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ack and forth on our bench swing watching the leaves wave goodbye to their branches and drift slowly to the ground the sky was dotted with cotton candy puffed clouds and the blazing red yellow and orange leaves looked even more vibrant against the amazing blue backdrop though a breath taking scene to say the least the season of autumn always leaves me with a sense of sadness i know that winter is coming soon winter means less sunshine bare trees and sometimes very cold and gloomy days admittedly our winters are probably very mild compared to most but anything under 40 is considered freezing cold for this southern girl over the years however i ve learned to not be too downhearted during this season even in the midst of my sorrowful anticipation of the winter to come lies a tiny little seed of hope you see though fall means winter is on its way i know that after winter comes spring and nothing is more beautiful than seeing the first flower bloom after a long cold winter sometimes i feel this is what life is like as the age old saying goes things will get worse before they get better we may have to go through a time of winter before we can experience a time of spring our winters could be anything from the loss of a job to financial difficulties to relational troubles to wanting a child to the divorce of parents to life s uncertainty to the death of a love one to looking for a spouse to anything else we may struggle with oftentimes even as christians we dread these times we would much rather it be spring all the time but as mentioned earlier it is the winter that makes us appreciate spring so much more in the same way it is through our struggles and trials that we are strengthened and refined and made more like jesus we are made even more beautiful than before as we go through our trials i think there are three important things to keep in mind first we should always be looking for ways to be thankful in 1 thessalonians 5 18 we are told to give thanks in all circumstances for this is god s will for you in christ jesus in the winter there are things that can t be done or at least aren t very enjoyable at any other time of the year such as dressing up in cozy sweaters drinking hot cocoa playing in the snow or having a fire likewise even during difficult times there are always things to be thankful for and sometimes there are things that we only experience or learn when life is rough for example it has been during times of desperation that i have felt closest to god and to others second we have to remember why god allows us to go through these times james 1 2 4 says consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything in the middle of our suffering god is shaping and molding our character there are some plants that even though the leaves and stems may die their roots continue to live and grow during the winter only to flourish again during the spring similarly we must not give up during our adversities but rather we must continue to persevere our hardships challenge us to decide who we are truly following and determine whether we are genuine or just fair weather christians third we have to hold onto the hope we have in christ in hebrews 12 2 3 we read let us fix our eyes on jesus the author and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of god consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart just as winter is temporary so are our trials we have to remember this is just a season of our life in addition we have to constantly be looking to jesus to what he s done to what he s doing to what he will do one day we have to take hold of his love his grace his goodness his faithfulness his righteousness and the list goes on he is everything we are not and it is by him that we are able to get through our tribulations on the cold gloomy days i try to remember that as long as i am still alive and this earth still exists spring will never cease to come in the same way jesus promises never fail he will never leave us nor forsake us he will be our comfort and encouragement and one day for those of us who have put our hope in jesus we will finally see him face to face after a life of being tested and purified we will finally be made complete oh what wonderful spring that will be november 10 2009 at 3 46 am leave a comment who would have thought a year and a half ago back in january 2008 i entered into my first college classroom that morning my mom and i had rushed to the campus so that i could register for classes all too soon it was time for my mom to leave and for my class to start we said our good byes and i headed to class to calm my jittery stomach i called up a friend of mine one of the two people i knew already at my school and said well i made it i m in i walked into the room greeted by a sea of new faces and took a seat a guy next to me helped to ease some of my nervousness with his friendly questions now don t get me wrong it s not that i ve never been in new places before or never been around new people however i do take some time to adjust to new situations and i can sometimes be a little shy plus i was still a bit frazzled from the whole application process i had hoped i would be all registered for classes the month before but due to various complications i hadn t been able to register until that morning my mind was still in a whirl to top it all off the class i was about to start happened to be my least favorite subject math i hadn t planned on taking college algebra that semester but my advisor talked me into it perhaps the biggest fear going through my head that day was the fear of being bored to death or the fear of looking stupid finally the professor walked in or did she bounce in i don t remember the boring old professor that i had envisioned turned out to be a very friendly energetic and crazy about math person needless to say that became my favorite class of the semester and i well actually ended up with a pretty nice grade now 18 months later i have just finished my third semester of college and i feel god has brought me a long way no finishing three semesters is not really that big of accomplishment except when once upon a time i didn t even think i d make it into college a couple of months ago i came across a journal where i had written down a conversation i had with someone when i was 13 years old the gist of the conversation was that someone had asked me what my plans were for the future and i told them that i knew i was not going to college part of the reason for my thinking was that i didn t care too much for school which i told the person the other part which i didn t tell the person was that i didn t think i could make it again i was not a huge fan of school and i didn t think i could handle the pressures and rigors of college studying also i felt that compared to some super smart genius people like my older brothers i was well not quite as smart obviously my views of college have changed since then however it still wasn t until i was about 16 or 17 years old before i started even considering going but now here i am in college at the head of most of my classes making new friends and blessed with some awesome professors i m not going to say that it s all been fun or easy just ask my brother how many times i ve threatened to quit school however i think back to the time when i was younger and sat crying over my math book in my room with my mom standing next to me shaking her head i was homeschooled please don t get me wrong my mom was a great teacher i just wasn t that great of student or to the time in middle school when i thought maybe i could be a sports coach because i didn t think i would need a degree to do that and all i can say is wow god has a much bigger imagination than i do i mean come on who would have thought that a girl who had once hated school would one day be pursing her college degree who would have thought that a girl who had been horrible at math would go on to study pre calculus by her own choice who would have thought that a girl who once was deathly afraid of meeting new people would go on to make new friends in a new place and new environment i still have a lot of semesters ahead of me i still have a lot of decisions to make i still don t know exactly where i m going to end up but i know that as long as i keep following god and trusting in him he will continue to guide me to provide for me to give me strength and to help me just as he always has hannah may 20 2009 at 9 45 pm 1 comment the ultimate goal what is it that drives you when you wake up in the morning what are your first thoughts do you think about the test you have to study for the laundry that needs to be washed the bills that have to be paid or do you pray for a friend in need what are your goals in life to get a promotion at work to make good grades at school to have a nice retirement to win an award or to make a difference for the kingdom of god which is the more important to you having status or having character watching a sports game or reading the bible having a clean home or having a clean heart being accepted or doing what s right though our goals and priorities are not always bad in and of themselves they can be meaningless if our focus is not on christ some of our priorities however are just plain distracting and can prevent us from living the life god has called us to live in the book of philippians paul writes this but whatever was to my profit i now consider loss for the sake of christ what is more i consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing christ jesus my lord for whose sake i have lost all things i consider them rubbish that i may gain christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which is through faith in christ the righteousness that comes from god and is by faith i want to know christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings becoming like him in his death and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead not that i have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect but i press on to take hold of that for which christ jesus took hold of me brothers i do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it but one thing i do forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead i press on toward the goal to win the prize for which god has called me heavenward in christ jesus philippians 3 7 14 earlier on in the passage paul talks about how he has already obtained the goals of this world he is of the tribe of benjamin a hebrew of hebrew and a pharisee v 5 6 and yet compared to following and knowing christ those things mean nothing he considered them a loss instead his goals were to lead a life of righteousness through faith strive to know christ and become more like him so what are some practical ways that we can give up the things of this world and labor to live for christ march 10 2009 at 10 04 pm 1 comment can one man save a nation two weeks ago on january 20th 2009 history was made as the 44th president and first african american was sworn into office i was at my college when i witnessed this event watching the big screens with the rest of the student body as the ceremony progressed i looked around the room some people were clapping some people wore t shirts showing their support on the television i could hear the chants of the crowd cheering for their new president as i watched the events unfold i couldn t help but wonder in what or in whom our nation was putting it s trust i saw so many people excited about the new president as if he could make everything better again certainly what this man has done by becoming president is no small task and i commend him for it however do we really think that one man can change our nation brothers and sisters let s not be fooled no man or woman whether black or white republican or democrat old or young christian or non christian can possibly fix all the problems of our nation in jeremiah 17 5 we read cursed is the one who trusts in man who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the lord let me be clear i am not saying that we should be disrespectful or disobedient to our governing authorities nor am i saying that our president won t help our country only time will tell that i am simply saying that we shouldn t look to the government for all the answers but rather we should get on our knees and seek god wholeheartedly there is only one man who can possibly save us his name is jesus only by turning to him can our nation be saved but blessed is the man who trusts in the lord whose confidence is in him he will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream it does not fear when heat comes its leaves are always green it has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit jeremiah 17 7 8 february 3 2009 at 4 05 pm 4 comments welcome to 2009 yeah it s a little late i know it s a new year a time of fresh starts and new beginnings about six months ago i started this blog with the purpose of challenging people to live their lives fully for christ however i wasn t exactly sure what was the best way to communicate my purpose and i didn t have a lot of time to come up with new material so i started out with simply posting some of my own creative writing that i had written over the years after a while though i decided that i didn t have the time to maintain the blog as frequently as i wanted and the writings did not completely reflect the purpose of the blog as i had first intended so this blog remained under construction for several months however all of that is about to change over the past few months i ve spent time thinking and praying about what god would have me do with this blog thankfully god was faithful and provided me insight into some different areas now i am reopening or rather starting over in a sense this blog with a new design and new material the vision of this blog however remains the same i want to back up a bit and explain the motivation for creating this blog i started this blog because i had grown tired i was tired of people being indifferent about how they lived i was tired of my generation s lack of enthusiasm for their faith i was tired of watching my friends believe in god only as something their parents believed i was tired of myself living just for me and my selfish desires i was tired of people of my friends of myself living for less when we should be living for so much more i want to challenge people to dare to live for more than this world offers to embrace god with all of their souls to not settle for anyth...