Life by Becca

People are always asking me what God has been doing in my life; how He has been impacting me, changing me, growing me. The truth is, I don't really know what He's doing yet. The beauty of God is that He shapes us in ways we cannot see nor comprehend. It is only when we are lifted out of our valleys onto mountain tops that we clearly see the plans He has to prosper us, and not to harm us. I am in a valley at the moment, but not the kind you would expect. I love and serve God with all my heart and I trust Him with everything. I've been reading my bible more than I ever have before and my faith is more grounded than it ever has been before. But oh, the struggles. I am still being perfected. I have insecurities many girls face of thinking we're either too much or not good enough. I over-analyze and I worry constantly. I'm always wanting to know what future my choices will bring, and I'm always looking for God to show me a sign. But where is faith in that? I’m learning this year especially, to trust God with my future. My future husband and relationships, my future job, my future college. I know this: God is sovereign, God is holy and God is good. I’ve never been an especially stable and grounded person. I base life on what I feel and I act on how I feel. The problem is that what I feel is constantly changing. It’s exhausting and I’m always asking God why I always seem to be up and down all the time. But James said this: “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” James 1:12 NASB And Paul said this: “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12: 10 NASB I know that I am strengthened by these trials, and I’m so excited to be able to look back at the rocky paths and praise God for the beautiful work He was doing in my life. But, though I don’t really know what He’s doing in my life at the moment I do know what He’s doing in the lives of others. I’ve been praying for my school for two years now. Mid-August I just felt and trusted that this year would be a year of fruit filled labor. That after all my interceding and investing in lives and planting seeds, I was going to see some growth. Well God is so so so amazing, and He always does way more than I could’ve ever hoped for or imagined because in this first month of school I have seen more fruit than I ever have in my life. Just last Sunday some boys from my school organized a bus to take 26 people to a youth group I attend in Puyallup. 26 people. God is growing Christian leaders in my school, He is opening doors in my school, He is changing lives in my school. This is a year of many many blessings. This is a year of change. Don't ever lose hope, and know that God answers prayers. He truly does. Just be patient because God hears you. Get passionate, get bold and give it all to God because He will blow you away with His power. “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12: 1-2 NASB . Let that be the utmost cry of our hearts as we run this race.

**Written by Becca G.

Divorced

My toys, my clothes, and everything I owned was packed and loaded into the back of my families little red car. That one April day, changed my whole world forever.

I was 6 years old and much too young to fully understand what was going on. There were two things I knew for sure: The first, I was leaving the small town I had always known as home. And the second, my partner in crime, my best friend, my father, was not coming with us.

From a very early age I began to take are of myself. Growing up I saw my father a maximum of 7 times a month. My mom shortly remarried after the divorce and her priorities became her new husband and his kids. I felt myself slipping through the cracks, and I had no where to go. It was rather obvious that I didn’t fit in with my family, so at a very early age I learned that I could trust no one, but myself.

For most of my life I built up these walls preventing people from truly getting to know who I really was. I didn’t want them to see the real me but more importantly I didn’t want them to know that I was hurting inside. My home life was less than ideal and I felt like I had no one to turn to. My mom was hardly around, and when she was, someone was always fighting. I found that my safe place, my hiding spot, was my bedroom.

I reached a point in my life where I was completely broken and had no where to turn. I was longing for love and comfort but I was looking in all the wrong places. It wasn’t until I turned to Him, broken and beautiful, that I found all that I was looking for. For all my life I looked in all the wrong places to fulfill this gap I had felt. Looking to people in this world to be the father I didn’t really have. When in reality the only Father I really needed was the One who created me, the One who knows how many hairs are on my head, the One, who will never leave me.

These last few years have been a huge struggle at home. I have found that as things at home became more of a struggle my walk with Christ became even stronger. For most of my life I relied on myself, thinking that the only person I could trust was myself, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I learned that I could trust Christ and only Him. People of this world will always let me down but He never will.

He is my comfort, my shelter, and my light at the end of the tunnel. Weather you grew up with one parent or four, like I did, the only One that really matters is the One that created you and loves you and will never walk away.

I have come to find that my family struggles can have a positive impact on my life, and the life of others. I hope that through all of my pain I can encourage others and let them know that things will get better and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

** Written by Nicole H.

Fitting in

“Those shoes SO do not go with that belt!” “That guy couldn’t catch the ball if you gave him a bucket!” “She is such a teacher’s pet!” “Yeah, he’s so fat that he has to take a taxi to put on his coat!” These are the kind of statements that rage like wildfire through our high schools and junior highs. We’ve all heard people say things like this and many of us have been on the receiving end of such cruel words. With people these days picking apart every aspect of our lives from the way we dress to how coordinated we are it is no wonder so many of us have such a hard time fitting in.

Fitting in definitely did not come easy for me. In fact, it was probably the biggest thing I struggled with through junior high and high school. I was a pretty nerdy kid who did well at school but wasn’t really coordinated or talented in anything else (or so I thought). So I got made fun of a lot. And this was from kids at youth group and church. It finally got so bad that I stopped going to youth group for my eighth grade year. Then through high school I set about trying to get people to like me. I tried everything from changing the clothes I wore to changing my very personality. I tried acting like other people around me who were popular and that didn’t work. I tried dressing in latest fashions and name brands and that didn’t work. Nothing I did made me any more popular. With each failed attempt I just felt more and more lonely. But God always has a way of coming to our rescue when times seem the darkest. During one of my times of really deep depression I decided to read my Bible and I opened up to Galatians 1:10 which says “For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.” This hit me like a ton of bricks! This was the reason nothing I had been doing to try to fit in had been working. I had been putting all of my effort into pleasing men when I should have been focused on pleasing God.
By focusing on God, He will shape me into the person He wants me to be and HE will put godly, supportive friends in my life.

So just how does one go about successfully fitting in? Well first off, stop trying. Whether we realize it or not, we all have tried different things to fit in. The most common and by far, most damaging, is we try to change ourselves. We find a group of people who we really like and who may or may not like us so we try to change who we are to fit in with them. This may be as small as changing what you wear or as big as completely changing what you believe and how you live your life. This is not the way to live life. God did not intend for us to go through life as chameleons constantly changing who we are to fit in with our surroundings. He created us as beacons of light in the midst of a dark world. Christians are often compared to lighthouses. When we choose to change who we are it is like putting a Starbucks where that lighthouse belongs. Sure a lot of people will like the Starbucks but it does no good to the ships that are about to be dashed to pieces on the rocks below. We are to stand for truth and shine our lights to the world with our foundations planted firmly on the rock of Jesus Christ! The key to fitting in is – be yourself! Be exactly who God made you to be. God doesn’t make garbage. He has made all of us unique and has given us all individual abilities, quirks, talents, and gifts so that we can best bring Him glory in the exact way that He designed us to. And by taking all of your time and energy away from being focused on fitting in you will be able to devote it to serving Christ and furthering His kingdom. God wants us to have friends. He knows that we need other people to support and encourage us. So if you feel like you are all alone right now, remember that your relationship with God is the one in this life that will never change so it’s worth putting the most time and effort in to. And be patient, God will provide. He certainly did for me. And if you have tons of friends and feel like you couldn’t be happier, be careful. Don’t let your earthly relationships become a distraction from your heavenly one. People like people who are confident in who they are in Christ. You don’t have to conform to some mold that society dictates. Be different, be spontaneous, be quirky, be yourself! Just do it all to the glory of God!

--Written by Ryan D.

Through the looking glass

What is true beauty?

In a world that pushes the agenda of outer appearance, one could be quite confused as to what true beauty is. Peer pressure says "wear this" or "buy that". Magazines say, "lose weight for bikini season, guys like girls who are fit and trim." and "got love handles? Don't stress! Your man likes your curves, gives him more to love." With so many mixed

messages, it's no wonder so many girls have image issues!

A girl wakes up in the morning, looks at her reflection in the mirror and see's an average human being with nothing special about her. She thinks she's either too skinny, too fat, too tall, too short, her legs are either chunky or toothpick like, same with her arms. She wishes her eye color was chocolaty brown or crystal blue or a forest green, of course hazel is pretty too, I mean haven't you ever heard Kelley Clarkson's "Behind these hazel eyes"? There's no rest for the discontent. As she continues to examine herself, her hair is always either too straight, too curly, too wavy, too poofy, too thin, too thick, too blonde, too brown, too red... Get the picture?

One minute a girl thinks she needs to look like a stick thin model from a runway. The next she thinks she should follow the trends and look like a skater punk even though she couldn't skate to save her life. What's worse is that a lot of girls rely on what guys think of them as to whether or not they are actually attractive. A comment made YEARS ago about a girls appearance from a guy can still be a huge impact on how she looks at herself today.

So amidst all the confusion, image problems and low self-esteem, here lies the ultimate question.

What is the perfect look?

Is it the tall, skinny models you see on the cover of magazines? Is it the curvy, bronzed skinned beauties that lay out on the sandy beaches? Nope, neither.

It's like photography. I can look at a tree, and all I see is tree. It's got a brown tree trunk, green leaves (depending on the time of season), and lots of branches spreading all over the place. When I take a picture of this tree, you see what I see. You're looking through my eyes. But if someone else comes along and looks at the same tree that I'm looking at, they might see something entirely different. It's obviously still a tree, but suddenly the tree come to life because the sun is dancing through the leaves. Through their eyes, you see an entirely different tree then mine. It's the same tree, it's just been beheld through a different pair of eyes. Their picture and my picture are different.

Translation? There is no perfect look. We are all unique. And every guys opinion of how we look is going to be different. There is no perfect recipe for a beautiful person, beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. Luckily the only person's opinion that actually counts is God's. And he beholds us as beautiful. Whether you like it or not, he's made you exactly the way he wants you. You will ALWAYS find something about yourself that you don't like. And you will ALWAYS find something about someone else that you DO like. Regardless, the important part is to remember that God likes how you look right now. God doesn't create junk. He creates pieces of art. So yes, maybe you will never look like the model on the cover of a magazine, but if you did, you would be changing God's original masterpiece. And you wouldn't exactly be "original" anymore, would you? Why look like someone else? There's only one of you. No one wants to go to an art show and only see pictures of the "Mona Lisa". How boring would that be? Remember, variety is the spice of life.

In my humble opinion there is no such thing as "average". If we are all made as works of art, then "average" is definitely the wrong word.

A girl wakes up in the morning, looks in the mirror and see's a unique (not weird) piece of artwork that has been handcrafted by a wonderful maker who puts a lot of care and consideration into his work. She knows that the most important person in her entire life thinks she is beautiful.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast the sum of them! ... Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 139:13-17&23-24


Girls, do you have any questions about beauty? TTY: via facebook or comment on this article. No question is a stupid question.

**Just for guys**: In a way, this article is about you too. A) Remember to treat all women with respect because in God's eyes we are all masterpieces. B) Never feel inferior because of YOUR looks, because God made you as a masterpiece too!

*Written by Shawna A.

10-3-2010 Sunday morning youth sermon; David: The Shepherd Boy

Message Title: David: The Shepherd Boy

Passage: 1 Samuel Chapter 16

I. Trouble with Samuel

A. An Unchangeable Past: Samuel had poured his life into Saul and seeing Saul fail as a King causes Samuel to grieve. He wanted Saul to succeed, but Saul ceased to be a godly king.

B. An Uncertain Future: the other thing that Samuel struggled with was moving toward who would be the next king. He was worried about Saul’s reaction to him anointing the next King. Samuel, looking at Jesse’s sons thinks the older, stronger, most handsome son will be God’s choice. But God says, while man looks at the outward appearance I look at the heart.

II. The Times of David

A. David is out tending sheep when Samuel is looking at all of his brothers. Tending the sheep would be a job for a servant and on this special occasion it is very telling that David was not invited to this honored event.

B. David was perhaps an unwelcome surprise. He was the youngest of 10. Some of his older siblings were married with kids of their own when David was born.

C. He came from a poor family. Sheep was one of the poorest occupations of the time and they didn’t even have many sheep. Any time a gift is given to someone who ought to be honored the family only has the means to offer the humblest of gifts.

D. Jesse is proud to introduce his other sons to Samuel, but is forced to get David. David seems unloved and unappreciated by his father. Twice David will write about his mother in his writings. He never mentions his Dad.

III. Why was David Chosen

A. He was a “man after God’s own heart.” That is David related everything that happened in his life to his relationship with God.

B. Before David was famous he wrote Psalms 8,19,23, and 29. Here we see the future king of Israel tending sheep and relating all of his experiences to his God.

Have any questions about the morning sermon? Ask Steve G.

Wanna learn more? Take these sermon notes and apply them to your own

study time during the day!