. For everyone...

I've been reading the book of Ephesians lately. I've studied this book before but God keeps bringing me back to it because I still have lessons to learn from it. It's such an encouraging book. It's also a slap-in-da-face-get-it-together kind of book, in the best way. I want that in discipleship. I desire correction and wisdom. Shouldn't we all want to be disciplined so that we gain perseverance and spiritual maturity? Or do we just want our comfort? I want to be pushed out of my comfort zone. I serve a holy God. Not a person who is okay with mediocre sacrifice. A God who makes the mountains tremble and the earth quake. I want to dwell in His approval daily, every second. Chapter 2 speaks of how Christ in death ( and resurrection) broke down the wall of hostility between the Jews and the Gentiles. So, do we not include people in our lives because they look, speak, or act differently than we do? Are we trying to build up the wall that Christ already demolished? So ...

Lately, God has been teaching me a lot  about sacrifice. This is definitely a hard lesson for me to learn. I'm sacrificing my time, money, things, resources, and self. My cover has been blown. I've been a selfish person for most of my life. And yet God chooses to love me deeply and immensely. Nothing I can will ever change the way that he loves me and every one of his beautiful creations.  He sacrificed his Son for me. I need this lesson of sacrifice, no matter how hard it hurts because it's not about me. It's about Him. And this molding process might hurt but it's going to make me the woman of God that he has purposed for me to be. I don't want to be the person I think I should be. I want to be the person he made me to be. I want the pain of being molded because it's about His kingdom not about my comfort. I want to make his kingdom known.  There's a song that resonates deeply with me because I want to go so much deeper than my feet can ever take me:  ...