Thankful Thursday

Happy Thankful Thursday to you!

Today, I am thankful for these awesome people....

My parents.

God continues to show me how much of a blessing and

 gift they are in my life.

I am so thankful that I have a dad who will 

make time in his busy schedule, while visiting,

to change the oil in my car,

replace my old tires, and then top off my gas tank.

All before church on Sunday morning.

For a dad who sends me text messages that just say, "love you more".

I am thankful for a mom who will make extra food when I'm at home

just so she can send it back with me.

Who always makes sure I never go hungry.

A mom who will spend an afternoon taking me fabric shopping

and help me reupholster my dinning chairs.

Thank you God,

that I have parents who would do anything for me.

Who deeply love me.

Who disciplined me when it was necessary 

and gently cared for me when I was fragile.

Who established a household whose sole purpose is to serve the Lord.

Who pray for me and with me, even before I arrived into this world.

Who support me in all I do.

Who are patient with me when I am learning lessons in life.

Who set such a wonderful example of a Godly marriage.

Ok, honestly the list could go on and on.

God has blessed me with such wonderful parents.

There are no other parents in this world 

who would be better for me than they are.

God uniquely created us for each other.

I am so thankful for them and for our relationship.

I can't wait for how it will continue to grow as time goes on.

Thank you God,

for fan-flippin-tastic parents who mean the world to me.

Thankful Thursday

Today,

 I am thankful for my two (left) feet.

I may be a little "klutzy" or "clumsy" but, I am thankful that I have....

Feet that can walk.

Feet that can run.

Feet that can dance.

Feet that can feel the earth beneath them,

 the coolness of grass and the warmth of sand.

Feet that have their very own, unique footprint. 

Feet that lead me on wonderful adventures.

Feet that can take me places I've only dreamed of.

Thank you God,

for blessing me with two (almost) fully functioning feet.

What are you thankful for this Thursday?

Thankful Thursday

Confession:

I am an ungrateful person.

Sure, I'm thankful for things that the Lord has provided and created.

But I never truly take enough time to thank Him,

to give Him all the glory that He is worthy of.

Seeing as how we have entered into the season of Thanksgiving,

I'm officially implementing Thankful Thursdays into this blog!

In hopes that it will carry on even after Thanksgiving has come and gone.

I have definitely been feeling challenged in this area of my life recently.

My hearts desires to give God the praise He deserves.

But once again, I always seem to fall short.

His blessings are abundant in my life, and I deserve none of them.

Today, I am thankful for Grace.

For the grace that God has poured out onto my life.

I say this all the time, but it is true. 

 I fall short, everyday.

Both in my walk with God and in my relationships with others.

It is because of Grace that I am not held captive by my failures.

It is through God's Grace that I have a personal and intimate relationship with Him.

Thank you God, that I am saved by Grace through faith.

"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace."

-Ephesians 1:7

Happy Thursday to you!

Transitioning

I never thought I would say this.
Literally never.

But...I miss my life in San Luis.

I don't miss school and I don't miss living there.

 I miss the relationships and the community I had.

Especially this group of young women...
Thursday nights were the best nights of the week by far.
Coming together to be in the Word and build one another up.
This bible study got me through a very hard year.

Love this study!

I was in such a rush to get out of SLO,
 to move on with my life
and to leave behind the 5 years of grueling obstacles

 that were attached to my academic career...

that I didn't stop to think about what life
was going to be like without community,
without those amazing relationships.

Like the relationships with these wonderful women.
Who each played a huge and very specific role in my life and growth this past year.

Oh and then there are my Horticultural gals.

I could be nerdy with them all day and all night long.

In fact, I was.

We were busy doing nerdy plant things by day,

and trying to finish our senior project by night (all night).

I was with them all day every day.

I really miss them.

Dani, Beth, & Carrie.

5 years together.

I'm going to be honest.

Transitioning has been really hard on me.

A lot harder than I was expecting.

I have been emotionally, physically and spiritually drained for weeks.

Trying to figure out this new life of mine.

A new life where I am working a full time job in ministry.

Where I am no longer a student.

Where I am constantly surrounded by people who do not know me.

Where I know no one.

It is crazy that I can be surrounded by people all day long,

but feel completely lost and lonely.

I have to laugh.

God faithfully raised all the support I needed.

Then instantly I am back to trying to rely on myself.

And I am once again brought back to my knees,
having to fully rely and trust God.
A place I should always be.
But seem to always fall so short.

Despite the difficult transition, I want to say that I do love it here!
I love my roommates.
I am loving my new church.
I absolutely love my job.
I love that I get to openly pray and spend time with God at work.
I love that I get to share Christ with students.
I love the women I get the honor of discipling.
I love my freshman bible study.
I love my staff team.
I truly admire my discipler and I love that she pushes me and challenges me.
And I love that I'm learning new things about my Savior daily.
Just to name a few things.

Knowing full well how faithful our God truly is,
I know that in time He will provide me with the community I need.

I'm honestly so excited to see what He has in store.
I'm excited to see how He will build, grow, and cultivate relationships.
I know building relationships and community does take time,
but I know that they will be worth waiting for.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven"

-Ecclesiastes 3:1

Meandering Around Mammoth

October is almost over.

Summer feels like ages ago,  where on earth does time go?!

My summer was challenging (to say the least).

There was not much I enjoyed about it.

BUT...

Amidst the stress and pain (physical, mental, spiritual) of support raising,

the Lord provided me with the perfect little pick me up.

He knows me so well,

He knows exactly what restores my weak and achy soul.

This summer I was able to spend two weeks up in the Eastern Sierra's with my family.

It's a summer trip I've taken every year since I was born.

So many memories up there.

The sights, the smells, the secret places, the hikes, the plants, I love it all.

God's personal touches are everywhere.

A gentle reminder of the majesty of our creator.

Give me a pair of hiking boots and I could run around the mountains for hours, days, weeks...

It's up in the Sierra's, where I come alive!

Turning Our Apartment Into a Home

I have wonderful roommates.

Not only are they beautiful, sweet and so fun to live with...

But they completely accept me for who I am.

A plant lover.

And they not only accept me and my love affair with plants,

but they encourage it!

I was excited to find out that one of my rooms also thinks terrariums are cool!

(I mean, obviously they are).

She bought some really neat glass jars last week

and asked me if I would put some plants in them.

This is an opportunity I would never pass up people.

Let's be real here.

We have a very naked and open corner sitting behind our sink.

Our thought....

To fill it with some cute terrariums.

We are still trying to make our apartment into a home.

Little by little, we are making progress.

Here is our kitchen corner makeover!

Glass Jars-Home Goods

Soil/Rocks-Home Depot

Activated Charcoal-Petsmart

Maiden hair fern and succulents (Echiveria & Sedum)-Home Depot

Moss-Michael's

Candle-Ikea

Twigs-outside our apartment complex.

Candle Holder.

Succulent terrarium.

Fern terrarium.

I had so much fun making these.

And I loved having my rooms around me ooohhing and ahhhhing 

and getting excited as I sat on our porch putting them together.

Here is our cute little kitchen corner...

Washing dishes just got that much better!

 What shall we make over next?!

UCI--The Beginning

I've been scatter brained, overwhelmed, up, down...

So many different emotions all rolled into one.

I have been exhausted and running on pure adrenaline for the past week.

I'm not completely settled into my new home yet.

Moving has been quite the experience.

Everything happened so insanely fast,

I didn't have time to actually pack.

I threw my belongings into trash bags and tossed them into my tiny car.

(Something I learned from my best friend Jodi).

I left my bedroom and bathroom at home in complete and utter chaos.

(Sorry mom).

And I'm still waiting for my bed to make its way down here.

I've been sleeping on the floor that past week and a half.

I have to admit,

I'm completely out of sorts.

I have moved away from everything that I know and the people I cherish.

All to start a new job I don't quite know how to do (yet) in a totally new place, 

with people I do not know and who don't know me.

I honestly feel like a freshman in college all over again.

Timid, quite, scared, unsure, and getting lost A-L-L the time.

I am quite the newbie.

Ugh.

I completely forgot to pick up my camera most of last week.

But, I did get a few pictures from my very first week on campus!

The Rooms.
Jill, Erin & Margo.

Cru Involvement Fair Booth.

My old roommate from SLO was on campus too, working with Epic.

Ashleigh and I with Peter the Anteater.

Our first Cru weekly meeting of the year!

I'm really looking forward to the coming weeks.

-Getting better acquainted with the campus.

-Getting to know each of my teammates. 

-Getting to know the students.

-Spending more time with my roommates.

-Finding a church and getting involved with a small group.

-My freshman girls study--that I already love.

-Beginning discipleship with 6 very wonderful women.

-Fall retreat preparations.

-And hopefully, feeling more comfortable and settled.

God is already doing amazing things here at UCI.

I can't wait to see what else He has in store.

Support Update--Lessons Learned

Yes, it did in fact happen.

God did it!

I am fully funded and a officially a Crusade staff member at UCI.

God absolutely, positively BLEW my mind in the process.

I wish I could say exactly how and when all my support came in.

But it happened so unbelievably fast, I'm not actually certain when it did.

What I can tell you is that I have never in my life experienced God in this way.

I am still in awe of the things He did.

The miracles He gave.

But mostly, I am in awe of the fact that He poured out

 so many blessings when in reality I deserved none of it.

I spent my entire summer in fear, stressing and worrying.

Completely doubting the Lord's faithfulness.

Doubting He would provide for me.

It makes me sick to my stomach really.

And yet, in His perfect timing, He provided ALL that I needed.

Lesson Learned: 

The Lord provides.

God will provide for me exactly when and where I need it.

Nothing more, nothing less.

His provisions are perfect.

The support raising experience I will never forget.

It is one that I will probably have to revert back to when I start doubting.

It will most likely one day be a story for the kids!

Lesson Learned:

The power of prayer.

I honestly should have spent more time in prayer in the earlier weeks of the summer.

It was only when I reached desperation, that prayer became the thing to do.
But even though I fell short, like I so often do;

I can honestly say that God answered every single one of my prayers.

Every specific detail, He nailed it.

God does hears us and He answers.

Lesson Learned:

Yep, I still hate talking on the phone.

I honestly thought support raising would break me of my irrational phone phobia.

Nope, not at all.

I still hate making phone calls, more than ever in fact.

Lesson Learned:

How awesome my supporters are.

I don't want to brag or anything,

But I have the greatest team of supporters, hands down, no questions asked.

A team of family, dear friends, old friends, new friends, my friends friends.

People I knew a long time ago, people I know now and people I have never met before.

People who are close by and people who are literally across the world!

 I am so thankful to each and every one of you.

Thank you for taking a big huge step of faith.

Thank you for joining me in this ministry to bring the Gospel to the lost.

Thank you for being bold and trusting God.

Without you I wouldn't be where I am.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

My heart is continuing to overflow with joy and love for each and every one of you.

I am praying, and will continue to pray, that the Lord will bless you
and your giving beyond anything you could ever imagine!

I am so excited to have you alongside me in this ministry.

Support Update--Only 13.3% Left to Go!

The past 3 days have been rough.

Things have been at a slight stand still.

I have felt hopeless.

I have been praying, pleading and begging God to give me miracles.

After countless phone calls only to get voicemails and hundreds of emails and 

facebook messages to people I know well, slightly and not at all...

I felt that there was nothing but silence form the Lord.

Ugh, here we go with the waiting again...

Why is patience so painful for me?

Yesterday I woke up bruised from the days before,

but determined to keep pushing forward.

Determined to get this done.

I spent some time with the Lord asking that He would bring me to 80% by the end of the day.

I worked all day with absolutely no progress (that I could see that is).

I was still sitting at 75%.
My heart was aching.

I then got a phone call from someone who is overseeing my support raising.

She gave me one last and final deadline to get my support in.

This Friday the 16th.


It was a difficult conversation.

But, she spoke such encouraging words and prayed for me.

She didn't (or at least I think she didn't) know
that I was balling my eyes out while she was praying for me.

All I could think to myself was this is it, I'm done, there is no way I will finish.

I had to get out of the house.

I went and ran 5 miles, it was a gorgeous evening.

I spent those 45 minutes talking with the Lord.

I continued to ask Him for a miracle.

"80% by tonight Father, 80%, You can do this!"

Well I'm here to tell you God answers prayers,

and gives us miracles.

I came home from my run and my night completely changed.

I went from crying tears of worry to crying tears of joy.

Last night my support reached 86.7%.

The Lord brought me up 11% in just one night!
Not only did He bring me to 80% but exceeded it by 6%.
Sometimes I feel like God likes to show off.

Last night I went to bed feeling...

I felt so full of the Lord's Joy.

I was in awe of our God who provides for us in unexpected ways.

Who blesses us beyond anything we deserve.

Who DOES hear our prayers and answers them.

Who's timing is perfect, despite what we think.

I only need SIX more people to give $100 a month.
SIX!

Then I can meet up with my team and dive into this campus ministry.
It is very important I finish by this Friday.
Next Monday marks the beginning of welcome week for the incoming students at UCI.
This is where we will get to meet the thousands of incoming freshman.
My heart longs to be able to be a part of it all and to see what the Lord has planned!

I'm praying for you six (or more) people that the Lord has called to be a part of this team.
I'm praying that the Lord will bless your decision to be a part of this ministry,
That the blessing of your gift would be given back to you to supply your needs.

If you would like to join me in this ministry of reaching the Lost with the Gospel.
you can join my team HERE.
Please feel free to email me, I would love to connect with you!
rjgordon88@gmail.com