Scattered across the country.....

Even though everyone who has been reading this blog is scattered across the country, we are all part of the body of Christ. I have a prayer request for all of my brothers and sisters in Christ who are reading my little blog. There is a guy here at NTBI named Thomas Lazzara who has a ministry down the street from the school at the Salvation Army. He goes there every day during the week to hang out with the kids there, be involved in their lives, and point them to Christ. On Sundays he preaches the Word to all who come there. There are some pretty rough kids there and he's pretty much on his own. There are a few NTBI students who go every now and then to give him a hand, but he is the leader and does most of the work. He really has a heart to serve God and is pouring all he has into serving God, but as we all know, there are always times of discouragement. So I would ask you all to keep our brother Thomas in prayer. Pray for wisdom, strength and endurance for him as he works with these kids. And please pray that his ministry would grow and that more people would be willing to step in and serve along side him. He needs some encouragement and we all know the power of prayer. Please keep him in your prayers.

Why yes!

I HAVE fallen off the face of the earth!

I will be back soon to update ya'll on some of the fun stuff I've been doing (a.k.a. went to the rodeo! yessssss) and some of the great stuff I've been learning.

I AM still alive.....FYI.

Now here's a thought.....

All throughout orientation and in various Chapel sermons, we have been discussing what is appropriate and what is not. There aren't a lot of rules at this school. We are adults and they expect us to act like adults. Part of being adults would be having consideration for those around us in the way we act and dress, the music we listen to, the activities we participate in, and so on and so forth. We as Christians have freedom in Christ. I may like a certain kind of music that is worldly, but it may not be a stumbling block in my Christian walk. However, it might bother my roommate. What do I say? Stop judging me! The Bible doesn't say that I can't listen to this! Is that a Christian attitude? I think not. What if I think it's okay to have a drink every now and then. (Don't worry, ya'll...alcohol is off limits...it's just an illustration.) Do I scoff at my friend's immaturity when he gets offended at my participation in drinking? Well, you obviously have a ways to go in your Christian walk, my friend...don't you know that Christ drank wine!? We sometimes end up adopting the attitude where we say "My relationship with Christ is stronger now than it ever has been in the past....THEREFORE I can have a drink (or listen to this music or dress this way...fill in the blank) and know that I am free in Christ to do so." That is all well and good when it is kept between you and God. However, when this way of thought begins to creep into our lives, we often end up flaunting our "freedoms." So now, here is the question I have for you: Is it possible to be a slave to our freedoms? I've been turning that thought over and over in my head over the last few weeks. In being free...we have the tendancy to turn right back around and put the chains back on. Of course we have many freedoms in Christ. Amazing blessings that are proof of His love and His desire for us to enjoy the life He has blessed us with. But it defeats the purpose if we abuse those privalages. We can enjoy many blessings that some can not, but we should never choose to participate in a "freedom" at the spiritual expense of a brother or sister in Christ. Deferance. That's the bottom line. May we never be so proud that we can't give up or temporarily set aside our own desires in deferance to a brother or sister in Christ.

Finally brethren,

....build one another up in love and in mail. It doth be the will of the Lord that ye be steadfast in sending mail to Grace. A manuscript, an epistle...yea verily, a postcard or sticky-note doth be sufficient for thee. We are free in Christ and in the United States to send mail whithersoever it doth please us to send mail. Let us use this freedom frequently and with joy. I write this unto thee with mine own hand. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
~Grace





p.s. Thanks for all the comments! I'm more excited to write when I know people are actually reading it. I'll write some more thoughts tomorrow.

New perspective...

Last year, our college group, GAP, had the wonderful opportunity to take a day trip down to San Diego to see the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit in the San Diego Natural History Museum. Talk about a once in a lifetime experience! It was so amazing to walk through and see all the carefully preserved pieces of leather and papyrus with the precious words of Scripture that have been passed down so carefully and delicately for thousands of generations. I'm reading a book called "How We Got The Bible" by Neil R. Lightfoot for my Bibliology class. It goes into detail about the processes that men have been involved in for centuries in order to accurately preserve the Word of God. I've been studying ancient manuscripts...what the difference is between the Sinaitic Manuscript and the Vatican Manuscript and all kinds of other stuff that I would have never thought would even really be important. Human beings are so cocky and proud.....throughout the centuries, thousands have come forward with arguments to refute the validity and accuracy of Scripture, but every time something comes up, God allows us to discover manuscript after manuscript that blows their arguments out of the water. Knowing the attention that was paid in painstakingly copying every word of Scripture for century upon century, I appreciate my Bible so much more. One thing that I thought was cool is that, when scribes were copying the Bible, they would often choose one word in the middle of the manuscript to help them measure exactly how many lines and words they needed in order to make an exact copy of the page. They didn't just copy the words, they made each page look exactly like the original. They knew and treasured the importance of the documents that they were copying and went to extreme measures to maintain perfect accuracy. There has been years of extremely precise work, beyond anything we would ever imagine, just so we can have the Bible. How many Bibles do you own? How many translations? In how many languages? When I went to the Resolved conference in June, I was sitting in the middle of 3500 people and the speaker told us to open our Bibles to a certain passage. The first thing I have written in my notes for that whole conference wasn't the speaker's name, topic, date, reference, or anything like that. The first thing I wrote was "I'm sitting in a huge room filled with thousands of people and each one of them has at least one copy of the Bible in their language." We take the Word of God so much for granted! We wouldn't have any of that if God hadn't provided us with so many faithful men over the years to copy, preserve, and eventually translate the Scriptures. I wish I could go back to the San Diego Natural History Museum and see the Dead Sea Scrolls again. I thought they were extremely cool when I saw them last time, but know I understand how unthinkably amazing they are! It's kind of like thinking Johnny Reb's is an amazing restaurant and then being introduced to Lucielle's!! Whoa!!!!!!!!!! Then you travel to Santa Maria and eat a steak at Jocko's and you're like.....WHOOOAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course, that illustration is on an infinitely smaller scale, but you get the idea. :) Let us move forward in our Christian walk with a new appreciation for the treasure that we often take so much for granted: The Holy Bible.

"The grass whithers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever!"
Isaiah 40:8

Yes, yes, yes I'm still alive...barely.

You: So Grace, what have you been up to?

Me: Oh nothing really....just homework. Oh, and homework. Oh yeah, and more homework!

Yea verily, in accordance with prophecy, it doth be true. This isn't a bad thing though, because I'm loving every second of it. I don't have very long to write because, well...I have to do homework. Ha! I'm going to just share a few thoughts that have been going around in my little brain for the past few days that have come from what I'm studying.

~In studying Bibliology, we get to know the importance of Scripture to a Christian and how important it is for us to have absolute confidence in the Bible. We need to have complete confidence in the Word of God or our faith will be undermined, shaken, and shattered. We can appreciate the light of the Bible in that it causes us to realize that we're in darkness...it then guides us in the correct way to eliminate that darkness, sometimes in ways that we would never dream of. "The closer you look, the greater the Book!"

~Think of your favorite song. You play it all the time, right? If you listen to that same song, but without the words...only the instruments, you would enjoy it more than someone who hadn't heard the song, because you know the words. Even if they aren't being played, you still know them and therefore get more out of the instrumental version than the other person. Well, we stand alongside many non-believers and see nature and the awesomeness of creation. What's the difference? We have the Bible, the Word of God. We have the "words" that go with the song of creation and therefore get much more out of it. That alone should inspire us to share the "words" with those who don't know them!!

~Satan is relentless. We will always have circumstances that give us a "reason" not to move forward in faith. That's exactly what he wants.

~Many times, the only thing that stops us from doing something stupid is the fear of punishment...not remorse for what we're about to do.


I'll stop there for now. One other thing though....I went to community college for 2 years. I put up with a lot of junk there and eventually accepted the fact that my faith and my God would be bashed on a daily basis. Today, my Evangelism teacher, Chris, came into class and told us all to stand up. We then proceeded to open class by singing "How Deep The Father's Love." No accompaniment.....just 80 voices in a small, crowded classroom declaring "His wounds have paid my ransom!"
What a different atmosphere from Cerritos College. Did I mention that I love this school? :)

I almost forgot!!!

On your 21st birthday, what are you supposed to go do??? Have a DRINK!!
My roomie Kaylee took me out for my first drink as an official 21 year old. We drove to the Jackson Coffee Company where I enjoyed....................drum roll please..................

A STRAWBERRY SMOOTHIE!!!!! It was amazing. Who needs alcohol when you can have ice and strawberries? hm?!


So we stayed there for a little while listening to the live music that was going on that night....

Aaand Jenna and Alysse stopped by for a few minutes to sing "happy birthday" to me really loudly.....and dance a little.....



And then Kaylee, Katie, and I finished off the night with a picnic in our dorm. We watched "The King And I" (which we sang along to...quite loudly) and ate more food than any normal person would eat at midnight. It was fantastic! Thank you Jesus for blessing me with amazing roommates and a ton of lovely new Christian friends! I wouldn't trade any of this for the world!!