If you looked up the definition of exhaustion, you would find a picture of me. These past 2 weeks have been phenomenal. I have made life-long friendships, made a best friend & have grown closer to my Savior, Jesus.
I left for the Alive Festival last Wednesday morning and let me tell you it was an experience of a lifetime. I'm surprised I made friends considering I looked like a homeless person the entire week. Nonetheless I would label these past two weeks the best of my life so far.
After Alive I came home one night, slept in my own bed, went to church & then went back to the church to spend a week with a missions team from Tennessee. Jesus has truly blessed me with some of the most loving, caring, beautiful friends.
Sure, I had an amazing time hanging out with these FANTASTIC people, but I was there to serve God, & to grow closer to Him.
I'll be honest with you, before these past two weeks, I was slipping. I was really struggling with my Faith, & I was starting to get extremely upset with God. I started feeling sorry for myself, and began to fall back into my old routines of being defiant, and angry.
God works in mysterious ways. Did I think He was going to bless me in ways that I couldn't even imagine? NO. Truthfully, I didn't even want to go work with the missions team. I wanted to stay at home, sleep & be lazy. Which would've been the easy thing to do. Instead, God spoke to me while I was at Alive. It was almost as if He whispered in my ear & told me "I'm still here, I still care, just follow ME."
I sometimes wonder why God does certain things, but once everything settles down & you take a step back and look around ... it's as everything He has done is perfect. He has a plan, obviously, He knows what He's doing, & I don't.
Pastor Todd said this morning "You cannot become more like Christ, apart from serving Christ." Isn't that the truth?!!!
I believe that if YOU serve Christ to the fullest that you can serve Him in your situation, He will bless you beyond your imaginations. I'm not saying that all your problems are going to be solved, & your life is going to be 100% perfect, but if you proclaim Christ as your Lord & Savior, don't you just want to serve Him all the time!?
I know I want to be a servant for Christ, & I intend to do everything in my teenage power to glorify HIM in all that I do.
-Hayley
Hayley- I love reading this! The Father is so good to his children, and it's good to see how you've seen that in your life! I'm glad to see that Alive and the Mission trip was so instrumental in your life! I'm also glad to see that you and Cara have become such good friends! I'm excited to watch how the Father forms you more and more into the image of Jesus! Thanks for sharing your life!
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