The House

After Outreach me and my friend Eirin were walking to the market and she asked me what I wanted to do once I got home. Honestly I did not want to even think of going home but once I did God gave me this whole vision of where i was going to work, I didn't know that at the time. A coffee shop but not a fast pace Starbucks kind, a low key, wear your clothes, live music on some days, and sweet people. It had to give me the support and encouragement of Christ but not in a cheesy forceful way. A place were I could meet really solid Christians who would turn in to life long friends. I though of this wonderful place but had no idea where to find it in Calgary.

Talking to my Cousin one day (as usual) she told me to check out this cafe called The House and the moment I did I knew it was perfect, I applied right away in February then waited. I knew this was the job that I needed but they just weren't getting back to me so I applied for other jobs, ones that I should have got but some weird reason didn't get... wonder who that could have been! Long story short I got the job at The House in May.

I don't even know where to start in telling you how much this place has changed me. First of all the people and friendships that have come from it are amazing, knowing that I have already made life long friends and people that will support my and have my back for a verrrry long time to come!

I think to see the fruit from all the ministry that is done there is really fulfilling because you can honestly see God move in peoples lives in ways that I could NEVER imagine. People that the world has given up on and turned its back on, broken people and kids who just need a little bit of love and someone to actually care. The cool part is that you actually get attached to these people you feel Gods heart for them, its not a feel sorry for them but a love that only God could arise in you. As if this is the God i get to serve! Amazes me every time.

Every time I go to work I love it even more because God is so big, SO alive, and doing something different every second! I love being apart of something so powerful, a place where I can have deep talks with kids who are searching for someone or something just to love them - amazing. It just shows that God is so much bigger then we allow him to be most of the time, we think that we can only meet him and hang out with him at church or at home because work and money is our own thing and doesn't have anything to do with God. That is not true at all, don't we realize that we are fighting for his Kingdom every second that we are alive, with every breath that we take, every moment is his. It is going to be HIS Kingdom that stands and the end! Don't you want to do everything in your humanly power to make that happen sooner then later? I do, and that is what I'm going to give my life too, not saying that i have it all together because I sure don't but that should never mean stop trying.

The House has really shown me that God does not forget about his children and that the amount of grace and mercy he has is enough to bring me to my knees. Life is what you make we have a choice everyday, God will never give up.

www.thehousecoffee.ca

The deeper the roots.....

I'm not sure with where or how to start describing the three months that God gave me when I got home. To be honest I was a bit of a mess and really didn't want to be where I was, I had no idea what God was doing and it scared the crap out of me. A word was given to me right before I left Hawaii and it was "Intimacy and Identity in Christ" I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

God took over my life in a completely different way. It was so good in the beginning, spending everyday all day with God! truly just hanging out with him, reading, journaling, worship, sitting, cleaning, it didn't matter God was so present. Then it got harder and harder as I started looking around and realizing that I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted to make a difference with being home, a light within my family and friends but I felt like I was failing. I did not feel strong enough for what God had put me in.

I knew God was good and that he had this amazing plan but still everyday I ended up feeling like I was just a wast of space... sounds dramatic I know but I was so lost and SO lonely. There would be days where my cousin Kayla (a huge part of my life) would have to call me at certain times in the morning so that I would actually get up and not sleep until 3 in the afternoon and just through away another day. I saw no point to what I was doing, all I wanted was to be back in Hawaii with people who actually cared and were there to support me. I honestly don't know how I got through the three months.

My friend John and I stated to study the book of Job because we were both in hard places in our lives. God rocked my world with this, he started showing me a whole new out look on life and that he does care and he has not and will not abandoned me, which I had found myself starting to believe. I can't count how many times I called Kayla telling her that i was done with all of this, that I didnt want to have live in this pain anymore! I was done with God and I was going to live my life for myself because God doesn't care, he left me just like everyone else has. After a good while of me crying Kayla would listen, pause, then repeat a few things that I had said and would ask me if I still agreed with it, obviously I didnt. God showed up each time reminding me of that call he has put on my life and the love he has for his daughter. I slowly started to see that God wanted to spend time with me, intimate time with me so that I could find my identity through him and him alone.

Not saying that after I figured this out it was all rainbows and puppies. No, when we choose to give it all up for God it is hard and testing... the path less traveled, but so worth it. I learned so much about God, myself, what our relationship could be, how powerful his Kingdom truly is, and who I could be in this world with him as my center! Thats just the beginning of it, and it took every second that I spent with him, yes most of that time being spent sitting on a chair journaling and listening to worship for hours on end. There is not a check list to follow when it comes to being intimate with God and finding out who you can be through that. God calls all of us to a time of rest, its funny that something so simply becomes so hard and seen as an act of laziness, yet God longs for it. A song by Jason Upton has a line that says "You are the God and I am the man" how many of us forget that on a daly bases, I still forget today. It sucks but it just means that we have to work that much harder at having him as our center, as our everything. He is the only one that matters, the only one that is going to last "God will never compromise his Kingdom for our kingdom. So it doesn't matter if your a full out sinner in the world or if you call yourself a Christian, if your building your own kingdom instead of being intimate with Jesus...if your building your own kingdom IT. WILL. FAIL." - Jason Upton 'Kiss His Son'.

I think that we forget how badly God wants to spend time with us, that he is truly our best friend, our father, our creator, our everything and that he just wants us to see that he does care. We need to be still, rest in his presence. Of course that is going to look different for everyone, but we need to find it with him because it is always a matter of HIS timing not our own! I truly think that learning and seeing that it is his timing in my life in which I need to depend on, is why I got those three months. No amount of money or work experience could ever match the time and energy God spent pouring himself into my life so that I could fight in his army. The Kingdom Of God, it is what we are meant to be apart of. Its not about rules and duties, its about the mass amount of love that God has for his children and that he is doing everything that he can to get this world back to the way it was meant to be - His Kingdom! It all comes down to that and how we choose to live it out. He has already made is choice, from the very beginning it has always been about us, the ball is in our court and I say lets freaking GO!