P.S.A

Today was awesome. It's nice to spend time with people. When you spend time with people you get a chance to see them for how they really are. Especially when it is unexpected. Just soak in what God gives you. No need to separate the good from the bad. It's already done.

But anyways, today's service was awesome. It was our first youth service in the NEW church. All the youth took over usual duties such as praise an worship and doorkeeping and the Youth Pastor gave an amazing word. He touched on that what youth experiencing tough times and dilemma's isn't something new, if not worse. He talked about how the internet and such is the devil in disguise. The enemy just wants to distract us. But stand tall. When you fall get back up.

Today was a good day.

God Is Our Help

God is the father teaching us to ride a bike. The bike is all the good things God has in store for us. We get suited up with elbow pads, knee pads and our helmets. All of this is synonymous to fasting, praying and Bible study. First He'll put the training wheels on for us. With the training wheels, we can't fall because the extra wheels in the back has the duty of not letting the bike lean to the left nor right. These extra wheels is God giving us a taste of His good things. We know the training wheels are on there but we just sit back and let the wind blow through our hair. No worries, no problems.

Then He takes off the training wheels but He is holding on to the handle bars, helping us. Here, we feel a bit unstable but in the end, we know that He will not let us fall. He's our Father. We start to get the hang of it. We say, "LET GO." He lets go, we fall before we finish the first full pedal. But that fasting, praying and Bible study helped us brace our fall. We then ask for more help. He helps. This time we wait a little longer to say let go. When we finally give the command again, He lets go. But this time He runs behind us. By the second full pedal, we fall. But He also helps to brace our fall still letting the pads serve their purpose. We ask for help again. Then we wait even longer to give the command this time. As we get ready to tell Him to let go, you glance behind you and He already let go and is running behind us.

God is our help. If you fall, just ask for help. He will definitely be there to help you.

The Jesus Dream

Everything has a purpose. Every single thing, even the smallest things. The seconds make up the minutes, the minutes make up the hour, the hour makes up the day, the day makes up the week, the week makes up the months, the months make up the year and the year makes up a life. You don't want to get to the end of life and figure out that we haven't accomplished anything. I was thinking that while I was in church as my Pastor preached part two of "Why Die?" Not a physical death but a spiritual one.

In the natural life, people feel that if they make it to the end of life being a millionaire or having lived the American Dream then they did a good job. Why die? Naturally, people want to leave this world having accomplished something and their name in textbooks. Why die? To set the bar for people to remember you. That's why natural people die. As a Christian we should NOT die because we are promised eternal life. We know that once we get to the other side of the road or the green grass life for us doesn't stop. So why die? We can create a good name here on Earth and an even better one in Heaven.

Don't just settle for the American Dream which ends after death. Go for the Jesus Dream that continues after life.

New Project

I am super excited. We finally had a meeting to debrief from the BCM conference with the woman who is in charge of the spiritual actions that go on in the school community. We just went around and was talking amongst the six of us (including her), explaining our highs and lows of the conference, and we came to the conlcusion that we want to bring that to the campus. The lady agreed.

So to prepare for that we are going to set up Bible Study classes where we would have a guest lecturer (prefereably a Pastor or Youth Pastor in the area) once a month and in between we would make up the lessons. I think this is a cool idea because when we prepare for the lesson we all will meet before and talk it out and share what we know with each other to make it even better. We also are planning a few events like a Christian Dance Party, actual services at school and visiting other churches.

I never thought that I'd be bonding with my peers outside of church and at that, they go to my school. I am definitely loving it.

P.S and the memorization is coming along great. I am at verse 10 (of Psalms 51 out of 19) and I can recite with very minor mistakes. Yay for me!

The Proposal

I am going to tell you a story the preacher told us at the conference. He said he had proposed to his wife at 19 years old. It was at the time that he had won a championship ring. So he took the championship ring and put it in a Kay Jewelers ring box and proposed to his wife after church was over. When he proposed she said yes and opened the box. She seen the championship ring on and was rocking it even though it was as huge as a boulder (you should know the size of a championship ring. And on a females hand...HUGE). He then explained to her that later he'll get her a real ring with diamonds and such. But she said she didn't care and that she loved the ring he had already given her. Then he pulled out the ring he described.

Relating to God, the preacher said that it was a test. He couldn't give her the real diamond unless he knew she was going to appreciate it. God cannot give us everything as soon as we ask for it because there would be no value. He has to throw an obstacle at us one day and set us back a couple years for us to get our reward. Without these hardships the things of God will not be appreciated because they come with ease. If we have things the easy way then we'd have no sincerity or passion to get us to where we are going. These tests also produces good character.

So just remember. God is testing us now to get us ready for Heaven.

Psalms 51

I've always told myself that I cannot remember scriptures and so on and so forth. But I came to the conclusion that I can. In french class we have to memorize poems for the pronounciations of words so I can do the same for the Word of God. So here is another test for myself. I am going to memorize the all 19 verses of the 51st Pslams little by little. Before I go to bed I will recite. When I wake up I will recite and then add on a few verses. This will help me a great deal. Not just for points but personally and spiritually.

The reason why I chose the 51st Psalms to remember was because of God. Something on the inside told me to turn here and it was right on the money. Only God can make us pure and restore us to our true and natural beauty. This chapter was a conviction because I felt it in my heart as I was reading it. Now it is time to repent and become better at it. Faith. We all sin but do not keep using it as an excuse. It's ok. God is good and will forgive every one of His children if you have a heart like Psalms 51. Just keep trying until you've mastered it. Repent. Trust me, it feels good to overcome.

Be Bold, Stand Out

One of the things that kept recurring during the conference that kept pulling at me was to be BOLD and to practice, practice, practice. Boldness comes in because I can't be the same as everyone else and get things going at the same time. I can't be that quiet voice in the background. I have to be bold and step waayyyy outside of my comfort zone and do some things that I haven't done. It doesn't matter what my peers are doing. I have to step away from that and hopefully push them forward as well. Be bold Jessica! Boldness!

The second thing was to practice, not that I am not practicing already. I usually get bogged down while trying to juggle sooo many lessons at one time. And I've noticed that. That's some of the reason why I don't write as often. I have to learn something and, practice it and then master it before I write about the next subject. He said instead of reading chapters and chapters to go to the book of Proverbs and pick one scripture a day to hold on to. I think I'll take that up too. And maybe you should to. Read a or some Bible stories and then pick a scripture from Proverbs to hold on to for the day to practice. Hopefully this can help in the memorization department.

I've got so much more stuff from the conference that I am putting into effect now and to share with you all. But for now, you and I are going to be bold.

BCM Conference

I was able to go to this conference held by Black Campus Ministries (BCM). My friend from school invited me to go so I just went. I didn't ask the details of what it was on. All I knew was it was related to church and spirituality and all of that good stuff so I just went. And I am very pleased I did so. College kids from all over New England was there and the theme was "A Lifestyle Worship." They had a main workshop on that topic and I chose that one to be in and the other workshop I went to was called "Personal Mastery."

The Worship workshop gave us tools to help us worship. He talked about how worship comes from the inside through meditation, prayer, fasting and studying and then it will begin to show on the outside. Outwardly we would make it easier to keep God's word plain. It will also teach us to be alone and just listen to God and then finally submission. The other workshop about mastery was about setting realistic goals for ourselves and sticking to them which will take discipline. When he would ask a question about how one feels about one thing a good amount of people in the room could identify.

Then after the workshops we had a chance to fellowship amongst each other. They had a DJ to play some music for us and everyone was just talking, dancing, playing games and having fun. What amazed me was a whole bunch of people was just dancing and praising God in the front of the fellowship space. It was like our own club. They danced with good taste to God's music and was battling each other. My spirit was happy. I was so amazed to see all of this taking place. Then we simmered down and went into service which was also good.

In the service everyone was worshipping, praising and praying to God. I felt out of place because I never really worshipped in front of people outside of my church family. But when I seen everyone else doing their thing I felt a bit more at ease and joined in with my own praise and worship. He preached about how you cannot turn back into a caterpillar once you are a butterfly. He touched on letting go and how this conference is another starting point for us. It was good! Then I went up for the prayer calls they had as well as a lot of other students and it was just good to be surrounded by them. As we went up I could just imagine what they were going through because I am too. We were just up there like we seen each other on a daily basis. It was a good experience and I thank God that He had put me in the midst of all of that.

It's just so much to write. My next few posts will definitely come from this conference. So much was said and touch on that cannot be covered in one post.