I've been pretty sick the past couple of days. Saturday night and Sunday morning were the absolute worst, but God got me through it... and without throwing up. praise Jesus! haha

Youth group last night was a lesson about homosexuality and what the Bible has to say about it. We were suppossed to have a guest speaker named Bonnie, but her husband is in the hospital again, so Josh wound up doing a lesson on it. I thought it went well. I got some good notes for my best friend who's been struggling with homosexuality for a good while now. He couldn't make it last night, but hopefully next week since we're going to talk about it again... hopefully with Bonnie because she sounds interesting. Hopefully her husband will be okay by then.

After youth group, I decided to call Isaiah, my friend in West Virginia. I met him two years ago on my first missions trip. He truly is amazing. I loved talking to him... for the first time in two years! He's grown so much with the Lord and I can see his openess for God's plan in his life. It's actually funny that we both had similar things happen to us. We both wanted to go into some branch of the military because college didn't sound the best to us. But, God showed both of us differently. We don't see that in the plans for now(maybe later), but God showed us that he wants both of us to do missions works. How exciting! I know that my first stop is def. Africa. After that... where ever the wind blows me. I want to travel as much of the world as I can. And I don't want to do it out of selfishness... I want to claim people for God's kingdom. I can't wait! I've realized that I can't always trust in my own plan for my life, but I have to be open with God's. Glad I am because I'm way more excited for His plan than the one I had for myself.

I was feeling a little down with my sickess and with my spiritual walk, but the Lord reaches me faithfully every time and brings me back up. I love him :)

pray for: Bonnie and husband, and Isaiah's friend Vanessa- suicide thoughts.

THE ONLY NECESSARY THING:

"In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding...just me-naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken- nothing. It is the nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something... Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces... Thus I try again to run from the dark abyss of my nothingness and restore my false self in all its vainglory... Alone we cannot face "the mystery of iniquity" with impunity. Only Christ can overcome the powers of evil. Only in and through him can we survive the trials of our solitude." - The Way of The Heart