From a long time ago, but I felt the need to share!!

Okay so I wrote all of this out sometime back in November/December!!  It was after Momentum anyways! :)  I will explain a bit of what this is about!!  Back in late October when we had Momentum, we had our last service (I think?)  and we were praying for different things and then we was told to choose one person to pray for and we were going to try to tell them about Jesus also!!  I was going through my list of people because you and I both know a lot of people who do not have Jesus!!  As I was trying to figure out that one person, God spoke to me and told me that I need to pray for my dad!!  To be honest, I told God that I didn't want to pray for him because I don't want anything to do with him! (There has been a lot of hurt!)  I finally told God that I will pray for him only because He wanted me to!!  God told me that I need to talk to my father so I can share HIM with him.  That make sense?  I did not have the best attitude ever about this!!  I was a little angry for just a slight moment that God would even want me to talk to him.  So after we were done praying and had already left the building where we have momentum, I remember that I just could not stop crying!!  I would occasionally stop, but would find myself tearing up again.  I was just keeping to myself and reflecting on what had just happened and thinking of where this could possibly go!  Would my father ever get saved?  I wasn't sure, but I knew that God would soon begin to change my heart and God has a plan even if it is still very unclear!  I remember being at starbucks and my sweet friend Danielle came up to me and hugged me!  (We didn't ever talk then, but became best friends after that!)  She seriously prayed for me often and I told her everything!  I would tell her exactly how I felt in my heart!!  She hugged me when I just needeed to cry and God used her at the right moment to encourage and pray for me!  We then figured out we have a somewhat similar life and we have so much in common!!


To be honest, I was afraid of what would happen.  At this moment I didn't want to even talk to my father or see him or anything!  I wasn't ready to do such a thing!  I was afraid that that is what would have to happen!  It was definitely a huge step out of my comfort zone!!  I had a lot of people supporting me while taking this step though!!  I felt like it was one of the hardest things that I have had to do.  I had to allow God to stretch me though and I had to lean on God and all my strength came from Him!!!  I had to let God guide me completely because if I didn't, my hurt would have kept getting in the way and it would have been tough!!  God changed my heart a lot though!  I finally allowed God to start healing me of this!!  It was awesome what God was doing in my life!  After a couple of months and many rewriting of the letter, I mailed it to him!  He had a very nasty response through a txt message when we asked if he had recieved it yet!  I never recieved a letter back, but I'm okay with that because I still pray that my letter planted a seed in his heart and that he is reminded of what was written on that piece of paper!!  Going through what I went through really brought me closer to God because I had to fully rely on Him and I had to let God increase while I decreased!  I had to give God complete control over the hurt in my heart!!  It was hard, but it was not impossible!!  A friend of mine reminded me of this song also that helped a lot!:

Another thing that helped me a lot was reading about Nehemiah.  That is what I would like to go into now!!

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I read Nehemiah chapter 4!  It was a lot of help!

You can read it here ----->   ://bible.us/neh4.1-23.nlt

I felt like my situation really related to this story!!  As they were trying to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, their enemies were trying to come against them!  They were going to come and attack them and they were mocking them!!  When we fight a spiritual battle, that is exactly what the devil does to you!  I was trying to take the steps to TRY to rebuild a relationship with my father.  God has a plan and I chose to be obedient to Him.  The devil did not like this at all and he was definitely attacking!  The devil trys to attack in many ways, but the most common thing he attacks me with is my mind!  He is such a liar!! During this season of trying to even write the letter, I kept feeling like it was hopeless!!  satan kept telling me that it was a waste of time and my father would never change his life around!!  It was getting hard because I DID want to give up!  I felt like everything the devil was saying was true!!!  Then I was reminded that everything the devil says is a lie!!!  I reminded myself that if the devil was saying it waste of time then it definitely was NOT a waste of time!!!!  I just kept telling myself the opposite of what the devil was saying and I would just rebuke him!!!  I have found out in life that if the devil is interfering with something that God is wanting to do, there must be some good results that are going to come out of it because the devil doesn't want that to happen and it's like he's afraid of that happening, so that gave me more of a reason to just keep going! :)

They were just trying to intimidate us, imagining that they could

discourage us and stop the work.  So i continued the work with

even greater determination.

--Nehemiah 6:9(NLT)

After I sent my letter to my father and he responded in a not so nice reply through text messaging, it just gave me more of reason to keep praying!!  I even got a texting app on my ipod so I can occasionally keep in touch with him since he doesn't respond well with letters.  I never got a reply back so I'm thinking his phone got shut off.  I'm not sure though!  I might write him another letter though because I don't want to give up on this situation!!  I'm going to pray before I make that final decision though!!

So let's not get tired of doing what is good.  At just the right time

we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up.

--Galatians 6:9(NLT)

Writing another letter is probably a big possibility so if you guys could keep me in prayer for that, then that would be greatly appreciated!!!! :)  It's a huge step of faith!!  I need direction and the words to say!!  I would like to also encourage you to not give up on any situation you are going through!!  And don't always expect something to happen right now!!  It could take years!!!!  Something good can happen if you just keep going.  It may not be what you expect/want, but I promise you, it is soooo worth it!!!  Be blessed my readers!!!

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I pray you all have a great week!!!  Tomorrow starts Mission Reach week!!!!!  I am soooooo excited!!!  I'm very excited to see what God is going to do!!  It's going to be wonderful!  I'll try to take pictures to show you, but I will probably be so busy that I might not get a lot of pictures!  Either way, I will blog about my experience and what God is doing!!  Have a blessed week and please pray for Mission Reach!  Pray for the students, the leaders, and the people of the community that we will be serving and doing outreach to!  I'm very excited to do this again this year!  I really enjoyed planting seeds in other's lives and just sharing Jesus with them!!  It is truly a great thing!!!!

~Elizabeth