Skip to main content

Making coJESUSre famous

I never thought this day would come, but.. I think I love my LIFEgroup.

Yes. I struggled to love my LIFEgroup allllllll the way until.. a month ago. Mostly due to my pride that refused to submit & insecurities that kept me from loving without bounds. But here we are, six months later, and God has changed my heart. It's. A. Miracle.

Last week everyone wrote down a testimony of why we're thankful for our LIFEgroup community. Here are a couple that were especially encouraging to me:


"LIFEgroup is a crazy thing that God has used to teach me lessons. Quite honestly, I didn't like any part of this LIFEgroup at first. I prayed and prayed that God would help me to love--love my members, LCGs, and leaders. It took roughly.. SIX MONTHS but God was so faithful. Because even in the dry and hard-to-love times, He was working in ways that I couldn't see and had no way of seeing until now. He very powerfully, yet subtly used a weekend we had together in a random town in Michigan to allow me to finally love and acknowledge them as a family that I am happy to be a part of." 

 "When my LIFEgroup and I met for the first time, I didn't know what to expect. It was hard to imagine that we would eventually grow close as family, yet this LIFEgroup has defied my expectations. It has been amazing to see so much growth in everyone and how far we've come together. We started out being very awkward, but everyone is now comfortable to the point where we can share about our pasts and not feel shame. It is encouraging to attain so much support, and it has been great to dish out all the milestones in our lives as a CORE family." 

 "Despite differing opinions, contrasting backgrounds, diverse experiences.. LIFEgroup is extremely inclusive and open-minded. Come to LG to meet genuinely caring, respectful people." 

 "LIFEgroup at first was extremely hard to love. During first semester, I didn't even want to go to anything AT ALL. A lot of this struggle had to do with my personal struggles and issues. However, as God started working in MY HEART, He opened my eyes to show me that our LG was made up of many different people who truly LOVE one another. Although our love is not as outwardly expressed, through little small actions, you can clearly see that CORE loves each other and LOVES GOD!"
All the glory to you God >> "I (Paul) planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow." 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Delirious

delirious (adj): marked by uncontrollable excitement or emotion; ecstatic; filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy (1 peter 1:8); me I don't think I had a personal relationship with God until 2 weeks ago. There have been a lot of formative moments and experiences in the past 6 years of me considering the existence of a higher-being, 3 yrs of being a Christian, 1 year of living by faith, 6 months of serving on church leadership, 1 month of dire circumstances, each of which have been challenged and supported by specific instances in my life.* But it's only been 2 weeks of finding pure joy, satisfaction, and freedom in Christ (alone). Though it's been 6 years since I first stepped into a church building and 3 years since I accepted Christ, I was always afraid to admit that I didn't know what grace, freedom, repentance, or Jesus meant--in terms other than the ones I had heard or read--it was always a theory and never a reality in my own life. After years of doing chur
5 comments
Read more

And just when you least expect it..

Today I went down to the food court with another intern and as I opened my box of sushi, I hesitated. Feeling as if there were too many eyes on me (I only ate with one other person -_-), I questioned whether I should pray before my meal, in fear of social rejection. After I prayed, she asked me if I was a Christian, and I awkwardly responded that I was. Then she said, "Finally! What a relief to know that there are other Christians!" WHAT THE.. I couldn't believe it. Here I was, sitting with a co-worker that I had simply exchanged cordial greetings with, now talking about God haha. Even though I was scared and honestly did NOT want to pray, God used a habitual thing like that to open up opportunities for me to invite her to small group and share my faith. Crazy how He works when you least expect it.
5 comments
Read more

Honesty

If you're my friend, teammate, lifegroup member (or you have any context with me at all), I've probably hurt you. I've probably hurt you in the way I approached you, made you into an agenda, or seemed disinterested in our friendship at times when we weren't being "purposeful". I probably gave you the idea that I didn't value our time together unless we were doing something "productive"--and in all honesty, you were right--you read right through me, and knew exactly what I was thinking. Ever since experiencing God (personally) for the first time three weeks ago, I've seen how my skewed relationship with God has affected so many other parts of my life. Before, I saw having a relationship with God as a list of tasks--in my warped point of view and biases of being an already-too-task-minded person, if I wanted to know God, I needed to read the Bible, persevere in prayer, get involved in biblical community, and serve the church. If I did all these
2 comments
Read more