Your Love Never Fails

♪The wind is strong and the water's deep, but I'm not alone in these open seas cause Your love never fails. The chasm is far too wide; I never thought I'd reach the other side, but Your love never fails♫ ♥

The love of Jesus will never fail...what a wonderful assurance. This song is my favorite one that we sing this summer here at camp, and no matter how tired I am, how stressed I feel, or how many kids I have hanging off of me at the time, I always find myself centered in the midst of God when we sing this song. It is an amazing feeling to know that we are forever safe within the embrace of God.


My whole life I have had role models. Some were better than others, but they all have one thing in common...at some point, they have all let me down or disappointed me. Although this song does not say it verbatim, it always reminds me that God is the one person that I can always rely on and look up to that will never let me down. His love will never fail me, and He will always be there when I need to turn to Him. I try to thank Him everyday for being my backbone and for never failing me. 


I challenge you to thank God everyday for being there for you. He promises that He will never leave us nor forsake us. 

Just Wait

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." -Romans 12:12


Patience...it sucks. This week at Camp Longridge, the silver team performed a skit on the fruit of the spirit. As we were preparing, I was convicted of the amount of patience I show both when I am at camp and when I am not. For example, this week the camp was completely full! My roommate and I had 25 girls (there's only supposed to be 22 girls in the biggest cabins!) Needless to say, my patience was tested and pushed beyond all limits. I was overly annoyed at times, like when it took 2.5 hours the first night for everyone to finish showers, and I showed anger a time or two. I have no voice as I write this and my girls are currently "packing"...aka screaming their lungs out just for the heck of it. 


Here's what I was reminded of every morning. This week I woke up every morning and read Romans 12. Romans 12:12 is quoted above and it is my favorite verse in the whole chapter. If we can be joyful in hope, patient during the hard times, and faithful to pray over any and everything, we may find that God becomes our protection in the hardest times of our lives. He gave me much patience throughout this whole week and allowed me to persevere my spirit and to make it through my first week of the summer without losing my sanity or completely losing my temper.


I challenge you to stretch your limits on the amount of patience that you have and then always aspire to have more. I am in awe of those people that I know that are always patient.

On A Positive Note...

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." -Philippians 4:8

Positive thinking. Plain and simply put, it is hard as mess. It is very easy to worry, complain, and just be miserable. But what good does that do you? For me, I consider optimism to be kind of like a tenth fruit of the spirit. It is something that is hard to attain and even harder to keep at times. Things in life get us down but it is our choice to handle hardships however we would like. We can complain and make ourselves (and everyone else that has to listen to us) more miserable, or we can choose to be positive and to handle situations in better, more optimistic ways. Maya Angelou once said, "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." I agree 110 percent with this statement. It is not our situation that determines what we are capable of doing and what we get out of things, it is our attitude. 

The above verse is not only a command to be optimistic, but it specifically tells us what things we should think about and dwell on. If we can manage to keep our thoughts and attitudes focused on the things mentioned in Philippians, I think that we may find that all tasks and situations become more manageable. 

Lastly, if anything seems unbearable or it seems impossible to remain positive about it, we should seek the Lord and His help in these hard times. He is the sole provider of peace and refuge. In Psalm 18:2, David says "The Lord is my Rock, my Fortress, and my Deliverer. My God is my Rock in whom I take refuge." So the challenge for this blog is to keep it positive and to think about true, lovely, pure, just, commendable things! You, and everyone around you, will be happier!

Hardest Blog to Write

"Life is maybe, death is a sure, sin is the cause, Christ is the cure."

So yesterday, a great protector left this world. Doc Lawton was my grandfather and in my 19 years of knowing him, he never ceased to amaze me. He was stubborn as mess, loved me more than anything, and was always in the business of protecting those he loved. In the past couple years, I found joy in listening to him antagonizing my boyfriends and doing everything in his power to make sure I knew that he was proud of me. Nothing will ever be able to replace the encouragement and protection that he so willingly offered me.

Here's the hardest part for me, a few people have asked me why I do not seem sad, and even some of my camp friends didn't know about my granddad passing until tonight because I did not mention it or show much emotion...yet, I am very sad to watch him go. The reason I do not seem upset is simply for this reason, he would not want me to be. Granddaddy Doc is gone, and he left his legacy; I am still here, and I still have work to do, a life to live, and a legacy to leave. When asked the question about my emotionless attitude, I remind myself that I can spend a decent amount of time in the grieving process and that I will never lose the memories I have, but that, ultimately, I am in a ministry position that allows me to give a cure to the cause of death. In my boyfriend's house, there is a painting that reads "Life is a maybe, death is a sure, sin is the cause, Christ is the cure." This saying has meant a lot to me in the past few hours as my granddad's death has been becoming more and more real. Romans 6:23 says "for the payment of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ." There is a world of people dying all around me and it is my obligation and privilege to offer them the spiritual cure for eternal death. As much as I miss Granddaddy Doc, I know that his time is gone, and yet others still have a few more minutes, hours, days, years to make a difference in this world to better society, themselves, and to spread the gospel. It is my job to move on and help these people to do just that, with Granddaddy Doc always walking right beside me.

Lastly, I've said it a few times in this blog, but I'll say it again...Granddaddy Doc was a protector. Whether he meant to or not, I was able to see attributes of my Savior in him. Through my granddad, I was able to get a glimpse and feel a small bit of God's love and protection for me. Granddaddy would never tell me to not do anything simply because I could get hurt, but he was always conscious to remind me to stay safe and to "watch out for those boys" haha. He never put boundaries on me, but made it very clear that he expected me to use my very best judgement and to live a life of integrity. It is this sort of protection that I believe can be found in Jesus Christ as well. He never puts limits on what I can do and, in fact, He says "with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:36). This freedom of choice, yet high expectations is a reflection of our Lord, and it is for that protection that I love both my granddad and my Lord so deeply.

As I sit here on the porch of my cabin alone on a cool night, the emotion that no one sees is pouring out of me. Granddaddy Doc, never forgotten, always loved.

GO GO GO!

"Those who criticize our generation forget who raised it."

I can currently say that I am proud of my generation. Specifically, the people my age in the church. Looking through my own church, I see the sacrifice that many young people are putting forward this summer. Myself and two others are working with 23 other staff to spread the gospel. One of the college students in my church is travelling to Daytona Beach to spread the words to those soaking up the sun. One is in northern California to take God to the West Coast, some are travelling to Nicaragua, and even others are working with local ministries and staying active within the church! I can honestly say that I am never been so proud of my friends. We are actively living out what God has called us to do, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." (Matthew 18:19-20a)


This is a rather short blog and I have two different challenges...first of all, to the adults my challenge is to step it up. My generation is the church of tomorrow, but you are the church of today...don't let us show you up. And to those in my generation, keep up the great work! If you are not involved, there is always a place for you, you just have to look for it!


*In addition, props goes out to those adults who have shown and instructed us on how to take the steps that we have chosen to take to follow in the steps of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Weakest Days

“I can count a million times, people asking me how I can praise You with all that I’ve gone through. The question just amazes me, can circumstances possibly change who I forever am in You? Maybe since my life was changed long before these rainy days it’s never really ever crossed my mind to turn my back on You oh Lord my only shelter from the storm but instead I draw closer through this time. So I pray, bring me joy bring me peace, bring the chance to be free, bring me anything that brings You glory! And I know there’ll be days when this life brings me pain, but if that’s what it takes to praise You, Jesus bring the rain.” –MercyMe “Bring the Rain”

Think back to the worst day in your life…maybe not even the worst day, just a really bad day. What feelings does that bring up within you? Anger? Sadness? Stomach-turning disgust? We’ve all had those bad days where we just want to withdraw from the world, run to our room, cry, and throw up. Luckily, I do not have these days very often, but I had one a couple days ago. On this day, I did just that…I went straight to my cabin, took a shower, cried in the shower, and felt sick to my stomach (although camp spaghetti might have been to blame for that). I will not go into what made it a bad, and in fact it was nothing in particular, just a lot of little things building on each other that the Devil used tactfully to bring me to my knees. After I got out of the shower I went straight to a playlist on my iTunes that I made a while back. This playlist is simply labeled “Mood Lifting Music.” The very first song that popped up was the song above, “Bring the Rain” by MercyMe. I love this song so much and through it, I was quickly reminded how God uses hardships and gloomy days for His glory.

The beginning of the song is listed above. The first few lyrics are amazing…"people asking me how I can praise You with all that I’ve gone through. The question just amazes me, can circumstances possibly change who I forever am in You?” Nothing in this world can separate us from who we are in the eyes of God. Paul says in Romans 8:38-39 that “I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor power…nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We are forever His and safe within His embrace. 

The chorus is the other big part of this song that means a lot to me. It is a prayer begging God to do all things necessary for glory to be given to His name. Sometimes this means blue skies and the wind at our backs, but other times, the trials and tribulations hit. Either way, our mindset must be focused on making His name great and bringing Him the glory through everything that we do and everything that we go through. The other day, I had to remind myself that the feelings I had and the sickness inside of me was all a work of the Devil and that I couldn’t bring myself out of the despair that I was filled with without Him. I was required to rely on God for my strength. Joshua 1:9 says “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” That is a promise that we can bank on and that we must use to bring glory to God even on our weakest days. Remember that God tells us that “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” I challenge you to rely on God even in the lowest of the valleys and to bring Him glory no matter what the situation. He will always prevail and will always remain faithful.