Encouragement!!

God is so faithful!! I know this....He reminds me daily!! But for some reason it amazes me every time.

Yes, I know this is my second blog of the day but I have had a lot of time to think today. And it has been so good. This blog will be a be a little lighter of a subject....encouragement.

So as you can probably tell from all of my blogs, God has been doing amazing things in my life. Some are so amazing and some are not necessarily things that I would have chosen but are directly from God so therefore I have followed...vague, I know. Anyways, through all of this God is my ultimate encourager. One of the many wonderful qualities of our awesome God. But at the same time that God has been encouraging me through life, the world has been completely discouraging. All of the people and events and crazy things of life...worldly life are so discouraging. So it is nice to get a little encouragement on earth, but at the same time know it is not worldly encouragement, but straight from God. This may not make sense but maybe it will make more sense the more you read. If not...come talk to me about it.

So you may ask, what encouragement are you talking about, Ellen? Well I will tell you!! This weekend was such an encouragement. God answered so many prayers.

First, we had a retreat at church. We studied through the book of 1st John. It rocked my world. I can tell you how many ways and different scenarios in my life that God spoke to me through this book of the bible. I would strongly encourage everyone to do a deep study of it. We stayed up studying it from 8pm until 2:40am. You may say crazy, I say awesome!! It was based off of David Platt's Secret Church. Basically, people all over the world meet in secret to worship and study God's Word because they could be persecuted and killed for doing it in their nation. Sounds crazy to us Americans. I can say that I have at least 3 bibles in my apartment bedroom and way more at home. So the thought of not being able to read my bible is hard to wrap my mind around. Anyways, so these people will meet together in secret and study the Word all night long and go about their days normally after a night of no sleep. Sometimes they do it night after night. This is how desperate these people are. So we did a little bit of that this weekend. When we got tired, we just thought of these people. And it really got me thinking; am I that desperate for God's Word? These people who only get to read the bible in this way probably know His Word better than me and I have bible's coming out of my ears(not literally of course). So in a weird way, this was encouragement. God encouraging me to become desperate for His Word. It made me realize how much I truly need the Truth. Wow!

I would love to stop there and say that was my encouraging weekend, but nope. God blessed me more. Not only did God encourage me through his Word, but also through HIS people. I put his in caps because that is how important the emphasis I needed to be that these people who were in my life this weekend are Godly people and it is so evident that God put them there at this time in my life for a reason. The night after the retreat, Saturday, I hung out with some amazing people. The girls had all gone to the retreat and just continuing being in their presence was a breath of fresh air. The five of us also went to lunch the next day. Growing new relationships with Godly people is so overwhelming and happy to me. It makes my heart smile. I also hung out with one of my great guy friends who is such an encouraging friend to me consistently. And the blessings kept coming. Last night after church, we had a potluck dinner with some friends from bible study from church. It was awesome!! I think the thing that has been so encouraging about each of these situations and people was the conversations. Intentional conversations. Conversations where it didn't matter what we were talking about, but it always went back to Christ in some form or fashion. This summer while working at camp, I got to experience some true Christian community. I had kind of given up that maybe the that community wasn't quite possible outside of Pine Cove. What a silly thought considering God's people are scattered all over the earth and anything with Him is possible. But I can say I truly experienced some amazing Christian community this weekend.

And it just keeps coming! Tonight I talked to two special people in my life on the phone. The first was one of my very best friends from camp. We have kept up better than I could have ever wished. She is amazing! I would never think that I would have a such a bond with someone who lives hundreds of miles away but she has truly been a blessing in my life this past six months. We talk about life and are just real with each other. We give each other advice, keep each other accountable, and aren't afraid to get in each others face about stuff. It is amazing considering we are so far away from each other. So we talked tonight and once again just hearing the great things that God is doing not only in my life but in her's as well, even though she is so far away, is so encouraging. I love it!! I may or may not have fell asleep in this conversation due to lack of sleep this weekend,  but I know she will forgive me!! :) Love ya!! And the other person I talked to was my mom. Our relationship is amazing. I can talk to her about literally anything. Talking to her tonight was just amazing! I love when I call and the next thing I know it has been an hour and we have been lost in "real talk" and what is really going on in our lives. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful Godly woman as my role model in life. And to think that she is proud of me and my walk with the Lord is so humbling. It is just so amazing!! It is so good to have that encouragement from home. I know that wherever the Lord leads me, my family will support me 110%.

So I don't really know now why I wrote this blog. I feel like it may come across as bragging about how blessed I am. I did not intend this at all! I just wanted to share about how important encouragement is. I know that God is good, but He continually confirms that through His encouragement for me down here on earth. When I am feeling the most discouraged about the world I live in I know that I can set my sights on heavenly things and God will be the ultimate encourager. But it is also so wonderful to get some encouragement down here on earth from God's people.


Philippians 4:6 -"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."


Psalm 9:1 - "I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds."