Devotions

I was having a conversation with some people today about love and hope and faith. (You know, typical lunch topics.) It was surprisingly morbid, our little chat, especially when it had to do with love and hope and faith. This, however, was probably due to the fact that my fellow conversationalists didn't think much about love, they rarely sincerely hoped for things, and their faith was nearly missing altogether. This fascinated me, because I am such a hopeful optimist. My faith is so very, very important to me. It defines who I am... and Who I put my hope in is integral to my being. So to hear such statements... such claims... claims such as "love will always be interrupted by distrust" and "it's silly to hope in something divine..." they broke my heart a little bit. And the worst part is, I'm in a foreign country with almost-strangers in whom I cannot confide. I feel like I'm on an island, almost. No one really understands the hope that I have, an...

I am writing this post from Cartagena, Colombia. I'm sitting outside, listening to the sounds of the children practicing soccer, (they're only like 5 years old, and now I understand why Latin-American countries are so good at soccer...) and life is very good. I have a belly full of pizza and a heart full of new experiences. I have a family that loves me and a new handful of close Colombian friends. I volunteer here in the city teaching English to the less-fortunate by day and go out dancing with my international friends at night. I'm not quite sure how life could get better. I attribute these various blessings to a Sovereign God that loves and blesses me, but it's times like these when I think to myself, "who needs Jesus?" Because if you think about it, I can travel to Colombia as a Buddhist. I can eat pizza as an atheist. I can certainly "go out" at night, enjoying the highly festivities as a young adult who doesn't believe in anyone or anyt...

Hi Friends, This weekend has been a really epiphany-esque weekend, and I need to blog about it to get it all out. (Translation: this is going to be a rant that probably goes nowhere.) Going to the graduation ceremony of the grade that graduated after me was weird. For a variety of reasons, and I won't get into all of them, but let's just say I felt SO out of place. I wasn't a current student anymore, and I wasn't old enough to feel like an alumni that was coming back after a really long time... I was just kind of stuck. I saw people and faces that brought back horrible memories, and I saw other faces that affirmed me of the fact that regardless of all the mistakes I had made, people still loved me. (Or pretended to love me while they passed me in the hallway, anyway.) The world is cool and so are animals but the only thing that counts is people . They're it. They're all that matter. How you choose to interact with someone not only defines who you are to th...

So I usually write during the low-times... the days where God is all I have, and I'm sad, and hopeless, and I need something to boost my morale. So I remind myself about God's goodness and His promise to bring better days. But recently, I've been having some really good days! And I'm not complaining by any means, but there's just this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I get-- even on the best of days-- that makes me wonder, "Is this all there is? This is as good as it gets?" I have no practical complaints for these types of days, no obvious disappointing moments, no visible evidence of pain or strife. But I'm still longing for something--  anything better-- at the end of the day. And I haven't been able to know why yet. Until recently, that is. Because recently, I've been repeating this prayer over and over again... "Don't settle." And it first appeared to me in a conversation I had about boys, (go figure,) but it'...

FYI: This post will be partially in English and particlly in español. I can't help it. I just watched un magnifico documentario and now I can't stop thinking about how much I love español and how much I want to use it to ayudar y apoyar communities pobres. (For the record, I know how to speak Spanish and I'm not just inserting random cognates into my English to sound smart.) I'm sitting here in my comfy dorm room, with my comfy covers, and I watched a documentary called "Living on One Dollar" en mis pijamas. Con mi computadora. My Macbook, to be exact. And although I'm super thankful for these things, it makes me a little uneasy to watch footage of so many people without. Without food, medicine, a basic income... it really opened my eyes, which it always does. Every time. You'd think that I'd be so used to the heart-wrenching stories about los pobres internacionales, but I am not. Every time it gets me because I've met some people in extr...

An idea that has been frequenting my thoughts recently is simplistic and fairly basic, but vastly forgotten and misunderstood: Don't base your worth off of someone's past opinions of you, or even the hopes that one day someone will fully love and accept you. Base your worth off of the knowledge that right now, in this very second, God loves you and values you more than even the most precious aspects of the earth He created. I can get pretty wordy, so let's break it down: 1. Don't let your past define how you see yourself 2. Don't let the hope of a future spouse's approval get you through life 3. Realize that in the right now, in the present, God adores you. And that is enough. I've been struggling to accept all three of these pieces of advice lately. First, the past. It's a jerk. Especially for people with OCD who have a really hard time letting things go. I replay scenes over and over in my head, and I would not wish that upon my w...

I have a confession to make. Up until this very moment, I had lived my life following God's Word to the best of my abilities-- except when it came to one all-consuming, worldly thing. Boys. You can laugh at my choices of phrasing, because I'm laughing at myself. I somehow thought that if I followed God in most aspects of my life, specifically the parts that were easy to do so, that I would be okay... that following Him when it was comfortable would be good enough. And when it came to relationships-- to "talking" and "dating" and "spending the rest of my life with someone--" I just kind of went rogue and did my own thing. God was there to help me pick up the pieces after my failed relationships, but I rarely looked to Him in the middle of them. And it wasn't bad enough to stop thinking about God during these flings; I blatantly ignored what His Word said about relationships, and love in general. I wasn't oblivious to what Go...