What God's Been Teaching Me Series (Part 2): To Have a Servant's Heart

     Recently God's given me the joy in serving people. Whenever someone is in need and asks for help, I rarely say no.  Not because I can't say no, and feel obligated to say yes, but because the thought of being able to help someone actually excites me. Need help after getting shoulder surgery? I got you. Need someone to babysit? No problem. Need someone to help lead a new youth group? I'm your girl. Need help getting ready for a baby shower? I'm there. (<--- Real life examples on how I'm currently serving people in my church.) If you're schedule is relatively empty, maybe your not realizing the full potential of what God wants you to be doing. I know in the past if someone had asked me to do something after I had been working, I'd be more reluctant, so to have this feeling of joy with no negativity is so freeing.
       I was going to just end the blogpost there but I feel prompted to share this story. So one of the first weeks at the Special Needs summer camp I am working at one of my staff members asked me if I could help her lift one of the kids out of her wheelchair,  I accepted right away not even having a thought in my mind of saying no. Especially at a job like this, it's very important that we help each other out.  She told me she was so relieved because everyone she asked told her they wouldn't do it. Hearing that made me angry, and I told her to tell one of our camp directors, which she ended up not doing. (This is the only incident at camp that I've heard of like this, so I think it must of been an off day.) For some reason writing this made me think of another situation I don't know why I'm sharing (About to get deep....maybe).
        When people don't help you out it's really frustrating. Which leads me to high school gym class (super cringe). We were doing kind of like a gymnastics unit.  So you needed to do these poses alone and with 1 or more other people. (Not having a friend in that class was so brutal). I asked group after group if I could join them, and even though I could have they said no. Being rejected multiple times in a row when you really need help is so brutal too, I wouldn't have cared but it was for a grade. An actual gym class you could fail. (Whenever someone talks about their gym classes they always seem so nice and easy, but this one was not. We had like boot camp style warm-ups for 40 minutes before we started the actual activity we'd be doing that day.) I remember breaking down in front of that teacher after getting so frustrated. (All the gym teachers I've had have never seemed to like me so she wasn't much of a help.) A few classes later the popular kids had gotten all the poses done, and were literally just standing around talking even though the gym teacher told them they could get extra credit if they helped people do poses who hadn't completed them yet. One of the girls not apart of the "popular" crowd helped me complete some of the poses she had already done, then talked badly about the "popular" crowd for being so stuck up that people like me not apart of the "popular" crowd were treated like literal trash. People no matter how different they are to you deserve to be loved and cared for.
        I'm so glad that the popularity thing vanished after high school.  Too much was based on how popular you were, and not how you were as a person which causes so much unnecessary insecurity. I'm not calling out the people who are too busy to help out or the ones who say no for a personal reason. I'm talking about those who blatantly don't help because they don't want to or because of the person they see you as. God is a giving God, and all those times you care for someone in need, God rewards you more. I'm not doing this for the reward, I'm doing this because I genuinely love serving people. Serving others= Serving God.

What God's Been Teaching Me Series (Part 1) To Love Children

1)    To Love Children: In my family I'm the youngest of most my relatives.  If they were younger it was only by a couple years. So up until recently I had been really awkward around kids, not really knowing what I should do. I had experience being around younger kids, but my mom would always be around too, so I'd never be totally alone with them. I remember about 2 years ago, my moms cousin and her little girls were coming to visit Wisconsin while we were camping, I played with them on the playground and things and I guess they did the pick me up motion quite a lot, but back then that was sign language to me, and I didn't know that. I picked them up a couple times, and it was okay but not totally comfortable. (embarrassing I was literally 18).
          I've done a 180 since then (okay maybe not quite).  The church I go to (Living Light) is filled with young kids, so I think maybe being exposed to their cuteness on a weekly basis helped me be comfortable around kids. I totally love picking up kids now (maybe I'm obsessed ;p) But it's okay because they usually like being picked up too.
          I took a babysitting course, when I was whatever age you can legally babysit, but never got any use out of the course, because my mom didn't want me babysitting at stranger's houses and no one we knew ever needed a babysitter. So I didn't start babysitting alone until age 20.  What age am I now...20. I think you get how recent this is. God assured me it would be fun, and that it'd help serve a family at my church.  So I took the risk, and I absolutely love it. I also work with kids at a Special Needs camp, but their ages range from 5-27. I get to work with a young group of kids this week who love to be picked up. So I get to hold them and play with them multiple times a day all week. I'm pretty excited. Recently during a conference through my church, they sent out an email asking for people to help out in the infant or toddler room. I felt an inner tugging in my chest to volunteer for the toddler room, even though I really had no experience with toddlers besides for two kids in my church that I enjoy watching/playing with. (Torah  and Deuce). Arguably the cutest toddlers at my church.  I signed up though, and had a blast. Serving the church by keeping their kids safe and comfortable.
        To end this blogpost I will put pictures of the kids I've helped my mom watch, the kids mentioned from church, and the kids mentioned from work.

One of the girls I babysit Arwen!

Four kids I babysat a few weeks ago: Eve, Emerson, Jack, and Ryland. (I didn't take this picture.) ;P

Torah!










                                     

     Deuce: Probably the most talented 2 year old I've Met

 

 

 

 Two of the kids in my group this week at camp

 

Sierra and Amelia: When I first started picking up children at 18 ha ha.

 

Dayton and Addison                                                               

 



 



 

A Strange Feeling

     Tonight something strange happened. I was at a time of worship with my church, and thought about a heartbreaking circumstance my friend was going through. The phrase, this is one of the most heartbreaking things that can happen, went through my mind, but I didn't really feel heartbroken. But I knew I needed to pray about it.  So I went up to make the prayer request, feeling perfectly content, but in a millisecond that content feeling turned to sobbing. I felt the reality of the situation. Not only did I feel my own heartbreak for my friend, I felt a supernatural sadness, that must of been God's sadness for her. Like he was saying, I want you to know how I feel about this situation, and how much I long for it to be fixed. Even though I was sobbing in front of a group of people.  I silently thanked God, for letting me feel his emotions, and be able to be able to more greatly empathize with the situation. I always saw people sob at church, and I felt the sadness of things too, but never in a supernatural way that would leave me crying.  But I'm so glad God shared such an intimate emotion with me.

       It's really heartbreaking when someone is told about God's love, and they reject it, but I think it might even be more heartbreaking when someone who knew God's intense love falls away from him.  I don't understand it.  But that's just it, the devil is really good at what he does. He can take the most faithful people, and turn them away and deceive them. His ultimate goal is to steal people away from a perfect life with God in heaven. To truly know God at such a deep level one moment, and the very next moment fall away so quickly.
       
      It reminds me of a Halloween play  I saw back in October at my friend's church. It was about all the unsaved souls going to hell, and what it looked like there.  All the suffering people, as Satan named off why they were all there. Some people were there for an obvious reason, but one of the boys that was there had loved God, but then fell away, and in the scene Satan was laughing.  This was such a victory for Satan.  A victory that could of easily been Gods was now the devils, and he was so proud of that. It still confuses me, how something like that could happen, especially when you knew Gods love so well.

        In society today, it makes sense to me why a lot of people don't trust in God.  With all the churches being so corrupted, and people adding conditions to God's love.  Rules to follow unless you want to be condemned. People who feel unwanted at church.  But to be apart of such a church that knows God's love so well goes over my head.

          I know that even though she doesn't feel God right now, he hasn't given up on her and he is closer to her than ever.  Ready to take hold of her hand when she reaches out to him again. I don't by any means think this will end up being a victory for Satan.  With our prayers I pray that her process of knowing God will come fast, and she won't dwell in a dark place for too long, and try to do things by her own strength. It's so much easier for a person that doesn't know God to continue not knowing God then for a person that once knew God to not come back to his love. This is because we are no longer attached to the world but to eternity.
 

Individualism vs. Being a Group

   Society today, puts a high standard on being an individual. Who are you? How are you different from everyone else? What makes you unique? But why don't we try and figure out what is alike about us. I know this sounds stupid, but follow me for a second.

     In a prayer meeting at my church last week God gave me a picture of leaves. A stem of leaves all connected to each other. Together a group, living on the same stem, making up the tree. A small grouping apart of a much bigger thing.

      In school I didn't really like group projects. It always seemed like ideas were overlooked or someone pulled more weight then the others. I would rather do it by myself to ensure it got done the way I wanted it to get done. But that ultimately won't make you successful in the purposes of God. In order to further God's kingdom on the Earth we need to work together as a team.  There's only so much we can do by ourselves, and it's not enough.

        God puts people in our lives for a reason. We need to find the people God has sent for us to work together with "our people" (the other leaves connected to the same stem as us) to work efficiently while in this life. It can be hard, and there might be disagreements, but it's so worth it.

        Like in my job, I work with another staff member each week.  Without that help, things would become really hectic.  There would be no way to ensure the safety of the kids I was watching then.  One could decide to wander off, and I'd have to either go after the one wandering off or make sure the other four are safe etc. (I work at a special needs camp). We need to have the staff work together to ensure the kids are safe, having a good time, and comfortable.

       Who's a part of your leaf stem? Who's God calling you to work together with to ensure the best possible outcome?