Silence.

Today, I went with my family to the local ice skating rink. I am not a fan of ice skating (ughhhh. so not my favorite AT ALL.), so I chose to just sit and watch my siblings zoom around the rink. As I sat on the side of the rink next to my brother (who was reading the 6th Harry Potter book....I can't wait untill he's finished so we can talk about the series! :D!) I was thinking about being silent. Honestly, the last time I can remember being absolutely, totally silent (with no distractions) is about...3 weeks ago. And that was for about 20 minutes. Yeah. Not really a past time I regularly invest in. I'm thinking about changing that...I think that being quiet is really a discipline. When we are quiet rather than loud, we have more time to think and reflect- to pray, to talk to God, just to muse over our latest thoughts. In Psalm 46:10, it says, "'Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the natoins, I will be exalted in the earth.'" And Proverbs 29:20 says, "Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than him." I think that it can really benefit our relationship with God and our earthly relationships if we could just learn to hold our tongues and just be silent.

the Fellowship of the Unashamed.

Hello everyone,

Thank you SO much for your comments on my last post! I just read them this morning (apparently my email won't notify me if there are comments...hmm...) and I got a huge grin on my face while I was reading them. Thanks for being so faithful in your readings!

Anyway, this past weekend (Feb. 5-7), I went to Spring Hill with my youth group. We had a blast-the band was Red Umbrella, and our speaker was John Vermilya (go to his website or something...google him! so great!). He was fantastic! I came away very challenged in my faith. The theme for the weekend was "One life, one faith, one God" and the prevailing question was "If we are truly disciples of Christ, are we showing that in our lives?" I think that we, as American Christians, don't always evaluate things from the perspective of "how is this glorifying God", and we instead make up excuses about "not wanting to be too extreme" or "not wanting to scare off the non-believers we are trying to reach." The conclusion I've come to is this: we (especially as Americans) are very accustomed to and expect our "comforts"- cell phone, iPod, laptop, car...you know what I'm talking about. We get so caught up in our selfish desires for these things, but we never stop to ask God about where He wants us to spend that money/time/whatever. We say that we don't want to be "too crazy" in our faith, but how is that even possible? How can we become "too extreme"- the more we surrender to Christ, the more like Him we can become. In this movie we just watched in my history class, called Schindler's List (not my fave...), at the end of the movie, the main character is looking around, realizing the Jewish (the movie is about the Holocaust) lives he would have been able to save, if he had just been willing to let go of _____. He is brought to tears and realizes that so many people could have been reached, if he had just not been so selfish. I don't want to be like that at the end of my life- when I get to heaven, I want to know that I had used everything that was entrusted to me to fully benefit God's kingdom to the extent I was able. I guess I just think...how can we kid ourselves any longer? God can see through our excuses. He isn't fooled. Let's just stop trying to fool everyone around us and turn our lives to Him. Not that we can do it on our own- in fact, far from it. The more we surrender to Christ, the more we must rely on Him. I know this isn't as easy as I'm making seem (ha! easy? no way!) but in 1 Corinthians 13:11, it says, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." Am I putting my childish ways behind me? Notice that the Bible doesn't talk about this time between the two stages of life, where the writer was going through "adolescence". Why are we, as American Christian teens, allowing ourselves to go through that stage?

Anyway, yes. Those are the thoughts that I've had over the past week... I'm tired of the excuses and compromises. I'm ready to give it all, because that's all this life is about.

Em

oh! Here's this sweet quote- kinda sums up what I've been thinking about.

"I am a part of the fellowship of the unashamed...The die has been cast. I've stepped over the line...I am a disciple of His. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I am finished with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded. My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way rough, my companions are few, my guide is reliable, my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, diluted, delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, or negotiate at the table of the enemy. I am a part of the fellowship of the unashamed."
-Don Ray (missionary to the Congo, 1940s)

Dive.

Ok, so apparently I can't remember to update my blog regularly...sorry that its been almost 4 months! Anyway, I'm not even sure that anyone reads this, but I like to think they do...haha =]. So what's been new with me...so much! I'm not even sure where to begin! I guess I'll start with the vast change in my life that has taken place since Thanksgiving week. This Thanksgiving, I was on a short tem missions trip with a group from my church to Tijuana, Mexico. While we were down there, God really spoke to me and showed me how much I needed to change. I wasn't quite sure where to begin-it seemed as if there was so much to do, and I wasn't sure how to do it, so until Christmas break, I decided that no drastic changes were necessary. (I was wrong, by the way.) For Christmas, my parents gave me a book called Authentic Beauty by Leslie Ludy (*note- all girls should read this book. I do not care if you don't like to read, go to the nearest Schulers and buy this book, ASAP! It is wonderful!) I began reading a few days after Christmas and found that this book spoke directly to my heart. I had been struggling with a lot of the same things that Leslie writes about in the beginning of this book-public school, the pressure to have a boyfriend, the feeling that Christianity was just a title and I had no idea how to get past that barrier, plus loads of other stuff. She writes in the book about getting to know our true Prince-Jesus Christ. I knew that was something I wanted to do, but again, I was unsure of the steps to take. I decided to start by really making sure I began to form the habit of reading my Bible. I wasn't sure where to start, but I decided to just jump right in...what an intense change! Disciplining my self to get up early on schoool mornings, ect...I know I'm writing like I'm an old pro at this, and I'm not meaning to. It's just I've started to depend on that, every morning! So...yeah. That's what I've been up to. It's only been a week, but it feels like a REALLY long time! Every day I'm learning something new about the vast characteristics of our true King.

Anyway, in a nutshell, I feel like I've taken a leap of faith- sink or swim, I'm diving in. (Check out Steven Curtis Chapman's song Dive-I stole that last line from it. Its a fantastic song, by the way!)

Emily

After September....

Wow. Its been quite some time since I have written on this blog! Sorry everyone! :]! Anyway, school has started and I am ok with it. It is a very very *very* different experience....public school for the first time....but I'm really learning a lot about people in general and everything cool like that. Sweet. I got an iPhone a week after school started and I LOVE it! :D Its amazing!

I found a new favorite verse.... Jeremiah 1:7-8. It says "But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD." Such an amazing verse! It really helps to remind me that even though I am young, I'm still supposed to be very active in my faith. I don't need to be afraid of anyone because God is for me. And if God is for us, who can be against us? :]

Some major prayer requests....

• Callie, one of my very close friends, mom was diagnosed with leukemia in May of 2009. She is currently undergoing treatment and a bone marrow transplant. This is so incredibly difficult to go through as a family, but they continue to trust God and remember that He has a plan and that He works all thing together for the good of those who love Him.
• Michael, a friend that I know from school last year and through church, dad just passed away from cancer. This is obviously a difficult and tragic time for their family, and I am just praying that they would find comfort in Jesus and that they would just remember that Jesus loves them and has a plan for their lives, although it is so hard to see what he is doing.
• After those sobering items, I feel rather petty asking for this, but I am asking for prayer for myself and my school situation. Being surrounded by so much junk is so difficult and prayer that I can continue to trust God and be a light to those around me would be great.

Thanks for reading this everyone! Please continue to keep these families in your prayers!

Em

Romans 1:16

Romans 1:16

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for the salvation for everyone who believes...."

I think this just might be my new favorite verse! It such a great reiminder of why we need to not be worried about what other people are thinking of us or what they might say to us. As Christians, we need to be unashamed of the gospel of Christ, because it IS the power of God!

Worldiness

Hey everyone! Today was our final ministry team meeting with youth group, and through the summer we have been reading a book called "Worldliness" by C.J. Mahaney, John Piper, Dave Harvey, Jeff Purswell, Craig Cabaniss, and Bob Kauflin. This is an excellent book, and I would recommend it to anyone who really wants to figure out how to "be in the world, but not of the world." Now...here are some quotes that I like!

"We will never be useful to the world if we are being deeply shaped by the world. And we will be shaped by the world without intentional efforts not to be." -John Piper

"Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." -the apostle Paul, (Phil. 4:8)

"In the end, the sum of all beauty is Christ, and the sin of all worldliness is to diminish our capacity to see Him and be satisfied in Him and show Him compellingly to a perishing world."-John Piper

".....it was a gradual weakening, a subtle contaminating, and an eventual conforming to this world." -C.J. Mahaney

This book is full of great quotes like that- check it!

:]

So I'm awful at ever updating this. lovely. http://eemills20.blogspot.com/.....I accidentally made 2 blogs, and I update the other one more. But I don't have any followers there, so I guess I'l just update this one! So...this is the recap of my summer!

So here I am....reflecting on summer in general and thinking about all of the fun things that I have been able to do! :]! So wayy back.....in like, June......I went to family camp with my best friend's family. We had like the best wek ever, and I am so glad that I went! It was a really fun week and I met so many new people and did some pretty crazy stuff :]. it was.....epic. So yeah....I got home and was like "MOM! Book you calandar for family camp next year! :D! We are going!" and she was like ".....ok?.......'' fun stuff.

Now that my story has gotten to the lovley month of July, I am about to tell you of one of the funnest [its a word. don't judge. :)]. things that I did! Aren't you excited?.......no. actually, in July I did like nothing. and it was amazing. I *did* go to volleyball camp, which was super fun, although I was so sore :P. After volleyball, I was lazy.....untill the 20th, which was when I realized that I was leaving for Camp Barakel the next day. ooooh yeah. I am so smart. great. OH! Before I left for Barakel, I went on a day trip to Ann Arbor with my grandparents and Calvin. We had one of the most fun times ever! We ate lunch at Zingerman's Deli, which is like SO GOOD. Then we shopped around downtown, went to Borders, and then on the way back to Lansing, we went to Cabela's and REI. I am now officially in love with REI. just for general knowledge.

Now on to my great Camp Barakel story! I went with Lindsay, a girl I know from church. we had a blast! :] We were the Totally Terrific Tan Mini Wheats, and we were awesome. Our tribe was sweet at soccer, we like crushed the competition in this egg toss thing, and we were all around pretty much the coolest group of people you will ever meet. :]. Now you are aware.

After Camp B, I went home and wanted to sleep for like a week....I didn't though. I helped at fair because Megan was showing, and I went to shack and pretty much hade had an amazing time. Next Saturday I leave for Charlevoix, which could possibly be the best week of my summer. Annnd thats awesome.