Friday Night

Hello Everyone! I may have shared with you before that Nate and I serve as the heads of our college/young adult ministry at our church in Napa. Nate and I have been at our church for about 9 months. When we first got to Hillside, there was a college ministry, but no Pastor. There was fellowship, but no leader. We were burdened for this group that wanted to grow and come together, and also serve the young adult community, but really didn't have anyone to steer the ship. Nate had a meeting with our lead pastor, and in October of 2014, We began to the lead the group/

Since then we've seen serious growth! Not only number wise, but in worship, in enthusiasm, in responsibility and vision, its been so very excitign! We're seeing people excited about their walk in Christ, and excited to see other people come to know Him, and start growing themselves!  

It's been a wonderful and challenging season for us. Running a ministry is such a fun and hard thing to do. God has been taking care of us this whole way! He has blessed us with new friends, who also have a passion and desire to see the young adults come to Christ! He has blessed us with His Word. He has blessed us with confirmation after confirmation that we were really hearing from the Lord and moved out of comfort and safety into unknown territory.

These are a few pictures of the Friday afternoon routine: 

Coffee (recipe coming soon), Worship practice, Prayer, Message. 

 I actually ended up being exact twins last week with my friend Marissa. I only have a polaroid of it to document it, but we were really feeling the denim on denim.

If you do find yourself as a young adult, having nothing to do, and you live near or in the Napa Valley, you should come out! We would love to meet you and be your friend!  See you soon!

Weekend update

Hello folks! Happy Sunday afternoon to all of you! Other than having a great morning at church, It's been a great weekend just doing a lot of nothing. Finally got to whip out some of my sandals! Also, I finally got a new camera! I had lost our old one, and had been using the sorry camera from the IPad... Also, I don't have a smart phone (thats another post all together), so taking pictures is a really intention thing for me. Anyways it's very nice to have a new one. It's nothing fancy, but that's okay, because I'm not a photographer, and I'm not sure my pictures would look any better with a fancy camera. Here are a few pictures form the weekend.

This is the weird side room of our apartment. It has such beautiful natural light. It really is one of my favorites spaces. 

 Just a little Saturday afternoon inspiration happening here. I'm not really much of an artiste, but it really is very sweet to sit with my worship music on, and reflect, and paint. Also I'm a chronic cursive writer, I hate printing, so I invested in ($3.99) in a caligraphy pen. It has instantly made everything I write look way more fancy!

A friend of mine, Gennean, from college wrote in her blog about an app she had been using called She Reads Truth  its a Bible study app. It really is one of the most beautiful apps, and I've been obsessed with it since I got it. There is a "Bible in a Year" track that isn't as intimidating as some of the ones I've seen. I read Psalms 5 today along with another Old Testament portion of scripture, and This just stuck out to me so much as this is how I've been trying to start every single day with God. 

What inspires you on the weekends? Do you need a little push? Do you need to hear from the Lord? Scripture is the best place to look. Pray about it! Take a walk! Listen to your favorite music! Right now I've been listen to Stephanie Frizell Gretzinger's The Undoing, and Bethel Music's We Will Not Be Shaken if you need a little suggestion :)

And I Thought To Myself, "I Can Do That!"

When I was in high school, I was told by a Choir Director in passing conversation that he never gave solos to anyone who asked for one, because it meant their heart wasn't in the right place. He also said if you were good enough, you would just get asked to be in leadership/get a solo/get to lead worship. At the time I agreed, and acted in accordance with what I thought was a really righteous way of selecting leaders. This eventually formed me into a person so scared of looking prideful, I never ever put myself out there musically. This lead to me to being overlooked (not in a mean-spirited, or poor-leadership kind of way), wondering why I wasn't moving forward, then ultimately wondering if I was good enough.  I was at the point where I was thinking that maybe I had been fooling myself my entire life. My senior year of college was a time of questioning, and a lot of soul searching. 

The point of that weird anecdote is this: I was holding on to a lie, and it grew in my heart into debilitating fear. It wasn't until very recently that I began to pray in earnest for the Lord to change my heart and my thinking on this. 

Music comes very naturally to me. My piano is an extension of my arms. I can't not sing a song I know while riding in the car. God doesn't give us gifts and talents, so we can hide it away. I had a little light and I was hiding it (under a bushel...no!).

It was being at Desperation conference in CO where God really broke the chains in my heart. I had honestly thought that song "Break every chain" was silly emotional crap until then. It was watching people doing what they were obviously called to do, and doing it confidently and unapologetically. 

My stream of thought went a little like this, "Oh my gosh, Lord please forgive me, I have been so wrong. I have been so resistant, and so falsely humble.... I can do that, Lord, I'm gonna do it....(tons of crying)." 

So, here I am now. I'm not doing it on a huge stage with thousands of people. I'm not writing instant hits with viral Youtube videos. But I'm doing it. Nathan and I are writing for real for the first time. We are leading together for real for the first time. We are as poor as we were in the beginning and there is fear in stepping out...but there is provision. I guess the ultimate point of this blog is this:

There is peace in obedience, and no money can buy that.

Find You When I'm At My End

Hi Everyone!

If you follow me on the social medias, you've seen that I participated in 3-day fast with my church. I've done fasts before, and for much longer, but I've never fasted all food before. If you've never done a fast, read the Word and see what it says. God actually tells us to. Now I know why!

What a sweet thing it is to be desperate for the Lord.

That's what I took away from this fast. Besides the fact that I am in prayer for some very specific things (I'm praying about being ready to share them with you here, I should probably tell Nathan first!), the biggest take away, and the most important lesson I learned was absolute dependence on God. Depending on him to help me resist temptation; depending on Him to be my physical and emotional strength, depending on Him to help me keep going. Fasting is hard (who knew!).

I was hungry sure, but really, for the very first time, actually hungry to be near to God, and to hear from Him and really obey. I've never wanted to just read and rest in the Word like I do now. I can't say it enough, it such a sweet, sweet thing.