Lately I have discovered a new found love for something: The News.

Seriously!! I love watching the news and various opinionists voice their thoughts on the economy, politicians, bills, congress, etc. I don't know why, I just really enjoy listening to it. (Am I the only one out there like that? Oh well......)

Anyway, I have heard alot of how people are suffering because of the economy. Lots of people don't have jobs, or won't soon hereafter. But I just want to dedicate this blog to letting you all know that there is hope.

Is hope hard to find? Probably.

Does that mean it's not there. Definitly not. We just have to look in all the right places at the right time to find it. God extends hope in some of the most bizzare places sometimes. I mean, I find hope sometimes in something my cat does. (Freaky I know..but hope is hope, and anything helps! :)

No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down, He will never let you be pushed pat your limit, and He will always be there to help you come through it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

That's a promise, from God. He has a proven track record of always keeping His promises. You can't count on me, your spouse, your kids, even pastors 100% of the time. You can't coutn on any mortal human 100% of the time. But you can always count on God.

I want to take this opprotunity to pray for people who are hurting because of this whole mess we call "the failing economy."  It's not easy, it's not fun, but it can get better. I can't say when, not even economists can say exactly when. But it will eventually get better.

Dear Lord, I ask that you touch all the people in America. Please give them strength to navigate through this time. It's not easy to handle all this, it hurts to see people suffer in this economy. But I am trusting in Your promise that You will extend hope to everyone. You can make everything ok, and You will. In Your perfect time. Please give everyone the peace and comfort of Your love Father; that they may know what peace and eternal love really is. Love you Lord, thanks for everything.

Amen

Keep on keeping on everyone. And do what you can, with what you have, with where you're at. God Bless you all.

So here I am.....blogging for the first time in a MORTAL long time. I apologize for my lack of blogging. Let me see if I can find something to write about........

It's 2009 now!! I am so excited to enter a new year!! So I thought I would share some things that will happen in 2009 that I am excited about, and some of you peeps in cyberspace might be excited about too.

1.  I turn 16 years old. (Ok, I am probably the only on exicted about that.......but it's something!!)

2.  New Line Cinema is producing the next Chronicles of Narnia movie, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader."  (It's gonna be SUWEET!! The biggest visual Narnia movie yet to be made....oooohhh!!)  

3.   My sweet, dear little kitty Reepicheep turns 2 years old!! That is huge for my little kitty, I love her so much!

That's just a few things I can think of.....but I have a few things in mind that will happen in 2010. Now this isn't stressful or anything, thinking about things to come in 2010. It's fun, and quite exciting!

1.  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader comes out in theatres!!! (May something, 2010.........mark your calenders......it's gonna be awesome!!)

2.  I turn 17 and Reep turns 3. (That's a given though, taking into account the number 1 & 3 of 2009 things. : )

But you know what the cooooolllleeesst thing is? All of those things, in 2009 and 2010 all happen in MAY!! My birthday, Reep's birthday, and the Narnia MOVIE!! So what's my favortie month? Yeah.....

So I have spoken, what about y 'all? What are YOU excited about in 2009, or 2010, or when ever? Feel free to express anything whatsoever you are happy about. Thanks for reading my humble little blogs. And Happy New Year all!!

So November 22nd was my FAVORITE author's 106th birthday. The only freakish part about that, is that he has been dead for over 40 years. (ehem) So I am porbably the only person (besides his nuclear family) that celebrates his birthday. Who is he? C.S Lewis, Clive Staples Lewis to be precise. He wrote many books, some I see on this website have read them! (you share my joy) But for those who haven't heard of him (you have my pity) here are some of the numerous books he has written: Mere Christianity, The Chronicles of Narnia (my personal, all-time, never been replaced, never will be, favorites.) Out of the Silent Planet, and The Great Divorce. So, if you have heard of those books, you are halfway there! C.S Lewis wrote those!

Another scary/freakish thing, that had nothing to do with my blog, I just thought I would share that with y'all. (I'm a freak! I do freakish things...you probably see the pattern.)

So on to my real blog............

December holds many dear things for me; my sister's birthday, Jesus's birthday, my friend's birthday, lots of birthdays basically. But Jesus's birthday is my favorite holiday; Christmas! Christmas is the holiday alot of people call magical, inspiring, and a time to be with family and friends.

But really.........what is Christmas to you? This kind of radom-sample fascinates me. I would really like to know what Christmas means to you? Yes you, the one looking at the computer reading my attempted-literature. You.

Christmas means so much to so many people, but to hear what it means to them is so.........cool. Really! It's so dear to my heart hearing people tell me about their Christmas traditions, memories such. Because what people remember is usually either what they loved or hated. And talking about both makes people feel much better, usually.

So think of this as my Christmas present to you all in cyber-space. You get to tell me what Christmas means to you!! Isn't that so nice of me to give you that for Christmas? (I know, I'm so sweet.)

So share whatever, whenever, however you want! Tell me about your favorite and least favorite Christmas stories, wishes, prayers, thoughts, whatever!! I want to know all about it. And who knows, maybe someone else reading this blog will need to hear your stories too? You never know.....but Only God does.

I don't know why my blogs are getting farther, and farther apart.......I will try and make them more frequent!

After a long day of babysitting, I turned on the news ot find out our next president will be Barak Obama. I will try and write this blog based on my God given convictions, not based on feelings, for they change frequently. I will try my best not to seem rude, what I write is what I believe in and know that God stands for, therefor I do too.

I am not yet of age to vote, but if I could vote, I would have voted for McCain hands down, no questions asked. Especially after his vice presidential nominee was Sarah Palin, who believes in almost everything I do. I am going to have to pray dilligenty for America. Obama is not the choice I would have ever made for president. Let me explain why I know that to be true:

Obama is against the war in Iraq. I have spoken with so many people who are the same way, and I am not one of them. This was is a nescesity, I might not be here if we weren't fighting it, and neither would you possibly. Granted, people have died fighting for our country, freedom, and our lives. But they made that choice. They chose to say, "I love my country so much that I want to risk my life, in living or dying, for my fellow American's freedom, country, and lives." 

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Our troops are making the ultimate sacrafice, and they choose to make that sacrafice. They were not forced, they mad ethe concious descision knowing some but not all of the consiquences.

Another thing is that Obama is Pro-Choice, or in other words, he wants a women (no matter whar her surcumstances) to have the choice of whether or not she wants to kill her baby she is pregnant with. The very denotation of abortion tells me that is nothing God would ever have anything to do with.  America is a country of freedoms, but who would want the choice of murdering their child that God has blessed them with? What about women who cannot have children? Or the women who work in hospitals and love children? What about you or I? We were children once, but obviously our mother chose to keep us, nurture us, and love us.  And this is one statement God put on my heart a long time ago that I present to people: why would our president want to pull our troops out of a war to save their lives, when they chose to put themselves in that situation, but take the lives of someone who has no idea what death even means and has no choice in the matter? Just a thought, I thought I believe strongly in.

Matthew 5:21 "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.'"

I was presented long ago with this fact: if you choose to hate someone, that is murder the same as taking someone's life. The Bible says it!

1 John 13:15 "Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him."

That is something I regret to be guilty of: Hate. But I know, that because I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and saviour, and know that I know that I know, I am saved.

A final thought  is that Obama is Pro-Homosexual. I am really tired of seeing news programs about how schools and parents are battling over what their curriculum should say about homosexuality. Homosexuality is mentioned only in the Bible to show us that it is an abomination of God. Heres the denotation of Abomination:

Abomination: "Hate coupled with disgust, an action that is vicious or vile: an action that arouses disgust or abhorence."

Homosexuality is an abomination of God, and me.

1 Kings 14:12 "There were even male shrine prostitutes (homosexuals in the Bible) in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites."

Detestable is a synonym of abomination and hate. It would be loving to allow these people who are defying God's plan for marriage to have "special needs." the Garden of Eden was created, and in it, placed the first couple: Adam and Eve. Not Adam and Adam, not Eve and Eve. One man + one women = marriage. They teach you that in seminary, the equation to marriage. When you add 2 + 2, you will always get 4, no matter how much you want to change it. Marriage is only when you add one man and one woman.

To close, I pray for America, I preay her eyes will be opened to the evil we are so loathfully engulfed in. I pray for our governmental leaders, democrats and republicans. I pray that God would guide them in the right path, and that they would follow it. I pray we as Christ followers can make the right choices in our country and not be decieved by what surrounds us, no mattter how "good" it may look to my/our sinful eyes.

God Bless America In God We Trust!

Ok, I am scaring myself.....20 days without a new blog. I appologize, I kept many in the dark about what my mind is thinking.

So here we go. (I hope I remember how to blog.)

October is Pastor Appreciation Month. My blog directly behind this one is about that. Feel free to read that before you read this.

As I was studying, a thing I do alot of, my Bible course mentioned something pastors had to do back then to even get accepted into seminary.  Which got me thinking.....and I think hard and deep.....so I researched it, and I found what pastors  had to do way-back-when to even become pastors. So I shall share 10 pastoral tidbits with you all.

Oh, and I am not saying being a pastor these days is easier than back then, in some ways it is, and some ways it isn't. So here' goes......(keep in mind these are approximate, I am just paraphrasing, so my numbers might be a  bit off, I apologize in advance if some are a wrong. : )

17th Century

1) To even be accepted into a Seminary college, a aspirig pastor must have almost all the Psalms memorized by heart. (There are 150 psalms, some that are pages long.)

2) While studying in seminary (which wasn't called seminary back then, by the way), classes would be about 3 or 4 people studying as group for up to 10 hours a day for a year or so. (I guess their idea was to do tons of studying in a shorter time reather than a little bit for a longer time. Who knows?)

Now fast forward about 200 years, and lets look at what it was like to be a pastor in history....enjoy!

18th late Century early 19th

3) As a pastor, your sermons should be at least 8 hours long,

4) In that 8 hour sermon, 4 hours of that would have to be being praying non-stop. (and the pasot ris the one praying by himself, while everyone listens.....)

5) Usually there was one pastor for every town,

6) Taking into consideration the last phrase, that means if these were present rules for pastors, you there would be one pastor to do all the preaching for Portland, one for Battle Ground, one for Seattle etc.....all the preaching to all the people done by one pastor,

7) Since there was only was one pastor, he would have to visit all the sick people, do all the funerals, weddings, etc by himself,

Mid 19th to early 20th century

8) Assistant pastors were born, (praise the LORD!)

9) Multiple location churches were born,

and the grand finale!!!!............

10) Pastor's were not paid for their work unitl the end of the 1800's

So there you have it! 10 reasons to be pastor today, since today is a bit more favorable in these ways than back then. Have a wonderful day, and remember to thank a pastor this month. God Bless!

Long blog silence. It scared a few people. But I am back with yet another blog I could have never thought up on my own without God's conviction and ispiration.

It's October, just in case we haven't yet noticed. ( I hadn't unitl yesterday......but obviously, it is October already me.) Lots of things happen in October. My friend's birthday, fall, cold weather, rain, school, rain, and rain. But October is Ministry Appreciation Month too.  (or Clergy Appreciation or Pastor Appreciation)

I love Pastor Appreciation month. It's the national time of year we honor the heros of the church. Everyone in the church is a hero, don't get me wrong. But pastors are people who have deticated their lives to to Jesus and showing people the love of God. I just think that is so COOL! That you can make a living out of talking and telling the truth? God is amazing in that way.

So I thought I would just take the time to thank all pastors, inside and outside of Living Hope Church. You are all amazing. What you are doing is such a blessing to the whole world. You are making a profound impact on the world, regarless of whether you thought about it that way or not.  It isn't vain to know what a huge difference you are making, God is so proud of you! His heart is moved to know that some of His wonderful children whom He loves so dearly love Him back enough to spread the word of His love everywhere.

I am not yet a pastor, but I know being a pastor is hard. Very hard. But know that everything you will every go through is for a purpose and will end in good. You might not see the good until years or months later, or you might know right away.  But God will be with you through everything you have, will, and are going through. It won't ever be easy being a Christ follower, but in the end it will all be worth it.  Promise. But don't believe me! Believe God:

1 Corinthians 10:13 "No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what other have to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down, He will never let you be pushed past your limit, and He will always be there to help you come through it."

We love you guys and gals.  You are doing an amazing job and keep up the good work! Hopefully God will be able to these words and other things through me to encourage a pastor out there. And I pray that God will use me to reach people one day for His glory.

And now a word to everyone else. I encourage you to thank your pastor for everything he/she does. It could be a note of encouragement, a blog, a face-to-face thanks, or whatever God puts on your heart.  It doesn't have to be fancy, practiced, eloquent, perfect or anything. It has to be authentic and real. Just telling someone thanks makes a huge a difference.

Hope these words will encourage some of you out there today. Have a great day, and God Bless!

                                                                                                  ~~Happy Pastor Appreciation Month~~

As fall approches, there are many tasks we must preform in order for us to enjoy fall to the fullest. For instance, the other day I was outside cleaning up the yard for my mom. (she asked me to do that by the way, I feel bad for not doing on my own. : ( but we move one...) Once the yard was better, not perfect but better, I decided (on my own this time, yeah for me!) to clean the gutters. This was very brave of me because I am very much afraid of heights and not-safe-places-that-are-up-high. But I got the ladder and prepared to clean them. Keep in mind that no one was there to hold the ladder, but I decided to climb the ladder anyway to clean all the gutters all the way around the house.   

So with the ladder set up I climbed upward. Luckily, I am so tall that it only took me climbing to the 3rd rung and I could reach inside the gutters! So anyway, I cleaned them all, by myself, no one holding the ladder, no one would have known if I had fell off. (This does have something to do with my blog idea by the way.)

So I'm cleaning the gutters like a responsible little teenager, when I lift up a pile of leaves and find something. I also think it smart to note that I wasn't wearing gloves. Gross I know, but gloves and I have just never been best friends. They are tight and hot and sweaty, or at least they make my hands like that. When it snows, hand them over. But not when it's 60 degress outside.

I lift up a pile of leaves and branches and find something: a nest of pinching bugs. Please tell me someone knows what pinching bug is? It's those long skinny brownish-black bugs that run fast and have clearly visible gigantic pincher jaw for a mouth. There were probably 10 or 15 of them running everywhere. Much to my dismay, I didn't scream. I am one of those people who scream at things that scare me, and I scream high-pitched. I scream when I see snakes, when my brother hides and then jumps out, whe I see mice, large black jumping spiders, etc. I could write a blog about everything I scream about and everyone could probably relate to me.

So pinching bugs, they are scary. I didn't scream but I flailed my arms and almost fell off the ladder. But then I was more scared of falling off the 3rd rung of a ladder than being pinched to death by pinching bugs. So I hugged the ladder for dear life. In the process of hugging the ladder, I for some odd reason layed my head on the gutter. (I know, I still have no idea why!) But my head was resting on the gutter, and I was telling myself   "I'm alive! I live to see tomorrow! Thank you Jesus!" But while I was thanking God for saving my life, a piching bug climbed up next to my face.

I did scream that time. But it was a quiet scream, a little lady like scream. So I jerked back but didn't almost fall off the ladder, I was fine. But then I was just waiting for the pinching bugs to leave, watching them run for dear life, and run as fast as their 10 legs could carry them. Then I looked down the gutter and GOd hit me with something I call "huge."

But first, do you know what the Bible compares our hearts too? I  hope your sitting down for this one: filthy rags. Yup, filthy rags. So God gave me this analogy: picture your heart as being the gutters (only not as long) and the leaves and such being all the junk in our lives. The water that flows through the gutters is God's will for your life. It will all fall into place now: How can God's will flow from our hearts into our lives if we are blocked by all the junk we have in our lives?

Really, when my dear Mommy whom I love so dearly told me about the filthy rags verse, I was like "Why in the world would out hearts be like filthy rags?! We are so smart and Jesus is in our hearts, so how can they be that bad?"

Anger, addictions, pain, fear, disabilities, the list could go on. What is it for you that is blocking the flow of God's will in your life? I would love to pray for you if you ever need prayer.

Just let God know what is blocking your flow, and He can help you work it out. If He is The Great Physician, surely He can handle being a gutter........er...........heart cleaner too, right?

I was just listening to one of my favorite songs, "The Happy Song." Funny name? Maybe, but I believe this song rocks! It's a song by Chris Tomlin. It talks about how happy he is that God saved his soul, how much God loves him, and how excited he is to see all the great things God has done.

How cool is that? This is my question to you awesome blog-readers today: what does happieness mean to you? I mean really, true  happiness? The authentic happiness that few things ever cause. What does it mean to be happy? I know lots of happy people,  I live with a few.  : )

But this is what I think, and I might be wrong: there is a HUGE difference between happiness and true happiness. This might be kinda confusing, but really, if we think about it we know that we aren't always truely happy. For example, all the rich people that win the lottery, they look pretty happy. "But they aren't really happy because stuff and money can't make them happy," I bet your thinking. True. And that is my point to a certain degree.

What it all comes down to is really simple. Material things don't make us truly happy! No matter how big your raise is, it won't make you happy. Granted, you might scream and dance and be pretty happy when you find out you get a raise, but that is only temporary.  It will go away when you find out a few months later that the raise that made you happy 6 months ago isn't enough now.

So that mean, by inductive reasoning, that something besides material things make us truly happy. One word. One word Only.

GOD.

Yup, that's it. I could stop the blog right there and you would understand what my point is. But I want to talk more, so I will explain. As humans, we hae a spiritual "vacuum" if you will. That vacuum needs to absorb all that it can. But after awhile, we expirament to see what will fill that vacuum fastest or makes us the happiest. But in our lengthly tests, we by-pass Who we really should be absorbing, God.

I know all of us want to be happy, that is perfectly normal. We should be happy, God wanted it to be that way! So I ask this final question: are we really happy? Is our vacuum full of the Spirit that provides us with true happiness that lasts for eternity? I hope that whomever God speak to through this blog will soon discover true happiness. Know that God loves you, and in loving you and you loving Him, that makes Him happiest of all.  

 I just deleted my whole blog I had typed up!!! "Why Jesus? It was perfect!!" Anyway, lets try this again.......

So I was studying this morning, and my Bible class teacher/person on the computer aksed me to type up Romans 12:1-2. "Two verses? Hope it isn't too long." was my first, initial, stupid-human thought.

Some of you might be wondering about my blog silence lately. Well, I just prefer to wait untill God put some huge, astronomical, life-conviction thought on my mind. That is just the way I am I guess. So, up untill now, I haven't gotten a huge, conviction like idea for a blog.  "So yeah? What does all that have to do with anything?" I bet that is along the lines of what you are thinking, huh? Well, read these two verses and it will all start to fall into place:

1 And so, dear brothers, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living sacrafice, holy--the kind He can accept. When you think of what He has done for you, is this too much to ask? 2 Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but be a new an different person with a fresh newness in all you do all think. Then you will learn from your expirence how his ways will really satisfy you. Romans 12:1-2

I almost fell out of my chair. My thought was, outloud to the everyone I interrupted, "That is so deep." Deep? Probaly not the best word I could use. But true? By far. If any of you were at the services this last weekend, or have seen the service, you might know that Pastor John talked a bit about this. He said that God wants us to get of the 10% that is holding us back from living our lives to the full for Him.  One wouldn't want to always do a 90% job at work, or or only settled for 90% grades would they? This verse confirms somethings Pastor John spoke about last weekend. 

But the first step is admitting and identifying that we have a "10%" holding us back. If you to believe you have a cold, how can you treat it? Whatever you need to figure out what it is that is holding you back.  A marriage, classmate, an addiction, a family member that walked out on you, figure out what it is.

The second thing is tell God. Does He already know? Sure. but it brings Him sheer joy when His beloved children tell him "Father, I need help. I cannot do this, and you can. So please help me, I'm broken!"  So tell Him however you'd like. I'll give you a second..........

That freeing feeling is awesome huh? Now read the verses again. God's telling us something, are we hearing it? I would encourage people to read the entire 12th chapter of Romans. Paul wrote it for that exactl reason, for us to read it  and apply it.  God Bless everyone. 100% is awesome, because it's God's will.

Just to clear one thing up: my mood "full" means mentally full. (Just letting everyone know)

I was thinking earlier what I am going to do with my life. So I'm just sort of thinking out loud this blog entry. I will graduate soon, and I would like to attend college. I know that I would like to major in Bible or phycology, something that will help me become a Pastor. I have gotten that far. Blank. I want to be a pastor, but I can't just grow up and be a pastor. What about my mom and family? How will I come up with the money to support them AND take college. I have determined that I will take college online for several reasons. 

1. Cheaper

2. Easier

3. I will be closer to my Mommy. (She's so awesome, and I want to grow closer to her every day.)

 So, what next? I was takling to God while I was doing my e-mail. I was trying to tell Him: "I have a good idea of what I want to do with my life, but I've only started thinking about it and weighing the possibilities. But I know there is more.....but what is the more I need to find out? What about all the details? Even if I do become a pastor and start another Living Hope campus, will I have the money? What about taxes and such? Will antone come? I am just so full right now. Seriously, I need help from You. Please?"

After awhile of just listening, I felt god telling me "Just let Me work out the details. I can do it better than you anyway, so why even bother? And I already had a plan for you before anyone including you even came into this world. So just do what you can, with what I have given you, with where I have put you."

I really hope and pray very, very hard that I do my best for God. I sometimes feel worried I will let god down and mess up  His plan. But yeah right, like I will fall for that lame-o joke/lie from Satan. (I'm not that stupid.)

I just felt this might encourage someone out there reading this right now. Your plan and God's plan are two totally separate things. Actually, let me give this straight to you: God's plan will come to pass, and your's won't. It took me several yars to get it. Get it as in saying ot myself, "OH DUH!! I have no idea and God does! I get it now, why have't I got it before?!"

Just give God the riegns, and he will direct your paths. He does that best anyway.