TEEN CHALLENGE

 My friend Cortney drew this picture and sent me a photo of it, and I absolutely love it. It's such an amazing reminder of how much Jesus is in love with us and has a wonderful plan for our lives.  Is God asking you for something right now? Something you don't really want give up? Your little flower may seem like everything right now, but God has a whole bouquet of flowers behind his back waiting to hand them to you. Some people have an idea about an angry God just waiting to punish us- but the exact opposite is true. He is so in love with each of us, and He's just waiting to give you all of the wonderful blessings He has planned for you. I hope you will carry this reminder with you this week; God loves you so much and He has amazing plans for you. Give Him your flower and take the bouquet.  

      This year my church's theme is "for the Gospels sake". Lately I've been trying to think of the things in my daily life in that way. I find that using the thought that every time I do the right thing, that it's for the Gospels sake, it makes things a lot more meaningful. Having a good testimony at work or waking up on time to read my Bible seems more important when I think about it from this perspective. I would challenge you to take the next week, and channel everything you do through this idea. I would love to hear how it goes if you decide to try it!  I'm also attaching a link to a great new podcast called "Gospel Thoughts" that my Pastor and Youth Pastor are doing. I hope you will listen to these two wise men discuss these important things.  Gospel Thoughts

  "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28      My Dad got me a puppy about a month ago, and I have my hands full trying to teach him how to behave. He's very smart and full of energy, but he has almost no attention span. It's hard work just to keep him around to teach him anything. But once he learned "Barney come" meant that I want him to come to me, things got a lot easier. Once I could get him near me, it was much easier to teach him. I mean, it's hard to teach a puppy how to sit when he's bouncing around thirty feet from you!       It's the same way with us and God. We want Him to teach us, He wants to teach us. But we need to learn to come first! If we're bouncing around doing our own thing far away from God, there's no way we're going to learn anything. If I want Gd to teach me, I need to learn that "Megan come" means that He wants me to come to Him so that He can...

      I'm not a big "new year's resolution" person, but I do love having a 'clean slate' to start with. So this year I have one big goal: organization. Adding work to all of the other things I have to do has thrown my life into chaos! I wake up at 4:30, rush around to get ready and do my devotions (still half asleep) and then try to eat something before I run out the door to get to work by six, leaving my bed unmade and my clothes on the floor. I come home and give my messy room a disgusted look, but there's no time to pick it up. After all, I've got violin and piano to practice, books to read, dogs to walk, blog posts to write and church activities to go to. And by the time it's done I finish what needs to be done, all I want to do is go to sleep. And since my work schedule is different every day, things change every day.      So, my room's a mess, my music practice is low quality, my books remain half read, and my blog posts seem disappointin...