Awaken 2014!

This past weekend, 60+ college students from Antioch Baton Rouge took a trip to the great city of Ft. Worth, Texas! We were in Ft. Worth from late Friday night until mid-day Tuesday and in these short 4 and a half days we got to see Jesus move! 

We started off Saturday morning pretty early with some great Holiday Inn breakfast and then loaded up the bus to make our way to our first morning session. We got to hear an amazing word from Jamey Miller, the pastor of Christ Fellowship in Ft. Worth. He talked to us about the father heart of God in a way I've never heard before. He really took the time to explain to us that God IS a father. He loves us like a father and wants us to know it. Jamey really got us pumped up to go do our outreach that afternoon at a park in Ft. Worth called Foster Park. 

Foster Park is located right by a low-income neighborhood, so we were super pumped to have a huge cookout to give away some free hamburgers, make some new friends and share the love of Jesus! Before the cookout, we got in small groups and went door-to-door inviting people to come eat with us. We had such an amazing turnout. So many people came and got free food. We laughed and ate together. What an awesome time. 

That night, we got together and did what true Texans do best, attend a rodeo! We all put on our plaid shirts and cowboy boots and had a boot-scootin' good time!

Sunday morning, we got to attend the service at Christ Fellowship and hear another great word from their pastor Jamey. Jesus was definitely moving in that place! We also found out that before we left for church, a couple of boys from our group met a boy at the hotel who was also from Louisiana! This boy was in a wheelchair and our amazing men of God prayed over him and saw him get out of his wheelchair! God was doing some major healing that morning. So as a church we got to pray for this boy that God would give him complete healing! 

After church we all got to chow down on some Mexican food to get us ready for our next outreach at La Gran Plaza, the hispanic mall in Ft. Worth. This was one of my favorite things we did on the trip. We walked around the mall meeting people, praying for them and sharing the gospel. I was in a group with two great men of God, TJ & Cameron. We got to pray for so many people, and it was so encouraging to see how receptive and open some people were for prayer. At one point at the mall, I went to the restroom and prayed that I would get the opportunity to pray for someone and completely rely on Jesus. Before that I was really relying on the boys to do most of the talking and praying, but I really wanted to make sure I could stand out and be bold. Not even 30 seconds after praying that, a teenage girl walked into the bathroom with tears filling her eyes. I couldn't ignore her, knowing right away God wanted me to talked to her, and asked if she was okay. Thankfully, she wasn't crying, she just had bad allergies but God really used this opportunity to make sure that I would be able to pray for her. Her name was Jocelyn and she was so sweet! I just got to talk to her and get to know more about her. She even let me pray for her and was so thankful. I felt so encouraged by God, because He didn't ignore my prayer! He knew Jocelyn needed prayer and He knew how badly I wanted to pray and share with someone. Jesus is so good! After that we all walked around and kept sharing the love of Jesus, while exploring through this hispanic mall. It was so much fun. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and shared our experiences together. So many people gave their lives to Christ that day!! One person in our group, who barely knew Spanish, was having a full conversation in Spanish with someone who couldn't speak English. Language can't hold back the power of God! 

Monday morning our very own Jake Griffin, pastor at Antioch BR, shared the word with us! He told us about being holy and how to do so. We have to be 100% ready to follow Jesus, we can't just be 99% ready, because that 1% of sin would be holding us back from Him. God really showed up that morning, and made us so excited for our last outreach at TCU. We got to go share the gospel again where we saw even more people give their lives to Jesus! Completely amazing! 

One of my favorite things that happened on the trip, was the transformation we saw in our bus driver, Joe. At the beginning of the trip, Joe really wouldn't speak a word to any of us. I remember a talking to a few people about how it really made us sad to see how unhappy he was. One of my roommates, Sara, said right away that Joe was going to give his life to Jesus by the end of the trip. She took every opportunity to talk to Joe, even when he really did not want to talk. She never gave up. God put a fire in her heart to see Joe give his life to Him, and she was going to make sure it happened. Sunday night, we all went and ate at a BBQ restaurant and we got Joe to come eat with us. He sat with Sara, Don, Bridget, Alex and I and we really got to know him. He is one of the funniest people I have ever met. He was keeping us laughing throughout dinner. Jesus was already starting to soften Joe's heart. The next night, and also our last night, Sara and Brandon got to eat dinner with Joe and share with him the gospel and guess what?! Joe was completely ready to give his life to Jesus!! Brandon told Joe that heaven was having a party right now and asked if Joe was ready to pray to be saved. But Joe told Brandon, that he was not ready yet. He wanted to wait until after everyone ate so all 60 of us could be there to witness Joe saying YES to his new life with Christ!! He said if heaven was having a party then he wanted to be having a party on earth! WOW! It was such an amazing surprise to see Joe completely changed from being unhappy and not wanting to talk, to wanting to celebrate his new life with all of us!! I found out afterwards, that Joe was really wanting a way to get out of New Orleans, where he lives, for Mardi Gras. He didn't want to be around that environment. He prayed asking Jesus to give him a way out, and not even 15 minutes later, our college leader, Blake, was calling saying we needed a bus driver to Ft. Worth!! 

Joe getting saved outside of In-N-Out!

Lastly, we all got to see healing in one of our very own! One of my great friends, Claudia, has lived her whole life with a speech impediment, causing her to stutter. It's been a struggle for her, especially now as she is getting her degree to be a teacher. She's had a professor tell her that she couldn't be a teacher with her stutter and her doctor tell her that her stutter is incurable. Hearing Claudia tell me these things broke my heart and I really got the feeling that God was going to heal her stutter. I talked to our Pastor, Jake, about it and he told me to keep praying for it and see what God says. So I prayed that night and the next morning that God would heal her stutter. That next day I heard Claudia tell Blake, "It's better already!" and I turned to her to ask what she was talking about. She said that Blake had got the feeling that God said Claudia would be healed from her speech impediment and she was prayed over for healing. I was BLOWN AWAY. Not only did God tell me that Claudia would be healed, but he told Blake too. We all prayed over her again and her stutter was starting to go away even more! Claudia is not completely healed from her stutter, but she saids it's already 85% gone! We can rely on Jesus that it will soon be gone completely because He isn't a God that heals partially. He heals FULLY! 

Claudia and I after her healing!!

This weekend has been such a life changing experience. I wish I could tell every story on here about the way God moved. I can't wait to see these miracles happen in Baton Rouge, at home and at school! Jesus is so amazing and loving. He always shows up when asked to. I'm so blessed to have an amazing church community to experience life with and who love Jesus with their whole hearts. 

With Love, 

Rejoice Always!

The spring semester has started and I am quickly reminded of how stressful college is. I believe the first week of school is one of the best and worst. In that week, most teachers only go over the syllabus, tell you how the semester is going to go and then let you out early with no homework to worry about. Pretty easy, right? But even though that seems fairly simple, you have to go to 4-5 (or more) classes and hear from all of the professors the many things you are going learn, the many projects you will have to complete, and how important each grade is. Some professors even remind you that they do not give bonus and they will not feel sympathy for you when they receive the infamous "I need some points to bring my grade up. Is there anything I can do for extra points?" e-mail that you might be sending at the end of the semester. I left every class the first week telling myself "You cannot skip. You cannot procrastinate. You have to do good." But even this prep talk leaves me feeling stressed, because in the back of my mind I know I will fail these three things at some point this semester.

I, like many high school and college students, struggle with being constantly stressed and worried. It's not a good feeling at all. And why is that?

Because the feelings of being stressed and worried is not from God. 

I've been reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan over the past few months. There are three pages of this book completely focused on stress. I have read these three pages so many times, because they are written so amazingly. Francis starts off by explaining his worries that he used to have, making himself relatable to the reader. But then he reminds us of Philippians 4:4: Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again, rejoice! This verse doesn't tell us to rejoice only when times are going great, but it's a command for us rejoice always. Yes, that means even on finals week. This verse is followed up by "Don't be anxious about anything" in verse 6. This realization was so eye-opening to me. Just realizing that God didn't create us for feelings of stress and worry brought me a fulfilling peace.

Francis then writes:

"When I am consumed by my problems- stressed out about my life, my family, and my job-I actually convey the belief that I think the circumstances are more important than God's command to always rejoice. In other word's that I have a 'right' to disobey God because of the magnitude of my responsibilities." 

This quote made me believe that worry and stress can come out of selfishness of my own life. If I take a step back to realize that my focus should be on God and not on myself, I wouldn't feel the pressure to have everything perfect and in order all of the time.

The next page from this book is one that I wish I could copy and hand out to every student on campus. I don't think it could have been written any better.

Francis explains to the readers exactly what worry and stress are and what that means for us:

"Worry implies that we don't quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what is happening in our lives.

Stress says that the things that we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace towards others, or our tight grip of control.

Basically, these two behaviors communicate that it's okay to sin and not trust God because the stuff in my life is somehow exceptional... Worry and stress declare our tendency to forget that we have been forgiven, that our lives here are brief, that we are headed to a place where we won't be lonely, afraid, or hurt ever again, and that in the context of God's strength, our problems are small, indeed." 

Every time I have felt stressed or worried, I come back and read this one part. In this, Francis reminds me how substantial God is and how minuscule my problems really are.

I know it can be hard to focus on God in times where everything is life is weighing down on your shoulders, but He will always be waiting for us to ask Him to take our burdens. He tells us in Matthew 11:28: "Come to me all who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

So, next time your feeling overcome by worry and stress, re-read what Francis Chan says about these burdens and remember that Jesus wants to take your burdens and commands you to rejoice always!

With love,

I am the Prodigal Son.

To listen click here

Though I should be asleep, because I have to be awake in a few hours, I decided I would rather write about the way Jesus spoke to me earlier today. This song, The Prodigal Son by Daniel Crawford, really moved me today. (For some reason it wouldn't let me attach the video, so just click the link if you'd like to listen.)

I know a lot of us have heard the parable of the prodigal son many times, but if you haven't it's a story from Luke 15, about a son who didn't want to wait for his father to die before he got his inheritance. So he asked his father if he could have it early and his father agreed. The son went off and blew all of his money, and then ended up with nothing at all. He wanted to go back home and be a servant for his father, realizing that even the servants had more than he had. When he arrived home his father was so happy to have his son back, so he threw a huge party for him. I remember one of the first times I actually sat down and read this story, I thought about how selfish the son was and how underserving he was when he returned home. I knew that parable was a representation of God's love, but it never really moved me this same way that it did today.

I came across this song on a random playlist on Spotify. I automatically loved it and of course I listened to it on repeat a few times, because that's what I do when I find a new song that I really like. The more I listened to it, the more it moved something in my heart. I started to feel like this song was written by God especially for me. I could feel so much love with each word in the song and it brought tears to my eyes, making me realize that I am that selfish child in the parable I've read so many times. Too often, I have asked God for something and once I felt content with what I had I stopped seeking after Him. I decided I was perfectly well-off on my own, I didn't need to continue to pray or grow in my relationship with Him. It never takes long for me to figure out how wrong I am, and when I do realize I am filled with shame and afraid to go back. But all along He is waiting for me to come back to Him. I am His child and as much as I might disappoint Him, God never wants me anywhere else but walking alongside of Him.

When the son returned home his father said:

"Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found." (Luke 15:22-24)

This is only a small representation of God's love for us. How amazing is that?

If your feeling like the prodigal son- lost and afraid to go home, I challenge you to say a simple prayer asking God if you can return to Him. I promise, He's already begun planning a celebration before you've said the first word.

You are loved by God, and will be forever loved by Him because YOU are HIS.


With Love,