Snippets

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

So, as the title of this post implies, it will consist greatly in snippets of thoughts and not one solid one. So if you could just bear with me :)

I went to a writer's conference yesterday, it was really cool! It is called LItfest and is for writers in High school. There were a bunch of people there, which was great. I felt abnormal amongst them considering that I looked relatively normal, and that many other's had eccentric styles :) . It was a cool cultural experience I could say, which sounds funny since I am in my home country, but considering that I am home schooled I don't spend much time around huge groups of people my age. There was an open mic and kids, well I guess they are all my age so I don't know if it is fair to say kids, got up and read some of their work. I was impressed how many talented people were there. I was also sad to see that some of the stuff was not the kind of work that is appropriate. It made me realize once again the need for clean media in our country. If all that you are exposed to contains material that is not pleasing to God, chances are that it will seep into your life as well. Over all it was a great experience, but just please join me to pray for an increase in good quality, clean media in our world today.

I have also been thinking a lot about my vocation. I believe that I will serve God one day as a full time missionary but I am obviously not doing that right now. So what am I doing? I have felt the stress on the importance of family. Family stretches beyond when you are grown and have children and such, it is when you are young too. And that is a struggle that I find myself fighting with, to truly love my family, especially siblings, well. To love them givingly like I will need to one day when I have children and a spouse, assuming that it is God's will. It is so easy to dismiss your family responsibilities when you are young, and to find them unimportant, but it really is fundamental in your growth as a person and therefore should be looked upon as a mission in itself. I feel like God is helping me learn that.

Last snippet, yesterday, at the conference I heard this interview with a man who said that when you look back the first 25 years are the most fundamental, and the first 18 even more so. Now, I don't believe them to be any more important then the last years of your life, but he did make an impression on me. It made me remember how important it is to reach out to children and teens. If you build your house on the sand then it will crumble, the same thing with your life. It needs to be on a solid foundation and so we need to make a special effort to be there for the youngest in our world. Praise God that he is raising up strong men and women in their faith to lead the youth with groups and sessions, so we need to support them with our prayers.

Well that's all!
Peace and love in Christ,
Alyse