Take It Up

(Mark 8:34-35) He now called the crowd to him with his disciples and said to them:

“If anyone wants to come after me, let him disown himself and pick up his torture stake and follow me continually.

For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it;

but whoever loses his soul for the sake of me and the good news will save it.

Take up your cross. What does that mean to you? Just think about that for a minute. If someone were to come and tell you to take up your cross, what would you think? To be honest, if a random person came up to me and said that I'd be a bit creeped out. But this isn't a random person, tihs is Jesus. We all know it's not going to be easy taking up our cross, but it's what we need to do. When I was in Minnesota last week and for two weeks before that, I stayed up north with my grandma for a part of the time. It's a REALLY small town. My little cousin and I were able to walk to the very end within like 5 or 10 minutes. And i'm pretty sure it was allowed to just walk through the drive through at dairy queen (though, to my dismay, we never tried). But my mom and i stopped at a flower shop/coffe shop and was looking around. There was a little plaque that i loved, it said "God never said it would be easy, He just promised it would be worth it.

I really, really like that. It's so true. It's not going to be easy, we should know that by now. I've had my fair share of problems in my life, a lot based on my faith. I dont let that stop me or my faith. My faith actually grows stronger after i face problems. The reason why (i believe) is I seek God for help, and know that He WILL help me as to follow what He plans for me. And that trust in Him strengthens my love for Him.

In 8th grade I joined pure fashion and I went to a weekend retreat. I came back COMPLETELY different. But it's safe to say I absolutely LOVE how I turned out. The bad side was my very best friend from school was not ready for that drastic change between days that she saw me (Friday i was one way, Monday i was completely different). She was also changing in ways too, and it's a really complicated story, but we were both just drifting the exact opposite. We normally would have stupid little fights like why didnt you wait for me after class, but then after we changed we had more intense fights. Nothing physical, but it was always questioning who eachother was now. It would always end with an apology and they started getting a little less often but the tension was building up. January we had a humongous fight (over the internet, oh joy) that ended up in us "not being friends anymore", all because we had changed- I growind closer to my faith, and her rebelling a bit (not really in a bad way though). I regreted everything that was said the second after it was said, and I did everything to try and end that fight, and eventually it worked. We worked things out and eventually became even closer than we originally were. It took a lot of praying, but now we're amazing.

She went through her own things, lots of things, after our big fight, and I was there to help her through all of them. I love her soo much and I'm so happy that i got through that battle, and maybe that's not completely taking up my cross, because although she did start to rebel a little less, that was more of a personal cross for me. It just reminds me, though, that in order to be close with God i have to face challenges. Like seperating from friends, and judgement. But we will make it through. We WILL make it through for Him. We can do this.

Whenever I come across a tough situation, faith related or not, I almost always pray something along the lines of God, please help me to get through this problem. Help me so the path I'm going in is taking me to where you want me to be. Thank you so much for everything you've done for me. I don't deserve any of it but I praise you even more for how awesome you are.

And before I wrap this up, i just though of something while writing that. The theme of our mission trip was undeserved. It was both a way of saying how we need to serve Him (take up your cross!) and how undeserved we are of all the gracious things He has done for us. I'm in the middle of my room right now typing this way too early in the morning. I've had a list of things I've wanted to blog for a while now, but i havent gotten around to it, which makes me pretty mad/sad. But I hope that this post (even though it's mainly about me, sorry!) helps you.

"He just promised it'd be worth it"

Shout to the Lord, all the earth,

Let us sing

Power and majesty, praise to the King;

Mountains bow down and the seas will roar

At the sound of Your name.

I sing for joy at the work of Your hands,

Forever I'll love You, forever I'll stand,

Nothing compares to the promise I have in You.

-Shout to the Lord

-Chris Tomlin