What the world needs now is love...sweet, unfailing, undeserving love

God has been teaching me a lot about His love lately...being loved by Him, loving Him, and loving others.

Being loved by Him and loving Him are two things I cannot even begin to understand. I tend to get stuck on certain songs and one of the songs I am currently stuck on is "Remedy" by David Crowder Band. My favorite lines in the song are, "So we lift up our voices/We open our hands/To cling to a love/That we can't comprehend." Cling to a love that we can't comprehend. Even though I don't understand it, all I want to do is cling to His love with all that I have. Well, part of me does...there is part of me that only wants the things of this world. I know God's is all I need, yet I still want the world. And yet He still loves me - a person whose heart/desires is torn. God's love is constantly amazing me because I don't understand how the Creator of the universe wants to love someone like me...someone so undeserving.

I think sometimes I think focus so much more on my inabilities instead of Christ's strength and grace. Which is where I come in with loving others. Lately, I have been really focused on all the times I fail in my ability to love. When I choose not to love, instead of trying to love like Christ loves me. But God is all of His faithfulness reminded me a lot about loving others last night at the Verge. As I am preparing to leave for Wales in a few short months I am reminded of this, but more importantly as I live each day where God has placed me I yearn for my answers to these questions God has placed on my heart to be yes...


Do you love the child with the attitude? Who slams the door in your face and talks back without regard...do you truly love her?
Do you love the guys who seem to have a passionate relationship with Christ but never say hello to you? The ones who act annoyed when you try to speak with them...do you truly love them?
Do you love the girl who seems to have it all? Money, good looks, a personality which draws others to her, the boys' attention...do you really love her?
Do you love the professor who piles on the work? The one who seems to forget you have other classes and is always in a foul mood...do you truly love him?
Do you the love the teenager who is a know-it-all? The girl who craves attentions, who desparately needs it but goes about getting it the wrong way...do you truly love her?
Do you love the man who broke your heart into pieces? The one who you thought would protect you, but failed to do so...do you truly love him?
Do you love the one who can do nothing for you?
Do you love the one who will do nothing for you?
Do you love the one who annoys you? Hurts you? Angers you? Scarred you? Disgusts you? Irritates you? Slanders you? Uses you?
Do you love him?
Do you love her?
Do you love your enemies?
Do you love your neighbor?
Because I do...I went to the cross for them, too...

"My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God. My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love! We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both." ~ 1 John 4:7-12, 19-21 (The Message)

I must love because He first loved me...and though I am weak in my ability to love, His power is made perfect in my weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Well, I'm not there yet...

If you read the title and think to yourself, "Wait a minute! No, she's not!" Then, well, you'd be correct. I am currently not in Wales. I am currently sitting on my dorm room floor in the one stoplight town of Boiling Springs, NC. However, come June I will be.

When I arrived back to school from a mission trip to Guatemala with a group from school and after finally reviving my ridiculously dead phone, I was able to listen to several voicemails that had been left for me throughout the week on Saturday. There was one message I was particularly excited about. It was from the short-term missions coordinator from my church denomination's mission board, World Witness. He told me that he had some good news for and had a question he wanted to ask me. I had applied back in December to serve as a summer intern in Wales through World Witness, but as of leaving for my trip to Guatemala I had not received any confirmation that I had been accepted to serve this summer.

When I finally got the opportunity to return the call, I was beyond pleased with the news he gave me. He said that the good news was that I had been accepted to serve as an intern this summer, and the question he had for me was if I was 100% sure I would be going so he could go ahead and purchase my plane ticket. I said I was...and well now in less than 3 months I will be headed to Wales!!

I cannot stop praising God for this awesome opportunity to share the love of Christ with the people of Wales. I am so excited about going!!

Here are some things you may be curious about concerning my traveling to Wales. I still don't have all the details, but this is what I know as of right now -

1. While in Wales I will be serving alongside the World Witness missionary and another college intern. I will be doing a lot of relational ministry within churches in Wales, with an emphasis on children and youth ministry. I am going to love on the people God places in my life while in Wales and to show how awesome it is to have a relationship with Christ.
2. I will be there for 2 months
3. In July there will be around 80-90 high school/college students coming to serve for a week in Wales by doing different children and youth outreaches alongside different churches and towns.

That's what I have as of now...as I start to gain more information I will definitely share it with you all.

As I stated above I am truly excited about this opportunity, which in some ways has surprised me. Now, it is okay to ask yourself, "How could she not be excited about the possibility of going to Wales?" But this past semester I have been swarmed with a feeling I have never known before. I am actually for the first time in my life been homesick. Since returning to school in January there has not been a day when I didn't wish I could just return back to Lake Placid. It's been a struggle wanting to be home, but at the same time knowing that I am supposed to be at school. I was able to go home in the last weekend in February; and though the weekend was so refreshing, I returned back to school still longing to be home. The following Friday after going home I was supposed to leave for Guatemala. I had been asking for prayer for several weeks for prayer that God would give me excitement about the trip. But when I woke up on Thursday morning I still wished I was going home for spring break instead. As I was getting ready in the morning I continued to pray that God would give me excitement and His joy for this trip. And slowly throughout the day my heart and attitude toward the trip began to change. By the time I was on the plane the next day I was skipping off of it because I could not wait to get to Guatemala. When I arrived to Agua Viva, the children's home my group was going to be working with, and met the kids, I could see a total transformation. God provided me with such joy that week through the kids and their joy and happiness. He reminded He gives me what I need when I need it...oh He's so awesome :)

So when I received the confirmation about Wales...I was filled with even more joy. I can't wait to see what God is going to do both in Wales as well as what He is doing currently in my life. He is such an awesome God :)

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are MINE!" Isaiah 43:1

Here in the Wales Summer 2008 video (it's from those who were on the week long mission trip(