Wednesday, February 21, 2018
WARNING!!! SUPER LONG POST BUT SO WORTH THE READ!!!!!
I AM SO AMAZED BY HOW GOD IS WORKING IN THE LIVES OF THIS SPECIAL GROUP OF GIRLS!!!! JOIN ME IN PRAISING OUR GOOD GOOD FATHER!
It’s been 3 days since I’ve been back from spending my weekend with Pine Terrace Baptist Church at Iconic Weekend (DNOW). If you can begin to imagine a weekend under one roof with 12 ninth and tenth grade girls, it’s probably more than you’d ever expect. Yes, as you could imagine, there was sleep deprivation like I had never experienced, an unthought of amount of junk food consumed, make up, clothes, and hair products in every corner of the house (or so it felt), and laughter upon laughter upon more laughter, but it was way more than that. I saw girls, whom I had never met before, open up their hearts and lives to a complete stranger, reveal their own hurt and brokenness to one another, challenge themselves and their friends to dig deeper in their faith, and push to answer deep, hard questions. FOUR girls out of our group came to know God as their Lord and Savior. FOUR. Then I got the privilege of watching them proclaim their faith on Sunday morning as they were baptized in front of all their friends, family, and church. Loads of tears, I mean I was a mess. When I say we went from strangers to family, I mean it. Things got real, really real. The girls I met Friday were so much more different than the girls I left on Sunday. I saw them change and grow right before my very eyes.
Honestly, I came into the weekend not knowing what I was getting myself into. I was going to a church I’d never been to and only knowing one person. I had an idea of how it would go but the Lord surpassed my every expectation and humbled me beyond words. I was reminded that it wasn’t about impressing high school girls or making them think I was “cool” but it was about sharing the truth, hope, and love of the gospel. I could spend hours just telling you about this weekend but I want to move on to why I was left so in awe of God and inspired after tonight.
It was only 3 days before I missed them so much that I needed to go back. In the midst of all the craziness in my life, I felt the Spirit telling me to leave behind all my stress and worries in Mobile to drive an hour and half to be with my DNOW girls at PTBC tonight. Part of me really wanted to stay at church with my college group but the other part of me knew I needed to go. Their faces as I walked in the doors of their church, completely surprising them, were priceless and made the drive completely worth it in itself. A little throwback to last Sunday… We concluded Iconic Weekend with church Sunday morning, I said my goodbyes and started making the drive back to Mobile. As I pulled up to my house, I had multiple texts from my girls. “What’s a good place to start reading in the Bible?” and “I wanted to see if you wanted to start doing devotions everyday with me so we would still be connected and be talking about Jesus too”, just to share a couple. I was brought to tears, literally in tears as I read their messages. The very next day 12 high school girls joined me in starting a daily bible study, “This Is The Gospel,” and created a group chat asking for accountability in reading their Bibles. I have been blown away by their responses and the challenge they’ve given me in my own faith and quiet time.
Back to tonight… We started off in small groups discussing conflict and trials, the importance they play in our spiritual walk, what it means to focus on the unseen rather than the seen, and how perseverance leads to growth. Later, Peter delivered a powerful message on Daniel 3:24-28. But they still wanted more. They made the decision to spend the remainder of their Wednesday night, despite having school all day, practice, and church, sitting at Sonic digging into Scripture with one another. They could have been doing anything else but they chose to do a Bible study outside of a Sonic until 9 at night. As our server slowly started bringing out our orders one by one, everyone continued in conversation, hardly paying her any attention as she tried to collect money and pass the food out to the right person. You could tell she was frustrated. MG didn’t think everyone was treating the server how Christians should or with the respect she was due, so she spoke up in front of her peers in love and proclaimed her disapproval. 1st act of boldness. Number 2 quickly followed. The server returned with another batch of orders, as she turned to walk away, MW stood up and asked her if we could pray for her. Right then, we laid our hands on her, as MW prayed. The girl expressed her gratitude and walked away in disbelief, a guy in the drive-thru was equally impressed shouting out his open window, and I sat there so proud. I can’t say I would have ever thought to do that. We proceeded to open our Bibles, and each of the girls took turns reading the Word aloud, stopping to pick apart the scripture, ask questions, and listen to what I had to say. Today’s lesson was on Sin’s False Promise. We talked about our depravity, and our need for the Lord’s grace and mercy. Our conversations always leave me longing to draw closer to the Lord. Once again, I left in awe of what God was doing in their lives and was so proud of their willingness to pursue the Lord when all pressures of high school point the opposite direction.
Yet, it didn’t end there. For an hour and 15 minutes of my hour and a half drive, one of the girls called to pour out her heart, frustration, and confusion. It hurt to hear her in such pain over things happening in her life and over things she couldn’t understand, but I couldn’t help but be inspired by her desire to know God more and ponder over why He allows us to go through such hard trials. Although I felt like I wasn’t adequate to answer all of her questions, I knew the gospel was the only worthy, sufficient answer, so I must have repeated it over and over the entire drive. Quite frankly, I have no idea what I said, the Lord definitely was speaking through me. I wish I had half of the fire that these girls have when I was their age. Jesus is moving in their lives, and I’m so privileged to play even a small part. What an honor that God would use a sinner like me.
This might not make any sense to you but I had to share. I hope you’re as encouraged by these girls as I am.
If you made it all the way to the bottom, thank you for listening. XOXO Morgan
