life in a nutshell...

To this day, I feel that I have a specific purpose for being here on earth at this time. With a very slim chance of living at birth, I pushed through and am now a healthy, growing, and God loving 21 year old girl. I was born in Southern California into a family that believed that knew a God existed but did not actively seek after His will or guidance for their lives. My parents loved me and continued to be active in my life. After a few random coincidences (my dad losing his job and a bullet going through my room), my family (dad, mom and sister) decided to up and move to Northern California. This was a big move for all of us, for we had to start all over. With this, my mom encouraged my dad to go to church on Sundays, for she could feel the presence of God and wanted to know more. With a few months of my parents being active in a weekly bible study, I started to see a difference in their lives even though I was only 7 years old. My parents weren’t fighting as much, we started to pray before our meals together, we weren’t allowed to watch/read some of the movies/books that we previously were allowed, we had to go to church every Sunday. I believed that because my parents were so involved in church and this new group of people that it must be a good thing. One night my parents came home after Bible Study and sat me and my sister down telling us that they had both made a personal decision to accept Jesus Christ as their savior. My parents told me that they recognized the sin in their lives and how much they were in need of a savior. At the time, I didn’t completely understand but because my parents had prayed the “prayer” why shouldn’t I; for why would they tell me to do something harmful or wrong. So that night I accepted Jesus into my heart. My family and I continued to attend church, we just went to more services (big church and our Sunday school classes). It wasn’t until I was in Jr. High that I realized that my parents had different morals/standards for me in comparison to my friends’ parents. I noticed that my standards and morals were much higher and that my parents continued to challenge me in my daily actions, encouraging me to seek after God and not of my friends’ approval. Jr. High and High School were hard times for me because of peer pressure, etc; but mainly realizing that being a “Christian” just didn’t mean going to church on Sundays, but rather an everyday commitment to living more and more like Jesus Christ who gave His life for me. I continued to be very active in my church and just living my day to day life at school; not conforming to the world and my friends’ expectations of me but not telling them of God’s love (just kind of going through the motions). I graduated high school with close friends but excited to get out of my routine life style and go to college and start completely over. I chose to go to Biola (Bible Institute of Los Angeles) and was amazed by the fact that in my first class we prayed before we took a test. I was in shock (for going to public school, I was not used to being like minded with my fellow classmates). I grew a lot at Biola, in my walk with God, for not only was I able to grow alongside of my friends in a deeper more foundational faith, but to also encouraging others to do the same. I have realized that God truly has given me a passion for serving others and to look to other needs above my own. I have not discovered God’s path for my life, but know that without a doubt He has something great stored up for me and it is only because of Him and His perfect will that I am even here on this earth. I need to give all my glory to Him and all that He has done.