February Post {Forgiveness}

Hello Everyone,

The semester is at full steam with projects and exams every week. This is my first post in an attempt to keep my goal of keeping everyone more updated with what is happening with my internship with Longhorn Chi Alpha. I have gone back and forth with how to organize it & what all to put on here. I have decided that I will write a brief summary of news with my girls/chi alpha/campus then extend and talk about what the Lord is speaking to me. So here we go, Yay!

My girls are doing amazing! We have had some really good discussion about "Why good people go to Hell?" "What full surrender looks like?" "Why Christianity vs other Religions?". As we seek/answer these questions together and fight through prayer for them I am seeing breakthrough. My learning through being on staff is cool too. We start our meeting with prayer and seeing how they seek God in every admin area is cool. It is also really helping with my organizational and prioritizing skills. The campus is defiantly also experiencing waves of change. My community and others on campus are really stepping out with evangelism, praying for people, and discipleship. The Lord gave me a vision while praying earlier in February of the campus experiencing an earthquake and the ground beginning to break and shift. I believe this is a prophetic vision casting of what the Lord is beginning to do on campus. Now for what the Lord is teaching me about. Forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a tricky topic, particularly because of the way it deals with pride. Forgiveness according to Merriam Webster is 1.) to cease to feel resentment against (an offender) 2.) to give up resentment of or claim to requital . As human beings we don't like to feel that those who wronged us were able just to walk away free of consequences. We want them to have to be punished or at least understand why we are hurt and be remorseful. But see that is not the model God gave us. In Luke 17:4 he says, " Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.” Now this is not an excuse to keep toxic people in your life, if they are hurting you please get out of the situation. This has to do with the happenings of your heart. It is about realizing that Jesus died for you and gave you grace that secures your eternity. The Lord is willing to forgive your lifetime worth of mistakes, and he calls us to be made into his image. As a people, we call out to God to refine us to make us more in his image. In this, we must be willing to lay down our pride and our rights to be angry, realizing the greater good for us is to see them how God sees them and let him fight for you. This is not easy and at times may take God reminding you of this fact multiple times for weeks/years but there is beauty in the lessons you learn in that time. In my life, as I am learning forgiveness, the Lord is using it to refine me in all these other ways. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 it says that “my [God's] power is made perfect in [your] weakness.” Use the hard areas of your heart to make God's power show in your life. Weakness is not a reason to run from God but rather run to him.

I am praying for all of you and that I will be able to share more stories of what God is doing in my life soon. I appreciate all the support and prayers, you guys are amazing! If you look on the graphic I have some specific prayer point! I hope y'all have a great week!