Teen-hood Gone, On to the Twenties!!!

It's my birthday. I am no longer a teenager. GUYS. I AM NO LONGER A TEENAGER!!!!

To be honest, it doesn't feel different until I think about it. I've lived on this earth for two decades. I've seen sunrises and sunsets, good days and bad days, rainy days and sunny days and snowy days and chilly days and extra-too hot days.

I made it. Not like, made it. But I made it to my twentieth year of life. That's more than some can say. I am blessed. I got a roof over my head, a crazy family who loves and supports me, crazier friends who make life worth living, the ability to listen to music and read and write and laugh and cry and learn and move and grow. I have coffee for goodness's sake, and hot running water, and a nice phone with a great plan (thanks, mom, thanks dad :D), and a computer, and glasses, and a guitar. I could go on all day and all night.

Something struck me while I was on my way home from work today. Through the ups and the downs, God's been there for me through it all. When I was good, and when I was a complete and total mess of hormones and rebellion and pain, He was there. When I wanted to just lie down and die (both figuratively and literally), He was there, keeping me alive, keeping the blood pumping through my veins and the oxygen coming in and carbon dioxide going out. When I wanted to hit someone over the head with a folding chair or throw someone out the window, He held me back (and in some cases, sent an angel to keep me from doing something irrational like that, thanks, sis).

When I missed my friends and felt completely lost and alone, He was there. When I was broken, He was there. God had, has a plan for me. I can't go a day without Him. He's my rock and my salvation, the One who knows the beginning to the end, the One who robed Himself in flesh and came down and died for me. He's a faithful God. I can't wait to see what else He has in store for me.

And if this God has a plan for me, then trust me, He has a plan for you too. You may not be 20 yet, or maybe you're over 20, but He definitely still has a plan for your life. How do I know this? Well, if He didn't then you wouldn't be reading this, now would you? :D

Trust Him in and through the process. Pain means you're growing and that you're still alive. Pain is a lesson. You just need to learn it. When you're in the fire, He's in it with you. When the storm's raging around you, He's right there with you. Maybe He's calling you to get out of the boat and walk on the water. Maybe He's in the boat with you and you need to have more faith and stop freaking out. He said you'd make it to the other side, and if God says it, it's gonna happen. He's faithful.

Life's such a crazy thing, a precious gift. It's made up of decisions that we make. My life's not over yet, and neither is yours. We both have a chance to make our lives mean something, and God can make it mean more than we ever thought possible. So go do something with your life. Don't give up. Keep pressing forward towards the destiny that God has for you.

God bless you guys. Love ya. <3 :)

--Sonya :) <3

P.S. Guys I need a new name for this blog 'cause I'm no longer a teenager. If no one gives me suggestions, I will be forced to come up with one myself. Muahaha. But seriously though if you have suggestions, comment, I am accepting suggestions and if I like more than one I may just do a crazy mash-up so I don't know. x)

Let's Keep It

So, lots of things have happened. Like, went to Illinois Senior High Camp last week, drove there and back by myself with my brother and sister. Oh yeah, and Sunday we had an incredibly awesome outreach at our church. We'll see how successful it actually was this coming Sunday, but we're all believing that God's gonna do something great in our communities.

To try to adequately describe what's happened to me in the last week would probably take way too long, so I'll try to summarize.

Here's one good summary: I didn't kill anyone when I got home from camp after maybe getting 5 hours of sleep a night, with the annoying routine of waking up once or twice every night 'cause let's face it, camp beds versus our normal beds, our beds usually win. I was exhausted, and I'm still working on recovering haha.

But dude. The power of God touched down at that campground like you would not believe. And it wasn't just an emotional experience either, although there were lots of tears shed and emotions being let out. Something happened at camp that kind of changed the way we think, or at least it changed how I think. And one prayer that keeps popping up in my head is, "God, please help us not to lose what we got at camp."

Yeah, camp's super fun. It's a time to chill out and go nuts, make new friends, get some people's numbers, get sunburnt and tanned, stay up late and laugh 'til your entire body hurts, pray and get in touch with God and get renewed and refreshed in His Spirit, recommit and get confirmation, all that awesome stuff. But it can't end there. You shouldn't just praise God like crazy at camp. You shouldn't just live for God at camp. You shouldn't just allow Him to move and work you over at camp. You gotta take that home with you. He's the same yesterday, today and forever. Jesus is the same at your home church as He is at camp and convention and congress. And once you realize that and tap into that, you'll literally change the entire atmosphere around you. It'll spread to your church, to your family, to your friends, to your neighborhood, to your youth group, to wherever else you go.

This isn't just a one-week deal God wants with us. He wants an every single day thing. It's our job to live for Him, get in tune with Him, literally bind our wills to His in prayer and get closer to God because, guys, this world's a mess. There are a whole ton of broken people who have lost hope in anything and they're chasing something that'll fill that void inside, and man, you might be their only hope. We gotta open our mouths, quit being an 'in the closet Christian', and actually live out that camp commitment we made with God.

Yeah, we'll all stumble at some point. This road ain't easy. It ain't gonna be a bunch of sunshine and lollipops, but bro, when you see your neighbor or your best friend or your favorite teacher or your uncle or whoever else you been praying for step through that church building's doors, or even the Pearly Gates of Heaven, it'll make all of the things we had to endure worth it. You mess up? Repent, get back up, and keep walking the way you know you're s'posed to walk. You get messed up by someone you tryna witness to? Turn the other cheek, forgive, and keep walking. Keep praying, keep looking for someone to give hope to.

Just a sidenote: It's not your fault if they reject Jesus. If you really tried your best and did what God told you to do, then at the end of the day, it's their decision. If all you could do is plant a small seed, then just stand back and let God do the rest. He works on them, He makes the seed grow, He gives the increase, so it's not all on you. Do your best to say the truth in love, to love and pray for them 'til the day you die, and let God do the rest, friend.

Let's keep what we got at camp. Let's keep what we got at that convention. Let's keep what we got at that youth rally. And let's keep building this momentum until we see it turn into an unstoppable tsunami wave in the spirit.

I love you guys. Continue having a great, fantastic, and hopefully restful summer. :) <3

--Sonya :) <3

Happy Thanksgiving Ever'body!!!! :D

Well, shoot, guys. It's Thanksgiving Day.

And you know what that means, right?

Food. Foooooooood. Being thankful for everything.

Did I mention the food?

You know... It also means we're close to December.

I am not mentally prepared for that. But hey, NOW all you Christmas fanatics can crank up your Christmas tunes and I can't complain 'cause yo, 'tis the season, eh?

Anyways. Since it's Thanksgiving, I'll talk a bit about what I'm thankful for. If you wanna tell me what you're thankful for then you can comment below. :)

I'm thankful for people. Friends. Family. People who've stuck by me through thick and thin. My home. My ridiculously messy room (hey, if I have a room that can be a mess, it means that I'm blessed. See what I did there? ;), and my ridiculously beautiful guitar (okay. More like guitars. And the piano. And every other instrument we have in the house. Life of a musical family: airs every day all day at my house). I'm thankful for music, for dreams, for hope, for the ability to keep pressing on when the going gets tough, for God who put into me something amazing.

I'm not tooting my own horn when I say that. I mean that, if it had not been for the Lord, I would not be here. He gave me hope and strength to keep going, a stubbornness that will not let me give up, and, trust me, when I break down and nobody else is there to pick up the pieces, He is right there, and He does put me back together.

I'm also thankful for you, the person reading this. Honestly, if this blog wasn't being read, I'd probably still write anyways, just to get my voice out into the huge cyber world. But since it is being read, even a little bit, I'm glad that you take time to read about my rants and dreams and random stuff that finds its way out through my fingertips and into the cyber world. Communication is how two beings can connect with each other, and even though I may not have met you in person and may never meet you in person, we still connected in a little way.

You're precious. Don't ever forget that.

I hope you guys have a very happy Thanksgiving. :)

Love ya!

--Sonya :) <3

Dawn's Coming, Just Hold On a Little Longer

It's my last day of Spring Break. Youth Convention was absolutely amazing, mind-blowing, convicting, life-changing, challenging, all that jazz.

I laughed. I cried. I lost my voice. I challenged myself to do hard stuff. God help me.

Sometimes you do things that God told you to do that you don't completely understand. Sometimes it's fun and easy and exciting, like maybe you make your commitment a little bit stronger by reading your Bible more or praying more often.

And other times, it hurts. You do it, and the pain doesn't hit you until maybe later. You don't realize how much it hurts until you're all alone. And suddenly you're asking yourself, "Uh, wow, what did I do?" You say, or scream, "God, I did not sign up for this. I know I'm doing what You told me to do, but I thought it wasn't going to hurt this bad. I didn't sign up for this kind of pain. I didn't sign up to feel like a punching bag. I thought I prepped for this. I thought You said You'd help me through this, where are You?" and you're crying yourself to sleep yet again wondering why you allowed yourself to start something in the first place when you knew that if God ever called upon you to give it up it'd hurt even worse.

I think it's kind of appropriate, since today (or, I guess now, yesterday) was Easter, for a little reminder. God's been there. He knows where you're at, what you're feeling. Don't forget, He did kinda come to Earth, humble Himself by robing Himself in human flesh and dwell among His creation as a servant. He was humiliated to the uttermost that a human can be humiliated, falsely accused, beaten within an inch of His life, forced to carry His own torture device up a hill while His own people insulted and screamed at Him, then nailed through His hands and His feet to a cross that had splinters and jagged edges of wood piercing the already bloody, bruised, torn up flesh of His back. He hung there for a few hours, slowly suffocating and succumbing to the agonizingly horrendous amount of pain that the people He'd come to reconcile to Himself had inflicted on Him.

And He endured all of this without raising a single protest.

Why? Because He was thinking of the future. He was seeing a kid about 13 or 14 years old, depressed to the point of attempting suicide who decided to see if maybe there was a God instead of ending his life. He was looking ahead to someone who looks like they got everything together when in reality they fall apart as soon as they're alone to when they'd finally find an altar of prayer and repentance and break before Him. He was looking ahead to you, to when you'd decide to turn to Him. He shed His precious blood to bridge the gap between you in your broken state to Heaven. He wanted to give you a connection to Him, and He wants you to know you're not alone. He didn't leave you. He knows exactly what pain you're going through. He made sure He would so that He could identify with you, so that you'd know just how much you're loved.

He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to feel the same pain we do as humans living in a jacked up world. And He didn't make it jacked up, you and I did with the choices we made. He just made a way so that we could have a different way to live. Life's not easy no matter what way you live, whether it's in the world or following God. But even when it's hard, if you have God you at least have the knowledge that you can get through it.

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm overemotional. Maybe it really does hurt and there really is nobody I can really turn to except for God to help me through the painful transitions that I'm going through. The fire still burns, the surgeon's knife still hurts, but at least I know the God of the fire and the Healer behind the knife. He knows what we can handle.

Tears endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning, right? The nights we go through may be long and hard, but dawn's coming. Just hold on, man, dawn's coming. No matter how dark it gets, just hold on, dawn will come. Dawn will come.

Love you guys. God bless.

--Sonya