Speaking of Family...

Thinking about family, seeing as my mom, sister and niece just left. Family is an amazing thing. They are there for you REGARDLESS of your situations, mistakes, stupid comments, embarrassing moments, etc. They love in an amazing way, they love so unconditionally. Family is important. Without family where would we be? Who would we be? Sometimes you might say that you'd be better off with a different family, but I'd have to disagree. Even in the worst situations, without that family you would not be who you are. Family helps us in many different ways. They teach us things, even if it's by their mistakes and not their words. Without my family I wouldn't know how to love, or give, or be compassionate. My family is not perfect, many people in my family have made mistakes and done some pretty ridiculous things, but without ALL of them I wouldn't be who I am today. It's so easy for us, sometimes, to take them for granted; because they are our family and they have to love us. Or sometimes just getting caught up in life we forget to love them back. Family is where it's at, without family we wouldn't know very much.

People say that "family is who you make it" and that can be true in some situations. But I have found that there is no one on this earth that can come close to my family. There is no friend that will love me the way they love me or comfort the way they comfort or care the way they care. Being 3 states over from, what I'll call my REAL family, I realize how much people need people. And if someone around me doesn't have family near them, or has a rotten family, I want to be able to love them like family would, care like family would, and comfort like family would. After all we are the church, that's what we should do, and we should be good at.

What joy...

I have spent the past 2 weekends with family from back home. It has been so incredible to spend time with all of them. It's good to have them here, seeing everything we are doing. Especially when we miss them all so much!

With everyone being here, the grand opening of Emerge Church, and the correcting and tweeeking the issues we've ran into it has been crazy and busy to say the least. But it has been so fun and rewarding to do. I love what I do. I love that I get to be a part of something so much bigger than myself. I love that I get to teach kids about God and help to shape the rest of their lives. I love that I know that no matter how hard it is, I can still be obedient to my God. When you can't make hard decisions because of fear or doubt, that just means that you are trying too hard to be in control. Why would you even want to be in control? I mean that's just too much pressure! I used to not be able to say this... but I can now... I am more than willing to sit back and let God control what happens in my life. That can be a hard thing to do sometimes, because the things that God will ask you to do don't always make sense in our heads. Sometimes we can't figure out how it will work, or why we even need to do those things. God always sees a much bigger picture than we can ever even dream up, so just because we can't understand doesn't mean we shouldn't step out in faith. I mean... after all Faith is doing and believing without seeing. God is too good, and He always blesses His children.