Dear Brothers in the Faith...

Men who claim to follow Jesus Christ,

you have possibly partaken in a most heinous heist.

The ladies that you so casually date,

filling your plate, because you simply can’t wait,

are being stolen from their future soulmate.

Do you think you’re a man,

taking from ladies what you can?

No, you’re just an everyday Peter Pan, man.

Never grow up, never man up,

never take responsibility for how you messed up.

Every kiss that you haphazardly took,

with that beckoning look,

not even considering what you forsook,

wasn’t yours to hook!

You are the men, the initiators,

so also be your Sister’s protectors!

Do not compromise their purity, or yours,

Tracking dirt onto their clean floors,

breaking into locked doors.

Instead, keep every woman pure for her wedding night,

not leaving them in an unfortunate plight,

and not taking from them another man’s right.

Rather, be men of integrity,

grow in spiritual maturity,

protect a woman’s femininity,

and exemplify true mansculinity.

Project Provision Praise

Just this last September, I invited many of you to participate in praying with me for financial provision. I firmly believe that the Lord is my provider and that He desires for me to be free from the bondage debt can bring. Though I appreciate people praying on my behalf, this "project" was more to invite others to witness God's miraculous hand at work. I hoped that it would remind and encourage you to be confident and specific in your prayers as well. He has been providing for me in large amounts, but even in that I still need encouragement. I prayed last night that the Lord would encourage me as I felt the doubt seeping in. Worry of the next miraculous provision not coming and how that could potentially cause others to doubt or stumble... Early this afternoon I received this email from a good friend of mine. He has given me permission to share it with all of you as I believed it might continue to extend encouragement to those who read it.

EMAIL:
I wanted to share a story about how you encouraged me and you didn't even know it. A couple of months a go you included me in your email to ask for prayer that you would be debt free by the end of the year. In your letter you said you had school debt. I don't remember the actual number but I remember it being astronomical.

Upon reading your email I thought to myself, yeah right, probably not gonna happen, but I prayed for you anyway, but was honestly very skeptical, and then your first update came in. You told us about a check or gift that had come in that was totally unexpected and it was for a sizeable amount. I thought to myself well that is awesome, but she still has so far to go, but I will keep praying because Tricia has asked me to. Later that night I got to thinking, what if I started praying for God to get me out of debt by the end of the year. So I skeptically and apprehensively asked Him to, with the expectation that it probably wouldn't happen. I have never been a person who gets unexpected checks sitting in my mailbox, or random people saying hey here is a hundred bucks so honestly when I hear stories like that I take it with a grain of salt and never expected it to happen to me.

Anyway, over the weeks and months since then I have been occasionally asking God to help me pay off my debt, totally forgetting, until today, that I asked Him to help me pay it off by the end of the year. Also since then I had become very strict about tithing. Every check that came in whether it was 20.00 dollars or 2,000 the very first thing I did was tithe and then saved 10%. At the time my checks were much smaller so it was easy to tithe 20 bucks and save 20 bucks, who cant do that right? Also in the recent months I have been listening and reading stuff by Dave Ramsey, a Christian Financial Advisor, he puts on a class called Financial Peace University, and has written a couple books.

So the months have gone by, I sold one of my classic cars (my baby), the work has been POURING in, and I have been implementing the "baby steps" that I learned with Dave Ramsey. A couple months a go I paid off about 2,000 in State Taxes, last month I cleared a 7,900 debt that I had with a credit card, and this month I am clearing another 7,100 debt I had with another credit card and after clearing this last card, I will be DEBT FREE! Not only debt free, but also a small savings left over.

Today as I was doing my bills and getting ready to pay off this last card I thought, man God it seems like all of this happened so fast, all this debt was over 2 years old and I hadn't made a payment on any of it since October of 2008 and now it is paid off in a matter of months. And then you popped in my mind and I remembered your challenge to God, which then made me remember my request I had asked Him to be debt free by the end of the year. And I am just floored. I totally forgot that I had even asked Him to help me be debt free by the end of this year and He did it. As I was going through the process I was just praying God get me out of debt, and totally forgot the time frame I asked Him for. So despite all of my doubting and cynicism God answered my prayer anyway.

I just wanted you to know that you played a part in this journey without even knowing it, just by sharing your journey with me. I don't know how all this hits you or where you are at but I hope it encourages you!!

Scotty

Youth Ministry

I am so incredibly grateful for the education that I am receiving here at Biola University. I am surrounded by incredible present and future youth workers and I am encouraged every day knowing that these are the type of people being sent out in the name of Jesus. I am blessed to serve alongside a select few of them in the youth ministry I am interning for and I even find myself overjoyed to share such a passion and vision with them all. This is an incredible season in my life where I am learning a lot, inside and outside the classroom, and have felt both humbled but with an instilled confidence in what I am learning.

Project Provision

I am SO excited that you are reading this right now because that means that you are potentially entering into a really exciting time with me! Allow me to explain what I've been doing and where I feel the Lord is leading me:

I have been blessed the past two years, and this year as well, to attend Biola University. Not only have I had the opportunity to take great classes with incredible Christ-centered professors, but I have also been fortunate enough to major in my calling. I find myself not looking at college as a means to a degree, but an equipping and training to go out into the world to better fulfill the calling the Lord has placed on my life. I am currently majoring in Christian Ministries (formerly Christian Education) with an emphasis on youth ministry. I am presently interning at South Shores church, where I have seen God's continued confirmation that I'm right where he wants me. Dave Kheen, both professor and youth pastor, is equipping me to enter into another youth ministry; whether entering into an already established ministry or building one up from scratch. I am already learning heaps and feel humbled at how unique each youth group can be depending on the culture and needs within specific communities. I am passionate and overflowing with joy each day in what I am studying and living out in ministry service.

Here's where you come into the journey:

The Lord has been unveiling for some time now that he will most likely be moving me away from California after graduation. I have not yet made plans about where I believe him to be leading me, because I know that there are still a few final pieces of confirmation that will be needed before making any decisions. However, I trust that he will bring those final confirmations in due time. Meanwhile, I need prayer warriors over the next 8 months :) I am convinced that the Lord can and will lower, if not eliminate, my school debt before graduation. I have already had my first provision miracle in August. I simply asked that the Lord not tarry in freeing me from the bondage of debt. The next morning I checked my mailbox and discovered that a revision had been made in my school financial aid package. I had been awarded an additional $11,000, last minute with no explination, all of which I would not have to pay back (lowering my private loan to $7,000).

With all of that said, I am looking to begin a prayer project. I am confident that the Lord will provide and that I will have the joy of sharing it with everyone. I will post of his provision on this blog, facebook and in person (school, church and otherwise). I would love for a lot of people to be a part of this because not only will I be grateful for your prayers, but I firmly believe you will be blessed and reminded of God's power and love for us. So pray big and pray with confidence! We serve a MIGHTY GOD =)

Love in Christ,
Tricia

Trust

I am so incredibly grateful for seasons. Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer, but also for spiritual seasons. This has been quite a year for me so far spiritually. The year was kicked off with what I would consider a rough blindside of misfortune. I seemed to face some new trial and crisis consistently every week....no exaggeration. It felt as though the waves of obsticles would not let up, but I was reminded that there would be a new season around the corner. There was and it happened to coincide with the beginning of the Summer season.



Looking back at all I went through, I can see how deeply dependent I had to be to trust the Lord. Trust never seems to be a real issue in certain areas of our lives, but when we really set our heart on something, that trust becomes a little more vulnerable to attack. I feel as though I went through an intense season of discipline in re-learning to trust the Lord. It has been the very foundation the Lord has been buliding from since.

I am in a really exciting place in my walk with the Lord. I have been so fortunate to have a lot of time to dedicate to spiritual growth this Summer and have not been wasting a bit of it. I feel refreshed and renewed. His will has been becoming more and more clear for the upcoming year. Though I am excited for what is on the horizon, I am soaking up every minute of the present.

Twists, Turns, & Truth

I never pictured myself starting a blog, mainly because I didn't feel I had anything interesting to put out into the world, but I find myself with a lot of free time this Summer. So, I figured I might as well put something out there and, just maybe, it might entertain one bored or lonely soul. I hope you enjoy regardless :)

I read an article today and thought it was worth sharing. It was one of those articles that felt like it was written directly to me and my circumstance. Of course, I know that there are several in the same boat to some extent and that's why I am sharing it. It seems long but is a quick read and you'll be better off having read it (I believe you will anyway). Instead of paraphrasing the wonderment that it is, I am just going to record it verbatim:


Curving Along the Straight Path

I pulled my convertible VW into the Biola parking lot at the back of Sutherland Hall, put the car in park gathered my books and walked through the double glass doors. I arrived for classes right on time and exactly 20 years later than I had planned. I've got a great job; I'm an English professor at Biola , a career that I love and that, 20 years ago, was so far beyond my dreams for myself that the possibility of doing this did not occur to me.

While I may not have envisioned myself as an English professor back then, I could imagine myself as an English major. In fact, I applied and was accepted to Biola This is where I had planned to receive my undergraduate education, but it is not where I attended. In fact, I didn't go to college right after high school. Two months into my senior year of high school, my mom died. The oldest of five children, I was grieving the loss of my mother, putting my then 5-year old brother to bed and working instead of enrolling in Freshman Composition, P.E. and History. My day-to-day life changed drastically, and my future altered course.

Eventually, I went to college part time for a semester, full time for a year, part time again for several years, and finally full time for the last three semesters of my bachelor's degree. Four colleges and 10 years later, I finished my B.A. During much of that time, I felt like a quitter. What I know now is that I was incredibly tenacious. I felt like I was walking a winding path, but it was the right one. The shortest distance isn't always the optimal route. My husband and I often use this anaolgy: Saturdays are typically our errand days. We don't plot our course by simply determining the shortest route between our destinations - grocery store, bank, Costco, Home Depot. Instead, we consider a number of factors. Hinges from the home improvement store don't need to be refrigerated, but hamburger does. Therefore, we hit Home Depot before Costco. In our errand-running, the best route is not always the most "efficient" in terms of distance or time traveled. There are other things to consider.

The same is true of our lives. Sure, it would have been great to graduate "on time," but, in retrospect, it was better to walk the circuitous path. God was indeed ordering it. Since I was 6 years old, I have known that I could could trust God with my soul. Over the past few years, I have been learning what it means to trust him with my life - my plans, my hopes, my future and my present. I cling to proverbs 16:9 as I make my plans and know that God directs my steps.

I'm in my 40's now, and things are good. I have a lovely home, a terrific job, good friends and an incredible marriage. I have felt joy, contentment, even triumph. However, sometimes things are pretty tough. I have also felt sorrow, confusion, even anger. Regardless of what I feel - or maybe the better phrasing is in the midst of what I feel, in the midst of my circumstances - I have begun to say, "What can I learn? Lord, how do you want to shape my character?" As I ask these questions, and as I continue to learn to surrender my life to God, my focus has become less about outcome and increasingly about what God is doing in my life and my heart in this moment or season. I set goals; I plan a path; and I work hard to achieve these aims; but I am more comfortable with what appear to be detours or changes in destination. I read in scripture that I am to trust God with all of my heart, not lean on my own understanding, acknowledge him in everything I do and know that he will make my path straight (Proverbs 3:5-6). My "straight path" has had numerous bends in the road, but I knwo that God has ordered my steps. I arrived ready for classes at Biola precisely two decades later and in a different role that I had planned, but I got here right on time.

By Cassandra Van Zandt the assistant professor of English who holds an M.A. and Ph.D.


This was a great article for me to read and I hope that it benefited all who read it. I was able to relate to a lot of it, fotunately my mother has not passed away, nor am I in my 40's yet, but I was reminded that there is no "ideal" blueprint for the child of God. We all have different callings and God is accomplishing something in and through us in a different ways. Romans 12:2 comes to my mind as I taught it to children at VBS today. It is so important to remember that we should no longer be conforming to the pattern, the ideals, the expectations of this world. We take our direction from the Lord and allow him to tell us the time and place for everything we do in life.