Half Way There

Let me start out by saying I'M SO SORRY! I have failed miserably at the whole blogging thing and I  promise to start making a better effort for the rest of project.

Well, where do I start? I'll first start out by telling you how amazing the Lord is. He has really brought me full circle this summer and I'm so thankful for how much He's already grown me. When I first got down here, I'll admit, I was a little confused. My life seemed to be going in one direction and then I felt as if God just plucked me out of it and stuck me right in the middle of a life I wasn't really sure about. 

I'll explain further. Basically, I just lost focus. I was trying to find joy in my circumstances and not in Jesus. It has been hard here. I've learned that pouring your life into other's lives is not always a pretty neat little package. It's messy... it's hard... it takes sacrifice. There have been many nights I laid awake in bed wondering... "How am I going to make it tomorrow? Work is stressful, my girls are hard.. etc", and each morning I woke up being reminded that His mercies are new each day and that Jesus has to be my treasure. You see... for the first half of the summer, He was not my treasure... I was looking to other things. I believe whole-heartedly that God is sovereign over ALL... so I knew that I couldn't "escape" His will for my life, I could just choose to stop fighting it and submit to His lordship. It took my sweet friend Bethany showing me the sin she saw in my life for me to understand that God has great purpose in me being here for the summer and away from the life I knew before Beach Project. 

Now for the good part... ONE OF MY DISCIPLES BECAME A CHRISTIAN! Oh how wonderful is our God. Her name is Lindsay Walker. She is from West Georgia, and she came here with a very skewed view of Christianity. She's highly intelligent and an accounting major, so everything in her head was a process... trying to "figure out" Christianity to see if it fit in her life. After many hours of prayer and tough conversations... one night... it clicked. God unveiled her eyes to His truth and she prayed that Jesus would be Lord of her life and that she might be saved. I was ecstatic. She was ecstatic. I have been so encouraged by her life and the change that has been made. When the Bible talks of us being "new creations in Christ".. it is so apparent in her life! 

So I know I was going to try to post pictures... unfortunately I haven't been able to get a picture of my d-group all together. I'm going to try to find some pictures others have taken that might have pictures of us in them... that way you all can put names with faces. I want to remind you again of the names of the girls in my group. Remember them in your prayers if you think about it. The Lord is doing so much in their lives this summer. I'm so glad and thankful that I've gotten to experience it first hand. Their names are Lauren Ramsey (Berry College), Grace Brannon (Berry College), and Lindsay Walker (West GA).

Okay... Lindsay Walker is in the first picture (she's on the right... dressed up like someone from the 80's for a social we had)... Grace Brannon is in the second picture (she's dressed like a pirate for a pirate social we had)... and Lauren Ramsey is in the third picture!