I Surrender

"All to you, I surrender 

Everything, every part of me

All to you, I surrender

All of my dreams, all of me

No turning back, I made up my mind

I'm giving all of my life this time

Your love makes it worth it all."

You know that feeling you get, when you're so sure that God is calling you to do something extremely outrageous and you've been questioning it for the longest time...well that happened to me this past week.

Since freshman year I've been thinking about transferring to a different school. All for the wrong reasons of course but the thought was there nonetheless. This year, it was brought up again...transferring to a school closer to home. I wasn't for the idea at all, in fact I didn't even give it time to sink in, I was convinced that God wants me to stay where I am at right now. There were a lot of things I really wanted to do with my fellowship here, there are people I really came to love here..I mean I finally came to a point where I was willing to break certain comfort zones so I can be a light for my campus...why would God want me to leave right when I was just starting to make progress?

But here's the thing, Stony became a comfort zone. My faith was comfortable here, even though I thought I was being challenged, everything that I do here doesn't require much any faith at all. It may seem like it on the outside but I know in my heart that even the comfort zones that I break at Stony Brook is within my comfortable boundary. It was nothing compared to stuff I was running away from. It was an escape and for the longest time now, I really didn't want to acknowledge that.

I kept asking God for an answer, a CLEAR answer. One that would just slap me in the face, do you want me to stay or do you want me to go? I kept asking and begging but my own desire blurred out the answer God had already given. Finally during my spring break, God made it clear to me how I'm too comfortable at Stony and how I've been running away from situations I didn't want to face by going there. I know for a fact that he wants me to transfer and I made up my mind about it too but even up until the very last minute I asked God for a sign.

The night I wanted to apply for the transfer, I wasn't able to get on the site. Idk I think the site has work hours to it or something but it told me to come back an hour later a million times so I told God if this is really his will, make the website work whenever I remember to fill out the application tomorrow. I randomly remembered the next day, went on the website and whatdoyaknow...it worked.

Quite honestly, I'm still not too happy about the transferring thing. I'm sad about having to leave IV, I'm sad about having to leave my suitemates, all the freshmans I really wanted to get to know and all the friendships I made here. I am really upset about it but something in my heart is so sure that this is what God wants. For the first time in my life, I am 100% positive about something God wants and that reassurance is keeping me going. Not many people support my decision and even though that bothers me, it gives me even more strength to fight because I know this is what God wants. I finally get to understand what people mean by God makes you do outrageous things that sometimes even the people closest to you wouldn't understand.

This song started randomly playing today and I felt so comforted by the lyrics. I'm not transferring because of other people or because I want to run away, my reason is actually God and God alone. For the first time, I feel it in my heart that God is all I'm relying on right now and I'm basically giving everything I have to follow him.

This may just be the first time I'm surrendering all control...everything... and stepping out in faith alone. 

"No Turning Back, I made up my mind, I'm giving all of my life this time"

RIP 3/11/13

"Rest in peace"

Reality. Hits.

About 2 hours ago today, I was just scrolling through facebook when I came upon a wall post from 2 of my friends. I wasn't reading it but as I just scrolled past it the words "rest in peace" caught my eyes. "Rest in peace"..why are those words used? I looked at the post, I couldn't believe it. I went on his wall "why are so many people saying they love him and they miss him? This doesn't make sense, it can't be true." I was freaking out. I messaged people I haven't spoke to in years wanting an answer and I got it, one of my good friends in middle school took his own life this morning.

Is this for real? Do stuff like this really happen? No, it doesn't..not in my sheltered little Christian world. I'm not stupid, I know there are people hurting everywhere, some might even be friends of mine. But never to a point where it'd be like this. Never have I thought I would be placed in a situation where a friend of mine would pass away. I had the whole "Stuff like that only happen in papers..." mindset and I had no idea.

But reality hit me...finally. I keep thinking about how different this world would be if Christians actually did as they were told. How many broken hearts would be comforted by God? How many lives wouldn't be lost? What if I made the extra effort to reach out to him, what if I cared enough to share the gospel with him, what if he knew that someone loved him enough to die for him? I know its not my fault this happened, but this was definitely a wake up call to me. Tomorrow might not come for some people and we need to understand that. The battle is real and its happening right now. We need to stand up and fight, we need to feel that urgency to fight right here right now. 

God wants us to share the gospel with others because he wants them to understand that Jesus is the only way to heaven. His death on that cross made it possible for us to be cleanse from our sins, the sins that bounded us to a horrible place. We need to feel the urgency to share that with others so that they can also live in eternity with him. Don't be like me and live sheltered from the world, step out into the world and bring back the lost. This will serve as my reminder (I hope yours too) and my biggest wake up call. There is no later...the time is now.