Jesus Time With Emma

                I find summer to be a challenging time for me as a college student. I'm always feeling like I am lacking something. When I'm at school I am constantly active and busy. My mind is focused on exploring my major and working towards a degree. Then the three month summer break hits. I return home to a town where I don't really have friends anymore and have no classes that keep my mind running. The only thing that I have really devoted my time to these past couple summers has been working jobs I don't actually want to be at so I can pay for college loans. During times like these where I am alone most of the time, it's easy to start thinking and question if where I'm at right now is where I'm supposed to be.                       "You make known to me the path of life." (Psalm 16:11)               If only we could believe this more often. Before summer break started I remember being at school listening to the summer plans of all my friends

                     My twentieth birthday is coming up and it hasn't hit me until recently how quick time flies the older I get. I can still remember the slumber party I had for my tenth birthday ten years ago!                   As life progresses and as I grow older, my appreciation for waking up each morning increases. In a couple of weeks I will be leaving my teens behind and entering the third decade of my life. Lately I have been reflecting on the decade I am now wrapping up and the life events I experienced from the ages of ten through twenty. These years are somewhat the same yet totally different for all adolescents. Besides navigating puberty, every youth faces their own individual battles that interfere with their journey to adulthood. They can be related to academics, relationships, or similar to what I faced, home life.                   I have a brief memory of my fourteen year old self lying on my bedroom floor in tears because my life felt completely hopeless. While

                     I have had to learn to accept that there is so much about this life that I will never understand.  If I become a counselor someday I will never be able to tell my clients an accurate answer on why bad things happen to good people. I may never receive the apologies I once longed for from the people in my past who hurt me. In every new season or new relationship I enter, I am risking something. Devoting attention to something or someone may require spending money or gas milage and sacrificing a portion of my 24-hour day. In my short years of being alive I have learned that life is a complete mystery with many twists and turns. I will find myself in one place at one point and then be somewhere completely different within a year. Throughout my life people came and people went. I would think I wanted something one moment and change my mind the next. A piece of my heart would be devoted to a person or thing until an interference forced me to take that piece back because

                  "Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4)              What does it mean to delight in the Lord? What exactly are the desires of my heart that this verse is referring to? What is God promising readers through these words?          As a human there are specific goals that we wish to achieve while living on this earth. Many of the common desires we may have include career's that fulfill self-meaning and financial needs, as well as spouses and children to fulfill desires for emotional security and family. Other desires include traveling, starting businesses, or doing something daring and exciting. Throughout life we experience different seasons that bring us different dreams and longings. They are considered good if they are used to bring glory and honor to the Lord. In fact, the Lord created many of the desires we have! He created the beautiful gift of marriage and motherhood, as well as our talents and gi

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever." (Psalm 136:1)          It is easy to take the blessings that we have in life for granted. With this Thanksgiving/Christmas season approaching I feel on my heart that I should write about the blessings in life that God provides us with.         How can an entire world be created by someone just saying, "let there be light."? How can a human being be formed from just a handful of dust and a rib? How can someone be rejected and betrayed century after century yet still be merciful, when they have the power to destroy everything that is against them? How can anybody be willing enough to sacrifice their own life/sacrifice their own son for the sake of their persecutors? God has done all of this. We are the people he has created and betrayed him. We are the persecutors he has sacrificed himself for. He is the reason we can live our lives in complete peace and know that we have a home in heav

         I was fifteen years old when my eyes were open to the brokenness of this world. My childhood had provided me with shelter that blinded me from the fact that life really is a hard and brutal journey. I guess that's why adults were always telling me growing up to enjoy being a kid while I was able to.                       - "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you." (1 Peter 4:12)         I never knew what suffering was until I experienced it for myself. In my walk with the Lord, I have learned that everyone has a story. Every person carries brokenness of some sort with them as they journey throughout life. As a child I never imagined that brokenness could exist in adults, especially in my own parents. In my innocent mind, my mom and dad were perfect. I relied on them for all my strength and support. In many aspects they did a very good job at providing my needs and being