Ephesians 2:9-10

So i was in the dressing room while i was shopping the other day and a song came on that i knew and loved, so of course i started singing it. a lady came out of her stall thingy and told me that i had a beautiful voice. i said "thank you" but it got me thinking...

Its easy to take compliments and not think about it. but honestly, nothing we have comes from us or anything we have done. in Ephesians 2:9-10 it ways "Not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."

Now the "not of good works, lest anyone should boast." part is saying that we have don't nothing to acquire anything we have, whether it is looks, talents, qualities, or a position you are in, it all comes from God.

My mom told me a story once about her friend from when she was younger. she met her friend again a couple months ago and her friend was telling/bragging about how she had started as an intern in this company and worked herself up to where she was the co-manager or something. now that is pretty impressive but she was telling it like she had done it all on her own, but quite simply, it was only by God's grace that she was where she was.

The last part of the verse says "which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." when God created us he gave us each a unique group of talents with a special purpose in mind. he gave them to us so we could use them for His glory, for His righteousness, but unfortunately that is not always what happens.

So in conclusion, its easy to get all cocky about ourselves but always remember that its all from God. keep asking God to help you use them for His glory. there is my rather long piece of wisdom for the day...

Miss. Bailey

Lessons from a wee one...

Today is my nephew Mikey's birthday! And because it's his birthday, I'm gonna share something related to him...

So a few weeks ago, my family took a trip up too Cape Cod for one of our friend's wedding. It worked out so that my sister, her husband and their two kids, (my nephews) rode up in the van with us. I had the amazing privilege to have nephew number 2, Mikey, sitting next too me the entire way up and back. It was during this time that Mikey, my now one-year-old nephew taught me a little bit about life and how to trust someone.

The main lesson he taught me was how to trust properly. His personality is such that if he has the few things he likes, he is very happy. In fact, he is so happy you would think he had just eaten an entire cookie bowl. I'm still not sure what it was though, but something about the 11 hour car ride seemed to bother him a bit. He seemed slightly scared about the whole experience, especially for such a long duration.

His solution?

Grab my hand. Seriously. That's all it took. So for probably 80% of the trip, I was holding my nephew's hand, and making sure he knew he was safe and secure. It was because of this that he knew he could sleep in peace, and he didn't have to worry. Every so often, I would put my hand back in my lap, and usually no more than 30 minutes later, he would wake up, start clawing on my shoulder, and continue to do so until he had my hand again.

It was while all this was happening that I thought of how we are with God. All it took was to let Mikey hold my hand, and he would just look up at me, giving me the most adorable smile ever. As I sat there holding his hand, I thought too myself, "Why don't I have someone to hold my hand?" But then I thought, "wait a minute, I do!"

Isn't it amazing that we do have someone we can just grab hold of, and know that everything will be okay? We can have trust to know that He is so much bigger than us, and will protect us if anything goes wrong. He'll clean up after us, He'll insure that we have food to eat, and He'll make sure we have everything we need to sleep. In short, He can be everything I was to my little nephew. Mikey knew that as long as he was holding on too me, he was safe, and in the same way, I know I am safe as long as I just hold onto God's hand.

So that is the main lesson that my nephew has been teaching me. Trust. To give everything up too the Lord. To know that I can just depend on Him, and place all my troubles and problems in His care, and He'll take care of them better than I can. He'll clothe and feed me, give me a place to lie my head, and make sure I have a shelter. But more than that, He made sure that I have eternal life. He went above and beyond the call of duty, and insured that I had everything I would ever need.

I have someone to hold my hand.

Do you?

The Love of God: Chapter 2

"Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth."
"What truth?"
"There is no spoon."
"There is no spoon?"
"Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."
- The Matrix


I recently had the distinct pleasure of watching the incredible movie The Matrix. Now, I am able to understand and love science, so this movie blew me away. However, God brought along with it a really interesting idea.

Before I watched the movie, my dad asked me the famous question, "will you take the red pill or the blue pill?" Sometimes we put so much trust and energy into this world, our "Matrix". We put on masks, we play parts, we make people happy (teachers, parents, friends, siblings) and at some point (only you know when ;)) you go to sleep only to wake up the next day to do it again. It's hard to break this pattern, but taking the red pill is exactly what God calls us to do. His word says that we are not of this world, we were created to serve Him in His kingdom.

Sometimes God has to tear us out of our own little world in order to see what is really important.

My friends are probably the most important thing in my life besides my faith. Sadly though, I still struggle with putting God first. At one point in my life I had a friendship that consumed my entire life. This girl was everything I wanted to be, pretty, admired, talented, and confident. I swiftly let go of God and set this friend on top of the throne of my heart. Eventually God broke up our friendship and my 12 year old heart was devastated. I was just feeling cool, feeling worth loving and now it had all collapsed. Yet through all the pain, God led me to the place where He was all that matters, and all I wanted was Him.

Maybe your going through a time like this, you feel like quitting and don't understand what God is doing. Keep holding on. God will come. He loves you and He is strongest when we are weakest. "Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might," Eph 6:10. Even if you don't understand, keep seeking God. This rough patch might just be God's way of saying I love you.

Always praying,
Tess :)

P.s.
Here is a song I wrote once that I felt I should share, hope you find God in it,

I told You that rain was all I could see
You told me that You were right in front of me
I told You I was crying myself to sleep
You said to let go and accept Your peace

You taught me to cling to You
and I learned to love this truth

That even when the mountains are falling down on me, you're still good,
Even when the dark is creeping into my soul, you're still there,
And even when I don't understand why you do the things you do, you're still God and I'm still here………..
in Your arms.

You say to start here and trust that you know best
I say that this is crazy and I'm just one big mess
You say to jump and believe Your word
You're breaking my heart but somehow I'll learn

That even when the mountains are falling down on me, You're still good,
Even when the dark is creeping into my soul, You're still there,
And even when I don't understand why You do the things You do, You're still God
and I'm still here……..
in Your arms

In Your arms the rain is outside my window
In Your arms I can see rainbows in the distance
And even though I don't understand why You do the things You do
You're still God and I'm still here

And even when the mountains are falling down on me, You're still good,
Even when the dark is creeping into my soul, you're still there,
And even when I don't understand why You do the things You do, You're still God
and I'm still here……..

and I'm still here………

In Your arms

Enjoy Life ~the way it was meant to be enjoyed!

Ok, here are some random thoughts I've been thinking about.... This is kinda the stage I'm at right now, so I could really use prayer in what I'm sharing... :)

Life can be mundane, so we think. We sometimes compare our lives to those around us those who you would think are "enjoying life" right now... with worldly things that only bring enjoyment for the present.

Who says that we can't enjoy life??.... I read once that an observer of the Christian faith said "You Christians seem to have a religion that makes you miserable. You are like a man with a headache. He does not want to get rid of his head, but it hurts to keep him to keep it. You cannot expect outsiders to seek very earnestly for anything so uncomfortable." This really made me think... sometimes in my Christian walk I struggle so much between what I know I should do, and what I want to do.... it makes me very unhappy. It doesn't have to be this way!

But I serve a God who is faithful who cannot and will not let me go! He is every moment teaching me to grow in His grace. I am learning that I must live a life of continual surrender... until everything, in my physical and spiritual life is His. If I am a lump of clay given to the potter, how else can the potter work with the clay unless it stops asking questions, arguing, and struggling against the will of the potter? To let him work in my life I must have complete trust and faith in Him.

We, in Christ are the only ones who can enjoy life to the fullest! You and I were made to live life to the utmost it could be, What could bring more fullfillment than having a reason to live.

Life is a vapor, enjoy it to the fullest! We have this moment, not the next, God gave us today, but only He knows what tomorrow holds for us.

How to enjoy life (the real way)

• Purpose to love and seek God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12.30, Luke10.27, Matt. 6.33) 
• Surrender COMPLETELY! Trust and have faith in Him, for the present and the future. 
• We were made in the image of God to glorify Him, Build everything around God make Him the reason why you live 

Live for His glory! and Remember He Loves you!
~k

The Love of God: Chapter 1

The love of God. How many of us actually take a minute and think about what that really means? Sure we've heard it said a million times in church and youth group, but do we really, really know what it means? Over the next week or so, I'll post about the different parts of God's love I've encountered, and hopefully He will reveal to you what His love means too. :)

Most of you remember the old story from Sunday School about Jesus telling Peter to go fishing and the first fish he caught would have a 4-drachma coin. He told Peter to take this coin and give it to the tax collectors for His tax and Peter's.

God directed me to this passage today. But instead of the usual passage I was given the verses before it. Here is what I read in Matthew 17: 25-26, 25 "When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. "What do you think, Simon?" he asked. "From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and tax-from their own sons or from others?" 26 "From others," Peter answered. "Then the sons are exempt," Jesus said to him. Then it hit me like a brick what Jesus meant by this statement. He was trying to show Peter that sons of God (the ultimate king) are exempt as well from the taxes or death we deserve, through forgiveness.

Sometimes it's so hard to believe that. There are many days where I feel like quitting. "God can possibly care anymore, I've screwed up WAY too many times," I whisper to myself. But God still considers us His loved ones and keeps forgiving us, no matter what we do or where we go. God says in His word, "Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God." That means NOTHING!!!! Not what you've done in your past, not what your doing right now, not what your afraid you will do. Nothing can separate you from His love. No matter what your faults are, He can and will cover them with His cleansing blood and with His forgiveness. Just ask Him. That's all He wants is a willing heart. He doesn't want a perfect person, He just wants your love. :)

So next time the enemy pulls you down and tells you that God can't possibly love you, remember the story of the 4-drachma coin, and remember that You are covered with His forgiveness. :)

Blessings! and always praying for your walk with God,

Tess :)

The pull of LIFE

Life. When I think of it, I usually think of the game. You go around the board a bunch of times, try to keep your finances balanced, get married, have kids, graduate them, and then die.

Pretty depressing, no? Is that all there is to life? Are we really just going around a board, in the hopes of beating the other guy? Is everything we do just to get ahead of someone sitting across from us?

I would argue we are here for a purpose. I would argue everything we do has a purpose, no matter how small. Some end goal, something we are all striving for. But what is it? Some people say it is reincarnation. For some, it is to better the world. Still others think they will be nothing but dust, and their death will give a new baby life.

Paul, in many of his letters, compared the Christian faith to running a race. We are running the race. It isn't a circular race, but more like a marathon. It has it's ups and downs, twists and turns, roundabouts and yes, a finish line. However, unlike a typical runner, we only get one chance. We only pass over each bit of ground once. We can only affect the world once.

So my question is this: How are you affecting those around you? How are you sharing His light with the world, in a way that would make everyone want to run the race?

The Beginnings... And An Experiment...

With dread, I realized that I neglected this blog, yet again. This is a problem, especially since I really like the idea behind a blog like this, and the topics that have yet to be discussed...

It was while pondering the strange fate of this fairly new blog that I came up with a very interesting idea... A friend and I were discussing the different ways we might bring teens together. We were hoping to create a network for teens to support and encourage each other, as well as maybe even begin to provide physical assistance to areas in need. This was several months ago. More recently, (today) another friend and I began to discuss how much time is "wasted" through Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, and the other two dozen social networking services.

While musing upon these two separate ideas, I decided to put them together: What if there was some means through which teens could do something useful, in the median of social networking? Something that takes as much time as they want to put into it, and provides some output?

My mind switched into high gear, and began racing around the track of ideas. When I put both of those ideas together, along with this blog, I came up with the obvious solution: Find other teens who are willing to give this blog a try. If you have a handful of teens who are willing to post, at a minimum, once a week, you could have daily content, thus generating traffic, and thus getting whatever it is you have to say out to the world. Plus, by having multiple writers, it provides some accountability for posting. The idea is to pair teens together, and let them start their own blogs. Every two dozen kids, you give them a blog. They create their own network, and then you can create another network of the authors.

So I decided to put this idea to the test. I invited several of my friends onto this blog, and (hopefully) they will begin posting. I am hoping to provide a place where both kids and adults alike can come to be encouraged, inspired and uplifted through Godly advice, suggestions and random thoughts, but all with a Godly worldview as the framework, and the Bible as the foundation.

Hopefully the test will prove successful, and we can launch a forum for the sharing of ideas, resources, etc. I look forward to seeing these projects through, and if you want to help, let me know!