Living a righteous life.

Lauren's life as of late has been such an inspiration to me. It is amazing to see how much God is working in her life. I have been in such a battle with my Christianity this past year. I backslide every other week. Of course I know that no one is perfect and we all sin, but I know in my heart that I want God to be the center of my life. I fall away from that so quickly. Again, I know this is the case with everyone, but I really want to make a change. I have decided to take things one day at a time. Doing this with putting focus on God has really opened my eyes to my sin. I have been feeling a lot more convicted lately which I am so thankful for. Anyway, last night at RUF Ande talked about how God loves us because he does. SURPRISE! It's so hard to understand this! How could anyone love me that much! You know? He talked about how we try to do good things to make God love us, but God loves us without those things. This talk made me think about living a righteous life. Because God loves us because he does, does that mean we shouldn't try to live righteously? This question was answered when I was reading my Bible last night.


Romans 6:1-2

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?


Romans 6:14-25

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I wasn't to do I do not do, but what I hate to do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

He is risen indeed.

I am so blessed that I am a chosen one. The Lord continues to bless my life everyday. I am so thankful that He has opened my eyes during this dark time and opened doors. I am so grateful for this beautiful Easter Sunday. Today is the one year anniversary of the day that I gave my heart to the Lord. This year has not been easy by any means. It has been a constant struggle, but I wouldn't take it back for anything. Praise Jesus for paying my debt. I pray that I will need Him more and more as each day passes. HE IS RISEN! He is risen indeed. Praise be to God.

The Week after Palmer Home

So I am super excited that I found a blog where I can post pictures! Last week was Spring Break and I went with my college group to Palmer Home in Columbus, Mississippi. It was my very first missions trip. It was a very wonderful yet challenging experience. The little girl in my picture is Kristin. Her and I really hit it off. She is a really sweet little girl and now we are pen pails (via e-mail). The trip is probably exactly what I expected it to be. I kind of expected to be working a lot more but I think what we put in is probably all I could take. Every day we would wake up around 7:30, although at the end of the week is was more like 7:55. We would head to a home cooked, country breakfast at 8 and around 9 o'clock we would head off to work. I was assigned to work in the thrift store that's funds went straight to the children. We spent 1 1/2 days at the store in Columbus and the rest of the time at the store in Starkville. All of us girls loved the Starkville store because it was much smaller and more intimate. We had so much fun there. We got so much accomplished at the end of the week. It was an amazing sight to see when most all of the clothes we had been sorting through were hung up and put out on the floor. It was incredible how big the room we were working in was when there wasn't piles and piles of clothes covering every inch. I really enjoyed this trip. I got to get to know some people in RUF a lot more, I got to experience serving others, and the weather was absolutely beautiful. I also learned a little about photography while I was up there thanks to Shea and Anne.