I Won't Relent!

Today has probably been one of the most emotional days of my life. This morning I woke up and declared in the name of Jesus that I was going to overcome anything the enemy threw at me today. I started off my day at a car dealer. I just sold my truck and was looking for a low priced car with good gas mileage to replace it. After looking through the dealer for a while, I began to get a little discouraged because we wern't finding anything decent in my price range. As we were getting ready to call it quits and leave, a red KIA Rio caught my eye. We inquired about the details of the car and found out that it was something I could afford, it would get about 35 miles per gallon, and it had low mileage. I started to thank God for sending something that seemed to perfect. My dad and I took it for a test drive and we both agreed that it would be a good car for me. I left the dealer with a new/used car and was so excited and happy about the deal we had just made.
Not even five hours later, I got in the car to drive it a few blocks away to the store, and the transmission went out!! WHAT!! I had just bought the car that day and it messes up on me. I called my dad with heat in my voice and exclaimed what was happenning with the car. I went to my church (where I had been all day since getting the car) and stomped past people to drop something off and rudely barked that I would be back I had to take the stupid car back to the dealer. I cried to my mentor about how every time things start to look good for me, something happens to make things worse. The attitude I had towards the people that I love was horrible. I got back in the car only to make it one block over before I couldn't move. We ended up having to tow the car to the dealer and they won't even look at it until Monday. I have no idea what will happen I don't know if they will give me my money back or try to fix it.
So, what is my point in all of this? While I cried and became frustrated, my mentor (Tara Cherry) began to tell me that I had nothing to fear because God was going to take care of me. The enemy is using everything that he can to try and bring me down, but as long as I remain Relentless and seek God with all of my heart and soul, I WILL prosper. I want to tell you that there is nothing that God cannot handle. Things may look terrible for you right now. This is just one day out of the insane week that I have had and lets be honest, from today it looks pretty bad. But at the end of the day I have joy in my heart because I am still going after God with everything that I have. I know my breakthrough is coming. I trust and beleive that God wants to bless my life, and He wants to bless yours too! Keep a relentless spirit for the Lord and He will bring you out of that place that you are in.
I say this out of faith right now. Keep an eye on this page. God is going to provide for me and you better believe that I will be putting it on here as a praise report!

Running With God

For the past few years I have been constantly complaining about how out of shape I have let myself become. I used to be able to do sprints for long periods of time, weight lift like a beast and run long distance on a regular basis. Now I find myself struggling to do exercises with ten pound weights, and have to drag myself across the finish line to run even two miles.
However, lately I have been extremely motivated to get out and run (with the help and accountability of a friend. Thanks Tara!). When I first began exercising, the thought of running any more than one mile seemed impossible. The first time I went out to try this running thing out, I ended up making it  1.5 miles. How was this possible? I hadn't ran more than a mile in over two years! The next time I went for a run I made it two miles. Two miles may not seem very impressive to most people, but for me that was like running a marathon. What's my secret? I take a running partner with me, my Heavenly Father!
When I go for a jog, I never focus on how long it's going to take or how much I think I can do. I simply listen to my worship music and run with God. I sing, I raise my hands, I clap, sometimes I even dance. I have no idea what it is about my running time, but for some reason I am able to encounter God in awesome ways while I run. I feel His strength and endurance pushing me farther and farther every single time I exercise. Tonight, for example, I was running and singing some Jesus Culture just pouring my heart out in worship. I reached my usual two mile mark, but I didn't want to stop, I wanted to spend more time running with the Lord. I pushed and pushed and tonight I ran 3 miles, more than I've ran in over four years!
If you have a hobby or something that you enjoy doing for the glory of God, feel free to share. I would love to hear about it!

Let the Fun Begin!

Today I began the grueling process of getting a yard sale together. I am planning to have a big yard sale some time next month in order to raise some funds for my Honor Academy tuition. If you would be willing, please keep me the yard sale in your prayers. I'm praying that this one will be as big of a success as my last yard sale. When raising funds to go to Zambia this summer I was able to raise almost $1000 in my yard sale.
I am also working on another fundraise called the pringles can fundraiser. It's a simple fundraiser that anyone can afford to participate in. All it involves is a pringles can, and some spare change. Set a pringles can in your house and for a month, or maybe longer, fill it with your spare change. A full can could value up to $50. I would love to get at least ten of these cans out to rasie $500 for my internship. If you would be willing to participate in this fundraiser, please let me know either throught this post or email (cassort55@gmail.com).

Your Love Never Fails -Chris Quilala / Jesus Culture

This song has really been ministering to my heart! When things don't seem like they are falling into place, just remember His love never fails.

Honor My Parents?

In todays world I see so often that kids, especially teenagers are disrespectful towards their parents. I see it out of kids of all ages. My two year old nephew often disrespects his mom by telling her no (a typical toddler word). Elementary kids stomp their feet and throw temper tantrums out of disobedience. Teenagers yell and scream at their parents. I can't imagine telling my parents to shut up, but I've seen it happen with other kids all the time. This doesn't go to say that I am a perfect child, I'm far from it. But over the past couple of months God has really been working with me to give repsect to my parents.
I started this reading plan where I will be reading through the Bible in 90 days, and today I was reading in the book of Exodus. In chapter 20 it refers to the ten commandments, listing them all out. As many of us know, the fifth commandment is to honor your father and your mother, but God adds a promise on with that commandment. God promised this, "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."  I continued to read into chapter 21. I came to a section entitled in my Bible as Personal Injuries. In this section it lists punishments that must be suffered in the event that someone kills or injures another person. In verse 17, it says "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death." Wow! When I read that I wondered, what does it mean to curse someone? According to the dictionary to curse someone means to express a wish that misfortune would fall upon someone. Is that honoring your parents? NO! I was amazed at how serious this issue was treated in the Old Testament.
 I found it very interesting that this particular example was put under person injuries. I know you have heard the saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me." The truth is, words can be one of the most painful things int he world. Being cursed at, or yelled at, or belittled hurts worst than many physical pains. The Bible even talks about the power of the tongue Our words have the capability to make a huge impact and it can either be a positive or a negative impact. That, I think, is why this example was put under personal injuries, because words can emotionally injure a person.
This is not a light subject. Honoring our parents is a serious thing. I can gurantee you that you will see a change in your life by honoring your parents. I am still in the process of learning how to fully respect my parents, it's a process that takes time, but it's worth it. The best part is, you don't have to do it alone. God is here to help you! He wants to see you succeed in this, he wants to see that relationship with your mom or dad or maybe even both be mended together. Your Heavenly Father loves you and wants things between you and your earthly parents to be right.

The Love of Africa

I would like to share with you my journal entry from tonight.

...I was on my way home after putting in about 7 hours at church today and I just started praying over different people and things. I was just talking to God. I started praying for divine appointments and I can't rememver how but it led to me wishing I would have told Josslyn Kenner that I love her at Reality last night. Reality is the youth event we do every Wednesday night. When she was leaving, she said bye to me and I heard in my head to tell her I loved her, but before it could register I had already said the plain word bye and she was gone. I got to thinking about that while I was praying today and I wondered why I don't tell these kids at Reality how much I love them. In Africa we would tell kids all the time that we loved them, we'd also tell them God loves them. Why don't I say it now? I got to thinking about it. In Naynja, the Zambian language, the phrases "I Love you" and God Loves you" were about all I knew how to say. I barely knew any phrases or words other than those two. That's when it clicked, that's all God want from us. He wants us to share our love and His love like it's all we know how to do. It was so easy to share the love of God with the children in Africa because it was the only thing we knew how to do in their culture. We were created to love, the Bible says in Mark 12:30-31
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is like this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these."
Those were the words of Jesus, we are to do two things with our lives. Love the Lord our God, and love those around us. It's what we were made for! I need to get in a mindset of Africa where the only way I know how to communicate to people around me is through acts of love and kindness. I may be back in America, but I am still in a foreign land. I do not belong to this world, my eyes are set on things above.

Meet Kennedy. I had the honor of having this young man of God in my group when we did a week long camp with the orphans in Zambia. Kennedy is a double orphan and is battling sickness, yet he has faith that would put many American "Christians" to shame. There are so many kids in Zambia, like Kennedy, who have a deep passion for the gospel and for Jesus Christ. There was one night in particular where God showed His power and how he can use anyone of any age to bring Him glory. We had several of our missionaries who had gotten seriously sick, we had been praying over them for a while and we started to hear singing and crying coming from the other side of the orphanage. We were so touched by what we thought the cries were. We thought the "mamma's" (the women who take care of the children in the orphanage) had been praying for us. After our sick had been healed through both our prayers and theirs, we went to join the mamma's in praising the Lord. When we got over to them, we suddenly realized, it wasn't just the mamma's it was the children too. There were kids five years old on their face crying out to God. We were all so moved by the passion that the children have for the Lord.