All Things New

I've been thinking a lot about my interests, desires, and passions lately. In an earlier post, I mentioned that I have been asking God to reveal what my heart is passionate about. I really started wondering about that in the spring semester when I was reading Strong Women Soft Hearts . (Which, by the way, is a fantastic book.) I don't remember the exact question, but at some point in the book, it asked, "What are the dreams you once held that you let die? What are you passionate about?" I became really confused when I was unable to answer that question. After that I was just frustrated. I kept asking myself, "Why can't I think of anything that I absolutely love to do?" I pondered on the issue for some time, but as often happens, I soon became busy with school and kind of buried the question along the way. However, that question came up again this summer, and this time I was determined to work through it.  First of all, I wanted to figure out why I cou

I recently received the most encouraging email from a friend about how God answered some prayers in her life. He had worked in ways that she couldn't have imagined, and her exclamation was:  "I don't even know how to express my thoughts & joy for how incredibly AWESOME, WONDERFUL, AMAZING... our ALL KNOWING & ALL POWERFUL God is !" I was so excited to hear from her, and that reaction really made me think. She was so overjoyed because God had heard and answered her prayer, and her first reaction was praise. After all, shouldn't prayer and praise go hand in hand?  God has been teaching me a lot about prayer, and there are a few things I've learned.  1) Expect  God to work and pray for big things.  If we are seeking the Lord's will and praying for things, we have to believe that He will do those things. I know too many times I would ask God for something but not really believe it would happen. A great example of this is when I was prepari

The first week of my senior year at OU is now over, and I am SO excited about what God is doing. This year already looks quite different from last year, and I am okay with that. It's no secret that last year wasn't my best. Even though I was growing in God, I definitely went through some of the harder times in my life relating to school, finances, trust, and relationships. I took a lot of time this summer working on reorienting my heart toward God and letting Him shape it. It wasn't until last night that I began to realize all He has done. When I was worshipping at Paradigm, this sense of peace and gratefulness just overwhelmed me. For the first time in a while, I felt like I could fully say, "I'm okay. I'm actually better than okay, and I know that God's got this under control." It's hard to explain, but I felt that in that moment, I saw all the ways God had been transforming my heart and making me new , even when I hadn't noticed. A verse