"Are you who the person you are looking for is looking for?"

This quote comes from an amazing Andy Stanley series that I watched this past week and it changed my life! The series is called “New Rules for Love, Sex and Dating. The title sounds really intense but it is so good and challenging to become “the one” instead of looking for “the one”. In this series he targets worldly aspects of the dating scene and comparing it with what God says about it. This series motivated me so much to start preparing for marriage. One thing that stuck out the most is we cannot make a promise (saying “I Do”) with out preparation. We think that when we say I do we will automatically know how to love patiently, kindly ect… But we must learn how to love now!

            The last part of this series he challenges single people to take a year off for a lot of reasons. Number one, we can change the direction of our story. Every person has a story that they will tell the person that they will marry; whether or not if we like it or not is up to us. We can change it! Regardless of our past mistakes we can tell our future spouse “on this day I changed it and dedicated a year to prepare for you”. Another reason to take a year off is to simple grow closer to God, learn how to submit to him and really go after him and take care of our baggage. With all of this said, I have committed this next year to Jesus. I am taking a year off dating or “talking” until September 25, 2012. I am so excited about this! Yeah it will be tough but I know that God is going to honor it! This is exactly what I need to grow closer to Jesus and mature as a person; breaking bad habits and gaining good ones. I am at a place in my life where I am starting to grow up and becoming more independent and this year is going to really kick it in gear. My main prayer for this year is that God will mold me into the woman my future husband will need and learn how to love him the way he will need to be loved. 

1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me

            In other new, I have writing my first legit song! On Tuesdays we spend the whole day in our tracks. For worship, we are at the church bright and early to have personal development time. I usually take this time to blog like I am doing right now J and practice songs that I am scheduled to sing within the next week. We have an hour lunch break and then straight into classes which are my favorite part of the week. We have an hour class with the Associate worship pastor, Pastor Justin Bradshaw and John-Mark Durough. Pastor Justin just debriefs the past week and we talk about upcoming events and John-Mark teaches Music theory. Right after that we have a creative worship class with CJ Blount, this class is great! We learn how to make a Sunday set list and also how to write songs. Our first week he paired us up in twos and each group has to write a song and present it to the class. My partner is an awesome musician so I figured he would do all the writing but God had a different plan. I wrote the lyrics and he wrote the music and we put it together and it is so beautiful! I am so excited because I never written a song and never thought I would be able to! Today we are presenting it and I am surprisingly pretty calm! Oh yeah and of course and can’t forget our last class with Pastor John Larson! He shares his wisdom of being a worship LEADER. There are so many things and so many people a worship leader will lead and we are learning what those things are and how we lead effectively. I am so blessed that Jesus put this calling on my life and cannot picture myself doing anything else than leading people into the presence of Jesus Christ.

            I guess that’s about it for right now J I am going to go practice some songs! Love you all and hope you have a great rest of the week! Ps: here is a Link to the series, its free!

http://www.northpoint.org/messages/the-new-rules-for-love-sex-and-dating

Highlands College

         Well I started writing a blog about how things have been going this first month but given that I am super A.D.D it changed and I just want to talk about what Jesus is doing.  I just want to start off and say that I am so in awe of God, that he would bring me to this amazing place and give me these amazing opportunities! I never in a million years thought I would get to experience anything like this! I can't explain just how honored I am the HE would use me!
         Since last semester our school has grown quite a bit! Highlands College is now an accredited school doing amazing things and headed in an awesome direction! I am now my track coordinator, which is pretty awesome. Pretty much that means I am learning an administrative aspect of worship to learn all area's of worship. I get to serve along side of some incredibly anointed people like Pastor John Larson, Pastor Justin Bradshaw, CJ Blount, John-Mark Durough and Ashley Durough (Highlands worship staff)! Worship track has grown from 5 people last semester to 18 people this semester, how crazy is that? I have been given some great opportunities in worship; singing in Highlands College chapels and even for Switch, the youth group here. I have been growing in different skills; vocally and lyrically. Yes, I am writing now! Never thought I would say it, I have always wanted to but never could. I wrote my first song today along with another worship tracker and we will preform it next week. I cannot wait to see where He leads me this semester.
         Another thing Jesus is doing is working "leadership skills" and my heart for people. My heart towards people has changed, not to say I hated people but I have a new passion to serve. Last semester I took the D.I.S.C test and I was a C/S,  more of a quiet, rather be a follower than a leader type of person and honestly just really focused on myself. This past week I have taken that same test and I am now an I/S which is more outgoing and willing to help others. To me this is an answered prayer! Coming into this semester I was so scared of all the new kids coming in and I had to do some serious prayer about my heart. I prayed that God would give me a heart that would want to make them greater. It took a lot of praying but praise the Lord, he did change my heart. I love all of the new students and I want to serve them, encourage them and make them great more so than myself. In the bible it says that Jesus came TO serve not TO BE served and that is what I want my heart to be from now on.
          On top of all of that God has taught me how to be humble. Being a singer/musician/artist whatever, you want to be the best, you want to shine and be known. This is SUCH the wrong mentality, I am not a singer, nor a songwriter, musician or anything is, JESUS is! If I am truly a living sacrifice then that means every step I take is His step, every breath I breathe is His and every lyric of every song I sing is Him! I AM NOT MY OWN. This is Jesus' life I want him to live and move through me. I want people to see or hear Jesus when I open my mouth to sing.
         God has just been revealing more leadership skills in me, I have never seen myself as a leader but he is molding to be one. He, just yesterday, really gave me a revelation of his grace and my mind is blown right now! I just love how I am beginning to see everything fall into place. This is the place is where I am supposed to be, this is my home because this is where he has called me right now. I cannot see my self anywhere else but here. I am so excited to see what Jesus does tomorrow and the day after, I have a new excitement for life. I am sorry if some of this was scattered but I want to get down everything I am feeling. Its joy, freedom and passion for my Savior!