Quit trying so hard and come to Me.

I am done with my first year of college! This year has been amazing, and the best of my life hands down, and I'm sad to see it end. I can't believe how much I've changed and grown, and I'm also so thankful for all that the Lord has revealed to me in this year. It may not seem that different, but to me I feel that the beginning of this summer is the start of a new era in my life. Soon I'll be moving into a cute yellow townhome with 6 other girls who love the Lord, I have a job in an office where I have to dress business casual and use excel every 5 minutes, I will serve as an officer on my college dance team for the next season (eep!), and last night my best friend since junior high got engaged. (Maid of honor, what up!) All of these things just seem so adult to me. It's crazy.
These last few weeks have been a struggle for me. I've felt like I was on auto-pilot. Just trying to get through each day until the semester was over and focus on what's next. Complacency and apathy began to take root in my heart and mind. I began to focus more on what I was doing rather than what the Lord desired for me in each moment.
"Her goal in life had somehow gone from loving God to trying to make Him proud of her." ~Robin Gunn
I read this quote in a novel today and BAM! God put in me in my place. It was as if He wrapped His arms around me and said, "Look. That's your problem. Right there. Quit focusing on what YOU can do and focus on ME. I am ALL you need." Mmm. He is so unbelievably good to me! I don't even know what my problem is, and He is faithful enough to point it out to me and bring me to a place of breathtaking peace. His ways are higher. His will is greater. Bottom line: He is better!
Please take the time to listen to this song, the truth of these lyrics has been resounding in my heart and mind for the last week or so and today, I am clinging to these words. Sit back and let the truth wash over you. He is all you need!

Draw near, because He is GOOD.

Okay. This month has been a whirlwind. Literally, from January 1st to February 9th, I feel like I have lived a lifetime. The Lord has done so many amazingly beautiful things in my life in the last month and I've been dying to write them all out. I'll try to do my best here, bear with me this could get long.

Starting off: Passion 2012. World = Rocked. Pre-Passion my walk with Christ had been pretty stagnant. School, work, dance and relationships had taken over God's rightful place in my life. I got to Passion knowing I was going to be shaken up but I didn't realize how much.
The Lord showed me a lot at Passion but the main thing was that I don't love Jesus enough. And that hurt me. Bad. I remember being in my hotel room the last night of Passion just balling my eyes out on the phone with my dad telling him how I don't know how to love Jesus enough. And I don't know how to put Him first in my life. I don't know how to be in school and love Jesus. I don't know how to work and love Jesus. I don't know how to make Him enough for me. And my Daddy gave me some of the wisest advice ever. To stop. And ask the Lord to give me the desire to know Him. He reminded me that the Lord was showing me things in my life that needed to change and I should be grateful for that.

Well after crying myself to sleep that night, I did just that. The following week I spent literally every spare moment digging into my Bible. I could not get enough. I read through Ephesians, then Psalms, then some of Matthew. I constantly wanted to be in the Word, soaking up Truth. Because that's all I had at that point. Everyday I prayed, "God, grant me the desire to know You more. Break my heart for what breaks Yours. And give me the wisdom and discernment I need to follow wholeheartedly after You."
Come back to school: World rocked again. New semester. New classes. New job. New schedule. People leaving my life. People coming into my life. Don't know where to turn. Don't know what to do. Don't know how to handle any of this. But guess what? God answered that prayer I prayed every day. He gave me the desire to know Him more. And broke my heart for what breaks His. And gave me wisdom and discernment to know how to follow Him wholeheartedly.
James 4:8a
Draw near to God, and He WILL draw near to you.


Jeremiah 29:13 
You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with ALL your heart.


Jeremiah 33:3 
Call to Me and I WILL answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.


I knew these verses before this month. But now I BELIEVE them. With all of my heart. Because I cried out to the Lord, and He reached down and rescued me, pulled me in closer to Himself, and gave me a life so breathtakingly beautiful that I sometimes catch my breath thinking about it. He has just overwhelmed me with His goodness. Tonight as I was doing homework I stopped and just thought about Passion and how far the Lord has brought me since then, in just one short month, and started crying. Because I don't deserve this. But I am so so SO thankful that He was not content to leave me where I was a month ago.
Look, when God tells you that He loves you, He means it. Really, really means it. And He WILL NOT change His mind. Not now, not ever. He is GOOD. I wish there were words to describe Him better than that, but that's all I've got. Good, gracious, merciful, wonderful, Savior, Mine. And I am blessed to be His.
So there's just a taste of what's going on in my life. I'm sure there will be more sporadic posts coming soon. But I just had to share some of this incredible journey God's brought me on, that began with tears in a hotel room at Passion a month ago, and is continuing with tears in a dorm room tonight. The greatest part of it all? He's not finished with me yet. :)

Astronomical Grace

Well, the plan to blog once a month has obviously failed during the craziness of October and November. But thank goodness for time off in December! I recently read Indescribable by Louie Giglio and Matt Redman. It covers the wonder of creation in the Universe - sun, moon, & stars - and how all of these reflect the glory and majesty of the One who made them. Before this, I had never even considered how vast the Universe truly is. I am now absolutely blown away by how great and powerful our God is.
For example, did you know that there are way more than 7 billion stars in just one arm of the Milky Way Galaxy?
Or that there is a star named VY Canis Majoris that is SO huge you could fit seven quadrillion earths inside of it? That's enough Earths, if Earth were a golf ball, to cover the entire state of Texas in golf balls - two feet deep. Think that's a big deal?!? Hang on!
Psalms 33:6 says, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host." Did you catch that? God breathes out stars that big! Oh. My. Lanta. Now for the really crazy part.
Out of all of this giant Universe, God chose you. All of creation reflects His glory but He chose you to be created in His image, to be stamped with His divinity, to make His name famous and to reflect His love and grace to a broken world. WOAH. I am blown away by the crazy love and astronomical grace of my Savior. He is SO good. Run to Him. Worship Him in wonder. Give your life to Him and reflect His glory as the Moon reflects the Sun. He deserves it. And He is worth it. Trust me.

Break Through Those Walls.

Alright, starting off my 6th week here at good 'ol DBU (Can you believe it?!?) with a heavy blog post. This has been on my list of things to write about for about 5 weeks - so bear with me as I dish all of this out. It's worth reading to the end - trust me.
For as long as I can remember, I've struggled with 3 main things: Pride, Trust, & Anxiety. These things trip me up SO bad in my walk with Christ. I can't tell you how many journal entries I have dedicated to my struggle with trusting the Lord, relying on myself, and worrying about the future. It's seriously ridiculous. My first week of school here, I really dug into why I am the way that I am. I really examined my past and tried to figure out where all of these issues stem from. It hurt to find the answers - but I'm thankful that I found them. I'd been hanging on to some hurts for a while. And I didn't want to let go of them. There was a night where I spent before the Lord just upset. Why couldn't I beat this? Why is it so hard for me to trust? Why can't I just get the heck over myself and surrender to His will? I was messed up, ya'll. All I could do was pray. And I asked others to do the same. Fast forward a few days.
School starts, and I'm enrolled in a class about Christian Leadership. Basically we discuss qualities of a good Christian leader and what could hinder us from that. Day 2 of class's subject: Pride, anxiety, and trust. It was then that I realized that all of my issues were linked together.
Here's how my teacher explained this truth that completely shattered my world. Pride is any kind of focus on yourself - negative or positive. A lot of people think that humility is thinking less of yourself, but it's not. It's think of yourself LESS.
1 Peter 5:6-7
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting ALL your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.
Here's the breakdown: Any fear, stress, worry, is a trap from Satan making you ineffective. When you keep your anxieties to yourself, you're saying you don't trust God to handle them. We think WE can do it on our own. Hey! That's pride! Worry is also a sign of distrust. If we're anxious about something - we are NOT trusting it to God. Therefore, bringing us back to our prideful assumption that we can handle it and He can't. Wooh! Truth. So we have to humble ourselves and realize that we're not strong enough to handle our anxiety and give all of our fears, worries, issues to HIM. And at the proper time, meaning Heaven, we will be rewarded for the lives that we lived in total surrender to an Almighty God.
This truth right here, has literally SET ME FREE! The Lord is faithful!
Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about ANYTHING, but in EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the PEACE of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." 
Let me close by saying how thankful I am the Lord has brought me to DBU. He is working in my life and changing me from the inside out IN CLASS. How crazy is that?!? I love it here and I can't wait to see what the next 6 weeks will hold. Pray for strength, endurance, and energy for me, as my schedule is  level 10 crazy. Thanks so much for reading this!
Alyssa

The Lord spoils me with His love.

Welp. Today marks 2 weeks that I've been living in Dallas. One week full of camp-like activities and this one filled with first classes, new Professors, new spiritual revelations, and both full of new friends. I can't tell you how blessed I am to be here at DBU. The Lord is EVERYWHERE here. His hand is all over this campus. Professors who pray for me BY NAME and ask me for prayer requests at the beginning of class? You've got to be kidding, right? Nope. It's a reality here at good 'ole DBU. And I LOVE it.
A couple of days ago I got an e-mail from a Professor in the Education department. She told me how at the beginning of the summer she picked a bracelet with my name on it from a pile of all the incoming freshmen's names and has been wearing it on her wrist and praying for me every day since then. Talk about humbling! Seriously. The Lord has definitely gone before me here. He's proven His faithfulness to me over and over again and I already feel as if I've grown and matured in my relationship with Him in just 2 short weeks. He is blowing my mind with the things I'm being challenged with.
Please continue to pray that the Lord would lead me to my new church home quickly and for an upper classmen mentor for me. I've got so many stories I want to share that I just can't pick - so I'm sure I'll be blogging again soon. Until then....
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge HIm, and He will make straight your paths." ~Proverbs 3:5-6

Fresh Pages.

I move to Dallas tomorrow! All of my stuff is in various boxes- ready to make the transition to college life at Dallas Baptist University. This next year won't be easy, but I'm ready for the new challenges that will come my way. I'm SO thankful for this time in my life. Time to grow academically, yes, but more importantly time to grow spiritually. I'm so privileged to able to bask in this season of life and enjoy becoming who God's called me to be. I couldn't be more excited! I'm ready to see what the Lord has for me at DBU - whatever it may be. But most importantly, I'm ready to see more of HIM.

Do me a favor? Pray that I would find an upperclassmen girl at DBU who can mentor/disciple me. One of my greatest desires for this year is to find someone to keep me accountable, ask me tough questions, and guide me in my walk with the Lord. Discipleship is such a blessing, and I pray that God leads me to just the right woman for the job.

Look for more updates on college life soon!

A Powerful Love Letter

So. This post is one I've been waiting to write for about a month. A month? Yes. Life keeps happening. What are you gonna do? Moving on... 
I've recently realized how important it is to memorize scripture. I knew it was on the "Good Things Christians Do" Checklist, but I never really got why. Here's a clue from the Bible itself: 
"I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." ~ Psalms 119:11 
Listen. King David. Everyone knows you memorize scripture to get Awana bucks. Or a piece of candy in Sunday school. Right? WRONG! The whole purpose of memorizing Scripture is to combat the little lies and temptations that Satan throws at us day after ever-loving day. How can you recognize a lie from Satan if you don't first know the Truth? Mmm. Ya can't! You have to know what God says about you first before you can push away the things this world tries to convince you that you are. 
What if someone wrote you a big long love letter? One filled with only truth; No embellishments or exaggerations. Word for word how that person felt for you. And what their heart desired for you. You would totally want to rip that sucker open and read it right? YES! Well we've all got one. Waiting for us.  It's the Word of God. And it could change the world. If we would only read it, memorize it, and apply it to our lives. 
So I've started memorizing verses that speak to me personally. I write them on my mirror in dry-erase markers. And after two days of reading the verse every time I pass by it, I know it by heart. It's awesome! And so easy, it's insane. So I challenge you to do the same. Rip open that love letter and dive in!