Thanksgiving-God is The Great Conductor

We have all heard the Thanksgiving story; the pilgrims landed at Plymouth rock, wrote the Mayflower Compact, befriended the Indians and feasted for three days. Today I questioned that there might be more to it than what we are taught in school, so I did my research.

In September 1620 a group of 102 people, who we now call "Pilgrims", sailed from England to the New World. The word Pilgrims however comes from the Bible and refers to people who journey a long distance to a sacred land. Originally the group of people were called "The Mayflower Settlers". This group consisted of Separatists, strangers, and crew members. The name "Pilgrims" did not come about to describe them until the 1840's. William Bradford was one of the first to describe them as such, "They left Leiden", he said, "that pleasant city which had been their resting place for nearly 12 years; but they knew they were pilgrims, and they looked not much on those things, but [lifted] up their eyes to [the] heavens." When Bradford spoke of them this way he was referencing Hebrews 11:13-14 & 16 ". . . Confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they who say such things declare plainly that they seek another country. . . But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city" (KJV).

I am utterly amazed when I read that verse in relation to this history. The Pilgrim's journey was practically a prophecy being fulfilled and people like William Bradford knew it.

The Pilgrims journey was long and treacherous. They landed at Cape Cod in November 1620. They had a charter from England to start a colony in Virginia, but the storms made it impossible to reach Virginia so they stayed put at Cape Cod. They crew decided to create their own colony under their own government, The Mayflower Compact.

Many people believe the settlers left England for religious freedoms, the truth is, many of them had already left England once and found religious freedoms elsewhere before coming to the New World. The Separatists had fled to Leiden, Holland to find religious freedom and separate from the Church of England under King James the 1st and his successor Charles 1st. However, the two other groups of people couldn't have cared less about leaving for religious freedoms. The group referred to as "strangers" were merely along for the excitement of the journey and the crew members knew how to sail a ship. The Separatists weren't happy in Holland or England. In Holland, finances were stretched and their children could easily conform to secular ways.

The first winter at Plymouth Rock was devastating. Only 47 of the 102 survived. After months at sea living off of rotten food they all proved to be at their weakest. Causes of death consisted of scurvy and pneumonia. Soon after the harsh winter at Plymouth rock an English speaking Indian greeted them. His name was Squanto. Squanto was essentially their "life saver" and what the Separatists believed to be their gift from God. Without Squanto, all of Plymouth's Pilgrims could have easily ("easily" being an understatement) died off.
Squanto had been captured by the English and taken to London in early years. He was later taken back where he found his whole tribe had died off from small pox. He then joined the Wampanoag tribe. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to grow corn, catch fish, avoid poisonous plants, and helped them form an alliance with the Wampanoag tribe. I think you know the rest; In November both the settlers and the Indians celebrated with their new friendship and success with three days of food and games.

History like this is exactly what excites me and drives me to learn more. I also love the "What If" game. Things could be so different today if it weren't for what happened in history.

• What if King James 1st had allowed religious freedoms? Then the Separatists never would have fled to Holland where they became poor.
• What if the Separatists had not been poor in Holland? Then they would have stayed, and never would've went on to explore the New World.
• What if they had landed where they were suppose to, Virginia, because the weather was good? I don't think all these things are accidents. I don't think there just happened to be a storm that threw the pilgrims so off course they had start their own colony under their own government. 
• Even better, what if Squanto hadn't been captured and taken to London where he learned English? How would he have befriended and taught the pilgrims? Remember Squanto more than saved their lives, their lives flourished because of him. The settlers would have died off without Squanto. 

These Settlers, Strangers, Crew members, Saints, Separatists--what ever you want to call them, are one of the biggest reasons our country exists; and not just exists, but exists the way it does on our foundational beliefs. God is the great conductor and the world is His orchestra. God knew what He was doing when King James took away religious freedom, when the Separatists families became poor in Holland, when Squanto was captured and when the storm blew the Mayflower off course. These were not accidents, this is God's way of making everything happen for a reason and making sure all the pieces fall into place. America today is not perfect, but I am so thankful for our countries freedoms and our country's abilities to reach out to other countries who do not know their Savior. Today I am thankful for my God, the great conductor. 

Austin, TX--Why?

In exactly thirty days from today I am moving to a big city to make my dreams come true! A lot of people ask, "Why would you move from the Rocky Mountains to Texas?"
So I am going to answer that question. To sum it up in it's simplest form, it is not my choice to go to Austin, TX. It is God's choice for me to go.


It all started Spring Break my Freshman year of high school when I first went to visit Austin. I went to New Life church here in Colorado Springs 7th grade - 9th grade. During my 8th grade year a pastor from New Life, Ross Parsely announced that God had called him to Austin to plant a church. My brother also went to New Life at this time and many friends of ours heard from God that they were called to go with Ross on his ministry adventure to Texas. So a little less than a year after the church had been planted my brother, my mom, two of our friends and myself took a road trip to the wonderful city of Austin!
 It was during this time that a beautiful dream was planted in my heart.
I remember all the specifics of the moment God gave me his dream for myself.
I was sitting in front of the church's (the church is named One Chapel) office on the patio. (To the right is a small portion of the view from that patio) It was the time right before the sun starts setting, and is at it's brightest. I was reading my Bible and writing songs that day and as I sat there, a desire to live in the beautiful city I was gazing out at swelled within my heart. I had no idea what was to come the next 2 and 1/2 years that would time and time again confirm that this dream was from God.
Immediately after my return from Austin I began having dreams almost every single night that I lived in Austin. During this time I had no idea that the desire in my heart to move there was from God, I thought I had just simply fallen in love with a truly beautiful city. Even with all these dreams of living in Austin I was still very skeptical about whether or not it was a calling from God. For about a year I pretty much blew off the thought of wanting to move there, I figured I was too young to be wanting to move anywhere. What was I going to do, say "Bye Mom and Dad, I am going to enroll myself in high school in Texas!"? No, of course not. That summer I was on a road trip in Alabama. I was having some devotional time in the car one night and began to send up my requests to God. I told God I had no idea what his plans and dreams were for me, but I told Him I hoped my calling would be to move to Austin. During this prayer my head was in my hands, when I finished I looked up and a car with a Texas licenses plate drove right by. Again I was in denial though, I was too young to be called to move somewhere anytime soon.
Now, if you have read my testimony blog you know that during the beginning of my sophomore year I completely walked away from my relationship with Jesus and stopped going to church. I didn't consider myself a Christian again until July before my Junior year after going to Desperation Conference at New Life church. That was the most emotional Desperation I have been to. I had just came back home to my Savior and was in awe that God still loved me and wanted me. The even more amazing part was during worship when God revealed to me I still had a strong desire to move to Austin one day! Even after a year away from God, the dream he had once planted in my heart was still alive and flourishing.

One of the first things I did after I reclaimed my salvation, forgave myself for walking away and realized I still wanted to move to Austin one day was buy a plane ticket to visit Austin in December. I went out in December and fell in love with the city all over again.

May of my Junior year I counted up my credits for school and realized I could graduate a semester early. I decided I would do that because then I could take a semester off from school before college. Shortly after I made this decision I realized that if I took a semester off I would have no obligations that whole time and the possibilities could be endless. I began to pray about what to do with my semester off. I heard God loud and clear tell me I should move to Austin! So I bought a plane ticket for July and went for a visit and to scope out the possibility of living there in just 6 months.
That was this past July; July 2013. Since then I have been counting down the months and saving my money like crazy to move. Also, since I got back in July I have seen at least one Texas license plate every day!God's timing is amazing. He orchestrates everything perfectly so that every little piece falls into place. He is also so faithful. He put a dream inside a young 14 year old girl's heart and now three years later a 17 year girl is chasing hard to make her dream come true. I fit weren't for God I would have given up so many times. i would have thought it was too hard, too expensive, too risky, too stressful--anything! But when we our weak God's perfect strength is revealed through us. As my comforter, savior, and provider. He has lead me the whole way through this crazy journey and I can't wait to see what jounreys he takes me on in Austin!

My Testimony

When I was about 6 my mom and dad got divorced. It was then that music began to flourish out of me while questions I had no answers to began to fill my head. I was living with my mom and dad equally by switching back and forth each week. Before they got divorced we had went to church each week as a family, after their divorce my dad stopped going to church. My mom still went to church every Sunday though and my brother and I went with her. During this time I was taught through Sunday morning services and the program Awana that God should be my rock and Savior. In this time my beliefs were built upon a foundation of Christianity, I even wrote worship songs at such a young age as 8.

It was in 6^th grade when I slowly turned my back to God. The 3 years of Middle School are full of temptation and hardship for most kids. For me it was 3 years of small rebellious acts that led to a great depression by the middle of 7^th grade. My 7^th grade year my mom was very encouraging that I attend the youth group at my church, and so I did almost every week. I went in a group with two of my friends who had not really grown up in a Christian home. As the weeks and months went by my friends went just to meet boys at the youth group and get away from their parents for a few hours. During worship each week I could not help but get as close to the stage as possible and sing my heart out. One night after youth group I asked a youth leader to pray with because I felt ready to dedicate my life to the Lord. We prayed together and cried together; it was such a beautiful moment. However, as soon as I approached my friends to walk out to the car together they asked, “What were you guys talking about?” (referring to prayer moments ago with the youth leader) and with my whipmy reply, “Oh I just had to ask her something.” Everything I had prayed for suddenly vanished—not even minutes after asking for Jesus I denied him. And so it wouldn’t be until at least a year later that I would commit myself to God again.

In December of my 8^th grade year my life was the same; small rebellious acts that led to great depression. My small rebellious acts consisted of stealing a cigarette or two from my dad for my friends and I when we would sneak out of the house at 2am to talk a walk, kissing boys my parents wouldn’t approved of, the occasional taking of alcohol from my parents, sneaking into R rated movies, and dressing up as play boy bunnies for a Halloween party. The tinniest things such as these that were leading my life astray filled me with a burning ache of what felt like never-ending depression. I cried myself to sleep nightly, cut myself for the first time, believed no one loved me and that I was worthless. These lies spread like a wild fire through every atoms of my body until I believed it with my whole being and soul. At this same time my dad and step-mom were in the middle of constant fighting and talk of divorce, which made love sound unreal and trust sound impossible. If you have ever doubted trust and love to exist in the way I did at that time, it truly brings someone down to a low like no other, as being human we depend on those two things.

In the midst of all this I was still attending youth group regularly with my two friends. My brother was a Junior in high school at this time and was also attending a youth group at the same church for high school aged students. I really paid attention to how he was living at this time. He had friends from church and they would come over to the house to pray together and then watch a movie. They did plenty of laughing, eating, and smiling in between. I observed this closely and I craved what they all had. They had joy—not temporary happiness from a new cell phone, but pure and permanent joy. The kind of joy that just keeps shinning like the sun and I wanted that. One night we were having small group discussions at my youth group and one of the leaders asked, “Who do you want to be in High School?” In the moment she asked that, I knew instantly—I wanted to be a follower of Jesus and have that insane joy my brother and all his friends had. It was so obvious to me that I was headed down the opposite path. My friends still couldn’t care less about church and we were still being a bit rebellious while my depression was still hitting hard. Shortly after all of these realizations I prayer with several youth leaders of the course of weeks and began giving the Lord pieces of my heart. I would pray each night during worship, “Lord take my heart and make it clean. Give me a new heart.” I stopped hanging out with my friends and started making friends with the youth leaders who were so encouraging, uplifting and helpful.

It was in December of my 8^th grade year when all this was happening and by January 1^st I felt like a brand new girl! And so in January the journey began. I became so involved in my church and so faithfully committed to Jesus. The summer after 8^th grade I did an internship for high school students through my church called, ‘Burn’. I went on a missions trip, learned so much about God and was consistently encouraged to start a weekly prayer meeting on my school campus. So in 9^th grade when my brother was in 12^th grade we started a weekly campus prayer meeting to prayer for the salvation of our peers. My freshmen year was full of the wonders of God and also full of all the hardships and temptations of being a disciple.

The beginning of my sophomore year things took quit the turn. As I look back I know everything that happened in this season of my life was an attack from Satan, but at the time I would’ve never had thought to call him out. My mom and step-dad had just gotten divorced and I was struggling with accepting God’s reasoning for a third divorce in my family. When they had first separated over a year ago I had prayed every day for God to save their marriage. With the outcome of divorce I felt and believed that God had ignored me and failed me. While I struggled with this I also begin to look around and compare myself to so many other kids in the youth group, I thought they were all better and stronger than me and I thought God was working in their lives more. I know now that we ate all on a different path and travel and different paces so there is no way to justify comparing our journey with God, but at the time it just felt like God was ignoring me and failing me again. I let the lie that God could fail me and was failing me consume me and my life and so I made the choice to walk away from him. I remembering saying, “God, I don’t need you. If all you do is fail me then I obviously don’t need you. I am going to go explore this world and see if it’s as bad as everyone says it is!” And so that’s exactly what I did, I walked away from God and left the Christian lifestyle to explore the secular world.

I went right back to my rebellious ways and made new friends to be rebellious with. I started drinking and got drunk for the first time, I smoked marijuana for the first time, and I was always lying to my parents about where I was going and who I was going to be with. Spring break of my sophomore year I finally hit rock bottom (because that’s what happens when you leave God). I had a small get together with alcohol at my mom’s house while she was out of town of I got busted. That night was horrific beyond words, but that’s not the point of the story. I got caught and was grounded for two months. For someone who is an extrovert, being grounded for two months and not getting to see your friends is a long time. While not getting to see my friends was tough, realizing that I had fallen off the peda-stool my parents put me on was worse and twice as bad because it was all my fault. In the two months of seclusion I grew to hate myself. I had brought myself to a tragedy of not getting to see my friends, not getting my license, and losing my family’s trust. I also knew how disappointed my parents were and felt as though they had lost all love and pride in me. Those two long months resulted in a depression that led to a horrible summer of worse depression.

It was in July of summer 2012 when I started talking to a guy from school who was a year older than me. We started going on dates and I really liked him; he seemed so sweet, funny and was super cute. It turned out he was not very sweet though. Shortly we after we were dating the fights began. While having a casual conversation I could not even voice my opinion without offending him and having to apologize. The first few times I was so irritated that had to apologize for stuff like my opinions, but then I let it continue. I let him control me and walk all over me while I was walking on egg shells to please him. It was because of my self esteem at this time that I let this happen. I believed I was worthless and didn’t like myself, or felt like anyone in my family liked me, so I let him disrespect me like I was nothing because I too believed I was nothing.

As the fights got more intense I realized how wrong our relationship was. I knew I should decide between standing up for myself and walking away or I could stay with him because I wanted to keep trying to make him happy because at this time my happiness was dependent on him being happy. I knew the right choice was to walk away, but I couldn’t bring myself to do, I wanted to try to make him happy so I could be happy too. So I chose to stay with him. When I made that decision I hated myself even more because I knew it was disrespectful to myself. I disrespected myself with that choice and I planned on hiding it from everyone because I was ashamed of the choice so I decided to cut myself as a physical sign of disrespect and I cut myself on my waist where no one could see because I was ashamed of that too.

One night after a horrible fight, he wouldn’t even talk to me the next day. I felt so worthless because he wouldn’t even talk to me that I decided to end everything that night by just ending my life. I had a bag full of pain killers I was ready to take right before driving to a friend’s house. About thirty minutes before I was suppose to go to my friends house, she texted me saying she couldn’t hang out anymore because she had to babysit for her neighbor. When I told my mom I was no longer going over to my friend’s house she asked me to go out to dinner with her.

It was a miracle that God ruined my plans that night so that I lived to tell this story. Nobody really said anything to me to make me change my mind about suicide that night, it was just that my plan had fell through by having to go to dinner with my instead of going to my friend’s house. By having a few more hours to live I had a few more hours to think and something in me just decided not to do it. I’ll blame it on God—he put something in my mind, strength I suppose, strength to live and strength to walk away from that dumb boy! Because when he finally texted me back that night I did end things with him and it wasn’t smooth, but I did it.

A few days later at Desperation Conference I recommitted my life to God during worship. I was on my knees in tears because in a moment at that conference I realized that it was God’s timing and planning for me to live the past couple of days and I was so thankful. A few moments later God spoke to me that he was proud of me. I was awe struck, how good such a holy and marvelous God be proud of me and everything I had done, but he was!  And for the first time in a very long time I felt true love all over again and so I decided I wanted to live my life with God. That same night during the sermon I realized that when I had walked away from God almost a year ago I had walked away because I had forgotten who God really was, God is unfailing, and I had lost sight of that. So that night I decided to walk with God again and to know him.

As my junior year started so did a new relationship. It was my first very serious relationship, and I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, but it was definitely in the way of a better relationship with God. I should have been laying my life down to God and asking him where he wanted me and what he will was for my life, but instead I kind of just did my own thing. I lived my life how I wanted, read my Bible out of praise occasionally, whenever I was having a bad day and went to church on Sunday. Yet, my relationship with my boyfriend consumed me too much and kept me from being closer to God. From September all the way through March I was too busy being intimate with my boyfriend to be intimate with God. In March things were slowly falling apart with my boyfriend just thread by thread, I came to a point where I had no idea what I wanted anymore because I felt things were out of my hands. I finally turned to God and asked him what he wanted from me; should I break up with my boyfriend of 7 months or stay with him?

Falling out of love is one of the most painful stories that could ever be told, written or experienced, but it’s what God brought me through so that I could be closer to my savior. God knows our hearts and knows what we truly need and what we truly want, and that is why we should always be seeking direction from God in our lives. It’s a hard journey that I am still in the midst of because I know I am still not anywhere near as close to God as he has planned, but I haven’t been very close to anyone since March. And I still struggle with daily asking God to lead my footprints, but I always do when I remember because I know it’s the best thing I can pray for myself. So as I finish typing this I think back to the beginning, back to when I was 6 years old and my parents got divorced. I look back throughout all three divorces and I think about the desire of my heart all these years—I have just wanted to see true love, and I even tried to find it on my own with a guy. But sitting here typing I realize God broke everything that was labeled as “true love” in this world to reveal to me that only his love is true, pure, whole, and eternal and I am so thankful for a love like that, I pray for that love to consume your life and mine in every way and every day.