Resident Reflection: Adrienne

The God I serve is a loving God. Now I'm learning to love and admire daily. So many times in my walk with God, I ignore or am too wrapped up in myself that I fail to miss the picture of God's perfect love for me...as He chose me before the world even existed and He knew that one day I would love and serve Him. My love for Him will never compare or come close to His unfailing love for me. He created me in His image. If that in itself is not love that please tell me what love is. He chose me to enjoy Him forever.
     As I reflect back on my journey here on earth, I have a growing amazement of His divine love for me. The many times I ignored Him, had an idol before Him, the priorities that stopped me from enjoying time with Him, or even during trials and dark days-I could not show or give my love to Him-I was too wrapped in myself, but my loving God kept loving and pursuing me on a daily basis. His gentle touch, patience, and reminders reveals His jealousy and unfailing love for me and that He wants me to love and serve Him.
     When I repeatedly made the same mistakes over and over, God's unfailing love for me remains constant and faithful. When I look at the amount of irrational and stupid decisions in my life, I can now look back and see His loving intervention of giving me His love. His loving protection, His gentle loving reminders of when I plain just don't get it, has always remained faithful. My God is a jealous God and loves me so much that He wants what is best for me. To the things I am blind and unable to see now, He lovingly reveals Himself and His true love for me.
     It's sad to me that I fully couldn't or was unwilling to see and to fully grasp His love for me until I ended up at VOH. To say that I'm at VOH is not a bad thing but again reveals God's pursuing love for me. To get out of myself to see Him clearly. That I'm alive and starting to see purpose in me is a major loving/faithful action on His part that I am able to see my loving God, save me from harms way time and time again. He chose to not give up on me, BUT rather to remain a faithful, loving God.

Resident Reflection:Brittney-For I am loved

     Knowing the Lord and all his many attributes, I focus on one...His Love! In John 3:16 it states "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish but have eternal life." God's love is sacrificial. As a young child, I was forced to "earn" the love of my parents. To do chores or to answer with a "ma'am" or "sir". I would never hear the words "I love you" for they were far too busy with their addictions to notice me. When I came to the knowledge of God's saving grace, I was still focused on earning love. I did not know that it was a free gift. I would try and try to obey the "law", to earn my place in glory. God does not work that way. I needed to surrender my life to him, because I loved Him, not focus on earning with works. His love is a gift, I will earn nothing.
     As I learn more about God's love, I learn that He will love me the same now and forever. He will never love me more, nor love me less for His love is perfect. So...after High School I went back to my sinful ways because I couldn't lose his love nor earn it. So my body was taken captive by my fleshly desires. But even then, He loved me. In Isaiah 44:22 it says, "I have swept away your sins like a cloud, I have scattered your transgressions like the morning mist. Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free."
Even when I walk away from Him, when I turn my back on God and walk in my earthly desires, He loves me! He wants to be my Heavenly Father, so that we can have the "perfect father/daughter relationship" that I long for. Why do I not run to Him? Why am I not full of joy? I have a Father who comforts me, who fights for me, who calls me home...who...loves...ME! God's love is a self-sacrificing love, agape love. As I stated in John 3:16, He sent His Son so that I could have a relationship with him.
     His love also provides for me in many other ways. It grants me joy. Joy that will strengthen my heart and my faith. His love grants me courage. Courage to fight the good fight. The fight against sin and all temptation. It also grants me assurance. Assurance that all my doubt will be removed from my mind. Assurance that He will remove all of my idols from my heart. I just need to let them go.
     God is love, He is all around me, surrounding me, calling me to return home to Him. Return to Him so that He can love me, the broken hearted, scared, lonely, hateful, bitter, confused little girl. For I am His, and He calls me child.

Graduate Reflection: Katelyn

"19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: 20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them".-Deuteronomy 30:19-20

     So lately I have been in this "funk" if you will. What am I learning? A lifelong battle of that dreaded word, balance...it makes me shudder. I tend to be extreme at times, or all the time. See? Point made. If my cup isn't overflowing, then naturally I'm a rebellious sinner and might as well keep on sinning. Pathetic. I mean if my cup is empty, there has to be a filling process right? Cups just don't appear full, they have to be poured into.
     What am I realizing you ask? Well, life isn't all about me, shocking I know. Verse 20 says, "For He is your life". If I took God and replaced the word "life" in this sentence "life is all about me", see how ridiculous it is, "God is all about me". How vain. Now if I put God in place of "life" in verse 19, see how beautiful it sounds, "There for choose God that you may live". I get really stuck on "doing" Christianity, just going through the motions. Most of the time loving Jesus isn't going to Africa, or taking on 25 serving projects at once. Those are good, but when I become too consumed in them and I forget WHY I'm doing them, then I'm not choosing to live life, I'm not choosing to live love. And when I'm tried, I will be choosing ashes instead of pure gold. I get so caught up in the "obey His voice" command, that I lose track of the "cling to Him" part.
     God isn't about doing things. This is not to say that when I don't feel like reading my Bible because I don't want to just "do" it, that I just neglect it. That is something that I NEED to do. Sometimes I don 't end up reading and then I wonder why I get in these "funks". Well, I'm not letting my cup be filled! DUH!
    Coming to grips with the fact that if I truly understood and realized who God is, I wouldn't have an issue of doing, doing, doing because I would fall to my knees crying, " Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips". I need to hide myself in the wounds of Christ.

Father I pray and confess that you are beyond my comprehension. I confess that any idea that I have of you is so far off from who you really are. I confess that Holiness is the way you are, that you do not meet any standards to be Holy, but that you yourself are the standard. Abba I pray that you would devastate me, that you would ruin me for anything but you. I surrender all that I am, and that you would redefine yourself as who you are, not who I think you are or should be. I come to you now pleading with you to transform every part of me, and that I would choose life, I would choose you. Thank your for loving me enough to show me my desperate need of you. Amen.

Breaking News!: A Conference for Those Who Are Hurting

A Conference for Those Who Are Hurting

At one time or another every human being will endure periods of intense suffering. It is common to the human condition. However, something so common to each of us has the potential to completely derail us, devastate us, and potentially ruin us unless we understand how to Biblically respond to it. God’s word has so much to say about how we should think about and respond to pain.

The focus of this conference is to benefit a counselee who is suffering, a family who is enduring pain and challenge, or an individual that is going through extremely difficult circumstances. The conference is designed to comfort, provide care, and encourage those who are in the middle of suffering or who would be benefitted by being assisted in thinking through suffering.The Hope for the Hurting conference has been designed to gently and lovingly lead you through some deep theological truths about suffering, sovereignty, and growth that will give you a firm foundation from which to find direction, purpose, and comfort in the midst of trying circumstances. More info...

Dates: July 21-23,2011

Location: Lafayette, IN 

Cost: $150 per person when registering by June 30. Registration on or after July 1 is $200 / person.  Register Here!

Speakers: Steve Viars, Jocelyn Wallace, Amy Baker, Rob Green, Bob Smith, Brent Aucoin, and Vision of Hope staff 

Sessions: Understanding Suffering, How to Help Someone Bound to Habits Make Permanent Changes, Putting the Past Behind You, and many more. We are also offering a limited number of private, one-on-one counseling sessions during the conference.