The Underwear...

commUNITY: A unified body of individuals
INTEGRITY: The quality or state of being complete


Well it has been the most interesting week. I apologize this may be a long post...
I need to share some things that are heavy on my heart. First up is Community take a good look at the word, if it doesn't have UNITY then the rest of the word is pointless. I found this very useful because right now things here are on a bit of an up roar with our base leader being gone at the moment. In order to be unified as a base we need to all love each other. My heart right now is to serve with everything I have, to put others before myself. It's so hard though when you're doing that and people look at you and say "you need to serve more." You know, people like that just need love. "People who live in community can learn a little more readily that a fight need not be a fatality, a bit easier on how to apologize because they are invited to." When leadership won't step up then that's when I find an opportunity to. As long as you hold true to God & yourself and keep your integrity you should have nothing to worry about. Sure the enemy will try to stop you and rip you to shreds but God gives you that backbone to be able to stand for him against anything. He loves us so much and I'll let you in on a secret he also likes us! How cool is that! When we do endure hardships in our lifetime, sometimes it's so God can mold us more. He is chiseling away at us to make us more like him. When we look at ourselves we should be able to see him not us. "God often uses other people as the chisel to carve true integrity into our rough personalities." I had to think long and hard about this but I've come to the conclusion that it's true. When I look at the people that I have been through a lot with, I think of what I learned in the situation. I think of how God used them to create a rise in me because something had to come up and out in order for him to replace it with more of what he has for me. "A chisel that never scrapes the stone is useless, God doesn't just want us to be happy, he wants us to be useful." I mean don't get me wrong because sometimes there are pure enemy attacks that are not of God that we do need to be careful of.  It's good when things come up in us because that means we need to work on them. One thing I can share about myself is that I have been a very independent person since I was little really. So God had to break me of that and show me how to trust others by trusting him first. It helped because God will never let you down no matter what! He always comes through! Another one was anger, I had to give that up so many times before I was broken of it. Now I don't really get angry so fast but instead just take a step back and look at the big picture then go from there. I have learned so much from so many different people. I love how God will use the most unexpected people and times to bring something up...
"Every majority begins with one contagious person"
I like this quote because what it means to me is that when things are going badly you need to look on the bright side of things and be different. God see's our potential, he doesn't see what we can't do he see's what we have the potential of doing. When we look at things like that or even when we look at people like that it changes things and there is a whole new meaning. Thinking the best of everyone will only bring a person up, it can't bring them down. Doing everything in a loving way is also best. Giving a lot of grace as well. When you live in community you have to respect one another, you get to know people really fast. So when they hurt you or when they do something that's not right we need to give grace. This will help in the long run. Pretty much that goes for any situation. We are all human and we are going to fail, but when we have grace for one another it shows that we value one another. We want to see each other grow and become more Christ-like.
Having integrity is one of the hardest things because you have to be completely in God and in his word to understand what he has for us and what he wants us to learn. Integrity goes along with community because it is the state of being complete or undivided. Well if you have unity then you will be complete but if you don't then you are divided and that defeats the purpose. Fighting for this here is the hardest thing because the enemy wants division, he wants us to be incomplete. So in this battle we do get ripped to shreds but we will still have the strength to stand at the end, God's Strength. In this race or battle or whatever you want to call it, we have to finish strong. This is just one of the things I live my life by that in everything I do I need to finish strong. Suffering well to bring the Glory to God. He will bless you when you do suffer for him. Perseverance is probably one of the other hardest things to accomplish. That's where thinking the best of everyone and looking at their potential comes into play. Whatever happens hold true to yourself and what you believe in. Times like this remind me of David. He had to deal with and go through so much! Saul was out to kill him, he defeated a giant, his best friend died, all the battles he was in and yet he was the man after God's own heart. "But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." - 1 Samuel 16:7 God only sees what you can do not what you have done or the wrong things you've done, but what you can do! Pride goes before a fall. Failure is a blessing in disguise. God takes you as you are. If only we could all see each other through God's eyes. This world would be a lot different if we could. It's looking beyond everything, kind of like seeing the underwear of what is actually happening. Looking beyond the flesh but into something real, the heart. 
So that's what's on my heart for this week, I'm just a girl trying to be a courageous contagious person serving the Lord with all I have....