I've been....I've become

This is something I wrote two years ago. I recently seen it again as I was giving some old notebooks to my little sisters and I actually liked what I wrote. Usually I will write something and than decide later that I really don't like what I wrote but that was not the case this time. Bear with me as it's not very good.

I've been....I've become
I've been called....amazing, lovely, nice, sweet, a rock star, honest, cool, awesome, loving and giving.
I was....greedy, selfish, a liar, dead, mean, sick, jealous, cruel, broken, ugly and wicked.
I've been shown....love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, joy, patience, kindness gentleness, peace and comfort.
But though the grace and mercy and mercy of my savior, Jesus Christ....
I've become...accepted, a child of God, redeemed, loved, justified, a friend of the King, complete, adopted, living and healed.



There it is. A little bit of my life. I wrote this at a time in my life when I wasn't happy. If you read other things I wrote at that time, they were pretty depressing. But I think this has to be the best thing I wrote at that time :)
In His Name,
Karis

Big plans, Bigger God

Recently I've been seeing some amazing things recently...
And all I can say is God has some plans for my life...plans that I wasn't expecting but am sure to be happy with.
For the last five years I have worked for the summer with an organization called CEF (Child Evangelism Fellowship) where with the help of God and some other teenagers we shared the gospel with children in our area through Vacation Bible School, five day clubs, and the wordless book. Almost every year I did this I told myself I wasn't going to do it again the next year. I didn't think it was the thing for me. Well ha on me! God had other plans. This year at the training camp CYIA (Christian Youth In Action) someone had mentioned to me that I should help out at my local CEF office more because they needed someone. I didn't think very much of it than but since I got back from camp there were things God was to be showing me that seemed to be pointing to becoming an intern at the CEF office. People kept suggesting it to me, I was feeling very strongly about it, and I talked to my boss and I would be able to get the hours needed off. So I went into the office on Monday and talked to my director. My friend Nadine had already been talking to her about it but it was my turn. My director said yes! And so now I am officially an intern at the CEF office! I am super excited to work there and what I have done so far, I love!
There is something else that God has been doing in my life too. But I will talk more about that at a later date :)
These new directions that God has shown me for my life were not what I expected at all. I had this little plan for my life and now when God is showing me little glimpses of his plan, it is so much bigger, so much better than mine ever was :)
That's all for now. I will try to update you all more often :)
In His Name,
Karis

Doing hard things for His sake

I was just reading in my bible about Saul being converted in Acts 9 and a few verse's really stuck out to me. Maybe because my 13 year old sister was complaining about having to help do a CEF VBS next week. She was fine at CYIA when it came to teaching lessons, songs and such. And even came to me once at camp telling me how good she did at the lesson and how happy she was about it. But when we got home from camp she has been complaining a lot about how hard she thinks everything is. But anyways so tonight as I was reading my bible I could hear her complaining about how hard it is to teach the lessons and I asked her "did you think it would be easy?" she replied that nothing is ever easy. So than I asked her if she thought serving God would be easy and she said she no, that's it's not. I than read to her the verse's in Acts 9 that stuck out to me.  Here it is Acts 9:15-16 “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.  I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” She didn't complain about it for the rest of the evening.
Part of why these verses stick out to me is 

• God said "this man is my chosen instrument..." we have been chosen by God to tell others about him. Chosen. That is something to think about. Chosen by God, the creator of the universe :) That is huge!
• Than in verse 16 "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." God did not say that serving him would be easy. It will be hard. But will it be rewarding? Yes!!! 

I will share a bit more later about something else these verses reminded me of :) but for now it is time to say farewell and goodnight.
In His Name,
Karis