Week 14

I am home right now and have been since Thursday morning (it is Saturday at about noon). I will be heading back up tonight with my friend/boss, Sarah. I came down to go to Gracie's Memorial Service which will be tonight at 6. It will be hard to go right back to work after that but I know I needed to be here.

Being home has been a good reminder that God is good, that He is at work and that I am where He wants me to be. I really miss the people down here. A lot. Also, I believe God has been telling me to pray and pray and pray due to the fact that every sermon I have heard lately has been on prayer and I have been studying fasting/prayer... funny how that always seems to happen. I am realizing how much of the "cloud" I have been in the last month or so is spiritual rather than simply emotional/logical. I have never felt demonic attack like I have been feeling the past 3 months but especially since I have been working with B3. I have been just sitting in that and letting it control me SO that is not good.

This is going to be a really short post :) I love you all. Thank you for your prayers. Seriously. I am praying for you.

Weeks 12 & 13

I am in the Sacramento Airport right now waiting to board a flight to Minneapolis (well, technically, to Denver and then from Denver to Minneapolis :) ) to go to my cousin Hannah's wedding. Megan and my mom and most of my mom's side of the family will be there. Meg and I will go to the Bachlorette Party tonight. Tomorrow I think we are all just hanging out and going for a bike ride which I am assuming will be kind of intense since both my uncles are like biking fiends (that word apparently means "demons or villains" I just mean they are really intense lovers of the bike ride and I like the way that word sounds). Saturday is the actual wedding so we will go to that and then to dinner after the reception. Sunday we are either going to church or hanging out till Meg and i leave around 2:30 in the afternoon.

Last weekend I went to Seattle with some of my coworkers and Kelsey, who we picked up in Portland. Kels and I stayed with Anna and got to meet her boyfriend, Mark. I like him. A lot. Seattle was fun. We made all 300 of Kelsey's wedding invitations. Woo. I do notice though that seeing Kels and Anna (and my parents two weekends ago) is harder than it was before because of the short amount of time I am with them. Pretty much as soon as I am with them I think about the fact that I have to leave the next day. Missing them and being discontent with where I am at resulted in a semi-depressed state the past few weeks. HOWEVER, on the way to the airport this morning I was listening to a sermon from The Journey in St. Louis, Missouri on idolatry and I realized how deeply rooted my idolatry of Seattle and Anna/Kelsey goes. Let me explain: the "things" I look to for joy and hope and what I believe would be a "good" future involves Anna/Kelsey/Seattle (and a WHOLE lot of other things but these were specifically what God was showing me this morning) rather than God. Praying through THAT realization. It is not pleasant but strangely soothing because God WILL NOT allow me to run after my idols (read Hosea 2:14-23, it is epic).

My best friend Gabi's sister, Gracie, passed away on Tuesday morning (damn you cancer... I say that because I mean it quite literally). Please, please, please pray for her and her family. Pray that God would give her a knowledge of His presence with her and that she would run to Him for comfort. That this devastating loss would be something that she can still see God's grace in. I wish that I could be there right now. I am glad I will be down there (SoCal) in 3 weeks at least. Please pray for them.

Please pray that I trust Jesus and like Hosea 2:14-23 says, that I would see this time in the "wilderness" as God's grace in my life to bring me to greater dependance on Him and therefore deeper, more true joy.

Just in case looking up Hosea 2:14-23 is too hard for you I have pasted it below :)

The Lord's Mercy on Israel

14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her,

and ebring her into the wilderness,

and fspeak tenderly to her.

15 And there I will give her her vineyards

and make the Valley of Achor5 a door of hope.

And there she shall answer gas in the days of her youth,

as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

16 “And hin that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ 17 For iI will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. 18 And jI will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And kI will abolish6the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in lsafety. 19 And I will betroth you to me mforever. nI will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. 20 nI will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And oyou shall know the Lord.

21 “And pin that day qI will answer, declares the Lord,

I will answer the heavens,

and they shall answer the earth,

22 and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,

and they shall answer rJezreel,7

23 and sI will sow her for myself in the land.

And tI uwill have mercy on No Mercy,8

and vI will say to Not My People,9 w‘You are my people’;

and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

Another goooood read ladies: http://theresurgence.com/2011/08/23/the-lure-of-lies