God is good! All the Time

yeahhhhh I can't wait to simply hear/read the praises and the struggles we are all facing.... man 1st year is tough but the Lord is really gracious and He's been blessing me, even to today! And I really do hope that you guys challenge your faith.... I've been challenging mine and I don't regret it at all!

Here something that I've been going through for some time and how God was faithful!

So when I was in high school, I served and was really active at church. And I really felt God, like He was alive and always looking after me. And He performed so many miracles in terms of getting last minute preparations done, getting school workload done with incredible marks (all glory goes to GOD), etc. etc. etc.

But after coming to Western, I questioned my faith. Does God really exist or was it principles and beliefs that I grew up during my childhood at church? So the past 5 months was a searching journey, looking through the Bible, asking questions, talking to people, reading my journal... I discovered that sometimes just "feeling God" isn't enough, we need to continuously feed on Him and just have FAITH. It's a simply word yet so hard to act on it. So I tried going back to the basics of Christianity, learning from the start, grow deeply in His Word.... but I still didn't experience God...

...and winter retreat came along. During the saturday night worship, where Pastor Phil asked people to just pray for our cups to overflow, I cried out in my heart for God to fill me with the Holy Spirit. I was desperate to hear God's voice again. Then suddenly my heart felt compelled to ask for prayer to 2 upper year girls sitting diagonal to me.... I thought that I could pray on my own and deal with this with God only! NOOOOOO the tugging continued.. "ok God, i'll go up to the girls and just ask them for a prayer"

So i went up to them, and suddenly, *kazaaaam* I started pouring out in tears... (side note: I almost never cry) and it just came down, never-ending. "why am I crying? I do not feel emotional nor do I feel hurt.... why am I crying?" So we continued praying and I felt sooo relieved, those tears were like burdens carried by God away from me... I felt light and could literally conquer the world.=)

It didn't occur to me until yesterday's women cell.... It just hit me that we aren't alone in our prayers. We do not need to pray by ourselves. Sometimes we need people to pray for us. They are used by God to open our eyes to our very inner being. After some reflection, this verse came up to me "so Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him." ~ Acts 12:5 WOW! There are people praying for you and don't be afraid to ask for it! God has freely given us the gift of free worship through Jesus Christ! Why not accept it?

This weekend has crazily changed my definition of prayer! It's a radical change and I just know that the Holy Spirit is strengthening me everyday and that He is doing awesome work through me!

So that's my schpill for now!

Janine