Why

The other day I saw a little girl on the street, cold and shivering in a thin dress. She had little hope of a decent meal. I became angry and asked God, “Why did you permit this to happen? Why don’t you do something about it?”
For a little while, God was silent. That night, He finally said, “I did do something about it. I made you.”

Do It Anyway

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, People may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway. -Mother Teresa

Wow.....

The Lord knows my heart and knows that I need encouragement. Today I stopped by one of my friend’s rooms to visit her. She has been on my heart all semester but I rarely get to see her. Praise Jesus, she was in the common room cooking! I got to visit with her for a few minutes, listen to her vent to me, and pray with her. She gave me a hug and said, “When I see you, I get my strength back.” This brightened my day and my six weeks left in Africa. I was overjoyed that I can have this kind of impact on someone’s life, but disturbed at the same time---that someone would say this about me. It should not be me, or any other person that we get strength from but the Lord. Could it be that God is shining so strongly through me that people see and feel His strength in me? Wow, what a thought! I have been discouraged because I feel like I am not doing anything big for the Lord, but God showed me today to remember that sometimes we may not realize that we are making a difference, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t. You have no idea what an impact you could have on someone’s life just by taking the time to visit them, listen to them, hug them, pray for them, or even give a warm smile or a hug. My friend made a difference in my life today.

Pressing On,
Amanda

Gratitude

This week has been full of sadness, but God has also blessed me abundantly. Here is a song that describes what I have been going through.

"Gratitude"
Send some rain, would you send some rain?
Cause the earth is dry and needs to drink again.
And the sun is high and we are sinking in the shade.
Would you send a cloud, thunder long and loud?
Let the sky grow black and send some mercy down.
Surely you can see that we are thirsty and afraid.
But maybe not, not today. Maybe you'll provide in other ways.
And if that's the case...
We'll give thanks to you with gratitude.
For lessons learned in how to thirst for You....

Lets remember to praise God even through hard times. He closes and opens doors. Lets always find something to be thankful for.

Amanda

Psalm 73:25

God gave me Psalm 73:25 the other day and is using it to pentrate my heart and change my life.

"Whom have I in Heaven but YOU? And Earth has nothing I desire besides you."

There are so many desires that I put before God. Some of them are from Him and some of them are not. Some of them may be good, but God knows what is best. For example, there are times when I want to live in the N. Georgia mountains and teach, yet I know that He has called me to Asia, and that is His best for me, not just for my sake, but for His glory and for those who are lost.

"I have but one passion - it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ." - Count Zinzindorf

Even when God has given us a desire for a place, we must remember that ultimately we are not to thirst for that place but for HIM.

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
-Psalm 42:1-2

Remember that He is all that we need. Make God the first desire of your heart and seek first HIS kingdom and HIS righteousness.

Amanda

Take Out the Trash

Today when I was walking to campus from the mall, I saw a lot of trash on the ground. It was gross. Then I started thinking about how this relates to my faith. How often do we carry our trash around instead of taking it out and choosing to live as the new creation that Christ died for us to be? We are sons and daughters of the King, and we need to take off our prison clothes and put on our royal clothes. We need to be clothed in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Trash smells bad, especially when it has been piled up and there is a lot of it. Are we going to be clothed in our sin and give others a bad smell of what Christ is like? Or are we going to put on the sweet aroma of Jesus and let others taste and see that the Lord is GOOD??

I want to encourage you to ask God to search your heart and take out the trash. He has been searching my heart a lot lately and is finally lifting the burden of a sin that I've been struggling with for a long time.

Love,

Amanda

For Such a Time as This

TTHey everyone! I am sorry that I have not blogged in a while. I honestly haven’t had the energy. March has been an awesome month. For the past couple of weeks God has given me the courage to do something that I am not good at: meeting new people and making new friends. I have always been good at building relationships, but I am naturally an introvert and I have times of terrible shyness, so for me to step out and start conversations with people is a HUGE deal. Praise God! He uses the least likely to do work for His kingdom and when it comes to cold cut evangelism, I am the least likely. God gave me the opportunity to witness to a young lady on a taxi, in a grocery store, at a restaurant, at the gym and to two friends at the school store. One time I was sitting outside of the library and a young lady sat down next to me and God told me to witness to her, but I didn’t want to. Then He opened doors when she started the conversation. We had a deep conversation and she shared her frustrations with me. Since then I have hung out with her once and we were able to get to know each other more. Another time, I was getting ready for Tae Kwon Do and reading my Bible. God suddenly told me to go witness to someone so I obeyed and walked around outside of one of the dorms looking for someone sitting under a tree. Then, a young lady walked towards me and God said, “her”. I said, “No”, because she looked busy. I ignored God, but he opened a door when I tried to keep it shut, because the girl said hello to me. Then I walked with her to eat dinner. We gave our testimonies and she shared with me about some of her deep struggles with the Lord and with her family. I have been sick this week. On Thursday I watched TKD but I was too sick to join. Towards the end of it I walked out to get a banana and a girl approached me and asked me for water. I got to walk with her for a minute and talk to her about why I’m here. I am going to meet up with her soon and share Christ. Now I am seeing that God used me being sick to talk to her, because if I hadn’t been sick I would have been doing TKD and never would have met her.
Throughout this, God has been teaching me that He sets up divine appointments. God always has a plan. We just need to be sensitive to His spirit. When He clearly tells us to do something, we need to listen and not let fear keep us from serving HIM!!!!! Jesus was the ultimate servant and He let nothing stop Him from going to the cross. He knew what His mission was, and He obeyed God and took up His cross, which is what we are called to do also. Wherever God has you, you are there “for such a time as this”, so make the most of the season of your life that you are in right now, because God will use you if you are open, and I’ve learned that He may even use you when you are not. J
“Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous , do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” –Joshua 1:9

Love,
Amanda