The End

So Dibor is over. Thank God!!

I tell everyone who asks how it was I say "It was the worst experience of my life but the best experience of my life. I wouldn't trade it for anything."

I am so grateful for everything God did this year. Everyone he used to help me become who I am today.

And who am I today? How am I different?

I am Adele who learned how much God loves me. Jesus is crazy about me and I have only begun to discover the tip of the iceberg of his love.

My thoughts about Dibor, the program? Basically I believe every Christian should go through the program. Especially anyone who wants to go into ministry NEEDS to do a program like this that stretches you like it does. If you can't do Dibor you can't handle ministry. You can't. You will get burnt out and bitter. (And I'm not saying Dibor is the only program or that you even need a program to be ready for ministry. But God isn't gonna just throw you into whatever ministry just the way you are. He's gotta make a spiritual eunuch out of us, or we'll think saving people and helping them out is all about us and what WE're doing.)

I'm only saying this from personal experience. Looking back at my life I didn't really act like a Christian, even when I was doing "Christian" things. Nothing was about God, it was how it made me feel. If I made God happy then I would be blessed and life would be good. That is not how Jesus did things. It surprises me how I even got through life the way I did. But it's 'cause God loves me so much he didn't give up on me.

I think the coolest I think I learned this year was that I can be completely honest with God. Before I knew you can't keep anything from God but I thought when I talked to him he wanted to hear something nice and Christianese. But no, God wants my heart and wants me to share everything with him, even when it doesn't sound the greatest. He wants me to say that I don't trust him if i don't trust him. He wants me to be honest. But the great thing about him is that he loves us too much to let us stay that way. For example, if I say I don't trust him he reminds me of something in the bible, something to remind me that his love never fails. And he'll use a situation, in my life, where he's used that. God cares about us a lot. It's just up to us to care to listen to what he's got to say about what HE's doing. ^_^

He's pretty awesome.

New York City BABY!!

So at the end of the Dibor year the students go through a week that is called the L10 project. Basically it is an embodiment of Luke 10 where the disciples went out healing and preaching the gospel while taking nothing but basically the clothes on their backs. So that's kind of what we did.

We were woken up at 4:30 a.m and had to give up our wallets and cellphones. They gave us our I.D.'s though. We were then given 7 minutes to pack 2 sets of clothes, a sleeping bag and any other essentials (which I forgot toothepaste and shampoo and stuff like that, but I also wasn't sure if they were okay with me bringing that stuff). So we left in Mary's car, which had almost no gas so we had to use all of the departure money they gave us for gas and tolls. Then, we had to go into the money they set aside for us to have when we arrived, just to have enough money for the tolls and gas to get there. We were suppose to be at the address they gave us at 12 p.m., without directions or anything only the address. We didn't get there until 2:30 p.m. When we got into NYC we got lost in the Bronx for an hour and a half.

SO, that was the condensed story of the beginning of our week. Helped with a church there with their after school program everyday. We helped pass out soup and bread and lemonade at The Relief Bus (an organization that gives out free food and outreaches to those people by finding the homeless housing, helping drug addicts get detox, and sharing Jesus with them). It was a great experience and it was challenging. I never realized how entitled homeless and poor people felt they were. But it hiumbled me because I realized they way they were treating us giving something out for free is how I treat God and all He's given me.

It was great. I would do the whole week over again with only one change: that I would let God flow through me instead of feeling paranoid that I wasn't doing enough. That is the only thing I wish would've been different. I felt that the leaders were going to be disappointed that I didn't evangelize enough or talk about Jesus enough. Or even look down on the fact that we didn't see anyone get saved while we were there.

But I am seeing Jesus in a whole new way. I get that He sees me for me and he loves it. He loves what he sees. And by knowing THAT, I can open my heart to him so much more than before. And I like it. ( "baby I like it, yeah I like it" LOL I like that song ^_^)

God, I'm cake??

I spent the weekend alone. Mary and Mike went to Lima for Campus Target so I basically had nothing to do, I was.....ALONE! Dun dun dun!!

I didn't want to get mad at the staff for not allowing me to go so I tried to find away not to go in that direction and then I remembered a few months ago I was getting prayed over and the person praying over me said that God wanted to be more intimate with me and he wanted me to make it a priority to spend time with him. I had seen in the following days, with the dibor schedule it was hard to have much free time with me also working, so I told God "if you want me to make time for you, you have to control my schedule to make time for it." So when I realized that I was going to be all alone for the weekend I knew God did this on purpose.

SO...I did what any young girl would do. I SLEPT. A lot!

But when I was awake I yelled at God about my frustrations and I read and read and read. I asked God "I'll believe that you like me, but WHY do you like me?"

Now you are probably wondering how this ties into my title "God, I'm cake?" Well, I would love to tell you. I was working on an assignment and got bored so I fell asleep and when I was waking up I had a dream that someone was handing a girl a piece of cake and said "Taste this, it's good." I thought it was kind of strange but I had already started fasting because of the book I was reading, so i assumed it was because I was hungry. When I woke up I read the fasting book and it was talking about how when we worship what we give to God tastes good to him.

It hit me. I was that cake and he likes the way I taste. How awesome!! That is why he likes me. Not because I'm funny or cute or smart but because when I show myself to him it feeds him.

Come Away

Today at work it was slow, like every other Monday. So I was bored and I was re evaluating things, like I like to do. Analyzing myself, God, and the stuff that's been going on in my life. And I started writing down on the back of a receipt this little excerpt of what's going on in my mind:

There's a voice inside me that says "God doesn't care. He used love to draw you in, but after you've experienced that you are suppose to work for the "cause" and obey. I mean, souls are waiting on the otherside of your obedience. They're gonna go to hell if you don't suck in all that mushy crap and just obey. You're just gonna look like a fool to God being all sappy. He won't say anything about how annoying it is because if he lets you believe you are in this awesome love then you will do whatever he says and you'll get the job done."

And I start believing. After a while of living with that thought I hear someone talk about David and how honest he is with God in Psalms or I see someone during worship just talking about how God loves us soo much. I think "How is it like this? No, no he doesn't love me. Well, he doesn't love me as much as they're talking about."

I believe it's a scam. All this love stuff is just a rouse to get us to do whatever he wants. Have you seen a woman in love with someone that actually doesn't love her back? She does the craziest things, women have killed for the man they love, they have devoted their whole life to his comfort and pleasure while they have nothing. All they get in return is abuse. The only thing I've seen for examples in my life is when you devote your whole life to something it's all false. The guy doesn't love you, he actually thinks of you as less than an animal. Your job fires you a year before you can retire and get benefits. You're used to destroy lives because the person you've devoted yourself to is too lazy to get his hands dirty.

When it comes down to it, if you let yourself be devoted, you get screwed over and you don't realize it because you are so blinded by your love, or passion, that you don't see it until they have left you...alone. Devotion puts you in a place where you will be treated as an object, you are no longer considered a human.

I've been opening up to God a lot more so I can say all this and actually know it's a lie. I know I was made to live devoted to God. That a passion inside of me is fulfilled when I live for him. I was created for the very reason to glorify him. And I can say with more honesty than before that God loves me. The lie that I've believed about getting sucked in and used is actually what the enemy tries to do to us every minute of every day.

It is up to me to choose to believe God when he says "I have plans for you, plans to give you hope and a future, not to harm you."

There is this song that Chris Aquila sings called "come Away" and it is a song that makes me feel like it is God calling me.

Come Away

Today at work it was slow, like every other Monday. So I was bored and I was re evaluating things, like I like to do. Analyzing myself, God, and the stuff that's been going on in my life. And I started writing down on the back of a receipt this little excerpt of what's going on in my mind:

There's a voice inside me that says "God doesn't care. He used love to draw you in, but after you've experienced that you are suppose to work for the "cause" and obey. I mean, souls are waiting on the otherside of your obedience. They're gonna go to hell if you don't suck in all that mushy crap and just obey. You're just gonna look like a fool to God being all sappy. He won't say anything about how annoying it is because if he lets you believe you are in this awesome love then you will do whatever he says and you'll get the job done."

And I start believing. After a while of living with that thought I hear someone talk about David and how honest he is with God in Psalms or I see someone during worship just talking about how God loves us soo much. I think "How is it like this? No, no he doesn't love me. Well, he doesn't love me as much as they're talking about."

I believe it's a scam. All this love stuff is just a rouse to get us to do whatever he wants. Have you seen a woman in love with someone that actually doesn't love her back? She does the craziest things, women have killed for the man they love, they have devoted their whole life to his comfort and pleasure while they have nothing. All they get in return is abuse. The only thing I've seen for examples in my life is when you devote your whole life to something it's all false. The guy doesn't love you, he actually thinks of you as less than an animal. Your job fires you a year before you can retire and get benefits. You're used to destroy lives because the person you've devoted yourself to is too lazy to get his hands dirty.

When it comes down to it, if you let yourself be devoted, you get screwed over and you don't realize it because you are so blinded by your love, or passion, that you don't see it until they have left you...alone. Devotion puts you in a place where you will be treated as an object, you are no longer considered a human.

I've been opening up to God a lot more so I can say all this and actually know it's a lie. I know I was made to live devoted to God. That a passion inside of me is fulfilled when I live for him. I was created for the very reason to glorify him. And I can say with more honesty than before that God loves me. The lie that I've believed about getting sucked in and used is actually what the enemy tries to do to us every minute of every day.

It is up to me to choose to believe God when he says "I have plans for you, plans to give you hope and a future, not to harm you."

There is this song that Chris Aquila sings called "come Away" and it is a song that makes me feel like it is God calling me.

Bloody Sacrifices!!!

For the Redline Conference we were given a dozen goats to slaughter and to spray their blood on banners that would be on display in our lobby..... at least this is what we said happened.

Really, Christopher wanted us to splatter red paint on these black banners to make it look like blood, since Redline is about Jesus' sacrifice. By the end of the "slaughter" we were covered in red paint. I actually didn't know we were doing that until that morning AFTER we got to the church so I had to run to Salvation Army and buy new pants and a new t-shirt.

The conference went really well. I was very tired and sore by the end of it. Splattering paint for an hour, running around, on your feet all day, and then being pushed to limit during worship to give your all, just in a day's work at Dibor.

Forgiveness Can Uncover Deep Wounds You've Ignored

Today I forgave some more people in my life. It was cool I was looking at them in my mind and how I felt about them and it was like these dead stacks of corral, like the tubes of corral, and then the image just faded away and i didn't really see another image but like this feeling, like an aroma, but I didn't smell anything but it was like then sense of it's presence, was there and it was pouring in from the other parts of my life that God has been filling up with his spirit. It's been pretty easy to forgive people up to this point, but now I'm still dealing with some of the pain and dealing with the wanting to protect myself.

Can I believe that God can protect me all the time? Can I see the lie that I am the only one who will take care of me as a lie?